Category: Awards

Congratulations to Top 10% Biological Sciences instructors in Fall 2014

It gives me great pleasure in congratulating the following faculty, instructors and graduate students from Biological Sciences Department for their inclusion in the list of campus wide, top 10% instructors in fall 2014 semester.

The following faculty received scores above 4.78 out of 5 on average of 7 elements of university-wide class size group with response rate of >50% on student evaluations of their lecture classes.

  • Dr. Amy Marcarelli, Assistant Professor
  • Ms. Brigitte Morin, Lecturer
  • Ms. Karyn Fay, Professor of Practice
  • Dr. Ramakrishna Wusirika, Associate Professor
  • Dr. Thomas Werner, Assistant Professor

The following instructors received scores above 4.64 out of 5 on average of 7 elements of university-wide class size group with response rate of >50% on student evaluations of their lab classes.

  • Dr. Cinnamon Pace, instructor
  • Ms. Emily Geiger, Graduate student
  • Mr. Morton Harwood, Graduate Student
  • Mr. Ryan Dixon, Undergraduate student

 

Thanks for your great contributions!
Dr. Chandrashekhar Joshi, Chair, Department of Biological Sciences

Jackson Grant Recipients Announced

Due to a generous gift from William G. Jackson, the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is pleased to announce the 2015 grant recipients. Nearly $55,000 in grants were awarded to instructors and teams of instructors at $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 levels. These grants will support course/program reform or expansion projects using blended and online learning.

This year’s solicitation placed special emphasis on mentoring of instructors new to blended learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, shared content, matching support, testing and assessment. A committee, assembled by the Provost and the CTL Director, reviewed many compelling grant proposals in order to select this year’s grant recipients.
Grants that included Biological Sciences faculty are:

$5,000 Level

  • Integrative Statistics for Social, Behavioral and Biological Sciences Using Blended Learning ($3,000), Susan Amato-Henderson (CLS) and Erika Hersch-Green (Bio Sci)
  • Blended and Active Learning for Health Sciences at Michigan Tech, Brigitte Morin and John Durocher (Bio Sci)

For additional awards in other departments see the original Tech Today article.

Dr. Nancy Auer Earns American Fisheries Society Award

Professor Nancy Auer (BioSci) has been named winner of the 2015 Michigan Chapter of the American Fisheries Society’s Justin Leonard Award. The award recognizes outstanding professional competence and achievement of a professional employed in the field of fisheries or aquatic biology in Michigan.

The award is named in honor of Justin W. Leonard (1909–1975), professor of natural resources and zoology at the University of Michigan. It will be presented at the Michigan Chapter of the American Fisheries Society meeting in Bay City this week.

“Dr. Auer remains an internationally recognized expert in fisheries and aquatic science and has spent her entire professional career in Michigan working to improve our understanding and management of aquatic ecosystems and lake sturgeon in particular,” said her nomination for the award. “Dr. Auer came to Michigan from Minnesota and began her career as a graduate student and research assistant at the University of Michigan in 1975, working under Dr. Leonard until his death.

“Upon completion of her M.S. degree, Dr. Auer continued working at the University of Michigan as a research scholar and edited the Identification of larval fishes of the Great Lakes basin with emphasis on the Lake Michigan drainage. This guide has become the standard reference for larval fish ID in the Great Lakes.

“In 1984, Dr. Auer accepted a faculty position at Michigan Technological University and began working on the Sturgeon River lake sturgeon population, work which would lead to her dissertation research and Ph.D. in 1995. Dr. Auer continues on the faculty at Michigan Technological University and has continued working on lake sturgeon, larval fish biology and ecology, food web interactions and comparisons of Arctic and Great Lakes food webs. She has authored or co-authored over 20 journal articles, contributed chapters to four books and co-edited the book, The Great Lake Sturgeon.

“Dr. Auer is also recognized as an outstanding teacher and mentor and has advised numerous graduate students. Dr. Auer’s impact on the fisheries profession extends beyond Michigan as her students have gone on to professional positions across the Midwest. Dr. Auer has been active in AFS both at the chapter and national level since becoming an AFS member in 1978. She served as Michigan Chapter President in 1993 and was chair of the Michigan Resolutions Committee. At the national level she served as President, Secretary and Treasurer of the Early Life History Section, chair of the J. Frances Allen Committee and served on several other committees. In summary, Dr. Auer’s scientific achievements, dedication to quality teaching and mentoring, and service to the fisheries profession are deserving of the Leonard Award.”

Chandrashekhar Joshi, chair of biological sciences at Michigan Tech, congratulated Auer on the award. “Her nomination nicely summarizes her lifetime of research work,” he said. “We are very happy for this well-deserved recognition by her peers, and we are fortunate to have her as our esteemed colleague.”

Jeff Lewin Recognized for Serving Others

Making A Difference 2014Making a Difference Award Winners Recognized

Several staff members were honored with Michigan Tech Staff Council Making a Difference Awards at an awards program in the MUB Wednesday, January 7, 2015.

Serving Others Award: Jeff Lewin (Biology)

From one of his letters of support: “Jeff is the glue to the department in making sure that research and courses offered go as planned, smoothly and safely.” Jeff wears many hats: he is the chemical hygiene officer, departmental safety liaison and equipment coordinator. This is in addition to managing two greenhouses, seven instructional facilities and six common-use equipment facilities. He also assists with fundraising for the department. Jeff is always there to assist students, staff and faculty with all of their needs.

Read more at Tech Today.

Guiliang Tang awarded Century II Campaign Endowed Equipment Fund award

C2E2 Fund Awards Announced

Vice President for Research David Reed has awarded the following Century II Campaign Endowed Equipment Fund (C2E2) awards at the recommendation of the C2E2 Committee.

  • Andrew Galerneau (Chem): infrared spectrometer with absolute total reflectance accessory
  • Evan Kane (SFRES): underwater fore optic equipment
  • Sunil Mehendale (SoT): extractive continuous gas analyzer
  • Thomas Oommen, Jason Gulley and Jeremy Shannon (GMES): ground penetrating radar 100 MHz PulseEKKO PRO
  • Jonathan Riehl and Norma Veurink (EF): 31 IRobot educational programmable platforms
  • Guiliang Tang (Bio Sci): 2100 Electrophoresis Bioanalyzer

The vice president for research would like to thank the review committee members for their participation in this internal award process.

For additional information on the C2E2 opportunity, visit Research Awards.

From Tech Today

Sachin Teotia awarded BRC travel grant

BRC Travel Awards for Fall 2014

The Biotechnology Research Center has announced its fall 2014 Travel Awards. The award recipients follow:

Post-doctoral Research Scientist Presentation

  • Sachin Teotia (Bio Sci), Plant and Animal Genome XXIII Conference (poster)
  • Lijun Zhang (Bio Med), TERMIS–AM 2014 (podium)

Graduate Student Presentations

  • Suntara Fueangfung (Chem), 248th ACS National Meeting and Exposition (poster)
  • Maria Gencoglu (ChE), 2014 AIChe Annual Meeting (podium)
  • Maryam Khaksari (ChE), SciX 2014 (podium)
  • Hao Meng (Bio Med), BMES 2014 Annual Meeting (poster)
  • Sandra Owusu (SFRES), IUFRO World Congress (poster)
  • Durga Pokharel (Chem), 248th ACS National Meeting and Exposition (poster)
  • Yu Wang (Bio Med), IEEE International Ultrasound Symposium (poster)
  • Jingtuo Zhang (Chem), 248th ACS National Meeting and Exposition (poster)

    Undergraduate Student Presentation

  • Mitchell Tahtinen (Bio Med), 2014 BMES Annual Meeting (poster)

From Tech Today

Guiliang Tang and Hairong Wei awarded NSF $2.5M NSF grant

PI Guiliang Tang (BioSci) and Co-PI Hairong Wei (SFRES) were awarded $2,499,979 from the National Science Foundation for their three-year project “Targeting microRNAs for Destruction in Crops by Short Tandem Target Mimic (STTM).”

From Dr. Joshi, Chair, Department of Biological Sciences:

Heartiest congratulations to Dr. Guiliang Tang and his team on receiving a $2.5 million grant from NSF Plant Genome program for the project titled “Targeting microRNAs for destruction in crop plants by Short Tandem Target Mimic (STEM) “.

This is one of the biggest grants Biological Sciences Department has received in recent years that brings our new external funding in this fiscal year close to $3.5 million.

In the current era of limited funding for University research, this is a great achievement and all the credit goes to dedication of our faculty, staff and students in pursuing and publishing high quality research.”

Dr. Sue Bagley awarded Society of Industrial Microbiology Award

This award recognizes those member(s) who have an outstanding record of sustained service to the Society for a period of seven or more years in various capacities such as a Society officer, chair of a standing or presidential committee, SIMB News editor-in-chief, JIMB editor-in-chief, Developments editor-in-chief, program chair, or other service to the Society acceptable to the committee and board; and have been an active member of SIM for 10 or more years.

Susan T. Bagley. PhD, is Professor Emerita of Environmental Microbiology in the Department of Biological Sciences at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. She has over 35 years’ experience as an environmental microbiologist, working in academia and government (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) on microbial-based treatment of air, waterborne, and industrial organic wastes, microbial production of bio-based fuels, and mutagenicity and toxicity of environmental pollutants.

More at Charles Porter Award

25th annual Bioathlon a huge sucess

May 7, 2014

 

The twenty-fifth annual Department of Biological Sciences Bioathlon for high school biology students was held on Wednesday, May 7, at Michigan Technological University.  Simultaneously, a workshop was held for the accompanying biology teachers.

The Bioathlon serves as a means to stimulate interest and problem-solving in biology among our area youth.  Teams from 16 Upper Peninsula Michigan high schools participated.  The three top scores go to these schools.

The team winning FIRST PLACE was Hancock High School from Hancock, MI.

Team members:  Shannon Nulf, Ruth Venegus, Mary Jarvis, Alexis Aho

Instructor:  Brian Rajdl

The team winning SECOND PLACE was L.L.Wright High School from Ironwood, MI.

Team members: Margaret Meyer, Kathleen Mieloszyk, Corissa Mattson, Leah Braucher

Instructor: Paul Mattson

The team winning the THIRD PLACE was West Iron County High School from Iron River, MI.

Team members: Madiline McNamara, Emmy Kinner, Michelle Wiegand, Izaya Bengry

Instructor: Joel VanLanen

Each team was composed of four students who have not had formal class work in biology beyond the traditional sophomore high school general biology course.  All teams tackled the same four problems:

The four problems for the competition include:

Dissection: designed by Biological Sciences Graduate student Robert Larson and assisted by Travis Wakeham and Jenna Edwards with input from Dr. John Durocher.

Molecular Biology: designed by Biological Sciences graduate student Emily Geiger, assisted by Jennifer Connors.

Field Identification: designed by Biological Sciences graduate student Ashley Coble assisted by Tony Matthys and Troy Long.

Medical Laboratory  Science: designed and proctored by Medical Laboratory Science undergraduate students, Alyssa Elegeert, Rebecca Kurt, Roger Ellis, Sarah Westdorp, Danielle Dawson and Misty Brouilette with input from Professor of Practice Karyn Fay[j1] .

Through these exercises, students needed to demonstrate organizational skills, knowledge of facts and concepts, laboratory skills and creativity.

Each member of the first, second and third team will receive a small cash award along with a plaque.  Each student participating in the competition will also receive a certificate of participation and a Bioathlon T-shirt.

The teacher activity was: The Fungus among Us

In this workshop teachers explored some of the different roles of the fungi and conducted several simple, inexpensive activities to help students overcome their mycophobia.  The workshop was designed and taught by Stacy Cotey, Academic Advisor of Biological Sciences. Lynette Potvin, Ecologist for the US Forest Service Northern Research Station also provided a view of below-ground fungal processes with a tour of the Rhizotron and Mesocosm facilities.

 

Funding was provided by MTU Admissions, the Department of Biological Sciences, the Michigan Tech Fund, MTU Alumni Mark Cowan, M.D., Robert C. and Kathryn DellAngelo, M.D., Olive Kimball, D.Ed., Ph.D., Nancy Auer, Ph.D. and Janice Glime, Ph.D.,

http://www.mtu.edu/biological/department/outreach/bioathlon/