UMass Amherst Announces Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series for 2009-10

Oct. 14, 2009

Contact:

Patrick J. Callahan 413/545-0444

AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst has announced its 2009-10 Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series. The first talk will be held in the Bernie Dallas Room in Goodell Hall, with the other three in the Massachusetts Room of the Mullins Center. All lectures are at 4 p.m. and are free and open to the public.

The participants in this year’s series are:

M.V. Lee Badgett, economics, will give a talk “From I Can’t to I Do: When Gay People Get Married,” on Monday, Nov. 9.

Bret E. Jackson, chemistry, will speak on “How Catalysts Make It Happen,” on Monday, Dec. 7.

Roderic A. Grupen, computer science, will give a lecture titled, “Programming Robots to Live Among Us: A Developmental Approach,” on Monday, March 1, 2010.

Catherine Portugues, languages, literatures and cultures, will discuss, “After the Wall Came Down: Post-Communist Cinemas in East-Central Europe,” on Monday, April 26, 2010.

A reception follows each talk. Faculty members in the series receive a Chancellor’s Medal following their lecture. The Chancellor’s Medal is the highest honor bestowed on individuals for exemplary and extraordinary service to the campus. The lecture series is sponsored by the offices of the chancellor and the provost.


FACULTY PROFILES

M.V. Lee Badgett joined the university in 1997. She is currently professor of economics, director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration at UMass Amherst and research director at the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. Badgett’s current research interests include sexual orientation and discrimination in labor markets, family structures and family policy, especially same-sex partner recognition in the U.S. and in Europe and domestic partner health care and pension benefits.

She is the author of When Gay People Get Married: What Happens When Societies Legalize Same-Sex Marriage, published in August 2009. Badgett is also the co-editor along with Jeff Frank of Sexual Orientation Discrimination: An International Perspective, published in 2007 and author of Money, Myths and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men, published in 2001. She is a frequent commentator in the news media and has appeared in magazines and newspapers across the U.S., including the New York Times, Slate and The Nation.

Badgett was a visiting professor at the UCLA School of Law from 2005-07 and during the summer of 2008. She was a visiting researcher at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam in 2003-04; assistant professor at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1990-97; was visiting assistant professor in Women’s Studies and Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University from 1995-96, and was a research analyst for the National Commission for Employment Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor in the summer of 1994.

Badgett earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1982 and a doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990.


Bret E. Jackson joined the university in 1985. He is a professor of chemistry and has served as department head since 2002. His research focuses on developing a molecular level understanding of some of the chemistry that occurs on surfaces. This is done by exploring, theoretically, some of the reactions that are important in catalysis and other surface processes. Jackson uses electronic structure methods to compute the molecule-surface interactions, exploring transition states and reaction paths. Both quantum and classical mechanics are then used to examine the reaction dynamics.

Jackson received a college Outstanding Research Award in 2005; Special Creativity Awards from the National Science Foundation in 2002-03, and was a visiting professor at UFR de Physique, at the Universite des Sciences et Technologie de Lille in France in 1999 and 1996. Jackson received a college Outstanding Teacher Award in 1995 and the Lubrizol Award from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1979. He was also the recipient of deFord Memorial Scholarships in 1975-76.

Jackson earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1979 and earned a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. He was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Santa Barbara from 1983-85.


Roderic A. Grupen joined the university in 1988. He is a professor of computer science and director of the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics. His research looks at the integration of robotics, learning and control theory with the behavioral sciences to model natural and artificial intelligence systems. A key focus of Grupen’s work is on developing dexterity and control in robots. Grupen also works to build robots capable of growing and learning from their experiences.

Grupen’s research includes collaboration with colleagues in machine learning, psychology, engineering, kinesiology, artificial intelligence, public health and philosophy and with both academic and commercial partners. Grupen’s laboratory has developed several robots in recent years, including Dexter, a humanoid robot used for studying the role of vision, audition, haptics and aspects of bimanual dexterity. There is also uBot5, a new mobile autonomous robot that can be used for habitat constructions and exploration on other worlds, emergency response for disaster relief work and personal care applications.

Prior to joining the UMass faculty, Grupen was a system design engineer for the General Electric Company Edison Engineering Program in Louisville, Ky., from 1981-82 and worked at Washington University Technical Associates in St. Louis, Mo., in 1980.

Grupen earned bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Washington University and in physics from Franklin and Marshall College in 1980. He earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1984 and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Utah in 1988.


Catherine Portuges joined the university in 1974. She is currently professor and Graduate Program director in comparative literature in the department of languages, literatures and cultures, and director of the International Program in Film Studies. She is also curator of the Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival and an adjunct professor in French studies.

Portuges specializes in comparative film studies, French and Francophone cinemas, East-Central Europena visual culture and Jews and post-Holocaust cinema. She also focuses on cinema and cities, autofiction and gender and film festival curatorial programming. She is the co-editor of the forthcoming book Cinema in Transition: Post-communist East-Central Europe, co-editor of Dominque Desanti: un Hommage, published in 2000, and Gendered Subjects: the Dynamic of Feminist Teaching, published in 1985. She is the author of Screen Memories: The Hungarian Cinema of Marta Meszaros, published in 1993.

Portuges has been a professor of comparative literature and adjunct professor in French and communication since 1991. From 1986-90 she was an associate professor of comparative literature. From 1974-86, she was director of the Women’s Studies Program at UMass Amherst. She was a visiting assistant professor in dramatic arts at Amherst College from 1980-81 and a lecturer in French language and literature at Smith College from 1969-72.

She earned a Certificat du Cours de Civilization Francaise from the University of Paris, Sorbonne, in 1961, a bachelor’s, and master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1964 and 1966, respectively, and a doctorate in French from UCLA in 1982.

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