A TRIBUTE in LOVING MEMORY Irina Diana Tarabac
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A TRIBUTE IN LOVING MEMORY Irina Diana Tarabac (1970-2007) Irina Diana Tarabac dedicated her life to learning, teaching, and science – the field of her choice being linguistics. Among many brilliant scholars and scientists in the Linguistics Department at Stony Brook University, Irina stood out for many a reasons. Unfortunately, Irina left us too early in October 2007. After arriving to study at Stony Brook at 2002, Irina became an active member of the linguistic community in the metropolitan area of New York. She frequently attended seminars in the Linguistics Departments of NYU and the CUNY Graduate Center. Irina was dedicated to life-long learning, and she set extremely high standards for herself, her own research and her teaching responsibilities. She taught a morphology seminar in Bucharest and served as a TA for classes on many different topics at Stony Brook, including syntax, morphology, language philosophy, phonology, typology, and Semitic languages. She was a wonderful teacher and was very concerned about her students. Her dedication to linguistics didn’t leave her much time to pursue her hobbies, but whenever Irina found some time off, she enjoyed listening to symphonic music, reading good literature, visiting museums, and spending time with her friends. Irina earned a Master’s degree in Bucharest, Romania in 1996 and had studied and conducted research in the Netherlands between 1997 and 1999. Irina conducted research on well-known languages such as Dutch, Romanian, and Modern Greek as well as less-known languages such as Rapanui and Burushaki. Irina’s passing is a great loss to her family, her friends and the field of linguistics. Irina will be sorely missed and always remembered by all who knew her. A TRIBUTE IN LOVING MEMORY Karen Isabel Burke (1976-2007) Karen Isabel Burke was a talented philosopher – precise and thoughtful, but also a caring colleague and a very capable teacher. Unfortunately, Karen took ill just before she was to begin her dissertation in Europe on a fellowship, and she passed away on September 26th, 2007 at her parents’ home in Annandale, Virginia, surrounded by her husband and family. Karen was admitted to the Philosophy Ph.D. program at Stony Brook in the Fall of 2004. Her performance and participation in the program even exceeded the already high expectations that led to the offer of admission. Karen had the ability to make her successes and rapid advance through the program appear effortless. Her talents, caring personality and success with undergraduate students prompted here nomination to Stony Brook’s President’s Teaching Award in 2007. Thanks to her scholarly turn of mind she also became the recipient of a Max Kade Foundation scholarship to study for one year at a German University. Karen Isabel Burke was born on May 26th, 1976 in Norway. She earned her B.S. from William and Mary, cum laude, majoring in Physics and English. However, those fields did not satisfy her curiosity for knowledge, so she enrolled in the M.A. philosophy program at Miami University, where she excelled. At Miami, Karen wrote a paper contrasting Liebniz’s and Newton’s conceptions of space, and also a paper that allied Nietzsche’s account of truth with Hegel’s dialectic. Her advisors praised her precision, creativity, and logic, propelling her to admission to Stony Brook’s Philosophy Ph.D. program, one of the most competitive in the United States, particularly in continental philosophy - Karen’s specialty. Her dissertation was to examine Hegel’s concept of organism discussed in Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Right. Karen’s humanity, intelligence and charm will never be forgotten. GREETINGS FROM THE D EAN We began to compile a record of the achievements of Stony Brook's graduate Students in 1991 and have published an issue each academic year since then. This issue covers the 2007-2008 academic year. The accomplishments of Stony Brook’s graduate students are quite extraordinary. They include winning numerous, prestigious, national and international fellowships and research grants. Our students have also established an impressive presence in the literatures of their disciplines with publications in many of the best scholarly journals and books. They have achieved recognition in the creative arts with acclaimed exhibitions and performances. Stony Brook’s graduate students also won awards for their excellence as teachers. Our students participate fully in the intellectual activities of their field of scholarship by participation in conferences and workshops. Finally, graduates of Stony Brook’s programs leave us to take up a wide variety of professional appointments. Many of these are Post- Doctoral fellowships or faculty positions at some of the nation’s finest universities. In addition, Stony Brook’s graduates carry the knowledge and expertise that they gained here to many prestigious institutions overseas, thus enhancing Stony Brook’s international reputation as an outstanding research university. The success of Stony Brook’s graduate enterprise is rooted in the success of the faculty of the University in research, scholarship and creative activities. The international reputation of Stony Brook’s faculty attracts outstanding students to our graduate programs from across the country and around the world. Our educational programs and the opportunities to work with dedicated faculty mentors develop the potential that students bring with them so that they become independent researchers and scholars. Graduate education lies at the heart of a research University and this publication demonstrates the vitality of the research, scholarly and creative activities underway at Stony Brook. The students whose accomplishments make up this document deserve recognition for their achievements and our thanks for what they have contributed to the intellectual life of the campus and to the reputation of our University. The faculty who have guided these efforts and the staff and administration of the University who help to foster an environment in which scholastic excellence is valued and in which outstanding graduate education can take place all played important roles in the successes documented here. The achievements listed here required hard work by many people and all who contributed should feel a sense of pride in the accomplishments of these students. My congratulations and thanks to all concerned. Lawrence B. Martin Dean of the Graduate School i Graduate Student Achievements 07-08 Acknowledgements The Graduate School would like to extend special thanks to all participating Stony Brook graduate students who have made this publication possible, the deans for encouraging their respective programs to participate, and the chairs, graduate directors, and graduate coordinators who have taken the time to coordinate and submit the program’s achievements. On the Cover Injection - Projection by Austin Furtak-Cole Austin Furtak-Cole is a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts program in Studio Arts and the winner of the 2008 Dorothy L. Pieper Memorial Purchase Prize Cover Design: Megan Daum and Paul Bugyi Editing and Typesetting: Paul Bugyi The Graduate School 2401 Computer Science Building Stony Brook University Stony Brook, NY 11794-4433 (631) 632-GRAD, (4723) http://www.grad.sunysb.edu Stony Brook University/SUNY is an affirmative action, equal opportunity educator and employer. If you need a disability-related accommodation, please contact the Disabled Student Services Office at (631) 632-6749/TDD. ii Graduate Student Achievements 07-08 TABLE OF CONTENTS GRADUATE PROGRAMS ............................................................................................................................................... 1 THE 2008 GRADUATE AWARDS ............................................................................................................................ 2 ANATOMICAL SCIENCES ............................................................................................................................................. 4 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES ............................................................................................................................... 7 APPLIED MATH AND STATISTICS ........................................................................................................................... 15 ART .................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 BIOCHEMISTRY AND STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY .................................................................................................. 24 BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING .................................................................................................................................... 26 CHEMISTRY ................................................................................................................................................................... 31 COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES ............................................................................... 38 COMPUTER SCIENCE .................................................................................................................................................. 41 ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION ..................................................................................................................................... 49 ECONOMICS ..................................................................................................................................................................