News of the Collegespring2007

Professors Receive Tenure

Upon recommendation of President Colin Diver and the faculty’s Committee on Advancement and Tenure, the college trustees have approved four professors for promotion to associate professor for the 2007–08 academic year.

  Jennifer Henderlong Corpus image
   

Psychologist Jennifer Henderlong Corpus studies motivation in children and its relationship to learning and school success. Corpus began teaching at Reed in 2001, after receiving a B.A. from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Stanford University. Corpus was named a 2005–06 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow and received a grant to further her research on Predictors and Consequences of Children’s Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations: A Developmental Perspective. Corpus also serves as the director of the Children’s Motivation Project, which is based in the Reed psychology department and works with Portland-area school children to observe motivational techniques and strategies. Reed psychology students aid Corpus with the project, frequently co-authoring papers and presentations. Corpus served as chair of the Division of Philosophy, Religion, Psychology, and Linguistics for the 2006–07 academic year.

  Maureen Harkin image
   

Maureen Harkin, associate professor of English and humanities, has taught at Reed since 2002. Prior to coming to Reed, she served as an assistant professor of English at Stanford University for six years. Harkin received a B.A. in English and the history of art from the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, where she concentrated on 18th-century British literature and aesthetic theory.

Harkin recently edited a critical edition of writer Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling (2005), a novel considered among the most influential works of 18th-century sentimental fiction. She has published numerous articles on 18th-century literature and culture, and is currently finishing a book on Adam Smith’s literary culture. Her work in progress includes a second book project focusing on British writings on landscape, aesthetics, and visual culture, 1690–1820.

  James Pommersheim image
   

James Pommersheim, Katherine Piggott Professor of Mathematics, received his B.S. from Bucknell University. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Pommersheim has been teaching at Reed since 2004, specializing in algebraic geometry, number theory, and quantum computation. Since 1985, Pommersheim has served as an instructor for the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, a summer program devoted to seeking out and supporting talented children, from seventh through twelfth grade, from around the country.

Pommersheim serves on the Reed faculty committees for Research on Human Subjects and Academic Support Services, and has sung bass for Reed’s Collegium Musicum, as well as for the Portland Symphonic Choir. Pommersheim is currently co-authoring a book in progress, Number Theory: A Mathemythical Approach, each chapter of which is centered around a “math myth,” or tale about a famous mathematician. Pommersheim explains that though these math myths have no historical basis, they serve to illustrate a concept key to that chapter.