Studying Jainism and Its Tantric Ritual Diagrams in India

Ellen Gough (Religious Studies) is heading to India to study Tantric Jainism, an unusual branch of an unusual religion. Traditional Jains practice strict asceticism, but Tantric Jains eat meat and drink wine, join esoteric cults, engage in sexual activity, and use invocations and diagrams in their rituals. Ellen focuses on the intricate symbolic diagrams of one invocation. She will travel around India to collect unpublished manuscripts and observe rituals in which Tantric diagrams are used. Believers hold that those who recite the phrases associated with the diagram can obtain supernatural powers like the ability to fly and be clairvoyant.   

Faith and Science in Muslim and Evangelical Christian High Schools

Jeffrey Guhin (Sociology) is writing a dissertation that explores the sociology of religion and education. “Moral Technology: Science, Religion, and Right Action in Evangelical and Sunni Schools” is a comparative ethnography of four conservative religious high schools in the New York City area. He analyzes how they reconcile science with belief, how and why they pray, and how they establish and maintain their sense of identity.   

Lupus Research Brings Together Bench Science and Healing Arts

Allison Campbell (MD/PhD, Immunobiology) is pursuing both an MD and PhD degree at Yale. Her research studies the role of NADPH oxidase, a key protein that had been implicated in causing lupus. Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks its own healthy tissue. She created a line of lupus-prone mice that lacked NADPH oxidase. Contrary to expectations, these mice developed a severe form of lupus, suggesting that NADPH oxidase suppresses the disease, and when it is absent, the disease is exacerbated. Allison’s findings were published recently in Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.   

Kudos

Monika Weber (Electrical Engineering), in collabora-
tion with a team of fellow-students, was awarded an Ambulatory Practice of the Future “Prize for Primary Healthcare” from Massachusetts General Hospital for developing a novel technique that rapidly tests for pathogens in small blood samples.   

Reuben Ng (Public Health) has won the 2012 Tony Guzewicz Award for cross-cultural research from the American Psychological Association for his essay on cultivating “cultural intelligence” (the ability to function effectively in culturally diverse settings) through specific kinds of informal international experiences.   

Seven students at the Graduate School will study abroad on Fulbright Fellowships in 2012-13. They are Andrew Carruthers (Anthropology), Kathryn Hacker (Public Health), Erika Helgen (History), Sylvia Houghteling (History of Art), Agnieszka Rec (History), Max Rosenberg (History of Art), Nazanin Sullivan (History).   

Organization of American Historians Awards Hine Prize to Mayeri

Serena Mayeri (PhD 2006, History; JD 2001) has won the Darlene Clark Hine Award for Reasoning from Race: Feminism, Law, and the Civil Rights Revolution. The prize is given to recognize the best book on African American women’s and gender history. Reasoning from Race explores the little-known history of the interconnection between the movements for women’s rights and civil rights in the 1970s. She demonstrates how black women’s activism and the insights they gained from their work in civil rights shaped the struggle for gender equality. Mayeri is professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.    

Alumnus Wins First Prize in C. S. Lewis Book Competition

C. Stephen Evans (PhD 1974, Philosophy), University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University, recently won first prize in the C. S. Lewis Book Competition. The prize is given to the best book on the philosophy of religion or philosophical theology for a general audience published in the last five years. In his book, Natural Signs and the Knowledge of God: A New Look at Theistic Arguments, Evans reasons God's existence can be known through what he calls "natural signs" like a sense of wonder, a sense that the universe is meaningful and purposeful, and a sense of moral responsibility.   

American Chemical Society Honors Inorganic Chemist Peter Ford

Peter C. Ford (PhD 1966, Chemistry), professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, has won the 2013 American Chemical Society National Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry. More than 60 students have earned their PhD degrees in his research group, which studies catalysis, the photochemistry and photophysics of transition metal complexes, and the chemistry of nitric oxide and other small molecule bioregulators. “While these topics sound rather diverse, the common theme is our interest in reaction mechanisms and in applications of quantitative techniques to investigate these systems,” Ford says.   

Graduate Student Assembly Update

The Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) has initiated a new program that provides students with legal advice and revived the student-adviser-coffee-voucher program known as “Common Grounds.”

Legal Aid has two components. At scheduled “Ask-A-Lawyer” sessions in the HGS Common Room alcove, lawyers from the New Haven County Bar Association provide free individual advice to students on issues that range from landlord-tenant disputes to intellectual property. Students can also arrange for a free referral to meet with a lawyer by sending an email to Assistant Dean Robert Harper-Mangels.

Common Grounds promotes mentoring and informal student-adviser conversations by providing free coffee vouchers to any GSAS student who wishes to meet with a faculty member to discuss academic or professional matters. To participate, email the GSA’s treasurer. Vouchers can be redeemed at the Blue Dog Cafe, Bass Library Cafe, KBT Cafe, or Marigolds.    

Please contact Gila Reinstein with news items.