People

Nagurney to speak on transport and traffic at New York Times conference in NYC

Anna Nagurney, the John F. Smith Memorial Professor of Operations Management at the Isenberg School of Management, will be an invited panelist at The New York Times 2013 Energy For Tomorrow Conference on April 25 in New York City. The theme of the conference is Building Sustainable Cities. The conference will be opened with an address by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

With more than half of the world’s population now living in cities, the conference will convene thought leaders, public policy makers, government urbanists and C-suite level executives from the energy, technology, automotive

Sinha keynotes Civil War symposium in Maine

Professor Manisha Sinha of Afro-American Studies is scheduled to give a keynote address on April 27 at “Maine in the Civil War,” a public symposium at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.
 
The conference celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Civil War is sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Historical Society and made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
 

Portuges edits book on post-Cold War cinema in former East Bloc

Comparative Literature professor Catherine Portuges and Peter Hames are the editors of “Cinemas in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989,” published by Temple University Press.
 
The cinemas of Eastern and Central Europe have been moving away from earlier Cold War perspectives and iconographies toward identifications more closely linked to a redefined Europe.

Ceccagnoli co-edits new translation of Milo de Angelis poetry

Patrizio Ceccagnoli, lecturer in Italian in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, is the co-editor and translator of “Theme of Farewell and After-Poems: A Bilingual Edition” by Milo de Angelis, published this month by the University of Chicago Press.
 
De Angelis, born in 1951, is one of the most important living Italian poets.

Three named to editorial team of Comparative Education Review

The editorship of the Comparative Education Review will be transferred to the School of Education’s Center for International Education as of July 1 for an initial five-year term.

Three School of Education associate professors have been named to editorial positions: Bjorn Nordtveit has been named editor; Cris Smith has been named one of the co-editors, and Jacqi Mosselson will serve as the book review editor.

Sullivan, Turner present research at science teaching conference in Puerto Rico

Florence Sullivan, associate professor, and K.C. Nat Turner, assistant professor, both of the School of Education’s  Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, presented together on April 7 at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) conference in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.

The spoke on “Multiple Representations, Collaboration and Student Reasoning: Designing Online Environments for Learning About Global Heat Transfer,” which covered National Science Foundation-funded research with M.I.T., the School of Computer Science, the Massachusetts Green High

Beemyn keynotes Rutgers conference on LGBTQ inclusion

Stonewall Center director Genny Beemyn was a keynote speaker April 18 at “Trans Politics: Scholarship and Strategies for Social Change,” the first conference sponsored by the new Tyler Clementi Center at Rutgers University.
 
Beemyn’s address, which he gave with Sue Rankin of Pennsylvania State University, focused on “Creating a Gender-Inclusive Campus.” 
 
Beemyn and Rankin co-wrote “The Lives of Transgender People” and serve as lead researchers for the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index, which aims to set forth a national standard of LGBT and ally-inclusive policies, program and practices.

Obituary: Henry A. Lea, professor emeritus of German

Henry A. Lea, 92, of Amherst, professor emeritus of German, died April 4 after a long illness.

Born in Berlin, Germany, he and his brother, Rudolph, immigrated to Philadelphia in 1934 after the Nazis took power. In 1938 he graduated as first honor man from Philadelphia’s Central High School and won the Mayor’s Scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania.
 
Shortly after completing his bachelor’s degree in 1942, he joined the U.S. Army and became one of the Ritchie Boys, a special military intelligence unit made up mainly of German-speaking immigrants trained at Camp Ritchie, Maryland.

Brooks presents research at meetings in Oregon, Pennsylvania

Research professor of Chinese E. Bruce Brooks presented an informal talk on Lau Dan, the supposed author of the still wildly popular classical Chinese text, the Dau/Dv Jing, for a student and faculty audience at the University of Oregon, followed by a formal version at the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, on March 15 in Portland, Ore. 
 
The paper argued that the enigmatic Lau Dan is recoverable historically, and that he was responsible only for the distinctive middle portion of that text.

Hardy wins Armstrong Fund for Science Award

Chemist Jeanne Hardy has won the seventh annual Armstrong Fund for Science Awards, which this year is granting $30,000 over two years to encourage transformative research that introduces new ways of thinking about pressing scientific or technical challenges. Hardy will be recognized at the Honors Dinner for invited faculty on April 29.
 
Hardy’s lab investigates the role of a protein known as caspase-6, among the most promising drug targets for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. To treat Alzheimer’s, it is essential that only caspase-6 but no other related proteins are inhibited, she explains.

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