Upcoming Events

Looking to be more competitive on the job market? Graduating and don't know what to do next? Want skills you can use at school, at work, AND in your everyday life? Check out UConn's Research Methods, Measurement, & Evaluation (RMME) Programs! Now accepting applications to the 100% Online RMME Master's degree program and the 100% Online Graduate Certificate in Program Evaluation program! The application deadline for Fall 2023 enrollment is June 16th. For more information, visit: https://rmme.education.uconn.edu/

Looking to be more competitive on the job market? Graduating and don't know what to do next? Want skills you can use at school, at work, AND in your everyday life? Check out UConn's Research Methods, Measurement, & Evaluation (RMME) Programs! Now accepting applications to the 100% Online RMME Master's degree program and the 100% Online Graduate Certificate in Program Evaluation program! The application deadline for Fall 2023 enrollment is June 16th. For more information, visit: https://rmme.education.uconn.edu/

APPLY HERE: https://connecticutwritingproject.submittable.com/submit/250571/cwp-summer-institute-2023

Zachary Harris, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut


Resurgence in QED: Probing the Schwinger effect in inhomogeneous fields


The structure of the QED vacuum is a subject of great interest, especially as experiments begin to more directly probe the non-linear regime of the theory. One of the most striking features of the vacuum is its polarization in the presence of an electric field — a non-perturbative phenomenon that leads to pair production. Detailed information about this non-perturbative structure is contained in the divergence of perturbation theory, which is more generally described by the theory of resurgence. We study the one-loop QED effective action for an exactly solvable, inhomogeneous background field configuration and use Borel summation to illustrate the connection between perturbative and non-perturbative regimes. Using only 15 terms in the weak magnetic field perturbative expansion, we extrapolate to both strong magnetic field and electric field configurations and obtain a pair-production rate that agrees with the exact effective action to remarkable precision.

Honoring those 273 7-12 grade students who won awards in the 2023 CT Scholastic Writing Awards.

Find the Rainbow Center at UConn Waterbury Campus Pride on Tuesday March 28, 2023 from 12-2:00pm.

Guest Speaker: Mucha Mucha will come dressed in Drag and talk about their life as Drag Queen and activist. appetizers, water, and deserts.

MCB Seminar Series:

Dr. Steven DeLuca
Assistant Professor of Biology
Brandeis University

Hosted by Dr. Stacey Hanlon

"Regulation of Developmental gene silencing revealed by an ancient cell lineage."

Dr. DeLuca will describe how a post-translational modification called SUMO regulates when (in development) and where (in the genome) silencing proteins concentrate onto their target genes.

Dr. DeLuca considers himself a developmental geneticist. As a grad student with Pat O’Farrell at UCSF, DeLuca figured out how maternal mitochondrial DNA inheritance works by making mitochondrial mutants and studying their transmission through the male germline. As a postdoc with Allan Spradling at the Carnegie Institute, he developed a new model system for studying the developmental onset of gene silencing and found silencing initiation is primarily regulated by a scaffolding protein called Scm. Dr. DeLuca started his own lab at Brandeis in 2022.

View his publication at https://elifesciences.org/articles/56922 and his website at https://delucalab.org/

Want to know where to start with HRT? Unsure of how to change your gender marker on your driver's license? Well, Legally and Medically Trans is a once a semester event where legal and medical professionals come together as a resource to you! This event is a great opportunity to ask questions and learn more about the different processes when it comes to transitioning. Space is limited and is on a first come, first serve basis.

"To Migrate or Die," presented by UCONN Bold Women's Leadership Network

Master's Degree with Music Education Concentration


At UConn’s Neag School of Education, practicing music teachers can:
Complete a Master of Arts with a concentration in music education — in 18 months, or over the course of three summers.
Earn professional development credits.
Work with nationally renowned music educators, conductors, and composers.
Build collaborative and social connections with colleagues.
Learn innovative music-centered pedagogies to deliver contemporary music instruction in a diverse environment.



For more info and to RSVP for an info session, visit https://s.uconn.edu/MusicEdMasters

Discussion with Professor Joel Blatt (UConn Stamford).

"One Year in Vietnam: Memories from HQ Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV)"

The talk will focus on Vietnam, and will briefly include discussion of Prof. Blatt's paths to Vietnam and after. Most of the stories will be of his experiences, but he will also include striking stories of others including the remarkable experiences of a friend who was a nurse in a Division base hospital treating sick Vietnamese and badly wounded American soldiers. Prof. Blatt will discuss the History office in MACV, in particular, relations between the Command and the Press.

link for virtual access: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81671741944?pwd=YUNVcnpHUitIMXB6dzVtNzBLNXZTdz09

Connor Occhialini, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Non-collinear magnetism and multiferroic order in atomically-thin van der Waals materials

The recent discovery of magnetic order down to the single-layer limit of van der Waals (vdW) materials has launched substantial interest in realizing functional properties associated to magnetoelectric or topological magnetic phases in two-dimensions (2D). One approach to realize such properties is through non-collinear magnetism, including spiral (e.g. helical/cycloidal) or skyrmionic spin textures. Here, I will discuss our recent work on the nickel dihalides (NiX₂, X = Cl, Br, I) which are semiconducting triangular-lattice vdW magnets with frustrated exchange interactions from which non-collinear magnetic phases are stabilized in the bulk. In particular, NiI₂ hosts an incommensurate helimagnetic ground state (Q = 0.138a* + 1.457c*) alongside a spin-induced ferroelectric order and is therefore a type-II multiferroic with TN ~ 60 K. We identified multiple optical signatures, including optical linear dichroism, second harmonic generation and Raman spectroscopy, which reflect the characteristic symmetry-breaking attributed to polar magnetism and allow us to track the multiferroic phase transition in atomically-thin samples. Our results provide evidence for the persistence of type-II multiferroic order down to the single-layer limit of NiI₂ with a transition temperature of T_N ~ 21 K. We conclude a helimagnetic order in the single-layer that is stabilized by anisotropic symmetric exchange and enhanced by a dimensionality-tuned interlayer interaction in multilayers. I will also discuss complementary optical and X-ray diffraction measurements at high-pressures which reveal a significant pressure enhancement of the multiferroic transition temperature in the bulk at a rate of 14.4 K/GPa. This observation is in quantitative agreement with first-principles calculations of the exchange interactions which reveal a stabilized helimagnetic order from pressure-enhanced interlayer and third-nearest neighbor intralayer exchange. These results provide a generalized route to realize intrinsic multiferroic order in 2D materials with high transition temperature.

References:

- Qian Song, Connor A. Occhialini, Emre Ergeçen, and Batyr Ilyas et al, "Evidence for a single-layer van der Waals multiferroic", Nature 602, 601-605 (2022).

- Connor A. Occhialini, Luiz G. P. Martins et al, "Pressure-stabilized magnetic phase transitions in van der Waals multiferroic NiI₂" (In preparation, 2023).

POLS Internship Open House

Looking for an internship? This event provides you with an opportunity to meet and connect with representatives from several internship sites. This is not a recruiting event, but rather an opportunity to receive information and ask questions on popular internships related to the fields of law, politics, crime and justice, and public policy.

Tentative list includes: The CT Legislative Internship Program, the CT Judicial Branch Experiential Learning Program, Perception Programs, Inc., the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA), the Office of Senator Chris Murphy, the Office of Representative Joseph Courtney, the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, and the London Program through Experiential Global Learning

Representatives from the Center for Career Development will also provide information on resources they offer for landing that perfect internship.

Spring Graduate Student Colloquium, Department of Psychological Sciences

This panel session invites doctoral alumni who are early in their faculty careers to share experiences and insights gained during the first year of their faculty positions.

Register here: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/weblink/register/rfe3345d30a0cf689542ff0ece091610e

Jing Qin, PhD
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

A shape restricted propensity score matching method in casual inference
(joint work with Yukun Liu, East China Normal University)


Propensity score matching (PSM) is a pseudo-experimental method that uses statistical techniques to construct an artificial control group by matching each treated unit with one or more untreated units of similar characteristics. To date, the problem of determining the optimal number of matches per unit, which plays an important role in PSM, has not been adequately addressed. We propose a tuning-parameter-free PSM method based on the nonparametric maximum-likelihood estimation of the propensity score under the monotonicity constraint. The estimated propensity score is piecewise constant, and therefore automatically groups data. Hence, our proposal is free of tuning parameters. The proposed estimator is asymptotically semiparametric efficient for the univariate case, and achieves this level of efficiency in the multivariate case when the outcome and the propensity score depend on the covariate in the same direction.

We conclude that matching methods based on the propensity score alone cannot, in general, be efficient.

Bio: Jing Qin is a Mathematical Statistician at Biostatistics Research Branch in National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He earned his Ph.D. from University of Waterloo (1992) and then became an assistant Professor at University of Maryland, College Park. Before moving to National Institute of Health (2004), he worked at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for 5 years. Dr. Qin’s research interests include empirical likelihood method, case-control study, biased sampling problems (now called covariate shift or prior probability shift problems in machine learning literature), survival analysis, missing data, causal inference, genetic mixture models, generalized linear models, survey sampling and microarray data analysis. He was elected as an American Statistical Society Fellow, 2006. Dr. Qin published a monograph on "Biased sampling, over-identified parametric problems and beyond" in 2017 (Springer, ICSA book series in statistics).

DATE: Wednesday, 3/29/23
TIME: 4:00 PM
PLACE: Virtual
Webex link: https://uconn-cmr.webex.com/uconn-cmr/j.php?MTID=m636152ee63a668032e47201fadcb0a90

Are you interested in a career working with young children and their families?

Many career paths intersect with young children/their development and having a foundation of knowledge of young children’s development can help you be more successful in your career. If you have questions about career options or want to learn more about this specialized coursework within HDFS, come to a virtual information session! You can pop into the meeting at any time during the 30 minutes!

• Wednesday 3/29 5:00-5:30

Sign-up here using this Google Form
(https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSct1Fu0JAR0u0EcUXZFnN0K0sAgZX-r27889uOvJAsh53H2kQ/viewform?usp=sf_link) or email, mary.tabb@uconn.edu

ECOM Spotlight Series will host Prof. Hady Ba who will talk about "Ideophones and Expressivism." The event will be held online. Please send an email to aliyar.ozercan@uconn.edu for the event link.

Are you interested in entrepreneurship and innovation policy? The Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation co-organizes the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Virtual Research Seminar Series! Join the mailing list for seminar announcements here: https://mailchi.mp/3d0399d764f5/eip-virtual-research-seminar

Women are underrepresented in science and representation deficits are even greater for more senior positions and in the STEM fields. The dominant explanation is that male and female scientists, even within the same field, publish at unequal rates. Prior studies on select fields suggest that the gender gap in academic productivity reflects differential effects of childbearing on men and women, as women face tensions between the two greedy institutions of family and academia. We study the universe of STEM academics in Denmark and investigate parenthood penalties on scientific productivity of mothers and fathers, who are active in research before the birth of their first child. We employ an event study on annual research publications, an outcome especially relevant in the science domain, and rely on a unique combination of Danish registers and granular bibliometric data on publications from the database Scopus. We find that, on average, the first childbirth results in an annual penalty of 23 percent on scientific productivity of mothers across STEM fields relative to fathers in years 2 to 6 after birth. The penalty reflects a drop in annual research publications of mothers relative to their own pre-birth productivity. Our results are robust to attrition. The penalty is unchanged when conditioning on research activity after birth. Hence, unequal impacts of parenthood may be an important driver of gender inequality in science. We find that the productivity constraint on mothers is closely linked to the characteristics of their research field and household. Motherhood penalties are particularly large in bench fields, which require laboratory presence and depend on research infrastructure and in households with traditional gender norms and/or lacking access to informal help. Moreover, having a flexible partner who is receptive to the demands of research mitigates penalties on mothers.

The next seminar will be on March 30: from 11:00 am to 12:15 am Valentina Tartari (Copenhagen Business School) - will present "Publish or Procreate: The Effect of Motherhood on Academic Performance” (with S. Cairo and S. Dalum). Alexandra Graddy-Reed (U Southern California) will discuss.
Please register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvce-gqTsoGNbMdoz93C0Pes4_KsK9jvzC
Governments around the world enact policies that affect technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. An increasing number of scholars are investigating these topics, which has implications on policy design and program implementation. Yet, scholars lack a forum for presenting their work. This virtual seminar series will fill this gap—bringing together the ins

Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

“Mitochondrial and Genetic Contributors to Parkinson Disease Etiology.”

Rita Cowell, PhD
Fellow and Chair, Department of Neuroscience at Southern Research, Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Alabama

You are invited to the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute (HBL 4-209) on March 30, at 12:30PM to attend a talk by Carl Wennerlind, Professor of History at Barnard, on his new book on the history of capitalism: Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis (Harvard UP, 2023).

The Early Modern Reading Group brings together graduate students and faculty for lively, enriching conversations about texts with cross-disciplinary value. This semester we are reading Lady Ranelagh: The Incomparable Life of Robert Boyle's Sister.

The role of functional and structural brain imaging in educational neuroscience

Register: https://uconnvtc.webex.com/weblink/register/r6cafa18d68da54828c7f590e993e0e09


Michael Thomas DPhil
Birbeck University of London

The field of educational neuroscience (or mind brain and education) was effectively launched by advances in in vivo brain imaging in the 1990s, driving the emergence of multi- and trans-disciplinary approaches to understanding mechanisms of learning. In this talk, I review how brain imaging is currently used and viewed in this inherently translational field. Approaches range from basic cognitive neuroscience of education-relevant abilities, to proposed diagnostic tools for neurodevelopmental conditions, to tests of cognitive models, to supporting construct validity, and to providing evidence for policy impact. These approaches are set in the context of contrasting views of educators to neuroscience (e.g., suspicion reflected in claims for the ‘seductive allure of neuroscience’; over-enthusiasm in the form of neuromyths; and resistance to reductionist accounts of learning). I will illustrate these arguments with examples from some of our work on developmental changes in intelligence, the brain basis of reading, and interventions to improve children’s learning of counter-intuitive concepts in math and science.

Title: "How to charm a cannibalistic mate: using female predator psychology to understand colorful male courtship in jumping spiders"

https://spiderpalooza.wordpress.com

Dimitris Xygalatas, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology & Psychological Sciences, will give a talk entitled, “Ritual, Community, and Wellbeing: Investigating the Functions of Seemingly Senseless Acts."

A Live Q&A session will follow the presentation.

The talk will be held in-person at the Bousfield Psychology Building, Room 106A.

If you need to attend remotely, please register and receive the Web-Ex link at:
https://chhd.uconn.edu/colloquium-series/registration/dx/


Stay tuned as well for our upcoming announcement of a colloquium talk by Sarah Willen, Ph.D., MPH.

The Center for the Study of Culture, Health, & Human Development (Dept. of Human Development & Family Sciences) is pleased to announce the first of its two spring 2023 Colloquium Series talks.
On March 30, from 4-5 pm, Dimitris Xygalatas, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Anthropology & Psychological Sciences, will give a talk entitled, “Ritual, Community, and Wellbeing: Investigating the Functions of Seemingly Senseless Acts.” The talk will be held in-person at the Bousfield Psychology Building, Room 106A. A live Q&A will follow. If you need to attend remotely, please register and receive the Web-Ex link at:

https://chhd.uconn.edu/colloquium-series/registration/dx/

The Gerson Irish Reader 2023 will be Anne Enright, one Ireland’s most renowned contemporary fiction writers. Enright has published seven novels and received the 2007 Man Booker Prize for her best-selling novel, The Gathering. Enright’s second novel, What Are You Like?, was shortlisted for a 2000 Whitbread Award. Her writing consistently explores family, love, identity and motherhood, and her most recent novel, Actress, was published in 2020.

Are Parental Rights Always in the Best Interest of Children? Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Conflict over Parental Rights.

This symposium will explore the complex issues surrounding the role of parental rights in advancing progressive goals while at the same time examine how parental rights are being used to undermine racial, gender, and LGBTQ equality. These conflicts have come to a head recently in the areas of education, gender-affirming care, and family regulation. The discussion will also include how children’s interests can and should be represented, and whether that is best accomplished through their parents. A keynote address will be given following lunch by Melissa Murray, Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU School of Law.

The symposium will feature three panels:


1. Panel #1: Parental Rights and Debates over School Curriculum
* LaToya Baldwin Clark, Assistant Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law
* Derek Black, Professor of Law & Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law
* Michael Gregory, Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School
* Cailin Millat, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School


2. Panel #2: Parental Rights and the Policing of Gender-Affirming Care
* Alexander Chen, Lecturer of Law and Founding Director of the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic
* at Harvard Law School
* Patience "Polly" Crozier, Senior Staff Attorney at GLAD
* Greta LaFleur, Associate Professor of American Studies and Director of Graduate Studies American Studies at Yale University


3. Panel #3: Race, Family Regulation and Parental Rights
* Jessica Dixon Weaver, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law
* Clare Huntington, Joseph M. McLaughlin Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law
* Catherine Smith, Professor and Chauncey G. Wilson Memorial Research Chair at Sturm College of Law
* Shanta Trivedi, Assistant Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts at the University of Baltimore School of Law


The event schedule is as follows:


* Registration and breakfast 8:30-9:00

* Opening Remarks & Dean’s Welcome: 9:00-9:30

* Panel 1: 9:30-11:00

* Panel 2: 11:15-12:45

* Lunch and Keynote 12:45-2:15

* Panel 3: 2:15-3:45

* Closing Remarks: 3:45-4:00


Registration is free for students, faculty, staff and the general public. There is a $30 registration fee for attorneys seeking CLE credit.

RSVP by March 24 at http://law.uconn.edu/parentalrights


If you require a reasonable accommodation for a disability, please contact the Law School at 860-570-5079 or via email at law.access@uconn.edu at least two weeks in advance.

How early is early enough? How enrolling in Early Head Start and the availability of services during pregnancy promotes later parenting and child development outcomes
Human Development & Family Sciences

Instructor: Thomas 'TJ' Jones, Professor, UConn School of Public Policy. This session will dive into the ethical expectations and obligations of public sector executives, managers, and employees - legal, moral, and practical. The interactive session will provide a framework for ethical decision-making, and provide tools for analyzing various scenarios that may confront public sector actors. Participants will confront fact-based scenarios and quandaries that arise in public service, and be asked to navigate the ethical issues that arise therefrom. Specific issues discussed and analyzed will include conflicts of interest; accepting gifts or favors; and, dealing with lobbyists and special interests. “Bright line” legal rules will be discussed, as well as nuanced ethical “norms” and culture in public sector work. Through this one-day course, participants will learn to better understand the relationship between ethical behavior and the overall success of public sector work. Finally, the session will look into how public sector workers are held accountable for ethical behavior. Go to https://publicpolicy.uconn.edu/collaborative/ for more information.

Prof. Alan Wuosmaa, Department of Physics, University of Connecticut


“Exotic Nuclei” - What are they, how do we study them and why we should care?


Just over one hundred years after their discovery by Rutherford, the nuclei of atoms are the focus of considerable renewed interest. Only about 300 nuclear isotopes are stable and can be found in nature, but nearly 3000 nuclei that are stable with respect to proton or neutron emission have been artificially produced in the laboratory. Our understanding of the behavior of the nucleus has largely been guided by ideas developed by studying the nuclei that are stable, however for unstable nuclei with a very large imbalance between protons and neutrons (so-called “exotic nuclei”), these ideas are proving insufficient. The experimental data needed to refine our understanding of the nucleus can only be obtained by performing reactions with short-lived radioactive nuclei. Experiments with such beams are difficult, and introduce many technical challenges. The data they can provide, however, are important not only to understanding nuclear structure, but many other situations such as the violent environments found in exploding stars in the cosmos. I will discuss some of the background behind studies of the structure of exotic nuclei, some modern experimental methods, and prospects for the future.

This presentation is part of the Seminar in PNB (PNB 6405) / PNB Friday Research in Progress Talks.

Join us for the Annual Logic Lecture, given by the UConn Logic Group 2022/23 Scholar of Consequence:

Maria Aloni (ILLC, Amsterdam)

Details t.b.a.

https://logic.uconn.edu/annual-logic-lecture/

Prof. Eleanor Close
Texas State University

Title and abstract: TBD

Mark Baker

"Expanding the U.S. Footprint: Carboniferous Capitalism in the Circum-Caribbean Prior to the Good Neighbor Era"

Kristin Hoganson is a Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her most recent book, The Heartland: An American History, takes the American heartland as a starting point for tracking histories of border brokering, human mobility, geographic consciousness, imperial piggybacking, and alliance politics. Her current research is on imperialist infrastructure building at the dawn of the big carbon era.

Hybrid event open to all-- in person in Wood Hall Basement Lounge, or register on zoom at https://tinyurl.com/FPSHoganson

Please join us as we celebrate the work of the Sociology Department and honor the winners of this year's undergraduate and graduate awards.

Sponsored by the Kim Family Fund

We meet a week early this month because of Recognition Night next week.

Speaker: Beatrice de Tiliere
(University Paris Dauphine)