The Academic Minute for 2017.10.16-10.20

Academic Minute from 10.16 – 10.20

Monday, October 16th
Omer Gokcumen – University at Buffalo
The Ghost Species of Ancient Humans
Omer Gokcumen is an expert in evolutionary anthropology — the study of how humans evolved and how they differ from non-human primates such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

He can speak to the media about topics tied to human evolution, including evolutionary adaptation and the evolutionary processes that lead to genetic disease.

Gokcumen’s research examines the role that genomic variants, especially deletions and duplications, play in human disease and biology. His laboratory investigates the evolutionary history of genetic variations tied to interesting traits and diseases in modern and ancient human populations.

Tuesday, October 17th
Brain Moon – University of Arizona
Music, Data and Algorithms
Brian Moon is a musicologist who specializes in America’s music. He attended Emory University where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music and classical guitar. Later, he returned to Emory to earn a Masters of Sacred Music degree focusing upon choral conducting. Moon attended the University of Colorado for his Ph.D. in Musicology, where he was a fellow in the American Music Research Center. Moon taught briefly at the University of Colorado, and has taught at the University of Arizona since 2004. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor at the Fred Fox School of Music and the Coordinator of Music in General Studies. He is also affiliated with the University of Arizona’s General Education Academy, a collaborative faculty learning community focusing upon bringing the most effective aspects of distance learning into online teaching.

Wednesday, October 18th
David Coogan – Virginia Commonwealth University
Changing the Narrative in Jail
Since 2006 David Coogan has been teaching writing workshops in autobiography at the Richmond City Jail (RCJ). The work has been supported by the College of Humanities and Sciences through its Student Engagement Program and the Career Enhancement Scholarships. It has earned praise through VCU’s 40 Acts of Caring Award. And it was a spotlighted project in VCU’s application to the President’s Commission on Higher Education Community Engagement Honor Roll. It has touched the lives of over five dozen inmates. And it has reached hundreds of VCU students enrolled in English 366: Writing and Social Change: Prison Writing.

Thursday, October 19th
Justin Tosi – Georgetown University
Moral Grandstanding
I am a Junior Faculty Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics in the McDonough School of Business. From 2015-17 I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at the University of Michigan. Before that I did my graduate work in the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona.

I work in political, legal, and moral philosophy, and especially on state legitimacy, special obligations, and social morality. My work has been published (or is forthcoming) in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Legal Theory, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Ratio, and Journal of Moral Philosophy.

Friday, October 20th
Dan Cinotti – New York Institute of Technology
LGBTQ Bullying
Daniel Cinotti, Ph.D. specializes in the supervision and training of professional school counselors. As a counselor educator, he is an advocate for the use of comprehensive school counseling programs, and his research interests include school counselor supervision and professional identity. Cinotti has presented at local and national conferences on subjects such as fostering school counselor self-efficacy through supervision and developing effective career counseling interventions for underserved student populations. His current research focuses on training future school building administrators to supervise school counselors.