PAS Affiliates lunch lecture series Wednesday, May 16th, 12pm, lunch served Negotiating the State: Formal and Informal Institutions in Contemporary Kenyan State-Building  Khairunnisa Mohamedali, Political Science, Northwestern Abstract: The majority of the world’s states do not have the strong, formalized institutions that scholars and international development practitioners alike deem necessary for effective and efficient states. However, many of these states still do perform state functions adequately when assessed in terms of the capacity to collect tax revenues, the ability to promote internationally competitive levels of economic growth, and skill in conducting stable relations with other states. What then explains the relative stability and evolving institutional capacity of such states, in a context where war-making is not a viable avenue to state-making? The negotiation between state elites and the wealthy tightly-knit, identity-based business networks are key to explaining the development of regulatory and administrative institutions in contemporary post-colonial states. The example of Somali-Kenyan businesses in Kenya illustrates how state elites seek to extract and secure the resources contained within the exclusive business network, while the latter aims to secure a favourable business climate. The regulatory and administrative institutions that are the brick-work of the state are the contingent products of the strategies and tactics used in interactions between these two parties. This talk is based on data collected during eight weeks of fieldwork in Nairobi, interviewing Somali/Somali-Kenyan businesspersons, and is part of a larger dissertation project aimed at explaining variation in informal and formal institutional development in contemporary, post-colonial states. In the larger project, Uganda and Kenya serve as case studies to explore the larger question of institution-building in contemporary states that are often dismissed as weak, ineffective and corrupt.  Bio: Khairunnisa Mohamedali received her HBA in International Relations from the University of Toronto, and her MA in International Policy from Carleton University's Norman Patterson School of International Affairs. Her Master's thesis was on the effects of state institutions on ethnicity and conflict in Uganda, from the colonial through to the post-colonial period. More Information.

Contact:
Kate Dargis
Program of African Studies

GiveWell (www.givewell.org [http://www.givewell.org/]) finds outstanding giving opportunities and publishes the full details of its analysis to help donors decide where to give. The Boston Globe has called GiveWell "The gold standard for giving" and its research has attracted attention from Peter Singer (who featured it in his manifesto on giving, The Life You Can Save) and other media (see www.givewell.org/what-others-are-saying [http://www.givewell.org/what-others-are-saying]). In 2011, GiveWell tracked over $5 million in donations to its recommended charities as a direct result of its research. Join co-founder Elie Hassenfeld as he explains GiveWell's methodology for identifying quality international organizations and offers guidance on how to make better giving decisions.   More Information.

Contact:
Nicole Patel
Center for Global Engagement

A conversation between NU Professor Dorothy Roberts and Princeton Professor Keith Wailoo. Sponsored by African American Studies

Contact:
One Book NU
One Book One Northwestern 2011-2012

p53 and Cancer Cell Metabolism Xiaolu Yang, PhD Professor Department of Cancer Biology Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute Philadelphia, PA More Information.

Contact:
Cancer Center
Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University

Join members of Wild Roots every Thursday during Spring quarter for tending to the garden.  From those with green thumbs, to certified plant killers, everyone is welcome to join in and get your hands dirty. __ Wild Roots is a student-directed garden which grows fresh produce for the Northwestern and Evanston communities using sustainable practices. Wild Roots serves the evolving educational and social needs of the Northwestern community by inspiring students to think critically about the food we eat and by starting conversations about sustainability, social justice, and our food system. More Information.

ISEN

Faculty & Fellows Colloquium Turkish “Young Cinema” of late 1960's in the context of Third Cinema Zeynep Çetin Erus (PhD, Marmara University, 1999), a visiting scholar at the Buffett Center and the Department of Radio, Television + Film, is an associate professor at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey.  Her dissertation analyzes adaptations from novel to cinema, and her research focuses on adaptations, Turkish Cinema, and Third Cinema.

Contact:
Krzysztof Kozubski
Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies

Molecular Basis of the Class IV GCSF Receptor Resistance to Apoptosis -Taly Glaubach, MD-Children's Memorial Hospital Phase II Neoadjuvant Trail with Carboplatin and Eribulin Mesylate in Patients with Triple-negative Breast Cancer-Sara Barnato, MD-Divsion of Hematology/Oncology-Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine More Information.

Contact:
Cancer Center
Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University

Defense, Development, & Diplomacy: The Future of Complex Operations in Africa a two day conference Friday, May 18th, 1:30 - 6pm Saturday, May 19th, 12-3pm Africa can no longer be viewed in terms of isolation from the international community. Transnational forces—particularly organized crime, terrorism, refugee flows, and trafficking in drugs, arms and human beings—have made Africa’s challenges our own, and vice versa.  Most of these problems are multifaceted, and must be met with comprehensive solutions. For example, countering the effects of drug trafficking in a place like Guinea-Bissau extends beyond reforming the country’s military to include efforts to eradicate corruption throughout government, support other livelihoods for citizens, and promote cooperation with regional organizations. In Kenya, complex operations includes assistance in extending social services to areas close to the Somali border and reform of business practices, alongside better monitoring of borders.  These are the kinds of challenges that the extension of complex operations is intended to address. Complex operations have had a mixed record in Africa. Kenya’s government has been a willing participant in these programs, accepting security sector assistance alongside conventional development support. Complex operations have been more problematic in Ethiopia, where the government has suspected US military and civilian contingents of undermining its control. Sierra Leone and Liberia have been major focuses of coordination between security sector reform, institution-building and development assistance in preparation for the departure of UN peacekeepers. But in both cases, serious questions remain concerning the durability of complex operations results. In other cases it is thought that governments appreciate (and citizens suspect) that complex operations assistance can help to entrench authoritarian regimes, as in Uganda. Thus the future of complex operations on the continent has never been more uncertain. What will be the fate of complex operations in Africa given this new strategic environment? To address these and other questions we will bring together practitioners, faculty, and students from the Defense and Development communities. To structure the dialogue on complex operations in Africa, the conference will consist of two strands. The first half of the conference will assess the place of these complex operations within America’s larger foreign policy agenda, and will consider the ethical, logistical, and tactical challenges associated with conducting complex operations in Africa. The second strand of the conference will focus on African perspectives about recent turns in us foreign policy and the role that complex operations (and AFRICOM) play in it. Ultimately, this conference aims to produce analytical frameworks for understanding important developments in this area of policy. An associated aim is to generate a set of guidelines for use by the government, non-profit, and academic sectors when considering the present and future of US policies toward the African continent. Sponsored by Program of African Studies and School of Education and Social Policy (SESP). More Information.

Contact:
Kate Dargis
Program of African Studies

Defense, Development, & Diplomacy: The Future of Complex Operations in Africa a two day conference Friday, May 18th, 1:30 - 6pm Saturday, May 19th, 12-3pm Africa can no longer be viewed in terms of isolation from the international community. Transnational forces—particularly organized crime, terrorism, refugee flows, and trafficking in drugs, arms and human beings—have made Africa’s challenges our own, and vice versa.  Most of these problems are multifaceted, and must be met with comprehensive solutions. For example, countering the effects of drug trafficking in a place like Guinea-Bissau extends beyond reforming the country’s military to include efforts to eradicate corruption throughout government, support other livelihoods for citizens, and promote cooperation with regional organizations. In Kenya, complex operations includes assistance in extending social services to areas close to the Somali border and reform of business practices, alongside better monitoring of borders.  These are the kinds of challenges that the extension of complex operations is intended to address. Complex operations have had a mixed record in Africa. Kenya’s government has been a willing participant in these programs, accepting security sector assistance alongside conventional development support. Complex operations have been more problematic in Ethiopia, where the government has suspected US military and civilian contingents of undermining its control. Sierra Leone and Liberia have been major focuses of coordination between security sector reform, institution-building and development assistance in preparation for the departure of UN peacekeepers. But in both cases, serious questions remain concerning the durability of complex operations results. In other cases it is thought that governments appreciate (and citizens suspect) that complex operations assistance can help to entrench authoritarian regimes, as in Uganda. Thus the future of complex operations on the continent has never been more uncertain. What will be the fate of complex operations in Africa given this new strategic environment? To address these and other questions we will bring together practitioners, faculty, and students from the Defense and Development communities. To structure the dialogue on complex operations in Africa, the conference will consist of two strands. The first half of the conference will assess the place of these complex operations within America’s larger foreign policy agenda, and will consider the ethical, logistical, and tactical challenges associated with conducting complex operations in Africa. The second strand of the conference will focus on African perspectives about recent turns in us foreign policy and the role that complex operations (and AFRICOM) play in it. Ultimately, this conference aims to produce analytical frameworks for understanding important developments in this area of policy. An associated aim is to generate a set of guidelines for use by the government, non-profit, and academic sectors when considering the present and future of US policies toward the African continent. More Information.

Contact:
Kate Dargis
Program of African Studies

"Spatial Thinking and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education: When, Why, and How" by David Uttal, Professor and Director of Cognitive Psychology, Northwestern University

Contact:
Patricia Reese
Institute For Policy Research

Single-Photon Array Detectors Prof. Don Figer [http://www.cis.rit.edu/user/24] (Rochester Institute of Technology) Monday, May 21, 2012 at 4:00pm Northwestern University Annenberg Hall [http://maps.northwestern.edu/#latlngz=42.053,-87.674,17&lookupid=86] Room G21 [http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/faculty-staff-resources/files/pdfs/building-maps/ground-floor-map.pdf] Refreshments served at 3:30 in Room G28 [http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/faculty-staff-resources/files/pdfs/building-maps/ground-floor-map.pdf]   ABSTRACT:  Single-photon array detectors promise the ultimate in sensitivity by eliminating read noise. These devices could provide extraordinary benefits for photon-starved applications, e.g., seeing the first stars in the Universe, imaging exoplanets, fast wavefront sensing, and probing the human body through optical transilluminescence. Recent implementations are often in the form of sparse arrays that have less-than-unity fill factor. For imaging, fill factor is typically enhanced by using microlenses, at the expense of photometric and spatial information loss near the edges and corners of the pixels. Other challenges include afterpulsing and the potential for photon self-retriggering. Both effects produce spurious signal that can degrade the signal-to-noise ratio. This talk reviews development and potential application of single-photon-counting array detectors, including highlights of initiatives in the Center for Detectors at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Current projects include single-photon-counting imaging detectors for the Thirty Meter Telescope, a future NASA terrestrial exoplanet mission, and imaging LIDAR detectors for planetary and Earth science space missions. ciera.northwestern.edu [http://ciera.northwestern.edu/index.php] More Information.

Contact:
Raymond Givens Bailey
CIERA - Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics

Buffett Lecture » “A Leading Muslim of Aden”: Personal Trajectories, Imperial Networks and the Construction of Community in Britain’s Indian Ocean EmpireScott Reese, Northern Arizona University, is a historian of Islam in Africa and the western Indian Ocean.Reese’s current research focuses on the British Settlement of Aden, located in present-day Yemen. He explores how Muslims from across Britain’s empire used the commonality of their faith to fashion a new community within the spaces created by imperial rule. In addition to insights into the day-to-day lives of Muslims, Reese shows the dynamic nature of interactions across what are often treated as impermeable boundaries dividing the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. Connections between Muslims across these regions pre-date European colonialism, of course, but the webs and infrastructure created by empire intensified the movement of people and ideas. Networks built in the nineteenth century evolved into a more horizontally integrated and intellectually engaged global community of Muslims by the twentieth century.

Contact:
Rita Koryan
Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies

Formations of Literature in Turkey: From Ottoman Origins to Global Emergence Firat Oruc (PhD, Duke University, 2010) is a postdoctoral fellow in world literature and a visiting assistant professor in the Comparative Literary Studies Program. His research and teaching interests center on world literature, global modernism, postcolonial literatures and theory, modern discourses of Islam, literatures of Turkey and the Middle East more broadly, contemporary global fiction, and transnational cinemas. Oruc was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the “Cultures in Transnational Perspective” program at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Contact:
Rita Koryan
Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies

Trainees in the Center for Reproductive Science present their research data weekly.  The meeting is videoconferenced between Cook 3118-B, Lurie 10-123, and Children's Memorial Research Center conference room D/E.  Light breakfast is provided at Cook and Lurie sites.  Anyone is welcome to attend. More Information.

Contact:
Fern Elizabeth Murdoch
Center for Reproductive Science

  The second annual entrepreneur@nu conference is a showcase of the entrepreneurial community at Northwestern and a unique networking opportunity for students, alumni, and Northwestern partners. This year's event is a more unified, collaborative effort than previous conferences, representing constituents from across campus, including McCormick, Kellogg, The Entrepreneurial Law School, Weinberg, BIP, INVO, UCS, Alumni Relations and several student groups.   Join us Wednesday, May 23 from 9:00am to 3:00pm at the Norris University Center for a wide array of panels, expos, and demos providing advice and experiences for entrepreneurs at all stages of their journey. The Northwestern Venture Challenge (NUVC), where Northwestern startups compete for a grand prize of $15,000, immediately follows from 3:00-6:00pm. More Information.

Contact:
Michael Andrew Deem
Farley Center for Entrepreneurship

The Chicago Drug Discovery Consortium is an informal biannual gathering of researchers from academia and industry focused on all aspects of drug discovery. 1:15-1:20 Welcome1:20-2:20 David J. Burns, Neuroscience Early Pain Discovery Team, Abbott Laboratories, “Early Pain Discovery: How Do We Identify New Pain Targets and Drugs?”2:20-3:15 Jim Wang, Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences,University of Illinois at Chicago, “Molecular Mechanisms and Interventions of Chemotherapy induced Neuropathic Pain”3:15-4:15 Sergey Kozmin, Chicago Tri-Institutional Center for Chemical Methods and Library Development, University of Chicago“Synthetic Small-Molecule Libraries to Enable Discovery of New Pharmacological Probes”4:15-5:00 Roger Bossé, Molecular Medicine, Perkin-Elmer“Cell-based Assays for Drug Discovery”5:00-6:00 Reception Herman Auditorium is located on the first floor of the Molecular Biology Research Building (MBRB), 900 South Ashland Avenue, on the UIC Medical Campus. Parking is available across the street in a parking garage at the corner of Taylor Street, Marshfield Avenue, and Paulina Street. Please enter MBRB through the main Marshfield entrance.

Contact:
Jim Bray
Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS)

Contact:
Nicole Michelle Smith
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)

Bearing witness is one of the most powerful tools in the fight to end sexual violence. However, it can also lead to social exclusion and further violence. This is especially true in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Join the Center for Forced Migration Studies for a performance of collected testimonies of Congolese women performed by Northwestern’s Oral History and Performance as Social Action. Following the performance, CFMS founding Director, Galya Ruffer will moderate a panel discussion on global sexual violence and the challenges of bearing witness featuring Therese Kulungu of Panzi Hospital in the DRC, Anne K. Ream of The Voices and Faces Project and Leslie Thomas of The ARTWORKS PROJECTS. The event is free and open to the public and will be held at Northwestern’s Annie May Swift Hall on May 24, 2012 from 5-7PM. 1920 Campus Drive, Evanston, Il.

Contact:
Center for Forced Migration Studies
Center for Forced Migration Studies (CFMS)

Join members of Wild Roots every Thursday during Spring quarter for tending to the garden.  From those with green thumbs, to certified plant killers, everyone is welcome to join in and get your hands dirty. __ Wild Roots is a student-directed garden which grows fresh produce for the Northwestern and Evanston communities using sustainable practices. Wild Roots serves the evolving educational and social needs of the Northwestern community by inspiring students to think critically about the food we eat and by starting conversations about sustainability, social justice, and our food system. More Information.

ISEN

Translational Research in Mantle Cell Lymphoma Michael Wang, MD Director Myeloma Tissue Bank University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center Hosuton, TX More Information.

Contact:
Cancer Center
Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University

Faculty & Fellows Colloquium Terrorism and the Law of Nations Juliet Sorensen is a clinical assistant professor with the law school’s Center for International Human Rights. From 2003- 2010, she was an assistant US attorney in Chicago, focusing on fraud and public corruption. She has prosecuted City of Chicago inspectors as part of Operation Crooked Code, a bribery investigation into Chicago’s Building and Zoning departments. She also prosecuted a Hutu leader of the Rwandan genocide on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement No Safe Haven initiative against human rights violators. Sorensen has taught trial advocacy on behalf of the Department of Justice to prosecutors in South America and West Africa.

Contact:
Krzysztof Kozubski
Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies

Ping Yin, Md, PhD, senior research associate in the Bulun Lab, will make a data presentation entitled: "Genome-wide progesterone receptor binding: cell type-specific and shared mechanisms in uterine fibroids and breast cancer". Trainees associated with the Center for Reproductive Science (CRS) present their research in the "Reproductive Research Reports" (R³) weekly data club.  The meeting is videoconferenced between Cook 3118-B, Lurie 10-123, and Children's Memorial Research Center conference room D/E.  A light breakfast is provided at the Cook and Lurie sites.  Everyone is welcome to attend. More Information.

Contact:
Fern Elizabeth Murdoch
Center for Reproductive Science

Contact:
Nicole Smith
Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)

Between Legal Ideal and Social Reality: Property Relations in Colonial Zanzibar Elke Stockreiter, History, University of Iowa More Information.

Contact:
Kate Dargis
Program of African Studies

Join members of Wild Roots every Thursday during Spring quarter for tending to the garden.  From those with green thumbs, to certified plant killers, everyone is welcome to join in and get your hands dirty. __ Wild Roots is a student-directed garden which grows fresh produce for the Northwestern and Evanston communities using sustainable practices. Wild Roots serves the evolving educational and social needs of the Northwestern community by inspiring students to think critically about the food we eat and by starting conversations about sustainability, social justice, and our food system. More Information.

ISEN

MRI Guided Liver-Directed Therapies for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Andrew Larson, PhD-Professor, Department of Radiology Research Opportunities in Interventional Oncology Reed Omary, MD-Professor, Department of Radiology Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine More Information.

Contact:
Cancer Center
Robert H Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University

"Teacher Quality Policy When Supply Matters" by Jesse Rothstein, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics, University of California, Berkeley This is part of the Economics/IPR Applied Micro and Labor & Education Policy Joint Seminar Series.

Contact:
Jaye Stapleton
Institute For Policy Research