March 2012 Alumni Newsletter

Much is happening at Cleveland State University's College of Sciences and Health Professions. Allow me to tell you about just a few things...

As a way to connect with alumni and help them to network with others in their fields, we are inviting alumni from Psychology, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, and Biological, Geological, and Environmental Sciences to campus for events in early May. More details follow later in this newsletter. More details follow later in this newsletter. I hope you can attend and I look forward to meeting you!

We have an exciting new program for middle school students in Mathematics. MathCorps is an initiative to get today's young scholars to overcome their fear of and reluctance in math. Read more later in this issue.

Two new scholarships have been committed this year. I want to thank Marilyn Mount, friend of the Physical Therapy program, for endowing a scholarship in physical therapy. I also want to thank Dr. John Vitullo for his endowed scholarship commitment for students in the College of Sciences and Health Professions. I was happy to contribute $5,000 to each of these scholarships as a way to encourage new scholarship dollars. Our students graduate with an enormous amount of debt; scholarship dollars are CSU's number one fundraising priority. If you are interested in learning more or making a gift, please contact me or Carol Carbary, CFRE at c.carbary@csuohio.edu or 216/875-9992.

Another way to learn more about scholarships, the need for additional scholarship funding, and today's students is to attend CSU's premier fundraising gala. Click here for more information http://www.csuohio.edu/events/radiance/. The date is Friday, May 11. I hope to see you there.

The CSU-NEOMED program is now open! For more information, click here http://www.csuohio.edu/sciences/preprof/premed/neoucom.html

To learn more, please contact me. I would be happy to coordinate a campus tour for you and your family or friends. If you haven't seen CSU lately, you haven't seen CSU!

Please feel free to email me at m.bond40@csuohio.edu.

Dr. Meredith Bond, Dean
College of Sciences and Health Professions

On the Road with the Dean

Dean Meredith Bond and Director of Development Carol Carbary travelled to Phoenix March 16th and 17th. Alumni and friends enjoyed watching the Cleveland Indians v. the Cincinnati Reds spring-training game on March 17th. Pictured here, Dean Meredith Bond with Brian Browne, M.Ed (Science Concentration), 1999, and his wife, Jennifer.

Upcoming Alumni Events

Reserve your seat now for all events at 216.687.2078 or email alumassoc@csuohio.edu. To view a calendar of upcoming events, click here.

News You Can Use

SAVE THE DATES
Meet the new dean and hear about the strategic vision for the College, reconnect with other Alumni, meet Department Chairs, Faculty, Students, and members of the COSHP Visiting Committee.  Learn what faculty and students are working on and network with other alumni. Free to attend.  RSVP to j.r.madden@csuohio.edu or call 216.875.9834:

Psychology Alumni Reception – Monday, May 7, 2012
Please join the faculty, staff, and current students from the Psychology Department for an Alumni reception.  The event will be held in the Student Center Ballroom from 5:00 PM until 7:00 PM.  

Math, Chemistry, BGES & Physics Alumni Reception – Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Please join the faculty, staff, and current students from the Math, Chemistry, BGES, and Physics Departments for an Alumni reception.  The event will be held in the Student Center Ballroom from 5:00 PM until 7:00 PM.  

Scholarship Fund Pledge – Diversity Management Class of 2005
The Masters program in Diversity Management's 2005 Graduating class has pledged $1,000 toward the Diversity Management Scholarship fund for this year's fund drive. The scholarship was endowed in 2011 and will begin awarding scholarships for the 2012 academic year.

Information Session – Diversity Management Program
The Diversity Management Program (DMP) has an information session for prospective students on March 21st from 5:30 -7:30.  The DMP includes a Masters Degree and a Graduate Certificate option.

• For more departmental information, click here.

Anton Komar and his doctoral student, Sujata Jha, will publish two articles highlighting techniques they use to study the relation between alternative genetic codes for a protein, speed of translation of the RNA, and proper folding of the protein. The journal publishes articles in a video format. A production team will spend two days at CSU filming the videos. They will appear on the web as:

Jha, S. and Komar, A.A. (2012) Isolation of ribosome bound nascent polypeptides in vitro to identify translational pause sites along mRNA. J Vis Exp.

Jha, S. and Komar, A.A.* (2012) Using SecM arrest sequence as a tool to isolate ribosome bound polypeptides. J Vis Exp. 

Erin Huber, Environmental Science graduate and winner of the Tarun K. Mal award for top seniors in Environmental Science was named as one of the Most Interesting People of 2012 by Cleveland Magazine.  Click here to view the full article.

CHEMISTRY:

• For more departmental information, click here.

Rajesh Morampudi has won the 2012 Coblentz Society Student Award in vibrational spectroscopy for his work on developing a Virtually Imaged Phased Array Raman and Brillouin spectrometer.  The Coblentz Society's focus is on vibrational spectroscopy and many of the past student awardees have gone on to make significant contributions in the field of vibrational spectroscopy. This award also makes Rajesh eligible for the William G. Fately Student Award.

Rajesh is pictured here with the instrument.

For more information on the Coblentz award, follow the link below:
http://www.coblentz.org/awards/coblentz-student-awards

SCHOOL OF HEALTH SCIENCES:

• For more departmental information, click here.

MATHEMATICS:

• For more departmental information, click here.

The Department of Mathematics has signed a partnership agreement with Northeast Ohio Trauma Systems (NOTS) at Metro Hospital for CSU statistics students and faculty to work with trauma residents and physicians on mining trauma databases to research evidence based practices.  Jeffrey Claridge, MD, Head of Metro Trauma and Michael Nowak, Ph.D, Regional Data Manager for NOTS have been appointed adjunct faculty members within the CSU Department of Mathematics.

The Math Corps Cleveland Summer Camp at CSU is a combined academic enrichment and mentoring program that brings middle and high school students from Greater Cleveland together with college students to learn mathematics from each other, and interact with professional mathematicians.  It is based on the strategy of creating a self-perpetuating “corps” of students from middle school through college, who will excel in mathematics passing their knowledge and appreciation of the subject on to younger students, who in turn do the same.  Math Corps Cleveland 2012 Summer Camp at CSU is the inaugural program and will run for four weeks serving up to 40 sixth-graders, and 20 high school students. 

If you are interested in CSU Math Corps Cleveland Summer Camp, please contact Dr. Carol Phillips-Bey for more details – c.phillips-bey@csuohio.edu.

PHYSICS:

• For more departmental information, click here.

The CSU Chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) received the Marsh White Award to fund outreach. This impressive recognition from the American Institute of Physics continues outreach activities the SPS chapter initiated at the Campus International School more than a year ago.  This is a second year in a row that our SPS chapter received this prestigious award. Please join me in congratulating the students who initiated and continue to maintain this ongoing effort: Krista Freeman, Chris Mentrek, Kaitlin Vandemark, Mike Hardin, Andreea Sandu, Jim Pitchford, Joe D'Allesandro, Lindsay Stanceu, Katie Beerer, and Kapil Mishra.

If you know of any undergraduate students interested in joining our effort please send him/her our way. It is a lot of fun!

PSYCHOLOGY:

• For more departmental information, click here.

Student Accomplishments
Gregory Bolwell, a first-year student in our Master’s degree program, specializing in Experimental Psychology, received the Best Student Paper Award for 2012 at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. Gregory’s paper was entitled Biofeedback Training in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis.

Three students enrolled in our PhD program in Adult Development and Aging – Maura Krestar, Sara Powers, and Nicki Dawson – were recently notified that their paper (co-authored with program faculty) was accepted for publication in a scientific journal: Krestar, M.L., Looman, W., Powers, S., Dawson, N., & Judge, K.S. (in press). Including individuals with memory impairment in the research process: The importance of scales and response categories used in surveys. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Ethics, 7 (4).

Kimberly Vargas, Elizabeth Boham , and Cecilia Kasten, third-year students in our School Psychology Specialist Degree program, joined Dr. Colleen McMahon in a peer-reviewed poster presentation at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of School Psychologists in Philadelphia: McMahon, C., Vargas, K., Boham, E., & Kasten, C. (2012, February). Family–School Collaboration and Student Learning.

Faculty Accomplishments
Based on a study published in the scientific journal The Geronotologist, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) selected Dr. Kathie Judge’s project, Partners in Dementia Care, as the subject of a profile in their Health Care Innovations Exchange http://www.innovations.ahrq.gov/content.aspx?id=3345 .  This online resource provides information and reviews of research for wider dissemination of innovative research that improves quality of care; it is an easily accessible and widely used resource for health care providers. The publication on which the profile is based reported on a 5-year, multi-site project that developed, implemented, and tested a care coordination intervention for veterans with dementia and their family caregivers; the project was sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association and the U.S. Veteran’s Association Medical Centers [Judge, K.S., et. al (2011). Partners in dementia care: a care coordination intervention for individuals with dementia and their family caregivers. The Gerontologist, 51, 261-272.]

Dr. Conor McLennan (and his students) recently appeared on a Fox 8 News report on the use of “clicker” technology in the classroom. Watch Dr. McLennan describe and demonstrate the use of clickers by visiting http://fox8.com/2012/02/24/parenting-u-clicker-in-the-classroom/.  Dr. McLennan also was invited to deliver a paper at the recent meeting of the (January, 2012) National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology: Using clickers to improve instruction and student learning.

Dr. Naohide Yamamoto and a colleague presented a poster at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society:  Yamamoto, N., & Muschter, E. (2011, November). Schizotypal traits and nonvisual space perception: Exploring the role of efference copy.

Alumni Accomplishments
John Clochesy, a graduate of the Diversity Management Program, is leaving his position at Case Western Reserve University for an appointment at the University of South Florida; he will be focusing on faculty development and the university’s NIMHD-funded Center for Health Equity.

Mike Brickner, a graduate of the Diversity Management Program, has published a paper in the American Bar Association’s Human Rights Journal, describing his work on the negative impact of privatized prisons on society, and, in particular, on people of color. Mike also has been invited to speak to the Vermont Law Forum on the subject of his work on behalf of a local teen, whose beating (based on his sexual orientation) was recorded and posted online, and subsequently “went viral,” drawing substantial attention to this problem.

Corbus, LLC, in Dayton, Ohio, welcomed Craig Rhodes (pictured) as Senior Vice President, Global Head of Human Resources. Mr. Rhodes, a graduate of Psychology, will be responsible for leading Corbus’ diverse human resources team across continents.

CENTER for GENE REGULATION in HEALTH and DISEASE (GRHD):

• For more GRHD information, click here.

Dr. Sailen Barik (BGES) has co-authored a Chapter in the Encyclopedia of Molecular Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine, titled "Emerging Clinical Applications and Pharmacology of RNA". He also acquired three major equipment items that will facilitate the research of all GRHD members. These are: (1) Becton-Dickinson Fluorescence-Activated Flow Cytometer, FACSCantoTM II system that will allow quantification of cell population of differentially stained surface markers (such as different types of immune cells); (2) Thermo-Fisher Nanodrop 2000C that can quantitate DNA, RNA or protein in samples as little as a microliter (a millionth of a liter) in volume; (3) Bio-Rad Cell Counter TC10 that can count particles of various size classes (including cells and parasites) in sample volumes as low as 10 microliter.

Dr. Barik also served as a reviewer for the Journal of Virology (the #1 cited journal in Virology) and a grant reviewer for Austrian Science Fund, Austria and the National Medical Research Council, Singapore Ministry of Health.

Dr. Barsanjit Mazumder (BGES): A graduate (PhD) student of Dr. Mazumder, Ms. Darshana Poddar, was awarded the Future of Science Award from “Keystone Symposium on Immunoregulatory Networks 2011” for the impact of the work and her platform presentation in the symposium.

Dr. Girish Shukla (BGES) received a Department of Defense grant on "MicroRNA Targets of Human Androgen Receptor" to identify a subset of microRNA, potentially relevant in prostate cancer.

Dr. Roman Kondratov (BGES) recently published a major paper in Nature, the highest ranking journal in biomedical sciences:

Jeyaraj D et al (2012) Circadian rhythms govern cardiac repolarization and arrhythmogenesis. Nature Feb 22;483(7387):96-9.

One can also access the summary of the article by clicking here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22367544

This paper is a tri-institutional teamwork involving CSU, CWRU (University Hospital) and MetroHealth, reporting the remarkable discovery that the circadian (24 hour day-and-night) clock regulates repolarization of heart muscles through cyclic control of gene expression. The findings of Dr. Kondratov and his collaborators shed new light on mechanisms of cardiac arrhythmia and the clinically well-known diurnal variation in sudden cardiac death.

Dr. Aimin Zhou (CHM) received an NIH R15 grant titled "Role of RNase L in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel diseases". Inflammatory bowel disease or IBD is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine that include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Nearly 4 million people, including one million Americans, suffer from some form of IBD, and the resulting lost productivity costs U.S. businesses roughly $800 million a year. Dr. Zhou's research may lead to a better therapy of IBD.

We want to hear from you!
What have you been doing since graduation? Have you moved or changed jobs? Have you had a life change (marriage, baby, retirement, etc.) or celebrated any recent accomplishments? Stay in touch and let us know! We’d also like to hear what you would like to read about in future issues of this e-newsletter. To submit or update your information, email c.carbary@csuohio.edu or call (216) 875-9992.

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