July 2008

Dean Sapiro Encourages Incoming Students To Make the Most of Their University Experience

Getting a great college education is all about making choices, Dean Virginia Sapiro told incoming College of Arts & Sciences students at an orientation session on July 31.

“Today you will begin to make a very important choice,” she said. “In your life here at BU, will you choose to get a degree or will you choose to get an education? All of the resources for a great education lie before you.”

Sapiro encouraged incoming freshmen and transfer students to think about the impact they will have on their new community in addition to how the experience will change them. “You will change this place just as it changes you, because a university is its people—its students, faculty, and staff,” she said. “Any time in your life when you are a member of a community, your engagement will change that community. Choose to change it for the better.”

To get the most out of a BU education, Sapiro offered eight tips:

 • “Take responsibility for your education and your experience,” she said. “Think about what kind of person you want to be when you leave here, what kind of impact you want to have on the world, what kind of friends you want to carry with you when you leave.”

• “Get to know at least one professor well each year.” Sapiro pointed to research showing that getting to know just one professor makes a difference in a student’s academic success.

• “Every semester, decide whether you’re here to get an education or get a degree. If you’re here to get an education, you’ll get a degree, but if you are only here for the credential, you might miss important parts of the education.”

• “Seek out course work in an area in which you never imagined you’d be interested. This is part of the joy of being at a large university.”

• “Seek advice and take it. Work with faculty and your advisors.”

• “Learn from each other. The quality of your education will depend almost as much on your interactions with other students as it will on your interactions with professors.”

• “Take advantage of this campus and this city. Boston offers a richness of culture and communities. Get out there and discover it.”

• “Understand that as you begin your life at Boston University, you will be a part of the community for the rest of your life—now as a student, later as a member of a wonderful world-wide community of alumni.”

Dean Sapiro Speaks at Political Studies Association Annual Conference
Dean Virginia Sapiro was a guest speaker at the Political Studies Association's 58th Annual Conference, “Democracy, Governance, and Conflict: Dilemmas of Theory and Practice,” in Swansea, Wales. Her talk, “Revisiting Women, Governance, and Conflict,” examined how the world of gender and politics has changed in the past 27 years. In particular, Sapiro reflected on her article, “When Are Interests Interesting? The Problem of Political Representation of Women,” which she wrote in 1981 for the American Political Science Review. view video >>

June 2008

CAS Computer Science Professor Shenghua Teng Lands Prestigious Gödel Prize
Professor Shang-Hua Teng, professor of Computer Science, will be honored with the prestigious Gödel Prize for outstanding papers in theoretical computer science. Together with long-time collaborator and friend Daniel A. Spielman, a Yale University professor of applied mathematics and computer science, Teng won the award for his research in developing a rigorous framework to explain the practical success of algorithms on real data and real computers that could not be easily understood through traditional techniques. The Association for Computing Machinery and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science present the award each year. Teng will travel to Reykjavik, Iceland, next month to receive the prize at the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming. more >>

James Winn Named Director of Boston University Humanities Foundation
James Winn, professor of English and former chair of the English Department, will serve as the next director of the Boston University Humanities Foundation (BUHF), effective Sept. 1. He succeeds Katherine O’Connor, professor of Russian Studies, who will continue her association with the foundation as co-director. Dr. Winn brings a wealth of knowledge in the arts and humanities to his new post. His scholarly work combines a commitment to the literature of England in the Restoration and early eighteenth century with a broad interest in the relationship between literature and other arts. “I am honored to have been chosen to lead the Boston University Humanities Foundation,” Dr. Winn said. “I am eager to begin working with my colleagues to make it a vibrant center for interdisciplinary activities."
more >>

CAS Professor Barbara Shinn-Cunningham Selected for National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows Program
CAS Professor Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, director of graduate studies in the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, has been selected as one of six distinguished university faculty scientists and engineers for the inaugural class of the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows (NSSEFF) Program in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

The NSSEFF Program will provide top-tier researchers from U.S. universities up to $3 million of direct research support for up to five years to conduct long-term, unclassified research of strategic importance to future DoD technology development. The basic research in core science and engineering disciplines is crucial to applications such as sensors, surveillance, information security, cyber and force protection, and power projection.

Shinn-Cunningham was chosen in a rigorous selection process. Nearly 150 academic institutions submitted more than 500 nominations for the fellowship. Following review of 350 technical white papers, only 20 semifinalists were invited to submit full proposals outlining their research plans. Upon completion of negotiations between academic institutions and DoD research offices, the grants will be made to the faculty members’ home institutions to support their research.

"This award will allow us to learn to read from neural signals how listeners control auditory attention,” says Shinn-Cunningham. “This work is important for applications from command and control—like helping an air traffic controller cope with processing the heavy flow of information—to hearing-aid design. I am thrilled by this award and the opportunities it will enable.”

April 2008

Boston University Mock Trial team which competed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the National Championships received a trophy for achieving tenth place
The members of the team are: Dannielle Perry and Stella Lee, captains, Natalie Robinson, Zach Mason, Eric Muller, Morgan Szulewski-Francis, Katie Laux, Alex Fennell.
Natalie Robinson was designated All-American status as an attorney and Morgan Szulewski-Francis was designated All-American status as a witness. They each received a plaque in recognition of their achievements. Stella Lee, Dannielle Perry, Eric Muller and Morgan Szulewski-Francis are seniors at the College of Arts and Sciences.

Assistant Professor Sigrun Olafsdottir wins Esther Kinsley PhD Dissertation Award from Indiana University for 2007-2008
Assistant Professor Sigrun Olafsdottir, who joined the CAS faculty in Sociology in September, 2007, has won major recognition from Indiana University, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2007.  Her dissertation, Medicalizing Mental Health:  A Comparative View of the Public, Private, and Professional Construction of Mental Illness, has been selected as the winner of the Esther Kinsley PhD Dissertation Award for 2007-2008.  This is the highest honor for research that Indiana University bestows upon its graduate students.  Her colleagues here salute her high achievement.

Prof. Olafsdottir is continuing her exploration of health care in varied global contexts and is an important contributor to the strength of the Department and the University in understanding global health issues.

Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor Barbara Shinn-Cunningham is semi-finalist for the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowships

Hymns, Hip-Hop, and Harmony more >>

CAS Student Mobilizes Health Care Volunteers for Honduras more >>

CAS Professor of Economics Randall Ellis named president-elect of the American Society of Health Economists more >>

March 2008

CAS Physics News:

• Professor El-Batanouny Wins Jefferson Fellowship more >>
• Grad Student Wins APS GIMS Travel Grant more >>
• Professor Redner Among APS Outstanding Referees more >>

Boston University Awarded Beckman Scholars Program Grant
The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation received many applications for evaluation as potential Beckman Scholars Program award recipients. The challenge of narrowing the field for phase two of the competition only hinted at the challenge of selecting our finalists.
Of the thirty-five final applications, fifteen were selected for funding. A twelve-member advisory panel of distinguished teacher/scholars made a thorough, collective recommendation to the Foundation's Board of Directors of those institutions to receive a 2008 Beckman Scholars Award. Boston University was among those selected for funding.

CAS mock trial team wins Boston Regional competition
CAS mock trial team wins the Boston Regional competition and will be competing in the National Championships in Minneapolis-St.Paul from April 3rd to April 6th, 2008.

February 2008

Honorable Mention, 2007 Award for Best Professional/Academic Book in Sociology and Social Work
CAS Professor, Kevin Lang (Department of Economics), Poverty and Discrimination, Princeton University Press.

Seymour Wang receives CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation more >>

Pinghua Liu receives CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation more >>

Linda Doerrer receives New Directions Grant from the ACS Petroleum Research Fund more >>

January 2008

Ellis to Lead American Society of Health Economists
Professor Randall Ellis is the new president-elect of the American Society of Health Economists, a professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence in health economics research in the United States. According to Kevin Lang, chair of the Economics Department, "This a great honor which reflects not only Randy's important research contributions to health economics but the very significant role he has played in mentoring young health economists at BU and elsewhere and developing the human capital of the sub-discipline." Ellis will serve for two years as president-elect, two as
president and two as immediate past president.

Boston Playwrights' Theatre Tops Best-Of Lists
Critics from the Boston Globe and Metro Boston ranked Boston Playwrights' Theatre's production of Leslie Epstein's King of the Jews at or near the top of their year-end roundups of the best theater in Boston in 2007. The production, adopted from the novel by Epstein, who is the director of BU's Creative Writing Program, ranked second on Louise Kennedy's list in the Globe and first on the Metro's Nick Dussault's list of his three favorite shows of the year. In other news, the BPT is preparing for its annual Young Playwrights' Festival in April. Under the umbrella of the Massachusetts Young Playwrights Project, participating Massachusetts high schools (probably 12 this year) receive a two-day residency, during which each student will write and develop a ten-minute play under the guidance of a professional playwright. Two plays from each school will be performed by professional actors at the annual festival, set for this April 9 and 10 at the Playwrights' Theatre. Meanwhile, the BPT's next production, Melinda Lopez's Gary, opens February 28.

Hefner to Lead Association for Asian Studies
Professor of Anthropology Robert Hefner has been elected as president of the Association for Asian Studies. The AAS is the major social science and humanities organization dealing with Asian Studies. Hefner was chosen through a general election by the entire membership, more than 7,000 scholars worldwide.

National Jewish Book Award Honors for Katz
Two edited collections by Steven Katz, the director of BU's Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, have won significant distinction from the Jewish Book Council. The Cambridge History of Judaism Volume IV: The Late Roman-Rabinic Period received the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in the reference category. Wrestling with God: Jewish Theological Responses During and After the Holocaust (co-edited with Homo Biderman and Gershon Greenberg) was selected out of many submissions as a finalist for the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in the anthologies and collections category. The National Jewish Book Awards are the longest running North American awards of their kind in the field of Jewish literature and recognized as the most prestigious. Katz is the Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Professor in Jewish Holocaust Studies and a professor of religion. Katz will be honored at an awards ceremony on March 4 at the Center for Jewish History in New York City.

Nature Cover Features BU Physics Alum more >>

BU Makes List of 2007's Top 10 Physics Stories
The American Institute of Physics has released its Top 10 Physics Stories of 2007, and BU has made the list with the work of Professor Ulrich Heintz and his research group at Fermilab's Tevatron collider, the world’s highest energy accelerator. Heintz is currently leading the top physics analysis group at the DZero experiment, and the BU group has worked directly on the evidence for single top quark production (Dr. Shabnam Jabeen), top-antitop production (Dr. DooKee Cho) and on the measurement of the top quark mass (graduate students Dan Boline and Vivek Parihar). Learn more about the DZero experiment here.

Kunz Honored for Lifetime Achievement
Professor of Biology Thomas Kunz has received the 2008 Karst Waters Institute (KWI) Award, which honors lifetime achievement in karst studies. Kunz, director of BU's Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, will be recognized by the karst research and conservation community at a banquet in March at the State University of New York, Cobbleskill. ("Karst" is a special type of landscape that is formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks, including limestone and dolomite; karst regions contain aquifers that are capable of providing large supplies of water. More than 25 percent of the world's population either lives on or obtains its water from karst aquifers.) At the award ceremony, Kunz will give an illustrated talk entitled "Captivated by Caves and Consumed by the Chiroptera; My Life From the Underground to the Aerosphere," in which he'll share his early experiences rappelling into, wading neck deep in water, and crawling around inside the caves of Missouri, and how those adventures stimulated his lifelong interest in bats.

Wiseman Receives Gold Medal from AIA
Professor James Wiseman will receive the 2008 Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) at its annual meeting on January 4, 2008. The AIA is the largest archaeological organization in North America and the principal professional organization for classical and Mediterranean archaeologists. The Gold Medal, called a "once-in-a-lifetime award" by Professor Ricardo Elia, chair of BU's Archaeology Department, recognizes a senior scholar who has made distinguished contributions to archaeology through his or her fieldwork, publications, and/or teaching. Learn about Professor Wiseman's research here.

November 2007

BU Climbs in London Times Rankings
The London Times Educational Supplement, in its 2007 rankings of the world's top 200 universities, has moved Boston University up to 47th on its list, from 66th last year. This impressive showing places BU 19th among U.S. universities. Read more on the Times site (login required to view rankings); download a PDF of the Times' Top 200 Universities.

Faculty Productivity Distinguishes BU, CAS in National Index more >>

Minding Her Business
Economics and mathematics major Jalpa Bhavsar was a member of the winning team in the Simon Graduate School Early Leaders Case Competition, held November 9-10 at the University of Rochester. She was also voted Most Valuable Player by her team. The Early Leaders Case Competition brings current undergraduate students to Rochester to compete in a business case competition designed to simulate decisions faced by business leaders across the globe. Once on Simon's campus, participants are divided into teams, and players face tight deadline requirements under which they must display considerable creativity and problem-solving skills. Each team provides a case analysis and recommendations to a panel of judges comprising Simon School professors and alumni who evaluate the teams based on the originality of the proposed solution, the depth and insightfulness of analysis, and the relevance of the presentation. In this year's competition, the students were given a Harvard Business School case on how Ikea, a large retail store, should further its growth strategies. Jalpa shares the $7,000 first place prize with her teammates (two from Rochester, one from SUNY Brockport, and one from Columbia).

Econometric Society Welcomes Perron
Professor of Economics Pierre Perron has become a fellow of the Econometric Society, the most prestigious learned society in economics, with world-wide membership. Fellowship in the society, which is dedicated to advancing economic theory in its relation to statistics and mathematics, is an honor that is highly valued in the field. Perron is co-editor of the Econometrics Journal.

AAAS Fellowship for Two
Professor of Psychology Howard Eichenbaum and Research Professor of Earth Sciences Maureen Raymo have been elected as fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's leading general scientific society (and publisher of Science magazine.) They and other new fellows will be recognized for their contributions to science and technology at the Fellows Forum to be held on February 16, 2008, during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

Honored Internationally
Two recent honors for members of the Department of International Relations: Ambassador Husain Haqqani delivered the 2007-2008 Kleh Family Foundation Distinguished Lecture, Pakistan, speaking on "The West's Troubled & Troubling Ally," on October 25 at Two Temple Place in London. And Visiting Professor Carlos Blanco has been awarded the Order of the Maracaibo Lake (1st class) of the State of Zulia in the Republic of Venezuela.

October 2007

A Philosophical Exploration of What It Means to Forgive
Using examples from throughout history, from Achilles to South Africa's apartheid era, Professor of Pilosophy Charles Griswold examines the process of forgiving in his new book, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration, published in September by Cambridge University Press. more >>

DOE Upward Bound Math Science Grant for Goldberg and BU
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Boston University a five-year, $1.25 million Upward Bound Math Science grant to help low-income and first-generation college-bound students prepare to succeed in college-level math and science. Bennett Goldberg, chair of the Department of Physics, is co-principal investigator. more >>

BU's Ambitious Long-Range Plan Features Key Role for Arts and Sciences more >>

A Career on the Rise
Carrie Preston, assistant professor of women’s studies and English, has been honored with one of three University-wide Peter Paul Career Development Professorships. These professorships are awarded competitively for a three-year term to faculty members in the first two years of their appointment to BU. As created by alumnus and trustee Peter T. Paul, they support the research and scholarship of excellent young faculty early in their careers. Preston received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Her research and teaching interests include women’s literature and performance, modernism/postmodernism, feminist theory, gender studies, silent film, and dance. Her work on Isadora Duncan and modernist performance has appeared in Modernism/Modernity and Theatre Journal. Her book, Solo Performance: A New Genealogy of Women’s Modernism, is nearing completion. This year she also won a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to conduct research in Dublin on the dance plays of W .B. Yeats and performance in James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Teaching Honors for the Dean
Dean Virginia Sapiro has been recognized by Pi Sigma Alpha (the National Political Science Honor Society) and the American Political Science Association for Outstanding Teaching in Political Science.

Outstanding Contribution to Physics
Professor H. Eugene Stanley is the 2008 recipient of the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize from the American Physical Society. The prize, recognizing a most outstanding contribution to physics, consists of $10,000 (donated to Boston University), a certificate citing the contributions made by the recipient, and expenses to cover the three lectures that the recipient will give at an APS meeting, a research university, and a predominantly undergraduate institution. Stanley won the award for his research in understanding the 64 anomalies of liquid water in a coherent "physical" fashion via the new concept of a liquid-liquid (as opposed to a liquid-gas) critical point. This work was performed by Gene and his colleagues, visitors, and graduate students in the Physics Department at Boston University.

September 2007

New NSF Grant Aims to Bring the Internet to the Disabled
Professor of Computer Science Margrit Betke was recently awarded a three-year National Science Foundation grant entitled "Intelligent Interfaces to Empower People with Disabilities to Participate in the Information Society," in the amount of $386K. The award will support Betke's work on developing camera-based interfaces for individuals who suffer from extreme paralysis. The goal is to provide these people with full access to the Internet's various media -- for example, giving them the ability to browse the Web, post messages, or email friends -- and thereby enhance their emotional well-being and alleviate the frustration caused by limited access. A full abstract of the award is available on the NSF web site.

New Partnership, New Scholarships
Professor Stan Sclaroff, chair of the Department of Computer Science, has announced a new partnership with Transition Consulting Limited (TCL), whereby TCL will offer three scholarships, each lasting one year, at $2,600 per student. The primary goal of this scholarship program is to promote awareness of TCL and modern software testing methods. The scholarships will be offered to any student with a major in Computer Science who will be enrolled for the forthcoming academic year. In addition to the scholarship money, winners will be offered the opportunity of taking a summer internship with TCL, although winners are not obliged to take an internship. Read the announcement here. Read a press release from TCL here.

Women’s Studies Program to Host International Project on
Gender and Development more >>

Exploring the Sociology of Mental Illness more >>

Big Honors for Small Linguistics Group
Two of the three linguists in the Linguistics section of the new Department of Romance Studies have won major National Science Foundation grants in recent months. Earlier this year Jonathan Barnes was awarded an NSF grant for his work on a project exploring the “Prosody of American English.” The latest NFS winner is Carol Neidle, who, with Computer Science chair Stan Slcaroff and Vassilis Athitsos (GRS’06), now an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, is at work on a project titled “Large Lexicon Gesture Representation, Recognition, and Retrieval.” The grant will support research on computer-based recognition of ASL signs. more >>

Religion Blogs
BU's Religion Department is all over the Washington Post/Newsweek blog On Faith these days. Religion faculty Stephen Prothero, Paula Fredriksen, Elie Wiesel, and Donna Freitas are all panelists, part of an eclectic and highly distinguished group of scholars, journalists, and religious leaders from all traditions. And CAS junior and religion major Shari Rabin is a student panelist for the blog's student-directed Faithbook section. Here first post is here.

And More on Religion . . .
Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn’t, by Religion Department chair Stephen Prothero, has won a 2007 Quill Book Award in the category of Religion/Spirituality, as announced on the Today show on September 10. The Quills are a "consumer's choice" awards program for books, supported by NBC and Reed Business Information. They celebrate the best adult and children's books of the year in 19 popular categories. You can vote for Prothero's book as the Quills Book of the Year here; the winner will be announced on October 22. And read Bostonia's article about Prothero's work here.

CNS's Carpenter Wins IEEE Pioneer Award
Professor Gail Carpenter of the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems has won this year's IEEE Neural Networks Pioneer Award of the IEEE Computational Intelligence
Society. This is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of neuromorphic technology. Carpenter is the director of BU's CELEST Technology Lab and is a leader in the field of neuromorphic technology. She is the first woman ever to have received this award. The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology.

Political Science Honors
Recent news from the 2007 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, held August 30-September 2 in Chicago: Two members of BU's Department of Political Science garnered accolades. Professor John Gerring served as the focus of an "Author Meets Critics" roundtable, in which a distinguished panel discussed his book Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Gerring also chaired a roundtable on "Experiments, Natural Experiments, and the Comparative Study of Institutions." And Assistant Professor Douglas Kriner was presented the CQ Press Award for the best paper in the Legislative Studies Division given at the 2006 APSA Meeting. The paper is titled, “Hail to the Chief: Two Mechanisms of Congressional Influence Over Presidential War-Making.”

Three ACLS Awards for English
Three faculty members from the English Department are the recipients of rigorously competitive fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the preeminent representative of humanities scholarship in America. Professor William Carroll will use his fellowship to complete work on “The Tragedy of Succession: Shakespeare in History,” which engages Shakespearean drama in the context of the central political issue of early modern England—the theory and practice of monarchical succession. Professor James Winn will continue his broad study of early-eighteenth century British culture, a project entitled “Queen Anne Style: An Interdisciplinary History of British Culture, 1702-1714,” which explores the period’s tendency to read all the arts politically. Assistant Professor Maurice Lee, recipient of the ACLS’s Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship for junior faculty, is conducting research for a book project titled “Chance, Skepticism, and Belief in Nineteenth-Century American Literature,” which will show how changing concepts of chance shape literary encounters with skepticism in the work of Poe, Thoreau, Douglass, Melville, and Dickinson.

BU's Creative Writing Program: In the Top 10
The August issue of Atlantic Monthly contained an interesting article and an Arts and Sciences boost: “Where Great Writers are Made: Assessing America’s Top Graduate Writing Programs,” which explored the challenges that prestigious programs have had in staying prestigious, important, and well-funded. Boston University’s Creative Writing Program makes the magazine’s list of the Ten Top Graduate Programs in Creative Writing. BU is also on top-five lists for notable alumni and best faculty.

CAS to Debut New Eatery in Basement
The College of Arts and Sciences will unveil a new full-service eatery in the basement this October, following a summer-long renovation of the formerly dark and gloomy vending area. Einstein Bros. Bagels will anchor the space, serving breakfast and deli sandwiches, paninis, salads, and, of course, fresh bagels and coffee from early morning to 8 p.m. The space, with wireless internet connection, central air conditioning, and a modern decor, will be glassed-off from the corridor outside. Seating options will include booths, tables, and tall chairs at a bar that will run along the window that looks out onto the hallway and computer kiosks opposite.

Why We Need Liberal Arts: BU Today Chats with Dean Sapiro
part one >>
part two >>

Summer 2007

Two New Departments Take Place of MFLL more>>

Dean Sapiro Offers 8 Steps to "Graduating Well" more >>

Virginia Sapiro named Dean of Arts and Sciences more >>

CAS Biology Professor Wins 2007 Metcalf Award more >>

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