Announcements

  • Sigma Xi increases GIAR funding levels for student members

    Sigma Xi's Grants in Aid of Research (GIAR) program now offers increased funding opportunities for Sigma Xi members. Graduate student members are eligible for grants up to $5,000 and undergraduate students are eligible for grants up to $2,000. Non-members are still invited to apply and qualify for grants up to $1,000. Fall application deadline is March 15, 2024.

  • Next lecture October 25, on line

    The next Calgary Sigma Xi Seminar is Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 4:30 pm MDT (-6 UTM) by Courtney Lawrence, titled "Lithic debitage and reduction strategies at Smokehouse Island (GiSp-001), on the Babine River, North-Central British Columbia.". The presentation will be live-streamed on Zoom. (Meeting ID: 971 1896 5612 Passcode: SigmaXi). 
    Please note the Zoom information is staying the same for the 2023-24 series.

  • Whitman College-Walla Walla University Sigma Xi chapter is going inactive

    To all current members of the local Whitman College-Walla Walla University Sigma Xi chapter:

    Our local Sigma Xi chapter has a long history of promoting science among both faculty and students at our two colleges. However, it seems that an increasingly large number of our local scientists are focusing their attention on specific societies related to their areas of research rather than societies like Sigma Xi that have a broader research emphasis. Our local chapter has been declining in membership for some time and currently has only a handful of members left. Therefore our local Sigma Xi chapter officers have decided that our best approach would be to go "inactive" while encouraging current members to continue membership in scientific societies more directly related to their research interests. The local chapter has a few thousand dollars saved up for local activities. We plan to use this money to provide research support to several students on both campuses, then cease local activities. If any current member wants to take over leadership and try to revive our local chapter instead please contact me at david.cowles@wallawalla.edu

    David Cowles
    Whitman College-Walla Walla University Sigma Xi chapter secretary

  • Science Café: Hacking the Hackathon: A Guide to a Successful Project

    Ohio State Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society, and the Ohio State University Libraries sponsor our OSU Science Café. These events represent a grassroots movement that exist all over the world. These events are open to everyone and feature an engaging conversation with a scientist about a particular topic. More information is at: http://library.osu.edu/news/science-cafe

      

    Our next science café is on "Hacking the Hackathon: A Guide to a Successful Project" on October 4 at 7pm as an online event. You can register at the following link:

    https://osu.zoom.us/j/92444100687?pwd=Q2F1Z3NLYS8wWDVaNm1LL0x1Q2QzQT09

    This seminar will be talking about many steps in a typical HackOHI/O (and general hackathon) project, from start to finish. These topics will include:

    - What is a hackathon / What is HackOHI/O

    - How to form a group

    - Ideating/Brainstorming

    - Required skills (Not what you think!)

    - How to collaborate successfully

    - How to utilize resources such as mentors and sponsors

    - How to pitch/present your project

    - Miscellaneous tips/tricks/questions

    Our speaker will be Shritan Gunday, MakeOHI/O Lead. The OHI/O Program fosters a tech culture at Ohio State and its surrounding communities, ultimately providing students the opportunity to learn and build with real technologies outside of the classroom. Through the platform, OHI/O better connects students to real world problems and opportunities by engaging with the community and industry partners. More information can be found at:

    https://hack.osu.edu/make/2023/#home-back

  • SLU Sigma Xi Annual Research Symposium!

    Join us for our Annual Research Symposium on Monday, April 3rd, 2023! 

    We are happy to be returning to an in-person event this year!

    Information available under events and in our new community posting.

  • Zoom link for talks

    Hi,

    I realized I didn't make the zoom note a link today.  But the zoom information isn't changing. 

    https://ucalgary.zoom.us/j/94297215195?pwd=c2M4NlI1cXFQRms5cHdOQXFlOXY4Zz09

    Meeting ID: 942 9721 5195 Passcode: S1gmaX1

    Sorry - Kelly

  • Monthly zoom link

    Hi,

    I realized I didn't make the zoom note a link today.  But the zoom information isn't changing. 

    https://ucalgary.zoom.us/j/94297215195?pwd=c2M4NlI1cXFQRms5cHdOQXFlOXY4Zz09

    Meeting ID: 942 9721 5195 Passcode: S1gmaX1

    Sorry - Kelly

  • Darwin Day 2023

    Please come to UD Darwin Day on February 15 and 16.  

    On February 15,

    Wednesday February 15, 2023 Morris Library 4:30 PM

    Pop Goes the Beagle: Darwin for Children Margaret Stetz

    Science is increasingly being politicized and scientists themselves demonized. Meanwhile, what children learn in classrooms and in libraries is also under hostile scrutiny. This talk will bring together the subjects of Darwin and education. Through a survey of recent British and American books for young readers, many of them illustrated, we will consider what authors are teaching children about Darwin’s life, voyages, discoveries, theories and, more generally, about the role of science in the past and present.

      On February 16, we will have four speakers starting at 3:30 in the ISE building Room 215

    Thursday February 16, 2023 Room 215 ISE Building 3:30 PM

    Monogamy: What's Love (and the Placenta) Got To Do With It?  Will Kenkel

    Are humans monogamous? If so, why? Why is our mating system so strange? Why is our pregnancy and childbirth so dangerous? A new hypothesis ties together many of these strange features of human reproduction and explains them via the evolution of another of humanity's core features: our large brains. In a celebration of Darwin Day and Valentine's Day, Professor Kenkel will put the evolution of the brain and the placenta at the forefront of what it means to be human.

    4:00 PM Cezanne and His Land: Geology, Meaning and Aesthetics Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer

     4:30 PM Darwin's Botany and Plant Animation in H. G. Wells' The First Men in the Moon Mary Bowden

    The pioneering science fiction writer H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was a trained scientist who frequently used evolutionary themes in his novels and short stories. In this presentation, I examine how Wells employs major themes from Charles Darwin’s botanical works, especially Darwin’s 1880 book The Power of Movement in Plants. I argue that Wells’ depiction of growing, moving lunar plants in his 1901 novel The First Men in the Moon made Darwin’s plant movement experiments imaginable to a broad popular audience. Further, I suggest that Wells’ protagonists react to moving plants much like Darwin’s audiences did. Initially overcome with awe, Wells’ protagonists also express anxiety about what plants’ movements might suggest about the relative places of humans and plants in the world. Wells’ fiction thus mirrors both Darwin’s findings and reactions to them, showing the entanglement of literary and scientific understandings of plants in late nineteenth-century Britain.

     

    Keynote Speaker, 5:00 PM, Room 215 ISE Building

    An Afternoon with the Neandertals 

    Fred H. Smith, Sigma XI National Distinguished Lecturer, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology Illinois State University

    Neandertals have long been considered the epitome of the dumb cave man.   Early ideas emphasized not only their physical, but also their perceived behavioral and intellectual, inferiority compared to modern humans. Among the differences emphasized were those relating to language, symbolic behavior,  technology and morphology.  Recent discoveries find no evidence to assume inferiority in intelligence on the part of Neandertals. We now know that Neandertal morphology reflects adaptation to the harsh, cold environs of western Eurasia during the Pleistocene rather than primitive inferiority. Both the Neandertals' morphology and behavior provide insight into why these well-adapted people were ultimately replaced by early modern humans.

  • Stanford Chapter In-Person Meeting

    Dear Colleagues,


    The Stanford Chapter of Sigma Xi is pleased to announce that it is resuming full activity in 2023, and to celebrate we're inviting you to dinner and a talk by Dr.'s Nathan Meezan and Chris Young from Lawrence Livermore National Labs to discuss their role in the recent breakthrough in nuclear fusion research which took place there. We've also invited Dr. Richard Watkins from Sigma Xi's national headquarters, and Dr.'s Tim Zwier and Aaron Sharpe from Sandia National Labs to discuss careers in research and how Sigma Xi can help both the Stanford Community and individual students and professionals.

    The event takes place on January 19th in the MacKenzie Room in the Huang Engineering Center on Stanford's campus, doors open at 5:30 PM. You may RSVP here, though space is limited, so please respond as soon as you're able. Please see the attached flyer for full details.

    Sigma Xi has over 100 years of history at Stanford, and is re-launching now to lay out an inclusive and supportive vision for the future. Membership is not required to attend the event, but the chapter is looking for new members and leaders to set the agenda and to make the organization into one that truly serves everyone interested in research. More info is available online at Stanford Sigma Xi's Website, and we're happy to answer any questions sent to sigmaxichapter@stanford.edu

  • Rudy Ruggles STEM Interdisciplinary Research Award

    The WCSU Sigma Xi Chapter is Calling all Northeast Region Sigma Xi members to apply for this new award that celebrates research excellence through interdisciplinary research.  Information and applications can be found in the link below.