Grants Granted Three faculty members have received grants from the National Science Foundation for Research in Undergraduate Institutions. Helen Leung, associate professor of chemistry, received $284,300 for research on early influences on the outcome of chemical reactions and the importance of intermolecular interactions. Craig Woodard, associate professor of biological sciences, was awarded about $350,000 for his work on tissue-specific gene regulation in Drosophila. Claude Fennema, associate professor and chair of computer science, received $249,000 for a project on the perceptual aspects of locomotion interfaces. His was a collaborative proposal with Vanderbilt University and the Universities of Utah and Minnesota. The total grant was for more than $1 million.

Two National Science Foundation grants were awarded to Wei Chen, Mary E. Woolley Assistant Professor of Chemistry, in cooperation with faculty from the University of Massachusetts and other area colleges. One grant, for research sites for educators in chemistry (RSEC), will provide $2 million for an RSEC on polymer chemistry research in western Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke will receive $234,600 of the total, allowing Chen to further develop her field of polymer chemistry within the chemistry department. The second grant will provide $350,000 for acquisition of an X-ray photoelectron spectrometer and a variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometer for open surface analysis facilities at the University of Massachusetts. The specialized equipment will be available for use by Mount Holyoke students and staff for classroom and independent study and research.

 

MHC Geologists Rock Three faculty members and a recent alumna are scheduled to present their research at the 113th annual meeting of the Geological Society of America November 1–10 in Boston. Mark McMenamin, professor of geology, will present "Geobios, Hypersea,
and the Importance of Hypermarine Upwelling for the Development of Complex Life"; M. Darby Dyar, visiting associate professor of astronomy and geology, will present "Mössbauer Spectroscopy of Amphibole-Asbestos from Libby, Montana: Implications for Asbestos Classification"; and Michelle Markley, Clare Booth Luce Assistant Professor of Geology, will copresent two papers with Caitlin Callahan '00. Their topics will be "The Norumbega Fault System in Maine: Can Plutons Provide Crustal-Scale Kinematic Constraints on Long-Lived Shear Zones?" and "Tectonic Significance of Igneous Foliation and Lineation in the Mount Waldo Pluton, Waldo County, Maine."

 

Helping the Show Go On Debra E. Guston '81 has accepted a position as development director at the Summer Theatre at Mount Holyoke College, which is beginning a new fundraising and marketing campaign. An attorney and veteran Summer Theatre company member, Guston most recently served as president of the Summer Theatre's board of directors. As development director, she will work to raise funds and community support for the theatre's summer stock program as well as for its educational programs for ages eight to eighteen. The theatre recently concluded its thirty-first season, making it the nation's oldest one-week summer stock theatre performing in a tent.