FEATURE STORY | Community Fellows | SPRING 2025 LEHIGH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES
10 NO SMALL MATTER Xiaoji Xu develops new methods and instruments for chemical measurement and imaging at the nanoscale 13 BE PRESENT IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT Student research leads to a local ordinance encouraging bird habitat 14 TEACHING BY EXAMPLE Faculty scholarship makes transitions to the classroom, creating real-world explorations 20 DIVING DEEP Biologist Nicole Pittoors travels to great depths to measure the health of the ocean 22 PEELING BACK THE COLONIAL SHELLAC Olivia Landry’s third book asks what documentary film can do to unsettle colonialist conceptions of the colonized 24 A NEW FACE FOR A SOUTHSIDE ICON Student team helps Lehigh Pizza create a new look while honoring its history 27 BREATHING HOPE WITH TECHNOLOGY Students develop an app to improve health of residents in Kazakhstan 28 LAYING THE GROUNDWORK Environmental policy student works to help preserve the local environment while developing important restoration policies 30 DIVISION! Did the trend toward majority votes over consensus in England’s 17th-century Parliament sow seeds of potential discord in future democracies? BRIEFS FEATURES 02 Observations in Wood … Cellular Communication … Gloria Naylor Archives 04 The Power of Us … Concertos Nos. 1 and 5 … Dice and Gods 06 Quark Gluon Plasma … True Story … Transformative Spaces 08 The Muslim Speaks … Natural Systems … Ethically Challenged CONTENTS 10 THE SYMPHONY OF SOUND: DECODING THE BRAIN’S AUDITORY SECRETS Neuroscientist Michael Burger’s innovative research blends genetics and virtual reality to explore how the ear and brain work in harmony to process sound 13 N AVIGATING DISASTERS AND GENDER INEQUALITY IN UGANDA A summer of service sparked a multi-year study on gender, survival, and public health in Bududa 14 LASTING IMPACT Community Fellows program contributes to regional vitality 20 UNLOCKING QUANTUM SECRETS Physics Ph.D. student Jace Curran explores how spin-entangled excitons in rubrene can be used as new investigative tools in organic semiconductors 22 EXPLORING THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE MODERN WORLD Doctoral student Olivia Mathers uncovers medieval history’s surprising connections to contemporary culture through literature, gaming, and fantasy 24 O N THE ROAD WITH “VAN” HALEN Participants in Lehighs traveling Field Camp come as students but leave as professionals 27 FIELDWORK ROCKS Aurora Bertoldo conducts research in Mongolia and solidifies her passion for geology 28 CELEBRATING FOUR DECADES OF SCHOLARSHIP: THE BERMAN CENTER AT 40 How a vision for Jewish Studies transformed a community and inspired generations 30 U NVEILING THE PAST: A SCHOLAR’S LEGACY IN THE STUDY OF EARLY JUDAISM As Ben Wright approaches retirement, the renowned scholar celebrates a career unraveling the mysteries of the Second Temple period and advancing fresh perspectives in early Judaism studies BRIEFS FEATURES 02 Shadowalk … Joint Attention and Infant Social Cognition 04 The Dynamics of Excitons … Corporate Social Responsibility … Vicic Recognized for Fluorine Research 06 The Voice of Rock and Roll … Indonesia’s Skilled Labor Force … Poetry’s Image Critique Revolution 08 Shining a Light on Attention … Thieves, Opportunists, and Autrocrats
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 1 Robert A Flowers II Herbert J. and Ann L. Siegel Dean SPRING 2025 MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN CELEBRATING INNOVATION, ENGAGEMENT, AND EXCELLENCE Exploring the transformative impact of research, teaching, and community engagement in the College of Arts and Sciences As another academic year nears its end, I continue to be inspired by the remarkable research, scholarship, and creative work emerging from the College of Arts and Sciences. The stories in this issue highlight the breadth and depth of these efforts, demonstrating the ways in which our faculty and students are pushing boundaries, bridging disciplines, and preparing for success in an ever-changing world. A tenet of our mission is a deep commitment to community engagement. This remains a defining characteristic of the College, reflected in the meaningful contributions our students make—whether in local neighborhoods or across the globe. The Community Fellows program places CAS students in roles throughout the Lehigh Valley, allowing them to actively contribute to initiatives that foster change. Meanwhile, the Berman Center for Jewish Studies continues to serve as a vibrant hub, drawing members of the wider community to campus and igniting important conversations that have both local and global significance. Through lectures, programs, and research, the Center has established itself as a key resource for scholars and community members alike, enriching discussions on Jewish history, culture, and identity. Equally essential to our work is the exceptional teaching and mentorship provided by our faculty. Through their research and instruction, whether in the classroom, the studio, the laboratory, or in the field—faculty equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to thrive both academically and professionally. Their influence is evident in the stories shared here. For nearly five decades, field camp in the department of Earth and environmental sciences has been a defining experience, providing students with immersive, hands-on research in 10 national parks. Or Aurora Bertoldo ’25, who traveled to Mongolia as part of an international research team, and Julia Klayman ’25, who examines gender, survival, and public health in Uganda, exemplify the global reach of our academic endeavors. On campus, Michael Burger mentors students studying the auditory system, while graduate students like Jace Curran and Olivia Mather, who investigate physics and medieval history respectively, further illustrate the depth of inquiry taking place. Your connection to the College strengthens our mission. Your support ensures that we can continue fostering academic excellence and innovation. I invite you to celebrate these achievements and explore ways to engage with and support the College’s vital work. ACUMEN MAGAZINE EDITOR Robert Nichols ’17G | CAS ADVISORY BOARD Robert A. Flowers II, dean; Kelly Austin, R. Michael Burger, Dawn Keetley, Jessecae Marsh, associate deans | GRAPHIC DESIGNER Kayley LeFaiver | CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Hayley Frerichs, Sarah Karnish, Vicki Mayk, Steve Neumann, Robert Nichols ’17G, Chris Quirk, Melinda Rizzo | PHOTOGRAPHERS Douglas Benedict, Christine Kreschollek, Christa Neu ACUMEN is published annually by the College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University | COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Lehigh University, 9 West Packer Avenue Bethlehem, PA 18015 | cas.lehigh.edu | ©2025 Lehigh University Cover illustration by Gwen Keraval DOUGLAS BENEDICT READER FEEDBACK: Please send comments to: acumen@lehigh.edu CAS.Lehigh lehigh_cas lehighu-cas @lehigh_cas @Lehigh_CAS
2 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 ART SHADOWALK Indio is a city in Southern California’s Coachella Valley. Located about 125 miles east of Los Angeles, the city is known for its agricultural production of dates. Last August, Indio launched a significant streetscape improvement initiative designed to enhance and beautify public spaces, reduce waste and debris, and improve walkability. The project was the vision of designer and visual artist Wes Heiss. Spanning three-quarters of a mile, Heiss and his partner Marek Walczak designed Shadowalk, an 11,000-square-foot shade structure covering sidewalks in a redeveloping area of the city. These innovative shades provide aesthetic protection from the area’s intense heat. “It’s extremely hot there—like 117 degrees the last time I was there,” says Heiss, associate professor of design in the department of art, architecture and design. “Because of budget constraints, we needed to design and engineer one modular system that could be produced in quantity and used all along the site. Indio is the date palm capital of the world, but it turns out date trees are really bad at providing shade. So, we thought it’d be interesting to crisscross those two ideas to solve this problem. Is there a way to use the idea of a tree providing shade and reimagine the local date trees as a good shade structure?” Shadowalk was unveiled in February and was funded through Caltrans’ Clean California Local Grant Program. The undulating design reflects the nearby San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. Structurally, the layout was designed as a kit of parts, allowing the structure to adapt to sidewalks of varying lengths. The support structure is made of steel, plated with yellow zinc chromate for protection and durability. At the core of the structure is the use of universal connectors, which allow a single connector to be used for all the pavilions. The same node can be positioned upside-down, turned 180 degrees, or flipped throughout the design to produce a seemingly random, undulating structure. Colored glass balls, inserted at the open ends of the nodes, reflect the city’s official colors. Heiss and Walczak also engaged local teens, asking them to draw shadows of palms. These drawings were translated into lasercut perforated panels that cast decorative palm tree patterns onto the sidewalks, further enhancing the area’s visual appeal. “We always try to find ways to involve the community in the design of the piece because they are the ones who are going to see it every day,” Heiss says. “It’s about us trying to enable a group to own the piece. It might be in a number of small personal ways, or it might be something more obvious and significant, but from those contributions we always try to make something beautiful.” COURTESY OF WES HEISS THE HBURMIEAFNSITIES Artist rendering of the Shadowalk project with a universal connector in the foreground.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 3 PSYCHOLOGY JOINT ATTENTION AND INFANT SOCIAL COGNITION In the earliest stages of life, infants’ cognitive development hinges on their interactions with caregivers. Infants’ experiences in joint attention are particularly important for their learning about the social world. Joint attention occurs when infants and caregivers focus their attention and action on the same object or event, such as when they play together with the same toy. Developmental psychologist Amanda Brandone has embarked on a longitudinal study to explore this phenomenon further. Collaborating with Lindsay Bowman, a developmental cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California-Davis, Brandone is following a sample of 150 infants from four to twelve months of age to explore how joint attention develops across the first year. This research tracks not only the infants’ joint-attention behaviors, like following a social partner’s gaze and pointing to direct the partner’s attention, but also their neural responses during joint-attentive interactions. Funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the team uses electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to measure infants’ brain activity, aiming to pinpoint neural specializations that support joint attention development. “We measure babies’ brains during face-to-face interactions with their caregivers,” says Brandone, associate professor of psychology. “We also measure variability in how caregivers interact with their babies. The goal is to understand how caregivers help ‘wire up’ the infant brain. Our hypothesis is that, through interactions with sensitive and responsive caregivers early in life, the infant brain specializes to support the development of joint attention and other social behaviors.” Brandone’s focus on infant social cognition and behavior complements Bowman’s neuroscience expertise. While Bowman’s team collects the data and conducts EEG analysis in her lab in California, Brandone’s team at Lehigh examines videos of the infants and their caregivers to identify infant joint attention behaviors and assess variability in caregiver behavior. This comprehensive approach enables a deeper understanding of how social and neurological processes intertwine in development. The data suggests that sensitive and responsive caregiving facilitates infants’ brain development and their ability to engage in joint attention. The approach Brandone and Bowman take in this research is new and exciting because it studies how the infant brain responds to joint attention in real-life, social settings, helping scientists understand how joint attention skills develop in infancy. Understanding how these skills develop across infancy is important because joint attention helps drive the development of various other important skills including language, social learning, and cooperation. The implications of this work also extend beyond theoretical interest. Since disruptions in joint attention are often linked to developmental conditions like autism, understanding typical developmental patterns allows researchers to recognize atypical patterns early, potentially guiding targeted interventions. Ultimately, Brandone’s research underscores the delicate interplay between environment and infant cognition, illuminating the ways in which even the earliest interactions can leave a lasting impact. ADOBE STOCK
4 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 the properties of a quantum-entangled pair of triplet excitons that are generated after photoexcitation in these crystals by diffusion. He and his team grow rubrene crystals in the lab, a compound that possesses high carrier mobility and optical properties, then use lasers to selectively excite and detect specific excitons. They exploit the processes with which they absorb light of different wavelengths, and which allow them to emit photons when two triplet excitons meet each other, so that they can examine how these excitons behave. “The detection of fluorescence decay, and the high frequency ripples caused by the quantum-entanglement becomes a quantum mechanical way to observe what’s going on, “says Biaggio, Joseph A. Waldschmitt Chair in Physics. “It is indirect because it relies on the detection of what these excitons do, not in terms of dissociating and creating current, but in terms of wandering around in the crystal, then at some point meeting with each other again, and re-emitting light. Or we can catch them as they are created using other laser pulses that observe their appearance and track them. In this way we can then track the phenomenon of these excitons being born from the initial photoexcited state, which takes about 10 picoseconds.” Biaggio’s latest experiments are examining how the quantumentanglement of triplet excitons can persist as they wonder around in their crystal. His experiments unearthed a way in which the clocks of each triplet-exciton pair can get out of synch even though each clock keeps ticking at the same frequency. His research might possibly aid semiconductor development or quantum information science. The long-term goal is to better understand fundamental exciton behaviors, which might eventually influence applications in solar energy harvesting or, possibly, quantum computing. PHYSICS THE DYNAMICS OF EXCITONS Excitons, encountered in technologies like solar cells and TVs, are quasiparticles formed by an electron and a positively charged “hole,” moving together through a nonmetallic crystal. Created when an electron is excited to a higher energy state, excitons transfer energy without carrying a net charge. While their behavior in traditional semiconductors is well understood, excitons act differently in organic materials. Research by condensed matter physicist Ivan Biaggio focuses on understanding the mechanisms behind exciton dynamics, diffusion, and dissociation in organic molecular crystals. In organic materials, excitons must move through the material to generate a usable current. Biaggio’s lab uses lasers to excite these particles and observes their quantumlevel interactions. They track exciton behavior via fluorescence, analyzing “quantum beats” and fluorescence changes over time to study diffusion and complex processes like singlet fission and triplet fusion. Singlet fission splits an initial excitation (with spin 0, called a singlet) into two triplet excitons (each with spin 1) that still maintain a combined spin of 0 in an entangled state. Biaggio’s work employs rubrene crystals, which are organic semiconductors, to examine differing behaviors in exciton decay and coherence. Funded by the Department of Energy, his lab is investigating CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK, RAFAEL LOPEZ / THEISPOT.COM POLITICAL SCIENCE CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY In 2013, India became the first country in the world to require corporate social responsibility (CSR), which demands companies spend 2% of their net profit on social development. The results of this mandate have been mixed. The forced co-operation between the nation’s largest firms and civil society organizations (CSOs) in pursuit of inclusive and sustainable development is the subject of the latest book by political scientist Nandini Deo. The CSR mandate implemented a strategy that India hoped would help achieve sustainability goals and stakeholder activism nationally. Established to promote partnerships that will push the country to meet these development objectives, the ruling instead led to forced philanthropy, says Deo, associate professor of political science. “Nobody wanted it,” she says. “All the businesses immediately THE HBURMIEAFNSITIES Ivan Biaggio
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 5 CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK protested, ‘Why are you doing this to us? Please tax us instead. We don’t want to do this. This is not what we do. Just tax us more. And all the nonprofit organizations also said, ‘Please don’t do this. The corporations don’t know anything about this field, and we don’t want to work with them. We’re fine. Thank you very much.’” Proponents believed that corporations’ efficiency and data-driven approaches could enhance NGOs’ community knowledge, leading to scalable, outcome-focused programs. However, Deo found that these partnerships are deeply troubled. Corporations prioritize quantifiable results and short-term service projects, while CSOs focus on communityspecific, inclusive approaches that resist the efficiency-focused corporate mindset. This mismatch forces CSOs to adjust their missions to align with corporate interests, which often emphasize quantifiable deliverables over complex social change. Her research offers evidence that CSR is unlikely to contribute to India’s inclusive and sustainable development. “The more that I looked at this, the more I found that it was really hard to find instances of successful partnerships in the interactions between corporations and CSOs. Partnerships were deeply dysfunctional from the perspective of the NGOs, the civil society organizations,” Deo says. “A lot of it had to do with just these incompatible social forms. They have different ways that they’re organized, and trying to make them work together is forcing a marriage between organizations that simply just don’t fit together. “To some extent, I think it’s likely a setup for failure,” she adds. “There was no choice. But also, one of the things that has ended up happening is some civil society organizations are censoring themselves because they have become dependent on this corporate money. They’re policing themselves. They’re not being as critical of corporations and of the business-centered economic development that’s happening in India. And that is a big threat to democracy.” CHEMISTRY VICIC RECOGNIZED FOR FLUORINE RESEARCH David Vicic, the Howard S. Bunn Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Lehigh, has been selected to receive the 2025 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award for Creative Work in Fluorine Chemistry. The international award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of fluorine chemistry, is given once annually. Vicic has co-authored 105 peerreviewed manuscripts, and his research helped provide the conceptual framework for understanding how earthabundant metals could be used to introduce small fluorinated functional groups into larger organic molecules. A building block approach that involved pairing the fluorinated groups with earth-abundant metals to make a more reactive chemical species was optimized so the fluorocarbon transfer was more reliable. Vicic showed it was possible to prepare and bottle a variety of activated and well-defined fluoroorganometallic complexes with metals such as copper, nickel, and cobalt, and study how they give up their fluorinated group to organic substrates. Vicic’s work demonstrates how the metal identity, the metal oxidation state and the ligand framework all play a role in tuning the chemistry to specific needs. The reactivity patterns identified by Vicic guided the development of new synthetic methodologies of interest to industry. One of Vicic’s fluorinated reagents has recently drawn the interest of Pfizer, who paired up with Snapdragon to synthesize it on a greater than 100 gram-scale using a continuous stirred tank reactor. Vicic first became interested in fluorine chemistry when attending an Organic Reactions & Processes Gordon Research Conference. He noticed that the attendees from the industry were very interested in the chemistry of small fluorinated groups, and he was intrigued by the fact these groups could not be manipulated in the same way as their non-fluorinated counterparts. Using his background in organometallic chemistry, his team carefully analyzed some recipes in the literature that used copper for transferring a trifluoromethyl group. By employing a key ligand, Vicic was able to show well-defined coppertrifluoromethyl complexes could be prepared and isolated and these pre-formed fluoro-organometallic species used more reliably for trifluoromethylation reactions. Vicic has since developed similar fluoro-organometallic chemistry with other earth-abundant metals, which has facilitated meaningful structural, electronic, and reactivity studies across metals in the first row of the Periodic Table. Vicic’s current efforts are focused on using metal catalysts to understand how to repurpose high-global-warmingpotential fluorinated refrigerants. David Vicic
6 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 JOURNALISM THE VOICE OF ROCK AND ROLL For almost 60 years, Rolling Stone magazine has dominated music journalism and hasn’t shied away from naming the good and the bad. John Vilanova, assistant professor of journalism and communication, is delving into the influential publication and its role in shaping narratives around popular music and rock and roll. Vilanova’s research focuses on how institutions make larger claims about the music industry and how it often contains longer held ideas about gender, race, and power. Vilanova’s time as a contributor to Rolling Stone over the past decade granted him an inside look. By examining early years of Rolling Stone, starting from its inception in 1967, Vilanova is examining the role of music criticism in establishing the magazine’s credibility and status as a serious journalistic publication. Employing a multi-methodological approach, he is diving into the archives and talking to writers who published extremely negative reviews in the first five years. “I’m thinking through and about what it means to write an extremely negative review of an album, and the ways that might have been an opportunity for the magazine to separate itself,” Vilanova says. “How did Rolling Stone become the publication that won out?” Part of what Vilanova is discovering is that the majority of writing about popular music of the time was designed for children or women and not taken seriously. While Rolling Stone would never have explicitly labeled itself a “men’s magazine,” its content and critical approach often catered to a male readership. The publication didn’t shy away from critiquing iconic albums and popular artists, and Rolling Stone famously published extremely negative reviews on Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan. “They were willing to be contrarian,” Vilanova notes, believing those reviews helped the magazine become a journalistic institution. Another way Rolling Stone has codified “good music” is its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. By analyzing the composition of the voters who curated such a popular list, Vilanova is uncovering the racial and gender biases that shape the rankings. The list reflects the preferences of a select group of industry insiders, comprised of record executives and artists. “The people who are making those decisions are always people who have stakes because oftentimes they’re advocating for the artists that have,” he says, “and the art they find valuable and important.” “What you get is the music that a small number of people believe is truly excellent. And the more time you spend thinking through and about the role of popular music in our shared histories, you realize how much of this is just kind of hangovers of longer running dynamics of power,” Vilanova says. “Ultimately, it becomes this question of who speaks for the music industry?” SOCIOLOGY INDONESIA’S SKILLED LABOR REVOLUTION As an emerging economy in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is poised to become one of the world’s top five economies in the coming decades. To achieve this, the nation has prioritized the development of a skilled youth labor force. Jessica Peng’s forthcoming book examines how global projections of Indonesia’s “rise” are orienting policy efforts towards developing skilled labor and reshaping Indonesia’s education system and societal perceptions of educated workers. Peng, assistant professor of sociology, interviewed policymakers in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, as part of her ethnographic research. “I worked with education and labor policymakers, people who work on development projects, to capture a common narrative about the country’s urgent need for skilled labor,” she explains. The book starts in the policy landscape but moves into how this promotion of vocational reforms shapes the everyday culture. Peng traveled to a vocational school in the rural region of Bone, South Sulawesi, an area known to be traditional fishers. “They’re trying to revitalize the fishery economy,” she says, “and I spent some time in the vocational school in town that is trying to build these skilled fishers or aqua farmers as part of this wave of labor development efforts.” BRIEFS CHRISTOPHER SIMON SYKES / GETTY IMAGES Percussionist Ollie Brown with a 1975 issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 7 For many families there is a shift from an informal model to a formal legible competency-based kind of education. “Part of the curriculum is to really focus on defining concrete competencies,” Peng says. “And so they’re deconstructing what is an everyday practice into stratified skills.” This shift is accompanied by a broader societal change in attitudes toward education. “The kind of students that come out of this vocational system are socially celebrated as practical. They can just roll their sleeves up and get stuff done,” Peng notes. The ideal of the “high-achieving student,” focused on theoretical knowledge, is gradually giving way to a new appreciation for practical skills. This transformation is particularly significant in the post-Asian financial crisis era, where individuals who contribute tangible solutions to community challenges are increasingly valued. Peng’s research is bridging the gap between the economy and education in a labor market. “Education isn’t really thought of as a key vehicle of capitalist development,” she says. As a former classroom teacher and having done work in education development, Peng is bringing the individual voices into the broader topic of economics. “Young people and students and their families are at the core of what I hope this book addresses, even though it is really a much broader story about the politics of capitalism.” MODERN LANGUAGES & LITERATURES POETRY’S IMAGE CRITIQUE REVOLUTION In the 1980s, a group of French poets began a movement known as “literalism,” following the unofficial dictum: “replace the image with the word ‘image’.” Distancing themselves from metaphor, symbolism, and personal expression, these poets focused instead on the words themselves which they used to stop-up the flow of images rather than serve as a channel for their expression. This anti-transmission poetics emerged— fittingly—at the height of TV’s media dominance and stood as a simultaneous critique of poetic tradition and the broader media environment. Through this conflation of literary and technological rebellion, poetry scholar Victoria Bergstrom argues in a current book project that poetry reveals its unique fitness as a site for thinking about the way text and image interact across the increasingly unintelligible image revolutions of the last 50 years. The literalist poets initiated what has been called a “critical turn” in contemporary French poetry, through which poetry asserts its power as a tool of critique by opening itself to the influence of other art forms, disciplines, and technologies—in particular, image technologies. “My project centers on poets who show themselves to be astute observers of images, image culture, image technologies, who generate fascinating insights about changes within the image environment that reverberate through many aspects of life,” says Bergstrom, assistant professor of French in the department of modern languages and literatures. “I am interested in practices that invite us to see poetry as a place for thinking about what an image is and how mediation operates, what are the technical features of an image object, and what technical features shape the linguistic art object?” Poetry’s “critical turn” in the 1980s can be understood as a new movement to right-size poetry to the demands of a radically altered media environment. One notable poet in this movement was Pierre Alferi, who often took his work beyond the page. The son of philosopher Jacques Derrida, Alferi created a body of work that included philosophical texts, poetry, novels, but also filmmaking, illustration, and public art installations. Another contemporary poet, Anne Portugal, has created poems inspired by the programmed images of video games and the jokes printed inside candy wrappers. Rather than shunning pop culture, Portugal and her contemporaries are curious about how such objects act upon the public, how they work and what we get from them. The 1980s stand out as a pivotal moment in media history, as the decade where the unidirectional mass-media of broadcast television hits its peak and the increasing role of interactive media becomes apparent, Bergstrom says. In the world of poetry, the poets of the “critical turn” recognize the image as a contested concept, increasingly complicated by the mystification of black-box technologies. THOMAS KOEHLER / GETTY IMAGES, CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK A group of technical school students learn metalworking in Solo, Indonesia. Victoria Bergstrom
8 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 sound,” says Haas, associate professor of neuroscience in the department of biological sciences. “Our major goal is to figure out how the TRN does that—how the connections within it contribute to that process, how those connections change as a function of what you experience, and how the TRN integrates neural signals from all across your brain into the process of attention.” Using groundbreaking tools like optogenetics and advanced imaging, the lab maps the TRN’s neural network. Optogenetics allows researchers to stimulate individual neurons with light and observe their connections with remarkable spatial and temporal precision. One exciting avenue of the lab’s research explores a potential link between the amygdala, known for its role in fear, and the TRN. Collaborating with neuroscientist Maria Geffen of the University of Pennsylvania, Haas’s lab investigates how fear signals from the amygdala might influence the TRN’s attention-regulating functions. Haas’s team injected a virus expressing a green fluorescent protein into the TRN to trace its connections in the brain. This work confirmed the expected link between the TRN and the amygdala. Researchers are now recording TRN neurons receiving amygdalar input to characterize this synaptic connection, laying the groundwork for understanding how fear sharpens sensory focus. As Haas and her team continue their work, they shed light not just on the TRN but also on the broader question of how we experience and navigate the world around us. Through their research, the mysteries of attention are becoming just a little clearer. intricate process unfolds and what makes the TRN uniquely suited for its role in selective attention. Her lab focuses on electrical synapses, which allow neurons to communicate quickly and efficiently. She is particularly interested in how the strength of these synapses affects TRN circuits and their critical role in controlling attention. The TRN functions as a sensory stop sign, regulating which signals from our environment reach the brain’s cortex for further processing. Sensory information enters through the brainstem and travels through the thalamus before reaching the cortex, where it is integrated into coherent thoughts and perceptions. The TRN ensures we pay attention to specific sensory cues while ignoring others. “We think the TRN says, ‘Pay attention to this sound but not that BIOLOGY SHINING A LIGHT ON ATTENTION In a bustling lab blending computational modeling with experimental precision, neuroscientist Julie Haas and her team delve into the mysteries of how our brains focus on specific stimuli amidst a sea of sensory information. Their work explores the functions of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), a group of cells linking the thalamus to the cerebral cortex. The TRN receives input from both the cortex and most nuclei of the thalamus, with its neurons modulating the thalamus’ responses as it relays sensory input to the rest of the brain. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA’s structure, first hypothesized that the TRN acts as a “neural searchlight” enabling us to prioritize sensory input. Haas’s work aims to uncover how this ROGER HARRIS / SCIENCE SOURCE, KATERYNA KON / SCIENCE SOURCE BRIEFS Illustration of brain cells located in the amygdala (top). Computer artwork of the brain with a highlighted area showing the two amygdala.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 9 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THIEVES, OPPORTUNISTS, AND AUTOCRATS? After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the emerging countries experienced an expansion of capitalist businesses. Yet, this privatization process was particularly controversial, as these companies inserted themselves into the political structure to benefit those in power. The bureaucracies that evolved helped autocrats strengthen and expand their power by taking advantage of the government institutions MELINDA BECK / THEISPOT.COM created by countries’ Soviet legacies. The dynamics of this relationship are explored in the latest book by political economist Dinissa Duvanova. The author of Thieves, Opportunists, and Autocrats: Building Regulatory States in Russia and Kazakhstan, Duvanova analyzes how autocrats in Kazakhstan and Russia built regulatory institutions, relying heavily on strict government-style oversight to maintain power. The book addresses the paradox of how the Russian and Kazakh states have become stronger and more resilient despite systemic corruption, through the lens of the “regulatory state.” It underscores the central role of regulatory state institutions in enabling these autocratic regimes to survive and thrive in challenging conditions. These regimes tolerate some corruption among bureaucrats, allowing them to exert selective control and ensure loyalty, which paradoxically strengthens the state’s resilience against external pressures, such as the international sanctions on Russia. “The regional level institutions, the ones that have more detailed manuals that govern the operation of public bureaucracy, tend to have better performance compared to the ones that allow the bureaucrats to invent the rules or follow whatever what they want without any sort of written manuals that regulate their actions,” says Duvanova, associate professor and chair of international relations. “Instead of fighting corruption and bureaucracy, they allow some corruption to happen when the times are good, and they have a lot of surplus to go around. But they can revert to this very detailed prescribed sort of behavioral patterns on bureaucrats when the resources are limited. They can say, ‘well, this is how we’re going to discipline you,’ so you do not waste resources in the times when the state needs them.” Following the collapse of the USSR, these countries initially seemed to diverge in their reform trajectories, with Kazakhstan pushing forward with economic reforms to legitimize autocratic consolidation, while Russia faced competing elite and public demands during its market reforms. By the mid-2000s, however, both countries had settled into similar personalistic dictatorships. Both promoted economic liberalism, deregulation, and integration into global markets, yet corruption and fusion of political and economic power persisted. In both nations, inequality and asset stripping in state-controlled sectors fueled public resentment. “At some point, these bureaucrats violated the law, and the politicians can prosecute them because they violated those very clearly written rules of engagement,” she says. “They choose not to do that in order to ensure that bureaucrats stay loyal to them, that the bureaucrats do not challenge them politically or do not lend any support to potential political opposition to these autocracies.”
10 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 The field of neuroscience is ever evolving, driven by advancements in technology and the tenacity of researchers to push boundaries. Neuroscientist Michael Burger and members of his laboratory have yielded profound insights into the auditory system. From manipulating genes in embryonic chicken models to using virtual reality for synaptic analysis, his work aims to decode the intricate relationship between the ear and the brain. Sound is everywhere, and categorizing and locating these sounds is critical as we navigate our surroundings. To make sense of sound, a major function of the ear is to separate frequencies, a process that allows you to appreciate the complexity of music and language. It achieves this by processing each frequency in a separate “channel,” as neurons in the ear respond to low or high frequencies independently. In the coiled tube of the inner ear, or cochlea, vibrations produced by sounds are converted to neural activity before being sent to the brain. Hair cells, which respond to sound, convert sound into neural signals with neurons specialized to process specific frequencies. Due to mechanical properties within the cochlear duct, low frequencies resonate at one end and high frequencies at the other, like a musical instrument. It translates frequency into place, The Symphony of Sound: Decoding the Brain’s Auditory Secrets BY ROBERT NICHOLS Neuroscientist Michael Burger’s innovative research blends genetics and virtual reality to explore how the ear and brain work in harmony to process sound
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 11 Michael Burger (left) in his lab. tuning of the capacitors in the radio to find your favorite station,” Burger says. The team injects these genetic constructs into embryos just two days after the eggs start incubating. They open a small hole in an egg, inject the gene into one of the chick’s developing ears, and then seal the egg to let it grow normally. This creates a chicken with one ear that hears all frequencies normally and one ear that only hears low frequencies. Why does this matter? The team wants to know whether neurons in the brain are programmed based on their location (like being “born” a high-frequency neuron) or if they can change based on the sounds they receive. Their findings show it’s the sounds—or the input— that determine what kind of neuron develops. “One of the things that differentiates low and high frequency cells in the brain is that the low frequency cells get many small inputs from the ear, about 10 to 13 tiny little synaptic inputs,” Burger says. “The high frequency cells, though, get one to three very large inputs with synapses that are large enough to easily see in the microscope. So, what we’re asking right now is if we change the organization of the ear, do we change the organization of this synaptic pattern in the brain?’ Applications of Virtual Reality in Synaptic Analysis Burger’s lab isn’t just innovating at the genetic level; they’re also revolutionizing how data is analyzed. Once doctoral student Kwame OwusuNyantakyi creates slices of a chicken’s brain, three-dimensional images are produced. The lab creates computations using this collected data to generate a virtual three-dimensional representation of the cell. Using virtual reality goggles with handheld controllers, undergraduate neuroscience major Audrey Snyder ’26 interacts with representations of neural synapses, rotating and exploring them in virtual space. This immersive approach allows for precise measurements of synaptic structures and facilitates collaboration across the lab. “Previously there was a system that did this, but in a more tedious way,” Owusu-Nyantakyi says. “So, for all of the data we get, we use confocal imaging, and you get optical slices of each of the segments through the tissue. Back then you had to go and literally stitch up all those images back together to give you the 3D volume, do some post-hoc analysis, and make sure your image is good, and then try to pull out the data you want. Now, once you do the annotation, you’ve got your data, which saves a fundamental organizing principle of auditory processing, Burger says. This mapping of “frequency to place” is called tonotopy. This tonotopic organization is then remapped everywhere in the brain where sounds are processed. The tonotopic organization of hearing is of particular interest to Burger. His lab has identified several properties of auditory neurons that appear to “tune” their own frequencies along the tonotopy within the brain. The key question is, how did this perfect tuning arise in development? Burger thinks it might be explained by one of two theories. One suggests that the tonotopic properties first arise in the ear, then during development the ear drives the tuning of neurons in the brain. Alternatively, brain organization may develop independently of the ear, instead relying on mapping cues present in the developing brain itself to establish tonotopic patterns. “How do the neurons in the brain develop their specializations since they’re spatially distributed,” says Burger, professor of neuroscience in the department of biological sciences. “Do the neurons become who they are because of where they live? Or alternatively, are they instructed to become that way by the ear?” Pioneering Techniques in Auditory Research Burger’s research examines how the brain organizes and processes auditory information, focusing on understanding how the brain adapts to changes in hearing. Using chicken embryos, his team alters the development of the inner ear to study how the brain responds to modified sound input. By injecting a gene that carries the instructions to produce bone morphogenetic protein (BMP7) into one of a chicken embryo’s developing ears, they change its auditory structure, so it only picks up low-frequency sounds and high frequency processing is dramatically diminished. This creates a uniquely patterned ear for studying how the brain’s neurons develop with this altered input pattern. Do they adjust to this new sound range, or do they stick to their original role? Chickens are ideal for this research because their auditory system is simpler than mammals and furthermore, the embryos grow in an accessible egg outside of the mother. Like humans, chickens’ ears and brains use tonotopic organization, but unlike our coiled cochleae, chickens’ cochleae are straight, making it easier to study how hair cells are organized. “In the birds, the hair cells are electrically tuned to resonate different frequencies the same way you turn the dial of an old-fashioned radio and change the electrical CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK
12 ACUMEN • SPRING 2025 up so much time. And it works with so many different types of tissues, not just brains.” Snyder can work within a cell—zooming in and out in high resolution or rotating it to assign labels and color to cells, synapses, axons, and terminals for differentiation. She can also determine cellular boundaries (e.g., where axons and synaptic terminals start and end) and mark uncertainties with virtual questions on the cell or notes for later team reviews. The collected data can then be easily exported into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. Beyond the research applications, the lab offers advanced experiential learning opportunities. Snyder says the experiences in the lab will help her when she continues to a graduate program. A native of Ghana, Owusu-Nyantakyi came to Lehigh from Knox College and says the lab supports him as he continues to hone his research skills. “I have enjoyed working in the Burger lab,” Owusu-Nyantakyi says. “I have acquired skills such as patch clamp techniques and using VR systems to analyze data that I would not have been able to get in any other lab. I find SyGlass technology very cool because it allows me to visually interact with my data in ways I have not experienced throughout my science career. This has greatly improved my work as it is now easy to visualize and analyze my data in real time, which saves me a lot of time to work on my other graduate work. I also think it is a great tool for undergraduate research, as it is very engaging and keeps you coming back to work on your data. I have also found that it is a great teaching tool for visualizing biological structures in their complexity. Additionally, working with Mike has been great. I have been able to present at conferences and definitely grown as a scientist.” Burger’s lab exemplifies the synergy between traditional scientific expertise and emerging technologies. Burger remains cautiously optimistic about the future. “Sometimes as a scientist, I’m afraid to talk too prospectively about things that may or may not work,” he says. Yet, the strides already made— from gene manipulation in embryos to VR-based synaptic analysis—underscore the transformative potential of his work. The journey ahead is filled with unanswered questions. How do developmental processes in the ear shape the brain’s auditory capabilities? Can the principles uncovered in the chicken model be translated to human health? And what new technologies will emerge to further unravel these mysteries? For now, Burger’s lab continues to chart new territory, driven by curiosity and a commitment to advancing our understanding of the brain. “We’re finally getting to some of the bigger questions,” Burger says. The possibilities are as expansive as the intricate networks of the brain itself. ● Audrey Snyder uses SyGlass VR goggles to analyze a cell (right). Kwame Owusu-Nyantakyl and Snyder (below). CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 13 Julia Klayman Explores Women’s Resilience in Uganda HAYLEY FRERICHS A summer of service sparked a multi-year study on gender, survival, and public health in Bududa other people to know that they were engaging in transactional sex.” HIV/AIDS, on the other hand, isn’t visible like pregnancy. “When you have HIV, it's something that other people don't know about. So they're able to hide it, whether they're taking antiretrovirals or not.” Klayman’s research experience at Lehigh has been invaluable and she’s working on publishing two articles. “Working hand in hand with Dr. [Kelly] Austin and Dr. [Mark] Noble not only taught me how to engage in ethnographic research and participatory research, but how to navigate different community norms and different social and cultural climates, which is an experience I don't think I would have otherwise if it weren't for Lehigh.” Support from the university enabled her to conduct fieldwork in Bududa and pursue her passion for social justice and global health. “Because of this experience, it really showed me the impact of law on different kinds of communities,” Klayman says, who will be attending law school next year. “It really shaped my career and my whole life.” ● After exploring the region and getting to know the community, she observed a stark gender disparity which inspired her to investigate how landslides affect women and the coping mechanisms they employ. “After landslides occur, people are going hungry, people don't have shelter, people don't have access to any sort of healthcare, and they're turning to transactional sex to be able to make money in order to get those basic necessities,” she explains. Motorcycle taxi drivers, known throughout east Africa as boda bodas, have an advantage in such a large, hilly community. As a result, they have the means to engage in transactional sex at incredibly high rates. “They're able to convince these young girls who have incredibly long commutes to school [to engage in transactional sex]. A girl could be walking from the top of the hill two hours down to school and then two hours back home when it's dark outside,” Klayman says. Despite HIV posing greater longterm health risks, the immediate concerns about pregnancy are perceived as a greater threat. “Women feared pregnancy because it was something that was visible,” Klayman says. Women who become pregnant might resort to dangerous abortions or be forced to drop out of school. Abortion is illegal in Uganda so some women turn to self-administered methods, like herbal abortifacients, which can lead to death. Social consequences fuel the fear of pregnancy for men in the community too. “The men didn't want the commitment of having a pregnancy, but also they didn't want When Julia Klayman ’25 first volunteered with the Pathways to Development Initiative, the local NGO in Bududa, Uganda, she never expected to spend her subsequent summers conducting research on transactional sex. The region’s rural landscape and frequent natural disasters disproportionately impact women, especially young women, who often engage in transactional sex to secure basic necessities, services like taxi rides, or even luxury goods. A global studies and political science double major, Klayman has always been interested in volunteering and working with women and children. Girl students with their books and bicycle drivers walk up a hill as boda bodas approach in Uganda. CHRISTINE KRESCHOLLEK, 1001SLIDE / ISTOCK Julia Klayman
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