QC People

AMMIEL ALCALAY (Classical Languages) is the inaugural holder of Georgetown University’s Lannan Chair in Poetics. As part of this visiting appointment, he will teach in the English Department as well as “seek innovative ways to bring writers together across a broad spectrum of social practices and issues” . . .  BALTSAR BECKELD (Armstrong House Museum) is fulfilling his dream of doing standup comedy. He has performed several times in the last year, most notably at the famed comedy club Caroline’s on Broadway. He auditioned for the TV show “Last Comic Standing” on February 7, and was one of 17 people who made it to the callbacks the next day. (About 400 or so auditioned.) He is now waiting to hear from the producers if he made it to the next round . . . JOE BERTOLINO (VP Student Affairs) made a presentation at a two-day conference (Dec. 6–7) held at Hofstra University that explored the mental health of college students. He made specific reference to failures in communication that may have contributed to the deadly shooting incident last April at Virginia Tech . . . BEVERLY BISLAND (Elementary & Early Childhood Ed.) is the QC coordinator for Learning History Together for Teachers of English Language Learners, which received a three-year (2007–2010), $1 million U.S. Office of Education Teaching American History Grant . . . The college received a four-year, $504,439 grant from the National Science Foundation to promote undergraduate research in ecology, evolution, and behavior, especially among students from underrepresented minorities. The project, URM: Mentoring Urban Undergraduate Students in an Integrated Ecological Research Experience, is being directed by STEPHANE BOISSINOT (Biology), who will head a group of faculty including MITCHELL BAKER, ELSE FJERDINGSTAD, and MICHAEL HICKERSON (Biology), LARISSA SWEDELL (Anthropology), and CHRISTINE TUAILLON (Nassau Community College) . . . ROYAL S. BROWN (European Languages and Literatures/Film) was interviewed on-stage Jan. 19 following a performance of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s The 39 Steps. He discussed “the play and things Hitchcockian” with Ted Sod, dramaturge for the company’s education department . . . JOSHUA BRUMBERG (Psychology) recently received $165,200 from  the National Institutes of Health/University of Pittsburgh for research on Corticothalamic Neurons in Sensorimotor Cortex . . . SOPHIA CATSAMBIS (Sociology) has been awarded a $286,000 grant from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development for a project entitled Tracking and Achievement Growth in the Early Grades. She aims to expand knowledge of the interrelationships of gender, race/ethnicity, and social class as they affect equal educational opportunities . . . MICHAEL COGSWELL (Armstrong House) recently learned that the American Auto Association (AAA) has included the Louis Armstrong House Museum among 52 cultural attractions, restaurants, nightclubs, neighborhoods, etc. featured in its new “Greatest Hits” map of New York City . . .  NEL DE JONG (Linguistics) received a two-year grant of $203,206 for a research project on the development of oral fluency in English as a Second Language (ESL) classrooms. The funding agency is the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center, which is subsidized by the National Science Foundation . . . Microsoft has published booklets in English, Danish, and German on “Learning Styles and Power Point: A New and Exciting Approach,” using the latest learning style model designed by KENNETH DUNN (Ed. & Community Programs) and his wife, Rita Dunn of St. John’s University. In August the Dunns were honored with a dinner-dance celebration at the Marriott Marquis that was attended by guests from 13 countries in Europe and Asia . . . SUJATHA FERNANDES (Sociology) was among the scholars, politicians, filmmakers, and activists who participated in a public forum on Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution sponsored by Yale Law School and the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies held Nov. 30 at the law school. Fernandes led a panel in a discussion of the important role that social movements have played in directing the path of the revolution . . . DAVID GERWIN (Secondary Ed.) has been elected to the board of the College and University Faculty Assembly of the National Council for the Social Studies. The group is home to education researchers and teacher educators whose primary interest is in how people teach social studies . . .  SARIT GOLUB (Psychology) has received a one-year $120,000 grant from amFAR (the Foundation for AIDS Research) to support her project Neurocognitive Factors in the Relationship between Drug Use and Risky Sex. Her project focuses on the increasing number of younger gay men who engage in substance abuse (such as Ecstasy, methamphetamine, and cocaine) and unprotected sex, thereby increasing the risk of contracting HIV and AIDS . . . JESSICA HARRIS (SEEK) has been named to fill the Ray Charles Endowed Chair in African-American Material Culture at Dillard University in New Orleans. The chair was funded by a $1 million grant from the estate of the late musician. As scholar-in-residence for the fall semester, Harris’s work focused on the historical and cultural impact of the food of Africans who were displaced across the world due to slavery. . . HARRY LEVINE (Sociology) won the Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship. This award recognizes scholars whose personal courage and quality of published research constitute a source of inspiration for all who labor in drug policy scholarship. Levine has written frequently about alcohol, drugs, and occasionally food, often with Craig Reinarman of UC Santa Cruz, including their book Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice. His current research focuses on why in the last 10 years New York City has arrested more people for possessing marijuana than any city in the world. . . STEVEN MARKOWITZ (Center for the Biology of Natural Systems) has been appointed editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, the leading journal of occupational medicine in the United States. . . YIN MEI (Drama) received a grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts for In the City of Paper, her dance work in which she employs her body as a brush, creating figures inspired by ancient Chinese calligraphy . . . EUGENIA PAULICELLI (European Languages) recently gave seminars at the University of Stockholm concerning her fashion studies research projects . . . STEVE PEKAR (Earth & Environmental Sciences) will be co-leader of an expedition to Antarctica to collect seismic and gravity data. Three QC students will participate in the expedition. The work is funded by the National Science Foundation for International Polar Year . . . ROBIN ROGERS-DILLON (Sociology) participated in a roundtable discussion, “Evangelicals and the 2008 Primaries,” Feb. 8 at Princeton, where she is visiting this semester at the university’s Center for the Study of Religion . . . MORRIS ROSSABI (History) gave the keynote speech on “The Impact of the Mongol Empire on Central Asia” at the meeting of the Association of Central Asian Studies in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on November 17.  He gave a speech on “Commerce and Culture During the Mongol Era” at Humanities West in San Francisco, Feb. 22 . . . The American Association for the Advancement of Science announced that SARA STINSON (Anthropology) has been awarded the distinction of Fellow for her “distinguished contributions in elucidating the physical, nutritional, and social influences on child growth and development at high altitude”. . .  JOSEPH SUNGOLOWSKY’S (European Languages and Literatures) essay, “La Tentation dans le Père Goriot,” appeared Oct. 24 on AFEF, the Web site of the French Association of Teachers of French . . . ZAHRA ZAKERI (Biology) has been appointed a member of the research advisory board of the Center for Gastrointestinal and Liver Transplantation. She was also co-organizer of a symposium of the International Cell Death Society on Dec. 10 at Rockefeller University entitled Programmed Cell Death. A paper co-authored by  Zakeri and Richard Lockshin (St. John’s University) was one of the highest cited papers of 2004 and 2005 in the International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology.