Media Highlights
September 2008
This summary highlights media placements members of the UCSC community have garnered during the month of September 2008.
National and international
Water expert Brent Haddad of environmental studies was featured in a New York Times Magazine article about water reuse. Haddad had the final word on the "disgust response" with which some people greet the idea of drinking treated wastewater.
Following Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's running mate, the Washington Post quoted research professor Bill Domhoff in a story about the historic "firsts" in the presidential campaign this year. Domhoff noted, "In a world full of hierarchies, women have always had secondary power to men, ever since hunting and gathering times."
A study of valley networks on Mars led by graduate student Charles Barnhart was covered by UPI, Vancouver Sun, Times of India, Space Daily, Live Science, Universe Today, Red Orbit, Foxnews.com, Astronomy.com, and Space.com.
BusinessWeek featured a Q & A with economist Rob Fairlie about the barriers blacks and Latinos face starting their own businesses and making them succeed.
Readers in the United Kingdom learned about Bill Domhoff's second area of research--dreams--in a lengthy story in The Times about the online dream databank he's created.
Assistant professor of film and digital media L. S. Kim was quoted in the Houston Chronicle, Calgary Herald, San Jose Mercury News, and Contra Costa Times for a story about the constant emphasis on wealth and glamour in television and film.
Economist Rob Fairlie was interviewed by the PBS program NOW about affirmative action contracting programs for minority businesses. . . . Also, USNews.com picked up on a study of entrepreneurship by Fairlie, who found that drug dealers are at least 10 percent more likely to become self-employed in legitimate businesses than people who weren't dealing drugs.
Film critic B. Ruby Rich of community studies was among the cinephiles asked by the Toronto Star to pick the three films they were most looking forward to seeing at the Toronto International Film Festival.
McClatchy Newspapers distributed an article about psychology professor Cam Leaper's research on the sexual harassment of young girls that was printed in numerous papers around the country, including the Columbia Daily Tribune and the Miami Herald.
Insidebayarea.com published the Washington Post story about food-related college courses, including one offered by Melissa Caldwell of anthropology.
Economist Lori Kletzer fielded a call about the presidential election from a reporter writing for The Investment Professional, a quarterly magazine published by the New York Society of Security Analysts.
A feature story in Discover magazine focused on the Antarctic research of glaciologist Slawek Tulaczyk and graduate student Nadine Quintana Krupinski.
Jonathon Landeck of the Center for Agroecology was quoted in an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article about programs that nurture novice farmers interested in sustainable agriculture. He was also interviewed by Marketplace Radio for a story about urban agriculture.
Physicists Abraham Seiden, Howard Haber, and others were quoted in stories about UCSC's role in the Large Hadron Collider in Science Daily, World Science, and Science Centric.
The Washington Post noted that the directors of a new documentary film titled "Sputnik Mania" enlisted UCSC students to research hours of declassified Soviet film footage, Navy archives, and YouTube postings to come up with material for the film.
Melanie DuPuis of sociology fielded a call from a reporter with Cleantech Group about the backlash following a recommendation from the head of the IPCC that people should reduce meat consumption to help slow global warming.
Cosmologist Anthony Aguirre was quoted in a Science News magazine article about multiple universes. Science News also quoted astronomer Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz in a article about a gamma-ray burst that was the most luminous object ever recorded from Earth.
Research on the biodiversity of ecosystems led by biologist Samantha Forde was covered by New Scientist and Science Centric.
The Omaha World-Herald covered a speech by history of consciousness professor Angela Davis in which she urged the audience to remember the passion and fervor of the fight for social justice in the 1960s.
State and regional
Frank Drake, professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics, was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle story about the new computer game Spore.
Marine biologist Baldo Marinovic was quoted in a story about improved conditions for marine life along the California coast that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, and the AP wire service, and he was also interviewed by KSBW TV and KGO Radio.
The San Jose Mercury News praised Shakespeare Santa Cruz's production of All's Well That Ends Well, calling it "a sensitive revival of a rarely staged gem." . . . The Mercury Newsalso quoted Shakespeare Santa Cruz (SSC) artistic director Marco Barricelli for an article about up-and-coming playwright Itamar Moses, whose play Bach at Leipzig was a crowd-pleaser at this year's SSC summer festival.
Physicists William Atwood and Robert Johnson were quoted in stories about the first images from the Fermi space telescope in the San Francisco Chronicle and Santa Cruz Sentinel.
San Francisco Arts Monthly noted that the city's Museo ItaloAmericano--the only museum in the country devoted exclusively to Italian art and culture--worked closely with UCSC's Jewish Studies program to organize its new exhibit, "Il Ghetto: Forging Italian Jewish Identities, 1516-1870."
Steve Gliessman of environmental studies was featured in a Contra Costa Times food column about changing the way we eat. . . . The Times also reported that history of consciousness professor Angela Davis would be participating in a conference with the theme of reforming the country's prison-industrial complex.
The Californian reported that UCSC was one of three California organizations that received a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grant to host a range of activities centering on the life and work of poet Robinson Jeffers.
Local
This month in the Santa Cruz Sentinel:
Daniel Press of environmental studies was quoted following voter rejection of Measure T, a tax that would have funded 911 operations. . . . Economist Michael Hutchison was tapped for analysis of the decline in the local housing market and ongoing turmoil in U.S. financial markets. . . . A front-page story ran about the collaboration by education prof Judith Scott and computer scientist Yi Zhang to develop a "dictionary for the 21st century" to help middle school students build their vocabularies. The paper subsequently editorialized favorably about the project. . . . The paper reported that UCSC linguistics professor Sandra Chung received a grant from the National Science Foundation to help preserve the endangered Chamorro language. . . . A preview story ran on UCSC's second annual Founders Day gala dinner and its 2008 honorees--Narinder Singh Kapany, Dana Priest, and Patricia Zavella.
. . . Associate professor of computer science Jim Whitehead was quoted for an article about how UCSC students majoring in computer game design are benefiting from a settlement reached in a class action lawsuit involving video gaming employees at Sony.
Economist Michael Hutchison discussed the Wall Street crisis on KUSP Radio's Talk of the Bay program.
Physicist Hartmut Sadrozinski was interviewed by KION TV News (Salinas) about his group's work on the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle collider in the world.
Daniel Press of environmental studies provided election analysis in the Monterey County Herald's coverage of the local congressional race. . . . And Herald columnist Jerry Gervase noted that "the Glen Theater at University of California, Santa Cruz, carved into a grove of redwood trees, was a delightful venue to experience Romeo and Juliet."