FACULTY
Q&A with new members of the faculty
Elena Belogolovsky
The Ken DiPietro ILR '81 Faculty Fellow; Assistant professor, human resource studies, ILR School; Ph.D., behavioral sciences and management, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, 2011
What are your favorite things about Cornell so far?
Elena Belogolovsky. See larger image
Bright and diverse students, exceptionally interesting faculty members, staff members who always go above and beyond their formal duties and, of course, the incredibly beautiful campus. I truly feel privileged to be a part of the Cornell family.
As a professor of human resource studies, what excites you most about your field?
My expertise and interests lie in "pay secrecy," a very controversial topic in the field of compensation. I explore the implications of pay secrecy in organizations – more specifically, the pay communication policy that limits employees' access to and discussion of pay-related information. Given increasing calls for pay transparency, my findings guide development of pay communication policies that – while ensuring managerial flexibility – pose less of a risk to individual performance.
What do you like to do when you're not teaching or doing research?
I love to play piano, play chess and write short stories.
Meredith Silberstein
The Mills Family Faculty Fellow (made possible by Charlie Mills '83, MBA '84); Assistant professor, mechanical and aerospace engineering, College of Engineering; Ph.D., mechanical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011
Meredith Silberstein. See larger image
What's your favorite thing about Cornell so far?
Definitely the people. Several of my colleagues have gone out of their way to make my first semester of teaching as smooth as possible and to get my research going. I'm also really enjoying getting to know the undergraduates in my class.
What excites you most about your field?
I really like that my field (solid mechanics) is more of a tool set or viewpoint than a specific
research area. I get to take really basic principles like static equilibrium and thermodynamics and apply them to understanding state-of-the-art materials.
What do you like to do when you're not teaching or doing research?
I tend to spend most of my free time on sports. I've been playing soccer since I was 7, ran track in college, played Ultimate Frisbee in grad school and, most recently, spent my postdoc playing basketball. I haven't found my team sport of choice here yet, but I have been trying out yoga, for which Ithaca has many options.
Ishion Ira Hutchinson
The Meringoff Faculty Fellow (made possible by Stephen J. Meringoff '66); Assistant professor, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences; Ph.D., English and creative writing, University of Utah, 2012.
What do you like best about Cornell so far?
The generosity, first of all. I stopped feeling like a stranger and felt like I entered into a family as soon as I got here. Other than that I am very taken with the campus. The beauty is almost heartbreaking.
One of the classes you teach is Intermediate Verse Writing. Tell us an assignment.
The first assignment was to produce a close imitation of a sonnet, English or Italian, and also to write a poem that exploits the sonnet form's principle of imbalance.
A poem, "Errant," from Hutchinson's book "Far District":
Ishion Ira Hutchinson. See larger image
Eyesight good for the devil, his kingdom
made out of insects' parts in a dim room,
a curtain hitched in the window like a tombstone.
Woodworms tick shovels in the crossbeams;
coal-written signs hieroglyphed the wall; the town's
one necromancer shuffles up and mutters
what his hand touches: a lethal science.
Outside, the house has other warnings: a ram's
skin, its skull and horns nailed to the doorway.
Vine-choked veranda, root-split steps cut off
by a cesspool – alive and dead in it –
cricket balls and our eyes peering at this dark fortress.
This time I am to fetch it, the last leather
ball to fly over the fence like a black butterfly;
and at that age, oblivion matters, so one boy
at a time is sacrificed. The evening too early
to declare "bad light", I push my head between
the barbwire, crossing over, laughter like goats.