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| March 24, 2023 | Submit a Note |
 This year's Ethics Bowl team, co-sponsored by the Philosophy Department and the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Left to right: Bailey Black ’25, Harvey Chilcott ’23, Daniel Hipon ’24, Ariel Perlman ’23, Kendall Schrohe ’24, Kailai Shen ’24, Erin Bradfield (Philosophy).
We started off this week with the first official day of the spring season! It seems fitting that today we say goodbye to winter as we give our last finals and wrap up the quarter. While we are not yet into our spring quarter, we certainly have a lot to look forward to. Spring will undoubtedly be busy, but I welcome the excitement and vibe of the last academic quarter of the year. I want to give a shoutout to this year’s Ethics Bowl team which placed 4th in the country at the national finals held earlier this month! That in itself is a major accomplishment, made more so by the fact that they only had three weeks to prepare! Big congratulations to team members Bailey Black ’25 (Political Science, Economics), Harvey Chilcott ’23 (Biology; Philosophy minor), Daniel Hipon ’24 (Philosophy), Ariel Perlman ’23 (Philosophy, Political Science), Kendall Schrohe ’24 (Philosophy; Entrepreneurship minor), Kailai Shen ’24 (Computer Science & Engineering, Philosophy), and Liam McBride ’24 (Economics; Political Science and Religious Studies minors), as well as faculty coach Erin Bradfield (Philosophy) on this great accomplishment. I hope you are all able to find some time to relax and enjoy spring break! Sincerely, Daniel Highlights
Last week, the Environmental Studies and Sciences department held their annual senior capstone research poster presentation. Throughout the year, student groups worked on a project identified by community partners, integrating what they have learned in their major, and using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. At the poster session, they presented and discussed their results with the ESS faculty, their partners from community-based groups and government agencies, and their peers. This year, 46 seniors in 11 teams were mentored by ESS faculty Jake Dialesandro, Chris Bacon, and Iris Stewart-Frey. The teams investigated topics ranging from urban reforestation and stormwater flood mitigation to student food security at SCU, maximizing sustainability on campus, and much more!
Insects and STEAM are attracting attention. Janice Edgerly-Rooks (Biology) was invited to speak as part of a program symposium (Art is Science is Art: Finding Connections Between Entomology and Art) for the joint meeting of the Entomological Societies of America and Canada (Vancouver, Nov. 2022). Her talk was titled "Musicology, string sequences, and motifs: sonification of embiopteran silk spinning behavior reveals hidden patterns." Janice emphasized understanding data through listening. Students played a major role in this pursuit—featured scores included midi files based on piano keyboard coding by Onyekachi Okolo '17 (Biology) and musical scores performed on violin by Byron Fan '18 (Music). A percussion piece based on an Australian species composed by Bruno Ruviaro (Music) and a five-movement piece by student Elizabeth Jonasson '20 (Music) were also presented. Elizabeth chose to sonify behavioral data based on a Mediterranean species. Her composition, presented as a midi file, triggered an enthusiastic response because of its complexity and beauty. Given the interest in art and science, word spread about the presentation; an invitation for Janice to speak again arrived soon after! She presented the same talk for the American Entomological Society in February 2023, for a panel of three speakers in a zoom meeting billed as Entomological Music Showcase.
Anthropology students and faculty attended the Society for California Archaeology conference in Oakland on March 17-18. Reilly Duncan '23 (Anthropology), Shobha Joneja '24 (Anthropology, Sociology), and Audrey Bland '24 (Anthropology), co-authored a poster with Lee Panich (Anthropology) entitled, "3D Artifact Scanning for Learning and Outreach at Santa Clara University." The poster discussed the team's recent collaborative work with members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and SCU's de Saisset Museum to create 3D models of artifacts from Mission Santa Clara.
Jesica S. Fernandez (Ethnic Studies) was invited to deliver a virtual presentation at Fordham University as part of the invited speaker series on Intersectionality in Psychology: Cultivating Space for Critical Praxis. Jesica's presentation, entitled "Imagining Otherwise: Praxes in Pursuit of / for a Decolonial Psychology," asked: Is a decolonial psychology in the United States possible? To respond to this question four interconnected strategies: embodied critical reflexivity, intertwined knowledge in action, radical relationality, and transdisciplinarity, were discussed. Additionally, Jesica's article "The Society for Community Research and Action on a Path Toward Conocimiento: From Silences and Statements to Solidarities in action in U.S. Community Psychology" was published in a top-tier journal, the American Journal of Community Psychology. The article examines the nuances, limitations and performativities of "solidarity statements" and the urgency to engage in actions beyond words or written statements that leave structures and relations of power unchallenged.
Andrea Pappas (Art and Art History) has received a Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) for research on American art and visual culture. She will spend a month at AAS, making extensive use of the AAS' collection of manuscripts and graphic material to further her work on mid-eighteenth-century embroidered pictures.
John Hawley (English, emeritus) presented a paper, "COVID 19, AI, and the Legalization of Marijuana: The Contemporary Quest for Interiority and Personal Dissolution in Michel Houellebecq, Leila Aboulela, and Ron Hansen," at the American Comparative Literature Association conference in Chicago.
Chris Bacon (Environmental Studies and Sciences), María Eugenia Flores Gómez (Environmental Justice Initiative), and five student co-authors published an article in Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, analyzing how diversification relates to food security. The team partnered with a co-op of 2,000 organic and fairtrade farmers to conduct a participatory mixed methods study, including 171 surveys and 50 interviews. They found that crop diversity correlated with household dietary diversity, and that average male-owned farms were 1.8 ha larger than women-owned farms. Although the co-op has strong gender equity and technical assistance programs, analysis found a smaller percentage of female participants in diversification vs. gender workshops. Suggested strategic actions include supporting: (1) female land ownership, (2) farmer-led experimentation, and (3) more training for men on gender, women on diversification, and all participants in feminist agroecology. Student co-authors include Vanessa Shin '19 (Environmental Science), now at Peninsula Clean Energy, Gabi Ballardo '21 (Environmental Studies, Italian Studies) now an M.S. Candidate in environmental policy at Duke, Skyler Kriese '20 (Environmental Studies), now an M.S. Candidate in Environmental Justice at Michigan and an Environmental Fellow at Yale), Emma McCurry '21 (Bioengineering), now an M.S. Candidate in Education at Oregon State, HS Student Chemistry Teacher + Coach, and Erica Martinez '20 (Biology, Public Health Science, Spanish Studies) now a researcher at Stanford’s Food Equity Lab.
Shriya Sridharan (Art and Art History) presented her paper, “Architecture or Agamas: How is the Transcendental Experience Created in Hindu Sacred Spaces?” at the 2023 College Art Association’s annual conference in February. Her paper was part of a panel titled, “Creating Sacred Space.” Shriya’s paper expands the research on Hindu temples through an analysis of the architectural atmospheres and multi-sensory triggers that are structured to produce the experience of sacrality in worshippers. She argues that lived experiences of everyday users are central to the production of meanings delineating Hindu sacred spaces, and highlights this with examples of culturally coded ritual pathways, placement of narrative panels, and ephemeral practices in contemporary temples.
As new nanomedicines are developed, there is an opportunity to target and personalize treatments. Korin Wheeler (Chemistry & Biochemistry) and Prashanth Asuri (Bioengineering) worked with Kathryn Riley (Chemistry, Swarthmore College) and teams of undergraduate researchers from both SCU and Swarthmore to assess changes in nanomedicine reactivity and toxicity as blood proteins are altered due to common disease states. The paper “Silver nanoparticle interactions with glycated and nonglycated human serum albumin mediate toxicity” was recently published in Frontiers in Toxicology. The undergraduate researchers on the SCU team included alumni Madeline Eiken '19 (Bioengineering), Karl Baumgartner '19 (Bioengineering), Kira Fahy '20 (Biochemistry), Kaitlyn Leung '21 (Biology, Child Studies), and Eva Bouzos '18 (Bioengineering). The students not only performed lab work but helped to coordinate the experiments across disciplinary boundaries and institutions. The manuscript provides biochemical insights to inform development of nanomedicines and speaks to some of the technical challenges as well.
Guillermo Rodríguez (Communication) presented the paper "Seeing Through Darkness: Visualizing Soundscapes in the Hispanic Thriller" as part of the panel 'Hearing Images, Reading Sounds in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures, Film, and Other Visual Arts' at the American Comparative Literature Association's 2023 Annual Meeting. The lecture took place at the Sheraton Grand Riverwalk in Chicago, Illinois on March 19, 2023. The presentation explores the role of sound in filmmaking and film viewing, focusing on Alejandro Amenábar's 1996 self-referential directorial debut Thesis and a Latinx thriller screenplay written by Guillermo titled Symbiosis. The paper applies French composer Michel Chion’s theories on film sound to the contemporary Hispanic thriller, which is a transnational global genre that includes films produced in Spain, Latin America and Latinx US, and are often co-productions spanning multiple national contexts. By delving into the role of sound in this particular genre, the project hopes to shed light on the often-unnoticed impact of sound design in Hispanic films and its ability to provide a unique cinematic experience for its audience.
Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, emeritus) had his story “Cajas de cartón” included in Galerías, a Spanish textbook, published by Vista Higher Learning, Boston, MA, 2023, and had “Conexions” a chapter from his book, Senderos fronterizos, included in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s World Language Program, Boston, MA, 2023. He made presentations on his work and on César Chávez at Oregon State University for their Spanish for Heritage Language Learners Program, the College Assistance Migrant Program, and the Office of Institutional Diversity, March 8 and 9. He made in-person presentations at SCU for three high schools that have adopted his work in their curriculum and brought students to visit him: Tennyson High School students and teachers, Hayward, California, January 18; Foothill Technology High School AVID students and teachers, Ventura, California, February 23; and Los Baños High School students and teachers, March 20. He also gave a presentation on his work and on the importance of education at a school assembly at Sacred Heart Nativity School, San Jose, on February 8, 2023.
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Audrey Bland, Lee Panich, Reilly Duncan, Shobha Joneja.
AVID students from Foothill Technology High School visit Francisco Jiménez at SCU| College of Arts and Sciences |
Questions? Contact Sandy Boyer |