Walburga von Raffler-Engel, professor of linguistics, emerita, and research associate at the Institute for Public Policy Studies, has been elected to the advisory board of the Visas for Life Foundation. Chair of the board is His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Susan Barone and David Colbert, language teaching specialists at English for Internationals, made presentations at the 33rd annual Teachers of Enlish to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Convention, held March 9-13 in New York City. Barone presented “Virtual travel though newsletters.” Colbert presented “Bringing literature to life: Supporting a novel with the Internet.”

Richard Chappell, director of Science and Research Communications, gave the plenary lecture to the annual meeting of the Society of Toxicology in New Orleans March 15. He spoke on “Worlds Apart — The Challenge of Communicating Science to the Public.”

Mark Ellingham, associate professor of mathematics, was an invited speaker at the Special Session on Graph Theory at the American Mathematical Society meeting, held March 18-21 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He spoke on “The Spectral Radius of Graphs on Surfaces.”

Wendy Hunter, associate professor of political science, was invited by the State Department to brief the new U.S. ambassador to Brazil, Brian Atwood, on civil-military relations in that country.

Wendy Hunter