Nine University of Wisconsin Oshkosh faculty members will spend all or part of the 2017-2018 academic year on sabbatical to work on major research or writing projects related to a range of topics from composing jazz to engineering microalgae.
Three professors—Marianne Johnson, economics; Toivo Kallas, biology; and Caryn Murphy, Radio TV Film—will be on sabbatical for the full year.
Johnson will explore the intersection between Wisconsin’s particular brand of economics—institutional—and the Wisconsin Idea as a motivating factor in policy legislation.
Kallas will advance a major project to engineer microalgae that use energy from sunlight to efficiently convert carbon dioxide emissions and wastewater into isoprene, a high-value chemical precursor for thousands of products, including synthetic rubber, pharmaceuticals and biofuels.
Murphy will examine racial integration during the 1968 and 1969 television seasons by undertaking archival research of programming, scripts and production records. From this research, she plans to write journal articles that examine the negotiations of white television writers who scripted the integrated shows and television programming that engaged with the discourses of Civil Rights and black nationalism.
In the fall semester, physics and astronomy professor Nadia Kaltcheva will study young stellar clusters in nearby Galactic star-forming complexes. Women’s and gender studies associate professor Christie Launius will write a “methods” chapter for and serve as a co-editor for the 450-page The Routledge Handbook of Working Class Studies.
The following faculty members will be on sabbatical in spring 2018:
- Ana Maria Kapelucz-Poppi, associate history professor, studying the professional and institutional work of Dr. Gregorio Araoz Alfaro (1870-1955), a renowned Argentinean pediatrician and expert in tuberculosis.
- Linda Perksta, associate music professor, completing a draft of a book about Baroque composer George Philipp Telemann’s Sonate Metodiche.
- Marty Robinson, associate music professor, composing four jazz big-band compositions for collegiate and high school jazz ensembles.
- Robert Stelzer, biology professor, describing the long-term dynamics of nitrate retention and concentration in Emmons Creek and exploring mechanisms that drive variation at multiple time scales.
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