The Academic Minute for 2018.08.13-08.17

Academic Minute from 8.13 – 8.17

Monday, August 13th
Aaron Lampman – Washington College
Perceptions of Risk and Sea-Level Rise
Aaron Lampman, Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology, is conducting ethnographic research in communities on Maryland’s Eastern Shore that are most vulnerable to dramatic sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay in the next 50 years. He and students are learning that how people perceive the risk associated with rising water levels is nuanced and complicated, deeply enfolded in their sense of place, their religious faith, their generational memories, and their way of life. Their research is helping local, state, and federal planners better understand how to communicate.

Tuesday, August 14th
Melissa Deckman – Washington College
The Evolving Role of Women in Politics
Professor Deckman’s areas of specialty include religion and politics, women and politics, and state and local politics.  Her latest book is Tea Party Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right (May 2016: NYU Press)  The updated third edition of her best-selling textbook, Women and Politics, written with Julie Dolan and Michele Swers, and which analyzes the 2016 presidential election, is now available through Rowman & Littlefield.

Wednesday, August 15th
Bill Schindler – Washington College
Re-inventing Food Systems by Incorporating our Dietary Past
Dr. Bill Schindler is the director of the Eastern Shore Food Lab and an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.  As both an experimental archaeologist and primitive technologist, his research and teaching, both in and outside of the college, revolve around a comprehensive understanding of prehistoric technologies including lithic (stone tool) technologies, prehistoric ceramic technologies, projectile technologies, hunting, foraging, hide working, fiber technologies and all aspects of prehistoric food acquisition, processing, storage, and consumption.  He believes that the better understanding of prehistoric life made possible through the archaeological record and a practical understanding of the technologies that created it can contextualize our place in the world and help provide answers to many of the issues facing us today.

Thursday, August 16th
Rachel Durso – Washington College
Using GIS to Help Victims of Domestic Violence
Professor Durso’s primary research area examines the consequences of mass incarceration in the United States in the 21st century. This research explores the ways in which social control of minority groups, partisanship, and historical punishment practices affect modern-day punishment issues such as increases in corrections spending, prison admissions, and privatization. She analyzes these issues from a macro quantitative perspective using national and state-level data. She is currently working with a colleague at Northwestern University to determine the state-specific factors that led to mass incarceration in Florida.

Friday, August 17th
Jennie Carr – Washington College
Field Sparrows
My research focuses on avian behavior, ecology and thermophysiology.  I am particularly interested in how predators influence bird behavior and how perceived predation risk interferes with a bird’s ability to thermoregulate and maintain energy reserves in challenging thermal environments.  These studies are conducted on a variety of avian species in both the field and lab.