Faculty/Staff News of Note
May 2004
Dr. Michael Campbell, associate professor of biology, accompanied four students who presented posters at the 15th Penn State Symposium in Plant Physiology held at University Park May 20-22. All four students were given travel awards by the symposium. The presentation titled "A putative kinesin light chain alters plant growth and chloroplast movement" will be presented by Russ Neuner and Amanda Gruver and "Gene expression changes associated with dormancy breakage by bromoethane in potato" will be presented by Lee Beers and Molly Boni.
George Dudas, instructor in computer science, gave a presentation titled "Course Prep and Management: Before and After Angel" at the Angel Day Symposium at University Park May 17-19.
Dr. Diana Hume George, professor of English and women's studies, will retire from Penn State Behrend at the end of this academic year following twenty-six years of service to the college. George, who will travel to Italy in June to do research for a new book, maintains a strong presence in the academic world, as demonstrated by some of her recent accomplishments:
. She was a visiting writer and lecturer at Davidson College in North Carolina in March, where she gave readings, judged writing awards, visited classes in writing, poetry, and Native American studies, and also gave presentations on work and family for faculty and staff. She also ran a weekend workshop for writers in Saluda, North Carolina.
. Her essay, "Zane Grey on a Carousel," was just published in the journal Creative Nonfiction. An interview with her appears in Creative Nonfiction Online.
. The nonfiction journal RiverTeeth will also publish an interview with George, on writing nonfiction and poetry, in 2005.
. George has two new poems in Court Green, a poetry journal from Columbia College, Chicago.
. She has been a contributor this year to Showcase magazine, most recently reviewing the Cleveland International Film Festival.
. In March, George gave a one-day workshop on Writing about Family at Gannon University, as a fundraiser for the Erie branch of The American Association of University Women's scholarship fund. . George continues her liaison work between Penn State Behrend and Chautauqua Writers' Center, where she is a member of the board. The Center is becoming part of Chautauqua Institution, and now Behrend will co-direct a writing festival there this June, under George Looney's leadership.
. A new edition of George's poetry book, Koyaanisqatsi, will be published this summer.
Dr. Scott Stevens, assistant professor of mathematics, gave a presentation titled "Mean Pressure and Flows in the Human Intracranial System as Determined by Mathematical Simulations of a Steady State Infusion Test" at the Symposium of Neural Hydrodynamics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, April 30-May 3.
Roz Fornari, head women's basketball coach, completed her first year as the chair of the Women's Basketball Great Lakes Region Committee. A major part of her duties included weekly conference calls with a group of six coaches to rank the regional teams for the national committee. The national committee is comprised of the eight regional chairs. At the end of the season the national committee holds a twelve-hour conference call to determine which fifty teams, from the Division III's 413 teams, will play in the women's NCAA tournament. After the NCAA selection call is completed, the national committee serves as representatives to the NCAA at the host sites for the games to ensure NCAA rules are followed and the games are run smoothly. Since the Behrend women's team made the tournament, Fornari attended the sweet sixteen and elite eight games.
J. Andrew George, lecturer in mathematics, attended the Colloquy X Conference at University Park May 11-13.
On Saturday, April 24, forty-six Penn State Behrend psychology students presented their research at the thirty-second annual western Pennsylvania undergraduate psychology conference at Allegheny College. Penn State Behrend had the largest number of presenters of the fourteen colleges and universities attending the conference. The students were supervised in their research by Dr. Victoria Kazmerski, associate professor of psychology, and
Dr. Dawn Blasko, associate professor of psychology. Dr. Blasko's students Sarah Lawson, Erin Maurer, and Tami Quigley won one of the two best poster presentation awards for their presentation entitled, "Gender, restrained eating and nutritional labeling are greater influences on the selection of regular and low fat Italian dressing than genetics."
Dr. Carl Kallgren, associate professor of psychology, presented "The CORE Model of Social Intervention (CMSI): A Synergistic Blend of Research Services and Community Building," at the twenty-seventh annual conference of the Eastern Evaluation Research Society on April 21 in Abescon, New Jersey.
The Department of Electrical Computer and Software Engineering at Penn State Behrend offered the course EEBD431 (Electromechanical Energy Conversion) during fall 2003. One of the course outcomes is that the instructor,
Dr. Sudarshan Nelatury, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, authored a paper titled, "On the uniqueness of torque-speed characteristics of an induction motor." The paper has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Magnetics.
Dr. Robert Weissbach, assistant professor of engineering, attended the north central section meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) on April 2, 2004 where he received the outstanding campus representative award.
Dr. G. William Baxter, associate professor of physics, gave a presentation titled "Experimental Evidence of Molecular Chaos in a Granular Gas," at the Understanding Complex Systems Conference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, May 16-20. Baxter also presented a poster titled "Dynamics of Single Art Foraging Patterns."
Jane Ingold, assistant librarian, published an article titled "Buyer Beware: Using Interlibrary Loan Requests in Purchasing Decisions" in the journal Against the Grain. She also attended the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference and was appointed to their Membership Committee.
Dr. Victoria Kazmerski, associate professor of psychology, attended the Cognitive Aging Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, April 1-2. She presented "Contextual Influences and Age Differences in Judging Metaphorical Meaning" that was co-authored with Dr. Dawn Blasko, associate professor of psychology, and Dr. Debra Titone, assistant professor of psychology at McGill University.
Ron McCarty, instructor in computer science, attended the ANGEL Conference at University Park May 17-19.
Gary Walker, lecturer in computer science, attended the Chautauqua NSF course, JAVA Programming Language, at the University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, May 16-19.
Dr. James Warren, gave a presentation titled "engineering of fusion peptides for generation of antibodies against the zebrafish fragile X gene family members" at the Society for Developmental Biology Mid-Atlantic Meeting May 21-22.
Dr. Thomas Wortman, special projects assistant to the CEO and dean, has been elected president of the Kiwanis Club of East Erie County.
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