Faculty-Staff Achievements, Sept. 28, 2009

Activities

Regina Janes, professor of English, spoke on "Revisiting Garcia Marquez among the Bananas" at the CLAS Summer Institute for Teachers on The Octopus and the Banana: United Fruit in Latin America, held July 9 at the Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley.

James Kettlewell, professor emeritus of art history, led a tour highlighting Saratoga's architectural history on Sept. 13.

In the News

John Cunningham, professor of art, has acquired a number of patents on the technology he first described in a 1988 Nature magazine article ("Techniques of Pyramid-Building in Egypt," Vol. 332, No. 22-23, March 3, 1988) and the research is ongoing. He has also created a company, Seicon Limited, based in Columbus, Ohio, to commercialize this new technology.  Notes Cunningham, "Much of what my associates and I hope to accomplish focuses on rather grand and romantic concepts, earthquake-resistant bridges, piezoelectric motors, drive train isolation for warships...so it is rather funny, I think, that one of our first successful attempts to commercialize the idea came about from a chance meeting at a party with a college professor from Ohio State who feared that his washing machine was destroying his house."

"Earthquake technology aimed at steadying washers" in the Columbus Business First magazine tells how Fred Miller, president of Seicon and Jim Baron, research and design engineer, took up the challenge of the self-destructing house. The article also describes some of the progress Cunningham's company has made in the area of vibration suppression to date.

Ray Giguere, professor of chemistry, was a source for "What if there were no aspirin?" published Sept. 27 in the Des Moines Register, announcing the opening at Grinnell College of Molecules That Matter, the exhibition that he created in conjunction with the Tang Teaching Museum.

Catherine Golden, professor of English, was a source for "Florida College students can access free textbooks" published Sept. 25 in The Gainesville Sun. Golden's book, Images of the Woman Reader and Victorian British and American Literature (2003, University Press of Florida) is now available online.