Congratulations to Sociology and English major Elizabeth Stoker for winning a prestigious Marshall Scholarship:
A Brandeis University senior who founded a program letting Brandeis students donate unused meals from their meal plan to Waltham homeless shelters has won a prestigious scholarship funded by the British government to study at the University of Oxford next year.
Elizabeth Stoker, a native of Arlington, Texas, won a Marshall Scholarship to study theology and Christian ethics in the United Kingdom after she graduates from Brandeis in 2013, according to Brandeis. The all-inclusive scholarship is awarded to about 40 students per year.
Stoker founded the Brandeis: Be Our Guest program in her first semester, which allows students to donate unused guest meals via Aramark to local homeless shelters. She is also an active participant in the university’s Hunger and Homelessness program and sits as a board member at the Community Day Center.
Stoker is the fourth Brandeisian to win the Marshall Scholarship, a program named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall that began as a gesture of gratitude to the United States for assistance received by Britain under the Marshall Plan for reconstruction of Europe after World War II. She joins the ranks of cultural historian Eileen Yeo, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and Yeshiva University law professor Martin Stone, according to Brandeis.
Read more here.
December 4th, 2012
Tonight, 12/4, at 7 p.m. at the Mitton House Library at Newbury College, Legal Studies lecturer Daniel Breen will give a lecture titled “When Brookline Almost Became Boston: The Great Annexation Debate of 1873.”
During the late 19th century, a burgeoning Boston swallowed up the communities of Dorchester, West Roxbury, Brighton and Charlestown, with scarcely any opposition.
Why did Brookline resist where other towns willingly surrendered their separate identities? Come hear Professor Daniel Breen explore this question.
Mitton House Library
Newbury College
129 Fisher Avenue
Brooline, MA
December 4th, 2012
All Brandeis faculty are invited to apply for course development grants from the Center for German and European Studies. DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) grant funding is available through CGES to purchase books/films/other materials to enhance German aspects of existing courses or to help design entirely new courses with German content. All faculty are eligible to apply. Requests can be made for amounts up to $1500 per course.
Expenses must be incurred within one calendar year no matter when the courses are taught (2012 expenses are eligible for grants in 2012; 2013 expenses are eligible for grants in 2013). Original receipts should be submitted for reimbursement. If you have any questions feel free to contact Sabine von Mering at vonmering@brandeis.edu. For 2012 expenses grant applications will be still accepted between November 28 and December 13, 2012. To submit a request, please email a brief course description and budget and an explanation how funds will be used to Heidi McAllister at cgees@brandeis.edu.
November 29th, 2012
Davis Projects for Peace is an invitation to undergraduates to design grassroots projects that they will implement during the summer of 2013. The projects judged to be the most promising and do-able will be funded at $10,000 each. The objective is to encourage and support today’s motivated youth to create and try out their own ideas for building peace.
Application deadline: January 18th, 2013
Interested in applying? Speak with Professor Fellman (fellman@brandeis.edu) prior to Winter Break
Questions? Contact Cheryl Hansen at chansen@brandeis.edu
November 28th, 2012
In Spring 2012 Joyce Antler’s History as Theater class wrote the play “When Rebellion Becomes Revolution” and gave a dramatic reading in the International Room, with more than 70 people in attendance and rave reviews. The play lives on and will be part of ‘DEISImpact in February 2013; performance dates are February 8 and 9 and 8 p.m. and February 10 at 3 p.m..
Auditions for roles will be held on Wednesday, 11/28 and Thursday, 11/29 in Luria from 6 p.m.-10 p.m. For more information, please email julianseltzer@gmail.com
When Rebellion Becomes Revolution is presented by the Free Play Theatre Cooperative, the American Studies Program, and ‘DEISImpact.
November 27th, 2012
Want to put your social justice education into action?
Social Justice Internship Panel
Come hear how other Brandeis students have done it!
Meet, mingle, network and get ready to make change!
Plus.. FREE FOOD (pizza & drinks).
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6TH 6-7 PM
PEARLMAN LOUNGE
November 27th, 2012
The Edmond J. Safra Lab at Harvard University is seeking talented scholars and practitioners, at any stage of their career, who will uncover and explain institutional corruption and build tools to counteract it.
We have three types of fellowships open for the 2013-14 academic year.
1. Lab Fellowships and Projects: Funded residential and non-residential fellowships and projects for scholars and collaborators engaged in research and practice that directly address institutional corruption.
2. Applied Data Fellowship: A funded residential fellowship offered to a quantitative problem-solver who will translate the Lab’s research into applied tools, and help to deliver the Lab’s real-world impact on institutional corruption.
3. Network Fellowships: Non-funded scholars working independently on projects related to institutional corruption.
More information about these opportunities can be found in the attachments, and on our website: http://www.ethics.harvard.edu/lab/opportunities.
The deadline for the receipt of applications is January 1, 2013. Please email us with any questions at applications@ethics.harvard.edu.
November 20th, 2012
Charles Golden, associate professor of anthropology, was awarded a 2013-14 Mandel Faculty Grant to conduct a project titled “Indigenous Cultures, Past and Present: Community Engaged Archaeology in Chiapas, Mexico.” With the generous support of the Mandel Faculty Grant, professor Golden will support an ethnographically informed archaeology, facilitating collaborations with indigenous and otherwise economically underserved communities and increasing the involvement of student archaeologists in Chiapas, Mexico.
In directing the Proyecto Arqueológico Busilja – Chocolja, professor Golden and his colleagues, Andrew Scherer (Brown University) and Zachary Christman (Rowan University), will engaged in long-term archaeological and geographic research. Their goals are to better understand ancient politics in the Maya kingdoms of the first millennium CE, and to gather data concerning ancient and modern land use to model human-environmental dynamics in a region that was an ancient border zone and is today part of Mexico’s modern border with Guatemala.
The project will work with archaeology students from the Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (UNICACH), including young men and women from indigenous communities and rural towns. The co-directors will work closely with the faculty at UNICACH to provide training and data for these students to complete their undergraduate theses and work with them in their professional development. The local knowledge, linguistic and cultural, that these students bring to the research will allow for a better interface with local communities and other stake-holders to develop a research project that is not simply driven by academic questions, but that takes accounts of local needs and interests.
November 20th, 2012
The Business Program Undergraduate Department Representatives (UDRs), Jared Goldman and Shu Lin Chan are organizing Thanksgiving Food Drive to donate to a local food pantry. The Business Program giving back to the Community.
You can make a difference this holiday season by helping out a neighbor in need. All non-perishables will be accepted until FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16TH.
Drop off Location: The Business and Economics Suite, Lemberg Academic Center
Sponsored by the Brandeis University Undergraduate Business Program
November 13th, 2012
The Department of Psychology Colloquium Talk Given by Lothar A. Spillman, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH and University Hospital, Freiburg, Germany
“Fading and Filling-in and the Perception of Extended Surfaces, Or: Why We See Even in the Absence of Stimuli Reaching the Brain”
Thursday, November 15, 2012
12 p.m.
Pearlman Lounge, #113
Sponsored by the
Martin Weiner Lecture Series
And the
NIGMS Brain, Body & Behavior Training Grant
Abstract: Since Troxler’s original observation in 1804, fading and filling-in phenomena have aroused the interest of researchers. However, the question of why stimuli imaged on the retina become invisible (fading) and¬¬—vice versa—why incomplete stimuli are perceived as complete (filling-in), has been systematically studied only during the last 25 years. Fading is due to local adaptation and is comparable to a stimulus lowered to subthreshold. We now know that most targets, whether static, flickering, or even rotating, fade into the background. Strict prolonged fixation is crucial; as soon as the eye moves, the percept is refreshed and reappears. The time course of fading typically does not exceed 15 seconds. By comparison, an image artificially stabilized on the retina disappears almost instantaneously. When a percept fades, the void may be replaced by properties from the surrounding backgrounds. This is called filling-in. Backgrounds need not be uniform, a textured background or dynamic visual noise field will be as effective and even more so. Filling-in ensures the perception of brightness, color, texture, and shape, even motion, where, in fact, there is no signal from the retina reaching the brain. An example is the optic disk (blind spot) or a lesion scotoma, both of which are invisible. Filling-in also occurs on a large extended area that is not sustained over time due to local adaptation. For example, the color of a uniform disk would normally be expected to become progressively fainter and perhaps even disappear, unless periodically refreshed. We assume that this refreshment is achieved by the edge signal arising at the border of the disk, which does not adapt due to microsaccades. This signal if laterally propagated could sustain the brightness or color of the interior. We have recently found that filling-in of the blind spot requires relatively little surround information. A thin red ring hugging the boundary of the blind spot will fill in the “blind” area uniformly and completely with color. Similarly, a thin chromatic double contour will induce a spread of “watercolor” over a large area. Psychophysical and neurophysiological experiments suggest that filling-in is achieved by long-range horizontal interactions beyond the classical receptive field. Candidates are visual area V1-3.
November 12th, 2012
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