The Academic Minute for 2020.02.24-2020.02.28

The Academic Minute from 02.24 – 02.28

Monday, February 24th
Jenna Reinbold – Colgate University
Religious Freedom
Jenna Reinbold, associate professor of religion at Colgate University, studies the interaction of religion and law in the contemporary world. Her particular focuses include controversies over the separation of church and state in the United States and the role of religion and secularism in the spread of universal human rights. Reinbold is the author of numerous articles and chapters as well as the book Seeing the Myth in Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), which won the American Academy of Religion’s 2018 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion. Her words have appeared in The Kansas City Star, Religion and Politics, and on Salon.com. Reinbold earned her bachelor’s degree at Portland State University and her MA and PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Tuesday, February 25th
Kevin Jones – George Fox University
Mentoring At-Risk Students
Kevin T. Jones has been teaching at the college level for more than 30 years and has served various communication organizations in a variety of ways. Kevin is the past president of the Religious Communication Association, the Northwest Communication Association, the Kentucky Forensics Association, and the Kentucky Communication Association. He is also the founder and past president of the National Christian College Forensics Association.

Wednesday, February 26th
Katelyn Knox – University of Central Arkansas
Race and National Identity in Contemporary France
I’m an Associate Professor of French at the University of Central Arkansas, where I specialize in 20th- and 21st-century French and Francophone literature, music, and culture.

My first book, Race on Display in 20th- and 21st-Century France, came out in 2016 with Liverpool University press. I’m now working on my second book, tentatively titled Mediating Francophone Afropea, which will examine how ultracontemporary Afropean authors and artists blur boundaries between literature and music.

I also enjoy helping other junior humanities scholars–especially those at teaching institutions–navigate the tenure-track and the process of publishing their first academic book. I share advice on the academic book publishing process, establishing sustainable routines, and how to find more time for the things that matter most to you on my blog.

Thursday, February 27th
Ari Kirshenbaum – St. Michael’s College
Nicotine and E-Cigarettes
Dr. Ari Kirshenbaum is a professor of psychology at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, where he researches behavior influenced by recreational drugs.  His current work on human psychopharmacology of e-cigarettes is funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Drug Abuse. Other areas of study include toxicology, bioethics, and public-health policy.

Friday, February 28th
Steven Almo – Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Viperin
Our laboratory is interested in the development and application of strategies and technologies that enable the high-throughput/large-scale exploration of biological function. These efforts typically take advantage of automation and robotics to achieve the efficiencies and speed required to realize the desired rates of data generation and discovery. This cutting-edge infrastructure has been applied to a number of important biomedical areas to achieve new understanding and new therapeutic opportunities.

Our work on the large-scale annotation of enzyme function is helping to define the metabolic repertoire that exists in Nature and is providing new insights into the contributions of the gut microbiome to human health, the realization of new chemical processes for industry, and expanding our understanding of critical environmental issues, including global nutrient cycles and the evolution of complex microbial communities. Our high-resolution structural and functional analysis of the mammalian immune system has resulted in unprecedented understanding of the molecular mechanisms that control immunity and are guiding the development of novel strategies and reagents (e.g., biologics) for the treatment of infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases and cancers.