<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Helena Aparicio, Assistant Professor, Linguistics</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> I use a combination of experimental and computational methods to study how humans process and interpret language.</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project: </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title: </strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Laura Niemi, Assistant Professor, Psychology</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Moral psychology, social psychology, cognitive science, psychology of language</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project: </strong></p><p dir="ltr"> I study how people judge each other, make morally relevant decisions, and live out their values. </p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Todd Hyster, Associate Professor, Chemistry & Chemical Biology</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong> </p><p dir="ltr"> Biocatalysis and organic synthesis</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project:</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Leslie S. Babonis, Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Evolutionary development, the origin of novelty, invertebrate biodiversity</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project: </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Barum Park, Assistant Professor, Sociology</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Political sociology, social networks, social mobility</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project:</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Ivanna Yi, Assistant Professor, Asian Studies</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Korean literature, culture, and performance </p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project: </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Casey Schmitt, Assistant Professor, History</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Early American and Caribbean history, slavery, labor, and human trafficking</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project: </strong></p><p dir="ltr"> My book manuscript titled: "The Predatory Sea: Human Trafficking, Colonization, and Trade in the Greater Caribbean, 1530-1690" </p>
<p> <strong>Name and title:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Noah Tamarkin, Assistant Professor, Anthropology</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Academic focus:</strong></p><p dir="ltr"> Social politics of genetics, race, citizenship and belonging, South Africa</p><p dir="ltr"> <strong>Current research project:</strong></p>
<p> About 10,000 demonstrators gathered in Bangkok, Thailand on Sunday to demand reforms, including of the monarchy, in a continuation of unrest that began earlier this year with the dissolution of the Future Forward Party. The Sunday protest is one of the largest anti-government protests in Thailand since 2014.</p>
<p> On Thursday, President Trump announced a peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The agreement makes the United Arab Emirates (UAE) just the third Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.</p>
<p> Presidential candidate Joe Biden has selected Senator Kamala Harris as running mate and vice-presidential candidate, the first black and South Asian woman to serve on the ticket as a candidate for vice president.</p><p></p>
<p> For the first time, a team of chemists has unveiled the mechanics involved in the mysterious interplay between sunlight and molecules in the atmosphere known as “roaming reactions.” The research could lead to more accurate modeling of climate change and other atmospheric phenomena.</p>
The electrons in quantum materials strongly interact and influence one another’s behavior. In addition, some materials have significant spin-orbit coupling, in which electrons’ spins are coupled with their own orbital momenta. Researchers predict that spin-orbit coupling will generate exotic forms of cooperative electron ordering that should alter the material’s crystal structure.
<p> Cornell-based <a href="https://freedomonthemove.org/index.html">Freedom on the Move</a> (FOTM), a database documenting the lives of fugitives from American slavery through newspaper ads placed by slave owners in the 18th and 19th centuries, has received a $150,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.</p>
<p> On Wednesday, the U.S. government ordered China to close its consulate in Houston saying the decision was made “to protect American intellectual property.” The State Department gave its Chinese counterpart three days to suspend its operation, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson who added that China vowed to retaliate.</p>
<p> Protests continue this week in Portland, Oregon in the wake of federal law enforcement being deployed to the city. On Saturday, the protest included the participation of a nude woman who confronted officers wearing nothing but a mask and hat.</p>
<p> The House of Representatives voted this week to ban TikTok from government-issued devices amid concerns that the Chinese-owned social media company’s access to U.S. data poses a national security threat.</p>
<p> NASA is planning to launch its latest rover destined for Mars on July 30, with an anticipated arrival date on the red planet in February 2021. The rover, named Perseverance, will look for evidence of ancient life and collect soil and rock samples at a part of Mars just north of its equator known as Jezero Crater — the site of an ancient river.</p>
<p> The next event in the Democracy 20/20 Webinar series will examine whether the U.S. will be able to hold free and fair elections this fall and how challenges to such elections can be overcome. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, July 21 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. (ET). The event is free and the public is invited; <a href="https://americandemocracycollaborative.org/">registration</a> is required.</p>
<p> <em>Cornell President Martha E. Pollack <a href="https://statements.cornell.edu/2020/20200716-additional-actions.cfm">sent the following message</a> July 16:</em></p>
<p> From a mountain high in Chile’s Atacama Desert, astronomers with the National Science Foundation’s Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) have taken a fresh look at the oldest light in the universe. Their new observations plus a bit of cosmic geometry suggest that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, give or take 40 million years.</p>
<p> <em>Youngmin Yi, Ph.D. ’20 is a recent alumna of the sociology program at Cornell from which she holds a Ph.D. Having earned her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College and her doctorate at Cornell, she will be joining the University of Massachusetts Amherst as an assistant professor of sociology.</em></p>
<p> New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today that public schools will not fully reopen for the upcoming school year. New York City students will return to school on a limited basis with only one to three days a week of in-person education and remote learning the remainder of the days.<br /> </p>
<p> President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico (often referred to as AMLO) will join President Trump at the White House on Wednesday amid continued coronavirus concerns and celebrations of the new trade deal between Mexico, Canada and the United States.</p>
<p> <a href="https://astro.cornell.edu/martha-p-haynes">Martha Haynes</a>, Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy, has been awarded the 2020 Karl G. Jansky Lectureship by Associated Universities, Inc. and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). The Jansky Lectureship recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of radio astronomy and is being awarded to Haynes “for her influential impact to our understanding of galaxies.” </p>
<p> China passed a law this week on national security for Hong Kong, which is expected to further limit the city’s autonomy and could be used to crack down on those engaging in “secession, subversion against the central Chinese government, terrorism, and colluding with foreign forces.”<br /> </p>
Manisha Munasinghe is a doctoral candidate in computational biology from Troy, Michigan. After earning a bachelor’s degree at Michigan State University, she chose to pursue further study at Cornell due to the variety of engaging research and its community of scholars.
<p> On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration’s effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program was not legal. The decision is a win for those protected by DACA, undocumented children brought to the U.S. at an early age, otherwise known as ‘Dreamers’.</p>
A&S Communications
Government, China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program
<p> India and China clashed this week at the border between the two countries in the Himalayan mountains, resulting in numerous reported deaths of Indian and Chinese soldiers.</p>
<p> <span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">Juneteenth—June 19, 1865— marks the day when the last collective of enslaved people heard the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, TX, a full two years after Abraham Lincoln delivered it. </span></p>
<p> The Trump administration announced this week that its first in-person campaign rally since the coronavirus lockdown will occur in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19th – a day celebrated by many Americans as the day that marked the end of slavery in the United States.</p>
<p> As protests continue across the United States and around the world in response to systemic racism in policing, activists and political leaders seek out ways to affect permanent change.</p>
<p> Clashes between police and protesters escalated this week across the United States, as public outrage continued over police brutality and systemic racism.</p>
<p> Apple released a new operating system on Wednesday, iOS 13.5, which makes adjustments meant to ease use during the current pandemic — facilitating face ID unlocking while wearing a mask and fixing glitches on Facetime. It also enables support for Exposure Notification, also known as digital contact tracing, which if adopted would alert users to exposure to positive Covid-19 cases without allowing for government-controlled location and data tracking.</p>
<p> On Thursday, China announced it was preparing to enact a controversial national security law for Hong Kong, bypassing the territory’s own legislative process. The announcement was made ahead of the country’s annual National People's Congress meeting, which is set to start on Friday.</p>
<p> <em>Amnon Ortoll-Bloch is a doctoral candidate in chemistry and chemical biology from Colima City, Colima, Mexico. After earning his bachelor’s degree at National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in Mexico City, Mexico, he chose to pursue further study at Cornell due to its faculty, research opportunities, and collaborative and supportive nature.</em></p><p> <strong>What is your area of research and why is it important?</strong></p>
<p> Festival 24, the semiannual student-run theater festival from the Cornell University Department of Performing and Media Arts, is launching online under a new title, Festival 24.0. The Festival, which is normally held at the beginning of each semester, will happen on Saturday, May 9, at 8:00 p.m. EST via Zoom to provide a performance opportunity for students while in-person theater events are suspended.</p>
<p> The COVID-19 virus arrived in Latin America later than Europe and the United States, but it is currently spreading across the region, with peaks expected to come later in May. Brazil, the continent’s most populous country, has the largest numbers of cases so far. This week, the country’s Senate is expected to vote on an economic package for states and cities to compensate for economic losses.</p>
<p>The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held arguments by phone on Tuesday in a case pitting the Trump administration against the House of Representatives over the latter’s power to enforce a subpoena for former White House Counsel Donald McGahn’s testimony.</p>
<p>Faced with a devastating and unresolved pandemic, governments worldwide are grappling with how to begin re-opening their economies, while protecting the health of their citizens. And many are looking to the smartphones in our pockets as a contact tracing tool to keep tabs on the coronavirus and limit its spread.</p>
