Around the College: March 1999 | UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences News

Around the College

This article was originally published in the March 1999 issue of CLASnotes

Department News

Anthropology

Irma McClaurin gave an invited lecture entitled "Salvaging Lives in the African Diaspora: Anthropology, Ethnography and Women's Narratives" as part of the Conversation Series: History, Culture & Politics at the Institute of African American Research, Columbia University.

English

On January 8, James Haskins gave a taped interview at the American Dance Festival for a three-part series on Black Dance in America, to be broadcast on PBS. Three reduced versions of The Jazz Age in Paris, 1914-1940,the 1997 Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service exhibition for which he served as guest curator, will travel to 20 states between now and 2001.

Geography

Ed Malecki gave several invited lectures in Germany during January. He was the guest professor at the University of Hannover in its biannual International Seminar on Economic Geography, where he gave five lectures. He also gave invited lectures at the University of Bonn and the University of Cologne.

Geology

Doug Smith traveled to Oslo, Norway in January as a member of the International Data Center Technical Experts Group on Seismic Event Location at the Workshop on International Monitoring System Location Calibration. He represented the US State Department by presenting follow-up work providing technical advice to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. Smith was also recently appointed by the late Governor Chiles to the Board of Professional Geologists, for a term ending October 31, 2002.

History

The Askew Institute, directed by David Colburn, received the Distinguished Community Service Award from the State Board of Regents at its January meeting. Colburn addressed the new members of the Florida House of Representatives at their orientation meeting in Tallahassee in November.
Robert McMahon has been awarded a Fulbright teaching appointment in Ireland. He is to be the Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History at the University College in Dublin for the 1999-2000 academic year.

Math

Jonathan King visited the University of Lille in France during November and gave a seminar talk entitled "De Bruijn's harmonic brick condition is computable."
Alexander Dranishnikov visited the universities of Uppsala and Linkoping in Sweden during the fall and lectured on "The Novikov conjecture."

Astronomy Hosts "Big Planet" Night for Kids

CLAS Astronomers Richard Elston and Elizabeth Lada recently organized "The Really Huge, Giant, Humon-gous, Gargantuan, Wow They're Big Planets," an interactive night of astronomy fun and facts for area children. Over 100 kids attended the event, which was held in the New Physics Building. Lada and Elston welcomed the crowed and introduced the program's subject matter, the "gas giants" (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus).

Next, astronomy graduate students Lauren Jones and Doug Ratay gave a Bill Nye-inspired talk about the gas giants, with the aid of an impressive power point presentation (created by fellow graduate student David Dahari), which incorporated sound effects, video clips and animated illustrations.

In the second phase of the program, kids rotated among three rooms of hands-on activities, also led by department graduate students:

Beth Holmes passed out hula hoops (see photo, above) and balloons to get kids thinking about the moons and rings of the giant planets.
Joanna Levine used liquid nitrogen (see photo, below) and a water tank to demonstrate properties of gas and density.
And to help the students understand the relative size of each planet and the distances between them, Carlos Roman had kids holding scale models spread out all over the Physics Building's large entry hall.

Big Planet To cap off the program, participants got to visit the campus teaching observatory, where Barbara Eckstein helped them observe Saturn, one of the planets they'd just studied.

Besides providing a meaningful educational experience for the kids and their parents, Lada says the program was invaluable for the 26 graduate students who participated in creating and leading the event. "In addition to getting them involved in science education early in their careers, it helps them learn the importance of preparing clear, understandable presentations, so they can effectively communicate their work to the public in the future."

Lada and Elston, who organized a similar program on comets two years ago, hope to continue the series with a program on meteors and/or the moon next school year.

Note: The teaching observatory is open to the public every Friday night UF is in session from 8:30 - 10:00. Since the event is sensitive to weather conditions, please call (352) 392- 5294 after 7:30 PM for a recorded message.

Mathematics Department Ulam Colloquium

(left to right) James Keesling and Krishnaswami Alladi (Mathematics), Ulam Colloquium Speaker James Keener, and Dean Harrison. Keener (of the University of Utah) delivered the first Mathematics Department Ulam Colloquium on "The mathematics of sudden cardiac death" on January 11. In his talk, Keener described in mathematical terms the behavior of life threatening cardiac arrythmias and suggested a classification of antiarrhythmic drugs that may give insight into the failure of the CAST (Cardiac Arrythmia Suppression Test) study.

Dean's Office Staff

Castine Gracy Castine, CLAS notes graphics and Web designer since August of 1997, was promoted to Program Assistant at the University Police Department, where she'll be working on their newsletter and coordinating several programs. Congratulations, Gracy, on your new opportunity—we'll miss you!