Faculty Accomplishments

Professor of Education Adam Howard and Addy Seeman '21 presented a paper at the Comparative and International Education Society Conference in late April, this year held virtually. Their paper, "Aesthetics of Privilege: Lessons Embedded in the Social Aesthetics of Elite Schools," explores the meanings attached to the "social aesthetics" (that is, in part, the perception of and experiences within social spaces) of elite schools across the world and the ways in which these meanings communicate particular lessons that reinforce privilege as a collective identity. Howard and Seeman employ the concept of social aesthetics as an interpretative notion for understanding the dynamics of privilege that are hidden in plain sight at elite schools.

Two papers by Professor of Education Adam Howard have recently been published, coincidentially on the same day. The article "East meets West: cultural negotiations between parents and staff at a Taiwanese elite school" appeared in the journal Multicultural Education Review; and the article "Preparing leaders for the global south: the work of elite schools through global citizenship education" appeared in Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education. Both papers were cowritten with Claire Maxwell, a professor of sociology at the University of Copenhagen, during Howard's most recent sabbatical. 

Assistant Professor of Geology Bess Koffman has been awarded an American Association of University Women (AAUW) American Fellowship for 2021-22. Established in 1888, the American Fellowship is "AAUW’s largest fellowship program and the oldest non-institutional source of graduate funding for women in the United States," according to its website. The fellowship will support Koffman's research on tracing dust in Antarctica to learn about past climate.

Photographs by Associate Professor of Art Gary Green will be on view in a two-person show at the Galerie Miranda in Paris May 6-26, 2021. The exhibition, Rebels & Dandies, features Green's work from his book When Midnight Comes Around.

Assistant Professor of Geology Bess Koffman and students Meg Yoder '19, Taylor Methven '20, Helen Sears '20, and Lena Hanschka '21 coauthored the paper "Glacial Dust Surpasses Both Volcanic Ash and Desert Dust in Its Iron Fertilization Potential" recently published in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles.  In the study, the authors demonstrate that glacially sourced dust from Alaska has greater potential to deliver iron and other nutrients to the ocean ecosystem than other sources of nutrients such as volcanoes and Asian desert dust. This finding is important because the northeastern Pacific ocean is "iron-limited," meaning that biological growth is hampered by a lack of the nutrient iron. As glaciers recede with climate warming and catchments become forested, the supply and geochemistry of glacier-derived dust to the ocean are likely to change, impacting the ocean ecosystem.

Adrienne Tracy '20, Asha Sidhu '21, and Derek Hernández '21 are coauthors in a recently published paper titled "CRISPR/Cas9 Ribonucleoprotein-Based Genome Editing Methodology in the Marine Protozoan Parasite Perkinsus marinus," published in Synthetic Biology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology.

The students were team members in the lab run by one of the paper's lead authors, José A. Fernández Robledo, a research faculty member at Colby and a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. Bigelow Laboratory partners with Colby on providing opportunities for Colby students to collaborate with scientists at the lab through the Colby Semester at Bigelow program or as REU students.

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Stacy-ann Robinson has started her one-year term as chair of the Caribbean Geography Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers. In her role, Robinson will work with the other members of the board to increase the visibility of the group and to create professional development opportunities for early-career scholars. Her term will end in April 2022.

Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies Amber Hickey will facilitate a workshop for the forthcoming Anti-Racism in Art School Colloquium at Portland State School of Art & Design. The workshop, “Decolonizing the Art History Classroom,” provides educators and students with decolonial strategies that they may implement in their own classrooms, arts practices, and research.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Caitlin McDonough MacKenzie coauthored a new paper titled "Trends in ecology and conservation over eight decades" published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. This research reviews 80 years, 52 journals, and a half-billion words to track changes in the way that ecologists write about ecological and conservation research. The paper traces the trends in words and phrases published in peer-reviewed papers since 1930 and tracks the evolution of ecology from a largely descriptive field focused on natural history and observational studies to a more data‐driven, multidisciplinary field focused on applied environmental issues.

Professor of Art Véronique Plesch contributed two essays to the 2021 spring issue of the Maine Arts Journal: UMVA Quarterly, titled “The Comforts of Domesticity" and "Leading with the Arts: A Conversation with Teresa McKinney and Jacqueline Terrassa.” She also wrote the introduction to this issue, "The New Normal: A Dialogue.”