Archives
New Faculty Faces
The Reporter this week resumes "New Faculty Faces," a feature that introduces new faculty members to the UB community. An effort is being made to contact all new faculty members. Anyone wishing to be featured may contact the Reporter at ub-reporter@buffalo.edu.
Name: Anders Hakansson
School: Medicine and
Biomedical Sciences
Department: Microbiology and Immunology
Academic Title: Assistant Professor
Academic
Degrees: B.Med. and Ph.D., Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Areas of Special Interest: Upper respiratory-tract infections
caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae
(pneumococcus)
Pneumococcus is the main cause of ear infections in children and pneumonia in the elderly, and it sometimes causes invasive disease and meningitis. Despite the use of antibiotics and vaccines we see millions of pneumococcal infections in the U.S. every year and many thousands of them unfortunately cannot be treated. Approximately 1 million children worldwide die every year from pneumococcal disease. My laboratory is trying to better understand how these bacteria cause infection so that we may develop more effective preventive and therapeutic strategies.
Name: Philip George Hancock
School: Management
Department: Operations Management and Strategy
Academic Title: Visiting Assistant Professor
Academic
Degrees: MBA and Ph.D., Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland;
banking degree, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Scotland; diploma in
company direction (with distinction), Chartered Institute of Directors,
Scotland
Areas of Special Interest: Operations management;
service operations; extreme events management
I was attracted to UB by the UB 2020 vision and the excellent facilities available. I also enjoyed meeting the staff and students who, like me, appear to have great fun while working hard.
Name: Sara Metcalf
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: Geography
Academic Title:
Assistant Professor
Academic Degrees: B.S., biochemistry and
chemical engineering, Texas A&M University; MBA and M.S., chemical
engineering, MIT; Ph.D., geography, University of
Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
Areas of Special Interest: Urban
social dynamics; agent-based modeling
I currently am co-principal investigator on "Ecological Boundary-Setting in Mental and Geophysical Models," a multiyear National Science Foundation grant for human and social dynamics research, in collaboration with the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. My collaborators and I are investigating how shared resources, such as water, land, and climate, are bounded by policy stakeholders in metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Chicago and St. Louis. I also study the influence of social networks on local migration patterns and disparity between socioeconomic classes. My specialty is in urban geography, so I hope to become more knowledgeable about urban issues relevant to the Buffalo community.
Name: Kristin Stapleton
School: College of Arts and
Sciences
Department: History
Academic Title:
Associate Professor and Director of the Asian Studies Program
Academic Degrees: A.B., University of Michigan; M.A. and
Ph.D., Harvard
Areas of Special Interest: Modern Chinese
history; urban history; education about Asia in the U.S.
In terms of the way history is taught, there is much discussion about how to balance teaching about national history with teaching about human history in general. That also influences the forms that research takes, and historical research increasingly looks across national boundaries to make comparisons and to trace what are called, for the modern period, "transnational" developments. I personally am interested, as well, in the connections and gaps between academic and popular understandings of history.