Clark Whelton ’59

Say Your Prayers and Take Your Chances — City Journal

Clark Whelton ’59 compared his recollections of the 1957–58 global influenza pandemic — which he experienced at �ֲ���ý firsthand — to what’s transpiring now. 

“Today, I look back and wonder if an oblivious America faced the 1957 plague with a kind of clueless folly,” writes Whelton, a former speechwriter for New York City mayors Edward Koch and Rudolph Giuliani.

“Why weren’t we more active in fighting this contagion? Could stricter quarantine procedures have reduced the rate of infection and lowered the death toll? In short, why weren’t we more afraid?”

Read the story:

• “” City Journal, March 13, 2020

Jenna Armstrong ’15

Duke medical student Jenna Armstrong named Gates-Cambridge scholar — Duke Today 

Duke University announced that Jenna Armstrong, �ֲ���ý ’15, won a Gates-Cambridge Scholarship, a prestigious award that funds the full cost of a degree at Cambridge University. 

Starting in October 2020, Armstrong will earn a doctorate in physiology, development, and neuroscience. She plans to study “human metabolic resilience in older individuals through the lens of mitochondrial function and malleability,” according to Duke — in other words, she’ll study aging, and how to ease its effects, at the cellular level. 

Armstrong majored in biological chemistry and mathematics at �ֲ���ý and was a rower all four years. 

Read the story:

• “,” Duke Today, Feb. 17, 2020

Mike Nelson ’06

Nelson eager to be another kid’s lighthouse — The Wanderer 

Southeastern Massachusetts’ The Wanderer reported that Mike Nelson ’06 was appointed superintendent of the Old Rochester Regional School District. When he takes the job on June 30, he will be the youngest superintendent in the state. 

Nelson, who studied politics at �ֲ���ý, always knew he wanted to work in public education, he told reporter Mick Colageo. He has served as director of student services and assistant superintendent in the same school district. 

“I really thought about ‘Why am I applying for this position?’” said Nelson, who is currently developing remote learning opportunities for the students who are staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic. During his interview for the post, “I shared comments about the analogy that educators can be lighthouses for children.

“I thought about how fortunate I was not only to have one lighthouse but many different lighthouses who were educators throughout my life. And I said, ‘That’s the reason why I believe I ended up interviewing for this position,’ because in some ways it helps me come full circle in terms of what people gave to me.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” The Wanderer, March 12, 2020

Katie Dobkowski 

Parasitic sushi worms have quietly been on the rise, study says — New York Post 

Hannah Frishberg of The New York Post covered a new study, co-authored by Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Katie Dobkowski, which found that the number of parasitic worms humans can ingest by eating raw or undercooked seafood is on the rise. 

Dobkowski worked on the paper, which studied the prevalence of Anisakis, or “herring worm,” as a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Washington. 

While herring worms — which also infect other species — pose more of a danger for marine mammals, the parasites can cause symptoms of food poisoning for humans who eat contaminated sushi. 

People up and down the supply chain do their best to remove the worms before they make it to a diner’s plate, but the researchers recommend that, to be extra sure their roll doesn’t contain a little something extra, sushi lovers should inspect every bite for worms before chowing down. 

Read the story: 

• “,” New York Post, March 20, 2020

Rakey Drammeh ’14

‘Squash gave me the tools to pick and choose my way to exist in the world at large,’ says StreetSquash graduate Rakey — Squash Mad

Squash news site Squash Mad editor Alan Thatcher covered a dinner celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Squash and Education Alliance, a network that combines squash, academics, and college preparation for underresourced communities. 

During the event, Rakey Drammeh ’14 gave a “show-stopping speech” about her experience with the affiliated program StreetSquash. An environmental studies major, she was captain of the women’s squash team at �ֲ���ý and is now a software developer at Citibank. 

“SEA introduced me to a world that I never imagined knowing or being part of,” Drammeh said in her speech. “But more than that, it gave me the tools to pick and choose my way to exist in that world at large.”

Read the story: 

• “�Ę,” Squash Mad, Jan. 26, 2020

�ֲ���ý College

�ֲ���ý College breaks record for Fulbright award winners — Sun Journal 

The Lewiston Sun Journal shared the college’s February announcement of a historic year for the college’s Fulbright Student Award program.

With 24 young alumni receiving Fulbright-sponsored awards for teaching and research worldwide in 2019–20, �ֲ���ý is the No. 1 producer of Fulbright Student awards among U.S. liberal arts colleges. The college’s two dozen awards are the most ever going to a U.S. liberal arts college.

(Subsequent to this article, in March, the U.S. State Department due to the COVID-19 public health crisis.)

Read the story: 

• “,” Sun Journal, Feb. 10, 2020

Clifton Daggett Gray 

Insight: When Clarence Darrow came to Maine — Portland Press Herald 

For the Portland Press Herald, U.S. District Court Senior Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote about a curious episode for �ֲ���ý, Maine, and legal history: the time �ֲ���ý President Clifton Daggett Gray, after boasting that college debaters could best legendary attorney and orator Clarence Darrow, had to put his money where his mouth was. 

In 1927, Darrow, known as the fierce defense lawyer who litigated the “Scopes monkey trial,” came to Maine to debate Gray on the question, “What and why is man?” The debate would be a friendly clash of worldviews: Gray, who held a doctorate from the University of Chicago, was an ordained Baptist minister; Darrow was thoroughly agnostic. 

The two debated first in Boston and again two days later in Portland. Of the Boston contest, The New York Times wrote, “If the scholarly shield of Dr. Gray shone with a higher polish, the ironic lance of Mr. Darrow smote with a sharper point.”

And the Press Herald, on the debate in Portland: “The contest of wit and logic rested at the conclusion without decision.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” Portland Press Herald, Feb. 9, 2020

William Worthy ’42

William Worthy — a radical, intrepid journalist and activist — Amsterdam News 

Herb Boyd of Amsterdam News profiled William Worthy ’42, a journalist and activist whose dedication to his work led him to flout U.S. travel restrictions during the Cold War. 

Defying a U.S. ban on travel to China, Worthy made a reporting trip there in the late 1950s, after which the State Department declined to renew his passport. He later traveled to Cuba without a passport, was convicted for returning to the United States without one, and had the conviction overturned. His trip to Cuba was the subject of “The Ballad of William Worthy” by folksinger Phil Ochs. 

Boyd praised Worthy’s courage and ability to stand up against injustice no matter who perpetuated it, whether on the political right or left. “Worthy not only courageously lifted his voice for the oppressed, he did it no matter where he ventured — China, Cuba, Russia, or the four corners of the world,” he wrote. 

Read the story: 

• “,” Amsterdam News, Feb. 6, 2020

Francesco Duina 

Flyover 2020: What does patriotism mean? — MPR 

Professor of Sociology Francesco Duina joined Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild and Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio for a discussion about what patriotism means and how it will affect voters’ decisions in the next presidential election. 

Duina’s 2017 book, Broke and Patriotic, explores why the poorest Americans are the most patriotic. The radio discussion turned to a meaty question: whether patriotism requires an uncritical, love-it-or-leave-it attitude, or if a self-defined patriot can still be critical of U.S. policies.

Duina said many Americans’ ideas of patriotism combine contribution to the nation, whether through military or another type of service, with a sense of hope for the future.

“Those are essential elements of American patriotism,” he said during the discussion, an entry in Miller’s call-in “Flyover” program. But “some people feel that the ability to live up to the notion of giving back with hope is vanishing because of a confluence of various long-term racial trends, economic trends, political trends.” 

“Some people feel that you can be patriotic — but you’re up against insurmountable challenges.” 

Listen to the interview:

• “” MPR, Feb. 5, 2020��

Nathan Tefft 

New study suggests raising taxes on e-cigarettes could encourage traditional smoking — Forbes 

Kelly Phillips Erb of Forbes reported on a new study, co-authored by Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft and funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, that found raising taxes on e-cigarettes can lead to a corresponding rise in consumption of traditional tobacco products. 

That’s a problem — when it comes to so-called sin taxes, which prices are raised in a bid to discourage bad behavior, you don’t want people to swap one behavior for another. 

“Because smoking is known to have substantial negative health impacts,” Tefft said in an interview with �ֲ���ýNews, “policymakers should be aware of this potential tradeoff when contemplating e-cigarette control policies.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” Forbes, Feb. 10, 2020

Cameron Hamilton ’12

Lessons from ‘Love Is Blind’ for socially distanced daters — NPR

Cameron Hamilton ’12 and wife Lauren Speed — who met on the breakout Netflix hit Love is Blind — spoke with NPR’s Michel Martin about their unique perspective on social distancing. 

The premise of Love is Blind is that contestants date without ever seeing each other’s faces, at least until they become engaged. Fan favorites Hamilton and Speed have been married for more than a year. 

The pair spoke with Martin about their own relationship and how to date at a distance — but some of Hamilton’s advice can apply to relationships more broadly, romantic or not. 

“I think the power of communication is key here and truly listening to what the other person has to say,” he said. “I mean, it’s easy to hear them, but to really focus in and take a beat and try to process what they’re saying and respond to that.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” NPR, March 22, 2020

See also: 

• “,” Bangor Daily News, Feb. 26, 2020

Jessica Anthony ’96

Political satire Enter the Aardvark is wonderfully weird — Time 

For Time, Annabel Gutterman reviewed Enter the Aardvark, a new novel by Jessica Anthony ’96, a lecturer in English at �ֲ���ý.

The novel starts with Alexander Paine Wilson, a young Republican politician, receiving a taxidermied aardvark on his doorstep. The story follows the politician as well as two friends in 19th-century England, all of whom have to hide the fact that they are gay.  

“T��dzܲ��� Enter the Aardvark is certainly satire, Anthony’s depiction of Wilson’s repressed sexuality cuts beneath the surface,” Gutterman wrote. 

“Her dissection of Wilson’s political beliefs, particularly his anti-abortion stance, isn’t just sharp commentary on polarization, identity, and power in the U.S. It’s also a poignant examination of what happens when we deny ourselves the ability to love and be loved.” 

Read the review: 

• “,” Time, March 18, 2020

Amy Bradfield Douglass

Questions loom over the future of police lineups — Phys.org 

Australia’s Flinders University announced that a review of studies on eyewitness identification in criminal cases resulted in revised and new recommendations for setting up identifications, in the hope of avoiding false or faulty evidence. 

Professor of Psychology Amy Bradfield Douglass was part of the team that modified four existing recommendations and created five more, including recording lineups on video and having police put in writing the reasons behind suspecting someone of a crime. 

The review led one of the co-authors, Flinders’ Neil Brewer, to write a paper advocating for getting rid of traditional lineups altogether. 

Read the story:

• “,” Phys.org, Feb. 25, 2020

Emily Kane

How to raise feminist boys — The Week

For The Week, Claire Gillespie wrote about her own, often-difficult, efforts to raise her two boys to accept and promote gender equality. 

Gillespie wrote that she makes a wide variety of toys, colors, and opportunities available to her children; with her husband, tries to model equality — and worries that sexism and gender roles are so entrenched in the world around her that harmful patterns will prevail anyway. 

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane had some words of wisdom for Gillespie. “When parents enforce gendered expectations, it is often out of fear their children (especially their sons) will be teased, ostracized, or otherwise excluded if they don’t fall into line with those expectations,” she said. 

“We can all help by avoiding judgment, and those small, everyday assumptions about what a kid will enjoy or be good at based on their gender.”

Read the story:

• “,” The Week, Feb. 27, 2020

Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, Class of 1869

The ‘unconquerable’ Mary Wheelwright Mitchell — Sun Journal 

Steve Collins of the Sun Journal profiled Mary Wheelwright Mitchell, �ֲ���ý’ first female graduate, whose refusal to leave the college helped keep it true to its founding commitment to coeducation. 

�ֲ���ý was the first Northeastern college to admit women, and for that reason surrounding colleges looked down on it. This kind of pressure and others caused the first female �ֲ���ý students to withdraw without degrees. Mitchell was the first to stay the course. 

�ֲ���ý founder and president Oren Cheney secured Mitchell a scholarship from the state of Maine to help her through her studies. Reflecting both her independent spirit and, perhaps, how dramatically a college education’s price point has changed in the ensuing 150 years, Mitchell famously refused to take the help. 

“I cannot take that, Mr. Cheney,” Mitchell said. “Give it to the brethren. I can take care of myself.”

Read the story: 

• “,” Sun Journal, March 1, 2020

Matt Charest ’20

After thousands of miles in the same pool, this Maine swimmer is moving on — 207, WCSH-TV

News Center Maine’s show 207 featured the uplifting story of Matt Charest ’20 of Lewiston, Maine, whose entire swimming career has been based in �ֲ���ý’ Tarbell pool. 

Head swim coach Peter Casares started giving Charest private lessons when Charest was 8 years old, and when he was old enough, he started attending swim camps at Tarbell. When it came time to go to college, it was only natural for Charest to keep swimming, and to swim for �ֲ���ý. 

“While no one keeps track of such things, it’s possible that in his 13 years of swimming in Lewiston he has spent more time in the college pool than any other human being,” reporter Rob Caldwell pointed out. 

“It’s definitely a home,” Charest told the news program. “I feel at home when I’m in the water.”

Read the story: 

• “,” 207, March 5, 2020

Rebecca Herzig 

Why women feel pressured to shave — CNN 

Rebecca Herzig, professor of gender and sexuality studies, talked to CNN style reporter Marianna Cerini for an in-depth piece about how hairlessness in women came to be a beauty ideal in the United States, and how society’s views of body hair vary by time period and geography. 

Herzig said that an early example of the United States’ current ideal of hairlessness is none other than Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man, which associates body hair with primitivity and regards hairlessness as “more evolved.” 

Now, American culture considers body hair, at least for women, “abject,” or worthy of disgust and shame. “It’s worth noting that those are ideas about cleanliness, contingent social norms, rather than about actually removing ‘dirt,’” Herzig told CNN. “Most hair removal practices tend to introduce new opportunities for abrasion and infection.” 

Read the story: 

• “,” CNN, March 3, 2020

Sin taxes — levies on consumer products deemed harmful like alcohol or tobacco— have a history of creating unintended consequences, if not backfiring altogether.

When Minnesota raised excise taxes on cigarettes in the last decade, for example, it caused a spike in black-market smuggling.

Now you can add another item to the tax-and-consequences list: vaping products.

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft is one of six authors of a new study that finds that raising taxes on e-cigarettes in an attempt to cut vaping may have the unintended and dangerous consequence of increasing consumption of conventional — and many would say far more deadly — tobacco cigarettes.

Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the study, “,” was published Feb. 10 by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

A new study finds the “potential for e-cigarette taxes to induce some vapers to increase traditional cigarette smoking while vaping less,” says Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft, seen in class in February 2016. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

The study finds “the potential for e-cigarette taxes to induce some vapers to increase traditional cigarette smoking while vaping less,” Tefft, an expert in the intersection between consumer behavior and public policy, said in an interview with communications specialist Carmen Price at Montana State University, where he is a visiting research scholar.

When the price of vaping goes up, consumers will switch to cigarettes.

The study finds that for every 10% increase in e-cigarette prices, e-cigarette sales drop 26% while causing sales of conventional cigarettes to rise by 11%.

Put another way, for every e-cigarette pod (0.7 ml of liquid nicotine) not purchased as a result of an e-cigarette tax, consumers will buy 6.2 extra packs of regular cigarettes, according to simulations conducted by the researchers.

In economic terms, this means that e-cigarettes are “elastic” goods: Consumer demand will substantially change when prices change. Also, e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes are economic substitutes for one another, so when the price of vaping goes up, consumers will switch to cigarettes.

To arrive at their findings, the researchers examined Nielsen Retail Scanner data from about 35,000 U.S. retailers from 2011 to 2017.

Nearly 3% of U.S. adults used e-cigarettes in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with growth in use by adolescents especially rapid: Almost 27.5% of high school students used e-cigarettes in 2019.

“Because smoking is known to have substantial negative health impacts,” Tefft added, “policymakers should be aware of this potential tradeoff when contemplating e-cigarette control policies.”

Nearly 3% of U.S. adults used e-cigarettes in 2017. (Sebastien Salom Gomis / SIPA via AP Images)

Twenty states (including Maine) and the District of Columbia now tax vaping products, and Congress is contemplating a federal tax.

While vaping-related illnesses are a public health concern, conventional cigarettes kill nearly 480,000 Americans each year, according to CDC data.

Tefft is spending the 2019–20 academic year at MSU conducting research focused on risky health behaviors and health policy.

The benefits of organic foods, from sustainable production to improved health, are generally accepted. And so is their greater cost.

At a Lewiston grocery store, for example, blueberries sell for $2.50 a pint, while an organic option costs $10 a pint.

That got Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft and two colleagues thinking: What would happen if organic food production (specifically, organic apples, blueberries, oranges, and strawberries) was subsidized?

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

After all, cheaper fruit might boost demand, helping producers while benefiting consumers. Plus, organic food is a growing sector of the agricultural economy. In Maine alone, organic sales grew from $37 million in 2012 to $60 million by 2017.

These what-if questions were answered in “,” recently published in PLOS One, with Tefft as a coauthor along with corresponding author Erik Nelson and John Fitzgerald of Bowdoin.

To a layperson, a subsidy to support clean technology might sound like an all-round win. But as Tefft says, “economists are always looking at tradeoffs.”

For example, it’s known that some price subsidies for clean technology, such as those for electric cars in the U.S., have been shown to be “strongly regressive,” meaning that they who are able to afford the pricey vehicles.

Partly for that reason, Tefft and his coauthors were eager to look at how a price subsidy on organic fruit, even a modest 10 percent subsidy, might affect all households, poor, middle-income, and wealthy, “about which there is little current evidence.”

So the researchers reviewed a huge dataset: the purchasing patterns, from 2011 to 2013, of some 60,000 U.S households who record every single household purchase as members of Nielsen’s Consumer Panel.

Would various barriers — such as less availability or less demand — make subsidized products less accessible to poor households?

Even before tackling the data, Tefft and his colleagues thought they had an inkling: According to previous research, certain wealthier households — urban, educated, older, and married with at least one child at home — are more likely to purchase organic produce than less-wealthy households.

Given that lead, the researchers wondered: Would a 10 percent price subsidy on organic foods favor those households from a certain income class?

Would various barriers — such as less availability or less demand — make subsidized products less accessible to poor households? Worse yet, would a subsidy merely “improve the welfare of more educated and wealthier U.S. households” — another example of the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer?

Nick Lindholm ‘86, owner of the organic blueberry operation Blue Hill Berry Co., located in Penobscot, Maine, works on his farm on Aug. 1, 2019. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ���ý College)

Ultimately (and a bit surprisingly), they found that their answers were…nope, nope, and nope.

Not only would most households, regardless of wealth, “buy a bit more organic fruit with a price subsidy,” the researchers found, but poor or middle-income household would increase their consumption of organic fruits relatively more than rich households.

An organic shopper himself, Tefft knows that these findings, however supportive of a subsidy on organic fruit production, aren’t likely to translate immediately into new policies. For one, lots of questions remain unanswered.

For example, he says, “we don’t know how households of various income levels value the benefits — such as flavor, potential health impacts, or support for local agriculture — of organic food.”

While this academic foray was into how consumers engage with healthy food, Tefft often focuses on health-policy intersections with risky behaviors, such as excessive drinking.

He’s interested in “what people do that can cause risk” to themselves and harm to society, “yet they still enjoy doing it.” From a public policy standpoint, “it’s a challenge for society to make decisions on how to handle” such complex behavior. “Finding the right balance is an interesting question.”

And whether it’s about risky or healthy behaviors, he says, it’s “fun learning the answers to questions where it’s hard to guess the answer ahead of time.”

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91

A crusade to recover Jewish art lost during the Holocaust — Haaretz

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz interviewed Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 ahead of the premiere in Jerusalem of a documentary about Rynecki’s quest to track down the many lost paintings of her great-grandfather, a Polish artist who died in the Holocaust.

“My great-grandfather’s paintings were survivors…with no voice,” she said.

Moshe Rynecki, who lived in Warsaw, was able to hide some 800 of his paintings before the war. Though members of his family survived, including his wife, only a fraction of his paintings have been recovered.

Elizabeth Rynecki ’91 holds her great-grandfather’s self-portrait at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. (Photograph by Sławomir Grünberg)

Attracting widespread media attention, Elizabeth’s efforts to recover more of her great-grandfather’s paintings include a database of his works and the book Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy.

The paintings “are a powerful reflection of life in Poland before the war that not many people are aware of,” she said. “I felt that I could rescue that legacy and share it with the world.”

• Read the story: “,”����Haaretz, Nov. 25, 2018
  
• Related: “,”��New York Times, Aug. 18, 2016

Edmund Muskie ’36

Muskie’s 1968 vice presidential campaign recalled at �ֲ���ý College forum — Sun Journal

Steve Collins of the Lewiston Sun Journal covered a �ֲ���ý panel celebrating the 1968 vice presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36, featuring experts and people who had worked with Muskie on the campaign trail.

Edmund Muskie ’36 and supporters at a 1968 campaign event. The location is perhaps New York City; third from left is perhaps Shirley Chisholm, then running for her first term as a Congresswoman. (Burton Burinsky / Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

The panelists described a politician who worked to bridge divides and calm clashes, “reaching out to both sides,” said Charles Micoleau, a campaign staffer and later Muskie’s chief of staff.

Hubert Humphrey and Muskie lost the ’68 race to Richard Nixon by less than 1 percent, and Muskie lost his own bid for the presidency in the 1972 Democratic primary. But his high profile and prestige was “a real driving force, a hammer pounding the Clean Air Act through the committee and the Senate” in 1970, said Eliot Cutler, who was Muskie’s assistant press secretary.

“We are the lucky ones who are still here,” Cutler said. Muskie’s role in the history of the 20th century “shaped all of us.”

• Read the story: “,” Lewiston Sun Journal, Nov. 29, 2018.
• Related: “8 reasons why Edmund Muskie ’36 was an amazing political candidate in 1968,” �ֲ���ý News, Dec. 5, 2018

Rebecca Herzig

To shave, or not to shave? How a new generation of women are embracing body hair — Vogue

Women are taking an increasingly laissez-faire approach to body hair, wrote Maya Singer of Vogue. For a historical perspective on women and shaving, she turned to Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig, author of Plucked: A History of Hair Removal.

Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies Rebecca Herzig discusses a field project with a student in 2016. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Hairlessness didn’t become a beauty standard until after WWII, Herzig wrote in Plucked. Some second-wave feminists in the 1970s revolted against this standard by condemning shaving entirely, whereas the early 2000s were given to the “Brazilian wax tyranny,” Singer wrote.

Singer characterizes the present age as one of, “I’ll shave if I want to,” and razor companies are taking notice.

“One way to characterize what we’re seeing may be that women are now encouraged to ask—and increasingly expect—brands to fulfill their needs,” Herzig said.

• Read the story: “,”��Vogue,��Dec. 10, 2018
• Related: “‘Plucked’: Race, gender, science, medicine converge in history of hair removal,” �ֲ���ý News, Feb. 4, 2015

Rebecca Fraser-Thill

Should you go back to work for your old company? — MarketWatch

For a list of factors to keep in mind if you’re thinking about returning to a previous workplace, MarketWatch writer Meera Jagannathan turned to Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill, a Pivot career coach.

Lecturer in Psychology Rebecca Fraser-Thill speaks about �ֲ���ý’ Purposeful Work initiative at the 2016 new student Orientation. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Fraser-Thill recommended asking friends and family what you were like at your old job, thinking about the relationship you had with your old boss, comparing your current workplace to your old workplace, and — if you decide to make the move back — framing the decision positively.

“You’ve taken a moment to really consider your path, and you are intentionally and actively choosing this former employer,” she told Jagannathan.

• Read the story: “”��MarketWatch, Oct. 15, 2018

Nathan Tefft

‘It’s Just Math’ — Mainers recreate ranked-choice voting results to test the process — Maine Public

When some argued that Maine’s new ranked-choice voting process is an inaccessable “black box,” Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft replicated the election results on his own and sent his calculations to Maine Public.

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft teaches a class in 2016. (Josh Kucken/�ֲ���ý College)

Using publicly available voting data and a common open-source programming language, Tefft exactly replicated the results of the election, which used the innovative ranked-choice format for the first time to proclaim Jared Golden ’11 the winner. (Another Mainer did the same using Microsoft Excel.)

“It’s an important idea for me to support trust and confidence in the vote counting process,” Tefft told reporter Steve Mistler. “So I certainly wanted it to be as transparent as possible.”

• Read the story: “” Maine Public, Dec. 2, 2018

Vicki Losick ’01

MDI researcher will use fruit flies to study macular degeneration — Bangor Daily News

The Bangor Daily News covered Vicki Losick ’01, a researcher at the MDI Biological Institute who received a $50,000 grant to use fruit flies to study age-related eye diseases.

Vicki Losick ’01

The grant, awarded by the William Procter Scientific Innovation Fund, will allow Losick to model the “cellular dysfunction” that occurs in age-related macular degeneration, among other causes of blindness. She’ll use fruit flies in her work, since macular degeneration takes hold more quickly due to the creatures’ shorter lifespans.

“With the aging of the population, age-related macular degeneration is increasingly being viewed as an impending epidemic,” Losick said in a press release. “I am deeply grateful to the Procter Fund for supporting research that could lead to the identification of the genetic and cellular causes underlying retinal dysfunction.”

• Read the story: “,”��Bangor Daily News, Nov. 30, 2018

Lisa Utzschneider ’90

Lisa Utzschneider becomes CEO of ad-verification firm — Variety

�ֲ���ý alumna and trustee Lisa Utzschneider ’90 has been named CEO of Integral Ad Science, a company that measures the value of digital advertisements and helps prevent fraud, the entertainment trade magazine Variety reported.

Lisa Utzschneider ’90 speaks during a �ֲ���ý Boston Business Network panel on women in leadership in 2017. (Paige Brown ’96 for �ֲ���ý College)

Utzschneider was most recently chief revenue officer at Yahoo and has held executive roles at Microsoft and Amazon. Last year, she was on a �ֲ���ý panel about women and leadership.

“As CEO, Utzschneider will focus on expanding IAS into new global markets and pushing into new ad formats, including over-the-top video and audio,” according to Variety.

• Read the story: “,”��Variety,��Dec. 12, 2018
• Related: “To be an effective leader, be prepared, speak up, and aim big, �ֲ���ý panelists say,” �ֲ���ý News, Oct. 5, 2017

Martin Benes ’07

Wednesday Workout: hitting the trails with U.S. Para-Nordic and Head Coach Martin Benes — FasterSkier

Writer Gabby Naranja reached out to Martin Benes ’07, who recently joined the coaching staff of U.S. Paralympics Nordic skiing. U.S. Paralympics is a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee

An assistant ski coach at �ֲ���ý from 2009 to 2011 and most recently the Nordic ski director at Sugar Bowl Academy, Benes��told Naranja that the coaching philosophy for a para-athlete is the same as for a non-disabled athlete.

“The training principles don’t really change,” Benes said. “Yes, there are things to be aware of physiologically, but in terms of the core principles, it’s not that different.”

“With this level of athlete,” he added, “you’re helping guide them and giving them the framework to be successful and helping them be their own best coaches.”

• Read the story: “,” FasterSkier, Dec. 5, 2018

Larry DiGiammarino ’82

Catching up with…Larry DiGiammarino — The Boston Globe

The Globe’s Marvin Pave chatted with Larry DiGiammarino ’82, who holds or shares �ֲ���ý football records for career and single-game receptions, as well as career and single-game touchdown receptions. He was named a Kodak Little All-American, the ECAC and New England Football Writers Player of the Year, and a Scholar Athlete of the Year by the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

Now, DiGiammarino is a real-estate attorney in Marblehead, Mass., where he’s on the school committee and the youth football and softball boards.

“I learned through sports to never give up and stay as positive as I can,’’ he told Pave. “If things don’t work out today, there’s always tomorrow.”

• Read the story: “,”��The Boston Globe,��Nov. 29, 2018

Kristy Andrews ’12

Young camp professionals: choosing careers in Maine, fulfilling commitments to kids — Bangor Daily News

In the Bangor Daily News blog Summer in Maine, Kristine Millard talked to Kristy Andrews ’12, assistant director of Camp Wawenock in Raymond, Maine.

Andrews spent her childhood summers at Camp Wawenock and later became a counselor, working there before and after a stint as an English teacher in Chile. Now, she’s one of a few year-round employees at the camp.

Andrews spoke to the community the camp offers girls, allowing them to “be their true selves.”

“There’s a whole group of people who love you and support you,” she said.

• Read the story: “,”��Bangor Daily News, Nov. 13, 2018

Paul Erickson ’74

Don’t Mess With Me: The Strange Lives of Venomous Sea Creatures — Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus reviewed the latest book for middle grades by Paul Erickson ’74: Don’t Mess With Me, which catalogs 28 venomous sea creatures from the deadly blue-ringed octopus to sea jellies.

“He goes on, now following the phylum order, to introduce a variety of other sea creatures including bloodworms, the blind remipede (the first known venomous crustacean), the crown of thorns sea star, the bluespotted stingray, the reef stonefish, and the lionfish,” the review says.

“T��dzܲ��� the text in this entry in an admirable series may be challenging for young readers, the subject has guaranteed kid appeal,” it added.

• Read the review: “,”��Kirkus Reviews,��Dec. 4, 2018

A tax on over-the-counter diet pills could be an effective public-health strategy to discourage teenagers from purchasing the dangerous and “useless junk,” according to a first-of-its-kind study coauthored by economics professor Nathan Tefft.

The $66 billion diet industry faces few regulations, explain Tefft and co-author S. Bryn Austin in their blog post for . Yet “what the diet industry does not want you to know…is that most of what they sell is at best useless junk — and that could not be truer than for diet pills,” say the researchers.

Nathan Tefft, associate professor of economics. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

Weight-loss products are particularly dangerous, with 23,000 annual emergency room visits . Among girls and women, fully a third of these ER visits are caused by weight-loss supplements — yet teenagers, especially, should.

So what measures can policymakers take to keep diet pills out of the hands of teens? Based on the fact that taxes on cigarettes have been “one of the most effective strategies to date to drive down teen smoking,” the researchers looked at whether “taxing diet pills might be a solution.”

The answer is a resounding “yes.” A 20 percent tax on diet pills could lead to a 5.2 percent decrease in overall purchases — and, importantly, a 17.5 percent decrease among households with teenagers.

“That may not sound like a lot,” wrote Austin and Tefft, “but there are over 126 million households in the U.S., and roughly one in five of them purchase these products, so a 5 percent decrease across millions of American households is a lot of diet pills not finding their way into the medicine cabinets in people’s homes.”

Associate Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft leads a class. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

The study will be published in a

Tefft, who studies the economics of public health issues and has examined the effects of taxation on other products, conducted the study in collaboration with Austin, director of the Strategic Training Initiative to Prevent Eating Disorders at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Boston Children’s Hospital; and with Selena Hua Liu of the Department of Nutrition at Simmons College.

The new Digital and Computational Studies Program will teach students to have a broad, critical, and thoughtful approach to problem solving in a digital age. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Technology is instantaneous, global, and ever-changing.

And it’s placing unprecedented pressures on colleges like �ֲ���ý to expand how they define and deliver a liberal arts education.

�ֲ���ý, for one, has a robust curricular response: With recent gifts of $19 million from seven �ֲ���ý families, the college will build and launch a new Program in Digital and Computational Studies (DCS).

“The capacity to claim the world.”

The program will comprise three new professorships, a range of new academic courses, and eager involvement from �ֲ���ý faculty in many disciplines.

Ultimately, the program’s goal is squarely in the liberal arts wheelhouse: To give �ֲ���ý graduates “the capacity to claim the world,” in the words of classics professor Margaret Imber.

In this Q&A, 11 members of the �ֲ���ý faculty talk about the work of building an innovative and distinctive DCS Program.

+As chair, what do you hope to bring to the development of the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Lauren Ashwell

Expert: Lauren Ashwell, associate professor of philosophy and chair of the Program in Digital and Computational Studies

Much of my teaching in logic, metaphysics, and epistemology touches on the limits of computation. I also teach feminist philosophy, which includes the kind of social critique that I think will be important to the DCS Program.

While it is easy to hear that �ֲ���ý is creating an interdisciplinary program and then think that the focus will be on computers merely as tools and instruments for work in other disciplines, it is important to note that the program will go beyond this. The DCS Program won’t just equip students with the ability to use computational methods, but will also include awareness of the limits and the social impact of technology.

Associate Professor of Philosophy Lauren Ashwell is chair of the Program in Digital and Computational Studies. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

That’s the great thing about the group of faculty working on the program – I don’t think anyone sees DCS as merely a set of tools for other disciplines, but as something that will complement the existing �ֲ���ý curriculum in a robust kind of way. Computation can extend possibilities within other disciplines, but other disciplines can also bring their own tools to bear on questions about the digital world.

As builders of the DCS Program, we can instill the idea that learning about the tools of technology is not only about all the wonderful things that you can do with them, but also about what you can’t do. Students need not just awareness of the theoretical limits of computation but also the skill and ability to think critically about the limits of technology’s ability to solve problems.

In my classroom, when we talk about critical thinking, I use the word “careful” to describe an important skill that I want my students to take away from their coursework. You are careful in the sense that you do not just accept what people tell you: You reflect on it with time and care. You are not just being fed information — instead, you’re engaging with information in a reflective way. These are the characteristics of a future �ֲ���ý DCS student.

+How will the �ֲ���ý DCS Program be distinctive and make �ֲ���ý a leader in this realm? Expert: Jason Castro

Expert: Jason Castro, assistant professor of psychology

The way DCS is conceived at �ֲ���ý is unique because, for one, it will be more than just a computer science program with add-ons and peripherals.

It was conceived as a communal enterprise; the decisions about how DCS will be formed and deployed, and conversations about its intellectual makeup, involved the humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.

Jason Castro teaches computational neuroscience during Short Term 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Having that cross-disciplinary conversation, that set of ideas built into the launch of the program, is exciting. It will make for flexible curricular programming and vivid awareness of the roles that digital media have in our lives.

+What would you tell a colleague at another institution about why you are keen to teach in the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Nathan Tefft

Expert: Nathan Tefft, assistant professor of economics

Because the �ֲ���ý program will be inter- and cross-disciplinary, I would tell a colleague that I am in the right place and time, in terms of my research.

Nathan Tefft is an assistant professor of economics. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

In my work, I seek to answer important questions using data in novel ways.

The �ֲ���ý DCS Program will support my research in part by bringing me into closer contact with new methods and tools from computer science and statistics, tools that are associated with the Big Data phenomenon and are fast being adopted by economists.

The DCS Program is also a crucial development in our historical liberal arts mission.

If a liberal arts education means giving graduates a deep understanding of the various ways that people interact with the world, and if people interact with the world through technology, then I believe a �ֲ���ý education that includes DCS will be much more effective.

+What are the implications for the college's information and library services operation when we add DCS to the curriculum? Expert: Katie Vale

The Expert: Katie Vale, vice president for information and library services and librarian

One of the things that’s particularly novel is that this is not just a straight computer science program. While students can certainly learn to code, the �ֲ���ý DCS Program will give students experience with a variety of technological tools and the curricular work will have ties to many different subjects and topics.

What ILS excels at is helping people make connections.

Technology plays a central role in myriad forms of inquiry and expression, and students will learn and apply skills that will help them at �ֲ���ý and well beyond. That excites us a lot.

What ILS excels at, especially on the library side, is helping people make connections, find information, and learn to use technologies to ask questions and solve problems. Our librarians and academic technologists assist faculty in thinking about new types of assignments that will increase students’ understanding of the world.

Katie Vale is the college’s librarian and vice president for information and library services. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, they can locate actual government data sets that can be analyzed to understand a range of political, social, and economic issues in a particular country or group of nations. Or they might help with GIS mapping technologies to identify population changes or environmental resource constraints. Students can report their findings via research papers, multimedia assignments, or even 3D-printed items.

Digital and information literacy skills are necessary for life in the 21st century, and we in ILS look forward to supporting the DCS Program.

+What is the value of bringing interdisciplinary thought to the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Rebecca Herzig

The Expert: Rebecca Herzig, the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and chair of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies

In my view, an interdisciplinary perspective is really about perceiving and understanding relationships, and that’s a long-standing theme at �ֲ���ý, something �ֲ���ý students do unusually well. And what does a networked world demand but the ability to see and frame and transform relationships in new ways?

I like to imagine that our graduates will help build a different kind of digital infrastructure and, in so doing, build a different kind of world: more inclusive, more sustainable, more democratic.

And they’ll be able to do that not only because they have the requisite technical skills in coding and analysis and so on, but also, more importantly, because those skills emerge within the context of a broader liberal arts education.

An interdisciplinary education can encourage students to explore the social underpinnings of technical skills, and the limitations of those skills, as well as their most potent applications.

Rebecca Herzig is the college’s Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and chair of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

+Why might a DCS-minded student — or young scholar, for that matter — go to a liberal arts college like �ֲ���ý instead of a school known for computer science? Expert: Nathan Lundblad

The Expert: Nathan Lundblad, associate professor of physics

Launching the DCS Program underscores the college’s strong support of faculty who have a commitment to both teaching and research.

At top liberal arts colleges, cutting-edge research in the natural sciences is attracting federal dollars, being published in top journals, and sending students to top graduate programs.

Associate Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, I have a federal grant from NASA to study the physics of ultracold atomic systems aboard the International Space Station, and as part of this I’ll be one of a few remote users of a facility orbiting the Earth performing precision tests in quantum mechanics.

I’m excited to bring DCS students aboard as interns for computational aspects of my project.

This project involves extensive computer modeling and programming to guide and design various experimental processes, and, as happens at a liberal arts college, �ֲ���ý students have been working directly with me on crucial aspects of the project.

I’m excited to bring DCS students aboard as interns for computational aspects of my project, and I’m looking forward to having my physics students take DCS classes to better prepare them for research where computational skills are increasingly indispensable.

Coming to �ֲ���ý to work in digital and computational studies gives students the opportunity to work on projects like this while benefiting from the close teacher-student interactions that are the central pillar of the liberal arts experience.

+How will the �ֲ���ý DCS Program support what the mission statement calls the 'emancipating potential' of the liberal arts? Expert: Margaret Imber

The Expert: Margaret Imber, associate professor of classical and medieval studies

DCS is going to allow students to ask the critical question of the liberal arts: Why do I know what I know? Why do I believe this? How do I know it?

You have the capacity to claim the world.

In pursuing those questions, you have the capacity to liberate yourself. You have the capacity to claim the world.

I have a senior doing an honors thesis on the political topography of violence in ancient Rome. He made for himself a data set of every reference to political violence in Rome in the last century of the republic. He used software to recreate images in 3D to better understand, for example, Livy’s and other written descriptions of riots down the streets of the Via Sacra.

Associate Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies Margaret Imber is co-director of the Faculty Commons for Teaching and Learning. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

By using these tools — more often associated with the natural sciences or graphic design rather than classics — he got a much better sense, almost tactile, of what the words were describing. More important, he gained the ability to ask questions about the accuracy or distortions of the historical texts.

That’s why DCS is perfect for �ֲ���ý and the liberal arts. It will help emancipate students from presumptions, sloppy thinking, and living in a world that other people give to you.

+How might DCS contribute to citizenry that is more numerate, and why does that matter? Expert: Adriana Salerno

The Expert: Adriana Salerno, associate professor of mathematics

For me, numeracy and computer literacy are human rights, like reading. We believe people have a right to learn how to read because it gives you opportunities. I believe the same should be true for being numerate.

Nobody every says you have to compete in the Tour de France in order to be considered a bicycle rider. It should be the same for learning math and computer science. You don’t have to be the best person at this. But you can still do it.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Adriana Salerno. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Yet in computer science and STEM fields there is often that attitude that says, “This is only for a certain elite.” But we have a problem if only certain groups of people have the skills to have those jobs, and we especially have a problem if those elite just happen to all look very similar in terms of their race and gender.

We have a clean slate. We can decide what this major is going to be.

At �ֲ���ý, we have the power to create a program that doesn’t have the baggage and vices of some of the established programs, where people say, “Computer science is taught this way.” We have a clean slate. We can decide what this major is going to be and who it is going to attract, whether it’s a student who likes math, or is a dancer, or takes a lot of philosophy courses.

We will create all sorts of routes for students to get a technology- and computer-science-based education.

+What value might an art and visual culture major find in the DCS curriculum? Expert: Rebecca Corrie

The Expert: Rebecca Corrie, Phillips Professor of Art and Visual Culture

DCS gives us a chance to equip our already great students with the skills they increasingly need.

When technology arrived in our fields, you could say, “Let’s bring someone in who knows how to do that.” Today, you cannot outsource technology tasks. You have to embody them. You need to have the skills.

Rebecca Corrie is the college’s Phillips Professor of Art and Visual Culture. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

For example, if you are an architectural historian who needs to create a digital reconstruction, you should not only know the art history and the architectural history but also be capable of working with or even developing the programs yourself.

Fields that hire art history majors, such as museums and auction houses, for example, want hires who know how to code and who are skilled at different technologies.

+What do you see as the unifying themes of the �ֲ���ý DCS Program? Expert: Pallavi Jayawant

The Expert: Pallavi Jayawant, associate professor and chair of mathematics

What the �ֲ���ý DCS Program will support and recognize — whether the ultimate goal is theorizing and applying principles of computation, exploring philosophical boundaries of artificial intelligence, modeling queries using complex data sets, or designing three-dimensional digital maps using layers of coded data — is creativity and rigor in defining and answering questions.

Importantly, DCS at �ֲ���ý will support collaboration across the entire faculty, inside and outside of the program, to develop new elective courses and/or enhance their existing courses with digital and computational abilities.

Pallavi Jayawant is an associate professor of mathematics and department chair. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

DCS will teach students how to get inside of and learn their way around computers rather than simply be proficient at using them. This will be especially liberating because it will help them develop and apply new knowledge and improve their understanding of the world around us.

Ultimately, an education that involves the �ֲ���ý DCS curriculum can serve as a bulwark against unreflective, biased, or limited understandings of computer technologies in our lives.

+How might the �ֲ���ý DCS Program help faculty and students find new connections across disciplines? Expert: Eden Osucha

The Expert: Eden Osucha, assistant professor of English

Technology is transforming, in a real sense, the very objects of study that are at the heart of the humanities and the humanistic social sciences.

As we develop the program, we will recognize that in teaching students about technology, we need to be teaching students to have a critical understanding of technology’s many impacts on language, community, identity, culture, and our notions of the human. Technology is transforming all of these things, which are, in turn, also shaping technological change and practices.

Assistant Professor of English Eden Osucha teaches a class in Pettigrew Hall. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

When students do technologically driven assignments in an English classroom alongside more traditional writing assignments, an interesting thing happens: They begin to recognize something new about their academic disciplines, whether they are humanities majors or not.

A senior physics major or a math major who takes their first English class and does a digital textual mapping project, for example, might realize that, while they are adept at thinking about knowledge in terms of data, or thinking in terms of structures and relations, they now can deploy those abilities to achieve a critical engagement with a literary or other cultural text.

In so doing, they expand their own understanding of the value and purpose of those skills.

Gifts of $19 million to create six new endowed professorships, including three for the DCS Program

Last May, at the last faculty meeting of the 2015 academic year, the �ֲ���ý faculty approved a new Program in Digital and Computational Studies,��with one major condition: that �ֲ���ý would secure millions in funding to establish up to three endowed new professorships within the new program.

Meeting that condition took just half a year. On Feb. 5, �ֲ���ý announced gifts of $19 million to create six new endowed professorships, including three for the DCS Program, plus endowed program support.

Funding in place, the program has a fall 2018 slated start date as a major.

Demand for the program is high. Survey results suggest that 94 percent of students believe that �ֲ���ý should have a DCS major. Fourteen percent of students say they would “definitely major” in DCS. And 69 percent indicate they would take courses in the program.

Interest among professors is great, too, as are the preceding ideas and insights about why the �ֲ���ý program can be among the best in the country.

Professors are also eager to explain why the program will be quintessentially �ֲ���ý — how it will support key parts of the �ֲ���ý mission statement, such as:

• dedication to the emancipating potential of the liberal arts;
• educating the whole person; engaging in the transformative power of our differences;
• cultivating intellectual discovery and informed civic action;
• and preparing leaders sustained by a love of learning and a commitment to responsible stewardship of the wider world.

Nathan Tefft, assistant professor of economics. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

Assistant Professor of Economics Nathan Tefft goes in for risky behavior — in his work, anyway.

Tefft, who returned to �ֲ���ý this fall after a couple of years away, is a health economist with distinctive interests.

“A lot of researchers study healthcare systems, financing, things like that,” he says. “I tend to focus more on risky health behaviors as they relate to public policy” — behaviors like tobacco use and excessive food and alcohol consumption.

Here’s a sample of findings published in recent years by Tefft and his research partners, including �ֲ���ý faculty colleagues and students:

• If you eat more carbohydrates, you’re likely to put on the pounds even if your total calorie consumption and exercise routine remain stable (with �ֲ���ý economics professor Daniel Crichton-Riera).
• A 1 percent increase in unemployment at the state level is associated with a 1.58 percent decrease in the use of preventive medical care services (with Andrew Kageleiry ’12).
• Men who were mistreated during childhood, especially those who suffered neglect and abuse, are more likely to have obese female partners during young adulthood — and evidence suggests that similarly stressed women are more likely to have male partners who are thin.
• An analysis of federal road accident data suggests that because body mass mitigates alcohol impairment, the presence of obesity in a population reduces the risk of fatal drunk driving accidents.

Tefft is fascinated by questions that explore conflicts between good things — for instance, between personal choice and public health. “Food is an obvious example,” he says. “We need food to survive, but eating too much or the wrong types of food can lead to health problems. So to what extent should we legislate or restrict personal choices?”

A math major at Williams College, Tefft changed course toward economics as he worked toward his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “I was interested in social issues,” he explains. “I decided specifically not to pursue mathematics because I wanted to apply those skills to social and policy questions.

Read more profiles of tenure-track faculty new or returning to �ֲ���ý in 2014:

• Brett Huggett, assistant professor of biology
• Katharine Ott, assistant professor of mathematics
• Geneviève Robert, assistant professor of geology
• Michael Rocque, assistant professor of sociology

“Once I started down that path, I started to realize just how many more interesting questions there were.”

For instance, in graduate school he studied the effects of cigarette taxes, a topic well-explored by economists and public-health researchers in other disciplines. The idea behind the taxes is to discourage smoking, a known public health threat, by making cigarettes more expensive and using cigarette tax revenues to combat smoking and its health effects.

“I realized that that model could be applied to soft drink taxes as well, which was being talked about by public health researchers at the time.” (Tefft and collaborators at Madison and the University of Iowa continue to refine research that they first published in 2009 exploring soda taxes and their effectiveness — or lack thereof — in reducing a population’s average body weight.)

“Once I found my way into this area of research, I realized that this is a great place to be,” says Tefft.

The self-described “serious math geek” in Tefft relishes crunching the big data sets that provide the evidence for his conclusions. In fact, in 2015 he’ll teach a new Short Term titled “Big Data.” He says, “it seems to be a trend to call things ‘big data’ or to represent things in those terms, but I think academics and policymakers are still working out what that means and how useful it is.

“So I think it’ll be an exciting course.”

But as a researcher and a teacher, he also can’t get enough of talking policy. “I enjoy getting into the weeds with those discussions�� — policy discussions about, ‘How do we get it right?'” he says. “I do it with everybody — not just students but friends, colleagues, whoever.

“So my favorite part of teaching, I guess, is the conversation. I like talking about the math and teaching it, but the discussion is really what I like.”

Yes, the taxes do work as intended — but their effect, while statistically significant, is small, according to pioneering research published this week by a �ֲ���ý College economist and colleagues at Yale and Emory universities.

“If you raise soda taxes, population weight declines by a bit — but not a lot,” says �ֲ���ý economist Nathan Tefft. “That’s the key” to the importance of the research. Tefft, assistant professor of economics at �ֲ���ý, undertook the research with Jason Fletcher of Yale’s School of Public Health and David Frisvold of Emory’s economics department.

Their study, “Can Soft Drink Taxes Reduce Population Weight?” was published today by the journal Contemporary Economic Policy. ( with links to purchase the entire article.)

The study is the first empirical examination of the effectiveness of soft drink taxes in reducing adult weight. The researchers found that on average, a 1 percent increase in soft drink taxes corresponds with a decrease of .003 points in body mass index among adults.

(Relating height to weight as an assessment of body fat, a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered normal, 25 to 29.9 is overweight and 30 and above is obese.)

The study sounds a cautionary note amidst a trend among state governments to tax sugared drinks.

So if policymakers are thinking about imposing soft-drink taxes, Tefft believes that — at least at the tax rates the researchers studied — an intention to lower obesity rates isn’t the strongest argument for doing so. Those taxes are better justified, he says, by their revenue potential and by the fact that at best, soft drinks are empty calories and at worst, pose health threats unrelated to caloric content.

For instance, an August 2007 links consumption of both sugared and diet soda to a 40 percent greater risk of “metabolic syndrome,” a cluster of conditions that increase the risk for heart disease.

With soft-drink consumption considered a major contributor to growing obesity rates, the study sounds a cautionary note amidst a trend among state governments to tax sugared drinks. More than 30 states tax soft drinks, according to the , although Maine voters recently repealed a tax on soda, beer and wine to help fund the state’s Dirigo Health program.

Why do the taxes have such a small impact on weight? For one thing, while soft drinks constitute the largest single source of calories consumed, they still amount to only 7 percent of those calories.

In addition, while soft-drink taxes are modeled after “sin taxes” on tobacco and alcohol, the medical arguments against those products are much clearer and more compelling. “With soda, it’s a looser argument,” Tefft suggests.

He adds, “An important aspect of this research, which we’re working on in our next paper, is that even if a tax successfully leads to reduction in consumption of soda, people may consume, for example, sports drinks, other sugared drinks or fruit juices instead.

“That doesn’t happen with alcohol or tobacco as much. That substitution is a real possibility here, so it becomes more difficult to use this as a health promotion tool.”

Tefft notes that the substitution issue is borne out in the threesome’s research into the connection between soda taxes and weight loss in children. “That’s probably even a more important group to look at,” he notes, because both lifelong dietary habits and a tendency to being overweight are formed early, and because kids have poorer self-control than adults.

With children, the team found “a decline in consumption, but we also found evidence of the substitution effect — for example, milk,” he says. “Milk is presumably healthier for you, but the calories in milk perhaps offset entirely the reduction in soda.”

The research was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

– Doug Hubley, Office of Communications and Media Relations