Grad News Forum

Congratulations to Julia Bradley-Cook for being awarded an honorable mention for the 2013 American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) Emerging Public Policy Leadership Award!

Each year, AIBS recognizes graduate students in the biological sciences who have demonstrated an interest in and ability to contribute to science and public policy. This year competition for the award was especially fierce; AIBS awarded two students the top prize, in addition to recognizing three students, including Bradley-Cook, with honorable mentions.

Bradley-Cook is a fourth-year PhD student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology working with Dr. Ross Virginia on carbon dynamics in Greenland soils. Bradley-Cook has been interested in the intersection of science and policy ever since an undergraduate course got her thinking about the role of science in resource management. Two years working for sustainable development NGOs in Namibia after college confirmed her interest and exposed her to the challenges of bringing science and policy together.

Since coming to Dartmouth, Bradley-Cook has continued her commitment to policy while working to complete her biology degree. Her research addresses the critical issue of how much carbon currently locked in arctic permafrost will be released as the climate warms. As Dr. Virginia says, “Julia’s work connects basic science to the information needs of the policy world. No small task, and essential work.”

As president of the Graduate Student Council, Bradley-Cook works closely with the Dartmouth administration to advocate for graduate student rights. As a fellow in Dartmouth’s Polar Environmental Change Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT), she has been able to pair her scientific research of Greenland’s soils with a study of Greenlandic policy, meeting with Greenlandic national leaders during her field seasons and on Dartmouth’s campus. Bradley-Cook says that her “understanding of the social and political context has enriched [her] connection to Greenland, and has made [her] research all the more worthwhile.”

Bradley-Cook is honored to be recognized by AIBS and says that it will encourage her to pursue science-policy positions in the future. With such pressing issues as global warming and water shortages, we need leaders like Bradley-Cook to bring science and policy together.

by Ruth Heindel

The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth has named Elliott S. Fisher as the director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. An internationally recognized leader in health services research and health policy, Fisher is currently the director for Population Health and Policy at The Dartmouth Institute, as well as the James W. Squire Professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at the Geisel School. He is also co-director of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.

Read the full story at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice news.

See the Dartmouth Now coverage.

Ayo Coly has taught Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart in all of her courses since she began as an associate professor of African and African American Studies at Dartmouth six years ago, and she has found that nearly every one of her students read the book in high school.

That is as clear a picture as she can give of the significance of the Nigerian author who came to be known as the father of African literature, and who had numerous ties to Dartmouth. Achebe died Thursday, March 21, 2013, in Boston. He was 82.

Although there is a rich literary history from Africa in both African and European languages, “we can say Achebe is the inventor of African literature because he made it known beyond the borders of Nigeria and beyond Africa,” Ayo says. “I would like to acknowledge the way Chinua Achebe appropriated and transformed the European genre of the novel and conformed it to convey his own culture, his own agenda, as a Nigerian, as an African.”

Achebe was in residence at Dartmouth in 1990 as a Montgomery Fellow. In 1972, under President John Kemeny, Dartmouth awarded Achebe the first of his many honorary degrees.

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

In late October 2012, Hurricane Sandy ravaged the east coast, bringing severe damage to several states. New York was hit especially hard. The hurricane created billions of dollars in damage, destroyed thousands of homes, and caused 72 deaths, 48 of which were New York inhabitants.  The outpouring of support immediately following Sandy was impressive. The dedication some groups have shown, remaining in the effected area for months and dedicating themselves to those hit hardest, is moving.

Occupy Sandy is one of these groups. Occupy Sandy was organized as a relief effort by members of Occupy Wall Street to help the victims of the hurricane. The group has broken into teams, which cover different effected areas.

On March 14, four Dartmouth graduate students, Daniel Jantos, Ron Bucca, and Zach Williams, all students in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program, and Amanda Balboni, a student in the Program in Experimental and Molecular Medicine, traveled down to Staten Island to volunteer with the Yellow Team of Occupy Sandy and provide relief to the hurricane victims.

Over St. Patrick’s Day weekend, the group helped rebuild a home that had been destroyed by the hurricane. The family that lived in the home consisted of a mother, father, two children, and a baby boy, born just a few months after the hurricane hit. The family had recently re-finished their basement to make room for their new addition. The water level had reached three feet on the first floor, completely submerging the basement and destroying almost all of the family’s appliances and possessions. The graduate students worked throughout the weekend to re-insulate the house and put up sheetrock, so that the family could soon move into their home and out of the apartment they are paying for in addition to their mortgage payments. The father worked with the team of graduate students, and remarked that he is thankful for the health and safety of his family, and for his brother’s family, who lives down the street from him and whose home was also destroyed by the storm. This man had neighbors who had lost their lives in the hurricane and was grateful to have only lost his possessions. Numerous volunteers have come from all over the country to team up with Occupy Sandy and provide much needed relief to these families.

Unfortunately, there is still much damage to be repaired from the hurricane. The recovery effort is just getting started. If you would like to volunteer in areas that were affected by Sandy, or would like to donate money, please visit the Occupy Sandy site.

by Amanda Balboni

photos by Zach Williams

On March 1^st, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) Web Team released a brand new GSC website. But releasing the new site, even with content originating from the original GSC site, was not an overnight assignment. In fact, the Web Team began developing the project way back in October of 2012.

The website project was divided into three steps, or “milestones.” The first was philosophy. Nothing is worse than a website that is poorly planned, where each page seems to be living in its own universe of color and structure. In order to really nail down a clear design philosophy, the Web Team did a group activity called “Sails and Anchors.” The idea is simple: one considers a collection of one’s favorite and most-detested websites, and makes a list of concepts/features that make those sites so great or poor. Features (or rather, “blights”) that detract from a site are called “anchors,” and those which make a site wonderful are “sails.”

“Sails and Anchors” board created by the Web Team as it brainstormed concepts for the new GSC site. Anchors are at the bottom, and sails are on top.

Key themes emerged from the collection of thoughts; the team now had a lucid sense of features we desired in the new site, and those we wished to avoid at all costs.

The next milestone was creation: that is, finding a site theme that satisfied the most sails and the least anchors from the first milestone. Fortunately the underlying web engine for the new site, called WordPress, has a plethora of themes created by contributors worldwide that can be used for free. The team ultimately chose the “Graphene” theme—what you see on the site today—as it satisfied three of our key sails: a high degree of backend customization, a spacious “well-furnished room” appearance, and a home-page “slideshow” where upcoming events can be showcased.

The last milestone was implementation: it was time to port over all content from the existing GSC site, revise it according to the design principles of the new site, and ensure that all the nitty-gritty things like links and attachments were working as they should. We also parsed through each section of the site and looked for where content or organisation could be simplified. After all, a simple site is pleasing to the user, and the least schizophrenic to manage in the back office.

The website has been well received. Former GSC President Wesley Whittaker noted: “The new site has much improved access, I really like it. The student organization section is a lot easier to navigate—this will make participation so much easier for both incoming students and those who have been around for longer.” He continued “I also like how, under the event section, there’s the links to facebook and doodles so that everything’s in one place and there’s a connected social media stream.”

The process of designing a website is never complete: there are still a few stray links, and a couple fonts that could use some polishing up. As well, the space for additional creativity, such as new extensions or enhancements to an existing site, is endless.

Stay tuned as the GSC Web Team works on new refinements and features for the site in the coming months. In the meantime, we hope our hard work through the past several months has resulted in a powerful new website that you enjoy using.

The website address is: http://sites.dartmouth.edu/gsc/

Web Team Members: Amanda Balboni, Julia Bradley-Cook, Rishika De, Lisa Jackson, Marie Onakomaiya, Justin Richardson, Nicholas Tito, Christine Urbanowicz

by Nicholas Tito, GSC Web Team Leader

Celia Chen, a research professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth in 1978 and her PhD in biology in 1994, was recently involved in negotiations in Switzerland as a part of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Chen represented Dartmouth as a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Global Mercury Partnership.

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

The Graduate Career Consortium (GCC) is proud to be sponsoring the first PhD and Master’s Career Fair exclusively for the GCC. Kerry Landers, the assistant dean of Graduate Studies and a member of the Consortium, is excited to sponsor this event. Through the Fair, graduate students, post-docs, and alumni have another job searching opportunity.

Applying for jobs is a daunting prospect. By this stage, we have probably all done it before, and it really does not get much easier. Sometimes we need that bit of help.

Here is where the PhD and Master’s Virtual Career Fair can help.  The fair opens on February 19^th. It provides you with the opportunity to meet and chat with potential employers online. The advantages here are numerous—you can ask any questions you want from the comfort of your room, lab, or the library. Moreover, you do not have to stand in line to meet representatives from organizations, neither do you have to worry about not getting to speak with everyone. The virtual career fair gives you the opportunities that physical career fairs bring, but with further convenience.

There will be over thirty organizations present over the duration of the fair. Online chat times vary. The earliest starts at 9 am, and the last ends at 7 pm. Check out the website for the full schedule and updates.  The PhD and Master’s Virtual Career Fair is a great opportunity to help you make the next move in your professional life. Landers, as your Assistant Dean, strongly recommends that you take part!

Register online now!

As President Obama bestowed the Medal of Honor on Clinton Romesha for his valor in defending an isolated American outpost in Afghanistan from an overwhelming Taliban attack, he looked for lessons learned.

During his time on campus, author and CNN correspondent Jake Tapper ’91 will give a public lecture and be part of a panel discussion with photojournalist James Nachtwey ’70. (Courtesy of Ely Brown)

“One of them is that our troops should never, ever, be put in a position where they have to defend the indefensible,” Obama said at the White House ceremony for retired Staff Sgt. Romesha on Monday, February 11. Eight Americans died in the October 2009 battle for Combat Outpost Keating, one of the most vicious engagements of the war.

Romesha’s story and the stories of the other soldiers whose duty it was to defend the indefensible, including Capt. Stoney Portis MALS ’13, the last officer to command COP Keating, are told in a new book by CNN correspondent Jake Tapper ’91, The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor.

Tapper will return to Dartmouth on Tuesday, February 19, to join a panel discussion with photojournalist James Nachtwey ’70 and Portis at a lunch with students from the Graduate Studies Program and members of the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association. Nachtwey, an activist anti-war photojournalist, is the Roth Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth.

B Troop, in the days following the battle to defend COP Keating, at Forward Operating Base Bostick in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. At far left, wearing a black hat, is Capt. Stoney Portis, MALS ’13. (Photo courtesy of Capt. Stoney Portis, MALS ’13)

At 4:30 p.m. Tapper will give a public lecture, “The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor,” at Filene Auditorium in Moore Hall. President Emeritus James Wright, a former Marine who taught Tapper in a first-year history class, will introduce his former student.

Wright has been waging a personal campaign to bring the real cost of the war in Afghanistan to the attention of the public and policymakers. In his recent book,Those Who Have Borne the Battle: A History of America’s Wars and Those Who Fought Them, he argues that the invisibility of modern war has made it too easy for politicians to expend American lives and treasure. Tapper’s book is important because it puts a human face on the war in Afghanistan, Wright says.

The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding is sponsoring Tapper’s lecture. There will be a public book signing after the lecture.

Article by Bill Platt, courtesy of the Dartmouth Now

Dartmouth 2012 digital musics grads Alexander Dupuis, Alison Mattek, and David Kant, outside Hallgarten Hall after defending their theses.

Greetings from Hallgarten Hall!

In 2012, our graduate students continued to present their research here and abroad. Jessica Thompson has shown that hemodynamic brain activity collected during music listening can predict lists of descriptive labels. She has presented this work at several conferences, including the Cognitively Based Music Information Retrieval (CogMIR) workshop, the conference of the International Society for Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR), and the Machine Learning and Interpretation in Neuroimaging (MLINI) workshop at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference. In December, Phillip Hermans presented a paper on goal-based music compositions in Lucca, Italy, at the 15th Generative Art Conference (GA2012). There were installations, paper sessions, live performances, lively discussion, and “lots of great Tuscan food.” In addition to live performance, Carlos Dominguez has been working on a soundtrack for the 1928 silent film, Beggars of Life, to be performed live alongside the film on February 2, 2013, at Dartmouth in conjunction with the Department of Film & Media Studies.

We are most delighted to welcome winter and spring term visiting professor, Dr. Tara Rodgers, a University of Maryland assistant professor of Women’s Studies, a distinguished faculty fellow in Digital Cultures & Creativity, and an affiliate faculty of American Studies and Musicology & Ethnomusicology. She is also the coordinator of the Women’s Studies Multimedia Studio and was a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar (2006-2007) and a visiting faculty in sound at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2004-2005). Her book, Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound, received the 2011 Pauline Alderman Book Award for outstanding scholarship on women in music from the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM). Rodgers’ current project is a feminist history of synthesized sound.

Professor Spencer Topel began 2013 in Copenhagen for a winter 2013 Danish International Visiting Artist (DIVA) residency to collaborate on a performance and sound installation series with the acclaimed Figura Ensemble. Digital musics faculty, Professor Larry Polansky and Professor Kui Dong, along with Professor Christian Wolff (former faculty), released a CD on Henceforth Records.

Professor Spencer Topel collaborated with studio art Professor Soo Sunny Park at deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Massachusetts to create this mesmerizing light-based sculpture and soundscape entitled Capturing Resonance.

In fall 2012, Nathan Davis, director of the Performance Laboratory in Contemporary Music, appeared as a concerto soloist with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ludovic Morlot, giving the world premiere of Dai Fujikura’s concerto, “Mina.”  As a percussionist in the International Contemporary Ensemble, he also performed at the Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna, inaugurated a new hall in Sonoma with John Adams, and premiered a new work by John Zorn in Berlin.  Also an active composer, Davis wrote music for Morningside Lights (commissioned by Columbia University’s Miller Theatre) and performed it in New York City, together with Dartmouth Contemporary Music Lab graduate students Ryan Maguire, Phillip Hermans, and Carlos Dominguez. Davis was also awarded a 2012 commission by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University and a recording grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

In January, Andrew Sarroff, technical director of the Bregman Music and Audio Research Studio (BMARS) received funding from the Neukom Institute for Computational Science for Dartmouth to host the two-day Northeast Music Informatics Special Interest Group (NEMESIG) 2012. Dozens of music information researchers attended and presented, and Frank Russo of Ryerson University in Toronto was the keynote speaker.

Alumni notes:

Paul Osetinsky is the chief technology officer of his new web company, Treatings, where he handles all of the coding. Treatings is a professional networking platform that makes it easy to propose informational meetings with people in local coffee shops and bars.

Beau Sievers’ (PhD student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences) recent study about the uniquely human capacity to feel emotion through music was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study found our cognitive connection to music may have evolved from an older skill, the ability to glean emotion from motion. People will choose the same combination of spatiotemporal features—a certain speed, rhythm, and smoothness—whether pairing a particular emotion with a melody or with a cartoon animation. But most surprising, the results held true in people from two starkly different cultures: a rural village in Cambodia and a college campus in New England.

Bruno Ruviaro has just started a new job as assistant professor of music at Santa Clara University in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he is in charge of developing a new electronic music program and also teaching composition and music theory. Starting in the spring of 2013, he will be directing the newly-formed Santa Clara University Laptop Orchestra.

Christian Jaksjø works as a trombonist in the Frankfurt Radio Jazz Orchestra in Germany, as well as serving as the chief editor of Lydskrift, a Norwegian periodical on art music. Recent compositions include a work for ring modulated electromechanically amplified piano and electronic sound, commissioned by the pianist Ellen Ugelvik and released on her recent CD, Serynade (catalog number, ACD5061).

Iroro Orife is a staff engineer at Dolby Laboratories in San Francisco, working on perceptual audio codecs and audio processing for mobile devices, while continuing to run his label, de’fchild productions, releasing underground dub, techno, and experimental vibes on 12-inch vinyl with parity in the online spaces.

In fall 2012, Tae Hong Park started his new, tenured post as associate professor at New York University. He also received the 2012 Regional International Computer Music Association (ICMA) Award at the 2012 International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) and survived Hurricane Sandy in New York City this year, after surviving Hurricane Katrina at Tulane University in New Orleans in 2005!

by Rebecca Fawcett 

On Saturday 12^th January President Elect Philip Hanlon, ’77, met with graduate students over coffee and doughnuts. Hanlon comes to Dartmouth from the University of Michigan, where he serves as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Michigan is one of the world’s top research universities, and his experiences bring great opportunities to Dartmouth Graduate Studies. Hanlon earned his Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth, and has been connected to the college ever since. His commitment to the institution brings great promise to inspire, administer, and realize Dartmouth’s strategic plan for the 21^st century.

Dean Kull introduced the President-Elect to a large group of our community, noting that he was  “someone who really gets what a research university is like. The search committee found the perfect person. I am enthusiastically looking forward to working with President Hanlon.” The President Elect then addressed the graduate students assembled, saying he was “excited to be back in the Dartmouth community and to help develop graduate programs here.” Hanlon then spent the better part of an hour taking the time to introduce himself and meet with graduate students.

The meeting was particularly fruitful for members of the Graduate Student Council, who were able to chat to the president about the issues they feel are important to our community. Hanlon expressed his desire to work with the GSC and the graduate community to make the Dartmouth an even more impressive place for research and study.

Speaking on meeting the President-Elect, MALS GSC representative Laurie Laker noted:

“It was a thrill to meet President-Elect Hanlon this past weekend at the graduate student reception. As a relatively new member of the Dartmouth community, I was pleased to see the President-Elect making the time to meet with members of the graduate student community. Despite having done his undergraduate study here, it was clear to me from our conversation that President-Elect Hanlon intends to put energy and time into the graduate student body, and he made it clear to us that we’re a valuable and vital part of this college. I’m eager to see the changes and choices that he makes during his tenure as President of the College.”

We look forward to working with President-Elect Hanlon in the future, and we’re excited about the possibilities for his time as President.