School of Humanities and Sciences


Showing 61-80 of 95 Results

  • David Cohen

    David Cohen

    WSD-HANDA Professor of Human Rights and International Justice, Professor of Environmental Social Sciences and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCurrent research includes book projects on World War II war crimes trials; the Tokyo and Nuremberg International Military Tribunals; analysis of blasphemy prosecutions in Indonesia; analysis of the misuse of electronic communication, criminal defamation, lese majeste, blasphemy and asspociated laws in Southeast Asia; international best practices on whistleblower protection and justiuce collaborators in corruption cases in ASEAN; the UN justice process in East Timor under the Special Panels for Serious Crimes; comparative study of strategic decision making in American, British, and Japanese policy circles in WWII; analysis of the Judgment in Case 002/2 at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia.

  • Geoffrey Cohen

    Geoffrey Cohen

    James G. March Professor of Organizational Studies in Education and Business, Professor of Psychology and, by courtesy, of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMuch of my research examines processes related to identity maintenance and their implications for social problems. One primary aim of my research is the development of theory-driven, rigorously tested intervention strategies that further our understanding of the processes underpinning social problems and that offer solutions to alleviate them. Two key questions lie at the core of my research: “Given that a problem exists, what are its underlying processes?” And, “Once identified, how can these processes be overcome?” One reason for this interest in intervention is my belief that a useful way to understand psychological processes and social systems is to try to change them. We also are interested in how and when seemingly brief interventions, attuned to underlying psychological processes, produce large and long-lasting psychological and behavioral change.

    The methods that my lab uses include laboratory experiments, longitudinal studies, content analyses, and randomized field experiments. One specific area of research addresses the effects of group identity on achievement, with a focus on under-performance and racial and gender achievement gaps. Additional research programs address hiring discrimination, the psychology of closed-mindedness and inter-group conflict, and psychological processes underlying anti-social and health-risk behavior.

  • Margaret Cohen

    Margaret Cohen

    Andrew B. Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization and Professor, by courtesy, of French and Italian and of Comparative Literature

    Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProfessor Cohen has devoted her career to the literature and culture of modernity. Her books include Profane Illumination (1993) on the impact of surrealist Paris on Walter Benjamin; The Sentimental Education of the Novel (1999), on the role of women writers in shaping 19th-century French realism; and The Novel and the Sea (2010), about how writings about work at sea shaped the adventure novel. Her forthcoming book explores how underwater film and TV have shaped the cultural imagination.

  • James Collman

    James Collman

    George A. and Hilda M. Daubert Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus

    BioProfessor Emeritus James Collman has made landmark contributions to inorganic chemistry, metal ion biochemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and transition metal organometallic chemistry. He pioneered numerous now-popular research tools to reveal key structural and functional details of metalloenzymes essential to respiration and energy, and hemoglobin and myoglobin, essential to oxygen transport in the blood.

    Born 1932 in Beatrice, Nebraska, James P. Collman studied chemistry at U. Nebraska–Lincoln (B.S. 1954, M.S. 1956). His doctoral work at U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Ph.D., 1958) focused on Grignard reagents. As a faculty member at U. North Carolina, he demonstrated aromatic reactivity in metal acetylacetonates, and he developed metal complexes that hydrolyze peptide bonds under physiological conditions. He came to Stanford University as Professor of Chemistry in 1967. Among many honors, Prof. Collman’s was elected to the National academy of Sciences in 1975, and named California Scientist of the Year in 1983.

    At Stanford, Prof. Collman invented a new paradigm for studying biological systems using functional synthetic analogs of metal-containing enzyme systems, free from the protein coatings that can affect metalloprotein chemical properties. This strategy allowed him to elucidate the intrinsic reactivity of the metal center as well as the effects of protein-metal interactions on biological function.

    One focal point of this research has involved heme-proteins such as the oxygen (O2) carrier hemoglobin (Hb), and the O2-storing protein myoglobin (Mb). Prof. Collman was the first to prepare and characterize stable, functional analogues of the Hb and Mb active sites, which contain an iron derivative of the large flat “porphyrin” ligand. In his “picket fence” porphyrin, groups installed on the periphery block side reactions, which would otherwise degrade the structure. This protected iron complex manifests the unique magnetic, spectroscopic and structural characteristics of the O2-binding Hb and Mb sites, and exhibits very similar O2-binding affinities.

    The Collman Group also prepared functional mimics of the O2-binding/reducing site in a key respiration enzyme, cytochrome c oxidase, CcO, which converts O2 to H2O during biosynthesis of the energy storage molecule ATP. This enzyme must be very selective: partial O2 reduction products are toxic. Prof. Collman invented a powerful synthetic strategy to create analogs of the CcO active site and applied novel electrochemical techniques to demonstrate that these models catalyze the reduction of O2 to water without producing toxic partially-reduced species. He was able to mimic slow, rate-limiting electron delivery by attaching his CcO model to a liquid-crystalline membrane using “click chemistry.” He demonstrated that hydrogen sulfide molecules and heterocycles reversibly bind to the metal centers at CcO’s active site, connecting a synthetic enzyme model to simple molecules that reversibly inhibit respiration. These respiration inhibitors exhibit physiological properties, affecting blood clotting and controlling the effects of the hormone, nitric oxide, NO.

    In addition, Prof. Collman performed fundamental studies of organometallic reactions. He also prepared and characterized homodinuclear and heterodinuclear complexes having metal-metal multiple bonds, and made the first measurements of the rotational barriers found in multiple metal-metal bonds.

    Prof. Collman’s impactful textbook “Principles and Applications of Organotransition Metal Chemistry” has seen multiple editions. His book “Naturally Dangerous: Surprising Facts About Food, Health, and the Environment” explains the science behind everyday life, and received favorable reviews in Nature and The Washington Post.

  • David Como

    David Como

    Professor of History

    BioMy teaching and research focus on the following areas of interest:

    Puritanism, Politics
    English Revolution
    History of print
    History of Political Thought
    History of Religion and the Reformation
    Global History

  • Nathan Cordova

    Nathan Cordova

    Lecturer

    BioNathan Cordova is a multidisciplinary artist who works primarily with photography, video, sound, sculpture and performance. He received his MFA in Photography, Video and Imaging from the University of Arizona (‘24). Nathan has received grants and fellowships such as the Medici Scholar Award, Helen Gross Award, Mellon-Fronteridades Fellowship, GPSC Travel Grant as well as a fully-funded residency at Anderson Ranch Arts Center. He’s independently published four artist books and his commissioned work has appeared in WIRED. Nathan’s current project, Ghosts and Shadows, is an audio/video artwork that aims to uncover a common auditory and visual language between humans and the US/Mexico Border as immaterial/material-entity. He is a member of Southwest Photo Collaborative, whose group show, Land, Body & Archive, visited the cities of Phoenix, Albuquerque and Tucson in 2023-2024. Nathan spoke as a student-presenter at the Society for Photographic Education’s Annual Conference, New Realities, in St. Louis, MO in the spring of 2024. He was named to the 2024 Lenscratch Student Prize Top 25 Photographers to watch.