Eric Besnard, Adelien Schmitz and Hamid Hefazi, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, presented a paper titled "Automated Hydrodynamic Shape Optimization Using Neural Networks” to the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) 2004 Maritime Technology Conference in Washington, D.C., Sept. 29-Oct. 1.    

Gail Frank, Family and Consumer Sciences, has been named to the editorial board of Obesity Management, a new journal with its initial issue coming out in January.  Also, Frank serves as a faculty member for a national certificate program on "Motivational Interviewing Techniques" to assist therapists with families and children with obesity, is on the Long Beach Healthy Kids Coalition, the OC Nutrition and Physical Activity Collaborative (NuPAC) and the American Dietetic Association, Partners in Program Planning for Adolescent Health (PIPPAH).  

William Gibson, Sociology, has been appointed a Faculty Fellow at the Yale University Center for Cultural Sociology in recognition of his previous books and current research on the cultural re-enchantment of nature.  

Lisa Glatt, English, recently received a 2004 fellowship from Civetella Ranieri Center in Italy in connection with her novel A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That published in June by Simon and Schuster and reviewed in the New York Times. She also saw “The Earth From Every Angle,” a collaborative short story written with David Mizner, published in the Journal News in October as well as a short story titled “Cream” published in Swink.

Norma Stoltz Chinchilla, Sociology/Women's Studies, was elected co-chair, (with Professor Victor Ortiz, Chair, Mexican/Caribbean Studies, Northeastern University, Chicago, Ill.) of the Latino Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association at their International Congress in Las Vegas. The director of Latin American Studies at CSULB will serve as section co-chair until the next LASA Congress to be held in Puerto Rico in the spring of 2006.  

Christian Soe, Political Science, gave an invited two-hour presentation as part of the UCLA program, "The Changing Face of Europe." His critical examination of "The New Right-Wing Extremism in Western Europe" was held at the Center for European and Eurasian Studies on Aug. 11. Soe has also edited, for the 22nd time since he began the series in 1983, another volume of the annually revised anthology Comparative Politics 04/05 (McGraw-Hill/Dushkin).   He is also editor (with David Conradt and Gerald Kleinfeld) of the new book, A Precarious Victory: Gerhard Schroeder and the 2002 German Elections (Berghahn Books), the third in a series of German election and party studies by this editorial team.  

Julie Van Camp, Philosophy, published “Colorization Revisited” in Contemporary Aesthetics (a blind-refereed online journal), Vol. 2 ( http://www.contempaesthetics.org ); refereed an article for the Handbook of Information Security (John Wiley and Sons); refereed a research proposal for Montana State University; and presented a workshop on “Aesthetics: Critical Thinking about Art” for K-6 teachers in Fresno on Dec. 2.