Second round of funding for Emerging Areas of Research program announced
The second round of funding in IU Bloomington’s Emerging Areas of Research program has been announced by IU Bloomington Provost and Executive Vice President Lauren Robel and Vice Provost for Research Rick Van Kooten.
The request for proposals will be available April 10. Each project will receive an award of approximately $3 million in cash and one to three faculty lines.
A campuswide town hall meeting is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. April 17 in State Room East, Indiana Memorial Union. At the meeting, interested faculty and others will hear from Van Kooten and also from Distinguished Professor Linda B. Smith, the team leader for the first Emerging Areas of Research project, “Learning: Machines, Brains and Children.”
Staff, faculty encouraged to take IU Student Media survey
IU Student Media is conducting a market research survey to better gauge readership and gain an accurate understanding of how IU faculty, staff and students get their news and interact with all forms of media.
Those who fill out the survey are entered to win a $100 gift card courtesy of T.I.S. In addition, each entrant is offered a $3 off coupon at Bucceto’s after submitting the survey.
The survey takes about two to three minutes.
Don’t forget: Little 500 is next weekend

The IU Student Foundation will present the 30th running of the women’s race at 4 p.m. Friday, April 21. The men’s race, now in its 67th year, takes place the next day at 2 p.m. Both races will take place in Bill Armstrong Stadium, off Fee Lane, just north of its intersection with 17th Street.
Want to live vicariously through the riders, but don’t want to brave the crowds? Both Little 500 races will be shown live online at broadcast.iu.edu, presented by students in The Media School at IU and produced by IU Radio-Television Services. It also will be simulcast by WIUX student radio.
Proceeds from the race benefit students who need unexpected financial assistance to complete their IU degrees.
Read about IU senior Ali Oppel, who will participate in the 30th running of the women’s Little 500 race, in the latest installment of the One Day/One Hoosier series.
IU Recreational Sports to host golf tournament
Registration is now open for the Recreational Sports Golf Tournament, scheduled for April 29 at IU’s Championship Golf Course. The event is open to IU faculty, staff, students and the general public.
Membership at the course is not required to participate and anyone over 18 can play on a team. The tournament is a scramble format, meaning participants can play the best ball from the team.
Registration closes April 21. Registration forms and additional event details are available on the Rec Sports website.
IU Bloomington Professional Council nominations and elections
Each year, at least seven positions are available for election on the 21-member Bloomington Professional Council. Candidates need only have been a member of IU Bloomington’s professional staff for one year as of July 1, 2017.
Nominations are being accepted now through April 14. Any IU Bloomington staff member may nominate up to three fellow staff members by sending their name and email to council parliamentarian Robert Ping. He will contact each nominee to ensure they accept the nomination. Staff members are also welcome to self-nominate.

All staff members hired as of April 19 are eligible to vote. The Bloomington Professional Council will send an email with specific voting instructions on April 20. All votes must be cast by end of day April 28 and new council members will be announced in early May.
Barnstone to read from ‘Poets of the Bible’
Poet, translator and scholar Willis Barnstone will return to Bloomington this month to read from and discuss his forthcoming book “Poets of the Bible: From Solomon’s Song of Songs to John’s Revelation.” The event will be at 6 p.m. April 13 in the University Club Faculty Room of the Indiana Memorial Union.
Barnstone is distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and Spanish and Portuguese at IU Bloomington. “Poets of the Bible,” to be published this summer by W.W. Norton and Company Inc., has been widely praised by scholars and critics.
“Distinguished poet-scholar Willis Barnstone shows us the religion in poetry and the poetry in religion, and, best of all, how poetry flows from one religion to another,” writes David M. Hertz, professor of comparative literature and the host for Barnstone’s visit. “Who else but Willis Barnstone – who has written, translated and in general published more about the literatures of the world than anyone else – could enable us to see this so clearly?”
IU Press partners with Fulcrum Project on digital publishing
Indiana University Press and the university’s Office of Scholarly Publishing have launched their first content on Fulcrum, a platform for integrating digital objects with the narratives that reference them.
IU Press launched its participation with “A Song to Save the Salish Sea: Musical Performance as Environmental Activism” by University of Minnesota communication studies professor Mark Pedelty. The book includes audio and video recordings as well as text.
Fulcrum addresses the needs of scholarly authors who wish to link source materials to book-length interpretations in an integrated way. Based at the University of Michigan Library and Press, and with initial development supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the platform consists of a client-based hosting environment with intuitive workflows as well as a set of value-added publishing services to help partner publishers expand their capabilities.
IU faculty receive honors, awards
Several IU faculty have received honors or awards, including:
- IU Distinguished Professor Craig Pikaard’s position as an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute has been extended for an additional seven years. Pikaard is the Carlos O. Miller Professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators are regarded as being at the forefront of their fields.
- Yan Yu, assistant professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Chemistry, has received a research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to advance her research in the area of understanding and engineering immune cell function using nanotechnology. The fellowship, which include $60,000 in research funding, recognizes early-career scholars whose achievements mark them as the next generation of scientific leaders.
- IU Distinguished Professor Kevin Zumbrun has been selected as a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. A professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Mathematics, Zumbun is a top mathematician in the field of nonlinear partial differential equation. Society fellowships recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to their field.
- Adam Zlotnick, professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. Zlotnick’s research focuses on the physics of virus self-assembly, whose applications include developing new treatments for hepatitis B. The honor recognizes a record of scientific achievement and original contributions advancing the field of microbiology.
IU Tennis Center professional honored

IU Tennis Center assistant professional Nick Laskaris has been named the 2016 Official U.S. Professional Tennis Association’s Midwest Division Indiana Professional of the Year, according to IU Recreational Sports. Laskaris will be honored at the Western and Southern Open in August at the USPTA Awards Banquet.
Laskaris started coaching at the Tennis Center in 2008 where he was also the manager and practice partner of the IU men’s and women’s varsity tennis teams. Following graduation from the Kelley School of Business, he taught at Tennis 360 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. He was then the junior tennis coordinator at Towpath Tennis in Akron, Ohio, and was the tennis director at Lake Forest Country Club.
At the IU Tennis Center, he directs the Junior Program which includes clinics, match plays and junior team tennis. Laskaris also assists with the Tennis Training for Career Professionals program designed to give student-employees the skillset to become successful tennis teaching professionals.