The Academic Minute for 2017.6.12-6.16

Academic Minute from 6.12 – 6.16

Monday, June 12th
Shelby Putt – Indiana University
Functional Brain Networks and Early Stone Tools
Dr. Putt is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Stone Age Institute and the Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology at Indiana University. She holds a PhD degree in Anthropology from the University of Iowa. Her research utilizes functional neuroimaging technology, the fossil and archaeological records, and experimental methods to investigate the evolution of primate and hominin brains and behaviors through time. She has published articles that explore how cognition, language, tool use and manufacture, social transmission, and learning evolved in our human ancestors. This research has been funded by the Leakey Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Prior to coming to the Stone Age Institute, she was an AAUW American Fellow and taught courses in general anthropology, human evolution, and experimental archaeology at the University of Iowa.

Tuesday, June 13th
Tal-Chen Rabinowitch – University of Washington
The Power of Being in Sync
Tal-Chen Rabinowitch is a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington. Her research examines the connections between music, synchrony and emotional and social interaction in toddlers and young children. She obtained her Ph.D at the Centre for Music and Science, University of Cambridge.

Dr. Andrew N. Meltzoff holds the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Chair and is the Co-Director of the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. A graduate of Harvard University, with a PhD from Oxford University, he is an internationally renowned expert on infant and child development.

Wednesday, June 14th
Jonathan Mijs – London School of Economics
Inequality
Jonathan earned his Ph.D. in Sociology at Harvard University. He is interested in stratification, morality, and the balance of structure/agency in shaping life outcomes. Presented in this academic minute is his dissertation research, which is an investigation into how (young) citizens learn about social inequality, and how they come to explain setbacks and success in their own life and that of others.

Thursday, June 15th
Jeffrey Gardner – University of Maryland Baltimore
Bio-prospecting
Our lab is focused on understanding the metabolism and physiology of bacteria, specifically how they sense their environment and obtain energy. We use the soil bacterium Cellvibrio japonicus to study how microbes in the soil detect and degrade plant cell walls. Our lab uses the interdisciplinary approaches of molecular genetics (transcriptomics), classical bacterial genetics, and biochemistry. By uncovering the mechanisms of plant cell wall degradation by bacteria we hope to (1) determine how bacteria are able to sense plant cell walls as nutrients, (2) understand how the degradation of plant material is regulated, (3) elucidate unknown gene function in the context of plant cell wall degradation, and (4) engineer useful properties into bacteria that may have industrial applications.

Friday, June 16th
Steven Pirutinsky – Touro College
Practicing Religion May Benefit Some But Not All
Steven Tzvi Pirutinsky, Ph.D., is assistant professor at Touro College Graduate School of Social Work.  He teaches foundational courses in human behavior and clinical practice courses including couples and family therapy. He is a clinical psychologist whose research focuses on the intersections of spirituality, religion, culture, mental health and well-being. Pirutinsky earned both his MS and PhD at Columbia University.  He is Director of Research at the Center for Anxiety Disorders & JPSYCH in New York City.