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Page 4 Department of Earth & Environment December 2011Faculty News UpdatesRich PepinoDuring the past year, I have continued to work as a member of the Lancaster County LeadCoalition. Our most recent report indicates that Childhood Lead (Pb) Poisoning in Lancastercontinues to be a public health concern for local children ages 0-6. Katherine Datin‘11 developed a Geographic Information System (GIS) presentation on a portion of thedata, and presented her findings to the Coalition at their spring meeting. I am going to beoffering a community-based course this spring that will focus on the childhood diseasesof Asthma and Lead Poisoning. I am optimistic that our students will benefit from thecourse while raising an increased awareness to these public health risks in Lancaster.Suzanna Richter (adjunct)Suzanna has transitioned into her new roles as Prefect of the New College House and anAssociate Dean of Students. She has remained an active member of the college’s sustainabilityefforts and has enjoyed teaching “The Environment and Human Values” as a firstyearwriting seminar this Fall. Students in her course are testing strategies to decrease theconsumption of electricity, water, and paper towels on campus and to maximize recyclingin the 5 College Houses. This past summer, she taught 23 members of the Knowledgeis Power Program (KIPP) an abridged version of “Earth, Environment, and Humanity,”which included building solar stoves and visiting the Pioneer Coal Tunnel in Ashland, PA.Stephanie Shepherd (visiting)Professor Shepherd received her Ph.D. in the Environmental Dynamics Program atUniversity of Arkansas in 2010. Her dissertation, The effects of land use on the fluvialmorphology of headwater streams in the Illinois River watershed, Northwest Arkansas,was completed under advisors Ralph K. Davis and John C. Dixon. Other research hasresulted in publications: Stream response to repeated coseismic folding, Tiptonville dome,New Madrid seismic zone (Geomorphology, Vol. 43, pp. 313-349); and Are streams onthe Springfield Plateau underfit? Applying Dury’s model to the Illinois River Watershed(Physical Geography, currently in review).Rob SternbergRob Sternberg continues his duties as faculty don of Bonchek College House. He iscurrently teaching fifteen Bonchek students in Earth, Environment, and Humanity as afirst-year seminar; all received iPads as part of a College program on mobile computingin the classroom. In the summer of 2011, he presented a poster on an archaeomagneticdata set at the General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysicsin Melbourne, Australia. Despite the excitement surrounding the Tohoku earthquake/tsunamiand the magnitude 6 earthquake in Virginia, Rob remains rather skeptical about thedemise of the Earth in 2012.Cheryl Stoltzfus-ShenkCheryl continues working as a Research Assistant for Dorothy Merritts and Bob Walteron their legacy sediments projects. As a professional photographer, Cheryl has beenphoto-documenting Bob and Dorothy’s field work and locating sites of historic landscapephotos. Cheryl has three young sons and a not-so-young husband, who keep her movingat a fast pace outside the lab.Jim StrickJim is a historian of biology and medicine specializing in history of origin of life studies,has completed the research for his new book project, and is looking for some time amiddepartment chair duties to get the writing of the book underway in earnest. The book willdetail a series of origin of life experiments in Oslo, Norway in the late 1930s, their placein contemporary trends in biology and medicine, and the controversy that surrounded theexperiments. The scientist was Freudian- trained psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who firstwent into the physiology laboratory trying to substantiate Freud’s libido theory. Reichwas also one of many biologists in the 1930s applying the Marxist philosophy of dialectical-materialismto work in the life sciences. Strick worked extensively in Reich’s archivesat the Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard, where he presented on this researchin November. He has a contract for this book from Harvard University Press. Jim alsoremarried this year and is working on consoldating a new, larger family.