Craig Clements

Wildfire expert Associate Professor Craig Clements, Department of Meteorology, was interviewed by CBS-SF regarding Monterey County’s Soberanes Fire and its effects on the air quality of the Bay Area. “The winds in the Bay Area are very complex,” Clements explained. “The wind may be moving in one direction…but the plume of smoke can get injected into the upper atmosphere and transported from the south to the north.” As of September 13, the fire burning in the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest, started by an illegal, unattended campfire on the Soberanes Canyon trail, has consumed more than 100,000 acres.

Professor Jan English-Lueck, Department of Anthropology, was interviewed in June by the Mercury News about “Silicon Valley speak” and “learning to talk tech.” English-Lueck is also a research affiliate at Palo Alto’s Institute for the Future.

Department of Art and Art History Professors Craig Hobbs and Robin Lasser collaborated on a large-scale video, Migratory Cultures: Mapping the Distance from Me to You, projected outside the San Jose Museum of Art after sunset on July 21. Featuring stories from San Jose and Bay Area immigrants, the video has also been shown outside the Pajaro Valley Arts Gallery in Watsonville and the Sunset Magazine building in Jack London Square, Oakland. For more information, visit their Facebook page.

Professor Joseph Pesek, Department of Chemistry, was named a CASSS Distinguished Fellow in July, honoring his service to the biopharmaceutical community and his retirement from the CASSS board of directors. “Being a board member for eight years gave me the opportunity to meet scientists from all over the world and provide input into the direction…of CASSS,” he said. A not-for-profit professional scientific society, CASSS is comprised of more than 4,000 industry-based, academic and regulatory professionals.

Associate Professor Aaron Romanowsky, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently had an article published in the Astrophysical Journal in July, “High Stellar Velocity Dispersion and ~ 100 Globular Clusters for the Ultra Diffuse Galaxy Dragonfly 44. Working with a team of international astronomers, Romanowsky and his colleaues found a massive galaxy that exists entirely of dark matter. Read the abstract online. Romanowsky has another article pending in Nature.

Assistant Professor Emily Slusser and Professor Maureen Smith, Department of Child and Adolescent Development, were interviewed by the Mercury News on the subject of elementary school-age kids, their activities and development. “Overscheduled kids lose the value of free play, whether it’s playing with Barbies or climbing a tree. Unstructured free time—daydreaming—is how we find our identity,” Smith said.

iSchool Assistant Professor Michael Stephens published The Heart of Librarianship: Attentive, Positive, and Purposeful Change (ALA Editions) in June, a collection of essays first written for his “Office Hours” column in Library Journal. Visit his website and blog online.

Carolyn Guidry Chair in Engineering Education and Innovative Learning Belle Wei co-authored an op-ed for the Mercury News calling for a “systematic change to provide technology education to more women.”