Departmental News 2006-2007

Arts and Sciences graduate students excelled in a variety of areas during the 2006-2007 academic year. Below is a listing of some of their notable achievements:

Art and Art History
Art and Art History graduate students presented their work at a number of conferences and meetings during the 2006-2007 academic year. Some of these events included the annual meeting of the Space Between Society (Annapolis, Maryland), the International Medieval Congress (Leeds, England), and the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association's Annual Conference (Bellingham, Washington).

Students in the department also received awards and other honors, the most notable being graduate student Ben Zweig who received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at Sweden's Uppsala University during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Biology
During the 2006-2007 academic year, five biology graduate students (Nicole Cyr, Molly Dickens, David DesRoches, Jocelyn Muller, and Randi Rotjan) received external funding to pursue their research. This funding came from, to name a few, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Switzer Foundation, and the Smithsonian.

Biology graduate students also made their mark outside of Tufts, evidenced by the articles they authored or co-authored (which appeared everywhere from the American Journal of Physiology to Science) and their participation in a number of domestic and international meetings and conferences. These meetings and conferences included the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America (San Jose, California), the International Society for Reef Studies European Meeting (Bremen, Germany), and the National Conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (Phoenix, Arizona).

Chemistry
Several chemistry graduate students received funding or other honors during the 2006-2007 academic year. For example, four students (Ashleigh Baber, Timothy Blicharz, Irene Li and Victoria Campbell) received Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowships, while another (Olena Rabotyagova) received research funding from the United States Air Force.

Along with the seven articles they authored or co-authored, graduate students in the department also delivered twenty-three presentations at conferences and meetings held throughout the world in 2006-2007. These events included, to name a few, the International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy (Columbus, Ohio), the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (Lausanne, Switzerland), the Gordon Conference (Ventura, California), and the JCF Fruehjahrs Symposium (Chemnitz, Germany).

Child Development
Graduate students in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development distinguished themselves in a number of different areas during the 2006-2007 academic year. Working with faculty and fellow students, they authored or co-authored thirty research-related articles which appeared in a variety of books, academic journals, and other publications, including Mind, Brain, and Education, the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, the Journal of Youth Development, and the recently published Encyclopedia of Human Development.

In addition, students in the department were a fixture at several domestic and international conferences and meetings—delivering thirty-five presentations at, among others, the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association (Chicago, Illinois), the European Society for Research in Developmental Psychology Conference (Jena, Germany), the International Conference on Adoption Research (Norwich, England), and the European Early Childhood Education Research Association Conference (Reyjavik, Iceland).

A number of child development graduate students also received funding and other recognition in 2006-2007, including Iris Ponte (who received a Fulbright scholarship to conduct research in China), Elizabeth Norton (the recipient of a 3-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship) and Michael Niewiecki, who received the "Wind Beneath Their Wings Award" from the Westborough, Massachusetts Special Education Parent Advisory Council (for his clinical and consultation work on behalf of young students with autism and emotional disorders in public schools).

Drama
During the 2006-2007 academic year, drama graduate students delivered twenty-two research-related presentations. These presentations took place at conferences and meetings within the United States and abroad, including the American Society for Theatre Research's annual conference (Chicago, Illinois), the International Federation of Theatre Research (IFTR) conference (Helsinki, Finland), and the Popular Culture Association/American Cultural Association Conference (Boston, Massachusetts).

In addition to their presentations, drama graduate students also published their work in several leading drama-related publications. Graduate students who published in 2006-2007 included Meron Langnser, whose articles were part of Text and Presentation, The Fight Master, and the Electronic Journals of Martial Arts and Sciences, and Virginia Anderson, whose review of the Beijing People's Art Theatre's production of "Teahouse" was included in Theatre Journal.

Also, graduate student Adrienne C. Macki recieved a $20,000 research fellowship from the American Association of University Women, as well as an $900 dissertation grant from the American Society of Theatre Research.

English
During the 2006-2007 academic year, Department of English graduate students received research-related support or awards from, among others, the Holocaust Educational Foundation (Emily King), the Graduate Institute for Teaching at Tufts (Ashley Shelden), and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (Abby Manzella).

Graduate students also delivered fourteen presentations at conferences and meetings, including the annual Modern Language Association Conference (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), the British Women Writer's Conference (Lexington, Kentucky), and the International Conference on Narrative (Ottawa, Ontario).

In addition, graduate students published articles in leading English-related publications such as the Sigma Tau Delta Review, Scribner's American Writers Series, and Literature Compass.

Mathematics
Graduate students in the Department of Mathematics presented their work at conferences, meetings, and other events over the course of the 2006-2007 academic year. Specifically, graduate student Erin Munro presented a poster at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (Boston, Massachusetts) and traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland to participate in the Organization for Computational Neurosciences Annual Meeting.

Outside the classroom, graduate student Malena Espanol interned at the software company Mathworks during the summer of 2006, and portions of the code she helped develop will be included in future releases of MATLAB, a leading computational software program. Espanol also co-authored an article which appeared in the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, and presented her research at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics in Zurich, Switzerland.

On the awards front, graduate students Jamison Wolf and Meredith Brown received financial support from the National Science Foundation to attend the International Levy Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark and Cristian Gonzalez Martinez was awarded a "Marie Curie, Early Stage Researcher" fellowship that allowed him to work in Oxford University's mathematics department during the summers of 2006 and 2007.

Music
The Department of Music said goodbye to several outstanding students who graduated from the master's only program in 2006-2007. Some of these former students, like Jiwon Chang and Beau Kenyon, are currently pursuing careers as music teachers at locations such as the St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island and the Kingsley Montessori School in Boston, Massachusetts. Three graduates (Julian Wason Cook, Maria Guarino, and Katie Stufflebeam) have continued their graduate studies as Ph.D. students at the University of Virginia (Cook and Guarino) and at UCLA (Stufflebeam), respectively.

Tufts chemistry professor and department chair Krishna Kumar was named one of the world's 100 Top Young Innovators by <em>Technology Review</em> for his cutting-edge research on proteins that may have many medical uses.

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The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and the School of Engineering research grants-in-aid program was launched in 2002 and has provided support to over 100 graduate student researchers since its inception. During the spring 2007 semester, 20 graduate students received grants-in-aid. The award winners came from 10 different departments and are researching everything from how children are affected emotionally by their favorite movies to the biophysical regulation of stem cells.

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<p>The Graduate Institute for Teaching (GIFT) offers specialized workshops on pedagogy for Arts, Sciences, and Engineering graduate students interested in pursuing careers in college or university teaching.</p>

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<a title="" href="http://gradstudy.tufts.edu/1176904808828/GradStudy-Page-gradstudy2ws_1176904810103.html">Learn more</a></p>

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The Graduate Student Council (GSC) was established in the late 1980s and provides a forum for graduate students across all the disciplines. Each year, the GSC hosts a graduate student research symposium, a Giving Tree program (which donates toys to anonymous local children in the Medford/Somerville area) and a 5k Run/Walk, an event which has raised over $35,000 for a variety of charitable causes.

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The ratio of students to faculty rarely exceeds 12-1 in any Arts and Sciences graduate program, supporting the growth of significant mentoring and collegial relationships between faculty and students.

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School of Arts and Sciences faculty wrote, edited, or contributed to more than 50 books published in 2006. Some of these works include: <em>Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice</em> (Julian Agyeman, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning), <em>Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon</em> (Daniel C. Dennett, Philosophy), <em>Handbook of Dynamical Systems 1B</em> (Boris Hasselblatt, Mathematics, co-editor with Anatole Katok), and <em>Chemistry for Engineers: An Applied Approach</em> (Mary Jane Shultz, Chemistry).

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In 2007, 16 occupational therapy graduate students traveled down to New Orleans to assist in the continuous recovery effort following Hurricane Katrina. The students, dubbed OT Gulf Support, traveled to New Orleans in 2006 as well.

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The Department of Education is helping meet the need for good urban teachers through its Urban Teaching Training Collaborative (UTTC). The program places education graduate students in Boston-area schools were they work closely with a mentor teacher.

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