Four Penn State McKeesport faculty members were awarded Research Development Grants for Spring 2006.
"The Cosmopolitan Roots of Senegalese Cinema," was the proposal submitted by Assistant Professor of English, Dr. MaryEllen Higgins. The proposal connects Senegalese cinema to African cosmopolitan movements in the 1930's and earlier. Previous research on Senegalese cinema led Dr. Higgins to the premise that several Senegalese films trace their artistic cosmopolitan roots to the Negritude poets in France and the African diaspora in the United States. Dr. Higgins will have a course release In Fall, 2006 to further her research in this area.
Dr. Clifford Manlove, Assistant Professor of English, was funded for his proposal "King Kolonialism: On the Interconnections between King Kong, Colonialism, and Film History, 1884 - 2005." Dr. Manlove's objective is to publish an article on the simultaneous advances of modern colonialism (Congress of Berlin, 1885), the moving picture (1895) and the machine gun (the Maxim, 1884) during the late 19th century. To further this research, Manlove's project will focus on an article length essay on a close textual reading and historical analysis of the original 1933 feature film, King Kong, and its two subsequent versions in 1978 and 2005.
Dr. John Peles, Associate Professor of Biology, was funded for his proposal, "Influence of protein Hererozygosity on the metabolic response of fathead minnows to toxicant exposure." Peles' investigation will examine the influence of protein hererozygosity on the standard metabolic rate in fathead minnows, an organism that is routinely used for toxicity testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Minnows will be exposed to the heavy metals, copper, and cadmium. Peles hopes the project will provide baseline data for a grant proposal to be submitted to the National Science Foundation.
Assistant Professor of Information Sciences and Technology, Dr. Guangfeng Song was funded for his project to compare computer-generated instructions to those written by human experts in guiding users' visual search of information on the Web.