The Academic Minute for 2016.07.18-07.22

Academic Minute from 7.18 – 7.22

Monday, July 18th
Gary Lewandowski – Monmouth University
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Dr. Lewandowski’s research focuses on self and intimate relationships. He has published over 20 journal articles, over a dozen book chapters, received 12 grants, and given over 80 conference presentations (the vast majority of these endeavors involve students as coauthors).  Dr. Lewandowski currently serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, and is a co-editor/co-creator of www.ScienceOfRelationships.com.  Dr. Lewandowski’s work and expertise has been featured in a number of media outlets and his teaching was recognized in the Princeton Review’s book, The Best 300 Professors.

Tuesday, July 19th
Dylan Gee – Weill Cornell Medical College
Anxiety Peaks in Adolescence
Dr. Gee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. She received her B.A. in Psychological and Brain Studies from Dartmouth College in 2007 and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from UCLA in 2015. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, Dr. Gee completed her clinical internship at Weill Cornell Medical College and a research fellowship at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology. Her research focuses on developmental psychopathology, with primary goals to delineate typical and atypical brain development, elucidate how early environments and genetic factors influence sensitive periods in neurodevelopment and risk for anxiety and stress-related disorders, and translate knowledge of brain development to optimize clinical interventions for children and adolescents.

Wednesday, July 20th
Tracy Alloway – University of North Florida
Running Barefoot
Dr. Tracy Alloway is a professor of psychology and the Graduate Program Director at the University of North Florida.  She has spent over a decade being part of cutting-edge research on the importance of working memory in education and has led numerous government grants. In addition to publishing more than 100 scientific articles, she has also authored test batteries, published with Pearson, and seven books. He research has appeared in many media outlets, including Forbes, Good Morning America, the Today Show and the BBC.

Thursday, July 21st
Valerie Trouet – University of Arizona
Shipwrecks, Tree Rings and Hurricanes
Valerie Trouet is an Associate Professor in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona. She received her PhD in Bioscience Engineering from the KULeuven in Belgium in 2004 and worked as a post-doctoral research associate in the Geography Department at PennState and as a research scientist in the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL before moving to Arizona in 2011.  She is a paleoclimatologist whose main research interests focus on the climate of the Common Era and its influence on past societies and ecosystems.

Friday, July 22nd
Helen Kim – Whitman College
Intermarriage

Helen Kim is entering her eleventh year at Whitman College where she teaches courses on race and ethnic relations, Asian Americans, and gender. She is also affiliated with the Race and Ethnic Studies major as well as General Studies. She is currently a professor of Encounters and has regularly taught Critical and Alternative Voices.

Helen’s current research focuses on intermarriage and family dynamics among Jewish Americans and Asian Americans. Her scholarship has been profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education, The Jewish Daily Forward, the New York Times and by NPR. Her forthcoming book, JewAsian: Race, Religion and Identity for America’s Newest Jews, will be published in 2016 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Helen moved to Walla Walla in 2005 after nine years of living in the Midwest with her husband, Noah Leavitt. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Helen now calls Walla Walla home. She and Noah have two children, Ari Zakkai Kim-Leavitt (7 years old) and Talia Shalom Kim-Leavitt (4 years old).