News Releases - 2008

May 9, 2008

The topic of sustainability usually involves preserving the Earth and its natural resources through technology and science. ASU’s Institute for Humanities Research in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is taking a different route to examine this topic by hosting two art exhibitions that fuse the humanities and sustainability. The exhibitions explore the relationship between human beings and nature and propose solutions within existing cultural structures. “Sustainability and the Visual Arts” was on display last semester. “Between Two Worlds: Art by Melanie Yazzie” is currently on display.

May 7, 2008

ASU's Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies will implement a “Kids Voting” program in the world's newest state, Kosova.

Funded by a three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. State Department’s Division of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, ASU’s Melikian Center, in collaboration with the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED), will pilot the Kids Voting program in southeastern Europe.

May 6, 2008

The ASU forensics team finished sixth out of 88 U.S. schools at the National Forensics Association Championships Tournament held in April in Nashville, Tenn. Fifteen undergraduate team members competed in at least three events, each being qualified throughout the year at regular season tournaments. ASU Forensics is the oldest student organization at ASU, dating back to 1885. The team has been in the top 10 since 1992 at national tournaments held by the American Forensics Association and National Forensics Association.

May 6, 2008

Two faculty members in ASU’s Department of Speech and Hearing Science and a faculty member in the Mary Lou Fulton College of Education has been awarded a $1.6 million grant to develop a Spanish language screening measure to identify children at risk for language impairment. The four-year grant has been funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences. The hope is to develop a universal screening tool for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students across the United States and for speech-language pathologists to assess first- through-second-grade students who have been referred by teachers, physicians or parents.

May 2, 2008

For most people, including many of the nearly 5 million annual visitors to the Grand Canyon, the geological icon in northern Arizona is a striking landscape – a majestic and physical place of wonderment. But an ASU team of educators, comprised of graduate students and faculty members from the history department and graduate students from the School of Geographical Sciences, are out to deepen that perspective with a new interpretation of the Grand Canyon’s human history.

May 2, 2008

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, who has been at ASU since 1999, is a professor and associate chair in the history department. In the director’s position, she will hold the Irving and Miriam Lowe Professorship in Modern Jewish Studies and will remain an active member of the history department. In sharing her vision with members of the faculty and the community, Tirosh-Samuelson says that Jewish Studies at ASU will focus on research, teaching and community outreach.

May 2, 2008

In some families, the motto is “never discuss religion or politics.” But at ASU’s Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, which opened its doors in January 2003, the rule is “discuss religion and politics.” Unique among public universities in the United States, the center was founded to explore the complex roles of religion in contemporary global conflicts from the civil to the violent.

May 2, 2008

Accomplished poet and literary critic T.R. Hummer is leading two major creative writing efforts at ASU. He is director of ASU’s top-ranked creative writing program, and, since last fall, director of domestic initiatives for the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Hummer has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, the Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence, and two Pushcart Prizes.

May 2, 2008

Nearly five years ago, the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing was established with a mission to elevate the creative writing program at ASU to national and international prominence, and to enhance the region’s cultural environment. This past year, the center expanded its global focus, providing more than half of the graduate creative writing students with fully funded international opportunities, something no other university in the country is offering at this time.

May 2, 2008

Should you notice, or shouldn’t you? In a “colorblind” society, a black actor cast as Macbeth should not turn heads. The audience has come to enjoy a theater classic that is touted, like the rest of Shakespeare’s works, as a “universal play with timeless themes.” Whether the actor is black, white, Asian or Native American should not make any difference. But it’s not as simple as that, says Ayanna Thompson, an assistant professor of English and women and gender studies. In “Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance,” which she edited in 2006, Thompson says that “the universality and timelessness of the Bard’s works are often tested when actors of color are involved.”

May 2, 2008

A little more than three years ago, leaders at Arizona State University empowered a group of faculty members from the Department of Languages and Literatures and other units to plan a new school that would preserve and enhance a traditional education in language, literature and culture while at the same time providing the opportunity for students to embark upon an innovative, transdisciplinary learning experience. After months of collaborative effort by dozens of ASU faculty members and final approval by the Arizona Board of Regents, the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC) replaced the Department of Languages and Literatures in the summer of 2007.

May 2, 2008

The Institute for Humanities Research is a gateway for collaboration, bringing together scholars from across disciplines who are interested in exploring today’s most important issues from humanistic perspectives. Through the institute, faculty members and students conduct advanced research to address the world’s social, cultural, technological and scientific challenges through a humanities lens. The institute supports scholars in traditional humanities disciplines as well as faculty in non-traditional fields who approach their research from a humanities perspective. One of more than 20 research centers and institutes in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the institute provides several funding opportunities.

May 2, 2008

Mark von Hagen, a historian specializing in the Russian empire, Ukraine and the borderlands of eastern Europe, is wrapping up his first year as chair of the ASU Department of History. He came to Arizona after spending more than 22 years at Columbia University where he was chair of the history department and director of the Harriman Institute. At ASU von Hagen is focusing on the current strengths of the department as well as developing the fields of comparative and global history. In a wide-ranging interview, von Hagen reflects on aspects of the history department and his role in shaping its future.

May 2, 2008

In elementary and high school classrooms in the Deer Valley Unified School District, teachers are educating their students about America’s history, culture and the democratic process with new knowledge and skills acquired through a Teaching American History program. Under this professional development program, the Arizona State University Department of History is partnering with the Deer Valley district and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to improve public school teachers’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of American history.

May 2, 2008

"Arizona State University offers a core of humanities disciplines that explore culture, language, philosophy, history, around the topics of sustainability, religion and conflict, and aesthetics and the media," writes Deborah Losse, dean of humanities, in a first-person story that appeared in the May 2 edition of the newspaper ASU Insight. "Our faculty in the humanities focuses on the ability to probe fundamental issues dealing with cultural identity, geographic provenance and the historic setting in time and place," she notes in the story.

May 2, 2008

As ASU emerges as a comprehensive knowledge enterprise committed to discovery, creativity and innovation, the humanities are playing a vital role in that mission. “No university can achieve greatness without a strong core in the humanities,” says ASU President Michael Crow. “You need the study of languages, culture, clarity of expression, philosophy, religions and history in order to create a literate citizen.

May 2, 2008

More than 2,030 students are scheduled to graduate from ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences May 8. Among them, 1,820 will earn bachelor’s degrees, 135 will earn master’s degrees and 83 will earn doctoral or terminal degrees. “We literally are educating students for jobs not yet conceived, using technologies not yet invented, to solve problems not yet known,” says Quentin Wheeler, ASU vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “No preparation for the future could be more appropriate than the liberal arts and sciences.”

May 2, 2008

From teachers using Japanese comic books in the classroom to “green” advertising to a controversial moment in the history of the American Revolution revisited through a gender lens, students majoring in the humanities study unusual and interesting topics with funding from a Sun Angel Foundation research award. Stefanie Craig, Kendra Kennedy and Ginger Hanson are the 2007-2008 recipients of the Sun Angel Excellence in the Humanities Research Scholarship. The scholarship provides undergraduate students in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences a chance to pursue a research project related to their majors and also their personal interests.

May 1, 2008

Five undergraduate students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – all juniors – have earned prestigious national scholarships for sophisticated research, leadership and activism. Devin Mauney won a Truman Scholarship, the nation's highest undergraduate leadership award. Bryan Rolfe, Lara Cardy and Charlene Bashore won Goldwater Scholarships, the nation's premier awards for undergraduates studying science, math and engineering. And, Garth Baughman won a Morris K. Udall Scholarship.

May 1, 2008

Internationally renowned scholars Rebecca Dobash, professor of social research, and Russell Dobash, professor of criminology and social policy at the School of Law, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, have joined the School of Justice and Social Inquiry as permanent Visiting Distinguished Professors. Together the Dobashes have published eight internationally award winning books and more than 100 articles and book chapters in the areas of domestic violence, gender and crime. The Dobashes will spend several weeks in residence at ASU the spring term of each year. Their appointment with the school represents a homecoming for them as both received their bachelor's and master's degrees from ASU prior to completing their doctorates in sociology at Washington State University.

May 1, 2008

Students looking to get a head start on their college degree, or just get ahead, can choose from more than 400 summer classes – online and on campus – offered by ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. More than 120 summer classes are offered online.

April 29, 2008

Two Arizona State University professors – Luc Anselin, founding director of the School of Geographical Sciences, and Edward Prescott, Regents’ Professor and Nobel Laureate – have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. They join eight other ASU faculty members in the Academy, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advises the federal government on matters of science or technology. Anselin, who joined ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences last July, also serves as director of the GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation, a new ASU research unit devoted to the development, implementation and application of state-of-the-art methods of geospatial analysis to policy issues in the social and environmental sciences.

April 27, 2008

ASU’s academic team competed fearlessly this weekend in the College Bowl National Championship Tournament winning nine out of 15 rounds and finishing seventh in overall standings. The ASU team, from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, won the regional tournament that advanced them to the national competition. Team captain Carlos Ross was named one of the tournament’s eight All-Stars, with a 46.79 average in points per game.

April 23, 2008

Ten outstanding undergraduate students are recipients of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences student awards. The annual awards recognize student achievement, leadership and overcoming challenges. Among this year’s recipients students were singled out for their study of international conflict relations, educating people of the Philippines about HIV and AIDs, and advocating for students’ rights.

April 17, 2008

A pair of unarmed UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters made two trips to the ASU Tempe campus April 17 to pick up Army ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) cadets who are participating in a joint field training exercise in Flagstaff through the weekend. The pair of helicopters were on the ground for about three minutes, first at 9 a.m. and then again at noon, as 20 cadets jump aboard with their gear. The scenario is scheduled to play out in reverse on Sunday, April 20, when cadets, returning from their field exercises, will disembark from the helicopters at 10 a.m. and again at 1 p.m.

April 16, 2008

There might be nothing more important in education than a strong foundation in literacy, and the ASU English Club is doing its part to spread love for reading and writing to young students. Club members, who are undergraduate English majors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – take their love of English into the community, by volunteering at Scottsdale-based All-Star Kids Tutoring.

April 15, 2008

English education professor James Blasingame took home the ASU Parents Association’s 2008 Professor of the Year award at a ceremony April 14. A former high school English teacher who pursued his doctoral degree after nearly 20 years of K-12 teaching, Blasingame was chosen out of 30 other professors who were nominated this year by their colleagues, students and staff. Blasingame has been with the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences since 2000, and he inspires future English teachers of America with his enthusiastic spirit – and his emphasis on community outreach.

April 15, 2008

The Webby Awards, the leading international honor for the Web, cited “Planet Bob” as an Official Honoree, a distinction that recognizes work exhibiting remarkable achievement. “Planet Bob,” a joint video production from ASU’s International Institute for Species Exploration and Media Alchemy, Inc., uses humor to draw attention to the serious subject of biodiversity and the science of taxonomy. Combining live action, state-of-the-art animation, and the vocal talents of venerable TV host Hugh Downs and others, “Planet Bob” presents the mysterious, exciting – and surprisingly funny – side of taxonomy.

April 14, 2008

Electric-acoustic stimulation research by an ASU professor could help discover important acoustic cues used to improve the hearing of certain profoundly hearing-impaired people. Professor Sid P. Bacon, dean of natural sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was recently awarded a National Institutes of Health grant – $1.1 million over three years – that will contribute to his ongoing research into electric-acoustic stimulation, or EAS.

April 10, 2008

The public is invited to the International Wine and Beer Festival hosted by the Alumni Leadership Council of ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The annual event, now in its ninth year, benefits alumni scholarship endowments. It will be held from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. April 26 on the lawn between Old Main and the Piper Writers House at ASU’s Tempe campus.

April 8, 2008

Doris Marshall, who has been proactive in addressing racial and ethnic tensions among the elderly for more than 25 years, is this year's recipient of Arizona State University's A. Wade Smith Community Award for Advancement of Race Relations. In her role as deputy director for the Phoenix Human Services Department Senior Services Division, Marshall oversees the operation of 17 senior centers that provide support to more than 3,000 people from different racial and ethnic groups.

March 26, 2008

Four graduate students from ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration were honored with Outstanding Student Paper Awards for their presentations at the 2007 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. Kevin Eagar, Kimberly Genareau, Nicholas Schmerr and Olaf Zielke were each recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters at the conference.

March 25, 2008

Melissa Pritchard, a professor of English and women's studies, has been awarded the highly competitive 2008 Hawthornden International Writing Fellowship, Scotland. As a Hawthornden Fellow, Pritchard will spend a month’s residency in Hawthornden Castle, Midlothian, Scotland.

March 25, 2008

Gro Amdam, associate professor in the School of Life Sciences at ASU, has been awarded two grants totaling the U.S. equivalent of about $1.4 million from the Norwegian Research Council to investigate biochemical factors and social life history properties that can influence aging and longevity in honeybees.

March 24, 2008

T.M. McNally has been named a finalist for the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. McNally, a professor of English and creative writing in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, was cited for his collection of short stories titled “The Gateway: Stories.” He earned his master of fine arts degree at ASU in 1987 and worked in Europe and other parts of the United States before joining the ASU faculty in 1999. “Professor McNally’s achievement in being named a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award is both a recognition of his national reputation in the field of creative writing as well as an indication of the quality of ASU’s creative writing program,” said Deborah Losse, dean of humanities.

March 21, 2008

When the field of intercultural communication started in the early 1970s, Nemi Jain was one of its pioneers. Now, after spending a lifetime teaching students about communicating across cultures, Jain, a professor in ASU’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, is retiring. “I have taught at five universities for 45 years and I want to put some of that knowledge to work,” says Jain, whose research has focused on Mahatma Gandhi’s approach to non-violence through communicative silence.

March 20, 2008

Scientists using a Mars-orbiting camera designed and operated at ASU’s Mars Space Flight Facility have found the first evidence for deposits of chloride minerals – salts – in numerous places on Mars. These deposits, say the scientists, show where water was once abundant and may also provide evidence for the existence of former Martian life.

March 18, 2008

Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. will present “Race, Politics and the Drama of Obama” for the 2008 A. Wade Smith Memorial Lecture on Race Relations at Arizona State University. The lecture will be at 7 p.m. April 7 in Gammage Auditorium on ASU’s Tempe campus. The lecture is free and open to the public, though tickets are required and available online at clas.asu.edu/smithlecture or at ASU Bookstores. Additional information is available at ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, 480-965-1441.

March 13, 2008

Billie Lee Turner, a national leader in sustainability science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is joining ASU as the inaugural Gilbert F. White Chair in Environment and Society in the School of Geographical Sciences. Turner’s study of the causes of land change and land management decisions and their environmental impacts in both ancient and modern contexts “makes him one of the pioneers of the new interdisciplinary efforts toward establishing a land change science,” says Luc Anselin, founding director of ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

March 5, 2008

The Grand Canyon will be experiencing a spring of yesteryear, as water flow rates from the Glen Canyon Dam will be significantly increased, then throttled back in a high-flow experiment that runs March 4 through 9. The result will be a controlled swelling of downstream canyon waters. For Mark Schmeeckle, an ASU assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences who studies the physics of river flow and turbulence, the exercise will help fine tune three-dimensional computer models that predict how sand bars are rebuilt as a result of water flows through the canyon.

March 3, 2008

Richard Dawkins, a renowned evolutionary biologist and popular science writer, will deliver this year’s BEYOND lecture, based on his controversial book “The God Delusion,” at 7:30 p.m. March 6 in Gammage Auditorium on ASU’s Tempe campus. “Richard Dawkins is one of the world’s finest expositors; he lectures with passion and commitment on provocative themes,” says Paul Davies, an ASU professor, internationally acclaimed theoretical physicist, cosmologist and founding director of the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. Tickets are required for the lecture, which is free and open to the public. While there are no longer tickets available, unclaimed seats will be given away beginning at 7:15 p.m. People who do not have tickets are advised to form a line at 6:45 p.m.

March 1, 2008

Legal scholar Judith Resnik will discuss the design of places of justice throughout history in a lecture titled “Places of Power: From Renaissance Town Halls to Guantanamo Bay,” at 4:30 p.m. March 20 in Katzin Hall on ASU’s Tempe campus. The annual John P. Frank Memorial Lecture is presented by ASU’s School of Justice and Social Inquiry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The lecture is free and open to the public. More information at 480-965-7682 or asu.edu/clas/justice/events.

Feb. 27, 2008

To bring attention to cybertaxonomy and to celebrate the founding of the International Institute for Species Exploration, a symposium and inaugural Linnaean Legacy Lecture is planned for March 3 on ASU’s Tempe campus. The symposium – “What’s on Your Planet? Species Exploration and Charting Biodiversity” – will be held from 1 to 4:30 p.m. in the Fulton Center, Sixth Floor Boardroom. The inaugural Linnaean Legacy Lecture, co-sponsored by the institute and the Linnean Society of London, will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Life Sciences Building, A-Wing, Room 191. More information at species.asu.edu.

Feb. 23, 2008

The top-ranked Arizona State University Academic Bowl team from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences took nine out of 10 matches to win the College Bowl Regional Championship Tournament Feb. 23 in Colorado Springs. The team will compete in the National Championship Tournament this April. Teammates include captain Carlos Ross, a senior majoring in Japanese; Erin Hutchinson, a senior majoring in history and global studies; Kenneth Lan, a freshman majoring in biology; and Eli Bliss, a graduate student who received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics this past December. Michael Rockwell, a senior majoring in political science, is the alternate. The team's coach is Brian Gleim, a graduate student in astrophysics.

Feb. 22, 2008

For 25 years the School of Justice and Social Inquiry has served as the intellectual hub for the study of justice at Arizona State University, conducting critical inquiries into complex legal and social problems. The school has educated generations of social change agents and justice studies scholars through its interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the school, it will host a series of special events March 6-7 on the ASU Tempe campus.

Feb. 22, 2008

Faculty members and graduate students are invited to learn more about Geocoding, focus groups and Web collaboration tools at demonstration sessions conducted by ASU’s Institute for Social Science Research staff from 2 to 4 p.m. March 5 in Coor Hall, Room 5536, Tempe campus.

Feb. 22, 2008

A health career advising group is being established in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to better serve the growing number of undergraduate students at ASU who are interested in medical and health professions. The move is the next step in a concentrated effort to increase student success and student retention by strengthening advising and career services. The college has added 18 advisors with support and financial commitment from the provost this past semester. Some of the advisors are in the college’s central Office of Student and Academic Programs, while others were added to academic units, including history, psychology and political science.

Feb. 18, 2008

Walter Alvarez, world-renowned geologist and author of “T. rex and the Crater of Doom,” is no stranger to scientific revolutions. It was Alvarez, along with his father and two other researchers, who in 1980 published their hypothesis that dinosaurs and other species on Earth were obliterated some 65 million years ago after an object from outer space, either a comet or asteroid, crashed into the planet, creating a large crater and a massive dust cloud. Alvarez, will deliver a lecture Feb. 21 on scientific revolutions that shaped history, as this year’s recipient of the Eugene Shoemaker Memorial Award presented by BEYOND, the Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University. The 7:30 p.m. lecture will be given in the Great Hall located in Armstrong Hall on ASU’s Tempe campus.

Feb. 18, 2008

With the contents of well-thumbed volumes of trivia at their sides and the sound of buzzers going off in their heads, five students from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – members of the 2007 Arizona State University Academic Bowl championship team – are heading to the regional tournament.

The ASU team will travel to the University of Colorado for the College Bowl Regional Championship Tournament, held Feb. 21-23 in Colorado Springs.

Feb. 18, 2008

Ecuador, Ghana, Romania, Brazil and Cyprus are among destinations this summer for ASU students who will earn credit hours while globalizing their education through study abroad courses. Titles of the courses are as diverse as the regions of study – Amazonian Ethnobotany, Contemporary Africa in Global Perspective, and Portuguese Conversation and Composition. Information about the program is available at studyabroad.asu.edu/home/summer-programs, or
(480) 965-5965.

Feb. 17, 2008

A mathematical model that looks at different strategies for curbing hospital-acquired infections suggests that antimicrobial cycling and patient isolation may be effective approaches when patients are harboring dual-resistant bacteria. This type of modeling, if used to develop policies and treatment protocols, may reduce dual drug-resistant infections in hospitals. The model’s results were presented by Carlos Castillo-Chavez, an ASU Regents’ Professor on Feb. 17 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

Feb. 16, 2008

Biology is crucial to understanding psychosis, “but there is more to psychosis than mere biology,” says Jason Robert, an ASU bioethicist and philosopher of science. “Psychiatrists in particular appear to be grappling with the complexity of classification and diagnosis,” Robert explains. “But I am always worried that the prime material of the psychiatrist – often ill, unhappy people who behave in bizarre ways – will be ignored in favor of DNA tests results or brain images, with almost certainly negative impacts on patient well-being.” Robert, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences, provided conceptual research and perspective to the subject of cross-cultural issues in defining mental illness during a presentation on Feb. 16 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.

Feb. 14, 2008

A stellar ASU student whose academic career has blazed a bright trail through the university has won top national honors from USA Today. Megan McGinnity, a 22-year-old senior who traveled around the world studying child slavery and human trafficking, is featured in the newspaper’s Feb. 14 issue as one of 20 students named to the All-USA College Academic First Team for exceptional intellectual achievement and leadership. She will graduate May 8 from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Barrett, the Honors College.

Feb. 14, 2008

“You go to a forest and immediately notice when it is clear-cut. However, when you go to the beach, the ocean almost always looks the same, regardless of whether there are fish in it or not,” says Caterina D’Agrosa, a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Life Sciences. “This, I think, is one of the largest problems with marine conservation – our perception.” D’Agrosa, a marine ecosystems scientist, is one of 19 researchers whose study, published in the journal Science on Feb. 15, challenges historic views of marine systems and humans impact through fishing, introduction of invasive species and pollution.

Feb. 14, 2008

George McGovern, the former U.S. senator from South Dakota who was the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, will deliver a public lecture at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 in Arizona State University’s Old Main Building, Carson Ballroom, Tempe campus. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is titled "America and the World in My Lifetime." Seating for the lecture is limited and is on a first-come, first-served basis. More information at kyle.longley@asu.edu, (480) 965-3524.

Feb. 13, 2008

ASU Regents’ Professor Carlos Castillo-Chavez is drawing recognition from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his work with underrepresented students. He will receive the 2007 AAAS Mentor Award during a Feb. 16 ceremony at the soceity's annual meeting in Boston. In announcing the mentoring award, the AAAS noted that Castillo-Chavez served as dissertation adviser for four Hispanic Americans who earned their doctorates in mathematics or the biological sciences.

Feb. 13, 2008

The Arizona Board of Regents recently approved an innovative ASU doctoral degree program that will create a new generation of highly skilled language researchers to address real-world problems using a unique interdisciplinary approach. The applied linguistics doctoral degree program seeks to prepare solution-focused linguists ready to tackle major global challenges linked to issues of language and literacy. The program – a collaboration of ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – will be guided by an interdisciplinary faculty from many areas of the university.

Feb. 9, 2008

Public scholar and award winning author Michael Bérubé will consider how academic advances in the sciences, and their interpretation in popular culture, affect what it means to be human and how the humanities must respond, during a lecture at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 in Armstrong Hall, on ASU’s Tempe campus.

The title of Bérubé’s lecture is “The Humanities and the Limits of the Human.” He will explore how scientific theory, neurology and disability studies have transformed what it means to be human and whether that transformation connects to the focus and scope of the humanities.

Feb. 8, 2008

If you are reading this, chances are that you live in a city – one, perhaps, on its way to becoming a megacity, with a population that exceeds 10 million or more. If not, you and most of the world’s population soon will be, according to global population demographics projections. What shape could these future cities take and how will their populations meet environmental and resource challenges? An article published in the journal Science on Feb. 8, penned by Arizona State University ecologist Nancy Grimm and her colleagues, considers these questions, global change and the ecology of cities.

Feb. 1, 2008

U.S. and Chinese high school students are taking aim at the Red Planet using an ASU-designed camera on a Mars-orbiting spacecraft. Fifteen students from China study at ASU’s Mars Space Flight Facility, collaborating with seven students from Nogales (Ariz.) High School. Their goal: to explore Mars firsthand using a multiple-wavelength camera designed at ASU that’s orbiting Mars on NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

Jan. 31, 2008

Regents’ Professor C. Austen Angell in Arizona State University's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has found a vital clue that helps explain water’s bizarre behavior at the glass transition and, along the way, gained important insights into phases of liquid water as well. His research is published in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science. “We know a lot about glasses that form from ordinary silicates, sugars and metals,” Angell says. “They’re making golf clubs out of glassy metals these days. But how important is the glassy state of water? And what can it tell us about ordinary water, which is such an anomalous liquid?”

Jan. 31, 2008

ASU’s supercomputing center will play key role in one of the nation’s most ambitious scientific endeavors. The project could dramatically lift technological constraints that have impeded scientific progress, according to entomologist Quentin Wheeler, ASU vice president and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Jan. 30, 2008

The odds of anyone receiving a lifetime achievement award are slim; being honored with two in one year is almost unheard of. But that's exactly what is in store for Jane Buikstra, a professor in ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. On Feb. 20, Buikstra will receive the prestigious T. Dale Stewart Award from the Physical Anthropology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. The award, which is given for lifetime achievement in forensic anthropology, will be presented during the academy's 60th annual meeting, held in Washington, D.C.

Jan. 29, 2008

Two grants to ASU for development of new solar energy technologies show how the university’s solar energy research has grown in new and important ways. The grants, from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar America Initiative, are for basic research into new solar cell materials that could lead to efficiency gains and lower costs for the technology. One grant, for $1.3 million, will go to a team led by two professors in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences – John Kouvetakis, a professor in chemistry and biochemistry, and Jose Menendez, a professor in physics. The second grant is for $1.14 million and goes to a team headed by Mark van Schilfgaarde, a professor in the School of Materials.

Jan. 28, 2008

Celebrating the official launch of the School of International Letters and Cultures, ASU President Michael Crow says his hope for the school is that it becomes a driving intellectual force for the entire university. “This is an important event in the history and the maturation of Arizona State University,” Crow says at today's launch ceremony.

Jan. 26, 2008

An unusual new species of whirligig beetle from India is being named Orectochilus orbisonorum in honor of the late rock ‘n’ roll legend Roy Orbison and his widow Barbara. Arizona State University entomologist Quentin Wheeler announced the description and discovery of the beetle species Jan. 25 during a Roy Orbison Tribute Concert, part of a weekend of tribute events hosted by ASU’s Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture and the Tempe Center for the Arts.

Jan. 16, 2008

With the opening of its latest center, ASU’s School of Human Evolution & Social Change has added another dimension of cross-disciplinary collaboration to the New American University. The Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity marked its official launch Jan. 16 with a brief ceremony, an open house and a public lecture by Nobel Memorial Prize winner Douglass C. North, who spoke on “A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History.”

Jan. 16, 2008

While nature’s showiest subjects step out to promote reproductive success and survival with bright colors, flash and iridescence in feathers, scales, petals and wings, biologists, physicists, behaviorists and materials scientists will delve into what’s behind all the bling at a workshop on “Iridescence” to be held Feb. 6-9 at Arizona State University. “In terms of nanofabrication, nature has surpassed mankind, in both structural intricacy and manufacture, producing nanostructures at body temperature and neutral pH, without caustic reagents or environmental damage and with enviable repeatability for millions of years,” says Nathan Morehouse, doctoral student in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and one of the organizers of this conference.

Jan. 15, 2008

The new Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change celebrates it role in social science research with a Jan. 16 ceremony and public lecture by Nobel Prize recipient Douglass C. North. His lecture begins at 7 p.m. in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Great Hall on the ASU Tempe campus. North, who will speak on “A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History,” has worn many hats in his lifetime – photographer, rancher, pilot, ship navigator – but he is probably best known for his work in economics, which earned him and co-recipient R.W. Fogel a Nobel Prize in 1993.

Jan. 14, 2008

In a first-of-its-kind program, joint teams of Chinese and U.S. high school students will explore the Red Planet at Arizona State University’s Mars Space Flight Facility. Beginning Jan. 27 and running for nine days, 16 students drawn from all over China will meet with eight equally skilled students from Nogales (Arizona) High School. Together, the space-minded students will take part in the China Youth Space Academy. Mars is a natural focus because ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration is an international leader in space science, with instruments operating both in orbit and on the surface of Mars.

Jan. 7, 2008

ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change is accelerating a sea change in the social sciences with the creation of a research initiative designed to fund projects that develop new ways to think about human evolution and social change and all that it entails. The initiative – Late Lessons from Early History – aims to fund research projects that focus on relating different perspectives of the past, present and future of humanity to each other by investigating the full trajectory of the emergence and evolution of a number of particularly human traits and phenomena.

Jan. 7, 2008

Understanding how the development of children is affected by the challenges they often face is at the heart of a ground-breaking scholarly and translational project in the formative stages at ASU’s School of Social and Family Dynamics. The new initiative – the Challenged Child Project – is designed to create the foundation from which ASU forges a synthesis in the emerging science of developmental challenge.

Jan. 7, 2008

ASU has received two gifts totaling $22 million to make seed investments in research areas that push the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. Donors Brian and Kelly Swette of Pebble Beach, Calif., and Sharon Dupont McCord and Robert McCord of Paradise Valley, Ariz., have made separate commitments to establish endowments at the ASU Foundation worth $10 million and $12 million, respectively. The endowments have been combined into an Intellectual Fusion Investment Fund for ASU that will promote research at ASU, including research in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Social and Family Dynamics.

Jan. 3, 2008

A new Arizona State University-Southwest Poll conducted by the Institute for Social Science Research reveals the perspectives of Southwesterners in Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Mexico on immigration issues, the U.S. presidential race and quality of life in the Southwest.

Jan. 1, 2008

ASU will celebrate Roy Orbison’s unparalleled contributions to rock ‘n’ roll with a series of events beginning in late January, including a tribute concert Jan. 25 at the new Tempe Center for the Arts. “A Tribute to Roy Orbison” will commemorate Orbison’s influence in musical culture through a film screening, concert, gallery exhibit and symposium. It is presented by ASU's Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the city of Tempe and the Tempe Center for the Arts. More information is available online at OrbisonTribute.asu.edu.