October 15, 2024
Research & Innovation
UR professors on sabbatical
Richmond faculty members pursue passion projects and groundbreaking work.
School of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Annual Report
2023-24 Now Available!
Justice Takes Center Stage
A Conversation with Stephen Belber and A&S Dean Jennifer Cavenaugh
Tuesday, October 29, 6-7 p.m. | Jepson Hall, Room 118
This event brings together two artists who have a long history of telling stories on the stage and screen that focus on issues of justice.
What are effective ways to dramatize the story of a sexual assault or a murder? How do theater and film artists balance the need for their story to account for the complexities of specific crimes with the need for their stories to be entertaining for viewers?
Stephen Belber and Jennifer Cavenaugh will discuss the challenges of framing such stories for audiences. Stephen Belber is an accomplished playwright, screenwriter, and film director with national TV and stage awards. Jennifer Cavenaugh is the dean of the School Arts & Sciences at the University of Richmond with an impressive body of scholarship.
Hip Hop Week
Oct. 28-30
Sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Dance, Hip Hop Week features three panels with hip hop artists, producers, and scholars; classes; workshops; karaoke; and trivia. On Tuesday, Oct. 29 at 7:30 p.m., Matthew Oware, Irving May Professor of Human Relations and professor of sociology, will lead a discussion with guest Aaryn Green, author of The Sociology of Cardi B.
Biology Seminar Series
“The Evolution of Extreme Weapons. Lessons from a Rhinoceros Beetle."
Monday, October 28, 12-1 p.m. | Gottwald Auditorium
Hear from Douglas Emlen, Montana Regents Professor of Biology at the University of Montana and Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, about extreme animal weapons as part of the Biology Seminar Series.
What limits the size of nature’s most extreme structures? For weapons like tusks, antlers, or beetle horns, one possibility is a tradeoff associated with mechanical levers: as the output arm of the lever system gets longer — the antler or the beetle horn — it should also get weaker.
Refreshments will be served.
2024-20245 Tucker Boatwright Festival of Literature & the Arts
The Nature of Representation
The Nature of Representation asks how our understandings of “nature” have been shaped by representational practices in both the aesthetic and political senses, exploring how the current climate catastrophe is inextricable from colonialism and anthropocentric worldviews. The festival features contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers who don’t take for granted that language is merely human, that there are other “natural” languages, and that attuning to those other languages allows us to tell stories that disrupt the violence of Man.
Susan Stryker, "Changing Gender: A Conversation with Susan Stryker."
Wednesday, November 13, 4:30 p.m. | Humanities Commons
Susan Stryker is one of the founders of trans studies, author of many award-winning books including the almost canonical Transgender History, as well as many influential essays across four decades, some collected in the just-published When Monsters Speak: A Susan Stryker Reader, edited by Mckenzie Wark. One of the most visible and influential trans scholars, she has appeared widely in national and international media. She was co-editor of the Transgender Studies Reader’s two editions, and co-founder of the journal TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly.
Hosted by the Department of English.
Meet the 2024-25 Beckman Scholars
A&S students Marcos Hendler, of Rye, New York, and Aine MacDermott, of Lexington, Virginia, have each been awarded a prestigious Beckman Foundation Scholarship to support faculty-mentored student research in the sciences.
Beckman Scholars are selected among undergraduate biology and chemistry students based on commitment to research, strong academics, and potential to become scientific leaders. UR has had 26 Beckman Scholars since 2006.
Hendler, a chemistry major, is studying computational chemistry focused on molecules related to anticancer, which has implications in possible treatments. Hendler’s faculty mentor is chemistry professor Carol Parish. MacDermott, a biochemistry & molecular biology major, is researching ancient DNA under the mentorship of biology professor Melinda Yang. MacDermott is focused on the evolution of the alcohol metabolism gene ADH1B in present-day and ancient East Asian humans.
Humanities Center
2024-2025: How (And Why) Do We Represent Nature?
This question invites us to consider “representation” in both its political and aesthetic meaning. “Nature” is represented in paintings, poems, scripture, music, dancing, novels, laws, regulations, equations, activisms, advertising campaigns. This question asks how environments — and often their relations to human concerns — are represented across media, geographic and cultural contexts, and different historical moments.
A&S Feature Stories
October 14, 2024
University News
Idea Exchange
Speakers at the Faculty & Staff Research Symposium discussed topics ranging from global health and conspiracy theories to Cuban music and Jack the Ripper.
October 14, 2024
Alumni
Richmond alum’s life-saving medical practice
Johns Hopkins pediatric urologist details his journey from UR student to his current role performing infant bladder exstrophy surgery.
October 7, 2024
Student Chronicles
Year two at Richmond
A group of students from the Class of 2027 look back at their first year and reflect on their first few weeks as sophomores.
A&S Faculty in the News
October 13, 2024
Woman attempted to kayak to Canada with bag full of protected turtles
Biology professor Jennifer Sevin, an expert on illegal wildlife trade, is quoted in this piece, which was also published in The Seattle Times.
October 13, 2024
Climate change delays, disrupts Maine’s fall foliage season
Geography and environment professor Stephanie Spera is quoted. This article also appeared in print.
October 12, 2024
Research News
China’s censorship is among the toughest in the world. So why did it let Kanye West play?
Political science professor Dan Chen, an expert on celebrity culture and politics in China, is quoted.
October 11, 2024
Research News
Outside/Inbox: What's the science behind spectacular fall foliage?
Geography and environment professor Stephanie Spera is interviewed on this radio program, which aired throughout New England.
Events
Faculty Expertise
Do you envision college as a place where your professor’s office hours are spent in deep conversation about topics beyond this week’s assignment? Where you can work side-by-side with a faculty member on cutting-edge research that is published in a professional journal?
In A&S, our faculty are experts on the cutting edge of their fields. While they could work in some of the top research institutions in the world, our faculty chose Richmond because they believe in educating tomorrow's leaders and are passionate about mentoring and sharing their knowledge with students.
A&S Faculty Highlights
Ogden Published
Malcolm Ogden, visiting assistant professor of rhetoric and communication studies, published "Perfumed platforms, or the common scents of post-Fordism" in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.
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Donald & Undergraduate Students Published
Kelling Donald, Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Chair in the Natural Sciences, along with undergraduate students Aamy A. Bakry, ’24, and Matthew G. Fanelli, ’09, and Department of Chemistry collaborators, Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, and Martel Zeldin, visiting research scholar, published “Dative Bonding in Quasimetallatranes Containing Group 15 Donors (Y = N, P, and As) and Group 14 Acceptors (M = Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb)” in Inorganic Chemistry.
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Parish & Undergraduate Students Published
Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, along with undergraduate students Aamy Bakry, ’24, Joshua Pandian, ’23, Khanh Vu, ’23, Idil Cazimoglu, ’14, and John Mancini, ’11, and Department of Chemistry collaborator, Martel Zeldin, visiting research scholar, published “Conformational Analysis of Oligomeric Models of Siloxane, Silazane and Siloxazane Ladder Polymers” in Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials.
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Hartvigsen Published
Kitty (Sarah) Hartvigsen, Trawick Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology, published "Mini-Symposium: Training the Trainers of the Next Generation of Neuroscience Advocates" in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education.
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Lambert Published
Kelly Lambert, MacEldin Trawick Professor in Psychology, published Biological Psychology: Brain in Context, a multidisciplinary textbook that delves into how environmental factors shape our perception of situations influencing stress responses and physiological reactions.
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Zeldin and Undergraduate Students Published
Martel Zeldin, visiting research scholar, along with undergraduate students Aamy A. Bakry, ’24, and Matthew G. Fanelli, ’09, and Department of Chemistry collaborators, Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, and Kelling Donald, Clarence E. Denoon Jr. Chair in the Natural Sciences, published “Dative Bonding in Quasimetallatranes Containing Group 15 Donors (Y = N, P, and As) and Group 14 Acceptors (M = Si, Ge, Sn, and Pb)” in Inorganic Chemistry.
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Blondino Published
Courtney Blondino, Assistant Professor of Health Studies, published "Utilizing natural language processing to analyze student narrative reflections for medical curriculum improvement" in Med Teach.
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Parish & Undergraduate Students Published
Carol Parish, Floyd D. and Elisabeth S. Gottwald Professor of Chemistry, along with undergraduate students Khanh Vu, ’23, Josh Pandian, ’23, Boyi Zhang, ‘16, Christina Annas, ‘16, Anna J. Parker, ‘11, John S. Mancini, ‘11, Evan B. Wang, ‘09, Diomedes Saldana-Greco, ‘10, Emily S. Nelson, ’12, and Greg Springsted,’10, published “Multireference Averaged Quadratic Coupled Cluster (MR-AQCC) Study of the Geometries and Energies for ortho-, meta- and para-Benzyne” in The Journal of Physical Chemistry A.
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