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WSU grad student wins highly competitive national scholarship

August 6, 2014

Graduate student Corinne Kane has received federal funding to study changes in coral fishes and their habitats, from shallow to deep waters. She intends to research the role deep-water coral reefs play in protecting fish and other dwellers of shallow-water reefs.

As one of three recipients of the Nancy Foster Scholarship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Kane will receive an annual stipend of $30,000 and up to $12,000 annually as an education allowance. Additionally, recipients could see up to $10,000 to support a four- to six-week research collaboration at a NOAA facility.

“This extremely competitive program … nurtures development of the next generation of NOAA scientists,” said Daniel J. Basta, director of NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.

NOAA received more than 200 applications for the scholarship.

A Booming Business: Using Jailed Migrants as a Pool of Cheap Labor

May 27, 2014

As the federal government cracks down on immigrants in the country illegally and forbids businesses to hire them, it is relying on tens of thousands of those immigrants each year to provide essential labor — usually for $1 a day or less — at the detention centers where they are held when caught by the authorities.

This work program is facing increasing resistance from detainees and criticism from immigrant advocates. In April, a lawsuit accused immigration authorities in Tacoma, Wash., of putting detainees in solitary confinement after they staged a work stoppage and hunger strike.

Detention centers are low-margin businesses, where every cent counts, said Clayton J. Mosher, professor of sociology at WSU Vancouver, who specializes in the economics of prisons. Two private prison companies, the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group, control most of the immigrant detention market. Many such companies struggled in the late 1990s amid a glut of private prison construction, with more facilities built than could be filled, but a spike in immigrant detention after Sept. 11 helped revitalize the industry.

WSUV grad student receives Fulbright to study in Switzerland

April 23, 2014

Growing up in Florida, Eric Dexter was the only kid in his class who didn’t want to become a marine biologist. He barely graduated from high school. No one in his family had ever gone to college or traveled outside the country.

In September, the Washington State University Vancouver graduate student leaves for the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, on a Fulbright Fellowship. There he will receive specialized training on theoretical research techniques to further his research on invasive aquatic species on Lake Geneva, one of the largest lakes in Western Europe. The subject of aquatic invasive species is a matter of international concern.

How anthropologists help control Ebola outbreaks

April 3, 2014

When disease strikes in the developing world, like the current Ebola outbreak in Guinea, doctors, nurses and epidemiologists from international organizations fly in to help.

So do anthropologists.

Understanding local customs—and fears—can go a long way in getting communities to cooperate with international health care workers, says Barry Hewlett, a medical anthropologist at WSU Vancouver.

Otherwise medical efforts can prove fruitless, says Hewlett, who was invited to join the Doctors Without Borders Ebola team during a 2000 outbreak in Uganda. There are anthropologists on the current team in Guinea as well.

Before the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders started bringing in anthropologists, medical staff often had a difficult time convincing families to bring their sick loved ones to clinics and isolation wards. In Uganda, Hewlett remembers, people were afraid of the international health care workers.

“The local people thought that the Europeans in control of the isolation units were in a body parts business,” he says. “Their loved ones would go into the isolation units and they would never see them come out.”

Learn more about anthropology’s role in disease control

WSU art students participate in art exchange

February 19, 2014

WSU master of fine arts students are participating in some creative cross-pollination through two art exchange exhibitions with peers at nearby universities this month.

Students are showing work in printmaking, photography, painting, sculpture, installation, video and ceramics at the University of Idaho in Moscow through Feb. 20. They are sharing exhibit space at WSU Vancouver with students from Portland State University Feb. 15-April 15.

The collaborative shows are designed to introduce students from all three universities to other artists and their creative work while providing real-world experience in the many facets of exhibition planning and execution.

JJ Harty is among WSU students showing work in both exhibits.

“I’m participating because I love to share my work and ideas,” he said. “I also want to make connections with others artists and expand my curriculum vitae and professional portfolio while fostering communications and community between universities.”

Find out more about the art shows.