Faculty Accomplishments

Associate Professor of Mathematics Scott Taylor has been awarded a three-year collaborative NSF research grant to connect the theory of spatial graphs to knot theory and the theory of 3-D spaces, which will contribute to understanding DNA and protein structures. The grant will also support student research at Colby and Taylor's Sum Camp, a summer camp that uses arts and math games to build basic numeracy skills of students in Waterville Public Schools.

Professor of Psychology Melissa Glenn has coauthored a paper, “Overtraining Strengthens the Visual Discrimination Memory Trace Outside the Hippocampus in Male Rats,” recently accepted in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience. This paper was the culmination of a multi-year collaboration with colleagues from Trent University in Ontario, Canada, and describes a series of experiments that show how memories for visual discriminations are organized in neural systems. The findings of these experiments challenge long-held theoretical views on the role of the hippocampus in memory.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Virginia Olmsted McGraw has been awarded the Robert C. Tucker/Stephen F. Cohen Dissertation Prize for her dissertation, “Soviet by Design: Fashion, Consumption, and International Competition during Late Socialism, 1948-1982." This prize is given to an "outstanding English-language doctoral dissertation in Soviet or Post-Soviet politics and history in the tradition practiced by Robert C. Tucker and Stephen F. Cohen," according to its website.

Adam Howard, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Education, wrote the chapter titled "Intrinsic Aspects of Privilege" in the recently published book Anti-Oppressive Education in "Elite" Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales From the Field. In the chapter, Howard offers a definition of class privilege as a form of identity and makes a case for why we need to focus on the intrinsic aspects of privilege, using examples from his own teaching.

Assistant Professor of Geology Bess Koffman has been awarded a $16,700 grant by the Outreach Program of the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB) to support the development and teaching of a week-long science course, Volcanoes and the Ocean Ecosystem, for 4th- and 5th-grade students. "Following two iterations of teaching the course to Pribilof Islands students (Bering Sea, Alaska), we will revise the lessons with student and teacher feedback and make the course materials available on the Canvas learning management system for broader use throughout Aleutian Islands, Shumagin Islands, and Alaska Peninsula schools," she explained. This project expands upon the work supported by a separate NPRB research grant to Koffman and Bigelow scientists Catherine Mitchell, Benjamin Twining, and Karen Stamieszkin.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Eric Aaron is the senior co-chair of the third annual Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference, held next February in Vancouver. As co-chair, Aaron reviews applicants and puts together programming for the conference. The AAAI's mission is to advance the tools, techniques, and overall state of artificial intelligence with a focus on admitting minority and under-represented students into the program. Colby is the only small liberal arts undergraduate institution to have a representative on the conference committee.

Assistant Professor of Computer Science Hannen Wolfe's interactive sound exhibition Cacophonic Choir was selected for the international contest New Technological Art Award (NTAA) 2022. Out of 836 applications received from around the world, Cacophonic Choir was one of 20 works selected to be exhibited in Ghent, Belgium, this February. The exhibition aims to bring attention to the first-hand stories of sexual assault survivors.

Professor of Art Véronique Plesch contributed an essay to the Fall 2021 Maine Arts Journal. The essay, Graffiti: Captivity and Freedom, is part of the journal's partnership with the statewide initiative Freedom & Captivity, spearheaded by Catherine Bestman, the Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth Bartlett Professor of Anthropology. Plesch's essay stems from her research on graffiti, and specifically "on graffiti executed in places of passage and of confinement, in other words, in places of freedom and of captivity," she writes.

Colby's Charles A. Dana Professor of Education Adam Howard will be a visiting scholar at Purdue University's Honors College for three days in late September. Howard, an expert on social class issues in education, will give talks in classes, present a lecture at the Graduate School of Education, and deliver a keynote titled "Crisis of Privilege."