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Alumni Update
October 2021
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From Dean Chris Makaroff
Dear Alumni and Friends:
We've reached the middle of our unseasonably warm fall semester, and life at Miami feels almost normal again. COVID-19 cases are way down and vaccination rates are up among our faculty, staff, and students. In fact, Miami has just announced that Wilson Maier, a senior Political Science major, is the grand prize winner of "Your Shot To Win," receiving a semester of in-state tuition and fees. Dozens of other students have won an assortment of other prizes this semester, all in our effort to report vaccination status and keep the virus under control. And so far, it's working. We are also happy to celebrate the successful return of our in-person annual event, Discover the Sciences, which welcomed over 70 prospective students plus their families on September 25. Over a dozen CAS science departments and programs participated, bringing in a total of nearly 50 Miami student volunteers to guide visitors, show off their research, and give valuable insight on their college experiences.
At our recent CAS alumni advisory board meeting, members elected Summer Crenshaw '03 as our new chair and Brian Wilcove '95 as our new vice chair. I am truly honored and grateful to work with such a passionate and insightful group of alums representing so many CAS majors, from each decade since the 1960s, in a wide array of successful careers. They truly demonstrate the vast potential of a CAS and Miami education.
Just last week, our biannual Janus Forum hosted a fascinating discussion about cryptocurrency. Former White House senior economic advisor Todd Buchholz and 43rd U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios were on hand to enlighten our in-person audience about the "Future of Money, or the End of the State as We Know It?" Our student-written coverage is in the works -- see our News page for updates! And finally, the most important news of all: yours truly will be hosting a donut and coffee reception here at the Upham Arch this Saturday, October 16 for Homecoming Weekend. If you're anywhere near Oxford, come by between 10 am and noon and say hi!
I wish all of you a safe and uplifting autumn and will be back to check up with you again before the end of the year.
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Preparing Miami's new Physician Associate Program
Earlier this year, Miami unveiled plans for a new physician associate graduate program, which offers a versatile, integrated, and interdisciplinary approach in managing and treating patients. It will be guided under the direction of associate teaching professor Christopher Howell.
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Celebrating a new digital milestone
Since 2013, John Bailer and Richard Campbell have been collaborating in a public, online forum to discuss both “the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics.”
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Miami's new LSAMP coordinator prioritizes getting students in tune with the campus community
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| CAS Student News and Spotlights
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 | Hannon Armstrong Climate Solutions Scholars (L to R): Ariel Cahn, Lauren Doepke, Mireille Fouh Mbindi, and Whitney Lai. Not pictured: Anton Yushanov
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|  | Lexie Adams, Keaka Farleigh, and Katherine Stahlhut
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- Lexie Adams '21, Will Carson '21 (not pictured), and biology doctorate students Keaka Farleigh and Katherine Stahlhut were awarded fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
- Boyd Colbrunn (Biological Physics and Premedical Studies) was awarded the Ohio Space Grant Consortium (OSGC) scholarship for his NASA-aligned project, "Development of a Probe for Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy with Variable Source-Detector Separation." Boyd will present his research next April at the Ohio Aerospace Institute in Cleveland, Ohio.
- This summer, CAS students participated as mentors for students from the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela in a virtual Study of the U.S. Institutes (SUSI) for Student Leaders workshop.
- Nikki Lescano, a Kinesiology major and co-major in Premedical Studies, is leading Miami's Alpha Psi Lambda co-educational Latino-oriented fraternity to help all students "find their home, and another family to support and grow with them, regardless of where they come from and what challenges they may face."
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| CAS Alumni News and Spotlights
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Art historian and curator Nicole Fleetwood '94 was awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship for her work in "elucidating the cultural and aesthetic significance of visual art created by incarcerated people."
Nicole graduated from Miami's Western Program. She is the James Weldon Johnson Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.
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| CAS Faculty News and Spotlights
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- Associate professor of anthropology Neringa Klumbyte and professor of history Stephen Norris, who both serve on the editorial board of the journal Ab Imperio, have joined its managing editor to publish transcripts of colloquium lecture Q&A sessions from the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.
- Last Military Flight Leaves Kabul Airport: Homayun Sidky (professor of anthropology) and Laura Neack (professor of political science) commented on WVXU on the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.
- Michael A. Kennedy, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is co-author of an article published to PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), "Structural basis of P[II] rotavirus evolution and host ranges under selection of histo-blood group antigens." Four Miami undergraduate students and recent grads are listed among the co-authors: Kristen Rose McGinnis, Michael Robert Stuckert, Riley Erin Burnside, and Elsa Grace Jacob.
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100 Bishop Circle • Oxford, OH 45056-1879
513-529-1234 • cas@MiamiOH.edu
© 2021 Miami University. All rights reserved.
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