Spotlight on ... faculty achievement

Kellar Autumn, professor of biology, was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation in support of his research project, “Comparative micromechanics of gecko setae: Effects of rate, substrate, and environment.” This award includes support for NSF’s Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) program.

Two portraits of youth by Debra Beers, senior lecturer in art, were unveiled at an event at the Donald E. Long Juvenile Justice Center. According to the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC), it has been collaborating with the staff of Multnomah County’s Juvenile Justice Center (JJC) to provide art programs that involve professional artists working with youth served by the JJC to effect change in their lives. Rather than making art, these youth became the subject of portraits by Ms. Beers.

Naiomi Cameron, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, received a Career Enhancement Fellowship for Junior Faculty from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. The objective of the fellowship program is to aid the scholarly research and intellectual growth of junior faculty (men and women) and improve their chances for success as tenured university scholars by offering support for 12 months of research and writing. The award includes a stipend and funding to attend the Fall Research in October 2009.

David Campion, associate professor of history, received a grant from the Fulbright Scholar Program to work with Universities in Hong Kong on development of their general education curricula. Only five awards were made by Fulbright as part of the foundation’s Building General Education Curriculum in Hong Kong Universities program.

Todd Lochner, assistant professor of political science, along with Dorie Apollonio and Rhett Tatum, is the inaugural winner of the Regulation & Governance Prize for the best article published in the 2007-08 volumes of the journal. Their winning article is “Wheat from Chaff: Third Party Monitoring and FEC Enforcement Actions” (Regulation & Governance, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp. 216-233).

Peter Kennedy, assistant professor of biology, and Stephen Tufte, associate professor of physics, each received Partners in Science program grants from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Professor Kennedy will conduct research with Eileen Oppelt, a science teacher at West Linn High School, for the next two summers on their project, “Examining Biogeographic Patterns in the Frankia-Alnus rubra Symbiosis. Professor Kennedy will conduct research with Jo Ann Wadkins, a science teacher at Lincoln High School, for the next two summers on their project, “Observational Investigations of Short-Period Eclipsing Binary Stars.”

Mary Szybist, assistant professor of English, was selected by Poet Laureate Kay Ryan for one of two Witter Bynner Fellowships in Poetry from the Library of Congress. She will also receive $10,000 from the Library of Congress, made possible by a grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation The fellowships are awarded to two poets whose distinctive talents and craftsmanship merit wider recognition. In February, Professor Szybist travelled to Washington, D.C. to read her work at the Library as part of the fellowship.