Voices of Excellence from the College of Arts and Sciences

Virginia Rich, associate professor of microbiology and the director of the eMERGE Biology Integration Institute, studies global change microbiology, microbial meta-omics, and “Genes-to-Ecosystems” inquiry. She’s spurred on in her work by the problem of not knowing how the biosphere as a whole will respond to climate change.

David Staley and Frederick Luis Aldama discuss Aldama’s recent Eisner award for his book Latinx Superheroes in Mainstream Comics, Aldama’s formative years with comics, and why comics have become an area of scrutiny for academics

Michael Neblo is an Associate Professor in the Ohio State University Department of Political Science, an affiliated faculty in the department of philosophy, and the Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA). His research focuses on deliberative democracy and political psychology. His new book, Politics with the People: Building a Directly Representative Democracy, develops and tests a new model of politics connecting citizens and elected officials to improve representative government. He will be the featured speaker at the Sept. 16 Science Sundays presented by the College of Arts and Sciences, a free and open to the public event. More information is available at go.osu.edu/ScienceSundays

Michelle Wibbelsman, Associate Professor of Latin American indigenous cultures, ethnographic studies and ethnomusicology in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, studies ritual and politics, aesthetics and power, festival and ritual practices of meaning-making memory in indigenous communities in northern Ecuador. She also discusses the Dancing with Devils exhibit now on display in the Barnett Center.

Vladimir Sloutsky, professor of psychology, researches conceptual development and interrelationships between cognition and language. His most recent publication describes how humans can learn about categories without explicit teaching.