The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a three-year grant of $220,156 to David Liben-Nowell (Computer Science). His Theoretical Foundations project, "Algorithms for Social Networks," has two main threads: the investigation of formal mathematical models and systematic analysis of large-scale real-world social networks. Prof. Liben-Nowell's research (and that of the students who will be funded by the grant) will use well-known online communities to better understand the general characteristics of networks.

Susan Singer (Biology) received a National Science Foundation (NSF) award of $200,000 for a collaborative project with coPIs from Cornell University and the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR). Their research “Big Science at Small Schools Collaboration: Genomics of chamaecrista fasciculate, a native prairie plant with potential for mixed prairie biomass” will bring new-generation sequencing technology and the opportunity to work with whole transcriptome sequences to an undergraduate collaborative, and will generate an educational module accessible to high school teachers.

Nicola Melville (Music) was the recipient of a $5,200 Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund award. The grant supported the later phases of a project that has culminated in a CD “Melville's Dozen” of new piano music in various styles – jazz, funk, Appalachian, Andean, tango, et cetera – that build bridges to different kinds of audience, including high school and college piano students. This grant, along with one from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, have helped with the cost of commissioning the thirteen included pieces from well-known composers, premiering it at a concert here at Carleton last year, recording the music, and manufacturing the CD.

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) awarded a Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) grant to Jamie Monson (History) in the amount of $3,000. The funds support enrollment in an intensive Chinese language and cultural studies program in Beijing, offered by CET Academic Programs in June and July 2008. Her current research project – a study of a Tanzanian railway project that was built with Chinese development assistance in the 1960s and 1970s – requires her to acquire language skills in Mandarin Chinese and deepen her understanding of Chinese history and culture.

Steven Drew (Chemistry) was awarded an Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Faculty Career Enhancement (FaCE) grant in the amount of $2,840 to develop skills necessary for increasing his proficiency with the theory and practical application of X-ray crystallography. The funds allow Professor Drew to attend the Crystallography Summer School at the University of California, San Diego during the summer of 2008.

Gao Hong Dice (Music) was chosen to receive The “St. Paul Listens” grant from the American Composers Forum with award amount of $6,000. This program will commission her to write a work to be performed and recorded by Zeitgeist that will engage children and adults in listening to a new musical work. Gao Hong is the one of the first three composers to be selected for this new project.

In conjunction with International Friendship Through the Performing Arts, Gao Hong Dice (Music) received a $4,000 MetLife Creative Connections grant from Meet the Composer, Inc. to perform outreach concerts and events associated with the world premiere of her first choral composition, “The Coming of Spring.” Additionally Gao was awarded her third prestigious McKnight Foundation McKnight Artist Fellowship for Performing Musicians in amount of $27,000.

Serena Zabin (History) received two awards for her project “Street Politics & the Boston Massacre.” From the New England Regional Consortium, $5,000 will support work at three area archives; and from the Massachusetts Historical Society, $2,000 will support a one-month residential research fellowship.

Jamie Monson (History) received a grant from the American Council of Learned Society’s “American Research in the Humanities in China” program to support the first phase of a year-long research project on the transnational effort to build the TAZARA railway in East Africa from 1964-1986. Focused on the transfer of technology and knowledge among Chinese and Tanzanian workers, the project will locate TAZARA in a specific historical context that included China’s Cultural Revolution; post-independence and early nation-building in Tanzania and Zambia; and Cold War-era international relations. The $39,000 award will allow Professor Monson to conduct archival and field research in China during the 2008-2009 academic year.

The National Science Foundation Division of Materials Research awarded Melissa Eblen-Zayas (Physics) $144,590 for her three-year project “RUI: EuO Thin Films as a Laboratory for Exploring Metal-Insulator Transitions and Colossal Magnetoresistance.” This support continues her research on europium oxide, a little-understood magnetic semiconductor, and provides two summer stipends for undergraduate researchers in her lab.

Tsegaye Nega (ENTS) received $47,302 in support from the NITLE Instructional Innovation Fund. Furthering his ongoing interdisciplinary GIS initiative, he will work with staff at Carleton and faculty at four partner institutions to develop course modules that use geographic information systems (GIS) concepts, tools, and skills to analyze Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, NITLE awarded $3,500 to support travel and dissemination efforts for the project.

The Jerome Foundation awarded Gao Hong Dice (Music) a $9,000 Emerging Composer Commission grant for the writing of three new music works. Gao was also chosen to receive a $1,200 Subito award from the American Composers Forum to contribute toward recording fees for her upcoming CD. To learn of her present CD releases and listen to a sampling of her music, go to http://www.chinesepipa.com/CD1.html.