Awards and Honors

Andrew Abela, chair, business and economics, delivered the Ninth Annual Calihan Lecture at Catholic University on Oct. 8 to celebrate his acceptance of the 2009 Novak Award. His lecture was titled “Consumerism, Subsidiarity and the Market.” Named after distinguished American theologian Michael Novak, this $10,000 award recognizes scholars early in their academic career who demonstrate outstanding intellectual merit in advancing the understanding of theology's connection to human dignity, the importance of the rule of law, limited government, religious liberty and freedom in economic life.

Rev. Sidney H. Griffith, professor and chair, Semitic and Egyptian languages, received a Rumi Peace Award, which goes to individuals and organizations who have greatly contributed their time, energy, leadership and dedication to the cause of dialogue, peace, community service and understanding. Father Griffith received the award, presented by the Washington, D.C.-based Rumi Forum, at an Oct. 27 dinner honoring him and five other awardees. Speakers at the dinner included members of the U.S. Congress.

Ingrid Hsieh-Yee, professor, library and information science, was awarded the SIG Member of the Year award by the American Society of Information Science and Technology (ASIST). Hsieh-Yee is chair of the Special Interest Group for Education of ASIST.

Grants

Diane Bunce, professor, chemistry, received a $29,610 grant from the American Chemical Society to help evaluate high school teachers’ use of the chemistry education section of the National Science Digital Library.

Kevin Forbes, associate professor of economics, has received a grant of more than $400,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Atmospheric Sciences, to continue his study of the effect of space weather on the flow of electricity, power grid operations and electricity markets. Forbes’ study will expand on his earlier NSF-funded research that examined 12 geographically disparate power grids. His research showed that solar-induced geomagnetic storms have consequences for power grid operations and real-time electricity prices. Forbes’ research was mentioned in a Washington Post education blog on Oct. 10.

Vadim D. Knyazev, associate professor, chemistry, received a $299,947 grant from the National Science Foundation for his research, “Kinetics of Radical-Radical Reactions in Combustion Chemistry.” His research aims to determine the kinetics of radical-radical reactions important in the oxidation and pyrolysis of hydrocarbons.

Allen Lunsford, research associate, physics/Institute of Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, received a $15,723 one-year grant from Tennessee State University for his research program titled “Surface Characteristics of ICY Galilean Satellites.”

Norman Ness, adjunct professor, physics/Institute of Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, received a $100,000 one-year grant from NASA for his research program titled “Analysis and Interpretation of Voyager 1 and 2 Magnetometer Data.”

Ekaterina Verner, research associate, physics/Institute of Astrophysics and Computational Sciences, received a $24,572 one-year grant from NASA for her research program titled “Photo-ionization Calculations for Transitions at Sub-Millimeter Wavelengths.”

On the Road

Rev. John Beal, professor, canon law, presented the talk “Determining Error: Hot New Ground of Nullity or Recycled Old Ground?” at the 71st annual convention of the Canon Law Society of America in Louisville, Ky., Oct. 12–15.

Jennifer Davis, assistant professor, history, presented the paper “Charlemagne’s Settlement of Disputes” at the conference Streit am Hof im Frühen Mittelalter (Conflict at the Court in the Early Middle Ages) on Sept. 24 in Bonn, Germany.

Duilia de Mello, associate professor of physics, gave the opening talk, “From the Big Bang to the Humans,” at the XV Science and Technology Fair at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, in Natal, Brazil, on Oct. 19. The mayor of Natal, the president of the university and 350 students and professors attended her talk. She also gave two TV interviews and seven interviews to local and university newspapers in Brazil.

Rev. John J. M. Foster, assistant professor, canon law, was the invited speaker for a Study Day on the Sacrament of Penance for the priests of the Archdiocese of Denver on Sept. 18. His presentations focused on canonical issues relating to the sacrament of penance.

Three law professors participated in the Joseph T. McCullen, Jr. Symposium on Catholic Social Thought and the Law: Catholic Social Thought and Legal Education at the Villanova University School of Law in Villanova, Pa., on Sept. 26. George Garvey participated in a panel titled “Courses in Catholic Social Thought and the Law.” Lucia Silecchia discussed estate planning in a panel titled “Getting Down to Specifics: Integrating Catholic Social Thought into Particular Law School Courses.” William Wagner discussed “Unlocking Catholic Social Doctrine: Narrative as Key” in a panel on “Catholic Social Thought as a Conceptual and Moral Framework for Understanding and Critiquing American Law (and Influencing Legal Education).”

Tobias Gregory, associate professor and director of graduate studies, English, spoke about John Milton's Sonnet 19 in a presentation titled “Murmur and Reply” at the Milton Seminar Oct. 17 at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Tanja Horn, assistant professor, physics, gave an invited talk titled "Charged Pion/Kaon Production — Status and Perspectives” at the Sept. 14–18 seminar titled Three-Dimensional Parton Structure of the Nucleon Encoded in GPDs and TMDs at the Institute of Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Horn also gave an invited talk titled "EIC@JLab —- Taking Nucleon Structure Beyond the Valence Region" at the Oct. 19–23 seminar titled Physics at a High Energy Electron Ion Collider at the Institute of Nuclear Theory at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Monsignor Paul McPartlan, Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism, gave a keynote presentation titled "St Paul's Teaching on One Body: Ecclesial and Sacramental" at the Eleanor Malburg Eastern Churches Seminar on Oct. 9 at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, in Parma, Ohio.

Mark L. Rienzi, assistant professor, law, served as pro bono co-counsel in a case that attracted national attention for the legal issues surrounding religious and reproductive freedom. The Illinois case, Morr-Fitz, Inc. v. Blagojevich, began more than four years ago when former Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued an emergency rule requiring the sales of the “morning after pill.” The rule stated that pharmacists had to sell the drug despite their religious beliefs. Rienzi entered the case to advocate on behalf of the plaintiffs, two pharmacists who argued that dispensing the drug violates their religious beliefs.

Two theology and religious studies faculty members, Christopher Ruddy, associate professor, and Rev. John T. Ford, professor, were members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delegation that attended the biannual meeting of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 15-17.

Joseph M. White, associate professor, theology and religious studies, delivered a lecture titled, "Archbishop Martin Spalding: The Lion of Baltimore" Oct. 11 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore.

Performances

Andrew Simpson, associate professor, music, organized "Love, Invincible in Battle: The Operatic Music of Mikis Theodorakis," a concert of operatic selections by the Greek composer in New York on Oct. 15. CUA alumnae Rachel Barham and Jessi Baden-Campbell performed at the concert.

Publications

Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, philosophy, wrote Wretched Aristotle: Using the Past to Rescue the Future, published by Lexington Books in September.

Kurt Godwin, visiting lecturer, art, published his article “Marcel Duchamp — Spring,  1911 — Where It All Begins” on  http://www.toutfait.com, The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal.

Tanja Horn, assistant professor, physics, co-wrote the article "Neutral Pion Electroproduction in the Resonance Region at High Q**2,” published in the September issue of the journal Physical Review C.

She co-wrote the article "Semi-Inclusive and Exclusive Measurements With EIC: The Advantages of Lower Energies,” in September for the arXiv.org archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers.

She co-wrote the article "Applications of Quark-Hadron Duality in F(2) Structure Functions” for the October issue of the journal Physical Review C.

She co-wrote the article “New Measurements of the EMC Effect in Very Light Nuclei” in October for the arXiv.org archive for electronic preprints of scientific papers.

Katherine Jansen, associate professor, history, provided a chapter titled “The Word and its Diffusion” in the book The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 4: Christianity in Western Europe, c. 1100 - c. 1500 edited by Miri Rubin and Walter Simons and published by Cambridge University Press.

Monsignor Paul McPartlan, Carl J. Peter Professor of Systematic Theology and Ecumenism, participated in a plenary meeting of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, Oct. 16-23 in Cyprus.

Robert Miller, associate professor, theology and religious studies, published the essay, "The Gentiles in the Zion Hymns: Canaanite Myth and Christian Mission" in the October 2009 edition of the journal Transformation: An International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies.

Christopher Ruddy, associate professor, theology and religious studies, published the article, "Unabashedly Liberal, Distinctively Catholic: Andrew Greeley on Post-Conciliar American Catholicism," in the Josephinum Journal of Theology 16 (Winter/Spring 2009).

Lawrence Somer, professor emeritus of mathematics, has co-written the book Kouzlo Cisel (Magic of Numbers), which was published in Czech by Academia Publishers in Prague in October. His co-authors are Michal Krizek and Alena Solcova.

Students

Maria Olivares, a doctoral candidate in modern languages and literatures, gave a presentation titled “La Camila and the Invention of Chile” at the XIX Conference of the International Association of Hispanic Women's Literature and Culture in Quito, Ecuador, Oct. 1-3. Her presentation focused on a 19th-century Chilean theatrical work and its connections with the creation of Chile as a nation.

CUA senior media studies major Ashley Young received a $10,000 Energy of the City scholarship in a contest sponsored by Washington Gas for her documentary “Ruby Knows Best.” The contest invited students to submit original mini documentaries about the energy crisis and the use of natural gas as a way to help solve it.

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