People News, November 2024

Leah Allen ’25J presented her research project in sustainable agriculture at the Summer Undergraduate Research Expo sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Undergraduate Research and Extension Experiences Summer Research Program. Allen’s project, “Labile Carbon Estimation in Small-Scale Field and High Tunnel Vegetable Production in Minnesota,” was one of 10 student research projects showcased at the expo.

Mariana Abarca, assistant professor of biological sciences, is the recipient of a $487,916 grant from the National Science Foundation for “BRC-BIO: Plant-Herbivore Interactions in Novel Communities and Environments.”

Shannon Audley, associate professor of education and child study, has been awarded a $24,736 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for the “Early Literacy Consortium” project.

Carrie Baker, Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Chair of American Studies and Professor of the Study of Women and Gender, is the author of “Misogynist Manifesto,” a three-part series of articles about Project 25 published in September in Ms. magazine.

Maren Buck, associate professor of chemistry, is the recipient of the prestigious Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation for her research, “New Strategies for the Preparation of Chemically-Fueled Hydrogel Actuators.”

Maleka Donaldson, assistant professor of education and child study, has been awarded a $6,400 grant from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for “Whiting Foundation Fellowship: Study Abroad in Paris, France.”

Susanna Ferguson, assistant professor of Middle East studies, was the host of a September episode of the Ottoman History Podcast, “An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier.”

Christophe Golé, professor of mathematical sciences, is co-author of Do Plants Know Math?: Unwinding the Story of Plant Spirals from Leonardo da Vinci to Now, published in September by Princeton University Press.

“To Populate the World with Color: OSGEMEOS and the Brazilian Imaginary," an essay by Professor of Spanish and Portuguese Marguerite Itamar Harrison, appears in the catalog for OSGEMEOS: Endless Story, an exhibition of artworks by Brazilian brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

Efadul Huq, assistant professor of environmental science and policy, has been awarded a $31,055 grant from Reversing Environmental Degradation in Africa and Asia sponsored by the University of Sheffield for “Climate Impacted Dwellers-led Agroecological Stewardship for Restoring Wetlands.”

Sam Intrator, Elizabeth A. Woodson ’22 Professor of Education and Child Study, has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Jeanann Gray Dunlap Foundation for “Teaching Arts Program.”

Jack Loveless, professor of geosciences, is the recipient of a $128,052 grant from the National Science Foundation for “Collaborative Research: Time-dependent imaging of earthquake cycle behavior across the Japan fault system.”

Malcolm Keating, associate professor of philosophy, is the author of Reason in an Uncertain World: Nyāya Philosophers on Argumentation and Living Well published by Oxford University Press.

Jinwon Kim, assistant professor of sociology, is the recipient of a $10,900 grant from the Academy for Korean Studies for “Koreatown in Manhattan: Branding Korea and Consuming Ethnicity in the Global Economy.”

Jennifer Malkowski, associate professor of film and media studies, is an editor for the Power Play: Games, Politics, Culture series published by Duke University Press, which “attends to the formal, computational realities of video games as entangled with questions of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and coloniality.”

Barry Moser, Irwin and Pauline Alper Glass Professor of Art, is the featured speaker for a November 2 event in Boston celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Lewis Carroll Society of North America. Moser won an American Book Award for his 1982 Pennyroyal Press edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Geremias Polanco, assistant professor of mathematical sciences, was profiled in September as one of three leading Hispanic mathematicians in Next Gen Finance’s “Math Monday” edition in honor of Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month.

Will Raven, professor of physics, is the recipient of the APS 2025 Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution. Raven was recognized by the American Physical Society for his work in “high precision laser spectroscopy of complex atoms and the percent level verification of quantum electrodynamics in Beryllium-9, and for innovative and extensive involvement of undergraduate students at Smith College in this research.”

E. Ahmet Tonak, a research affiliate in environmental science and policy, is the co-author of In the Tracks of Marx’s Capital: Debates in Marxian Political Economy and Lessons for 21st Century Capitalism published by Palgrave Macmillan, a new critical rereading of Karl Marx’s most important work on economics.

Julianna Tymoczko, Louise Wolff Kahn ’31 Professor of Mathematical Sciences, is the recipient of a $210,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for “RUI Combinatorial Models in Representation Theory, Geometry, and Analysis.”

Hélène Visentin, associate dean of the faculty and dean for academic development and professor of French studies, is the author of a critical edition, Andromède (1650), a play published in the complete works of Pierre Corneille, Théâtre (Tome IV) by Classiques Garnier, Paris.

Kimberly Ward-Duong, assistant professor of astronomy, has been awarded a $19,780 grant from NASA for “Testing Planetary Formation Mechanisms through the first FUV-Optical Spectrum of a Young, Accreting Planet.”

Elizabeth Sacktor ’24 is the new museum educator for Historic Northampton. Sacktor, who majored in history at Smith, previously worked as an educator at the Smith College Museum of Art, as a research assistant in Smith's historic clothing collection, and as a docent at both the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, and Kingman Tavern Museum in Cummington, Massachusetts.

Marcela Rodrigues ’20 is the recipient of a national award for education writing from the Education Writers Association for her story for The Dallas Morning News, DEI Dilemma: Inside Texas’ Fight to Ban Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education. Rodrigues earned her Smith degree in psychology and the study of women and gender, and a master’s degree in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Eli Williams ’13 is the new director of the LGBTQ Center at St. Mary’s College in Indiana. Williams, who majored in the study of women and gender at Smith, earned a master’s degree in leadership at Meadville/Lombard Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in gender studies and sociology at Notre Dame University.

Iris Gonzáles ’11 has been appointed to the board of Bottom Line, a nonprofit that helps students from first-generation and low-income backgrounds get into college. Gonzáles, who majored in engineering arts at Smith, is the chief operating officer at IVI RMA Global and an alum of Bottom Line.

Jessica Seman ’99 has been appointed as a Family Division Magistrate judge for the southeastern region of Vermont. Seman earned her Smith degree in anthropology and studio art and a law degree from Vermont Law School. She began her legal career as a law clerk for the New Hampshire Judiciary, and then spent several years in private practice. For the past 10 years, she has worked for the Vermont Office of Child Support, as both a staff attorney and managing attorney.

Tracy Trial ’99 is the new senior director of development for New England Public Media. Trial, an Ada Comstock Scholar at Smith who previously served as senior director of development for the United Way of the Pioneer Valley, earned her undergraduate degree in philosophy and a master of education degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Sujan Shresta ’92 is the recipient of a Research Heroes grant award from the Conrad Prebys Foundation to support her groundbreaking medical research. Shresta, who majored in biological sciences at Smith and earned a Ph.D. in immunology at Washington University, is a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. The Research Heroes program is designed to improve medical research by bringing in more diverse perspectives from underrepresented groups.

Megan Smetzer ’92 is the recipient of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s 36th annual Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art for her book Painful Beauty: Tlingit Women, Beadwork and the Art of Resilience. Smetzer majored in American studies at Smith and earned a master’s degree in art history at Williams College and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of British Columbia.