Lisa Michaud, an expert in computational linguistics, combines her dual interests in language and computer science. Michaud has worked with Joseph Lavoine '06 to develop a computer-based language tutoring program that Wheaton students have used in a class on the ancient Anglo-Saxon language.
Robert Morris, associate professor of biology, spent the summer of 2005 as a research fellow at the Marine Biological Laboratory, a world renowned biomedical and environmental research center in Woods Hole, where he continued his research on cell division in the embryo cells of sea urchins.
The early American iron industry reveals close links between industrial and political revolution, argues history professor John Bezís-Selfa. Notably, slavery was an important factor in industrialization. "We should ponder our past before prescribing it for others to follow," he says. "Our leaders tell poorer nations that economic development automatically means more freedom; U.S. history 'proves' it. But the colonial iron industry's explosive growth was owed largely to slaves. We should remember that when we consider how to address slavery's legacies."
Allison Levy is fascinated by widows. Since her Bryn Mawr dissertation on widow portraiture, the assistant professor of art history has been asking important questions about the sociocultural implications of such pictures. Why were they painted? How did they function? And for whom? The answers to those questions are discussed in Widowhood and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe (Ashgate, 2003), a collection of 15 essays on the topic. Levy took a few minutes away from her current research in Florence, Italy, to talk about the impact of early widow portraiture on gender studies today.
Oscar watch: Star Wars is the first movie that Josh Stenger, assistant professor of film studies and literature, remembers seeing. But the film debuted when he was just 6 and hadn't yet honed his approach to critical theory. An American literature-turned-film scholar, Stenger says that film resembles literature insofar as both use narrative to shape and raise questions about culture, but there are important differences.
Recent advances in mapping the human genome could radically change medical care and transform our understanding of our very identity. Research by Professor of Biology Betsey Dexter Dyer and Professor of Computer Science Mark LeBlanc place the pair in the thick of one of the most exciting, controversial and fastest growing areas of biology. In fact, they and two students authored findings recently published by the journal Genome Research. Dyer recently spoke with interviewer Nancy Bianchi Norton '78 about her scholarship, the team's work in the genomics field and how it relates to various genome projects, including the Human Genome Project.
Education professor Frinde Maher talks about testing, whether teachers are born or made, and the general public's greatest misunderstanding about what makes a great teacher.
"A problem with the position of teachers today is this combination of being blamed and not being listened to," Maher says. "We're the professionals in the field. It's like saying to doctors, 'You have a special interest in how to deliver health care, and therefore we're not going to listen to you,'" Maher says, explaining her frustration with the politics of public education.
Among economics professor John Miller's current work is Which Way To Grow: Prosperity, Poverty, and Economic Crisis in Southeast Asia. Learn more about Miller's projects, politics and cycling trip throughTuscany.
One of Professor Michael Drout's earliest encounters with literature was his father's reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy to him as a youngster. "There was this great Ballantine paperback poster above my crib," he recalls, "I loved it...it was the Hobbit map of Middle-earth," Tolkien's fictitious land inhabited by the characters in his books. Professor Drout's early intrigue helped shape his interest in Medieval language and literature and, as a graduate student, led him to Oxford's Bodleian Library, where he discovered an unpublished Tolkien manuscript--which is about to be published with Drout as editor.
Professor Beverly Lyon Clark studies the works of Lousia May Alcott and other authors of children's literature. Her goal is to reposition children's literature within the academy, securing the genre the attention it deserves. Clark and her student researchers are well on their way to elevating Alcott's reputation.
Professor Elita Pastra-Landis studies the relationship between the structure of proteins and their function. Her work has earned a number of awards, including a Fulbright Foundation Travel Grant and a Danforth Foundation Fellowship. An honor she prizes is her tenure as the Bojan H. Jennings Professor of Natural Sciences, a post named for a beloved Wheaton professor.
History Professor Alex Bloom is well known for his expertise on 20th-century American intellectual and cultural life and, in particular, on the 1960s. He has several books and papers to his credit, among them Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World, a work that won a Pulitzer Prize nomination.