Profs. Irving Epstein (CHEM) and Yu-Hui Chang (MUS) have been selected as Radcliffe fellows for the 2010 to 2011 academic year, and will spend this year at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard working on individual interdisciplinary projects of their choice.While neither Chang nor Epstein will teach at Brandeis for the duration of the fellowship, both of them will maintain some contact with their respective students and projects on campus.

The fellowship program accepted 50 professors this year.

The application process selects professors with projects chosen for their quality and long-term impact, according to the fellowship's website.

Brandeis professors who previously recieved this fellowship include Prof. Wendy Cadge (SOC), who worked on a book about the formal and informal presence of religion and spirituality in hospitals; Prof. James Haber (BIOL), who studied DNA repair by recombination; Prof. Jané Kondev (PHYS), who studied the physical biology of cells; and Prof. Jane Kamensky (HIST) who began a project on the life and times of the artist Gilbert Stuart, according to their fellowship profiles.

Epstein's project focuses on the study of cross-diffusion and its effects in physical, biological and social systems, according to a phone interview with the Justice.

He explained that he hopes to tie together the natural and social science aspects of his project through the mathematical concepts of diffusion.

Epstein explained simple diffusion with an example: the dropping of an amount of red dye into a cup of water. In simple diffusion, this would result in a cup of pink water, said Epstein.

In a more complex situation, dropping both red and blue dye into a cup may result in a cup of purple water as a result of the red and blue dyes spreading out equally throughout the cup, he said.

He went on to explain that in cross-diffusion, different colors or species of example populations interact in ways that affect each other in a more complex manner.

For example, populations of foxes and rabbits follow a predator-prey pattern and different ethnic groups prefer to live near only other certain ethnic groups.

This could possibly help in explaining some social phenomena akin to "white flight," in which large populations of white people move away from some areas when minorities begin living there.

"There is a set of equations that one could use to describe a whole range of phenomena. Whether they're in physical, biological or social systems, you just have to have enough of an understanding of the underlying systems to see how to express what is going on," he said.

"I hope to get some of this understanding by talking to people in other disciplines."

Chang was initially chosen for the Radcliffe Fellowship program for the 2008 to 2009 academic year, but she deferred from both teaching at Brandeis and attending the fellowship program for a year due to family issues.

Chang wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that as a Radcliffe fellow, her projects will include composing a piece for a piano trio and women's choir commissioned by the Barlow Endowment and the Triple Helix Piano Trio, which will premiere in April 2011 by the Triple Helix and the Wellesley College Chamber Singers.

Like Epstein's project, Chang's will also be interdisciplinary. She will compose her piece based on the words of a poet from Wellesley College. The poem has yet to be selected, according to Chang.

In addition to her interdisciplinary project, Chang will also write a piece commissioned by Meet the Composer, an initiative dedicated to the idea of composers as active professionals and a cello solo piece commissioned by cellist Rhonda Rider for her Grand Canyon artist-in-residence concert in February 2011, among other projects.

In a phone interview with the Justice, Chang praised the interdisciplinary aspect of the program and said that she was excited to interact with the other Radcliffe Fellows.

"A lot of times, as musicians, we only deal with musicians, and there aren't a lot of opportunities to have such an intensive amount of exposure to people in other disciplines," she said.

Epstein said he intends to visit campus one day a week to check on his lab and continue his work as the director of the Science Posse program.

Chang said that although she will not be on campus, she will be available to supervise recitations as her students prepare to perform.