Academic Stars: Mahloch, Messing, and Miller

Announcing the college's latest Academic Stars, three stellar staffers.

The Dynamic Duo

Linda Mahloch loves opera, and has traveled the world in search of great performances. LeAnn Messing is most at home in her garden, elbow deep in dirt. Both are equally happy at work as at play, and together they possess 75 years of professional experience in UNL's English department. It is a staggering amount of shared history and institutional knowledge.

Live Wire

When he's not working (which is rare,) you might find Bryan Miller rocking out to David Lee Roth or Rick James at a karaoke club. Usually, however, the latest Academic Star in UNL's College of Arts and Sciences can be found tinkering with equipment in his office or making the rounds of departments he supports, in search of projects and good conversation.

Faculty Highlights

New chemistry research walks on water

Self-cleaning walls, counter tops, fabrics, even micro-robots that can walk on water—all of these things and more could be closer to reality thanks to research recently completed by scientists at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln and at Japan's RIKEN institute.

Geosciences professor brings NASA to Nebraska classrooms.

A summer conference organized by UNL's Jun Wang helped launch 19 middle- and high-school educators into orbit with NASA satellite data. Wang, an assistant professor of geosciences, is the recipient of a New Investigator Program in Earth Sciences grant from NASA.

Cover Story

New collaboration explores Civil War Washington: A conversation with the team behind UNL's latest digital humanities project.

At the table: Ken Winkle, Katherine Walter, Brett Barney, Susan Lawrence, Stacey Berry, and Ken Price.

• Extra: Download the podcast of the conversation!

Faculty Highlights

Digging for clues to an Indian War battle

Peter Bleed, Doug Scott and UNL students are helping bring an 1865 Indian War battle site in western Nebraska into focus. During the final three weeks of UNL's Summer Field School in Archaeology—an annual summer course that immerses students in the study of historic sites—the researchers led 10 students in an exploration of what is believed to be the Rush Creek battle site near Broadwater, Neb.

Math department recognized for decades of success in mentoring.

The Department of Mathematics at UNL has received the 2009 Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department from the American Mathematical Society. Presented annually, the award recognizes a college or university mathematics department that has distinguished itself by undertaking an unusual or particularly effective program of value to the mathematics community, internally or in relation to the rest of society.

Student Features

English graduate students receive national awards

Three graduate students from the UNL English department have earned national recognition for their scholarship and creative writing.

Biosciences student searches for clues to HIV drug resistance in Zambia.

Nithal Kuwa's research could have a profound effect on the medical treatment of the more than 1.8 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa who are living with HIV and AIDS.