Faculty Notes, April 13, 2012

Roman Buniy, Ph.D., assistant professor, School of Computational Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, has been invited to the Institute of Theoretical Science at University of Oregon to present an April 3 talk titled New Invariants for Entangled States. The presentation will describe new algebraic invariants that distinguish and classify entangled states. Considering qubits as well as higher spin systems, Dr. Buniy obtained complete entanglement classifications for cases that were either unsolved or only conjectured in the literature.

Fred Caporaso, Ph.D., professor, Crean School of Health and Life Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, presented an invited paper at the San Diego Zoological Park in San Diego April 5.  The presentation entitled “The Galápagos Tortoise Recovery Efforts – A Brief History” detailed the significant steps being made in helping this iconic animal recover from centuries of human plunder.  Dr. Caporaso highlighted the role of sound science, and detailed the extraordinary conservation programs being put in place to bring the tortoise dynasty back to the Galápagos Islands. The zoo is preparing to open its newly renovated Galápagos tortoise exhibit later this year.

John Compton, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Wilkinson College, was awarded the 2012 Law & Society Association’s Dissertation Prize.  His dissertation “A Moral Revolution: Evangelical Reform and the Transformation of American Constitutionalism, 1830-1937” was the unanimous choice of the committee.

Donald Guy, assistant professor of theatre, was recently commissioned to serve as lighting designer and stage manager for the Festival Ballet Theatre’s production of the full-length ballet Sleeping Beauty at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. The production featured American Ballet Theatre principal dancers Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky.

Tibor Machan, Ph.D., professor and holder of the R.C. Hoiles Chair in Business Ethics and Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business and Economics,  gave an invited lecture, “Ayn Rand and the Right to Liberty,” for the Nassau Institute at the Graycliff  Restaurant in Nassau, Bahamas.  He was also interviewed there on Star 106.5 radio on March 16th, on the prospects for the fully free society in our time. Machan’s columns frequently appear in Free Inquiry magazine, published in Amherst New York.

Dr. Machan was also a participant in an online forum on health care for pets hosted by The New York Times.

Ramesh P. Singh, Ph.D., professor, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Schmid College of Science and Technology, was invited by the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR), a major funding agency that supports 39 national institutes and the National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR) to give two lectures in the National Level Training Program on Climate Change and Geospatial Technology program, Sunday, March 18. In this training program there were 25 participants from Indian universities and research institutions.

In addition, Dr. Singh gave the Diamond Jubilee lecture on Monday, March 19. The title of talk was “Dynamics of Atmospheric Aerosols over Indo-Gangetic basin and Their Impacts on the Regional Climate” which was attended by all the scientists and staffs of NISCAIR and other CSIR institutions. Indo-Gangetic basin is home of 900 million people. Director of NISCAIR invited him to plan studies in close collaboration with scientists to study impacts of Climate change over Indo-Gangetic basin.

Nicholas Terry, D.M.A., assistant professor of music, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, performed at numerous music festivals and venues throughout California in March, including with the PARTCH Ensemble at the University of San Diego’s NWEAMO Electronic Arts and Music Festival and Davis Symphony Hall as part of San Francisco’s American Mavericks series.  The San Francisco Chronicle hailed PARTCH’s performance as “funny, moving, inventive and insanely theatrical” and a “highlight” of the series.

At Cal State Fullerton’s 11^th Annual New Music Festival Terry performed Nigerian Spam, a percussion opera composed by Shaun Naidoo, D.M.A., assistant professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts. With the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, Terry gave two world-premiere performances at Zipper Hall in downtown Los Angeles and on campus at the Conservatory of Music.  As part of the famed Monday Evening Concert Series, he performed again at Zipper Hall with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the following evening at the San Diego Museum of Art with members of the San Diego Symphony as part of the Art of Elan chamber music series.  He additionally recorded the music of David Rosenboom (Dean, Herb Alpert School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts) for an upcoming release on New World Records.

Daniel Alfred Wachs, assistant professor, Conservatory of Music, College of Performing Arts, was one of one of the artists featured in a new book titled Odnalezc w sobie talent, which translates as “Find In Oneself Talent” by Polish author Grazyna A. Kashdan.  The book is described by the author as “an exploration of exceptional artists from various fields, how they flourished, some by coincidence, most born with a special gift.” The book will soon be translated into English.

Bart. J. Wilson, Ph.D., professor, Economic Science Institute, Argyros School of Business and Economics, was awarded the Oliver E. Williamson Prize for Best Article in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization. Co-authors included Taylor Jaworski, Karl E. Schurter, and Andrew Smyth. The article entitled, “The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers’ Rules of Capture,” may be read at the journal’s online site.