All News

Spring Research Roundup from the Graduate Students in Arts and Sciences

May 9, 2017

Outside Awards

Maggie Beeler (Archaeology) received the prestigious Diana Mossip Memorial Scholarship through the Mensa Foundation. Alex Brey (History of Art) will begin a five month fellowship at the Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem and a nine month fellowship at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul to continue his research in hunting scenes from the Umayyad caliphate. Charlie Kuper (Classics) received a full fellowship to attend the Syriac Summer School at the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library of St. John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, MN. Shannon Steiner (History of Art) has been awarded the prestigious Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies for 2017-2018. Katherine Rochester (History of Art) has accepted a Graduate Curatorial Internship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles for 2017-2018, where she will be working on the “100 Years Bauhaus” show, as well as exhibitions about American avant-garde artists in Paris and the experimental animation artist Harry Smith. Olivia McAuley (Physics) received a travel award from Fermilab and the National Science Foundation to attend the National Society of Black Physicists Meeting at Fermilab in Illinois.

Both Justinne K. Lake-Jedzinak (History of Art) and Hannah Schwartz (Mathematics) have received the Doris Sill Carland Teaching Fellowship for 2017-18 for their outstanding work as teaching assistants this past academic year. In addition, Jane Shaw (Russian) and Alex Chartrand (Physics) have been awarded the Doris Sill Carland Prize in recognition of their teaching. Michelle Al-Ferzly (History of Art) and Samantha Pezzimenti (Mathematics) have each received the McPherson Award for Excellence in recognition for their leadership of the Graduate Student Association.

Graduate Group News

The Graduate Group in Archaelology, Classics and History of Art continued its tradition of celebrating the end of the year with a research symposium and festive meal. This year, presentations were given by the following Graduate Group students: Maggie Beeler (Archaeology), "The Social Dynamics of Early Helladic Sealing Practices: Seal Use and Social Change in Early Bronze Age Greece"; Collin Hilton (Classics), "Philosophical Myth in Plutarch's On the Face in the Moon"; RJ Barnes (Classics), "Persius and the Problem of Stoic Laughter"; and Nava Streiter (History of Art), "Bodies and Books: Nonverbal Communication in Middle Byzantine Manuscripts."

The Group also hosted two workshops this term. In February, Alicia Peaker led a session on digital scholarship and, in April, Maeve Doyle, Tom Morton, and Annette Baertschi led a discussion on abstract writing.

Departmental News

Archaeology

In March, Maggie Beeler delivered an invited lecture, "Chiefdoms and their Critics: New Directions in Archaeological Theory," at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She also guest-lectured courses on "Death and Archaeology" and "Archaeological Theory" during her visit to Coe College.

Danielle Bennett will deliver papers at both the Celtic Classics Conference in Montreal and a colloquium on ancient Greek vases in Vienna, Austria.

This winter, Matthew Jameson and Zach Silvia continued their work as trench supervisors at the Arabian Iron Age sites of Tell Abraq and Muweilah in the United Arab Emirates. Both excavations are directed by Professor Peter Magee of Archaeology.

Andrew Tharlar continues as trench supervisor at the Archaic-Hellenistic site of Morgantina, Sicily this summer. Kiersten King and Andrea Samz-Pustol also continue their fieldwork as assistant supervisors.

This summer Zach Silvia returns to the late first millennium BCE site of Bashtepa in Uzbekistan to continue his role as topographer and supervisor for the Joint Uzbek-American Expedition to the Bukhara Oasis. Megan Sligar also joins as the project's database supervisor.

Classics

Daniel Crosby's chapter, "'Arrows Fletched from Our Own Wings': Discovering a 'Delphi of the Mind' in Writings of the Early Church Fathers," in Prophets and Profits: Ancient Prophecy and Divination and its Reception (Richard Evans, ed. Routledge) is currently in press.

In April, Collin Hilton presented the paper "Bovine Lives and Theoretical Virtue in Lucretius' De rerum natura" at the 113th meeting of The Classical Association of the Middle West and South.

Charlie Kuper inspired much enthusiasm among his undergraduate students in his new course "Remembering the Saints: Reading, Pilgrimage, and Tourism."

History of Art

Michelle Al-Ferzly represented Bryn Mawr at the 22nd Annual Graduate Student Symposium on the History of Art at the Barnes Foundation.

Alex Brey presented a paper at the Middle Atlantic Graduate Student Symposium at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

In March, Laurel McLaughlin co-curated an exhibition at FJORD Gallery.

In April, Michelle Smiley presented at the IFA-Frick Graduate Symposium at NYU on contemporary photographer Chris McCaw and his Sunburn series.

Katherine Rochester presented the paper “Beyond the Film Frame: The Animated Ornament in Exhibition” in February at the College Art Association Annual Conference in New York City.

Mathematics

In April, Ziva Myer delivered the "distinguished graduate student" talk at the Knots in Washington conference. This summer, she will participate in the Kylerec workshop in Truckee, CA as well as a polyfold workshop at UC Berkeley.

Physics

Alex Chartrand published a paper titled "Continuity of Heavy Rydberg Behaviour in Undergrade Ion-Pair States of H2" in the journal Chemical Physics Letters.

This June, Vince Gregoric will be presenting at the 48th annual Division of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics conference in Sacramento. He will deliver a talk, "Directed field ionization," and present a poster of his research, "Experimental optimization of directed field ionization."

Xiao Wang and her adviser Zuemei (May) Cheng are co-authors on two recently published papers: "Effects of biaxial strain on the improper multiferroicity in h-LuFeO3 films studied using the restrained thermal expansion method" in the journal Physics Review Letter B and "Voltage controlled interlayer coupling in perpendicularly magnetized magnetic tunnel junctions" in Nature Communication.