Academic Minute from 8.22 – 8.26
Monday, August 22nd
Julia Jaekel – University of Tennessee Knoxville
Refugee Mother’s Child Care Practices
Dr. Julia Jaekel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. She studied developmental psychology and received her PhD titled “Familial developmental factors of Turkish immigrant and German preschool children” from the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) in 2008. From 2009-2010 she worked as a postdoc with Prof. Dieter Wolke at the University of Warwick (UK) and then returned to Germany to work at the University Hospital in Bonn (Germany) and the Ruhr-University Bochum until July 2015. Her research is interdisciplinary and often combines multiple methods such as behavioral, cognitive, academic, neurological, and physiological assessments to understand long-term developmental mechanisms of vulnerability and resilience in individuals facing socio-cultural and/or biological adversity.
Tuesday, August 23rd
Guillermo Aguilar – University of California Riverside
A Window to the Brain
Professor Guillermo Aguilar received his Bachelors degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in 1993, and his Masters and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1995 and 1999, respectively.
Wednesday, August 24th
John Cummings – Siena College
Neutrinos
Dr. John Cummings graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an undergraduate degree in Physics before he went on to receive his M.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts and his Ph.D. from Rice University.
Coming to Siena College in 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Physics, Cummings continued his research alongside his work in the classroom. Some of his favorite topics to teach are modern physics, electromagnetic theory, and quantum mechanics.
Dr. Cummings’ research focus is in particle physics in general, having done research in strong interaction physics, particularly meson spectroscopy. Currently, he is studying neutrinos, investigating the phenomenon known as “oscillation,” an understanding of which may help us explain why the universe seems to be made of matter, with so little anti-matter.
In 2016, Cummings was named Dean of the Siena College School of Science.
His interests include functional and stereotactic neurosurgery, pain surgery, and epilepsy surgery. Dr. Burchiel’s research interests are concerned with the physiology of nociception and neuropathic pains, including trigeminal neuralgia, the neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders, and image-guided neurosurgery. The Functional and Stereotactic Neurosurgery program encompasses a broad spectrum of surgical and nonsurgical treatments to manage and restore neurological function. Special programs include surgical management of movement disorders, surgical pain management, epilepsy surgery, peripheral nerve surgery, radiosurgery and stereotactic computer assisted neurosurgery. The Surgical Pain Management program is a national leader in the treatment of orofacial pains, including trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureaux).Visit the Department of Neurological Surgery’s website for information about academics, conferences, residency and fellowships.
Thursday, August 25th
Howard Eichenbaum – Boston University
Guided Memory
The hippocampus plays a critical role in memory formation, but our understanding of just what the hippocampus does and how it performs its functions are still issues of considerable controversy. To enhance our knowledge about hippocampal function, we are pursuing a combination of neuropsychological studies of the nature of memory loss in animals with damage to the hippocampus and related cortical areas, and we are pursuing electrophysiological recording studies that seek to determine how information is represented by the hippocampus and associated cortical areas.
Friday, August 26th
Martin Krieger – University of Southern California
Flows and Finances
Martin Krieger’s current work is on defense and military policy, and on uncertainty and ambiguity. He has done social-science informed aural and photographic documentation of Los Angeles, including storefront houses of worship and industrial Los Angeles. Professor Krieger has won three consecutive Mellon Mentoring Awards, for mentoring undergraduates, faculty, and graduate students. Professor Krieger has worked in the fields of planning and design theory, ethics and entrepreneurship, mathematical models of urban spatial processes, and has explored the role of the humanities in planning. His nine published books describe how planning, design, and science are actually done. Professor Krieger has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and at the National Humanities Center, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He has received grants from a variety of foundations, and has served as the Zell/Lurie Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship at University of Michigan’s Business School. He joined the USC faculty in 1984. Professor Krieger often helps doctoral students, as well as undergraduates and masters students, focus and formulate their research projects.
