A Taste of Tufts: A Sampling of Faculty Research
Fridays from Noon to 1pm
Room 155 in the Granoff Music Building
Light lunch provided after the presentation

February 3rd Joanne Berger-Sweeney Dean of Arts and Sciences How understanding brain development will aid in treating Rett syndrome Professor Berger-Sweeney's research focuses on the neurobiology of developmental disorders using mouse models of diseases such as Down syndrome and Rett syndrome. Her research includes behavioral, neurochemical, and anatomical studies, all aimed at understanding mechanisms involved in normal memory and cognitive processes and how these processes malfunction in developmental disorders.

February 10th David Locke Associate Professor of Music David Locke's research subject is the heritage of music and dance traditions of Africa. Most of his scholarly publications have been on material from the Ewe and Dagomba peoples of Ghana. He sees his work as a bridge between African musicians and non-African musicians, especially those who would perform the music in new settings. He also likes to think that his work helps sustain valuable human creations in an era of rapid change. He has put substantial amounts of material up on the Internet with the idea that it will be accessible world-wide at modest price. David's presentation will include visiting these websites, as well as some live demonstration and inter-active "hands-on" learning.

February 17th Hugh Gallagher Associate Professor of Physics Despite the fact that it is the most abundant form of matter in the universe, the neutrino still holds many mysteries. In particular they may be the key to answering one of the fundamental questions in science today - how the universe came to be made of matter when the laws of physics treat matter and anti-matter (mostly) equally. We'll talk about several experiments that hope to unravel this mystery and shed some light on the elusive particle that has been dubbed "the loner of the universe."

February 24th Edith Balbach Director, Community Health Program Edith Balbach's research is focused on the tobacco industry's political and marketing behaviors. She is fascinated by how an industry whose product leads to premature death of half of its users and kills approximately six million people a year can continue to be so powerful and so opportunistic in its marketing behaviors.

March 2nd Anthony Monaco President, Tufts University Dr. Monaco will discuss two of his most important discoveries. His doctoral research led to discovery of the gene responsible for X-linked Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies, which weaken the skeletal and heart muscles. Later, he led Oxford's Neurogenetics Group, a team of scientists investigating the genetic underpinnings of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, specific language impairment and dyslexia. His group was the first to identify a gene specifically involved in human speech and language.

March 9th Lisa Freeman Professor, Clinical Sciences, Cummings Veterinary School Dr. Freeman is a specialist in Veterinary Clinical Nutrition at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine where she teaches veterinary students about companion animal nutrition and cares for patients that require specialized nutrition for acute and chronic diseases. Her main research focus is the use of nutrition to treat heart disease in dogs and cats. However, she also is passionate about helping pet owners learn to select optimal diets for their pets in different stages of life. This interactive session will address the role of nutrition in veterinary medicine and how good nutrition decisions can be made based on fact, rather than on myth.

March 30th Chris Rogers Professor, Mechanical Engineering At the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach, Chris Rogers works with researchers in engineering, education, and child development to understand how kids learn, use that information to design educational toys, and then collaborate with teachers around the world to get students to use them. He has worked with LEGO Education for almost 15 years on their LEGO Mindstorms product, spun off a company around making stop-action movies, designed software for National Instruments, and worked with teachers as far away as Tasmania, Australia and as close as Medford, MA. He has measured what events in the classroom triggered students to stop following directions and start engineering and what caused them to go back to following directions. He has measured student retention of math concepts as a result of making a robot along with students understanding of air - what it is and how it works. He has looked at teacher learning as well as student learning. In this talk, though, he will mostly just be showing cool movies of what kids around the world have engineered.

April 6th Christine Cousineau Lecturer, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Christine Cousineau AICP is an architect and planner with experience in community development and an interest in urban history. She received a Masters in Architecture (MArch AS) and a Masters in City Planning (MCP) from MIT. Christine has extensive planning experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors. She worked for the Massachusetts's Division of Capital Planning (now Division of Capital Asset Management), and was an assistant director at the City of Boston's Public Facilities Department (now Department of Neighborhood Development). For The Boston Foundation she coordinated one of the Carol R. Goldberg Seminars and the resulting publication: "The Greening of Boston: An Action Agenda." For several years she was an associate at Goody, Clancy & Associates, a Boston-based architectural and planning firm. Christine currently works for UMass Lowell as a planning consultant. At UEPP she teaches Urban Planning and Design in the fall and Green Urban Design and Placemaking in the spring. Her teaching is informed by her professional planning experience and a strong interest in urban and planning history.

April 13th Fiorenzo Omenetto Professor of Biomedical Engineering Fiorenzo Omenetto's research spans nonlinear optics, nanostructured, materials biomaterials, and biopolymer-based photonics. Since moving to Tufts at the end of 2005, he has proposed and pioneered, alongside his colleague David Kaplan, the use of silk as a material platform for photonics, optoelectronics and high technology applications. This approach reinvents silk as a versatile material that offers unusual combinations of form and function. Prof. Omenetto is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and was recently named one of the top 50 people in tech by Fortune Magazine.

April 20th Daniel Dennett University Professor, Philosophy One of Daniel Dennett's ongoing projects is a series of confidential interviews with clergy who no longer believe what their congregations believe. From a pilot program involving half a dozen active clergy in different Protestant denominations, the project has branched out to include many more clergy. Nobody knows how common this phenomenon is, but it is certainly going to be important in coming years, as religious organizations struggle to cope with the explosion in information thanks to the Internet, cell phones, and social media. Watch a video of Prof. Dennett's presentation >