The Academic Minute for 2018.02.12-02.16

Academic Minute from 2.12 – 2.16

Monday, February 12th
David Richardson – SUNY New Paltz
Warming Lakes
David Richardson is an Associate Professor of Biology at SUNY New Paltz. David Richardson conducts research on the ecology of aquatic ecosystems including lakes, rivers, and streams. Broadly speaking, Richardson seeks to understand how aquatic ecosystems function and the direct or indirect effect that humans have on aquatic food webs, water quality, and biogeochemistry. Many of his studies revolve around using environmental sensors and technology to understand aquatic ecosystems and involve collaborative science with regional, national, and global partners. Richardson’s lab focuses on undergraduate research and he teaches course on freshwater biology, ecology, and statistics. His website is https://faculty.newpaltz.edu/davidrichardson/ and he tweets from @DRichardsonLab.

Tuesday, February 13th
Derek Black – University of South Carolina
Federal Education Right
Derek Black is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. His areas of expertise include education law and policy, constitutional law, civil rights, evidence, and torts. The focus of his current scholarship is the intersection of constitutional law and public education, particularly as it pertains to educational equality and fairness for disadvantaged students. His earlier work focused more heavily on intentional discrimination standards. His articles have been published and are forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, California Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Washington University Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Boston University Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and North Carolina Law Review, among various others. His work has also been cited in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and by several briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wednesday, February 14th
Billy J. Stratton – University of Denver
Literature as Witness in Hollywood
Dr. Billy J. Stratton is an associate professor in the Department of English where he teaches contemporary Native American/American literature, critical theory, film studies, and writing. He is a former Fulbright fellow to Germany whose criticism, fiction, commentary, and editorial work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous books and journals including, Arizona Quarterly, Cream City Review, Salon, The Journal of American Culture, The Independent, Wicazo-Sa Review, Common-place, Rhizomes, Big Muddy, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and TIME. He is also the author of Buried in Shades of Night: Contested Voices, Indian Captivity, and the Legacy of King Philip’s War, while being contributing editor to The Fictions of Stephen Graham Jones: A Critical Companion. He was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky and is currently at work on a fiction project on the social, historical, and environmental impacts of coal mining set in the region. He has been instrumental in efforts to create dialogue and historical understanding at the University of Denver around the issue of Sand Creek. Follow him @BillyJStratton.

Thursday, February 15th
Tamas Budavari – Johns Hopkins University
Using Astronomy Tools to Fight Urban Decay
Tamás Budavári’s primary interest is in cosmology, large-scale structure, and galaxy evolution. He has been focusing on various statistical and computational challenges in astronomy as modern detector technology is rapidly changing the way science is done. Large projects he has worked on, including the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, pioneered much of the new methodology. Work done with next-generation telescopes will require new ways of doing science. New hardware architectures, new algorithms and new statistical methods will be needed to analyze the observations of the upcoming surveys, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

Friday, February 16th
Stephanie Gill – University at Buffalo
Yetis
Stephanie Gill is a Ph.D. Candidate in Biological Sciences at the University of Buffalo in Buffalo, New York.