Desktop News – Page 10 – College of Arts & Sciences

UA Researcher Publishes Article in “Nature Scientific Reports”

February 22, 2021

A woman crosses through a rainforest on a rope bridge

From the February 2021 Desktop News | In the Amazon rainforest, the Brazil nut tree is an invaluable resource. Towering over their harvesters’ homes at over 160 feet tall, the tree produces fruit that contains the famous Brazil nut, which economically sustains the thousands of people who live there. But the Brazil nut tree’s yield varies from year to year–sometimes it’s bountiful and sustains the harvesters financially, but sometimes, the trees don’t provide a single fruit. UA biology professor Christina […]

Dance Alabama! Tour Brings Art to Alabama Schools

February 22, 2021

A dancer leads elementary students in a stretch.

From the February 2021 Desktop News | From year to year, one of the most anticipated productions from UA’s Department of Theatre and Dance is Dance Alabama!, a program choreographed and performed entirely by students. Hundreds of people flock to Tuscaloosa to watch as dancers perform a wide variety of genres and styles. But this isn’t the students’ only chance to perform. Over the past six years, Dance Alabama! has taken its show on the road, performing at elementary schools […]

UA Percussionists Earn Top Placements at International Convention

February 22, 2021

From the February 2021 Desktop News | After taking home the top award for university concert snare players at the 2020 Percussive Arts Society International Convention Individual Competitions, graduate student Nathan Rearick looks forward to seeing UA’s percussion program evolve into a powerhouse. “The UA percussion studio is a thriving family that keeps pushing the boundaries of proficiency,” Rearick said. His claim holds true, with three of his classmates also placing in the competition, making UA’s the only percussion program […]

UA Professor Receives Prestigious Grant to Create Digital Dance Archive

February 9, 2021

From the February 2021 Desktop News | Dance is one of the most challenging art forms to teach because there is no widely-used form of notation, no scripts to read or music to transcribe. Instead, dance technique and choreography are most often passed down orally, from teacher to student, making it difficult to share with those outside this chain. While the invention of film, then video, and now digital recording has created an alternative means of sharing dance, public access […]

UA Grad Named to International Literacy Association’s 30 Under 30 List

February 9, 2021

From the February 2021 Desktop News | UA graduate Candace Chambers was recently named among the top 30 young leaders globally working to improve literacy. Chambers, who received a master’s degree in English at UA, has always wanted to use her gift of writing to help others. As a tutor in the writing center, instructor for first-year students, and community outreach volunteer, her goal was to teach her students how to advocate for themselves through their writing. Now a PhD […]

Digital Slavery Archive Receives $750,000 Grant

January 27, 2021

From the January 2021 Desktop News | Dr. Joshua Rothman, professor and chair of the department of history, is part of a team of researchers that was recently awarded a $750,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant for a project, “Freedom on the Move,” which works to collect and digitize advertisements for runaway slaves that appeared in American newspapers before the Civil War. This is the second NEH grant for the project, which also received $300,000 in 2017. The most […]

Criminal Justice Professor Raising Awareness of Human Trafficking

January 25, 2021

From the January 2021 Desktop News | Dr. Brittany Gilmer and students from her class on human trafficking are hoping to make a difference in their communities by raising awareness throughout Tuscaloosa about human trafficking. Gilmer, an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, first became interested in and started studying the issue of trafficking through her research on Somali pirates. Because of her expertise in the area, Gilmer was asked to create and teach a class […]

Rediscovering the Renaissance

November 9, 2020

From the November 2020 Desktop News | Most people head to the conference room to conduct business, but for actors and playwrights in Renaissance England, they headed to the bar. It has long been suspected that William Shakespeare and the playing companies he worked for did not confine their business of casting, buying plays, and more to the playhouse, but it has not been entirely clear where they would make those decisions. Dr. Elizabeth Tavares is working to uncover that. […]

Physics Graduate Student Selected for Prestigious Department of Energy Program

October 26, 2020

From the October 2020 Desktop News | Casey Cartwright, a PhD candidate in physics at UA, was selected as one of 52 national awardees of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research program. This program allows graduate students in science, math, engineering, and technology to conduct research in one of the DOE laboratories. Here, students have the opportunity to use state-of-the-art resources and collaborate with esteemed scientists to further their knowledge in their field. Cartwright, whose research […]

Professor Receives NSF Grant for Archaeological Work in Maya Settlements

October 15, 2020

Dr. Alexandre Tokovinine, an assistant professor in UA’s Department of Anthropology, was recently awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for his archaeological project exploring the cultural and societal changes surrounding the shifting political and cultural allegiances of an ancient Maya settlement in Guatemala. The $143,000 grant will help Tokovinine and his colleagues excavate La Sufricaya, an ancient Mayan archaeological site that was a suburb of Holmul, the largest city in the region at the time. Like most ancient […]