“Diet Culture Is Unhealthy. It’s Also Immoral,” an op-ed written by Kate Manne, associate professor of philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences, has won the American Philosophical Association’s (APA) 2023 Public Philosophy Op-Ed contest. The award honors “standout pieces that successfully blend philosophical argumentation with an op-ed writing style.”
In the op-ed, published Nov. 3, 2022…
Two professors in the Department of Mathematics in the College of Arts & Sciences were recently named fellows in the American Mathematical Society.
Professor Slawomir Solecki and Associate Professor Xin Zhou were recently elected as fellows, an honor given to members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication and…
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation creating a new commission to study reparations and racial justice.
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò is an expert in Africana studies at Cornell University. He wrote about how America should respond to its history of racism in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. He advocates for the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Táíwò says: “Any step…
On Monday, Pope Francis announced that priests were permitted to bless same-sex couples.
Landon Schnabel is an assistant professor of sociology who studies social inequality with a focus on factors like religion that compensate for inequality – by providing social, psychological and material benefits to a subordinated group – but can paradoxically end up legitimating and reinforcing it…
One day in seminar, literature scholar Laura Brown imposed a limit on the discussion: for an entire class on Samuel Richardson’s “Pamela,” no one could mention a human character.
“We found that the book was full of other-than-human beings: objects, structures, spaces, natural phenomena,” said Brown, the John Wendell Anderson Professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). …
Chris Kitchen
Amelia Tomson ’24, right, and Joy Davis ’22, left seated, talk with their families during a graduation reception Dec. 17.
Friendship runs deep for Amelia Tomson ’24 and Joy Davis ’22. So deep that Davis flew all the way from Portland, Ore. to see Tomson receive her undergraduate degree during Cornell's December graduation Dec. 17.
Tomson, a psychology major in the College of Arts & Sciences, met Davis during her first year and they ended up living together .
“We were hallmates freshman year and we just…
As a graduate student, Parisa Vaziri was compelled to learn more about the history of enslavement in the Indian Ocean.
“It managed to be simultaneously mysterious, taboo, uninteresting and nonexistent for most people,” said Vaziri, assistant professor of comparative literature and Near Eastern studies in the College of Arts and Sciences.
At the time, Vaziri was studying Iranian films made…
When Ali Soong ‘16 goes to work each day at NBCUniversal, she wields her diverse Cornell education.
As senior director of product management, Soong’s days could include anything from meeting with…
by :
Katya Hrichak
,
Cornell University Graduate School
The Graduate School welcomed nearly 70 new Dean’s Scholars at a November event to honor students who were nominated and selected for this distinction for their demonstrated commitment to academic excellence and advancing aspects of diversity, access, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the academy and other communities.
At the ceremony, each scholar received a pin with a gold center containing…
Natasha Raheja/Provided
In Jodhpur, India, computer typists offer services to migrants from stalls at the kutchery, an administrative maze housing hundreds of private vendors and dozens of government offices, pictured here in October 2019.
Pakistani Hindus arrive in the western Indian city of Jodhpur with hopes and plans to migrate, but before they even approach the Foreigners’ Registration Office (FRO), most have to visit a typist.
It’s not a legal requirement, anthropologist Natasha Raheja writes in a new ethnographic study she conducted at this border, but many migrants lack the computer equipment, literacy in English or Hindi …
Chris Kitchen
With new tools he develops, Li detects interacting electrons in specialized two-dimensional (2D) materials
Electron interactions are mysterious, delicate, basic to our understanding of matter – and exponentially complex, says physicist Hongyuan Li.
“Each electron has a charge. They also carry a quantum property called ‘spin.’ These charges and spins can interact with each other, making electron behavior very complicated,” said Li, a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in physics in the College of Arts…
Ryan Young/Cornell University
Xak Bjerken performs the keys on the Moog-Rothenberg Keyboard during a concert in Barnes Hall.
A piece of synthesizer history has been given an unexpected second life and is now a part of Cornell’s instrument collection, after eight months of meticulous and often confounding work by a group of synthesizer builders.
The rebuilt and rewired instrument, designed by theorist David Rothenberg and built by renowned synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, Ph.D. ’65, is housed in Lincoln Hall and…
Provided
This year’s most-read Chronicle story announced the return to Cornell of Dead & Company, which included members of the Grateful Dead, for a fundraising concert on May 8, benefiting Cornell’s 2030 Project and the nonprofit MusiCares.
Here’s how the well-known story goes: Vladimir Nabokov, professor of literature and soon-to-be-famous novelist, meets with a Cornell student who considers himself a budding writer.
“What kind of tree is that outside my window?” Nabokov asks.
“I don’t know,” the student says.
“Then you’ll never be a writer,” Nabokov says.
A strange response, perhaps, for an author. But not so…
Chris Kitchen
Students view some of the exhibits at the Cultura y Poder event in Rockefeller Hall.
On Dec. 4, nearly 60 students from Cornell’s Introduction to Latinx Studies course celebrated Latino/a roots through their exhibit “Cultura y poder.” Their collaborative mixed media projects, showcased online and in 434 Rockefeller Hall, explore how culture strengthens and uplifts communities.
After a semester dedicated to studying the experiences and intersections of U.S. Latinx identities,…
The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected a multidisciplinary team that includes Cornell to advance a superconducting approach to advanced computer chip technology. The team will explore ways to use new superconducting materials and structures in ultra-energy-efficient Superconducting Digital (SCD) electronics aimed at emerging artificial intelligence and quantum computing technologies.
…
Professor Steven Strogatz teaches students in Math 1300: Mathematical Explorations, an introductory course taken by Cornell undergrads in non-math related majors to fulfill their quantitative reasoning requirement. Many of these students are anxious about taking a math class, based on their prior experiences with math in high school.
“Their college will tell them you have to take some math to…
Provided
Jessica Chen Weiss serves as a panelist at the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival.
Jessica Chen Weiss is often asked to share her deep knowledge of China with stakeholders at the highest echelons of the public and private sectors—including government, business, the media, and academia.
As relations between the United States and China have deteriorated over the past few years, Weiss, who is the Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies, has been called upon…
As Congress is stalled in efforts to pass aid for Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with President Biden ahead of a joint news conference.
David Silbey, associate professor of history at Cornell University, specializes in military history, defense policy and battlefield analysis. He says the sustainability of Ukraine’s efforts is uncertain without Western…
Chris Kitchen
Budgerigar parrots get a treat of millet in Cornell's Corson Hall aviary
When humans learn to speak a language, we learn to produce new vocalizations and use them flexibly for communication, but how the brain is able to achieve this is an important but largely unanswered question, according to Zhilei Zhao, Klarman Fellow in neurobiology and behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S).
To explore this question, Zhao and Cornell collaborators compared the…
Provided
Estefania Perez '21 was part of the Posse program and Pathways Internship Program while at Cornell.
One of the most important lessons Estefania Perez ’21, learned during her time at Cornell — to be bold — continues to pay off for her as she begins her career.
Perez, a first-generation college student and part of the Posse Program, was also chosen for the Pathways Internship Program her sophomore year. Mentors from Arts & Sciences Career Development helped her prepare and apply for about…
Need a present for the Cornellian on your list? This week, Cornellians lists titles on University history, traditions, songs, famous alums—even recipes! Here is a selection featuring Arts and Sciences faculty and alumni. Most of these books are available through the Cornell Store, as well as from other online outlets.
Cornell: A History, 1940–2015
Government professor Isaac Kramnick …
Provided
Manuel Muñoz, Sporting an appreciative T-shirt at the recent conference honoring his mentor.
Manuel Muñoz, MFA ’98, is an acclaimed fiction writer and a professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona—and he recently won one of the nation’s most coveted honors, an $800,000 “genius grant” from the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation.
But in his prose, Muñoz draws on roots a world away from academia: he grew up in a Mexican-American family of farm workers in…
When cult movies—films with a passionate fanbase and oft-quoted dialogue—are discussed in academic settings, works such as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "The Big Lebowski" are frequently used as examples, says Dr. Kristen J. Warner, an associate professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at the College of Arts and Sciences. Movies with predominately Black casts and their own…
The Cornell Center for Social Sciences (CCSS) continues to fund Cornell research tackling some of society's most immediate challenges. In alignment with the Center's interdisciplinary ethos, CCSS's fall grants round consists of 16 awards across eight Cornell schools and colleges. These grants will seed research in 12 different departments, supporting the exploration of such topics as the…
Chris Kitchen
Franklin Zheng '25 experimented with AI in three of his classes this semester.
This semester, rather than banning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for his assignments, three of Franklin Zheng ’25’s five professors actually required him to use it. It’s a trend happening in universities around the country, as AI becomes another research tool rather than something to be feared.
For Zheng, AI helped him analyze 70,000 court records to find themes, topics, keywords and…
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Toni Morrison’s M.A. ‘55 Nobel Prize in Literature, Cornell’s Toni Morrison Collective is partnering with Calvary Baptist Church to give away free copies of two of Morrison’s books and hold book talks in various locations during the month of December.
Through a $2,500 Community Celebrations grant to Calvary Baptist from the Tompkins County…
Mostafa Minawi, associate professor of history in the College of Arts & Sciences and director of the Center for Critical Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies, has been honored with the Albert Hourani Book Award for “Losing Istanbul: Arab-Ottoman Imperialists and the End of Empire.”
The award, given by the Middle East Studies Association, recognizes a work that exemplifies scholarly…
Two professors in the Department of Mathematics were recently named fellows in the American Mathematical Society.
Xin Zhou and Slawomir Solecki, both associate professors of mathematics, were recently elected as fellows, an honor given to members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication and utilization of mathematics.
“The…
Elliot Lowndes/Provided
A male ostracod, about the size of a sesame seed, will dance in harmony with other males underwater at night and secrete a glowing mucus to get attention from females.
A Cornell expert on U.S.-China relations was among the attendees of the dinner following President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s historic summit on Nov. 15 in San Francisco.
At the dinner, Xi chose to deliver the friendliest of the three versions of the speech prepared for him, reflecting “a big change in tone from last year in U.S.-China relations,” said Jessica Chen Weiss,…
Jason Koski/Cornell University
The executive board of Women Leaders of Color, a student group dedicated to uniting and empowering female students of color, outside Kennedy Hall.
A few times a week, songs from Ukraine can be heard coming from a classroom in Goldwin Smith Hall. Cornell's Ukrainian program is bringing the country’s culture to campus through language learning, folk tradition and history. The effort is led by Krystyna Golovakova, a native of Ukraine and a recent refugee from the war-torn nation.
This summer, Golovakova and Serge Petchenyi, multimedia…
Derek Berman is a doctoral student in geological sciences from Los Angeles, California. Berman earned a B.S. in astronomy and a B.S. in geology from University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a M.S. in geosciences from Texas Tech University and now studies the geophysical environment of Mars’ Jezero crater under the guidance of Mike Mellon at Cornell.
What is your area of research and why is it…
Optimists and ‘doomers’ are fighting over the direction of AI research – and those who want speed may have won this round, Sarah Kreps, the John L. Wetherill Professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Director of Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy, writes in an op-ed in The Guardian.
“In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a…
Provided
Anthropology Collections curator Frederic Gleach held an open house during the Northeast Conference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory that highlighted materials from the Andes, including the items pictured here: Andean textiles and ceramics, with a Sican gold mask
Cornell’s long history of Andean studies was celebrated at the 40th Annual Northeast Conference on Andean and Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory (NCAAE) held Nov. 4-5 in Klarman Hall.
“The conference was actually founded here at Cornell in 1982 and is part of a much longer history of Andean research at our university, stretching back to the Vicos Project in highland Peru in the 1950s…
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have awarded top prize for science communication by a “research scientist–later career” to Steven Strogatz, the Susan and Barton Winokur Distinguished Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences. Neil Lewis, Jr., an associate professor of communication in the College of…
Former Twitch leader Emmett Shear is taking over as OpenAI’s interim chief executive following a chaotic weekend of changes at the company. Shear plans to hire an independent investigator to look into what led up to Sam Altman’s ouster late Friday.
Sarah Kreps, professor of government and director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, says differences of opinion about OpenAI’s …
Nestor Barbitta/Unsplash
Congress of the Republic of Argentina, Buenos Aires
Argentines have voted to elect Javier Milei, economist and former TV pundit, as their next president.
Gustavo Flores-Macías is a professor of government at Cornell University and an expert in Latin American politics. He says that though Milei will see little support among governors and Congress, his popular platform is likely to bring significant change.
Flores-Macías says: “The…
This Winter Session, students have a rare opportunity to visit "Planet Rap: Where Hip-Hop Came from and Where It's Going (MUSIC 2370)." Only offered during Winter Session once before, this online course is taught by Catherine Appert, an ethnomusicologist and associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Music. Appert will survey the vast musical and cultural impact rap…
Ryan Young/Cornell University
David Folkenflik ’91 (left) moderates the panel “Free Press in a Free Society: U.S. Newsrooms on the Front Lines” with Suzanne Mettler, the John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in government, and Sewell Chan, editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune.
Sewell Chan, editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, says he will never forget what happened at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, 2022 – or the days that ensued.
During “Free Press in a Free Society: U.S. Newsrooms on the Front Lines” Nov. 14, Chan called the deadly mass shooting “an unspeakable tragedy” but also noted a troubling trend: government officials casting journalists as…
Martin Shefter ’64, professor of government emeritus in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) who was noted for his research on American political parties, New York City politics and the ways changes in international systems shape U.S. institutions, died Nov. 3 in Ithaca. He was 79.
Colleagues remember his curiosity and his impressive fund of knowledge – which he rebuilt almost entirely…
Territory of American Canada/Creative Commons 4.0 International license
President Joe Biden will meet face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in San Francisco on Wednesday. The meeting breaks a yearlong silence marked by rising tensions that increasingly tough rhetoric.
Allen Carlson, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert on Chinese foreign policy, says a key factor for the meeting will be how much…
