Alumni News
Tara Blalock (M.A.T, ’09) was recently awarded a Noyce Supplemental Salary Award of $40,000, which she will receive as a new secondary school teacher over the next four years.
David C. Carter (History Ph.D., ‘01) has published a book titled The Music Has Gone Out of the Movement: Civil Rights and the Johnson Administration, 1965-68 (UNC Press). Carter is associate professor of History at Auburn University.
Phillip Hanrahan (English A.M, ’88) has written Life After Favre: A Season of Change with the Green Bay Packers and Their Fans (Skyhorse Publishing). A lifelong Packers fan, Hanrahan moved to Green Bay to chronicle the effect of the departure of MVP Brett Favre on the team, its fans, and the town. He lives in Los Angeles.
Kirsten Hofmockel (Ecology, Ph.D. ’05) acquired a USDA-AFRI grant to examine how microbial community structure and function regulate C sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions in agroecosystems. This work compliments ongoing efforts to characterize the profitability, productivity, and sustainability of a portfolio of cropping systems grown on different landscape positions. Hofmockel has developed a new microbial metagenomics course, set up a laboratory, and submitted several papers to scientific journals.
Matthew S. Holland (Political Science, A.M. ’98, Ph.D. ’01) was inaugurated as the sixth president of Utah Valley University (UVU). UVU is the second largest public institution in the state, with a growing student body nearing 30,000.
Beth Jarvis (M.A.T, ’09) was recently awarded a Noyce Supplemental Salary Award of $40,000, which she will receive as a new secondary school teacher over the next four years.
Byung Soo Lee (Economics, A.M. ’06) is currently a Ph.D. student and job market candidate in Economics at Pennsylvania State University, where he researches the foundations of game theory. Lee recently received the Outstanding Recitation Instructor Award from the Department of Economics at Penn State University.
Hedibert Lopes (Statistics, Ph.D. ’00) has been featured in the Chicago Tribune for his work at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He is using data from Google Flu Trends and applying a mathematical model that will predict the spread of the H1N1 virus.
John Mayrose (Music, Ph.D. ’06) received a Postdoctoral Fellowship from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. He works in the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music.
Michelle McMurray (Immunology, Ph.D. ‘99) is the founding director of the health policy program for the Aspen Institute. She was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2009 Student National Medical Association Region IV Annual Medical Conference held at Duke in October.
Jason H. Middleton (Literature, Ph.D. ’02) received the G. Graydon and Jane W. Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Nontenured Member of the Faculty from the University of Rochester, where he has been an assistant professor of English and taught in the film and media studies program since 2006.
John “Clay” Mountcastle (History, A.M. ’03, Ph.D. ’06) recently published a book titled Punitive War: Confederate Guerillas and Union Reprisals (University Press of Kansas). The book is based on research he conducted at Duke for his dissertation.
Ivan Shaliostovich (Economics, Ph.D. ’09) joined the faculty of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 2009. At Wharton, Shaliostovich continues his study of long-run risks and asset prices, large asset price moves and jump risk, and learning and confidence risks.
Seth Weinberger (Political Science, PhD. ’05) recently published a book titled Restoring the Balance: War Powers in an Age of Terror (Praeger Press). Weinberger is an assistant professor of politics and government at the University of Puget Sound.
Christian Thorne (Literature, Ph.D. ’01) has published The Dialectic of Counter-Enlightenment (Harvard University Press). The book confronts the history and enduring legacy of anti-foundationalist thought. Thorne is assistant professor of English at Williams College.
Bret Wilson (Religion, A.M. ’06, Ph.D. ’09) has joined the Macalester College Religious Studies Department as a tenure-track assistant professor. Wilson has conducted field research in Turkey and completed a dissertation on the history of Turkish translations of the Qur’an. His research interests include Qur’anic Studies; Islam in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Turkey; translation studies; Islamicate print history; and Islamicate conceptions of vernacular and cosmopolitan.
Chiayu Hsu, a newly minted Graduate School alum (Music, Ph.D. '09), was selected as one of three finalists in Dilettante-Music.com's inaugural Digital Composer-in-Residence competition. The competition invited composers from all around the world to submit their works online to be judged by an international panel. Hsu's submission, "Zhi" for violin and piano, was composed in 2008, and includes folk rhythms from Chinese festive music. Hsu, who is from Banciao, Taiwan, studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and at Yale University before coming to Duke. Recently, a story on Chiayu was featured on NBC 17 news. Watch the video here.