Beth Bachmann, writer in residence in English, has published the poem “balcony” in the Winter 2016-17 issue of Ploughshares, an award-winning journal of new writing.
A Nature article about the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, the foremost longitudinal survey of intellectually talented children conducted by Camilla Benbow, Patricia and Rodes Hart Dean of Education and Human Development, and David Lubinski, professor of psychology and human development, was included in Scientific American’s roundup of the most popular science stories of 2016.
Jody Combs, associate university librarian, has been named by the Association of Research Libraries as a visiting program officer for accessibility from January through June 2017 to advance the ARL’s captioning initiative. In this role, Combs will meet with library and higher education stakeholders from across the United States and Canada to learn more about their particular interests in accessibility and captioning.
Edward Friedman, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Spanish and director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, participated in a session on the legacy of Miguel de Cervantes on the 400th anniversary of his death. Held at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, a research institute in Madrid, on Dec. 15, 2016, the session formed part of a long-standing series on science and culture presided by Queen Emerita Doña Sofía, wife of King Juan Carlos I and mother of King Felipe VI. The other invited speakers were Spanish university professors Julio Vélez Sainz, Alfredo Alvar and Emilio Blanco Gómez. Friedman’s talk was titled “Don Quijote y los espacios literarios: Cervantes en el mundo” (“Don Quixote and Literary Spaces: Cervantes in the World”) and dealt with the novel in the context of contemporary narrative and comparative studies. Friedman had the opportunity to speak for a few minutes with Doña Sofía, who asked him about Nashville and interest in Spanish literature at Vanderbilt.
Kenneth J. Gaines, professor of clinical neurology, has been selected as a platform presenter at the American Hospital Association’s International Stroke Conference to be held in Houston Feb. 22–24. Gaines will present “An Integrated Stroke Practice Unit Model Can Impact Blood Pressure Management Post-Stroke,” co-authored with Patricia A. Commiskey, research assistant professor of neurology. Presentations at the International Stroke Conference emphasize basic, clinical and translational sciences as they evolve toward a more complete understanding of stroke pathophysiology with the overall goal of developing more effective prevention and treatment.
René Marois, professor of psychology, has been elected a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science. The APS is an international nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote, protect and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching and the improvement of human welfare.
Garrett Somers, a Vanderbilt Initiative in Data-intensive Astrophysics (VIDA) postdoctoral fellow, has been awarded the 2017 Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Astrophysics by the American Physical Society for his thesis titled “Exploring Non-Standard Stellar Physics with Lithium Depletion.”