Assistant Professor of Economics Leshui He. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Data must be collected and data must be analyzed. But economist Leshui He believes that his field traditionally gravitates more to the latter than the former. And he’d like to see that change.

“It’s surprising, actually, how much work has been done in developing techniques to dig out more information from the same set of data,” he says. “I was once very interested in these things.”

But nowadays He, who started at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in August as an assistant professor of economics, is more interested in practicing economics the way natural scientists do their work.

“For instance, my friend in nutrition science will run an experiment for two years and analyze the data two months,” he says, “whereas an economist will get data in half a month — or even, for publicly available data, a week — and analyze it for a year or two.”

Meet other tenure-track faculty members new to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in fall 2015:

• Henry Boateng, mathematics
• Carla Essenberg, biology
• Alison Melnick, religious studies

Professor He comes from Kunming, China, and has lived in the United States since 2006. He earned a bachelor’s in business administration from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, but his first love was for information technology and computer science.

His interest in working with data and mathematical models steered him toward economics, and He received his doctorate in the field from the University of Connecticut in 2013.

“So far I’m still pretty happy about the decision,” he says.

A microeconomist, He has researched the economics of law and organizations, particularly corporations. A 2014 paper that he has submitted to the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization transfers the traditional manufacturing model of “make or buy” — today Apple makes its own glass iPhone screens, but it used to buy them from Corning — to professional services.

In other words, the research explores the business advantages of contracting for, say, legal or marketing services rather than handling those services in house. (A major advantage, He explains, is that the senior members of outside firms more effectively facilitate interactions between their subordinates and their clients.)

He is increasingly studying economic issues peculiar to developing countries. And China is a strong focus. Currently He is exploring peer effects in education in China — that is, how the academic success of students is affected by the academic abilities of the students around them.

Part of economics’ appeal, He says, is the broad applicability of its methodological toolkit.

“This is very interesting, because in the U.S. there are a lot of discussions about peer effects in student achievement,” He says. “For instance, if a student is sent to a class that has better peers, will that improve his achievements?”

He is working with data from a Chinese middle school (for ages 12–15) that educates more than 4,000 students divided among three grades, each of which is divided, in turn, into 24 academic classes — “class” in the sense of a ranking, not a course. A student is assigned to one of those classes on the basis of admission test scores.

“The students are always in the same class, always interacting with the same peers,” He explains. “They don’t swap classes and work with other people.

“My experiment is with two very similar students at the beginning of the seventh grade. I have their exam data and background data all the way to ninth grade. From there, I’m hoping to learn a lot about how the characteristics of their peers and classmates affect their achievements.”

At ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, economics is typically one of the three most popular majors (vying with psychology and politics). How does He explain economics’ appeal?

Part of it, he says, is the broad applicability of economics’ methodological toolkit. “It’s pretty cool, because it gives you all sorts of freedom. From a career development perspective, it doesn’t matter which particular industry you get into, you’ll be able to make use of economics techniques.”

He adds, “I think economics has an advantage in that it’s very connected to what’s going on in society.” He explains that modern economics takes as its research subjects realms of human decision-making that go way beyond monetary decisions.

“You can pretty much write about anything. It’s fantastic.”

He met his wife, Mengxi Ying, who is also from China, at the University of Connecticut. “We met on the other side of the world” from home, he says. “It was actually quite nice to meet my spouse in grad school. We would never have met if we hadn’t come here.” They have a 3-year-old daughter.

Why ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ for Leshui He? “My department colleagues are wonderful,” he says. “When I visited ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, everyone I met was so friendly and smart. That made me really want to be a part of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.”

Here’s what it is like to spend the summer as a funded research assistant in a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ geology lab that, among many other steps, melts chemical mixes in an oven at temperatures up to 1750 degrees Celsius, or 3182 degrees Fahrenheit.

With the drill press in the background that she uses to take cores from slabs of glass, Paige Guevarra ’18 of Brooklyn, N.Y., is shown in Genevieve Robert’s geology lab. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Name: Paige Guevarra ’18

Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Major: Undecided, leaning toward the natural sciences

Summer funding: Science Fellows Program Faculty-Student Grant, part of a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ program giving first-year students a solid introduction to STEM research.

1. Tell us more about your research project.

It’s titled “Synthesis of Mixed-alkali Aluminosilicate Glasses,” and it’s designed to determine how changes in chemical composition affect the heat capacity and viscosity, or resistance to flowing, of certain types of glass.

I’m assisting Rebecca Smith [a rising senior from South Freeport, Maine] with her thesis research and Genevieve Robert [Smith’s adviser, assistant professor of geology, and an authority on factors affecting how molten rock flows].

We’re synthesizing and preparing test samples of glasses with different chemical compositions. And we’re testing the viscosity, density, heat capacity of each sample.

We’re looking to see more clearly the effect that the ratios of sodium, potassium, and silica have on viscosity, and therefore on the properties of magma within the Earth.

2. What are some of the overarching lessons you’ve taken away from this experience?

In the lab, when we’re not actively doing something with our hands, there’s a lot of free time, which I use for reading geology literature about silicate glasses and melts.

“It’s on me to use my time wisely and be productive.”

I realized this is a great chance to learn more about the experiments we are conducting, and that I should take advantage of this opportunity that I wouldn’t have had if not for the Science Fellows program.

3. How is this different from coursework?

I don’t have assignments due, and Genevieve isn’t saying, “Hey, read this, do this.” It’s on me to use my time wisely and be productive. What I’ll be able to take away from this experience will reflect the effort I put into being a part of the lab. This knowledge is giving me more motivation and incentive to engage myself in my work, which I hope will carry on through the rest of my years at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ and in life.

Paige Guevarra '18 of Brooklyn, N.Y., and Assistant Professor of Geology Genevieve Robert. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Paige Guevarra '18 of Brooklyn, N.Y., pours an experimental glass mixture onto a copper sheet to solidify. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

With the drill press that she uses to take cores from slabs of glass in the background, Paige Guevarra '18 of Brooklyn, N.Y., is shown in Genevieve Robert's geology lab. (Josh Kuckens/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

The lab work has given relevance to things that I learned throughout high school about the whole scientific process — having a hypothesis, a purpose, making a clear procedure and documenting everything.

People always laugh, “Do we really have to write everything down?” But you do. When I have to write about this at the end of the summer, or when Rebecca is writing her thesis a year after the first experiments were conducted, we do need to know everything that was done.

4. Genevieve and Becky Smith are serving as mentors to you. How is that going?

Becky is a really good geology mentor, considering that I had very little knowledge of it and she was in the same place not too many years ago. I appreciate her presence as both an older student and friend who is able to offer guidance not only in lab, but also in classes and ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ life in general.

Genevieve has guided me through a lot of what we’re doing and explained concepts in a way that I could understand without extensive background knowledge.

Working with them has also shown me where I could potentially go. In a year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Genevieve has created a lab and found students to work in it, and maybe that will be the path I’ll pursue one day.

5. Why would you recommend someone do research over the summer?

It’s your school, and the relationships you build with professors or other students over the summer — whether it’s with people in your lab or in another lab, or other students here in the summer — could really be beneficial.

I’ve been in contact with other student science researchers on campus, but I wasn’t aware how many students on campus are doing things besides science research, such as economics research, working in our art museum, or working in the Lewiston and Auburn communities.

1. Video: Behind the scenes with the Bobcats at the NCAA Cross Country Championships

2. Psychology department receives national award for service to the discipline

3. Video: Alex Bolden ’15 and the 2013 Sankofa performance

4. With presidential installation complete, Spencer heads to Welcome Events

5. Hospital reveals inside story for physics students exploring medical imaging

6. Did you know? Goosie and the peat bog

7. Emily Kane’s book The Gender Trap attracts media interest

8. Video: First-graders give a ‘ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ cheer

9. End-of-year giving info: How to contact the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Fund during the holidays

10. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in the News

1. Video: Behind the scenes with the Bobcats at the NCAA Cross Country Championships

2. Psychology department receives national award for service to the discipline

3. Video: Alex Bolden ’15 and the 2013 Sankofa performance

4. With presidential installation complete, Spencer heads to the Welcome Events

5. Hospital reveals inside story for physics students exploring medical imaging

6. Did you know? Goosie and the peat bog

7. Emily Kane’s book The Gender Trap attracts media interest

8. Video: First-graders give a ‘ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½-ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ cheer

9. End-of-year giving info: How to reach the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Fund during the holidays

10. ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in the News

Those activities have waned, and now, thanks to a tourism boom, the place attracts a lot more people. There’s world-class mountain biking, whitewater rafting on the Colorado River, two national parks, and, as a result, an ever-increasing number of coffee shops and Mexican restaurants. Still, the nearest mall and big-box stores are 90-plus minutes away, and first-run movies take a month to find our tiny three-screen theater. The local newspaper is just a weekly.

In this amazing landscape (lots of films have been shot around here), accented by a quirky, tight-knit community of locals, I’ve found my home. But living here has its tradeoffs, the most apparent of which is a disconnection from part of my identity — my ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ identity. Where I live, folks don’t just ask, “Where’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College?” but “Where’s Maine?”

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ itself is 2,000 miles away, and my closest college friends live in the Pacific Northwest or New England. Attending ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ weddings and visiting other friends during my travels helps me get a fix on my ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ identity, as do the e-mail ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½News updates. A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ calendar hangs in my home office.

Even as I’m feeling cut off from the place and people that helped form part of my self, my work here is all about place. My job with the Bioregional Outdoor Education Project helps rural schoolteachers instill in their students a stronger sense of place. The idea is that students who have a relationship with their outdoor place will become better citizens, more inclined to protect and interact with their environment.

On one summer trip to train teachers in outdoor education, I met a woman about my age. As we camped in the bean fields of eastern Utah and talked about our backgrounds, I learned that she was from New England. I peppered her with questions: What part? Was she familiar with the New England colleges?

Well, she wasn’t just familiar with the New England colleges. She was a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumna — Sarah Merrill Strouthopoulos, Class of 1996.

My class. But we never knew one another as students.

It seemed impossible. But as she and I recreated our ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ years, we realized that we had led parallel and separate ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ lives. Sarah was an art history major; I toiled in the geology labs. She lived off campus; I was a happy Frye Street resident. She spent her junior year abroad in Nepal, while I spent a semester in Ecuador. She was a varsity skier, and I played rugby.

After that surprise mini-reunion, Sarah and I continued to work together during the school year. She is an elementary school teacher in Durango, Colo., about three hours from my home office in Moab. Every other week, I traveled to her classroom to work with her and her students. We set up compass courses in her schoolyard, conducted “Animal Olympics” with her students and their parents, and planned field trips throughout the year.

Sarah and I spent a rich school year reliving our time at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, but we also created a new chapter: us working together on outdoor and place-based education projects, while her students’ wide eyes told us we were accomplishing our goals. To our shared stories of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — we laughed about the housing lottery and recalled our graduation speaker — we added new ones, like her students’ highly amusing oral reports on Colorado eco-zones.

The teacher certification program culminates with an extended backcountry rafting trip on the San Juan River. Winding through southern Utah and the northern Navajo Reservation, Sarah and I realized that we had discovered a new sense of place, but not in strict geographical terms. Instead, it’s more like a deep awareness, one that was planted and grown in each of us during our ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ years, when we learned to take risks, challenge ourselves, and meet new people.

Separately, Sarah and I put down roots here in the West, drawn by a love of the landscape, the environment, and the people. But she and I are connected, and we are connected to others, across miles, across years, and across differences.

By Erika Jones ’96, Illustration by Marty Braun

Dixon’s talk, the second in a series to celebrate the establishment of a new ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ major in biological chemistry, will include a discussion of the biochemistry of cell cycling and the role of biological chemistry research in society.

President-elect of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dixon has recieved numerous awards and research grants, including substantial support from the National Institutes of Health , Parke-Davis and Walther Cancer Institute. The Minor J. Coon Professor and chair of biological chemistry at the University of Michigan, Dixon was named Michigan Scientist of the Year in 1994.

Dixon serves as a consultant for Monsanto Chemical Company in St. Louis, Mitotix Incorporated in Cambridge, Mass., and Dendritech Inc. in Midland, Mich. The executive editor of “Analytical Biochemistry” and a member of the editorial boards for “American Journal of Physiology,” “Endocrinology” and “Biochemistry,” his current research focuses on the structure function of protein tyrosine phosphatases and on pancreatic hormones.

The author of close to 200 scientific papers and a contributor to scores of books, Dixon received a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Ph.D from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.

Before moving to the University of Michigan in 1991, Dixon taught for 18 years at Purdue University where he was the Harvey W. Wiley Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry from 1986-91. He served as a faculty member of the Indiana University School of Medicine from 1976-91.

The seminar series is co-sponsored by the President’s Office and the Biological Chemistry Program Committee at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.