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Eugene Domack, the J.W. Johnson Family Professor of Environmental Studies, was recently elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).  He was honored at the AGU’s fall meeting in San Francisco, Dec. 5-9.

The total number of students on Hamilton’s campus may be smaller than an entire graduating class at big research universities, but that doesn’t mean Hamilton’s research opportunities are any more limited. In fact, as Matthew T. Farrington ’12, Diane Paverman ’13, Spencer Gulbronson ’12, Peter Lauro ’12 and alumnus Sam Hinks ’11 are discovering, research at Hamilton is just as engaging as it can be at large universities. The students are working with Professor of Computer Science Stuart Hirshfield to determine if computers can recognize the unique “signature” of a user’s brain.

A paper recently published by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe received notice in two different venues in the past month. It was featured on the Oak Ridge National Labs’ supercomputing center website and was named a “must-read” by the post-publication review service Faculty of 1000.

Research Associate Leanne Hirshfield ’02 presented a talk titled “This is Your Brain on Computers: Using Non-invasive Cognitive and Physiological Sensors to Enhance Human-Computer Interactions” on Dec. 7 at Syracuse University.  

“Cats, Dogs, and Social Minds: Learning from Alan Palmer—and Sixth Graders,” by Corinne Bancroft ’10 and Professor of Comparative Literature Peter J. Rabinowitz, has appeared in a special issue of Style.

If happiness is a warm puppy there were plenty of good feelings to go around on Dec. 9 when the Hamilton Association for Volunteering, Outreach and Charity  (HAVOC) welcomed the Rome Humane Society and 10 of its furry residents for “Paws to Relax” study break in the Events Barn.

Students in the Semester in Washington Program visited the Department of State, hosted by Foreign Service Officer Ketura Brown ’04 on Dec. 7.  Brown discussed careers in the foreign service and her own journey from Hamilton College, where she participated in the Semester in Washington Program, to the Carter Center at Emory University to the Fletcher School of Tufts University to the State Department.

The Hamilton College Bicentennial has encouraged the study of what the Hamilton experience has been over the past 200 years. This kind of retrospective creates a feeling of self-awareness: we know that one day we will be similarly studied, and we must think about who we are and how we want to be remembered. The 2012 time capsule, to be sealed at the Bicentennial closing in June and opened for the Tercentenary in 2112, gives us an opportunity to convey these messages about ourselves to the future Hamilton community.

American young people say that the top two causes of poverty are a lack of jobs (83.7 percent) followed by a lack of health insurance (64.3 percent) according to a new national survey of young Americans’ attitudes on poverty, released on Dec. 12 and conducted by Hamilton. More than two thirds (67.7 percent) also cited the growing incomes of the wealthiest people as negatively affecting the quality of life of those with lower incomes. The full results of this survey are available online and were presented by webcast at www.hamilton.edu/poverty.

Hamilton’s New York City Program students participated in their semester’s final event with a visit Robert Morris ’76 in Stamford, Conn., on Dec. 6. Morris invited the group to dine at his offices, where he manages Olympus Partners, a private equity firm with more than $3 billion in assets under management. To date the group had not spoken with an alumnus in the private equity industry, and Morris hosted a visit to remember.