Appointments and Elections

Frances Brillantine, head of access services for the law school's Kathryn J. DuFour Law Library, was elected president of the Law Librarians’ Society of Washington, D.C.

Monsignor Kevin W. Irwin, dean, theology and religious studies, has been appointed as a member of the Catholic delegation of the historic United States Conference of Catholic Bishops-United Methodist Church Dialogue.

David Jobes, professor, psychology, was named by the Department of Veterans Affairs to a group of nine civilian experts tasked with making recommendations to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs on ways the department can improve its programs in suicide prevention, clinical intervention, research and education.

Veryl Miles, dean of the Columbus School of Law, accepted an appointment on the accreditation committee of the American Bar Association. Her two-year term begins in September.

Virgil Nemoianu, William J. Byron Distinguished Professor of Literature and professor of philosophy, was appointed chair of the nominating committee of the International Comparative Literature Association for 2008-2010.

Awards and Honors

Two CUA law professors, Margaret Barry and Catherine Klein, were selected to receive the 2008 Watts Empowerment Award, bestowed by Women Empowered Against Violence. Barry and Klein were selected for the award for advancing the cause of domestic violence survivors through the Families and Law Clinic at CUA, and for their extensive academic and clinical work in the field. The award was formally presented to Barry and Klein at a gala dinner on June 16 at the Wooly Mammoth Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

The Catholic Historical Review and The Catholic Biblical Quarterly — two CUA-edited journals — were listed in the top 10 to 25 percent of scholarly journals by the European Science Foundation.

Fellowships and Grants

Pamela Clark, research professor, physics, received a $64,000 grant from NASA for development of science tools to support planetary surface exploration.

Duilia deMello, research professor, physics, received a $30,657 grant from the Space Telescope Institute for research on "The M82 System: A Template in the Local and Distant Universe HST." She also received a $19,625 grant from NASA for work on "Searching for Star-Forming Regions Outside Galaxies with Swift/UVOT."

John Judge, assistant professor, mechanical engineering, has been awarded a $409,287 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program award to study vibration of collections of micromechanical and nanomechanical devices.

Vadim Knyazev, associate professor, chemistry, was awarded a $75,000 grant in July to study “Engineering Virtual Organizations: Combustion Kinetics.”

Daniel Sober, professor, and Franz Klein, associate professor, both in physics, have been awarded $214,984 for the second year of a three-year National Science Foundation grant titled “Study of Spin Structure of Hadrons Using Polarized Photos.”

Richard Starr, research professor, physics, received a $59,470 grant from NASA for research on surface elemental analysis of Mercury.

David Walsh, professor, politics, received a $25,000 fellowship from the Bradley Foundation to provide support for his doctoral students.

Rev. James Wiseman, O.S.B., professor, theology and religious studies, was awarded a Coolidge Fellowship by CrossCurrents magazine that enabled him and 10 other scholars to reside at Union Theological Seminary in New York City for the month of July while working on current projects and participating in regular colloquia to discuss their works in progress.

CUA's physics department was awarded a $120,000 grant from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop a curriculum in nuclear environmental protection leading to a master’s degree.

On the Road

Very Rev. David M. O’Connell, C.M., delivered the commencement address at Niagara University in New York on May 18.

Maria Sophia Aguirre, associate professor, economics, presented the paper, “Family, Economics, and Sustainable Development”, at the Conference on Family and Society at the International University of Catalunya, May 15-17. She published the paper in The Family, Paradigm of Social Change, Proceedings of the Conference on Family and Society, Barcelona:  International University of Cataluny Press, 2008 and in La Familia Ante las Crisis del Mundo Contemporaneo, Proceedings of IV Congreso Internacional de la Familia, Bogota: Universidad de la Sabana Press, 2008.

Lourdes Alvarez, assistant professor, modern languages and literatures, is a subject consultant on Islamic Spain for a theater arts in education program at Temple University. The ongoing course pairs Arab-American and Jewish-American students to put together theater projects or public performances meant to build ties between the two cultures. She will continue to consult through the fall semester.

Marshall Breger, professor, law, has participated in several interfaith meetings since May. While teaching a course at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s law school in May, he attended a meeting of the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land. In June he met in Oslo, Norway, with a group of Iranian clerics as part of an Abrahamic delegation, together with Robert Destro, CUA professor of law, and Ahmad Iravani, director of Islamic studies and dialogue at CUA's Center for the Study of Culture and Values. The subject of the meeting was human dignity in the Abrahamic religions. At the invitation of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, he attended a July interfaith conference the king hosted in Madrid.

David Clark, lecturer, anthropology, participated in a panel discussion titled “Leesburg’s Development as Reflected in its Archaeology” at the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Va., on June 1.

Three faculty members from CUA’s Department of Education —  John Convey, Leonard DeFiore and Merylann Schuttloffel — participated in the April 24 White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

Monsignor Thomas Green, professor, canon law, participated in the Polish National Catholic-Roman Catholic Dialogue, which took place in Scranton, Pa., May 19-20.

Monsignor Kevin W. Irwin, dean, theology and religious studies, was a presenter at the National Pastoral Musicians Western Regional Convention titled “One Body, One Spirit in Christ” held in Los Angeles Aug. 5-8.

Gunther Kletetschka, research professor, Institute for Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, spent 12 days in Russia in July with a team of scientists investigating the cause of a massive explosion that occurred in Siberia in 1908. The trip and Kletetschka's thoughts on the journey and causes of the explosion were filmed for a one-hour special that will air on the Discovery Channel in the fall.

Christina Mahony, lecturer and acting director, Center for Irish Studies, traveled to Portugal for the annual International Association for the Study of Irish Literature at the University of Porto July 28-Aug. 1. She was accompanied by Amy Bricker, Kevin Farrell and Michael Moir, doctoral candidates in English. Bricker delivered a paper on Irish novelist Kate O’Brien and short story writer Claire Keegan. Farrell delivered a paper on James Joyce’s Ulysses and Moir delivered a paper on poet Louis MacNeice. 

Rev. Paul McPartlan, Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism, gave a talk titled “Eucharist and Church in the Thought of the Fathers of the Church” at the International Theology Symposium on the Eucharist held at the Université Laval, Quebec City, June 11-13.

Veryl Miles, dean, law, participated in a conference on “Judicial Independence and Legal Education: Two Pillars of a Democratic Legal System” held in the Republic of Georgia on July 18 and 19. Miles participated in a panel discussion addressing the topic “Creating a Sound Program Accreditation System.” The conference was jointly sponsored by the Supreme Court of Georgia, the ABA Rule of Law Initiative and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Antonio Perez, professor, law, was in Rio De Janeiro in August for his last meeting as a member of the Inter-American Juridical Committee of the Organization of American States, and in July he made the Juridical Committee's annual presentation to the International Law Commission of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Virgil Nemoianu, William J. Byron Distinguished Professor of Literature and professor of philosophy, delivered a lecture titled “Canonical Revision and the Role of the Idyllic” at the University of Bucharest in Romania on April 9. He was featured on national TV there on the Cultural Channel.

Nemoianu delivered three lectures on Thonrton Wilder, “New Criticism versus Cultural Materialism,” “The Dynamics of American Public Life” and “The Scenario of the Anglosphere” at the University of Kataisi in Georgio, the Institute of Literature in Tbilisi, Georgia, and at other public venues in the Republic of Georgia. During this time, he was featured twice on local TV and radio and gave a short speech at the Writers’ Union in Tbilisi. 

Mario Rojas, specialist in Latin American theater and professor of modern languages and literatures, was an invited critic at the 31st Festival Internacional de Teatro Expressão Ibérica, which was held in Porto, Portugal, from May 29 through June 9. He participated in forums to discuss the performances and interviewed some of the play directors. He wrote two articles on the festival, which will be published in the journal GESTOS 46 (University of California at Irvine) and in Cuaderno do Folias (São Paulo).

Sandra Schamm, lecturer, anthropology, was a faculty member at the Summer Field School in Landscape Archaeology and Geographic Information Systems in Cilicia, Turkey, June 27 through July 25. The program, offered through Penn State University, featured surveys and lab sessions focusing on the archaeology of the region with sites from the Christian, Greek and Roman, and Muslim periods.

Thomas J. Schärtl, assistant professor, theology and religious studies, gave a talk titled “Rethinking Bodily Resurrection: A Dialogue Between Metaphysics and Phenomenology” at the international conference “How Do We Survive Our Death: Personal Identity and Resurrection?” held July 28 to Aug. 1 at the University of Innsbruck, Obergurgl, Austria.

Peter Shoemaker, associate professor of modern languages and literatures, spoke and led a discussion about the Molière play The Imaginary Invalid as part of the Windows educational series at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., on June 15.

Rev. James Wiseman, O.S.B., professor, theology and religious studies, gave a presentation titled “The World as Created, Fallen, and Redeemed” at Gethsemani Encounter III, a major dialogue between Buddhist and Christian monastics held at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County, Kentucky, from May 27 to 31.

Father Wiseman also convened and moderated the session on Christian spirituality at the annual meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, held in Miami from June 5 to 8.

Performances

Three CUA professors collaborated on a poetry reading and musical performance on May 30. Claudia Bornholdt, assistant professor, modern languages and literatures, read German poems composed by Goethe, Eichendorff and Heine at a performance at the Library of Congress on the occasion of the annual Festival of the American Liszt Society. She recited the poems in German; the poems were then performed in composer Franz Liszt’s arrangements by soprano Sharon Christman, associate professor, music, and pianist Ivo Kaltchev, associate professor, music.

Tom Donahue, professor, drama, designed the set for Die Tote Stadt (The Dead City), an opera composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, which was performed by the Summer Opera Theatre Company on June 21 and 22.

Andrew Simpson, associate professor, music, performed a new score to Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film “Battleship Potemkin” at the National Gallery of Art's East Wing Auditorium on May 25. On May 27, he performed as pianist and composer in a vocal recital by soprano Deborah Sternberg in the Church of the Epiphany's Tuesday Concert Series.

“Fireflies: A Folk Set for Flute and Guitar,” a piece commissioned by Red Cedar Chamber Music from Simpson, premiered June 7 at the Marion City Hall in Marion, Iowa. Simpson is a composer-in-residence with Red Cedar. 

Simpson played new silent film music at Slapsticon 2008, a film festival in Rossyln, Va., July 17-20. In addition, he played the accordion for a performance of CUA music librarian Maurice Saylor’s “The Hunting of the Snark,” with the Cantate Chamber Singers June 8-10 in Bethesda, Md.

Publications

Andrew Abela, assistant professor, business and economics, wrote a book, Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication that Drives Action, to be published by Pfieffer/John Wiley & Sons in September. The book discusses ways to present complex data in a way that engage audiences. 

Norman Ness, research professor, physics, was among the multiple authors of a paper titled "Magnetic Fields at the Solar Wind Termination Shock” in the July 3 issue of Nature.

Gregory Doolan, assistant professor, philosophy, wrote a book titled Aquinas and the Divine Ideas as Exemplar Causes, which was released in April by CUA Press.

Eric Jenkins, associate professor, architecture and planning, published a book titled To Scale: One Hundred Urban Plans. The book provides readers with a collection of urban plans.

Michele A. Schottenbauer, research assistant professor, psychology, contributed an article titled “Contributions of psychodynamic approaches to treatment of PTSD and trauma: a review of the empirical treatment and psychopathology literature” in the journal Psychiatry.

Emily Singer, director, disability support services, wrote an article on creating a college emergency evacuation plan for the June issues of Thompson’s ADA Compliance Guide and the Section 504 Compliance Handbook.

Students

Chemistry major David Boone Jr., a junior, has been selected as the District of Columbia scholarship winner of $1,000 by the Delaware-District of Columbia-Maryland Association of Financial Aid Administrators for the 2008–2009 academic year. Scholarship candidates are evaluated on educational achievement, educational and career goals, jobs held in college, and volunteer and community service. 

Karl F. Brower, doctoral candidate, theology, was selected to receive a 2008 Fund for Theological Education Doctoral Fellowship, a competitive national award that particularly supports African American scholars. As an FTE doctoral fellow, Brower will receive a stipend of up to $18,000 for education-related expenses.

Monica Cortright, a rising senior studying classics and philosophy, was selected as one of 50 national Marion G. Wells Honors Fellows by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The fellowship will enable Cortright to work with faculty mentors from the program during the 2008-2009 academic year and to participate in seminars throughout the country.

Kyle Gullings, doctoral candidate, music, composed music for the play Gilgamesh, written by Stephen Spotswood, master's candidate, playwriting, and directed by Ryan Whinnem, master's candidate, directing. The play was performed as part of the Capital Fringe Festival in July at the Source Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Four Columbus School of Law students were selected as the 2008 recipients of the Charles and Louise O’Brien Fellowships. Robert Jasinski worked with immigrants at Catholic Charities in Arlington, Va. Julie Veratti worked with the National Legal Aid and Defenders Association. Kelly Van Buskirk worked with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Laila Leigh worked for Break the Cycle, an organization that seeks to end domestic violence. Each of them received $6,000 in financial support while working in a pro-bono legal capacity during the summer.

Elysse Voyer, a graduate student in astrophysics at Catholic University, has been awarded a prestigious NASA/Graduate Student Researchers Program fellowship. The renewable grant is for up to three years and covers Voyer’s expenses including funding for travel to conferences.