Social Sciences

Effective mitigation of the drastic effects of extreme natural phenomena like hurricanes, floods, landslides and wildfires through integrated environmental management that includes the perspectives of geomorphologists and ecosystem scientists is the focus of the interdisciplinary 36th International Geomorphology Binghamton Symposium to be held Oct. 7-9 at the University at Buffalo.

Three short weeks after they fled New Orleans, many victims of Hurricane Katrina housed in shelters in Texas are having difficulties dealing emotionally with the disaster, particularly with another destructive hurricane headed toward the state where they took refuge, according to Nancy J. Smyth, Ph.D., associate professor and dean of social work at the University at Buffalo.

Aug. 29., the day that Hurricane Katrina barreled ashore on the Gulf Coast, also was the first day of class for Geology 428/528, "Preventing Geologic Disasters," at the University at Buffalo. Even though he had already prepared a semester's worth of historical examples, Michael F. Sheridan, Ph.D., UB professor of geology, decided that day to ditch much of it and to focus, instead, on Katrina as the harshest of case studies.

An innovative program that provides social services along with dental care to older adults treated in the dental clinics of the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine has received the 2005 Geriatric Oral Health Care Award from the American Dental Association.

Neuroscientists at the University at Buffalo have shown in two recently published papers that destabilization of structures called microtubules, intracellular highways that transport receptors to their working sites in the brain, likely underlie many mental disorders and could be promising targets for intervention.

The University at Buffalo Library Archives recently acquired the papers of Eva M. Noles, R.N., already a historic figure in 1939 when she became the first black nurse to be trained in Buffalo.

Demand for unskilled labor to clean up after Hurricane Katrina will help drive economic recovery in New Orleans, according to an economist at the University at Buffalo School of Management.

The rebuilding of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina gives the city an unprecedented chance to create new city neighborhoods that are economically and racially diverse, says University at Buffalo urban geographer Meghan Cope, Ph.D., associate professor of geography in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"The most critical problems related to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina are related less to the lack of technological solutions than to the absence of a sound national policy for dealing with such events," says Shahin Vassigh, associate professor of architecture at the University at Buffalo.

The effect of military culture on women's lives -- from the experiences of servicewomen in Iraq, to human rights violations against women, to the plight of homeless female veterans -- will be examined at a conference to be held Sept. 15 and 16 in the Center for the Arts Screening Room on the University at Buffalo North (Amherst) Campus.