Gerard J. Brault, professor emeritus of French and medieval studies, recently gave a plenary lecture, "Literary Uses of Heraldry in the 12th and 13th Centuries" at the Ninth Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Irwin Feller, professor of economics, has been appointed to a three-year term on the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee to the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. Feller also is director of the University's Institute for Policy Research and Evaluation.
Richard M. Foxx, professor of psychology at Penn State Harrisburg, gave an invited address at the 25th annual convention of the Norwegian Association for Behavior Analysis in Norway. He also was made an honorary lifetime member of the association.
Mary Gergen, professor of psychology and women's studies at Penn State Delaware County, and Stephanie Shields, professor of psychology and women's studies and head of the women's studies department, were named fellows in the area of psychology of women by the American Psychological Association.
Three faculty members from the College of Engineering have received General Electric Learning Excellence Awards. Gary L. Gray and Francesco Costanzo, both assistant professors of engineering science and mechanics, won first place for their work in the development of an interactive dynamics course. Alfred Carlson, associate professor of chemical engineering, took second place for his work in creating a bioprocessing option for students in chemical engineering. The awards recognize outstanding engineering educators for innovative contributions to the improvement of learning with a special, but not exclusive, focus on cooperation across traditional departmental and college boundaries.
Thomas A. Gresik, associate professor of economics, gave an invited keynote speech, "The Taxing Task of Taxing Transnationals," at the Petropol Research Conference on National Resource Management, Internalization and Strategic Behaviour sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council in Bergen, Norway. Gresik also was invited to present "Incentive compatible information transfer between asymmetrically informed principals,"which he co-authored with Eric W. Bond, professor of economics, at a the University of Oslo in Norway.
Mark Guiltinan, associate professor of plant molecular biology, gave two invited presentations at international conferences. He presented "Advances in biotechnological research in the multiplication of cacao" at a conference on the State of Knowledge on Mass Production of Genetically Improved Propagules of Cocoa in Bahia, Brazil. He also presented "Binding of the wheat G-box binding protein to plant nucleosomes" at Instituto Juan March Workshop on Chromatin and DNA modification: Plant Gene Expression and Silencing in Madrid, Spain.
Dale Jacquette, professor of philosophy, presented a paper on "Carl Stumpf on the Ontology of Relations" at the International Interdisciplinary Conference in Honor of the 150th Birthday of Carl Stumpf, at the Julius Maximilians University, Würzburg, Germany.
Nancy-Ellen Kiernan, program evaluator in the College of Agricultural Sciences, received the 1998 Excellence in Program Evaluation Award for "quality and scholarly merit in Extension Evaluations" at the American Evaluation Association national meeting in Chicago.
Michael Kiernan, associate professor of English, delivered an invited paper at the University of Rome titled, "Editing Bacon's Essays or Counsels and Advancement of Learning." The paper was delivered at an international conference, "Francis Bacon in the late 20th century," sponsored by the British Academy.
Sridhar Komarneni, professor of clay mineralogy, presented three invited lectures in Australia. He presented "Designer Porous Materials" at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, and at The University of New South Wales, Sydney. The third lecture, "Novel Functions for Clays," was presented at The Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
Students and faculty members from the schools of Music and Theatre Arts presented "Black Manhattan" at the James Weldon Johnson Award Ceremony on Nov. 15 in New York City. The ceremony honored Harry Belafonte.
Essence of Joy gospel choir, directed by Anthony Leach, assistant professor of music, students Joy Hooper and Joyce Thi Brew, and Charles Dumas, associate professor of theatre, performed for the invitation-only event held at the Schomburg Center for African-American Studies.
"Black Manhattan" is an adaptation by Dumas of James Weldon Johnson's classic work, first published in 1930. Leach arranged the music.
Robert Lima, professor of Spanish and comparative literature, delivered the keynote address at the International Conference on Expressions of Joy and Sorrow in Literature and Visual Arts. His presentation, "The Joy and Sorrows of Lucifer and His Minions," assessed the manifestation of these themes in literature and art through the centuries in the Western cultural tradition.
Patty Pasky McMahon, director of the Health and Wellness Center, has received the 1998 Governor's Citizen Crime Prevention Volunteer Recognition Award from Gov. Tom Ridge and the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. This citation is in recognition of the significant volunteer contribution she has made at Penn State Erie.