For Immediate Release—Friday, Sept. 7, 2007
Contact:
Mary E. McCrank
Media Relations Officer
(585) 245-5516
mccrank@geneseo.edu
SUNY Geneseo professors spend summer
conducting research with assistance from fellowships
GENESEO, N.Y.—Ten professors from the State University
of New York at Geneseo spent their summers conducting research with assistance
from fellowships provided by the College.
Thomas Greenfield,
professor of English, received the Roemer
Summer Research Fellowship, which supports the research of a faculty member
with $5,000. Greenfield will serve as the editor for, and a principal
contributor to, the Encyclopedia of Broadway and American Culture. This work, with an expected publication
date of 2009, will focus on the artistic and social history of
"Broadway"—American popular theatrical performance as it developed in
Manhattan throughout the 20th century.
Anthony Yanxiang Gu,
associate professor in the School of Business, Thomas MacPherson, professor in the School of the Arts, and Susan
Bandoni Muench, associate professor of
biology, were awarded Mid-Career Summer Research Fellowships, which support the
research and creative projects of faculty who have been with the college at
least six years. They will receive $4,000 apiece, funded by the Geneseo
Foundation.
Focusing on the Chinese yuan and the Malaysian ringgit, Gu
studied the impact of exchange rate peg on real exchange rate volatility
between the pegged currency and the anchor (U.S. dollar) and non-anchor
currencies.
MacPherson studied Renaissance artwork in Italy,
particularly that of Agnolo Bonzino, the lead court painter of the Florentine
school in the mid 16th century, who utilized the arduous process of
painting in egg tempera. MacPherson will study both the technique and the
cultural context for Renaissance art in order to further his own work, which
explores the issues of cultural and ethnic identity, social injustice and power
and conflict.
Bandoni Muench traveled to Ghana to study behavioral
differences in infected versus non-infected freshwater snails, which are the
carriers of the parasitic worm that causes human intestinal schistosomiasis.
This disease infects an estimated 200 million people in the tropics and
subtropics, and recent evidence suggests that schistosomiasis infection may
increase the likelihood of HIV infection in women and speed the onset of AIDS
in both sexes.
Seong Lim, assistant
professor in the School of Business; George Marcus, assistant professor of physics; Jun
Okada, assistant professor of English; Matthew
Pastizzo, assistant professor of
psychology; and Linda Ware,
associate professor in the School of Education were awarded Presidential Summer
Fellowships, which provide newer faculty with an opportunity to undertake
research and other scholarly activities. They received $3,500 apiece, funded by
an allocation from the President.
Lim examined entrepreneurship education in ten different
countries, including the U.S., China, India, Sweden and New Zealand. His
research seeks to improve the customization of entrepreneurship education
according to each country's unique cultural context and needs.
Marcus is developing a cavity ringdown spectroscopy system
to examine optical extinction, a measure of absorption and scattering of light,
of atmospheric samples. His experimental program will focus on scattering
produced by "carbon black" particles, a common pollutant that plays an
important role in climate modeling.
Okada is preparing a book manuscript narrating the history
of Asian-American film and video as a genre produced by a complex system of
national, regional, and community institutions such as PBS and the Center for
Asian American Media. Okada's research examines the link between thematic and
narrative tendencies in Asian-American film and the social and economic context
of this institutional infrastructure.
Word frequency in written and spoken language is a variable
that is used widely in language and memory studies. In order to promote
research on the relationship between television viewing and language
development, Pastizzo used closed-captioned text extraction to produce word
frequency counts from children's television programming.
Ware is developing classroom-based lessons that feature
disability studies art in preparation for a summer institute for teacher
educators. Ware seeks to bridge the division between general and special
education, focusing on disability studies and the arts as it can be deployed in
classroom settings.
Yu Zhang, assistant
professor of communication, received the Hurrell/McNaron Award for Scholarly
Presentation. He received $1,000. Zhang's paper focuses on the proposed
development of a nationwide campaign to improve China's translation of public
signs. The issue has growing
importance as China has become a major travel destination and prepares to host
the 2008 Olympics. Zhang presented his paper at the Fifth International
Conference on English Language Teaching in China and the First Congress of
Chinese Applied Linguistics, held in May in Beijing.
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