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Professor of Mathematics Robert Kantrowitz '82 was a speaker at the Conference on Banach Algebras and Local Spectral Theory held in August at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen. Kantrowitz's talk, titled "Approximation by Operators that Preserve Disjointness," centered around bounded linear operators on Banach algebras of continuous functions, and the extent to which they are approximable by weighted composition operators.

Carly McWilliams '09, who is serving as an operations intern at the Republican National Convention, will be the tally clerk tonight, Wednesday, Sept. 3, at the convention. This role necessitates that she be stationed on the podium. McWilliams was pictured in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune at a luncheon with Maria Cino, president and CEO of the 2008 Republican National Convention. Also interning at the Republican National Convention is Samuel Cowan '11. Stacey Klein '09 was a member of the press pool for the Democratic convention, that took place in Denver on Aug. 25-28.

The Hamilton College Campus Activities Board (CAB) presents a concert by British indie rock band The Kooks, on Thursday, Sept. 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Tolles Pavilion. This is the first stop of The Kooks' largest-ever American tour, and follows up sold-out runs in both North America and Australia. Hamilton is the only college stop on the entire tour, and the smallest venue to host this concert. The concert features special guest, Illinois. 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Ashleigh Smythe spent 10 days in August at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Bocas del Toro field station on the Caribbean coast of Panama. She collected tiny marine worms called nematodes, which are the focus of her research. Nematodes are found in all types of sediment, terrestrial and aquatic. 

Hamilton College is featured in an Associated Press article titled "Over time, liberal arts grads show they can succeed in business" (9/1/08). The article, which appeared in hundreds of newspapers nationwide, points to the success of ambitious liberal arts graduates in obtaining good jobs after college. 

Students in Hamilton's Program in New York City visited the N.Y. Historical Society Museum on Aug. 29 to see the Plague in Gotham! exhibit. The exhibit focused on cholera in New York City in 1832, in which a mixture of wretched environmental conditions coupled with false beliefs about the science of transmission (that cholera was not contagious and that it befell those of dissolute moral character) contributed to the epidemic. 

Growing up in Eastern Europe, Ramunas Rozgys '09 (Naujoji Akmen, Lithuania) saw first-hand the economic changes taking place in a post-communist country. In particular, the privatization process has been a major influence on Lithuania's economic development. This summer, Rozgys traveled to several countries to examine the issue of privatization directly, and to determine how the creation of a private sector has affected the Lithuanian economy and public.

As an intern at Sotheby's Contemporary Chinese Art Department, Xin Wang '09 spent the summer using her talents to the fullest. In her 11-week internship with the international auction house, Wang helped to prepare for an upcoming auction of contemporary Asian art. Although her internship was unpaid, she received funding from the Joseph F. Anderson Internship Fund, given in honor of a 1944 Hamilton graduate who served the college for 18 years as vice president for communications and development. The fund in his name provides individual stipends to support full-time internships for students wishing to expand their educational horizons in preparation for potential careers after graduation.

After taking a Japanese linguistics class, Eileen Rivera '10 began to think about her own linguistic habits. In the process of studying Japanese, Rivera became familiar with the phenomenon of "codeswitching," where a person changes his or her style of speaking in different situations. Codeswitching can involve using entirely different languages, or it can mean moving within the same language between dialects or styles, which is also called "style shifting." After learning about codeswitching, Rivera began to notice it in herself, seeing differences between her speaking style at Hamilton and at home in New York City. "I started to notice the dichotomy between the person I am when I am in school and the person I am when I go home," she says.

Far from the heat and humidity of a Central New York summer, Alexander de Moor '10 (Wayland, Mass.) began his summer aboard the research vessel Lawrence M. Gould, spending three weeks in Antarctica doing geology research. After crossing the Drake Passage between South America and Antarctica, de Moor spent five days conducting research with the Gould team, and then visited Palmer Station on Anvers Island before making the transit back to Punta Arenas in Chile.