Vanderbilt Summer Academy (VSA)

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Vanderbilt Summer Academy - 2009 Faculty

Robert Barsky teaches literature in English and French, as well as language theory, migration and refugee studies, and various approaches to human rights and social justice. He is the author of five books, two on refugee law, one on literary theory, and two on the linguist and political philosopher Noam Chomsky, a formative influence for his work. The most recent book, The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower, combines his interest in radical work with studies of language and laughter as a social force. Born in Montreal, he was educated in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and he has held on to his early passion for extreme skiing while developing a recent love for motorcycling. To learn more, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/ french_ital/barsky.

David Cliffel is Associate Professor of Chemistry and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt. As founder of the Cliffel Research Group at Vanderbilt he has helped develop equipment designed to aid security forces responding to chemical and biological terrorist attacks. To learn more, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Chemistry/groups/cliffel/.

Elizabeth Covington is returning for her third summer with VSA. She is a graduate instructor and Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at Vanderbilt University, and her interests include Victorian and modernist British literature, literatures of war and trauma, and narrative theory.  In addition to teaching, Elizabeth is currently writing a dissertation on modernist literature and psychological and literary theories of memory. 

Jimmy L. Davidson conducts applied research in advanced electronic materials and microelectronic microsensors and is developing programs in synthetic diamond and other rugged advanced wide band gap semiconductors for electronic, biological and mechanical applications. After receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia University, Davidson served as Vice President of Operations at InSouth Microelectronics Corp. and as Associate Director of the Alabama Microelectronics Center. Currently he holds the titles of Professor of Electrical Engineering, Professor of Material Science and Engineering, and Director of the Vanderbilt Microelectronics Laboratory. Davidson has over 100 publications in his field and holds six patents. To learn more, visit www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/~jld/persinfo.htm.

James Dickerson, Assistant Professor of Physics and Principal Investigator with the Dickerson Group, serves on the faculty of the Vanderbilt Interdisciplinary Program in Materials Science (ims.vanderbilt.edu). Research from his lab is featured prominently in a new children’s book, Scientists on the Cutting Edge, which covers topics such as nanoscience, astronomy, and particle physics. Dickerson aims to contribute to the development and understanding of novel nanocrystals and nanocrystalline structure that have the potential for optical, electronic, and magnetic applications. As chair of the Committee on Minorities of the American Physical Society, he also has been active in promoting the participation of underrepresented minorities in the field of physics. To learn more, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/dickerson/index.htm.

Avery Dickins de Girón recently completed her doctorate in anthropology and is the Assistant Director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American Studies.  Although she has conducted ethnographic research in Bolivia and traveled throughout other areas of Latin America, her heart lies in Guatemala.  Her primary research examines development as a process of globalization in Q’eqchi’ Maya communities in northern Guatemala, specifically focusing on how social factors can predict which individuals in a community are most likely to benefit economically and otherwise from development projects. In addition, Dickins is interested in the relationship between violence and internal labor migration in Guatemala and its implications for rural inhabitants. She has also examined economic rationality and self-interest, taught English in Guatemala, and has carried out research on sustainable forestry certification programs in Guatemala’s Peten region as a part of a project on social indicators with Vanderbilt’s Center for the Americas. To learn more, visit http://www.vanderbilt.edu/clas/home.

David Dunn is a VSA Veteran, having led classes on religion and philosophy each of the last two summers. An accomplished and innovative teacher, Dunn is completing his Ph.D. in Theological Studies at Vanderbilt University.  His minor is in Historical Studies, with an expertise in the theology of Late Antiquity and Byzantium. Dunn’s dissertation research focuses on the intersection between ancient Christian theology and modern political economy.

Edward H. Friedman, Chancellor’s Professor of Spanish and Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, has been recognized as an inspired and inspiring educator with his recent selection for the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. His research centers on narrative and drama from the Renaissance to the present, and his latest book is titled Cervantes in the Middle: Realism and Reality in the Spanish Novel. One of his publications is a Spanish textbook that focuses on approaches to the analysis of the short story. He is also the author of Wit’s End, the adaptation of a play by the seventeenth-century playwright Lope de Vega, which was performed by Vanderbilt Theatre in 2006. To learn more, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/spanport/friedman.htm.

Todd Giorgio is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Chemical
Engineering. His research group works to better understand fundamental cellular behavior, including kinetics and mechanisms of gene delivery to mammalian cells, intracellular bioengineering, effects of shear on cellular function, platelet physiology, biorheology, and biosensors of cellular function, in order to advance the practical application of human gene therapy. To learn more, go to www.bme.vanderbilt.edu/research/giorgio.htm.

Dawson Gray is in his fourth year with Vanderbilt Programs for Talented Youth, most recently teaching math courses for Vanderbilt Summer Academy’s 2008 session. After graduating from Vanderbilt University with a double major in piano performance and mathematics, Gray recently completed a master’s degree in education at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, where his major focus was secondary education with an emphasis on Math. He now teaches at Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee. In addition to math and music, his greatest passion is baseball, and he believes there should be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter.

Erika Grundstrom is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Learning Science Institute at Vanderbilt University. Her research combines interests in massive stars, spectroscopy, and astronomy education. Recently, these interests have taken her to the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile as well as into the Nashville Public Schools where she developed and taught curriculum for 6th grade students. She is looking forward to her second summer at VSA. To learn more, visit http://people.vanderbilt.edu/ ~erika.grundstrom/.

As Professor of Physics, Richard Haglund researches ultrafast and wavelength-selective laser interactions with materials; nanoscale nonlinear optics and nanoscale phase transitions; and materials processing and analysis of materials using laser spectroscopy. He serves as Principal Investigator for NSF Nanoscience Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) and DOE Nanoscience, Engineering and Technology (NSET) project. Haglund also is co-Principal Investigator at W. M. Keck Foundation Free-Electron Laser Center at Vanderbilt University. His current work pushes the cutting edge of the new field of proteomics, a newly coined term for identifying the structure and the role of proteins that are the basis of life. Proteomics offers great promise for major advances in medical treatment. To learn more, visit http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/physics/haglund.

Jan Harris is a poet and an accomplished VSA instructor whose popular courses have included “Writing and Visual Literacy” and “Creative Writing: Autobiography.” A published author, Harris’s poetry has appeared in Anthology and Event.

Monte D. Hendrickson has conducted ethnographic research in multiple locations of the Brazilian Amazon focusing on issues of childhood, child labor, and the relationship between ideological belief structures and the value of scientific models when applied to the environment. She has a Master’s degree in sociology and is currently completing her Ph.D. in anthropology at Vanderbilt. Currently, her research centers on cultural constructs of childhood, with a particular focus on disease, gender, and agency within the urban and rural settings in the Amazonian state of Pará.

Kane Jennings, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, has published over forty papers in the area of organic thin films as related to nanoscale science and has received both university and school awards for excellence in teaching. He received a 2006 Chancellor’s Research Award for his work on pH-responsive polymer films. Jennings is also the proud mentor to Ph.D. student Eric Brantley, who won the Best Research Paper of 2004 within the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, and undergraduates Tom Niedringhaus, Evan Graybill, and Andrew Payne, each of whom have won national awards, for their research projects on nanomaterials for alternative energy. To learn more, visit http://frontweb.vuse.vanderbilt.edu/ vuse_web/directory/facultybio.asp?FacultyID=21709.

Cynthia Paschal is Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Associate Professor of Radiology and Radiological Sciences. Her research interests include magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, and x-ray radiography of the heart and lungs. She is an accomplished educator, who has won multiple teaching awards and regularly receives excellent ratings from students in the biomedical engineering courses she teaches. She led a National Science Foundation-funded project on biomedical imaging education that involved working with students in high school and at the university level. She has recently expanded her interests to include engineering service learning and outreach for the developing world. Her undergraduate and master's degrees were earned at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her doctorate is from Case Western Reserve University.

Joshua Perry joined the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in January 2005 and is Assistant Professor of Medical Education and Administration in the School of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Law in the Law School. His interdisciplinary work places a broad focus on the areas of bioethics, health law and policy, and medical and legal professionalism, and he has recently been published in Annals of Internal Medicine, Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine, Journal of Legal Medicine, DePaul Journal of Health Care Law, and Tennessee Medicine. His current research focuses on the moral decision making of lawyers practicing in healthcare environments, end-of-life decisions in hospital intensive care environments, and issues related to genetics and religion. Perry holds a law degree from Vanderbilt Law School and a master’s degree in theological studies with a concentration in ethics from Vanderbilt Divinity School. Before entering academe, he practiced civil litigation. To learn more, visit https:// medschool.mc.vanderbilt.edu/facultydata/php_files/show_faculty.php?id3=16360.

Nathan Poole enjoys reading Haruki Murakami short stories, playing “Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot,” and occasionally sitting near a campfire to slow-roast marshmallows to golden-brown perfection. When not engaged in these activities, Poole is most often integrating education, leadership, culture, and technology as part of his graduate studies in International Education Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. As a Vanderbilt alumnus who has also studied Child Development and Studio Art, he keenly appreciates cultivation of critical thinking skills that reach beyond conventional classroom boundaries developing meaning in and across multiple real-life contexts. For Poole, digital production and other technologies function as tools that further this educational philosophy. Though he has been informed that marshmallow roasting in classrooms will be strictly forbidden, Poole is very much looking forward to his third year at VSA exploring the intersections of narrative and technology.

Michelle Sulikowski is a Senior Lecturer in the Chemistry Department and is the Associate Director of Education for the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology. Michelle originally pursued a career in psychology, however she was swept away by the excitement of science courses that revealed how things work. During her short tenure at Vanderbilt she has won three teaching awards including the Harriet S. Gilliam Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has a passion for mentoring young students at the secondary and college level. Her main chemical interests are organic chemistry and chemical education.

Jeffrey Usman received his doctorate of jurisprudence from Vanderbilt University Law School, and his LL.M from Harvard Law School. He has served as a law clerk to United States District Court and Circuit Court of appeals judges and to a Justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. He has worked on cases involving state and federal constitutional rights, and he has published law review articles on the United States, Indian, and Iranian Constitutions. Usman was recognized with the Grace Wilson Sims Award for excellence in writing upon transnational law. His research is primarily focused on issues of comparative constitutionalism, and he is currently exploring the interpretation of affirmative constitutional rights. 

Greg Walker, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, holds several appointments at Vanderbilt, including in the Interdisciplinary Materials Science Program, the Thermal Physics Lab, the Scientific Computer Center, and Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. His research interests include the modeling and simulation of nonequilibrium coupled energy transport in heat-transfer and electronic materials and employing modern high-performance computing architectures and large-scale scientific programming paradigms. Walker actively serves on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers K-16 Committee on Heat Transfer in Electronic Equipment. To learn more, visit http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~greg.walker/.

Jake Wilson has never taken a computer class in his life. In fact, he spent his college years at Vanderbilt working to become an English teacher. But after finishing his degree he entered the academic world with an open mind and a multitude of interests. Now he is a middle school technology coordinator who keeps a small library of literature in his computer lab for teaching classes in filmmaking and graphic design. After several years of working with Vanderbilt Programs for Talented Youth’s computer programming class, pushing students to use video games to tell stories, Wilson graduated into teaching his own class on Digital Storytelling two years ago. With what is left of his summers he instructs Vanderbilt education students on how to navigate the wild world of technology. His primary concern is helping students explore new and different ways to express themselves.