Biological Sciences Blog

Jackson Grant Recipients Announced

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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.

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Medical Careers Week – January 26-29, 2015

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MedicalCareersWeek-flyer See the flyer for more details! Flyer-medicalcareersweek_final

Michigan Tech students will get to explore a wide variety of careers in the medical and health fields during a four-day event called Medical Careers Week. Medical professionals from diverse fields will be on campus to discuss their professions and the educational pathways to success in those fields and to answer students’ questions.

Medical Career Week topics will be

  • Monday, Jan. 26—Medical Informatics
  • Tuesday, Jan. 27—Allied Health and Medical Laboratory Sciences
  • Wednesday, Jan. 28—Medical Careers
  • Thursday, Jan. 29—Medical Devices

Each day features a Lunch and Learn presentation from noon to 1 p.m., followed by small group discussions with visiting professionals from 6 to 8 p.m. These informal events will take place in the Memorial Union Ballroom. They are open to all students, and no registration is required.

Departments in the College of Sciences and Arts, the College of Engineering and the School of Technology pitched in to help organize the event. Guy Hembroff, director of the medical informatics graduate program in the School of Technology, helped organize Medical Informatics Day. High school students from area schools who are involved in robotics have been invited to participate.

Jason Carter, chair and professor of kinesiology and integrative physiology, and Karyn Fay, director of the medical laboratory science program in the Department of Biological Sciences, helped organize Allied Health/Medical Laboratory Sciences Day.

Stacy Cotey, director of pre-health programs, helped plan Medical Careers Day. Students from the health careers programs at local high schools have been invited to participate.

Sean Kirkpatrick, chair of biomedical engineering, helped put together Medical Device Day. A variety of medical device companies will be at Michigan Tech to discuss the future of the medical device industry.

Many of the speakers are Michigan Tech alumni, including William Karpus ’84 (BioSci), Brad Tomassucci ’84 (MedTech), Erin Thompson ’02 (ClinLabSci), Robert Richards ’77 (MedTech), Tracey Bershing, ’92 (Pre-PharmEd), Michelle Seguin ’07(BioSci), along with current medical students Eric Sturos and Stephanie Rutterbesch.

“Events like Medical Careers Week give students from all fields of study the opportunity to learn more about careers available in the medical field, said Shelley Farrey, coordinator of career development for Michigan Tech Career Services. “Not every student knows what avenue he or she wants to pursue in life when they enter college. Medical Careers Week gives them a chance to learn about the many opportunities available and the paths to get there.”

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Dr. Nancy Auer Earns American Fisheries Society Award

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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.”

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Jeff Lewin Recognized for Serving Others

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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.

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Guiliang Tang awarded Century II Campaign Endowed Equipment Fund award

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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

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New faculty announcement – Dr. Ebenezer Tumban

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Faculty Edition in Tech Today

by Monica Lester, student writing intern

Meet Michigan Tech’s new faculty and existing faculty who have now accepted tenure-track and lecturer positions.

For more about new faculty, see the PowerPoint slides presented at the New Faculty Orientation.

Ebenezer Tumban, PhD
Ebenezer Tumban joins the Department of Biological Sciences as an assistant professor. Tumban comes to Michigan Tech from the University of New Mexico.

He received a PhD in Molecular Biology from New Mexico State University and a master’s in biology from New Mexico Highlands University.

Tumban has done research with virus-like particles to try to increase the immunogenicity of less immunogenic human papilloma virus (HPV) antigens. He has developed two candidate vaccines for prevention of HPV.

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Sachin Teotia awarded BRC travel grant

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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

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Medical School Early Assurance Program

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Medical School

Early Assurance Program

What is it?The MSU College of Human Medicine (CHM) has partnered with Michigan Technological University to provide early assurance of medical school admission and enriched experiences for undergraduate students interested in becoming physicians in an underserved region or with an underserved population.

For more information see:

Early Assurance Program 2014 Announcment

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