Date: 08/23/2004

Grace Provenzano, associate professor of journalism and mass communication, has been completing a half-hour documentary for KCSM, the PBS station based in San Mateo, for potential broadcast in early January. Says Provenzano, "The documentary will focus on a World War II bomber crew which crash landed on Iwo Jima during the battle over that island in March 1945. It highlights the unique mission and the extraordinary relationships that still exist among the seven of 10 crew members living today. One of the seven men attended SJSU and is a life-long San Jose resident." Provenzano says that it has taken nearly two years to gather all the rare film footage, conduct interviews at the D-Day Museum in New Orleans and get a commitment from a PBS station to air the program. Contact Provenzano at gprovenzano@casa.sjsu.edu.

Guna Selvaduray, professor of chemical and materials engineering, gave invited talks on disaster mitigation in Japan and China this summer. He spoke at the Forum on Emergency Management in Sapporo, organized by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport; at the US-Japan Disaster Reduction Forum in Tokyo, organized by The Crisis and Environment Management Policy Institute; and at the Shizuoka NPO International Forum, organized by the Shizuoka Prefectural Government. In addition, GEM Electronics (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., invited Selvaduray to China to present two seminars, one on "Pb-Free Solders in Microelectronics Assembly," the other on "Sn-Whiskers: Driving Force and Growth Mechanisms." Contact Selvaduray at gunas@email.sjsu.edu.

Edith Crowe, art and humanities librarian and coordinator of graduate instruction, delivered a paper, "35 Years of Tolkien Articles: Life in the Ghetto," at the Mythopoeic Society Annual Conference in Ann Arbor, Mich. Crowe says that she also moderated a panel with writer Neil Gaiman, who was at SJSU last fall as part of the Center for Literary Arts' Major Authors Series. Finally, Crowe participated in two additional panels: "The Fiction of Dorothy Sayers" and "The Female Hero vs. the Heroine." Contact Crowe at edith.crowe@sjsu.edu.

Terry Christensen, professor of political science, served on a panel for Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network???s "Economic Trends 2004: A Mid-Year Update" event at NASA Ames. The panel of experts, moderated by Scott Budman of NBC 11 News, addressed questions on trends and headlines in 2004 and the industry indicators for the remainder of the year and early 2005. Contact Christensen at terrychr@email.sjsu.edu.