USC Dornsife News Briefs

The food environment in Los Angeles County changed tremendously during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a project convened by Public Exchange at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, USC researchers are working across disciplines to develop a new approach to understanding food systems, food access and food security across L.A. County. They’re mapping the landscape of where food is located and connecting that with individuals’ food habits and behaviors to determine how these issues can be addressed through policy changes.

My book on happiness is due out March 2021. See the flyer for more information.

I am writing a book about the long history of U.S. imperialism in the Pacific and culture’s role in challenging such imperialism. The project grew out of my participation in the Transpacific Studies research group (now Center) initiated by Viet Thanh Nguyen (English/American studies and ethnicity) and Janet Hoskins (anthropology). My book builds on my earlier Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism (Oxford University Press, 2000).

All life on Earth consumes ‘food’ to extract energy, and this extraction is coupled to the transfer of electrons inside (or on) the cell. My team, including graduate student Heidi Aronson (pictured here) and colleagues Doug LaRowe (USC Dornsife) and Jenn Macalady (Penn State), have used thermodynamic calculations to posit a new metabolism — combining the most oxidized and reduced forms of sulfur (specifically sulfate and sulfide) to yield intermediate elemental sulfur.

Super excited about the catalogue I co-edited with USC Roski colleague, Professor Andy Campbell, titled “Queer Communion: Ron Athey.”

A medieval Arabic manuscript at Columbia University preserves a text about Double False Position (regula falsi), an algorithm still used today for approximating solutions to equations whose exact algebraic solution is unknown.