Brooke Hauser, author of "New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens"

Lecture: August 28, 2012
Topic: New Kids

Brooke Hauser has written for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Allure, among other publications. She is the author of The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens, a winner of the American Library Association's 2012 Alex Award.

"Simply astonishing" is how NPR's Talk of the Nation described the stories told in the book. People magazine selected The New Kids as one of its "Great Reads," Parade magazine chose it as a "Parade Pick," and the New York Post called it "required reading." Says The New York Times: "Ms. Hauser's book is a refreshing reminder of the hurdles newcomers to this country still face and how many defy the odds to overcome them."

For several years, Hauser covered the film industry as Writer-at-Large at Premiere, where she was also an editor. In 2005, her interest in profiling characters not usually featured in the mainstream media led her to the City section of The New York Times. Her article, "This Strange Thing Called Prom" was optioned by Miramax.

As a journalist, Hauser has written about a wide range of subjects, including female corrections officers, Baptist preachers, Chinese beauty queens, and a Vermont dairy farmer with a screenwriting career on the side. Other profile subjects include a former Secretary of State (Colin Powell) and more than a few movie stars and pop stars. (Hauser once wore Mariah Carey's fuzzy pink bathrobe during an interview in the singer's penthouse. It's a long story.)

Originally from Miami, Florida, Hauser began her career as a reporter for The Miami Herald. She recently moved to western Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband Addison MacDonald and their son Marlow. Between semesters, she teaches a popular nonfiction writing class at Smith College.

Bill Falls, Professor of Psychology
University of Vermont

Lecture: September 20, 2012
Topic:"Formulating Scientific Questions"

Falls is an Associate Professor of Psychology and has been the recipient of grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Falls' research is focused on examining the neurobiology of learning, memory and emotion. He uses Pavlovian fear conditioning procedures to examine the neural systems involved in the acquisition, expression and inhibition of conditioned fear and has been recently conducting research examining the mechanism through which physical exercise reduces anxiety and improves learning and memory. Anxiety disorders, such as specific phobias and PTSD, may reflect pathological fear responses acquired through Pavlovian conditioning. Individuals with these disorders exhibit exaggerated fear and anxiety in certain situations. Falls examines these neural systems to better understand the etiology of these disorders and to develop new and more effective treatments for reducing fear and anxiety.

Recent publications include: Waddell, J. Dunnett, C. & Falls, W.A. (2004). C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice differ in extinction and renewal of extinguished fear. Behavioural Brain Research 154(2):567-76 .

Jaworski DM. Boone J. Caterina J. Soloway P. Falls WA. (2005). Prepulse inhibition and fear-potentiated startle are altered in tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP-2) knockout mice. Brain Research. 1051, 81-9.

Heldt, S.A. & Falls, W.A. (2006). The Effects of Posttraining Lesions of the Auditory Thalamus and Cortex on the Inhibition of Fear Conditioned to an Auditory Stimulus.

European Journal of Neuroscience.

23(3):765-779.

Prof. Falls' Website

Allison Neal, PhD Biology Student
University of Vermont

Lecture: October 4, 2012
Topic: "Evolution and Sex Ratios"

Neal is currently a second year graduate student in the Schall lab at the University of Vermont. Her focus is ecology and evolution, and is particularly interested in the ecology and evolutionary biology of parasites. The complex ways in which parasites interact with their hosts and how these interactions have evolved fascinates her. Neal's graduate work focuses on the sex ratio of the lizard malaria parasite Plasmodium mexicanum. Studying sex ratio is a great way to look at how selection on individuals can lead to population-wide patterns.

Neal's research combines classic parasitological techniques (such as identifying different stages of the parasite under the microscope) and fieldwork with modern molecular analysis (microsatellite analysis to determine the genetic diversity of infections) to test the application of sex ratio theory to a lizard malaria parasite (P. mexicanum). She is interested in whether the parasite follows the predictions of Local Mate Competition as well as what selective forces play a part in shaping the sex ratio.

While Neal's graduate work centers on the life history biology of a malaria parasite, her interests in the ecology and evolution of parasites remain broad. Neal applied and was admitted to the National Science Foundation's East Asia and the Pacific Summer Institute for the summer of 2011. This program gives graduate students the opportunity to work on summer research projects with prominent scientists in East Asia and the Pacific to introduce us to the scientific community of this region and encourage future collaboration.

Neal spent eight weeks in New Zealand working with Dr. Robert Poulin on a project investigating the dispersal of the infective stages of a marine parasite in the genus Philophthalmus. Philophthalmus is a trematode (fluke) whose adult stage is found in the eye orbit of gulls. Eggs are passed in the tears and hatch in the environment, and the larval stage enters intertidal snails. After developing, another larval stage is released from the snail and encysts in the environment, where it may be eaten by a gull. Neal's research investigated the encysting behavior of the parasite and whether it varies spatially.

Michael Arnowitt, Pianist

Lecture: October 18, 2012
Topic: "The Music of 1911" (a recital/lecture)

Michael Arnowitt is one of the most creative and imaginative pianists in today's classical music world. He is best known for the beauty, clarity and elegance of his musical ideas, for his abilities to find new articulations and colors from the piano, for his talents in constructing innovative and thought-provoking programs, and for his natural and warm on-stage manner with audiences of all ages.

Michael Arnowitt's life and music is the subject of an award-winning documentary by the American filmmaker Susan Bettmann, Beyond Eighty-Eight Keys (2004). The documentary, filmed in both the United States and Europe, contains footage of concert performances, educational talks, and interviews. The film has been broadcast twice on public television and has been shown at a variety of film festivals and venues including the Rode Pomp, an arts center in Gent, Belgium and the Anthology, a theater in New York City's East Village.

Arnowitt has appeared at festivals and concert series devoted to contemporary music in the northeastern United States, and has performed piano solo new music programs in Belgium and Holland. Together with the percussionist Beverley Johnston, he developed a duo program of music by composers from around the world, which they have performed in Canada and the United States.

Robert Macauley, Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics
College of Medicine, University of Vermont

Lecture: November 8, 2012
Topic: "Knowledge of Illness"

Robert Macauley is Medical Director of Clinical Ethics at Fletcher Allen Health Care, and Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He received his B.A. from Wheaton College and M.D. from Yale. Following residency training in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, he was a pediatric hospitalist in Connecticut and Director of Pediatrics at Kuluva Hospital in Uganda, before coming to UVM in 2002. He also holds a Master of Studies in Philosophical Theology from Oxford University, and Masters of Divinity and of Sacred Theology from Yale Divinity School.

Dr. Macauley's work focuses on clinical ethics, pediatric palliative care, and spirituality. He directs the Clinical Ethics Consultation Service at Fletcher Allen Health Care as well as the ethics curriculum at the UVM College of Medicine, for which he received the Golden Apple Teaching Award. He has published articles on topics ranging from civil disobedience in the practice of medicine to the role of surrogate decision-making following a suicide attempt, in journals such as the Hastings Center Report and the Journal of Clinical Ethics.

Dr. Macauley also directs the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at Vermont Children's Hospital, and is one of less than a hundred pediatricians nationally to also be board-certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. An ordained Episcopal priest, Dr. Macauley directs the "Spirituality in Patient Care" initiative at the College of Medicine, for which he received the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health Award for Curricular Development.