The Mason Spirit

Year: Senior Major: Psychology Hometown: Arlington, Virginia In the Laboratory: Under Mason’s Undergraduate Apprenticeship Program, Tizoc Perez-Casillas is working with Professor Jane Flinn, the director of the undergraduate neuroscience program. Flinn’s research focuses on the effects of trace metals on age-related macular degeneration, including Perez-Casillas’s project examining the effects of these same trace metals on…

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The latest book by Mason economics professor Russell Roberts is The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity (Princeton University Press, 2008). Told in the form of a novel, it is the story of how prosperity is created and sustained, and the unseen order and harmony that shape people’s lives. This book is…

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Alan Cheuse, University Professor, English To Catch the Lightning (Sourcebooks, 2008) is a story of the exploration of a real-life frontier photographer, Edward Curtis, and the American Indian. The book is focused on Curtis’s passion to photograph and document every Indian tribe on the continent. Cheuse portrays Curtis’s determination to make a difference in the…

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A. Lee Fritschler, Professor and Director of Executive Education; Jeremy D. Mayer, Associate Professor; and Bruce L. R. Smith, Visiting Professor, School of Public Policy Examining how American universities have withdrawn from the world of politics, Closed Minds (Brookings Institution Press, September 2008) is based on a study the three authors created in 2007 of…

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Randolph Ferguson Scully, Assistant Professor, History In Religion and the Making of Nat Turner’s Virginia (University of Virginia Press, August 2008), Scully portrays a new interpretation of the rise of evangelical Christianity in the early American South by reconstructing the complex, biracial history of the Baptist movement in southeastern Virginia. Focusing on this region and…

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Raja Parasuraman, University Professor, Psychology, and Matthew Rizzo In Neuroergonomics (Oxford University Press, February 2008), not only do Parasuraman and Rizzo explain the different parts of the brain and how they work, they also describe various research methods starting at the basic and working up to the more complex, enabling a further essential understanding of…

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Maria Massi-Dakake, Associate Professor, Religious Studies The Charismatic Community (SUNY Press, January 2008) takes a close look at how Shi’ism provides a collective individuality in the community of Islam. Dakake studies the growth of the religion throughout early Islam and analyzes the logical aspects that created uniqueness throughout this communal religion.

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Eric Pankey, Professor, English Pankey contributes to his previous seven collections with a variety of new, exceptional poems. A major asset to Pankey’s poems has been his brilliant use of extraordinary language. Throughout The Pear as One Example (Ausable Press, April 2008), he uses the body to discover different elements of the world and how…

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Stephen J. Farnsworth, Assistant Professor, Communication Farnsworth determines how presidents, as well as presidential candidates, use the vast variety of media to support their strategies and beliefs throughout Spinner in Chief (Paradigm Publishers, September 2008). Farnsworth also portrays the misrepresentations of presidents and presidential candidates through television, the Internet, and newspapers. The book assesses the…

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Mason chemistry professor Abul Hussam was named an Outstanding American by Choice by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The initiative recognizes the significant achievements of naturalized U.S. citizens. Previous recipients include former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, actor Andy Garcia, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel.

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