Elizabeth Smith, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, received her B.A. (1991) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Anthropology and Comparative Literature with a certificate in African Studies, and her M.A. (1999) and Ph.D. (2006) in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University. She comes to the UVM Anthropology Department from the University of California-Berkeley where she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center of Middle Eastern Studies in the spring 2006 semester.

Smith's Ph.D. research was on how Nubians in Egypt are represented in popular culture, tourism, and museums in Cairo and Aswan. Her publications resulting from this research address material culture and nationalism in the Nubia Museum of Aswan, race and media images of Nubians, identification with archaeological sites in nostalgia for Nubia, and the circulation of photographs of Nubia in popular culture. Other research interests include ethnographic and archaeological photography, ethnographic film, Middle East ethnography, and marriage in Egypt. She is teaching a course on Middle East ethnography this fall, and will teach Human Cultures and Tourism and Heritage in the spring.

Jonah Steinberg, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He conducts research, primarily in South Asia, on the sociocultural aspects of globalization. Dr. Steinberg is also interested in marginality and inequality, and social crisis and social change. His dissertation, based on fieldwork in the Himalayan ranges of Pakistan and Tajikistan, explored the transnational organization of the widely-scattered Isma'ili Muslim sect, and the ways that local subjects become aware of a connection to a global cultural network.

Dr. Steinberg will be involved in a new initiative on Global Studies at UVM. He is currently developing a research project that explores the tense encounter between radical Islam, on the one hand, and syncretic local Muslim traditions, on the other, through an inspection of a single neighborhood in Delhi where the two collide. His courses for 2006-2007 include "Street Children," "Social Crisis," and "The Peoples of South Asia."

Cameron Wesson joined the UVM faculty as Associate Professor and Chair of Anthropology. He received a B.S. in architecture and a B.A. in anthropology from Auburn University and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has held academic appointments at Auburn University, the University of Oklahoma, and most recently at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Wesson's archaeological research addresses the political economy of Native American societies during the contact and colonial periods in the southeastern U.S., with particular interest in the Muskogee Creek peoples. He is also concerned with examining the role of Native American peoples in the cultural dynamism of the post-contact period through the use of both archaeological data and modern Creek informants. He has published three books as well as a number of journal articles and book chapters on these topics. His most recent volume, Households and Hegemony: Early Creek Prestige Goods, Symbolic Capital and Social Power, will be released by the University of Nebraska Press in the spring. Dr. Wesson spent the past year working on a new book, Landscapes of Memory, Landscapes of Power, while on an American Indian Studies Fellowship at the Newberry Library's D'Arcy McNickel Center.

 

Bryan Ballif, Assistant Professor of Biology, studies molecular mechanisms of cell signaling with an emphasis on signal transduction pathways regulating mammalian brain development.

He earned his doctoral degree in 2001 from Harvard University where he studied the molecular mechanisms of cell survival. He then studied for two years at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center where he pursued interests in signaling mechanisms of the developing brain.

Just prior to his appointment to the Department of Biology, Dr. Ballif trained for three years at Harvard Medical School in mass spectrometry-based proteomics where he began developing and applying these tools to his signaling interests. Along with biochemical and cell biological approaches, mass spectrometry-based proteomics remains an integral part of his research.

Dr. Ballif teaches introductory biology and molecular signaling mechanisms in developmental neurobiology.

 

Rory Waterman, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, is an inorganic chemist with interests in organometallic chemistry and catalysis. His research will investigate the areas of metal-ligand multiple bonding, element-hydrogen bond activation, and unique processes such as alpha-elimination. Elements that span the periodic table will be employed for new reactivity. In addition to his teaching interests in inorganic and organometallic chemistry, Dr. Waterman is also promoting the idea of science literacy, or a general understanding of scientific research, among nonscience majors.

A New England native, Dr. Waterman joins the UVM faculty after two years in Berkeley as a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2004 at the University of Chicago.

 

Angeline Chiu, Assistant Professor of Classics, is currently completing her Ph.D. from Princeton. She holds a B.A. in English and History from Baylor University (1997) and an M.A. in Greek and Latin from UVM (2000), and she is delighted to be back in Burlington.

Her research interests often combine the study of literature with other areas such as history and topography, and they include Latin poets of the Augustan age such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid; the interaction between Latin literature and physical art, architecture, and locations; and the classical tradition, particularly Shakespeare.

She has published research in Greek tragedy and is completing her dissertation, entitled Calendar Girls: Women, Genre, and Roman Identity in Ovid's Fasti, focusing on the poet Ovid and his literary adaptation of the Roman calendar.

John C. Franklin, Assistant Professor of Classics, a native of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, graduated in music composition from the New England Conservatory (1988), with a one-year guest membership at the MIT Media Lab.

In search of a stimulating day job, and reviving an earlier interest in antiquity, he completed two years of post-baccalaureate study in Greek and Latin followed by an M.A. in Classics, both at the University of Washington (1991-1995). A doctorate at University College London was a chance to live overseas and experience the British system of "reading" for a degree (1996-2002). While there he spent 3 years working for Erich Segal as a contributing researcher and editor for the Death of Comedy and other projects, both academic and popular (1997-2000), all the while living in the comparative squalor of a narrowboat on the Oxford canal. Research on ancient Greek music and its relation to Near Eastern traditions led to fellowships at the Warburg Institute, the American Academy in Rome, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Cyprus American Archeological Research Institute (where he met his lovely wife Glynnis Fawkes, an archeological artist and illustrator), the American Research Institute in Turkey, and the Center for Hellenic Studies (1999-2006).

He has occasionally found time for music composition, notably scores in the style of ancient Greek music for productions at the London Festival of Greek Drama (1999) and the Edinburgh Fringe (2000). A self-published CD of such impressions, entitled The Cyprosyrian Girl: Hits of the Ancient Hellenes, is now available. His proudest professional membership is as Hartkerngruppe-member of the International Study Group for Music Archaeology, promoting the emerging field under the auspices of the Deutsches Archäogisches Institut (Orient-Abteilung). A book entitled The Middle Muse: Mesopotamian Echoes in Early Greek Music is lamentably overdue, its progress impeded by two lovely children, Thomas Kothar (23 months) and Helen Isis (3 months). He is delighted to be living now in the sanest place in America, for which he is ever so grateful to his very congenial colleagues. For further information, please visit www.kingmixers.com.

 

Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, Assistant Professor of Economics, received her B.S. in Mathematics from NC Wesleyan College in 1988; M.S. in Applied Mathematics from Clark Atlanta University in 1992; M.S. in Operations Research from Stanford University in 1994; and her M.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Economics/Mathematics from Claremont Graduate University in 1998.

Professor Sharpe specializes in funding and access to higher education and labor market discrimination. Her research focuses on the impact of disparate treatment in education policy, discrimination in the labor and sports market, and affirmative action. She is the 2004 recipient of Rhonda Williams Prize awarded by the International Association for Feminist Economics. She and William A. Darity, Jr. (UNC-Chapel Hill) were just awarded a $175K grant from the Ford Foundation, titled "Obstacles to Achieving Faculty Diversity: Implications for Affirmative Action Policies."

Her teaching interests include sports, poverty and inequality, education policy, and quantitative methods. She is currently teaching the Economics of Sports and a TAP course titled "Meritocracy in America."

Professor Sharpe comes to UVM after serving three years as the Associate Director of the American Economic Association Summer Program and Minority Scholarship Program housed at Duke University. She has also been a Carolina Minority Postdoctoral Fellow (UNC-Chapel Hill) and has been on the faculty at Barnard College.

 

Jinny Huh is an Assistant Professor of English specializing in Asian American and African American literatures, comparative race studies, and detective fiction.

She received her B.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Irvine, Master's in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Southern California. She was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA in the Bunche Center for African American Studies.

Her current research project, The Arresting Eye: Race and the Detection of Deception, examines the anxiety of detection and race through a comparative analysis of detective fiction and passing narratives. Professor Huh has publications in Modern Fiction Studies, Jouvert: A Journal of Postcolonial Studies, and The Dictionary of Literary Biography.

Eric Lindstrom, Assistant Professor, comes to the UVM Department of English from Yale University, where he recently submitted a dissertation titled "Romantic Fiat." The project explores themes of radical creative command and obeisance in Romantic Literature, focusing on the contact points between poetry, nonfiction prose and political life. Through explorations of the life and work of poets including Coleridge, Wordsworth and Percy Shelley—and the critics Hazlitt and Peacock—"Romantic Fiat" argues for an innovative common language version of the inherited language of divine command, in which the biblical "let there be light" emerges in a new Romantic interest in the language of "let there be" and "let be." The project also analyzes the movement of belief outside a traditional theological sphere, and sees displaced belief in the decisively "modern" poetics of Romantic paper money.

Both in association with this project and beyond its borders, Eric Lindstrom has written essays on the above authors, particularly on their relation to the philosophy of David Hume and the writings of Edmund Burke. Among his completed research projects include the essays "Useless Fiat"—on Wordsworth—"To Wordsworth and the White Obi"—on Wordsworth and Shelley—"They Are All Paper Money Lyrics"—on poetry and the Bank Restriction Act—and a new essay project called "No Cause, No Cause: Wordsworth, King Lear and the Subversion of the Post-Revolutionary Performative." (Let us pray these will all come out soon.) He has also written reviews on several recent books in Romantic Studies for the journal of the Midwest MLA.

Eric lives by the horses in South Burlington, with his wife Angie and daughter Veronica.

 

Meghan Cope, Assistant Professor of Geography, has a B.A. in Sociology (Vassar College, 1989); and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Geography (University of Colorado, Boulder, 1992 and 1995).

Dr. Cope specializes in urban social geography, particularly issues of race/ethnicity, gender, youth, and class in U.S. cities. Her research is primarily qualitative and many of her publications have been about the challenges and opportunities for qualitative and, more specifically, participatory research in human geography. Most recently, Dr. Cope spent five years studying how children (ages 6-13) in a racially marginalized, economically distressed neighborhood in Buffalo, NY conceptualize urban space; that is, how do they define "neighborhood," how do they see their roles in constructing public space, how do they learn the "rules" of the city, and how do they change those rules? This project involved teaching a service-learning course in which university students volunteered at an after-school program and developed their own participatory research projects with the children around issues of urban space and meanings of "the city." This research has developed into an interest in the concept of "child-friendly cities," which has become quite popular in Europe.

Thus, her new research directions at UVM will involve collaborating with European colleagues in some comparative projects in which she will explore how U.S. cities and towns–particularly in poverty areas and sites of ethnic/racial segregation–could incorporate "child-friendly" design and policy. Dr. Cope's teaching is currently focused on economic and urban geography, an ISSP course on Spatial Justice, and a team-taught course with Cherie Dunkley on Global Childhoods.

 

Patricia Riley, D.M.A., is an Assistant Professor of Music Education. Dr. Riley is a versatile educator, with teaching experience in instrumental, vocal, and general music at the college, high school, middle school, and elementary school levels.

Prior to coming to UVM, she served for four years on the music education faculty at the Crane School of Music, State University of New York at Potsdam. Her public school experience includes twelve years in the Poultney (VT) School District, and eight years in school districts in New Jersey.

Dr. Riley holds a D.M.A. in Music Education from Shenandoah Conservatory, a Master of Arts in Music from The College of New Jersey, and a Bachelor of Science in Music Education from West Chester University. In addition to her long affiliation with the Vermont MIDI Project, Dr. Riley has spent time in Mexico where she has conducted research on music education, and supervised students in a Spanish Immersion/Music Teaching Practicum program. She has presented papers at numerous conferences, including the 2006 MENC National Conference, the 2004 and 2006 Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME) National Conferences, and the 2005 Research in Music Education (RIME) International Conference in Exeter, England. Dr. Riley's articles have appeared in such publications as Teaching Music, and Update: Applications of Research in Music Education.

Paul Besaw, Assistant Professor of Dance at the University of Vermont, has been hired to build a new dance program housed in the Department of Music.

Professor Besaw teaches modern and jazz dance technique, choreography, dance history, improvisation, and world dance cultures. His primary interests lie in developing original dance/theatre and his work has been seen throughout the U.S. He is a founding member of The Misa Table, a performance collective devoted to original movement/theatre projects, and his experience also includes performing for dance artists John Gamble, Jan Van Dyke, Jack Arnold, Sherone Price, Sally Bomer, Kayvon Pourazar, and Blue Skid Dance.

He has served as full-time dance faculty at California State University, Sacramento, where he coordinated the 2006 American College Dance Festival Association (ACDFA) Southwest Region Conference, and Catawba College in North Carolina, where he coordinated the dance and musical theatre programs. Three of his dances have been presented and selected for regional ACDFA conference culminating Gala Concerts.

Originally a New Hampshire native, Professor Besaw received his undergraduate degree in theatre from Keene State College, his M.F.A. in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and has pursued post-graduate studies in dance/theatre at both the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona.

 

Madalina Furis, Assistant Professor in the Physics Department, received her Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Buffalo, SUNY, and spent the following years as a Postdoctoral Associate at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Her Ph.D. thesis was focused on ultrafast spectroscopy of wide bandgap semiconductors. Over the past few years, her research was geared towards exploring the optical properties of semiconductor nanostructures, such as CdSe colloidal quantum dots, in the presence of very high magnetic fields.

Her plans for the future include magneto-optical spectroscopy of spin polarized electron dynamics in semiconductors and optical Kerr effect measurements of ferromagnetic nanostructures.

 

Professor Robert V. Bartlett
Gund Chair of Liberal Arts
M.P.A., Indiana University; Ph.D., Indiana University

Professor Bartlett's current research focuses on environmental democracy, namely, the applicability of theories of deliberative democracy to environmental policy design and evaluation and, in turn, the implications of practical policy considerations for theorizing about deliberative democracy. He is beginning a project on democracy, environmental policy, and international jurisprudence.

Selected Publications:

Walter F. Baber and Robert V. Bartlett. 2005. Deliberative Green Politics: Democracy and Ecological Rationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Priya A. Kurian and Robert V. Bartlett. 2003. "Ethics and Justice Needs for Sustainable Development," in Institutional Issues Involving Ethics and Justice, ed. Robert Charles Elliot, in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems, developed under the auspices of UNESCO (Oxford,UK: EOLSS Publishers).

Robert V. Bartlett and Priya A. Kurian. 1999. "The Theory of Environmental Impact Assessment: Implicit Models of Policy Making," Policy and Politics 27: 415-533.

 

Michele Commercio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, received a B.A. from Boston College, a M.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

She specializes in comparative politics, and focuses on issues related to regime transition and ethnic politics in post-Soviet states.

She spent one year as a post-doc at Georgetown University, and is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the impact of formal and informal institutional interaction on Russian minority populations in various parts of the Soviet Union including Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Latvia.

Travis Nelson, Assistant Professor of Political Science, comes to UVM from the Midwest. He just completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and before that received his B.A. from St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

Dr. Nelson's dissertation investigated military interventions directed at regime change in a target state and argued, among other things, that these interventions tend to have a particularly regional focus. His next project will likely explore the interventionary elements of international disaster relief. While at UVM, Dr. Nelson's teaching interests include security affairs, international organizations and cooperation, and American foreign policy.

Alec Ewald, Assistant Professor, Political Science. B.A., Tufts University; M.A., University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill; Ph.D., University of Massachusetts - Amherst.

Professor Ewald teaches courses in constitutional law and American politics. Within public law, his current research focuses on voting rights and the institutions of suffrage. His work on felony disenfranchisement has been published in the Wisconsin Law Review and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, and he is currently editing a book on international perspectives on disenfranchisement, to be published next year. More broadly, his research interests include race and the law, American political development, and comparative courts.

Professor Ewald encourages you to stop by any time to admire pictures of his children, Oscar and Stella, and to complain about the terrible state in which Boston baseball and American politics find themselves.

 

Sayamwong Hammack, "Jom," Assistant Professor of Psychology, received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University prior to joining the Psychology Department at UVM.

His research focuses on the neurobiology of emotion, and he is specifically interested in understanding the brain systems that mediate fear and anxiety. He uses a variety of techniques to address his research questions, that range from the analysis of fear behaviors to the intracellular recording of single brain cells.

His teaching interests include many topics in neuroscience, including brain physiology, brain anatomy, and psychopharmacology. In addition to teaching in the classroom, he maintains an interest in science communication.

He will also participate in the cross-college neuroscience Ph.D. program.

 

Gregory Ramos, Assistant Professor of Theatre, is originally from Los Angeles, where he studied dance and performed in television shows, videos, and musical theatre. Professor Ramos received his B.A. in Theatre Arts from UCLA, and his M.F.A. in Theatre Arts and Playwriting, also from UCLA. As an actor he has worked both in the U.S. and abroad. He lived in New York and studied acting at Playwright's Horizons and with Ellen Burstyn, then completed his graduate work in playwriting at UCLA. His one-act play "Reaching Mercy" has been performed in New York and his play "Border Stories" has been performed in New York, Austin, and Boulder. While on faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso he served as director of the Border Public Theatre and he created the Latino guest artist program, which brought professional theatre and film artists to the U.S. - Mexico border.

Gregory plans to continue his work focusing on issues of queer identity and diversity in the American Theatre. He has directed numerous productions and has worked as a marketing executive on Broadway shows. As a member of the theatre faculty here at UVM he will be teaching directing courses as well as directing productions in the Department (La Ronde in Spring 2007), and he will be teaching and directing courses that deal with issues of diversity on the American stage.