Mammoth Spotlights: 2023-24 Academic Year
Jeffers Engelhardt | Music
Posted 7/23/24
Jeffers Engelhardt, the Karen and Brian Conway ’80, P’18 Presidential Teaching Professor of Music, has co-edited Baltic Musics Beyond the Post-Soviet with former Amherst visiting assistant professor Katherine Pukinskis, now an assistant professor of music at Carnegie Mellon University. Published in open access by the University of Tartu Press, the collection of essays addresses the important methodological and political question of what happens as the “post-Soviet”–described by the editors as “always once occupied, once colonized”–is de-centered in Baltic musical life and scholarship, particularly within generations less impacted by direct experiences of Soviet occupation and coloniality (including non-Baltic researchers and artists).
Caroline Goutte | Biology
Posted 7/22/24
The prestigious journal Genetics published “Notch signaling without the APH-2/Nicastrin subunit of Gamma Secretase in C. elegans germline stem cells,” an article by Edward S. Harkness Professor of Biology Caroline Goutte, as well as David M. Brinkley ’19, Karen C. Smith ’15, Emma C. Fink ’11, Woohyun Kwen ’25, Nina H. Yoo ’12, Zachary West ’13, Nora L. Sullivan ’02, Alex S. Farthing ’17 and Valerie Hale. The research investigates molecular mechanisms of cell communication common to all animals, including humans. Using a model animal system to probe different cell communication events, the researchers demonstrate that the core signaling machinery is more variable than previously thought. The potential broad impact of this work was recognized by the editors of Genetics, who selected the work as a "featured article" in the July issue of Genetics, a level of recognition that is usually awarded to papers produced at larger research universities or institutes.
Ivan Contreras | Mathematics
Posted 7/10/24
“Combinatorial QFT on graphs: 1st Quantization Formalism,” a paper co-authored by Ivan Contreras, associate professor of mathematics, was published in the European Mathematical Society’s Annales de l'Institute Henri Poincaré. In the paper, Contreras and colleagues from three other institutions describe a mathematical model for quantum field theory using graph theory, and prove new results towards a discretized version of quantum systems. The results offer insight into quantum field theory, as well as an interpretation of physical phenomena in the language of graph theory, which is the mathematical foundation of networks.
Philip White ’26 | Economics; Political Science
Posted 5/20/24
“The Long Room and the Library of Protection,” by Philip White ’26, has won the prestigious Hist Medal in Composition from the College Historical Society at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where the author is studying for the semester. Former winning submissions include a poem by Thomas Moore and a short story by Bram Stoker.
Jen Manion | History
Posted 5/20/24
Jen Manion, Winkley Professor of History and Political Economy, was elected to the Society of American Historians (SAH) in recognition of “the narrative power and scholarly distinction of her historical work.” The SAH was founded in 1939 by the historian and journalist Allan Nevins to promote literary excellence in the writing or presentation of history, and membership is by invitation only; among the society’s approximately 450 current fellows are scholars, journalists, novelists, independent historians, essayists, biographers, filmmakers, curators, and poets working in many different genres on topics that deal in whole or in part with American history.
Lloyd Barba | Religion
Posted 5/20/24
Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California by Lloyd Barba, assistant professor of religion, received the Pneuma Book Award during the opening plenary session of the 2024 Annual Meeting for the Society for Pentecostal Studies on March 14. The prize honors a book that represents a significant achievement in scholarship related to Pentecostal and Charismatic studies.
Sara Brenneis | Spanish
Posted 4/25/24
Sara Brenneis, professor and chair of Spanish, has been awarded a grant from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Center of the Humanities to support her project titled “The Stolperstein Database in Spain.” Also funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project aims to bring wider national and international attention to Spain’s role in World War II by mapping all of the country’s Stolperstein, which are commemorative brass plaques installed in locations throughout Europe that serve as memorial sites for Jews and non-Jews deported to Nazi concentration camps. The UNH and Mellon Foundation support will enable Brenneis to contribute to the creation of an accessible, multilingual website for students, tourists, residents, family members and others to easily find, recognize and understand the significance of the Stolperstein markers in Spain, and shed more light on Spaniards who were also victims of the Nazis.
Justin Kimball | Art and the History of Art
Posted 4/25/24
Photographs from Conway Professor in New Media Justin Kimball’s Who By Fire are on display as part of an exhibition presented by the European Cultural Council in Venice, Italy, until Nov. 24. The exhibition, titled Personal Structures 2024: Beyond Boundaries, is running concurrently with the prestigious Venice Biennale. Work from both this show and Kimball's last monograph, Who By Fire, considers contemporary American life as it relates to a complex history of economic, religious, and political environments. Images of people in neighborhoods, streets, and yards document moments where the burden of the present day visibly presses in upon bodies and physical surroundings, while also conveying the resilience and hope maintained under that weight.
Carrie Palmquist | Psychology
Posted 4/25/24
Carrie Palmquist, associate professor of psychology, co-authored a paper titled “Knowledge and source type influence children’s skepticism of misinformation” that was published in the Journal of Cognition and Development. Palmquist’s article described research she conducted in collaboration with a colleague at James Madison University that focused on children’s ability to correctly respond to misinformation. Among other things, the scientists found that, “although [the 3-year-olds in the study] can rely on some contextual information in order to accurately respond to misinformation, overcoming particularly difficult forms of incorrect information (e.g., deceptive humans) may also require cognitive abilities (e.g., executive function) that come with age and experience.”
Jaeyoon Park | Political Science
Posted 4/25/24
Jaeyoon Park, a postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor of political science, has written a new book titled Addiction Becomes Normal: On the Late-Modern American Subject. Published by the University of Chicago Press, the book uncovers a major recent shift in how many Americans think about addiction and explores what this shift reveals about contemporary notions of human nature, desire, and self-control.
William Han ’26, Alan Li ’24, Alex van Lidth ’26, Derek Zhang ’24, and Wenshi Zhao ’27 | Mathematics
Posted 3/27/24
This past December, William Han ’26, Alan Li ’24, Alex van Lidth ’26, Derek Zhang ’24, and Wenshi Zhao ’27 took part in The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and collectively earned Amherst 20th place out of 471 institutions. The preeminent mathematics contest for undergraduate college students in the United States and Canada, the Putnam began in 1938 as a competition between mathematics departments at colleges and universities; it has since grown to be the leading university-level mathematics examination in the world. This year’s group of Amherst mathematicians–whose participation was coordinated by Ivan Contreras and Nathan Pflueger, both assistant professors of mathematics–scored in the top 500–or 13%–of 3,857 competitors.
Thakshala Tissera | Writing Center
Posted 3/27/24
Thakshala Tissera, writing associate at the College’s Writing Center, was awarded first place in the UMass Amherst Graduate School’s 2024 Three Minute Thesis competition. Coached by Writing Center colleague Susan Daniels, associate in public speaking, Tissera delivered a presentation titled “Elephant Tales: Stories for Coexistence,” which was selected by the judges as the winner in a live campus final held at UMass on March 1.
The Common | NEA Grant
Posted 2/27/24
The Common, the College’s global literary magazine, has received a $15,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Arts Projects Grant is The Common’s eighth and largest NEA award to date, and will support the journal in publishing and promoting place-based writing, fostering international connections, and expanding the audiences of emerging writers.
Stacey Beganny and Josef Trapani | Biology
Posted 2/27/24
“A sensation for inflation: initial swim bladder inflation in larval zebrafish is mediated by the mechanosensory lateral line,” an article co-authored by the biology department’s Stacey Beganny, research technician, and Josef Trapani, associate professor, was named to the Journal of Environmental Biology’s 2023 Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist, which celebrates the contributions and innovations of the “next group of outstanding early-career researchers.” “In an elegant series of experiments, [Beganny, Trapani and colleagues at East Carolina University and the University of New Brunswick] showed that the larval fish use the lateral line to detect when they have reached the surface of the water, allowing them to gulp sufficient air into their swim bladders to achieve neutral buoyancy,” reads the citation for Beganny and Trapani’s article. “‘I was impressed that the authors used multiple manipulations to alter the function of lateral line neuromast cells with very strong and consistent evidence that these cells regulate the initial filling of the swim bladder,’ said [the nominator], adding ‘in deciding to follow up on that observation, [the authors] have discovered a very new role for the lateral line.’”
Conch Shell Award | Town of Amherst Historical Society
Posted 2/27/24
Three books associated with Amherst’s 2021 Bicentennial–Amherst College: The Campus Guide by Blair Kamin ’79; Amherst in the World, edited by late professor Martha Saxton; and Eye Mind Heart: A View of Amherst College at 200 by Nancy Pick ’83–have been recognized with the Town of Amherst Historical Society’s annual Arthur F. Kinney Conch Shell Award. The honor, which takes its name from the conch shell used in the 1700s to call Amherst residents to town meetings and worship, is given to “those who have made valuable contributions to the preservation and appreciation of Amherst’s history.” Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein received the award on Feb. 11.
Lloyd Barba | Religion
Posted 1/12/24
Sowing the Sacred: Mexican Pentecostal Farmworkers in California, a new book by Lloyd Barba, assistant professor of religion, has been awarded a prestigious 2024 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. “This book’s historical intervention chronicles human dignity via spirituality in conditions of little to no respect,” the citation for the prize reads. “Contrary to the pervasive image of Mexican farmworkers as culturally vacuous, lacking creative genius, and mere bodies of labor in a vertiginous cycle of migrant labor, Sowing the Sacred argues that Pentecostal farmworkers carved out a robust spirituality in these conditions and in doing so produced a vast record of cultural vibrancy.” Barba will receive the award at an event at the University of Heidelberg this coming May.
Jallicia Jolly | American Studies & Black Studies
Posted 12/8/23
Jallicia Jolly, assistant professor of American studies and Black studies and co-chair of the Birth Equity and Justice Massachusetts (BEJMA) coalition, has been awarded a grant from Wagner Foundation's Good Neighbor Fund to bolster the efforts of the BEJMA coalition. The fund supports organizers and community-based groups working at the intersection of health equity and economic prosperity, particularly work pertaining to historically disenfranchised or geographically isolated communities. “This grant’s support of BEJMA’s work reflects a vision of a just and robust community and an understanding and consideration of additional social drivers that impact overall well-being,” noted Jolly. The Wagner Foundation’s mission is to confront the social and historical disparities that perpetuate injustice by accompanying organizations aligned with this goal, serving as advocates for change and convening thought leaders. Its focus on health equity and shared prosperity is balanced by a holistic approach that aims to develop and strengthen equitable systems throughout the world.
Joshua Hyman | Economics
Posted 12/01/23
Joshua Hyman, associate professor of economics, has been selected to present his RESEARCH paper, “College Counseling in the Classroom: Randomized Evaluation of a Teacher-Based Approach to College Advising,” on Nov. 30 at the fall meeting of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Economics of Education PROGRAM. Hyman's article described a randomized control trial in 62 Michigan high schools that explored the impact that a college planning class had on high school seniors. Hyman found that, while the overall number of students enrolling in college did not change as a result of participating in the class, the course increased the number of students persisting through college.
Cailin Plunkett | Physics and Astronomy
Posted 10/25/23
Cailin Plunkett ’23 has received the American Physical Society (APS)’s prestigious 2023 LeRoy Apker Award, which recognizes “outstanding achievements in physics by undergraduate students and provides encouragement to students who have demonstrated great potential for future scientific accomplishment.” A very rare honor, the award is given to just two students across the U.S. each year, and one of the pair must be a student from an undergraduate-only institution. (The last Amherst student to have received an Apker Award was Louis A. Bloomfield ’79, who was a recipient the same year he graduated.) Advised by Kate Follette, assistant professor of astronomy, Plunkett was honored by the APS for her undergraduate thesis work, which involved developing an important new technique for combining detection limits and theoretical models of planet growth to rigorously quantify the underlying population of still-forming planets (also called protoplanets) in the universe. “Cailin quite literally invented a new and important technique relevant to many future protoplanet surveys with ground and next-generation space telescopes,” explained Follette. But Plunkett is more than just a star in the lab and classroom, added Follette–she served as a patient, encouraging teaching assistant; a key member of the physics department’s Climate and Community Committee; a staunch advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion who educated herself about her own privilege; and a role model and mentor for other women in physics. Of Plunkett’s future, said Follette: “I have the highest confidence in this young physicist’s potential to become a key contributor to both the science and the culture of our field.”
Jeeyon Jeong | Biology
Posted 10/25/23
Jeeyon Jeong, associate professor of biology, has edited a new book titled Plant Iron Homeostasis: Methods and Protocols. Part of the highly cited “Methods in Molecular Biology” series, the volume contains 16 chapters submitted by 15 research groups from around the world, including one co-authored by Jeong herself and three students from her lab–Sara Omer ’23, Claire Macero ’25 and Kelly Zheng ’22. Jeong’s team’s chapter, titled “An Adapted Protocol for Quantitative Rhizosphere Acidification Assay,” reports the establishment of an assay to quantitatively measure small changes in the pH around the roots of plants and provide a better understanding of the mechanisms that regulate the micronutrient iron. Work in the Jeong Lab is currently funded by grants from two National Science Foundation initiatives: the Research at Undergraduate Institutions and Faculty Early Career Development (known as CAREER) programs.
Nick Horton | Mathematics and Statistics
Posted 10/25/23
“How learners produce data from text in classifying clickbait,” a paper co-authored by Nicholas J. Horton, Beitzel Professor in Technology and Society (Statistics and Data Science); Phebe Palmer ’21, and colleagues from the Concord Consortium, has been awarded the 2023 Peter Holmes Prize by the journal Teaching Statistics. Each year, the Peter Holmes prize is awarded for the paper in Teaching Statistics that best demonstrates excellence in motivating practical classroom activity. This prize aims to highlight excellence in motivating practical classroom activity. Horton and Palmer’s paper explored students’ understanding of text as data using a motivating task to classify headlines as “clickbait” or “news.”
Olufemi Vaughan | Black Studies
Posted 10/6/23
Olufemi Vaughan, the Alfred Sargent Lee ’41 and Mary Farley Ames Lee Professor of Black Studies, was one of 180 people from around the world named a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow. His project, “Letters, Kinship, and Social Mobility in Nigeria, 1926–1994,” is based on 3,000 family letters from his late father’s library that focus on real-life family stories in colonial and postcolonial Nigeria. The fellows were appointed on the basis of “prior achievement and exceptional promise.”
Isabelle Caban ’23 | Geology
Posted 10/6/23
Isabelle Caban ’23 was named this year’s recipient of an American Geosciences Institute Scholarship for Advancing Diversity in the Geoscience Profession. The one-time, merit-based scholarship supports students who are Black, Indigenous, or Persons of Color in the United States studying the geosciences. Now a graduate student at Indiana University Bloomington, Caban’s research interests include volcanoes, landslides, and the long-term consequences they pose. During her time at Amherst, she was advised by Rachel Bernard, assistant professor of geology.
Kiara Vigil | American Studies
Posted 9/22/23
Kiara Vigil, associate professor of American studies, has co-launched and will edit a new book series with the University Press of Kansas. Titled The Lyda Conley Series on Trailblazing Indigenous Futures, the project will promote and explore issues of gender and the contributions of women within Native American and Indigenous studies and highlight new scholarship concerning law, culture, literature, and public history.
Yael Rice | Art and the History of Art; Asian Languages and Civilizations
Posted 9/22/23
Yael Rice, associate professor of art and the history of art and of Asian languages and civilizations, received a grant from the Persian Heritage Foundation to digitize the Taza Akhbar, an Illustrated History of the Kings of Kabul. Completed in 1817, the manuscript is the only known copy of this text and includes an unusual emphasis on and rich detail about the urban topography of Afghanistan and the ethnography of its peoples.
David Hall | Physics
Posted 9/23/23
In a significant development in the field of quantum physics, David Hall ’91, Paula R. and David J. Avenius 1941 Professor of Physics, created in his campus lab an example of a long-theorized quantum vortex, called an “Alice ring,” which appeared in the decay of a monopole particle in an ultracold gas of atoms. An Alice ring has the remarkable property that particles passing through it flip their charges and become antiparticles, entering a mirror world that could be familiar to the eponymous Alice character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (hence the name). This groundbreaking research, which was conducted in collaboration with Amherst Research Associate Alina Blinova and their theory colleagues in Finland, was described in a paper titled “Observation of an Alice ring in a Bose-Einstein condensate” that was published by the journal Nature Communications.
Audrey Chang ’20 and Kate Sims | Economics
Posted 9/7/23
Audrey Cheng ’20; Katharine Sims, a professor of economics, and Yuanyuan Yi, a research assistant professor at Peking University’s National School of Development in China, have co-authored an article that has been published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. Titled “Economic Development and Conservation Impacts of China’s Nature Reserves,” the paper studied thousands of Chinese nature reserves throughout four decades. It found that these nature reserves improved human development and maintained natural land cover as a result of conservation measures, but that formal employment rates declined. The authors conclude that these findings indicate both the promise of protected areas as a sustainable development strategy and the need for institutional mechanisms to ensure that local benefits and employment opportunities are broadly distributed. This project began as Cheng's senior economics thesis with Sims as her advisor; from then until last month, they have been working together with Yi to prepare it for publication.
Helen Leung and Mark Marshall | Chemistry
Posted 9/7/23
Chemistry department chairs Helen Leung, George H. Corey 1888 Professor of Chemistry, and Mark Marshall, Class of 1959 Professor of Chemistry, have received a National Science Foundation (NSF) award to use Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy and computational methods to study intermolecular forces operative between gas-phase heterodimers formed by protic acids and halo-olefins and to develop the chiral tagging method. Leung, Marshall and their students will generate molecular species held together solely by intermolecular interactions, and then examine their rotational spectra using two types of complementary spectrometers. With the up-to-date, relevant, modern instrumentation made possible with the NSF funding, the project will provide meaningful hands-on experience in modern, state-of-the-art physical chemistry for undergraduate students. It will also “engage the next generation of scientists in pedagogically effective ways, better prepare them to be responsible citizens in an increasingly technological world, and better position them to contribute in STEM fields,” according to Leung and Marshall.
Jiwon Chung ’23 | Chemistry
Posted 9/7/23
Jiwon Chung ’23, former program manager in the College’s Center for Restorative Practices, was the lead author of a paper published in The Journal of Chemical Education. The article–which was co-authored by the Center for Teaching and Learning’s Sarah Bunnell and chemistry professor Jacob Olshansky–was also featured as a research highlight in the July 13, 2023, issue of the prestigious journal Science.