Martha Woodruff (Philosophy) has been accepted to participate in the Institute for the History of Philosophy at Emory University in June 2013, to support research for her second book. The topic of the institute, Renewing the Ancient Quarrel: Plato, Hegel, and Adorno, refers to what Plato called “the quarrel between philosophy and poetry” (Republic X). Participants take part in intensive seminars while working on their own projects about the relation between philosophy and art in these three thinkers. The institute funds travel, housing, and food for all participants.

James Larrabee (Chemistry & Biochemistry) has received a three-year research grant from the National Science Foundation through NSF’s Research in Undergraduate Institutions activity. This is Jim’s fifth NSF-RUI grant in his career. This grant provides funding to enable at least six undergraduate students to participate in his research, which should lead to a better understanding of enzyme mechanisms that could help other researchers design better drugs. Title: Magnetic Circular Dichroism of Dicobalt(II) Enzymes.

Patricia Zupan (Italian) has been selected to participate this summer in a faculty seminar at Transylvania University in Kentucky, funded by the University’s Bingham Program for Excellence in Teaching. The seminar, titled Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept, will involve faculty from liberal arts colleges around the country. The award covers all costs of participation, including travel.

David Dorman (Mathematics) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project titled In Pursuit of Mathematical Biology. This grant supports David’s Spring 2014 leave. The objective for this grant is to deepen his knowledge of mathematical biology and epidemiology and to hone his ability to teach courses in those areas at the undergraduate level. The grant provides travel funds to enable him to attend workshops and courses and to visit Harvey Mudd College to learn how they designed and implemented their strong mathematical biology major.

Amy Briggs (Computer Science) has been awarded a research grant from the National Science Foundation to support her work in curriculum development for high-school computer science. The award will fund her upcoming leave and participation in the four-year collaborative project Broadening Participation in Computer Science: AP Computer Science Principles Phase II with colleagues at the College Board and Duke University. The goal of the project is to create and deploy a new AP course in Computer Science, designed to promote the interest of more students and increase the numbers of underrepresented students who engage in computer science education and pursue computing careers.

Steve Trombulak (Biology and Environmental Studies) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project titled Enhancing the Quality of Instruction in Conservation  Biology. The grant will enable Steve to travel to Australia to work with the key developers of “systematic conversation planning” in order to incorporate this new perspective into the conversation biology course he teaches at Middlebury. While in Australia, he will visit the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the first in the world designed using SCP principles and tools.

Jason Arndt (Psychology) was awarded funding through the National Science Foundation’s Research Opportunity Award program to enable him to spend part of his 2012-13 leave collaborating with a colleague at the Georgia Institute of Technology examining associative memory processes using Electroencephalography (EEG). Their research project is titled The influence of attention on associative memory in the young and old.

Su Lian Tan (Music) has received support from the New York Foundation for the Arts “Artspire” program for Lotus Lives, a  chamber opera that premiered as a concert at the Manhattan School of Music, NY, 2010 with a production premier here at Middlebury Oct.2011. Lotus Lives celebrates the lives of three generations of women, with classical, rap and pop music within a spectacular video set. Artspire support takes the form of fiscal sponsorship, enabling Tan and colleagues to further develop financial and production resources by supplying strategic guidance, website and clerical support. Tan is in discussion with several venues for future performances and DVD recording including WGBH Boston, efforts that will be a focus of her 2013-14 leave.

Rebecca Tiger (Sociology/Anthropology) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project titled Public Sociology, Digital Media and Social Change. Rebecca’s goal for this project is to develop training in public sociology and the digital media tools that are becoming central to the public dissemination of sociological knowledge in order to incorporate these approaches into her courses. The grant provides support for a one-month residency during the summer of 2013 at JustPublics@365, the recently established digital media and social justice center housed at The City University of New York’s Graduate Center and funded by the Ford Foundation.

James Fitzsimmons (Sociology and Anthropology) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project titled Sacred Sites of the Andes and the Desert Coast. The goal of his project is to broaden his knowledge of archaeology and visual culture in the Americas beyond Mesoamerica to Andean South America in order to meet the demand of students for expanded course content. The grant will fund travel to three ancient pilgrimage centers in Peru and Bolivia that were used by the Inca and their predecessors in order to further develop his existing courses and to lay the groundwork for a class on the prehistory and religion of that region.