Summary of 2011–2012 Awards
21 grants to 16 individual awardees: $1,354,894 total

  • Arts & Literature: $113,557
  • Humanities: $258,048
  • Science & Math: $983,289    

Noah Salomon, Assistant Professor of Religion Noah Salomon

Strengthening knowledge of and dialogue with the Islamic/Arab world

Funder: CEDEJ-Khartoum branch (Centre d’Etudes et de Documentation Economiques, Juridiques et Sociales)
Award date: 7/1/11
Award amount: $27,562
Project period: 6/1/11-9/30/12

Professor Salomon will serve as a senior researcher on an international team from CEDEJ, the recipient of a grant from the Islam Research Programme (Government of Holland). Salomon will conduct fieldwork on Muslim minorities in the new state of South Sudan and collaborate with Sudanese and French colleagues on a joint CEDEJ report on the state of religious minorities in North and South Sudan.

Gao Hong Dice, Lecturer in Chinese Musical InstrumentsGao Hong Dice

USArtists International Grant

Funder: Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Award date: 7/5/11
Award amount: $4,357
Project period: 7/1/11-6/30/12

This funding supports Gao as a composer and performer of her music at The East China Normal University International Music Festival in Shanghai.

Diane Nemec IgnashevDiane Nemec Ignashev, Class of 1941 Professor of Russian and the Liberal Arts

PEN Translation Fund. Paranoia, A Novel

Funder: PEN American Center
Award date: 7/11/11
Award amount: $3,000
Project period: 7/11/11-1/31/12

The PEN Translation Fund’s purpose is to promote the publication and reception of translated world literature in English. Professor Nemec Ignashev’s project translated from Russian the Belarusian writer Viktor Martinovich’s dystopian mockumentary Paranoia, a novel banned in the writer’s own country that traces a tragic love affair between a young writer and the mistress of the country’s chief state security officer.

Dana Strand, Dana Strand Andrew W. Mellon Professor of French and the Humanities and Director of French and Francophone Studies

The Tournées Festival

Funder: FACE (French American Cultural Exchange)
Award date: 7/20/11
Award amount: $1,800
Project period: 9/11/11-10/30/11

This FACE Tournées Festival funding supported the showing of five films in Carleton’s first-ever French film festival. Carleton’s new Weitz Center for Creativity 250-seat cinema served as home for the festival in fall 2011.

Sarah Titus, Associate Professor of GeologySarah Titus

Collaborative proposal: Differential geometry and statistics of deformation tensors

Funder: National Science Foundation EAR Tectonics
Award date: 8/4/11
Award amount: $74,502
Project period: 8/1/11-7/31/14

Collaboratively with Basil Tikoff at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor Titus will explore a new conceptual framework for the analysis of naturally occurring rock deformation. The project applies mathematical techniques of Lie groups and Lie algebras to a series of geological examples with the aid of Josh Davis, who is transitioning from pure math towards more applied science applications.

M. Nidanie Henderson, Assistant Professor of BiologyNidanie Henderson

RIG: Biochemical and structural studies of the Bcr multienzyme polypeptide

Funder: National Science Foundation MCB RIG BP
Award date: 9/12/11
Award amount: $200,000
Project period: 9/15/11-8/31/13

Professor Henderson’s research of Bcr multienzyme polypeptide looks at the role of enzymatic protein kinases as regulators of cell signaling, and involves underrepresented undergraduate researchers.

Daniela Kohen, Associate Professor of ChemistryDaniela Kohen

Atomistic Simulations of Small Molecules’ Behavior within A1 Substituted Zeolites

Funder: American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund
Award date: 10/17/11
Award amount: $65,000
Project period: 1/1/12-8/31/15

This funding supports Professor Kohen’s research to understand and characterize at the molecular level how carbon dioxide and other small gas molecules behave in pores of molecular sieves. The work, which involves undergraduate researchers, is centered on materials that might be used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and on materials useful to other industrial processes. 

Cameron Davidson, Professor of GeologyCam Davidson

South-Central Alaska – Tectonic evolution of the flysch of the Chugach terrane, south central Alaska

Funder: National Science Foundation (NSF) and Keck Geology Consortium
Award date: 11/22/11
Award amount: $16,666
Project period: 6/15/12-7/12/12

This collaborative project of Cam Davidson, John Garver (Union College, Schenectady, NY), and four undergraduate researchers involves field research in summer 2012 on the tectonic evolution of the Chugach-Prince William terrane in south central Alaska, and is a continuation of their 2011 summer project.

Marty Baylor, Assistant Professor of PhysicsMarty Baylor

Characterization of Methecrylate/Thiolene Holographic Photopolymer

Funder: University of Minnesota Material Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC)
Award date: 12/1/11
Award amount: $500
Project period: 12/5/11-12/30/11

The funds from the Materials Research Facilities Network (MRFN, a nationwide partnership of NSF supported MRSEC centers) supported instrument usage fees and travel costs for Professor Baylor and a student researcher to characterize a photosensitive polymer used in her optofluidics research.

Maureen Jackson, Maureen Jackson ACLS New Faculty Fellow in Middle Eastern Languages

Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica 2012-2013

Funder: Harvard University’s Center for Jewish Studies
Award date: 12/1/11
Award amount: $40,000
Project period: 1/1/13-5/31/13

During the 2013 spring semester, this fellowship enables Professor Jackson to conduct and share research at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies on the theme of “Music in Jewish Life.”

Gao Hong Dice, Lecturer in Chinese Musical InstrumentsGao Hong Dice

Folk and Traditional Arts 2012

Funder: Minnesota State Arts Board
Award date: 1/4/12
Award amount: $24,700
Project period: 1/4/12-1/3/13

These funds support Hong to preserve and share Chinese temple music through community outreach activities and stage performances at several venues in Northfield, Saint Paul, and Minneapolis. See Gao’s home page.

Gao Hong Dice, Lecturer in Chinese Musical InstrumentsGao Hong Dice

Arts Tour Minnesota 2012

Funder: Minnesota State Arts Board
Award date: 1/4/12
Award amount: $12,200
Project period: 1/4/12-3/31/13

Hong will perform – solo and with her group, Butterfly – Chinese Music from the Ancient Past to Modern Times, and will lecture in several classes at Concordia College, College of Saint Benedict, and Saint John’s University. See Gao’s home page.

George VrtisGeorge Vrtis, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and History

Funder: Minnesota Historical Society
Award date: 1/19/12
Award amount: $102,522
Project period: 3/1/12-6/30/13

This support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund funds Professor Vrtis, and Chris Wells of Macalester College, to investigate Minnesota’s environmental history. The grant supported a conference on the topic in June 2012 at the Minnesota Historical Society and the editing of a book based on the conference papers and other solicited essays.

Sarah Titus, Assistant Professor of Geology Sarah Titus

CAREER: Combining field data and computational models to characterize the distribution of oceanic transform fault deformation throughout the lithosphere

Funder: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Award date: 2/16/12
Award amount: $418,891
Project period: 6/1/12-5/31/17

This prestigious NSF CAREER grant enables Professor Titus to undertake field work at three unique locations where oceanic “transform faults” are exposed above sea level: New Caledonia (in the south Pacific), Cyprus, and Iceland. The work will feed into an elaborate and groundbreaking effort to quantitatively model the faults.

Titus’ project is notable in its emphasis on student participation. The structure of her project, with multiple field sites, tools, and computational components, lends itself naturally to the involvement of up to 20 undergraduate researchers over the five-year period. Additionally, summer camps about the local geology will be run twice for girls of about 13-15 years old – the age at which research suggests girls lose interest in science as a possible career.

Kristin Bloomer, Assistant Professor of ReligionKristin Bloomer

Possessed by Mary: Hinduism, Roman Catholicism, and Marian Spirit Possession in Contemporary Tamil Nadu, S. India (two grants)

This book-length ethnography, grounded in the interpretive traditions of the history of religions, follows the lives of three Roman Catholic women in south India – differing in caste, class, and geographic backgrounds – who claim to be possessed by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The writing offers new perspectives on Marian spirit possession, religious syncretism (especially of Christians and Hindus), and gender and power in contemporary Tamil Nadu, challenging the normative stereotypes promulgated in anthropology and the study of religions.

*Funder: Harvard Divinity School, Women’s Studies in Religion Program (WSRP)
Award date: 2/20/12
Award amount: $75,500
Project period: 9/1/12-6/30/13

Professor Bloomer will work as research associate and visiting faculty in the WSRP at Harvard during the 2012-2013 academic year.  

*Funder: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)
Award date: 2/26/12
Award amount: $35,000
Project period: 9/1/12-8/31/13

Final research and writing in 2013 is supported by ACLS.

 Lori PearsonLori Pearson, Associate Professor of Religion

Sexuality and Social Order: Marianne Weber on Religion and Modernity

Funder: Harvard Divinity School, Women’s Studies in Religion Program
Award date: 2/20/12
Award amount: $75,500
Project period: 9/1/12-6/30/13

This research associate/visiting faculty residency for 2012-13 supports Professor Pearson’s book project on religion and its relation to concepts of domination, authority, and emancipation in the work of Marianne Weber, today remembered as wife of sociologist Max Weber, but recognized in her time as an intellectual in her own right.

Nelson Christensen Nelson Christensen, Professor of Physics

RUI: Parameter Estimation, Data Analysis, and Detector Characterization for LIGO

Funder: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Award date: 4/10/12
Award amount: $185,530
Project period: 7/1/12-6/30/15

This Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) astronomy research continues the international collaborative analyses of data in search of gravitational wave signals, including signals from massive black hole systems and supernova produced signals. As many as six undergraduate researchers will apply novel statistical strategies to parameter estimation and data analysis, and identify detector disturbances for Advanced LIGO.

 Daniel GrollDaniel Groll, Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Autonomy and Loyalty

Funder: The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Award date: 4/23/12
Award amount: $6,000
Project period: 10/1/12-11/30/12

Two months of a Summer Stipend will support Professor Groll’s work on a paper about the relationship between autonomy and loyalty and conceptions of the good life, and presentation of his work at Georgetown University and The University of Chicago.

Sabrice Guerrier Sabrice Guerrier, HHMI/CFD Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology

2012 Visiting Professors Award

Funder: American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB)
Award date: 5/9/12
Award amount: $22,200
Project period: 6/1/12-12/31/12

The Minorities Affairs Committee of ASCB granted this 2012 Visiting Professors Award in support of Professor Guerrier’s research during summer 2012 with a host scientist at the University of Chicago, continued research at Carleton, and attendance at the ASCB Annual Meeting in December 2012.

Gao Hong DiceGao Hong Dice, Lecturer in Chinese Musical Instruments

McKnight Artist Fellowship for Performing Musicians 2012-2013

Funder: The McKnight Foundation
Award date: 5/15/12
Award amount: $27,500
Project period: 9/1/12-8/31/13

This prestigious McKnight Artist Fellowship, administered by MacPhail Center for Music, allows Gao to explore, develop, and perform her musical skills on the pipa. Hong is the only musician in any genre to be awarded four of these fellowships.