Category: News

Articles about news in the College, from student and faculty accomplishments to research advances, new academic programs, and the impact of giving.


Anthropologist to Discuss Alcohol’s Relationship to Evolution in UA Lecture

  Dr. Patrick McGovern, an anthropologist, is starting off the new year with some cheer as he presents a lecture on the history of alcohol and its relationship to evolution Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. in the Biology Building Auditorium, room 127, on The University of Alabama campus. The lecture is part of the 2014-2015 Alabama’s Lecture on Life’s Evolution, or ALLELE, series at UA and is free and open to the public. McGovern’s lecture, “Uncorking the Past: Fermentation as […]

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Best-selling Author to Deliver Dinoff Lecture at UA

  Dr. Steven C. Hayes, professor and director of clinical training at the University of Nevada, will deliver the 2014 Michael Dinoff Memorial Lecture Jan. 30 at The University of Alabama. Hayes’ lecture, “Human Suffering and Human Prosperity: Why Psychological Flexibility Matters,” will begin at 6 p.m. in room 118 of Bibb Graves Hall. Admission is free to the public, and a reception will follow the lecture. Hayes is an author of 38 books and more than 540 scientific articles. […]

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Ice Cube Astronomy

UA professor of astronomy Dawn Williams will share the wonders of Antarctica and the groundbreaking research done in the Ice Cube Neutrino Detector in a talk on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. in Room 227 Gallalee Hall before the public night. During a talk entitled “Ice Cube: The weirdest wonder of modern astronomy,” Williams will describe how this high-energy detector was built by melting ice and how the nearly massless particles called neutrinos give insights into violent astrophysical events. She […]

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Rick Gray Named Director of Brewer-Porch

From the January 2015 Desktop News | Dr. Rick Gray, a health care administrator with more than 20 years of experience in executive positions at health care facilities across the Southeast, has been named executive director of The University of Alabama’s Brewer-Porch Children’s Center. “Rick Gray has a track record of successfully steering mental and behavioral health institutions toward organizational and financial stability,” said Dr. Lisa Dorr, associate dean of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the […]

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Join the Friends of the MDB

From the January 2015 Desktop News | A new organization for the support and promotion of the Million Dollar Band kicked off Jan. 1 and will hold its first meeting in April. The Friends of the Million Dollar Band, which will be part of The University of Alabama, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Music, was formed following conversations with the officers of the independent Million Dollar Band Association, MDB alumni, and friends over a two-year […]

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The “Top 40 Democracy” of Popular Music

From the January 2015 Desktop News | A former music critic, Dr. Eric Weisbard has always been interested in connecting the dots of popular culture. When critics began talking about “rockism,” the idea of rock as a biased way of valuing some music and not others, and “poptimism,” the idea that commercial music of all kinds should be celebrated for its diversity, he thought both ideas were too simplistic, so he wrote a book about it, using a historical approach […]

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Governor Bentley to Speak to Pre-health Students

From the January 2015 Desktop News | Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, a graduate of The University of Alabama School of Medicine, will present the opening lecture at the 13th annual Susan and Gaylon McCollough Medical Scholars Forum Friday, Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. in the Shelby Hall rotunda on The University of Alabama campus. The McCollough Medical Scholars Forum was established by UA alumni Dr. Gaylon McCollough and Mrs. Susan McCollough to prepare students pursuing medical and health science professions […]

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Psychologists to Bolster Health Services

From the January 2015 Desktop News | A team of psychology researchers has been awarded a two-year, $250,000 contract from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to help integrate behavioral health and chronic pain treatment plans into Alabama’s 15 federally-qualified health centers. The award, given to Dr. Beverly Thorn, professor in the Department of Psychology, runs concurrently with the team’s $1.3 million study comparing literacy-adapted, group cognitive-behavioral therapy for pain education to typical medical treatment. Thorn received a Eugene Washington PCORI […]

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Physicist Awarded NSF CAREER Award

From the January 2015 Desktop News | Dr. Claudia Mewes, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and UA’s Center for Materials for Information Technology, has received a $500,000 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER Award is NSF’s most prestigious recognition of top-performing young scientists beginning their careers. Mewes’s research focuses on theoretical condensed matter physics, more specifically spintronics, which aims to use the electron spin in addition to its electric charge to develop highly […]

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Physics Student to Intern at U.S. DOE

From the December 2014 edition of Desktop News | Marissa Leshnov, a third-year physics student in the College, has been selected for the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Leshnov will be one of 100 undergraduate students interning at one of 13 DOE laboratories during spring 2015. Her work for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, will focus on developing biofuels – alternative transportation fluids derived from organic matter. The 16-week program […]

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