CAS Full Professor Lectures Spring

Luis Vivanco, Professor of Anthropolgy
Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 5:00pm
Waterman Memorial Lounge

Title:  On the Anthropology of Bicycles and (Un)Common Sense

Synopsis: As some anthropologists are fond of saying, common sense is neither common nor sensical. And yet the notion is a durable and ubiquitous one, mobilized and performed from our highest political rhetoric to the most mundane matters of our daily lives. Carrying connotations of earthy and self-evident wisdom, it is a wily concept with complex social and institutional lives and consequential, often unexpected or convoluted, outcomes. In this talk, Professor Vivanco explores the construction, performance, and uses of common sense in an arena in which he has been recently conducting ethnographic fieldwork, urban bicycle culture, and political advocacy in the U.S. and Colombia.

Luis Vivanco has been at UVM since 1997. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from Princeton University. His scholarship has focused on the culture and politics of environmental social movements and ecotourism in Latin America, and the visual politics of wildlife film. In recent years, his work has turned to the intersections of urban mobility and sustainability discourse, focusing on the construction of bicycles as green transportation. He has held two Fulbright Scholar Awards (Costa Rica 2004, Colombia 2014) and in 2012 won the George V. Kidder Outstanding Faculty Award, UVM's highest teaching honor.

Guiseppe A. Petrucci, Professor of Chemisry
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 at 5:00pm
Waterman Memorial Lounge

Title: A Tantalizing Glimpse into the Lives and Roles of Atmospheric Organic Particles

Synopsis: Organic particles are ubiquitous in our atmosphere; however, we still know very little about their origins, chemistry, and fate in the atmosphere. For this lecture, I will present a brief overview of the roles played by organic particles in global health and climate, as well as discuss some of the analytical challenges they present. I will discuss unique instrumental methods that we have developed at UVM and the windows, albeit still grimy, that have allowed us to debunk some commonly held misconceptions. I will then end with some remaining challenges that organic particles continue to present.

After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Florida, Professor Petrucci was a research scientist of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy. In 2000 he joined the UVM Chemistry department as an assistant professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2006. Prof. Petrucci’s research interests lie in the general field of aerosol analysis. Current focus in on the simultaneous physical and chemical characterization of individual particles, leading to the rapid, on-line characterization of the aerosol.

A recording of the lecture will be made available at the online media blog http://blog.uvm.edu/compute-cas-media/ and eventually at the College of Arts and Sciences website.

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Please note: All lecture speakers, topics, start times, and locations are subject to change.