Faculty and Staff Career News

To read complete versions of these abbreviated news items where you see a live link, click to reach the faculty member’s personal page. Then visit that page’s “Recent News” tab, where this current item in fuller detail will be at the top. For staffers without a faculty page, the full text of each news item is included here.

Kristyn Dumont Achilich, academic program coordinator for the garden and permaculture sites,  in early June received group of visitors from  Kazakhstan on behalf of Farm to Plate, an organization for which she has served as co-chair of the Education & Work Force Development Working group for three years. These visitors are invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program

George Ashline, professor of mathematics, recently gave invited talks at Vergennes and South Burlington High School on “Encountering the Great Problems from Antiquity” for calculus students, leading discussion and active investigations on concepts in the history of mathematics. It was emblematic of George’s notable engagement over recent months and years with high school students and the advancement of their math education, often through a state coalition dedicated to that purpose; he also presented a Faculty Showcase on campus about using classroom technology; and, he has presented at prestigious regional professional meetings on math history topics, among many other initiatives on and off campus.

Valerie Bang-Jensen, professor of education, and Mark Lubkowitz, professor of biology, presented “Read Like a Scientist: Exploring Scientific Concepts with Children’s Literature” at the annual National Science Teachers Association conference in Los Angeles on March 31, 2017. The presentation was based on their new book, Sharing Books, Talking Science, which was featured at the publishers’ booth during the conference.

Christine Bauer-Ramazani, instructor in the Applied Linguistics Department, in March 2017, presented as a panelist on TESOL’s CALL-Interest Sections’s Academic Session, titled “A CALL for 21^st Century Reading” in Seattle. Her presentation was based on her work in the Intensive English Program of the Applied Linguistics Department. She also presented on The Electronic Village Online, and both sessions were webcast live and recorded; and, she has co-authored an article on webcasting for TESOL’s CALL Interest Section since the early 2000s, forthcoming in TESL-EJ, 21(1).

Michael Bosia, associate professor of political science, in recent months presented on a panel at the United Nations in New York City, called  “Unlearning Intolerance: Perspectives from 2017”  organized by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) as part of a discussion series intended to explore means of preventing manifestations of intolerance and violent extremism. The week before he was in New York too for an International Relations/International Studies educator workshop at the Council on Foreign Relations.

David Boynton, associate professor of psychology, published an article on the psychology of judgment and decision-making in the Journal of Mind and Behavior early this year, and shortly thereafter,published a book review in The Humanistic Psychologist.

Robert Brenneman, associate professor of sociology, in 2016 prepared expert affidavits in three separate cases involving defendants seeking asylum from Central American gangs, and provided oral testimony in one case. In 2017 during a sabbatical he has been most active as an invited panelist, paper-author, radio-show guest and more, on various topics of interest concerning Central America, both there and in the U.S., including religion, asylum, gangs, peace and justice.

Alain Brizard, professor of physics, during a sabbatical leave in the 2017 spring semester, has taught or will teach a short course in gyrokinetic theory at universities in China, Finland and Germany, for graduate students and postdocs as part of his work in writing a graduate-level textbook on gyrokinetic theory (to be published by World Scientific later this year). In the past two years, Alain has published seven peer-reviewed articles with collaborators both in the U.S. and abroad; in 2016-2017, he also presented nearly 20 seminars, invited talks, and contributed presentations at national and international conferences.

Kellie Campbell, associate director in Information Technology, and Sean Dailey, full-time ESL instructor in the College’s Applied Linguistics Department, presented at the annual NERCOMP conference last week on active learning. Their session, Experience the “Active” in Active Learning: An Approach as Student and Teacher, engaged the 50+ audience members through an active learning platform on their mobile devices, with a focus on experience and design.  NERCOMP cultivates communities of practice around information and technology, promotes strategic partnerships, and advances innovation and leadership in educational institutions across the Northeastern United States.

Christina Chant, assistant professor of chemistry, reports that a number of Saint Michael’s students — alumni from previous years and one who just graduated – joined with her in publishing a manuscript on a novel protein expression and purification system, in Advances in Biological Chemistry. This research was also presented by Chris Toomey ’17 at the 2017 ACS Conference in San Francisco.

Nick Clary, a member of the Vermont Shakespeare Festival’s Board of Directors, as well as a Saint Michael’s Emeritus Professor of English, arranged for the College to host a Salon Reading/Discussion in the Farrell Room on Sunday, June 4. This event included a staged reading of Lolita Chakrabarti’s play Red Velvet, followed by a discussion that Nick briefly introduced and co-facilitated during the discussion. The actor Jolie Garrett played Ira Aldridge in this staged reading and local actors play the remaining parts. Garrett previously has performed in Vermont Stage’s The Mountaintop where he played the role of Martin Luther King Jr. He has worked for numerous critically acclaimed theater companies including The Negro Ensemble Company and Shakespeare’s New Globe in London.

Brian Collier, associate professor of fine arts/art, was invited to be the Visiting Artist at Vermont Studio Center’s for Vermont Artist Week in recent months. Brian gave an artist talk and did studio visits with the artist residents.

Paul Constantino, assistant professor of biology, presented his research on human dental evolution at the 86th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, in April in New Orleans, LA. Paul was also involved in the Smithsonian’s “Exploring Human Origins” exhibit held at Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library. He conducted educational trainings for local middle and high school teachers on the exhibit’s content and had students from his Human Evolution class volunteer as docents.

George Dameron, professor and chair of history, reports that his essay, “Church and Community in a Medieval Italian City:  The Place of San Lorenzo in Florentine Society from Late Antiquity to the Early Fourteenth Century,” has been published in the book, San Lorenzo:  A Florentine Church, eds. Robert Gaston and Louis Waldman (Villa I Tatti Series 33; Florence, 2017).  George will be attend the formal presentation of the in Florence in June.

Maura D’Amore, assistant professor of English, received a Maine Women Writers Grant from the University of New England to do research there in May at their archive. Her peer-reviewed essay “Crafty Bricolage: Pinterest as Digital Scrapbooking” appeared in a special issue of NANO (New American Notes Online) on Originality in a Digital Culture, January 2017. She presented a paper on Thoreau at the Nineteenth Century Studies Annual Conference in Charleston, SC, in February.

Greg Delanty, professor of English, will have his selected poems published in October 2017. This book’s poems are being selected and introduced by Archie Burnett. The title of the book is Selected Delanty, and it will be published by Un-Gyve Press. Greg has two poems titled “Smoke” and “Elegy” in the most recent Agenda, Volume 50, Nos. 3-4. He’s maintained his customary busy schedule of panel appearances, talks and readings, and has seen his poems published in other anthologies in recent months.

Matt DeSorgher, the College’s associate director of Student Financial Services, has been elected president of the Vermont Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (VASFAA). A 2001 graduate of St. Mike’s, Matt has 14 years of financial aid experience and has been working in the Saint Michael’s College Office of Student Financial Services since 2014.

Kathryn Dungy of the Saint Michael’s College history faculty recently was elected to a six-year term on the Board of Directors of the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), the nation’s largest and oldest nonprofit study abroad and intercultural exchange organization. Kathryn’s election came during the Board’s meeting in Los Angeles, California, on November 18.

Kristin Dykstra, distinguished scholar in residence at Saint Michael’s, is featured alongside other top international scholars in a recently completed episode about literary translation on a PBS television show in short format called Articulate, an “art magazine series.” The show has just been picked up for national syndication, including the translation episode with Kristin. She also did an interview this past winter with BOMB magazine, which focuses on the arts. Both interviews draw on her scholarly interest in and active association with Cuban poets.

Jo Ellis-Monaghan, chair of the Saint Michael’s Mathematics Department, will join a coming celebration in July at Trinity College, Cambridge, England, of the centenary of the eminent mathematician and code-breaker William Tutte. She also has been invited to Australia in the fall for a similar celebration by Graham Farr, the author of a recent major article about Tutte, since Jo’s “pure” research — as opposed to her applied DNA work with students on campus –centers around the “Tutte polynomial”; she is co-editing a book on the Tutte polynomial and its applications.

Ruth Fabian Fine, assistant professor of biology and neuroscience, recently was the recipient of a $25,000 Vermont Genetics Network (VGN) Pilot grant award; also, in recent months she helped set up and coordinate a new Scientific Imaging Facility on campus; saw publication of a peer-reviewed paper with undergraduate student authors in a journal; and helped developed an outreach program to Rice High School with her students presenting about venoms and toxins. During summer 2017 she is conducting summer research with five undergraduates.

George Goldsworthy, the College’s manager of print & mail, was re-elected as president of The Association of College & University Mail Services (ACUMS) to a two-year term beginning July 1, 2017. ACUMS is a non-profit professional organization that facilitates cooperation and communication among schools to promote the education and professional development of its members.

David Heroux, associate professor of chemistry, was re-elected as Chair of the Green Mountain Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS); selected as Chair of a new committee of the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education’s Examination Institute; in April, David he presented a poster at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in San Francisco. He also in active in several other professional group activities, and was co-author on two posters presented at a national conference by his research mentees.

Rowena He, assistant professor of history, spoke at several events in recent months on topics relating to her books, articles and activism on China, including at University of California Berkeley, the annual conference for the Association for Asian Studies in Toronto, Canada, and for students at St. Johnsbury Academy. She is on an uncensored list among this year’s “Top 100 Chinese Public Intellectuals” – a counterweight to the Beijing government’s approved list.  The New York Times Chinese Edition has ranked her profile interview with them published in June 2016 among the “Top 3” Most Popular Articles of 2016 based on readership.

Valerie Hird, adjunct instructor in art, this past winter contributed work to an exhibition “Feminist/Femine” at the Nohra Haime Gallery on Fifth Avenue in New York, among a host of other prominent artists. Also this winter, Valerie’s work “Dreaming of Another World: Nomadic Reflections” was exhibited at the McGowan Gallery in Concord, NH, in Concord, NH, with Valerie giving a talk March 4 on “travel tales about what happens when a single white female from a rural Vermont community goes off the beaten track with nomads in Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan; her work also was exhibited in Concord in February at the Capitol Center for the Arts.

Aostre Johnson, professor of education, presented a paper: “How Holistic is the Mindfulness Education Movement?” at the 14th International Conference on Childhood Spirituality, Lincoln, England, July 2016; and she published a book review: “Spirituality in education in a Global, Pluralised World” in the International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Vol.21, No. 2. 2016.

Nicholas Kahm, Henry G. Fairbanks Visiting Scholar in Residence, recently has had a book, an article and a book review accepted for publication: the book is on Aquinas’s views on how reason and emotion work together in the moral life, and will be published by the Catholic University of America Press. The article is on Aristotle’s and Aquinas’s anthropology and will appear in History of Philosophy Quarterly; the book review will appear in the online Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

William “Sandy” Karstens, professor of physics, in recent months presented a paper at the annual March Meeting of the American Physical Society in New Orleans, and was elected to serve a 3-year term as a Zone Councilor for the Society of Physics Students.

John Kenney, professor of religious studies, has published the following articles in recent months: “Plotinus and the Apophatic Augustine,” in Defining Platonism: Essays in Honor of the 75th Birthday of John M. Dillon (Catholic University of America Press, 2017); “Platonism and the Iconic Imagination: A Response to Douglas Hedley,” Modern Theology (on-line: May 2017; print: July, 2017). Also, in November 2016, John attended the American Academy of Religion Conference where he joined a Book Symposium and chaired a session; he was keynote speaker in late May for a lecture series at St. John’s Prep in Danvers, MA.

Chris Kenny, director of athletics, has been named to the Board of Directors for the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame.

Richard Kujawa, professor of geography, joined other contributors for an author’s reception and launch of the International Encyclopedia of Geography at the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers in Boston.  Richard wrote the entry on Urban Managerialism.

David Landers, instructor of psychology and gender studies/NCAA faculty athletic representative, was on a panel this past winter at the NCAA Convention in Nashville, TN. Invited by the NCAA National Student Athletic Advisory Committee and the NCAA’s Sport Science Institute, the panel spoke on “Mental Health and Student-Athletes” and Dave talked about Saint Michael’s College’s Hope Happens Here program.

Robert Letovsky, professor of business administration and accounting, recently was honored with a three-year appointment as the David LaMarche Endowed Chair of Business Administration and Accounting, effective Fall 2017.

Scott Lewins, instructor of biology, and his research collaborator at the University of Vermont were awarded grants through City Market (Co-op Patronage Seedling Grant), the State Agency of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (USDA-SARE). His projects are focused on managing emerging and existing pests on Vermont farms.

Crystal L’Hote, associate professor of philosophy, reports that a paper titled “Free Will and Responsibility in the Neuroscientific Age,” by her summer-mentored student Katie Petrozzo, was published in Compos Mentis: Undergraduate Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics. Crystal also participated, as did her colleague Patrick Standen of the philosophy faculty, in “Burlington Public Philosophy Week” early in April.

William Marquess, instructor of English, published a collection of stories entitled Boom-shacka-lacka with Fomite Press in October of 2016.  All of the stories were written in the Fiction Writing workshops that Will conducts in the English Department.

James Nagle, associate professor in education, has published an article in Educational Leadership entitled “How Personal Learning is Working in Vermont” with two colleagues from UVM. James also has given paper presentations at national and regional conferences about the three pillars of personal learning enacted in Vermont Act 77.

Elizabeth O’Dowd,professor of applied linguistics and director of the Graduate TESOL programs, has had a paper accepted for publication by the international journal, Writing and Pedagogy. The paper takes a functional linguistics approach to discourse analysis and emerged from a talk at Colorado TESOL 2016, at which she was a featured speaker. In March, Elizabeth also presented a paper, on teacher preparation at TESOL Arabia in Dubai. In December 2016, Elizabeth published an article on related topics in the newsletter for TESOL Ontario.

Paul Olsen, assistant professor of business administration and accounting, recently presented a Critical Incident case and Teaching Note titled “Beansie’s or Bust: The Challenges of Managing a Food Truck Business,” at The 53rd Annual MBAA International Conference in Chicago. The case was coauthored by a student and will be submitted to Journal of Critical Incidents. Also in recent months, Paul co-authored other journal-published cases with colleagues or students.

John O’Meara, professor and chair of physics, was an invited colloquium speaker at the University of Washington; was quoted at length on the future of the James Webb Telescope for the science journal Gizmodo; was invited speaker at the 2017 Space Telescope Science Institute Spring Symposium in April; was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor; was named to the Executive Committee of the Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group for NASA; was quoted in a Scholastic/New York Times Upfront online feature; was an invited speaker for Keck observatory donors; was Physics Colloquium speaker at Middlebury and UVM; was invited review panelist for NASA; and has had four papers published in Astrophysical Journal since November 2016.

Raymond Patterson, professor of religious studies and department chair, in early June received the inaugural Northeast-10 Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Faculty Mentor Award during the NE10’s year-end banquet at Gillette Stadium’s Putnam Club. Ray is a long-time supporter of Saint Michael’s athletics, and serves as the faculty affiliate for the women’s basketball, field hockey and women’s lacrosse programs.

Ingrid Peterson of the College’s Office of Career Development in November was asked to speak at the Vermont Recruiter’s Association Meeting on recruiting college students and encouraging them to remain in Vermont after graduation.

Christina Root, professor of English, has published two articles: “’Her Way of Walking’: Explorations of Nature and the Unseen in E.M. Forster’s Howards End, and Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways,” appears in Only Connect: E.M. Forster’s  Legacies in British Fiction (Peter Lang 2017);“”A Greater Vital Force’: Rhetorical Affinities between Thoreau and Darwin” is forthcoming this July in a special issue of Nineteenth Century Prose in honor of the bicentennial of Thoreau’s birth.

Eric Roy, technical specialist in the Tecnology Learning Center in charge of the MakerSpace in Dion Family student Center, has been working to develop a MakerSpace for Christ the King Catholic School in Burlington by mid-Summer 2017. With the aid of Joanne Trottier in the College’s Information Technology Department and a Burlington-based non-profit called Resource, Eric has secured about 10 refurbished PC’s donated to Resource by Saint Michael’s to be allocated to the Christ the King Art and Maker Space programs.  He’ll work with school staff and teachers on software and technologies like laser cutters and 3D printers, and on creating classroom workflows and training models for educators learning to use the new equipment.

Alayne Schroll, professor of chemistry and Leavy Chair in chemistry, for a second time served as the Chemistry Olympiad Coordinator for the Green Mountain Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS), held on campus in April. She and a 2016 biochemistry graduate were co-authors on a paper published in April, reporting on results of a research collaboration between with a UVM scientist.

Jonathan Silverman, associate professor and chair of education, in August will be presenting at the International Society for Arts Education Congress in South Korea on a collaborative project with Korean colleagues about digital impacts on aesthetic perceptions of places and the human spirit. In June, he will present about ecojustice in the curriculum, at the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences in Tucson, AZ.

Moise St. Louis, associate dean of students/director of the Center for Multicultural Affairs and Services, presented on a panel at the Moving Forward Together: Conversations for Community Justice Conference held at Champlain College on Friday, June 2, 2017. Moise also will give the keynote address on “The Cost of Freedom: Haitian Resistance to Foreign domination and the quest for Democratic Self-Determination” on August 23 at a Champlain College exhibition of Robin Lloyd and Doreen Kraft’s work with Haitian artists in the ‘70s.

Kimberly Sultze, associate professor of media studies, journalism, and digital arts, recently served as a Fulbright Scholar Program Peer Reviewer. In addition, she and Jon Hyde, associate professor of media studies, journalism, and digital arts, have had their wildlife and environmental photography exhibited at the galleries and festivals in Italy, Los Angeles, Burlington and elsewhere in Vermont.

John A. Trono, professor of computer science, will be presenting his paper “Applying Occam’s Razor to the Prediction of the Final NCAA Men’s Basketball Poll” at the Sixth MathSport International Conference, from June 26-28, 2017 as hosted by the University of Padua (Italy).

Adam Weaver, associate professor of biology, recently collaborated with his former research student on a poster presentation in November 2016 at the Society for Neuroscience conference in San Diego, CA. The experiment behind the presentation was performed on a mathematical model of a network in the leech nervous system responsible for blood flow to determine the role of network properties in producing functional motor patterns.

Joan Wry, associate professor of English, presented a paper, “Landscapes and Mindscapes: Deep Mapping in Edward Hitchcock’s Geology and Emily Dickinson’s Poetry,” at the January 2017 MLA Conference in Philadelphia, PA.  An expanded version of that paper has been accepted for 2018 publication in the biannual peer-reviewed journal, Textual Cultures. She also contributed chapters to recent books about literature in her areas of specialization, including 19^th century women and transcendentalists.