The Academic Minute for 2020.08.10-2020.08.14

The Academic Minute from 08.10 – 08.14

Monday, August 10th
Michael Vargas – SUNY New Paltz
COVID-19 and the Black Death
Employed at SUNY New Paltz since 2006, Michael Vargas advanced to Associate Professor rank in 2013 and Professor rank in 2019. He is a historian of the European Middle Ages, covering the period from the decline of Rome to the Protestant Reformation – a thousand years of important continuities and dramatic changes.

Tuesday, August 11th
Tamie Jovanelly – Berry College
Water Quality
Dr. Tamie Jovanelly is an Associate Professor of Geology at a premiere institution called Berry College. She received her PhD from Kent State University, her MS from University of Nebraska, and her BS from University of Michigan. Over 15-years her research has been broad scoping and impressive. Most recently, she is sole author of a monograph titled, Iceland: Tectonics, Volcanics, and Glacial Features (Wiley, 2020). In continuation with her investigations in climate change shereceived a Research Scientist position on a cruise to Svalbard in 2021. Additionally, she is classically trained as a hydrologist and has completed water quality assessments on 5 continents comparing developed, undeveloped, and developing countrieswhile focusing on major river systems (Nile, Ganges, Amazon, Mississippi, etc.).

Wednesday, August 12th
Paula Saravia – University of California San Diego
Patagonia Sadness
I studied social anthropology at Universidad de Chile (1995-2000), where I specialized in medical anthropology. Before continuing my studies abroad, I worked on poverty reduction programs in Chile, and I also taught at Universidad de Chile as a Lecturer. In 2006 I received an Erasmus Mundus grant from the European Union to study in the interdisciplinary Master’s program “Phoenix Dynamics of Health and Welfare, spending my first year in Portugal at Evora University and my second year in Linköping, Sweden. In my research, I consider different dimensions of inequality, such as race, gender, and class, to understand the unequal distribution of illness and how people seek health care. My doctoral training in medical anthropology at UC San Diego has given me a vast knowledge about global health processes and the structural conditions that perpetuate health disparities in the global North and South. My dissertation research focused on understanding modes of engagement and tuberculosis illness experiences within Aymara communities in Bolivia and Chile.

Thursday, August 13th
Falk Huettmann – University of Alaska Fairbanks
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
Falk’s research interests include wildlife ecology, seabirds, predictive GIS modeling, web-based wildlife databases and metadata, spatial aspects of population viability analysis (PVA), future landscape scenarios of wildlife habitat, landscape ecology, Russian far east, tropical ecology, conservation steady state economy.

Friday, August 14th
Amir Behzadan – Texas A&M University
Artificial Intelligence Helping Communities in Floods
Since Fall 2017, I have been an Associate Professor of Construction Science at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Prior to joining TAMU, I served as Associate Professor of Construction Management at Missouri State University (MSU) (2015-17), Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering (Construction) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) (2009-15), and Assistant Professor of Construction Technology at the New York City College of Technology (2008-9) of the City University of New York (CUNY).