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Services for Faculty

Services for Faculty

Gibbons Internship Program

John A. Gibbons, Jr. '64 established the Gibbons Summer Internship program to enable students who are rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors to work with members of the faculty on projects that use technology to explore interdisciplinary areas and to develop fresh approaches to the study of complex problems. The students benefit not only by spending the summer focusing on a complex issue, but, as importantly, working closely with a faculty member, and learning how they study and analyze problems. Because Gibbons values interdisciplinary work and thinking, the students do not need to be working on projects in their major.

The internships are coordinated through Information Technology. Please contact Jennifer Snow, if you have any questions.

Summer 2007
Summer 2006
Summer 2005
Summer 2004

Summer 2007

Zoe Eddy '10
Genny LeMoine, Curator/Registrar, Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum

Zoe's project with the Arctic Museum will be an extension of a project started last summer by another Gibbons intern.   She will continue developing an interactive map/timeline of Robert E. Peary's Arctic expeditions for use in the Museum's upcoming exhibit, Northward over the Great Ice: Robert E. Peary's North Pole Expeditions .   With guidance from curatorial staff, Zoe will collect historical materials to use in the exhibit.   Additionally, she will work with IT staff to acquire digital media and incorporate these elements into an interactive exhibit.

Jeffrey Friedlander '08
Vineet Shende, Assistant Professor, Department of Music

Jeffrey and Vin will work on two projects this summer.   The first project will introduce Jeff to Finale, a notational program to extract and format musical compositions.   He will work with several of Vin's compositions.   Secondly, he and Vin will set-up, trouble shoot, and write programs for the Music Department's new Electronic Music Studio.   Jeff hopes to work in music technology after graduation; both projects will introduce him to software and tools that he will use.

Christopher Jacob '09
Brad Burnham, Head Coach, Swimming, Athletics Department;
Dale Syphers, Professor, Department of Physics

Chris will develop software necessary to capture, analyze, and display data about swimmers so that it is useful for the subjects.   The data is generated from a prototype towing machine mounted to the pool deck and attached to a swimmer through a line wrapped around a drum in the machine, (imagine a very sophisticated fishing reel). The position and voltage sensors in the towing machine collect 3.5 million data-points about the swimmer from each 15 second pass.   The goal is to develop the software programs that will transform the sensor data into usable information for athletes.

Carl Morrissey '09
Ed Laine, Associate Professor, Department of Geology

Carl will work with Ed to develop a web site for the Bowdoin Buoy Facility.   He will focus on the educational aspects of the web site and will help to prepare materials about the buoy to be used in Geology/Environmental Studies 103 and Geology/Environmental Studies 267 next year.   The web site will enable Ed to introduce new materials about harmful algal blooms into his courses and focus on the content more effectively in an interdisciplinary context next year.

Nate Morrow '10
Susan Wegner, Associate Professor, Department of Art History;
Katy Kline, Director, Museum of Art

Nate will work with Susan and Katy to develop online interactive programming to accompany the Museum of Art's exhibit, Beauty and Duty: The Art and Business of Renaissance Marriage , which will open in March 2008.   With their guidance, he will design and implement web activities aimed at different audiences, including K-12 students, teachers, and Bowdoin students.

David Thompson '08
Patrick Rael, Associate Professor, Department of History;
Richard Lindemann, Director, Special Collections and Archives, Library

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain web site.

Allison Weide '08
Anne Henshaw, Director, Coastal Studies Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Allison will work with Anne to develop interactive web-based mapping of Inuit place names and travel routes on southwest Baffin Island, Canada.   She will create a web interface that integrates GIS vector data (polylines and polygons) from the place name project together with associated attributes so that a user can work with the information in an interactive way.   The primary objective is to code that data so that one could scroll over the screen to see which routes are used during the summer versus winter.   This project would take the research to the next level by conveying the dynamic quality of place naming that is difficult to do with a paper map.

Summer 2006

Thomas Duffy '07
Peter Lea, Associate Professor of Geology, Department of Geology

Tom worked with Peter to develop materials for an upcoming glacial geology course (Geology 282) using Google Earth. He provided examples of different glacial features around the world using Google Earth satellite and aerial imagery, integrated additional materials (e.g., field photographs, graphs of data) into Google Earth to create virtual field trips, and created self-quizzes based upon Google Earth images and data.

Brendan Mortimer '06
Scott Sehon, Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy

Each fall semester, Scott teaches Philosophy 223, a course on symbolic logic.   In this course, students learn to use a natural deduction system for quantificational logic. They learn a formal way to show that one formula implies another.   The system is natural in that it is intended to mimic informal or natural ways of reasoning.   Each line of the deduction must cite one of about 10 rules.   Brendan worked with Scott to create a computer application to help students master the deduction system.

Mark Viehman '07
Patrick Rael, Associate Professor of History, Department of History

Mark continued gathering data and creating GIS maps for Patrick Rael's historical census data project. Since Fall 2003, Patrick has been acquiring historical datasets containing information from the federal decennial censuses (1790-1920) that students in his 200-level courses manipulate and then plot using ArcGIS. Mark's summer tasks included improving the data that currently exists by correcting it, supplementing it, and adding new variables.   In addition, he worked with Patrick to prepare materials for a new course in quantitative history.

Lowell Walker '07
John Lichter, Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies, Department of Biology;
Matt Klingle, Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Department of History

Lowell worked on two projects utilizing GIS.   He contributed to the GIS database for Merrymeeting Bay by developing a GIS layer of rare and threatened plant species in Merrymeeting Bay and its tidal tributaries.   In addition, he acquired and georeferenced historical maps of the area.   Both projects contributed to the Merrymeeting Bay area GIS database.

Greg Wyka '08
Ed Laine, Associate Professor of Geology, Department of Geology

Greg worked with Ed to create a detailed bathymetric map of Harpswell Sound to track a new oceanographic buoy that is adjacent to the Coastal Studies Center.    The Bowdoin Buoy Facility (BBF) has a dozen sensors at various depths reporting on meteorology, currents, chemistry, and biology real time 24/7. It was used as a focus in Introduction to Marine Environmental Geology (Geology103), and Marine Geology (Geology 250) in Fall 2006 and in Coastal Oceanography (Geology 267) in Spring 2007.

Summer 2005

Emma Bonanomi '05
Genny Lemoine, Curator, Arctic Museum

Emma Bonanomi worked with Genny LeMoine and other Arctic Musem staff to curate an   pcoming exhibit, This Extraordinary Paradise: Life in Northwest Greenland. Specifically, the project proposed to develop audio-tours using Apple iPods to deliver multimedia content (images and audio) to supplement the exhibit. Emma scanned images, wrote text, and programmed the iPods with the exhibit content.

Adam Cohen-Leadholm '07
Vineet Shende, Assistant Professor of Music, Department of Music

Vineet Shende spent the summer completing three compositions - a large multi-movement work, a smaller orchestral work, and a multi-movement work for a chamber ensemble. Adam, who is a music major with a special interest in composition used Finale, a notational program to extract and format these musical compositions as well as create a vocal-piano reduction for the multi-movement orchestral work.   In addition, he used Finale to work on his own compositions with Vineet's guidance., which helped him learn more about this complicated program.

Karen Fossum '07
Pamela Fletcher, Assistant Professor of Art History, Department of Art History

Karen worked with Pamela Fletcher to develop a GIS-based curriculum for Art History 357: The Commercial Art Gallery, an advanced seminar. Specifically, the project attempted to map art galleries in New York and London in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By mapping the geography of the commercial gallery, they explored many questions about art galleries and their historical development.

Gillian Garratt-Reed '07
Ed Laine, Associate Professor of Geology, Department of Geology

Gillian worked with Ed Laine to create an oceanographic database for use in future introductory, intermediate, and advanced courses, as well as faculty and student research. The project included evaluating oceanographic water quality data collected in Casco Bay over the past five years. Gillian gathered metadata and analyzed whether certain data would be included in the database. In addition, she used Ocean Data View, a software package for interactive exploration, analysis, and visualization of the oceanographic data.

Julia Ledewitz '08
John Lichter, Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies, Department of Biology;
Matt Klingle, Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies, Department of History

Julia worked with John Lichter and Matt Klingle to examine the role of historical maps in understanding the ecology of Merrymeeting Bay. The project required researching available historical maps and converting the information into scanned images and digital files. Julia conducted that work as well as develop GIS datasets that will be used by faculty and students in Environmental Studies 394: Ecology of Merrymeeting Bay and Environmental Studies 203: Environment and Culture in North American History.

Maxwell Tyler '07
Peter Lea, Associate Professor of Geology, Department of Geology

The Merrymeeting Bay (MMB) project involves both interdisciplinary teaching and research in geology, biology, environmental studies, archeology and history. Max assisted in the development of IT resources for the project, including (1) data collection and processing to construct a bathymetric map of MMB, and (2) development of Geographical Information System (GIS) maps and coverages to make research and monitoring results accessible on the web. Max utilized and synthesized data and information from diverse scientific instruments (notably acoustic-doppler current profiler, Campbell Scientific dataloggers and probes, YSI multi-parameter sonde) with Global Positioning System data and GIS within the evolving MMB database.

David Willner '06
Patrick Rael, Associate Professor of History, Department of History

David continued gathering data and creating GIS maps for Patrick Rael's historical census data project. Since Fall 2003, Patrick has been acquiring historical datasets containing information from the federal decennial censuses (1790-1920) that students in his 200-level courses manipulate and then plot using ArcGIS. David's summer's tasks included improving the data that currently exists by correcting it, supplementing it, and adding new variables.

Daniel Yingst '07
Tom Conlan, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, Department of History and Asian Studies Program

Daniel worked with Tom Conlan to enhance the Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan web site. Specifically, he created an interactive map and timeline to show the progression of the Mongols during the invasions, both geographically and chronologically. He also used his programming skills to optimize the performance and maintenance of the site and enable easier creation of additional teaching materials and content.

Summer 2004

Christina Lynn Furick '04
Zen Gardens project with Clif Olds, Art History and Carey Phillips, Biology

The Zen Gardens project received a grant from the NEA to enhance it by creating virtual gardens for users to visit.  Lynn created 3-D models of trees, rocks, and other Japanese garden elements.

Molly Juhlin '05
Chinese Scrolls project with De-nin Lee, Art History and Asian Studies

The Chinese scrolls project will allow us to use the same framework that we built for Tom Conlan's Mongol Scrolls project that you helped fund last summer.   Molly spent the summer scanning and manipulating images for this project that De-nin Lee used in her first-year seminar, Stories and Scrolls in Fall 2004.

Sarah Scott '07
Classics Database project with Jim Higginbotham, Classics

Sarah spent her summer populating the Classics database with images of Mediterranean artifacts and sites, but worked most specifically to edit the existing content.

Matthew Spooner '05
Historical Atlas project with Patrick Rael, History
Anthropology/Coastal Studies Center GIS project with Anne Henshaw, Anthropology and CSC

Both projects required extensive use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and shared Matthew, who applied his newly acquired GIS knowledge to help Patrick and Anne create materials for their Fall 2004 courses.

Ella Thodal '05
Webmathematica project with Adam Levy, Math

This math project enabled Adam to create problem sets to help his students visualize various algorithms and formulas without having to do a lot of programming.   Ella spent the summer creating problem sets and preparing them for Adam's Optimization course.

Will Voinot-Baron '07
Bathymetric mapping project with Ed Laine, Geology

This project entailed making a bathymetric map of Quahog Bay.   Will spent about two weeks on a boat in Quahog Bay gathering bathymetric profiles.   He then spent the rest of his summer editing the data and creating contour maps for Ed to use in his courses and student research.