Science Journal - December 2015

December 2015

Transition StatePG 12

ReinventingStatistics

Education PG 16

Thriving on Stress:

Learning from Lizardsin Tracy Langkilde's Lab

PG 4

Table of C

ontents

FEATURE STORIES:

4 Exploring the Nature of Stress Follow Tracy Langkilde as she looks at how certain animals adapt to stress in

their environments.

12 Transition State Learn about the change in leadership in the Department of Chemistry.

16 Reinventing Statistics Education Discover how faculty in the Department of Statistics are transforming the way we

teach statistics.

24 Research in Action Read short briefs about some of the amazing research projects happening now in

the college.

COLLEGE NEWS:Doug Cavener Named Verne M. Willaman Dean

Teaching New Pedagogy Strategy in China

Transforming Science Education with Tombros Fellowships

Intellectual Property Focus

Climate & Diversity Corner

College Welcome Day

Staff Highlight

Faculty Highlight

Years of Service Recognition

DEPARTMENT NEWS

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT:Faculty Awards and Honors

Faculty Promotions

New Faculty

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors

CommencementSummer 2015 Student Marshal

Undergraduate Scientists

Above and Beyond: Focus on Graduate Students Editor: Tara Immel

Writers: Barbara Collins, Whittney Gould,

Carley LaVelle, Carrie Lewis, Brenda Lucas,

Joslyn Neiderer, Samantha Schwartz, Sam

Sholtis, and Bill Zimmerman. Special thanks to

all of our other contributors!

Design: Carley LaVelle, Penn State Science

Marketing Office

Printer: Watkins Printing

ALUMNI NEWS: Weinreb Family Endows Early Career Professorship

College Welcomes New Director of Development

Outstanding Alumni

All Science Tailgate

Snapshot of Philanthropy

C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching

Millennium Society

Share Your News

Upcoming Events

Penn State Eberly College of Science22

Dear Friends of the College,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to this issue in my new role as dean of the Eberly College of Science. Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to immerse myself in our college community and promote our mission. I am struck by

the passion that our faculty and students have for learning, discovery, and problem solving; the dedication of our hard-working staff in keeping the college running efficiently and in collegial manner; and the engagement and generosity of our science alumni.

My transition has not been the only one in recent months; we have recruited, hired, and also shifted some of the best faculty and staff into pivotal roles that will help the college succeed in achieving its strategic objectives. As you will read in this issue, Barbara Garrison, the former head of the Department of Chemistry, has passed the torch to Tom Mallouk, Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry. Mallouk will continue his research and teaching while enhancing faculty development, working on educational improvements, and managing the daily administrative duties as head. The college has also hired a director of

undergraduate research, Tomalei Vess. This newly created position manages the Office of Science Engagement and will help transform the science undergraduate experience by providing students with co-curricular experiences, such as research, internships, and co-ops, that will enrich their education by enabling them to apply and practice what they learn in the classroom.

We also have new leadership in the alumni relations and development office. Joyce Matthews has joined our team as the new senior director of development. Joyce has 15 years of fundraising experience, most recently in the College of Information Sciences and Technology. I look forward to her leadership during the next capital campaign, which begins in summer 2016.

We have a great foundation on which to build future success in the college. As the new dean, I will continue to reach out to our college community as we build and shape the future of our college. Please join me in transforming the Eberly College of Science to achieve its full potential as a vibrant and diverse scientific and educational community that is internationally renowned for excellence, and for improving the world through its discoveries and solutions to life’s most pressing challenges.

Sincerely,

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015 3

Cover Story


Exploringthe Nature of

It’s only getting more stressful in our stressful world, particularly if you are an animal trying to deal with a pesky invasive species or the impacts of humans in your environment.

Associate Professor of Biology Tracy Langkilde’s career thrives on that stress. Langkilde conducts research in evolutionary ecology by studying the stress caused by global environmental change, and how animals are able to deal with these stressors.

By Whittney Gould


Get Twitchy With ItOne of the animals Lang-kilde studies is the east-ern fence lizard, a spe-cies commonly found in the southeastern United States. For thousands of years, when fence lizards faced adversity, they had

a pretty simple approach to survival: laying very still and blending into their surroundings. This was quite a successful approach for them—until fire ants invaded their territory.

Fire ants were not deterred by frozen-in-place eastern fence lizards, and proceeded to bite and sting the lizards anyway. Sometimes, the lizards died from these attacks. The survival behavior that had worked for their species for years was no longer protecting them from predators.

Some lizards broke from the standard ap-proach and started to twitch to flick off attack-ing ants off or run away, which was a much more successful way to survive. Stressing out about survival fueled this adaptive behavior.

“Fire ants have a venomous sting and act as both a novel predator and a novel toxic prey to many animals, including fence lizards,” says Langkilde. “They are predicted to eventually occupy over 50 percent of the terrestrial surface of the earth, so many animals are going to have to deal with these threats.”

Langkilde noticed that in areas where fire ants had lived for years, a higher percentage of lizards exhibited the twitching and flicking be-haviors than in areas where fire ants had not yet invaded.

“Getting constantly attacked by fire ants seems like it should be stressful,” Langkilde said. “We tested this by capturing lizards from fire ant–invaded and uninvaded sites and tak-

Cover Story

ing blood samples.” They discovered that the populations of liz-

ards who live among fire ants on a regular basis were, in fact, more stressed.

Langkilde then tested whether there were any benefits to these higher stress levels. By applying drops of the stress hormone corticoste-rone mixed with oil to the lizards’ backs, Lang-kilde could mimic the stress caused by fire ant attacks.

“We can make unresponsive lizards from un-invaded sites very responsive to fire ants simply by stressing them out. By being stressed out, lizards from populations dealing with invasive fire ants are primed for future encounters with predators,” Langkilde said.

Her team began to monitor the health of the lizards exposed to varying levels of stress. Their findings showed that the duration, intensity, and frequency of stress were key factors in de-termining whether it was beneficial for the liz-ard or not.

“Chronic stress, usually defined by stress oc-curring over a long period, is generally thought to be bad,” said Langkilde. But Langkilde’s team found that this really depends on how much stress is experienced. “A small amount of stress every three days for nine days total was good for the lizards,” Langkilde said, “in that it enhanced the immune system.”

But more stress than that can be bad for the lizards, she said. When the lizards were given higher amounts of the stress hormone, at the same frequency and over the same duration, they experienced negative effects. “This higher-intensity stress caused the immune system to crash,” Langkilde said.

“We generally expect long-term stress to pro-duce negative consequences, but our results demonstrate that really intense stress can pro-duce a similar result," said Gail McCormick,

TRACY LANGKILDE


Gail McCormick, a Ph.D.

candidate in the Langkilde lab,

works closely with Langkilde

on the stress research, focusing

on the effects of stress on the

eastern fence lizard, both

within an animal’s lifetime and

across generations, resulting from exposure to fire ant

invasion.

“What about stress produces negative consequences?

When do they occur, and how do frequency, intensity,

and duration of the stress contribute to those

consequences? And how does an animal’s previous

experience with stress affect how they respond? Those

are some of the questions I’m investigating,” she said.

Evolutionary biology and ecology research provide

room for interdisciplinary collaboration, which

McCormick is happy that Langkilde encourages. “I’ve

been able to work with other faculty members across

Penn State on topics that interest me.” McCormick and

Langkilde work closely with Alumni Professor of Biology

Katriona Shea on the application of disturbance theory

to their stress response research, and are currently

working with Associate Professor of Biobehavioral

Health Sonia Cavigelli from the College of Health

and Human Development on the impacts of stress on

development.

Outside of the lab, McCormick has many interests.

Her passion for science sparked an interest in science

communication and led her to an internship with Penn

State Research Communications. It has been a great fit

and she thinks science communication could be a big

part of her future career.

She also has a very creative side. She enjoys theater,

both performing on stage and being behind the scenes

as a stage manager. “Performing is a different kind

of creative outlet for me,” she said. It’s made all the

sweeter by the support of her Langkilde lab family,

including Langkilde herself, at her performances.

In addition to her theater skills, McCormick is a very

accomplished paper artist. She cuts paper by hand

and layers it to create highlights and shadows in her

pieces. “It has a photographic effect,” she said of her

work. Recently, she’s been commissioned to create this

art, both for clients with personal requests and for an

editorial spread in a magazine. You can view her paper

art at gailmccormick.wordpress.com.

Person-to-person: G

ail McC

ormick

a graduate student in the Langkilde lab who is leading this project. “This matches up with what we know about post-traumatic stress disorder in humans—that a short but intense stressor can produce lasting consequences.”

Langkilde’s team was curious about how the high levels of stress experienced in fire ant–in-vaded areas might affect the next generation. They are currently testing the effects of stress on both pregnant lizards and the babies they give birth to. They want to know whether stress

during pregnancy could make the offspring bet-ter prepared for life’s stresses.

“We are putting the offspring of lizards that experienced high and low stress during preg-nancy into high- and low-stress field enclosures that vary in the presence of fire ants,” Langkilde said. “We predict that babies of stressed moms will do better in high-stress environments.”

While Langkilde isn’t sure yet whether it’s a behavioral reaction of the mothers to stress or something the offspring experience during


Cover Story

development, pregnant lizards exposed to high stress gave birth to bigger babies that survived better than the offspring of pregnant lizards ex-posed to lower-stress environments.

“Hormones can be important regulators of fetal growth. High levels of stress hormones circulating in stressed mothers could be passed directly to their offspring. Or it may be that high-stress moms are eating more and allocat-ing more nutrients to their young,” said McCor-mick.

Research Langkilde has conducted on “beard-ed lady” fence lizards, or female lizards who display a more masculine, colorful appearance, could also be worth ex-amining in the context of stress response. “Males really don’t like these bearded ladies. So they breed later and invest less energy in reproduc-tion, but their babies are tougher, having a higher survival rate. Bearded ladies also sprint much faster than more femi-nine lizards,” said Langkilde.

Could these adaptations make bearded ladies or their offspring better able to deal with stress?

“In high-stress lizard populations, 90 percent of the females are bearded, so it’s possible,” she said.

Who Needs Noise-Canceling Headphones?Langkilde took these questions about stress and applied them to a different species: wood frogs native to the northeastern United States. Sound is very important to this species, because they use calls to find mates and detect incom-ing predators. For wood frogs that live nearer to sound pollution like road noise from high-traf-fic roads, this can complicate things and cause

stress.“We exposed wood frogs from quiet Penn-

sylvania woods to road noise,” said Langkilde, “and found that this dramatically increased their stress levels.”

Road noise also has effects on the immune function of these frogs, making them less likely to produce antimicrobial peptides, compounds in the frog’s skin that defend against pathogen invasion. Langkilde found that road noise also had effects on female wood frog reproductive be-havior. Road noise impaired their ability to lo-cate calling males. Wood frogs have a very short reproductive window, breeding for only a few

days each spring. “This could have important implications for

their mating success,” she said. Langkilde wanted to know whether wood

frogs could adapt to a noisy environment. “Peo-ple living near train tracks or highways often tune this noise out over time,” Langkilde said. “We wanted to know if frogs could do the same.”

Her team took wood frog eggs from both noisy environments such as forests adjacent to New York interstate highways, and quiet countryside environments. They raised the tadpoles under common conditions in the lab until they became frogs. Then they compared the stress responses of each group to prolonged exposure to high lev-els of road noise.

As with their previous study, the “country

"WE GENERALLY EXPECT LONG-TERM STRESS

TO PRODUCE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES,

BUT OUR RESULTS DEMONSTRATE THAT

REALLY INTENSE STRESS CAN PRODUCE A

SIMILAR RESULT."


frogs” were really stressed by the road noise, and weren’t able to tune it out over the course of the eight-day experiment. The “city frogs,” how-ever, were not at all stressed by the noise.

This is very interesting because these frogs were raised in the same environment, and the only change was that one group of eggs was col-lected in a more stressful environment than the other, says Langkilde. “It is possible that frogs from roadside ponds have evolved to be desensi-tized to road noise, in order to avoid the costs of being stressed.”

Langkilde’s research will continue to exam-ine the consequences of stress caused by envi-ronmental change. “What is the effect of stress within a lifetime and across generations? Can

animals adapt to high-stress environments, and how do they do so? How can we predict when stress will become bad? Those are questions I’m working to investigate further,” she said.

Her findings are all the more important be-cause they could inform topics of stress and hu-man health.

Enthusiasm for MentoringMentoring students is a much-loved part of Langkilde’s job as principal investigator of her lab.

“She's very easy to talk to and enthusiastic. I like the freedom to ask interesting questions and explore them in a variety of different ways,” said Christopher Thawley, a graduate stu-


Cover Story

"BY BEING STRESSED OUT,

LIZARDS FROM POPULATIONS

DEALING WITH INVASIVE

FIRE ANTS ARE PRIMED FOR

FUTURE ENCOUNTERS WITH

PREDATORS."


dent in the Langkilde lab. “She’s done a great job of creating a lab where

everyone can work to their strengths and help each other out,” added graduate student Caty Tylan.

Her graduate students like her commitment to a low-stress environment.

“You never have to worry about coming to her for help, even if it’s something you messed up on,” said Dustin Owen, also a graduate stu-dent in her lab. “She’s really good about helping you and providing feedback without making you feel stupid or uncomfortable.”

“She is conscious of the needs of students and researchers to have a good balance between pro-ductive work and a healthy social life,” added graduate student Braulio Assis.

Since coming to Penn State, Langkilde has mentored more than 50 undergraduate re-searchers in addition to the graduate students she advises.

“Their involvement is critical to the success of my projects, and they benefit from the experi-ence,” Langkilde said.

“Dr. Langkilde has been by far my greatest mentor at Penn State,” said undergraduate re-searcher Mark Herr. “She doesn’t merely allow students to act as lab technicians for the various graduate students in the lab. From the begin-ning, she’s encouraged me to conduct my own projects.”

“She’s taught me how to write scientific pa-pers. She’s edited grant proposals of mine and assisted me with funding at every step. It’s tru-ly incredible, especially when you consider that she has lots of other undergraduates in the lab and does the same for them,” he added.

In addition to field and lab work, the Langkil-de Lab works to hone their writing skills, which postdoctoral researcher Chris Howey finds ex-tremely helpful.

“The members of the Langkilde Lab are very supportive and helpful with regard to writing manuscripts and other job-related documents. Meeting every week to discuss these manu-scripts continually pushes each of us to make progress on these assignments until they are published,” Howey said.

Langkilde Lab members also use their writ-ing skills to write the lab blog, The Lizard Log (thelizardlog.wordpress.com).

“We wanted to share our love of research and the thrill of discovering new things with the general community,” said Langkilde. “My grad-uate students started the blog back in 2011 as a way to show people what fieldwork was like. It’s taken hold and is read by 900 people per month.”

The blog showcases posts and pictures of the lab members with updates on their research, travels, and even updates about past members of the lab.

“I hope that the blog gives readers a glimpse into how science is performed. Most people don’t have a good understanding of the scientific pro-cess, so hopefully readers can get a sense of how we’re doing our research so that they can better understand the results,” McCormick said. “And see just how cool our research is!”

As the blog updates indicate, Langkilde’s con-nection to her lab members doesn’t stop when they graduate. A recent trip to a conference with a few of the lab members was planned to include a stop to visit Brad Carlson, Langkilde lab alumnus and current assistant professor of biol-ogy at Wabash College. Langkilde is also proud to announce lab alumna Lindsey Swierk was recently awarded a Gaylord Donnelly Postdoc-toral Fellowship at Yale—the same fellowship that Langkilde herself received as a postdoc.

“I love seeing what they achieve when they leave,” she said. “We all still stay in touch.”


12

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Transition

State:A Change of Leadership in the Department of Chemistry


Transition

State:A Change of Leadership in the Department of Chemistry

B y C a r r i e L e w i s


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Passing the TorchTradition at Penn State is deeply rooted, and changes in the leadership in the Department of Chemistry are no exception. Since 1983, the chemistry department has rotated department heads on a regular basis, generally every three-to-five years; earlier this year, the transition from Barbara Garrison to Tom Mallouk was made. Garrison is well known in the chem-istry department, and across the country, as a well-respected leader in chemistry, as she has held this position not once but twice, with fif-teen years between her two terms.

“Our chemistry department has a great tra-dition of excellence, and we are indebted to Bar-bara Garrison for her remarkable leadership of the department that included eleven years as department head and construction of the Chem-istry Building,” said Doug Cavener, professor and Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly Col-lege of Science.

Garrison, Shapiro Professor of Chemistry, earned her bachelor’s degree in Physics, grad-uating summa cum laude from Arizona State University in 1971, and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She then went on to complete her postdoctoral studies in physical chemistry at Purdue University where she met her husband, Nick Winograd, Evan Pugh University Pro-fessor of Chemistry, Penn State.

The physical sciences are notorious for being male-dominated fields, especially twenty-five years ago, but that didn’t stop Garrison from moving into high administrative roles. “I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was aware that there weren’t many women, but my department head at the time was very supportive,” said Garrison. Just ten years after joining the faculty at Penn State, Garrison became one of the first women in the United States to be chair of a major chem-istry department at the age of 40 and served her first term for five years, from 1989–1994. Rather than focusing on the downsides of being in the minority as a woman in science, Garrison noted that she had a lot of doors opened for her because she was a female department head—she took part in external reviews for chemistry departments at multiple universities and served on various advisory committees, such as for the National Science Foundation and the Governing Board for the Council of Chemical Research.

In 2009, Garrison said yes to the job again be-cause she enjoyed it so much the first time and knew it was a way she could contribute back to the department. The second time around was a bit easier, she said, which she largely credits to those around her. “I had already learned how to do a lot of things, like making decisions in cer-tain situations and supervising staff, but more importantly, I had lots of great collegial faculty and staff members to help out and do things, which made delegating much easier,” said Gar-rison.

In addition to serving as the department head, Garrison was instrumental in the design of the Chemistry Building, as she chaired the plan-ning committee. The planning process started in 1995, and the building was ready for occupa-tion in 2004. (Ironically, at the same time, Gar-rison and her husband had just finished build-ing their own house.) As chair of the committee,

TOM MALLOUKBARBARA GARRISON


Garrison was involved in writing the program statement for the building, which included list-ing all of the requirements for the building, such as the number of rooms, amount of space in each room, and utilizations and contents of each room. She worked closely with Ken Feld-man, professor of chemistry, who meticulously enumerated the needs of the labs and put the whole building design in the program Chem-Draw. Garrison commented that she found the process fun and enjoyable because they were constructing a building for the future that was for the entire department.

While fulfilling numerous administrative re-sponsibilities, Garrison continued to run an ac-tive research lab, having thirty publications in her first five years at Penn State. In fact, she had started her research program before even coming to Penn State by initiating collabora-tions. “I collaborated a lot, especially with Nick. I did it before it was fashionable!” said Garrison. The Garrison Lab collaborates with numerous other groups as they work on modeling reac-tions on surfaces. One example is they create computer simulation models to better under-stand secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), an analytical process used to characterize the composition of solid surfaces. These molecular dynamic simulations mimic the ejection of mol-ecules in layered compounds to help determine depth profiles and create elemental images that interface with experimental results.

During Garrison’s first term as department head, she hired Tom Mallouk from the Univer-sity of Texas to join the Penn State faculty, and twenty-two years later, he has now moved into the position himself. As associate head for the department, the transition was obvious. “Bar-bara is leaving the department in very good shape, and its improved dramatically over the last twenty years,” said Mallouk. “There are

still some challenges, though.”One of the first goals that Mallouk has is to

improve the undergraduate experience. “There is a recognition that active learning is very im-portant in the classroom, so we are trying to do more of that, as well as research experience, early on in the undergraduate experience,” said Mallouk. He further explained that rather than just having students learn the content of science to become competent for a test, it’s important that they also learn the process of science. Other goals Mallouk has during his term as depart-ment head are to hire great people, build pro-grammatic strength in the department, and im-prove diversity.

“I am very pleased that Tom Mallouk agreed to take over the reins as department head, and I can report that he is already immersed in faculty development, working on educational improvements, and tending to a myriad of ad-ministrative responsibilities while maintaining a cutting-edge research program,” said Cavener.

In addition to his administrative responsibili-ties, Mallouk also balances his research lab and teaching. He believes that staying active in the lab and teaching ensure he stays connected to the primary mission of what they as a depart-ment are trying to do. His research group fo-cuses on synthesizing nanoscale inorganic ma-terials and understanding what they can do with them, particular in the areas of energy, electronics, and catalysis.

Mallouk is an Evan Pugh University Profes-sor of Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He graduated with his bach-elor’s degree from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.


R e i n v e n t i n gSTAT IST ICSE d u c a t i o n

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By Tara Immel


R e i n v e n t i n gSTAT IST ICSE d u c a t i o n DDennis Pearl has a CAUSE, and his goal

is to improve statistics education and teaching. CAUSE, which is the Consortium for the Ad-vancement of Undergraduate Statistics Educa-tion, is a national organization whose mission is to support and advance undergraduate statistics education through resources, professional devel-opment, outreach, and research. Pearl, who is a professor of statistics at Penn State, also serves as the director of CAUSE, where he has been working to develop a redesigned foundation for

statistics education across the country. “To effectively impact all students, there must

be a way to personalize each instructor's teach-ing possibilities and each student's educational experience,” Pearl said. “Support for statistics education at Penn State and across the country is high right now, and technology is continually improving and becoming more accessible. These elements are making it possible for that type of personalized education to be feasible.”

" To ef fect ive ly impact a l l students, t here must be a way t o persona lize each instruct or's teaching possibilit ies and each student's educat iona l exper ience..."


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Relevant ResourcesCAUSE has served as a catalyst for changing the way educators teach statistics by providing free resources to personalize pedagogy and con-tent for different learners. Through the CAUSE website (causeweb.org), webinars, workshops, an electronic conference, as well as an in-person conference, the organization, and Pearl, have been making every effort to improve the way statistics is taught and learned.

The CAUSE website offers a multitude of re-sources to statistics educators worldwide. The resources are free to use and have everything from recordings of webinars on teaching meth-ods and activities, to web app-based activities, data sets, and fun resources, such as videos, cartoons, and songs that can help facilitate learning.

Webinars have served as a way to help edu-cate statistics educators without them need-ing to leave their desks. The webinars, which now come to dozens per year, are broken down into three areas: activities series, teaching and learning series, and research series. One from each series is offered each month and is record-ed so that they can be viewed on demand any time. Industry partners, such as Minitab, Pear-son Higher Education, W.H. Freeman Publish-ing, and SAS, help to cover the cost so that edu-cators can access the webinars free of charge. “Webinars offer a great way to present the new-

est innovations in teaching and learning statis-tics and CAUSE is grateful for the support from volunteers and sponsors who make those efforts a reality,” Pearl said.

CAUSE also hosts a biennial Electronic Con-ference On Teaching Statistics (eCOTS), which occurs on even number years. The next, to be held in May 2016, will focus on “Changing with Technology.” The conference, which is chaired by Kari Lock Morgan, assistant professor of statistics at Penn State, is intended to spark new ideas for how educators can change with technology and provide a virtual meeting space for educators to engage with and learn from each other. eCOTS 2016 will feature keynote speakers, virtual panel discussions, breakout sessions, workshops, virtual posters, and affili-ated mini-conferences taking place around the country.

In addition, CAUSE hosts a biennial United States Conference On Teaching Statistics (US-COTS), which is held on odd number years, and is well attended by the statistics educator com-munity. Last held in May 2015 at Penn State and attended by about 450 people, the confer-ence featured plenary sessions, active breakout sessions, poster sessions, and a dozen associ-ated workshops disseminating the work of NSF-funded projects in statistics education. Both the eCOTS and USCOTS serve as a mechanism to invigorate the statistics education community on a regular basis and also provide the infra-structure for the dissemination and sharing of information from educators on teaching experi-ences, research results, and hot topics, such as data science.

Making Statistics FunPearl’s personal education research currently focuses on the latter aspect of the available re-sources: for teaching applied probability and for

DENNIS PEARL KARI LOCK MORGAN


using fun resources in teaching statistics. “Proj-ect UPLIFT (Universal Portability of Learning Increased by Fun Teaching) questioned whether or not the use of cartoons and songs would im-prove student learning and decrease anxiety,” Pearl said.

CAUSEweb.org hosts the largest collection of fun resources for college statistics teachers, which includes cartoons, jokes, quotes, songs, poems, word puzzles, magic tricks, and videos. Pearl and his colleagues at University of Texas at El Paso and Georgia Perimeter College as-sessed the materials throughout the three-year study, by observing students in three ur-ban settings and interviewing them to gather their attitudes towards introductory statistics. In one experiment, all students took a pretest and post-test measuring their anxiety about statistics. Students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, where they were exposed to cartoons or songs inserted into short content items, or the control group, where they only received the content. The researchers ana-lyzed the data to see if students who received

the extra fun content would perform better on related embedded multiple-choice exam ques-tions, or experience a greater decrease in statis-tics anxiety over a semester.

The data showed that song items had a higher percent of correct answers among students who viewed the lesson in conjunction with the song compared with the control students who saw the lesson alone. The use of cartoons did not show any differences between groups on test item performance – but, along with songs, may have helped reduced student anxiety.

Building on their findings from project UP-LIFT, Pearl and colleagues are beginning a new project, Project SMILES (Student-Made Inter-active Learning with Educational Songs), which was just approved for funding by the National Science Foundation. This project will develop and experimentally test an innovation in online learning where students create a song by filling in key words (like Mad Libs) associated with a learning objective. The songs are played back though synthetic voice technologies and can be shared between students. “I’m really excited

A CARTOON FROM THE CAUSEWEB.ORG RESOURCES. It is suitable for a course website that makes use of a boxplot

to display an outlier and also uses the term "statistically significant" in its punch line. The cartoon is free to use in the

classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

Credit: The cartoon is number 539 from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe.


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about how these interactive songs are being de-signed to challenge students to construct exam-ples and/or context thereby fostering statistical literacy and reasoning skills,” Pearl said.

While Pearl primarily focuses on cultivating the resources, professional development, out-reach, and research available to statistics edu-cators across the country, Kari Lock Morgan is specifically focusing on improving how Penn State students learn statistics by redesign-ing introductory courses and refining teaching methods to make them more effective.

Redesigning Statistics EducationFor many, statistics stirs up a mental picture of memorizing mathematical algorithms and computations but never really understanding them. Students have been taught through plug and chug type courses and retained information long enough for an exam, then disregarded it and moved on to the next topic. Although the content and teaching methods have not changed much over the last few decades, Lock Morgan is on a mission to change the perception, as well as the content and way that students learn sta-tistics.

Traditionally, statistics has been taught such that students memorize mathematical equa-tions, theory, and distributions. Although this method has worked for statistics majors and those who are very motivated and very inter-ested in learning about the topic, it has been very difficult for students who need basic statis-tics knowledge on their way to another degree. Many non-statistics students develop only su-perficial understanding and do not retain much of the information learned in class. These stu-dents can repeat theories and solve basic prob-lems, but most are doing it through conditioning and memorization. Students may not actually understand the numbers they are calculating. Lock Morgan, who was named a 2015 Eberly College of Science Center for Excellence in Sci-ence Education Tombros Fellow, has dedicated her career thus far to teaching statistics in a more intuitive way so that students comprehend the information and can apply it. “I am grateful that the fellowship allows me to focus more of my time where my passion truly lies; on making statistics more about conceptual understanding and solving real-world problems,” Lock Morgan said.

For her fellowship project, Lock Morgan chose to overhaul STAT 250: Introduction to Biosta-

A CARTOON TO TEACH ABOUT THE CAPTURE-RECAPTURE

METHOD. This is part of a three cartoon set from Dr.

Weaver that took first place in the cartoon category of

the 2007 A-Mu-sing competition. It is free to use in the

classroom and on course web sites.

Credit: Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea

and sketch from Sheila O. Weaver (University of Vermont).


tistics. Rather than relying on formulas and theoretical distributions, she is introducing in-ference via simulation methods, which include bootstrap confidence intervals and randomiza-tion hypothesis tests. With today’s technology, statistics students are able to utilize computing to get answers in a simpler and more intuitive way. This provides students with a more gen-eral way to approach statistical problem, focus-ing on the big picture and helping students ap-ply the methods to real world problems. It also builds conceptual understanding so students better understand their results, and can better interpret statistics they may encounter in other situations. The changes she is working on are in both content and pedagogy. “Incorporating real-life scenarios into teaching encourages the students to relate to the material and therefore be more engaged in class and the learning pro-cess. Students who have a solid understanding of the foundational aspects of this method are able to effectively collect data, analyze data, and interpret conclusions drawn from data and see the real-world value of statistics,” Lock Morgan said.

She aims to help students develop a strong intuitive understanding of inference through randomization methods. Once this ground work is established and students have a conceptual understanding and appreciation for the results, they can then compute using the more tradition-al methods of statistics, including t-tests and chi-square tests.

A Family AffairLock Morgan is not alone in her quest to improve statistics education; her father, mother, and two brothers are also statisticians who have a pas-sion for statistics and education. As a team, the five wrote Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data, a textbook for introductory statistics. “It

may be unusual to write a book with your entire family, but for us it has worked really well, prob-ably because we all like each other a lot. We generally agree on big picture things, but each bring our own unique perspectives and opinions on the finer details, which ultimately improves the final product,” Lock Morgan said. The book has been heavily adopted in academia; teachers across the county are utilizing the innovative approaches in the text to help teach more effec-tively and assist students in actually learning and using the material.

Additionally, the Locks have developed a website, lock5stat.com, that provides resources to support their textbook and statistics educa-tion as a whole. Their online software, StatKey, a collection of web-based statistics applications, accompanies the textbook. Their website also provides data sets in several formats that edu-cators can use in their classrooms. These data-sets help teachers provide real-world examples to help students see the practical applications of statistics. As of July, StatKey has had 8 million page views, with over 1,000 sessions per day, and has been used in 138 countries.

Lock Morgan herself uses the datasets in her

A FAMILY OF STATISTICIANS. Pictured below are Patti

Frazer Lock, Robin H. Lock, Dennis F. Lock, Kari Lock

Morgan, and Eric F. Lock

Credit: Photo from lock5stat.com


Featu

re Story

classrooms and shows students how statistics applies in real life. As part of the Tombros Fel-lowship, Lock Morgan has organized each class and lab to focus on answering a relevant scientif-ic question, hoping to emphasize that statistics is an important tool in science. Several of these datasets and questions come from researchers in the biological sciences at Penn State, in an effort to give students an idea for how statistics may be used in their own departments. Additional-ly, she embraces innovative teaching methods, such as active learning and the use of learning assistants, to get students more engaged in class and the learning process. In STAT 250, Lock Morgan requires students to use the i>clicker system. The use of clickers in the classroom encourages more class interaction and discussion, leading to better understanding and information retention.

Revising course content and changing peda-gogical strategies not only helps with conceptual understanding, but improves student problem-solving abilities and their transfer of learning. Trying different approaches often leads to bet-ter understanding and helps students learn bet-ter.

Teamwork ApproachLock Morgan, Pearl, and Matt Beckman, who will be joining the statistics faculty in January 2016, all recognize the need train high school teachers and better prepare students to use and understand statistics before they go to col-lege. “Matt will provide a terrific boost to Penn State’s growing stature as a center for statistics education expertise,” said David Hunter, head of the Department of Statistics. “Even before of-

ficially starting at Penn State, he has already gotten involved as a co-principal investigator on a statistics education grant proposal with Kari and Dennis.”

Beckman is a Penn State graduate himself, having earned a bachelor’s degree in mathemat-ics in 2006, along with a Pennsylvania certi-fication in secondary mathematics teaching. He later earned a master’s degree in statistics from the University of Minnesota, and since that time he has been working as a practicing biostatistician and statistical consultant, while simultaneously completing a doctorate in sta-tistics education, working with two leading ex-

perts in that field. Together, the statistics trio is working on a

NSF proposal to improve outreach and teacher training. Their goal is to help students be bet-ter prepared for statistics by improving how it is taught in high schools, while also refining the content and taking advantage of computing technology. The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics recognize both the increased importance of statistics and the intuitive ben-efit of introducing inference via the simulation methods enabled by computers, so the team aims to prepare teachers to teach more statis-tics and teach it in this conceptual way, particu-larly because many teachers will not have seen this approach, even if they have taken a statis-tics courses. “It’s fantastic that high schools are aiming to teach more statistics, and very excit-ing that the Common Core is promoting the use of simulation methods. We want to do what we

“...I’M ESPECIALLY PROUD OF THE WORK WE’RE

DOING TO CONTINUALLY IMPROVE THE TEACHING

WE DO IN THE STATISTICS DEPARTMENT. ”


can to help make this happen!” Lock Morgan said.

It’s no surprise that with passionate and mo-tivated faculty, and resourceful, dedicated staff, the Department of Statistics is becoming a well-known leader in statistics education. “Statistical literacy has always been a vital component of a broad scientific education, and it is all the more so in today's era of 'big data'. This fact makes the educational mission of our department more important than ever; and Penn State statistics has such a huge footprint not only in Pennsyl-vania but beyond the Commonwealth through our World Campus programs that we are well-positioned to play a strong leadership role in the practice of statistics education. In this context, I’m especially proud of the work we’re doing to continually improve the teaching we do in the statistics department. Adding experts like Kari, Dennis, and soon, Matt to our faculty not only enhances our day-to-day teaching but ensures that Penn State will remain at the cutting edge of research in statistics education,” said Hunter.

The outstanding research, resource, and edu-cational improvements would not be possible without support and collaboration. Staff mem-bers have been essential in helping the faculty, department, and even CAUSE function on a daily basis. Hunter, Pearl, Lock Morgan, and the rest of the statistics faculty recognize the important roles that the statistics staff perform

in helping them to achieve their objectives and in elevating the department stature.

“Moving CAUSE from Dennis’s previous home of Ohio State here to Penn State in 2014 was a highly complex task. We’ve hired two addition-al staff members, half of whose time is devoted to CAUSE-related tasks. Lorey Burghard joined our department in December 2014 and serves as CAUSE’s program coordinator, and Bob Carey came on board in May 2015 to sup-port CAUSE’s IT presence. Meanwhile, Kathy Smith, who was already on our staff, took on a huge additional workload almost from the day Dennis joined Penn State to tackle the Hercu-lean task of moving the web hosting for CAUSE from Ohio State to Penn State. There’s so much overlap now between the statistics department’s various missions and CAUSE’s mission that our newly enlarged staff has worked seamlessly into the life of the department. So we have CAUSE to thank not only for increased visibility in the statistics education community but for some ex-cellent new staff hires as well!” Hunter noted.

Teamwork has a been a key compon ent for the successes that the statistics department has achieved. By using an inclusive approach, the department has been able to make great strides in improving statistics education through collaboration in resources, teaching, and learning.

A CARTOON SUITABLE FOR USE IN TEACHING the idea that association does not imply causation. Free to use in the classroom

and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5

license. Credit: The cartoon is number 552 from the webcomic

series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe.


A typical day for Doug Cavener, the new dean of the Eberly College of Science, is anything but typical. While he spends most of his week attend-ing to administration and fundraising duties for the college, one may also find him sitting at

a microscope looking at fluorescent pancreatic beta cells with one of his graduate students or analyzing giraffe genome sequences at his computer. That’s because in addition to his ad-ministrative responsibilities, Cavener runs a research lab focused on the developmental and physiological regulatory processes that are im-portant in the regulation of metabolic and neu-rological diseases.

Recently, the Cavener lab received a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National In-stitutes of Health to study insulin regulation. Maintaining a narrow range of circulating in-sulin is critical to ensuring normal blood glu-cose levels and preventing the onset of diabetes and its plethora of negative downstream effects on human health. “The regulation of insulin has been intensely studied since its discovery in 1921, but the molecular and cellular mecha-nisms that integrate insulin synthesis, quality control, trafficking, and secretion are poorly un-derstood. The goal of our work is to understand

these mechanisms and apply them to the treat-ment of diabetes,” said Cavener. Barbara Mc-Grath, senior research associate in the Cavener lab, added, “This new award from the NIH not only provides us funding to keep our momentum going, but it also signals to us that many of our peer researchers share our enthusiasm. That is enormously gratifying!”

Cavener and McGrath, along with postdoc-toral researchers and graduate and undergrad-uate students, have been studying the function of the protein PERK, an eIF2α kinase, since its discovery in 2001. PERK is among a small number of genes that is so important for pancre-atic beta cell function that its absence results in permanent neonatal diabetes in humans and mice. Permanent neonatal diabetes appears within the first six months of life for humans and persists throughout the lifespan due to the body’s inability to make enough insulin. Stud-ies from the Cavener lab over the last few years have implicated PERK as a critical coordinator of insulin folding, quality and quantity control, trafficking, and secretion. This newly awarded grant from the NIH will allow Cavener’s team to reveal the mechanisms by which this important regulation is achieved and then apply these dis-coveries to the treatment diabetes. —Carrie Lewis

Researchin Action

Research

B

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NIH Grant Enables Cavener Lab to Discover Mechanisms to Improve Insulin Regulation


A four-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is al-lowing scientists in the Eberly College of Science to better search for Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.

Jason Wright, associ-ate professor of astronomy

and astrophysics and principal investigator on the grant, is searching for exoplanets, or plan-ets that exist outside of our solar system and or-bit a star instead of our sun. To do this, Wright and his team use data from some of the largest telescopes in the world: telescopes from the W. M Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope in Texas.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint ven-ture between Penn State and three other uni-versities, and was designed by Larry Ramsey, distinguished senior scholar and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State. Be-cause the Hobby-Eberly Telescope was built in the late 1990s, it is getting a series of major hardware upgrades to make it even better at searching for exoplanets, which in turn requires updated software to collect the telescope’s data, says Wright. “We are working to develop new software for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope’s high-resolution spectrograph so that it performs at a world-class level.”

The $356,000 grant makes the high-resolu-tion spectrograph software upgrade possible. The upgraded software will increase the Hobby-Eberly Telescope’s precision and will also take advantage of new data analysis techniques to retroactively improve the data from the tele-scope’s former spectrograph.

To discover exoplanets, Wright and his col-leagues use Doppler spectroscopy, or the wobble method, to find Jupiter analogs, or exoplanets that are similar in size to Jupiter in our solar system. Jupiter analogs are large and exhibit some gravitational pull on their star, causing the star to “wobble.” Using the spectrograph, Wright can measure the radial velocity and Doppler light shifts of a star to determine if Ju-piter analogs exist in that star’s system.

“Using this method, we can determine which stars are likely to have planets like Earth,” he says. “We can also find the Jupiter analogs or-biting stars already discovered to have Earth-sized planets by NASA's Kepler spacecraft.”

Searching for Jupiter analogs is an important step in the search to find Earthlike planets. “We can’t find things like the Earth yet, but we are starting to find things like Jupiter, and that’s a game of patience, because Jupiter takes twelve years to go around the sun,” Wright says. “The goal of the grant is to find the Jupiter analogs as signposts for the interior planets that might be like Earth that we can’t detect yet.” —Whittney Gould

NSF Grant Helps to Further the Search for Earthlike Exoplanets


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6 Things to Know about Our New DeanFor the first time in 16 years, the Eberly College of Science has a new dean. Dean Douglas Cavener took the position after being head of the Department of Biology for fifteen years.

5

Diabetes and…Giraffes?While he might be most known for

his research on diabetes, Cavener

is working with the Nelson Mandela

African Institute to sequence the giraffe

genome. “We wanted to choose an

iconic African animal,” he said. Through

this work, he may have recently iso-

lated the gene that gives giraffes their long

necks.

Music ManCavener began col-

lege as a music ma-

jor before switching

to science. “I had the

passion for music, but it

didn’t take me long to

realize that I didn't have had enough talent,”

he said. These days he just enjoys playing

Chopin at home on his 1915 Steinway grand

piano.

Biology of Eco-HealthHis first trip to Tanzania

sparked inspiration. “Af-

ter my first trip there, I

thought this would be a

fabulous experience for

our students,” he said.

He created BIOL 498A:

The Biology of Eco-

Health, a class that involves Cavener travel-

ing to Tanzania with students every year.

One Man, Many JobsIn addition to the hefty job of being dean,

Cavener still runs his research lab and men-

tors five graduate students. He is also an

adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela

African Institute of Science and Technology

in Arusha, Tanzania.

Class PhotographerHis BIOL 498A students are

fortunate to have his

photography skills during

the class, as he is an avid

photographer. You can

see some of his photos

framed on the wall in the dean’s office.

Bountiful Harvest Growing up on a farm introduced Cavener

to the wonders of a home garden. He now

has a bountiful tomato and peach harvest

and even grows a variety of Chinese veg-

etables for his wife Lan. He can rattle off the

names of them in Chinese, but doesn’t know

much of the language otherwise: “I know

200–300 words in Chinese, but they are all

related to food.”


Cavener Named New Dean of the Eberly College of Science

At their July 17 meeting, the University Board of Trustees approved Doug-las R. Cavener as the new dean of the Eberly College of Science.

Cavener has been serving as the college’s in-terim dean since January. He has been profes-sor and head of the Department of Biology at Penn State since 2000 and has served as an adjunct professor of life sciences at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Tech-nology in Tanzania.

“Through strategic investments and recruit-ment of outstanding faculty, staff and students, the Eberly College of Science experienced a me-teoric rise in national ranking under the lead-ership of Dan Larson, our former dean. I am therefore deeply honored to be appointed as the new dean of our college and truly believe that the best is yet to come,” Cavener said. “Our col-lege mantra is excellence in everything we do with emphasis on the integration of teaching and research. As scientists and teachers, our chief enterprise is discovery and translating those discoveries to real life solutions. I look for-ward to working with my colleagues to achieve great success in the Eberly College of Science.”

As head of biology at Penn State, Cavener expanded the department’s research and teach-ing in neuroscience, ecology, plant biology, evo-lutionary biology, infectious disease dynamics and genomics.

His previous experience includes serving as a faculty member at Vanderbilt University’s mo-lecular biology department from 1982 to 2000.

“Our process of searching for new deans is a

very comprehensive, inclusive and rigorous pro-cess, which attracts many outstanding candi-dates. However, when the outcome is that one of our accomplished faculty leaders emerges as the successful candidate, as in the case with Doug, we think that speaks volumes about both him and the depth of talent we have at Penn State. I very much look forward to working with him in his new role,” said Nicholas Jones, Penn State’s executive vice president and provost.

Cavener’s research focuses on the regulation of metabolic and neurological processes that are particularly prone to maladaptions that lead to diseases such as metabolic syndrome and neu-rodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. His work, which has received support from a number of agencies including the Nation-al Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, has direct biomedical implications for several human diseases, including diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer, osteoporosis and growth defects.

In addition, Cavener is leading a team of sci-entists to sequence the genome of the giraffe for the purpose of determining the genetic basis of the giraffe’s unique morphology and turbo-charged cardiovascular system.

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recipient of the Dobzhansky Prize from the International Society for the Study of Evolution.

Cavener holds a bachelor of arts degree in biology from Pasadena College, a master of sci-ence degree in genetics from Brown University and a doctorate in genetics from the University of Georgia. —Bill Zimmerman


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When four Penn State Science faculty mem-bers, along with four undergraduate students, departed for a whirlwind trip in July to teach pedagogical concepts and practices at Fudan University in China, they were not completely sure of what to expect. The group, which in-cluded faculty members Sarah Ades, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biol-ogy; Wendy Hanna-Rose, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; Jackie Bortiatynski, director of the Center for Excel-lence in Science Education (CESE); and Mer-edith DeFelice, senior lecturer of biochemistry and molecular biology; along with learning as-sistant (LA) students Sarah Chang, Nathan Shugarts, Nathan Kramer, and Scott Ber-man, were on a mission to help Chinese fac-ulty learn about the what it requires to teach science effectively and to provide hands-on, heads-on experience about how to implement this knowledge. Although they were confident in the content and workshop activities they had organized, the team was anticipating some re-sistance to the paradigm shift that they were planning to present.

Ji Yang, associate dean for undergraduate educa-tion in the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University, teamed up with the Penn State faculty to organize the workshops and worked diligently to recruit the best and bright-est life sciences faculty in China to engage with the group. Faculty from the top universities in China were invited to attend the three-day workshop taught by the Penn State faculty and student LAs. These Chinese faculty represented 20 universities across the country and were ex-cited about the opportunity to engage with Penn State and develop more effective teaching skills.

While this trip was a first for most of the group, this was not the college’s first experience with Fudan University. Hanna-Rose chose to do her sabbatical there, and has returned every year since then.

“I did my sabbatical at Fudan University in 2013 where I taught a class for Fudan students using active learning elements and a highly interactive style. As faculty leader for a Penn State Global Programs short-term experience, I returned to teach at Fudan with Penn State students in 2014. While my Fudan students were responsive to my teaching style, it was evident that they had relatively less experience than the Penn State students with active learn-ing in the classroom. So I approached Dean Yang about sharing my pedagogical expertise with Fudan faculty in a series of workshops. He was enthusiastic about the idea but asked me to consider leading a workshop to target faculty from all over China. I realized this larger objec-tive would require extra help and I turned to my colleagues from CESE who share my pas-sion for implementing best pedagogical practic-

Teaching New Pedagogy Strategy in China


es in higher education science classrooms. They agreed to accept the challenge and we started planning the workshop,” Hanna-Rose said.

The goal of the workshop was to educate fac-ulty of a shift happening in teaching style and to aid them in implementing new teaching strate-gies. This new vision for teaching, known as ac-tive learning, changes the way faculty teach by engaging students; it encourages active partici-pation and discussion rather than just passive listening. While it is commonly thought that this requires more work on both the part of the faculty member and the student, Hanna-Rose disagrees. “For faculty these teaching methods mean doing things differently, not necessarily taking more time. Faculty must gain a deeper understanding of how students learn in order to tailor classroom activities towards things like guided practice with feedback. And students don’t have to spend more time either—they just have to do things differently.”

For the students, it means actively listening and contributing in class and doing more than just reading course material or memorizing in-formation for exams. By absorbing and under-standing the material and actively participating in class or team discussion, students are more

likely to retain information and be able to apply it to real-life situations.

Changing years of teaching strategy isn’t easy. Rather than asking, “How can I teach this,” faculty are challenged to ask themselves “how can the student learn it?” This model of instruction changes the traditional teaching mindset of providing information to learn mate-rial to putting more responsibility on students to learn through participation. This participa-tion includes exercises, such as engaging in case studies, debating, and class discussions.

Active learning techniques not only help stu-dents learn material more effectively, it also gets them engaging with other students, allows them receive immediate feedback from instruc-tor and peers, provides them with an opportu-nity to talk about and process material while still in class, and increase motivation to learn because students know they will be actively par-ticipating in class.

In order to more effectively present the mate-rial, the Penn State instructors and LAs split the faculty into small groups to learn about ac-tive learning hands on. For three days, faculty worked in small group sessions to discuss dif-ferent aspects of the new way of teaching and


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understand ways to apply them. The LA students were a key component in the

sessions, providing a student perspective and of-fering feedback on a student outlook of learning. Because the four Penn State students were all experienced LAs, they were well trained in new pedagogical ideas and served as group facilita-tors. As faculty discussed potential changes to make to their courses, the students also acted as sounding boards to consider how certain chang-es ideas may be perceived in the classroom.

At the end of the workshop, each Chinese faculty member left with a product and in-structions; they learned the skills necessary to

change their way of teaching and committed to incorporating it in a portion of their fall courses. The resistance that the group had anticipated never transpired; the Chinese faculty were very accepting of the information and were excited about making changes in their classrooms.

Due to the success and positive feedback about the workshops, Yang hopes to host the group again next summer to help influence more faculty to embrace active learning and other pedagogical activities to improve student engagement and knowledge. —Tara Immel

Every year, the Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE) selects three Tom-bros Fellows. In addition, this year the Office of Digital Learning also awarded a Tombros Fellowship to a faculty member interested in transforming online education. These Tombros Fellows are interested in developing, transform-ing, and creating new and innovative courses, using new teaching methodologies, and finding more effective ways to assess teaching success

for classes in the Eberly College of Science.The four Tombros Fellows for 2015 are Kari

Lock Morgan, Philip Bevilacqua, Charles Anderson, and Louis Leblond.

Lock Morgan, an assistant professor of sta-tistics, is using her time as Tombros Fellow to transform STAT 250, Introduction to Biostatis-tics. The course satisfies the general education quantification credits requirement, but gener-ally draws students from science majors. She is

Transforming Science Education with Tombros Fellowships

Kari Lock Morgan Philip Bevilacqua Charles Anderson Louis Leblond


changing the class to incorporate a simulation methods approach to teaching, rather than us-ing a traditional approach that relied on heavy background knowledge and can seem discon-nected from the concept being taught.

“This approach is visual, intuitive, intrinsi-cally linked to the main concepts, the same for all statistics, generalizable to new situations, and it requires less background knowledge,” she said. “So it’s better for conceptual understand-ing and allowing students to better focus on the big picture.”

Bevilacqua is working to transform CHEM 110H, an honors section of the general chemis-try class CHEM 110, often a general education requirement. Bevilacqua is infusing new tech-nologies like screen casting, YouTube, and the interactive whiteboard app Doceri into the class to better teach complex ideas.

“I am able to show a demonstration and talk through it to my students,” he said. “It really cuts down on time and is a good way to explain difficult concepts.”

He is also able to assign lectures outside of class because he has recorded them with the new technology, allowing time to cover more content in the class over a semester than he would have without the use of this new technology.

Anderson is focusing on the development of a new first-year research course titled “Fast Farming.” Students in Anderson’s proposed class will use real-time rainfall, temperature, and soil data obtained from GIS platforms and social media outlets, in particular Plant Vil-lage, a community created by Penn State pro-fessors David Hughes and Marcel Salathé. Students will use this data to determine plant tolerance for a variety of stresses that could affect agricultural productivity and communi-cate this information to agricultural producers around the world through the Plant Village on-

line community. “By empowering freshman undergraduates to

do real research, without pre-determined out-comes, and to connect this research to tangible challenges that they can read about in the news, the class aims to clarify the connection between basic scientific research and its application for the benefit of human societies,” Anderson said. “This connection can sometimes seem very ab-stract for students who are in the early stages of their college careers, but the connection is always there, even if it is not immediately obvi-ous.”

Leblond’s project is different than the other three in that his World Campus physics students are typically adult learners continuing their education online from home while working and raising a family instead of traditional-age resi-dent students. He is using a tool called IOLab, which is a small portable Bluetooth-enabled de-vice with sensors that can measure physics data such as force, acceleration, light, and sound.

“With the IOLab, you can do in the comfort of your home almost all the experiments that we currently do in our introductory physics course sequence,” said Leblond. “The IOLab enables quality hands-on physics labs for students tak-ing online courses. The quality of the data is of-ten even better with the IOLab and comes at a fraction of the cost.”

All of these class transformations use real data to show students a real-world application for the skills being taught.

“My hope is that by using real data from the students’ own fields, the students come to see the class as a subject that is useful, important, and relevant and applicable to their own lives rather than just a requirement they have to get through,” Lock Morgan said. —Whittney Gould


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The first year of college can be difficult and confusing for any new student, but par-ticularly for those choosing to study challenging science or engineering curriculums. But there is extra support for Penn State freshmen in STEM ma-jors in the form of a program called the First Year in Science and Engineering (FISE) pro-gram.

The program puts first-year students in science and en-gineering majors—from the Eberly College of Science, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and the College of Engineering—together in a special on-campus multicultur-al housing community where they can take advantage of in-house tutoring and mentoring.

The mentoring takes place through both resident assis-tants, like a traditional on-campus housing experience, and special FISE program as-sistants. FISE program assis-tants are usually former FISE participants who mentor the first-year students and help them get their college experi-

ences off to a strong start.“The program assistants

played a significant role in my transition to Penn State,” said Bukola Toyobo, a cur-rent FISE program assistant and biology major. “They were my role models that year and helped me set a solid founda-tion in my scholarly pursuit for success. Because they had such a positive influence on me, I wanted to do the same and more for future communities of the FISE program.”

“The program assistants helped me tremendously be-cause I was an out-of-state student,” said Samantha For-tier, a biobehavioral health major who is now also a FISE program assistant. “They guid-ed me through the process of becoming a successful student and made sure I did not make that many mistakes.”

Toyobo, Fortier, and their fellow program assistants plan programs to help their stu-dents succeed. FISE programs cover topics ranging from aca-demic acclimation and leader-ship development to planning

Climate & Diversity Corner Fostering a Close-Knit Academic Community with the First Year in Science and Engineering Program

Intellectual Property F

ocus


Research Leading to Practical Benefits for SocietyBreast cancer survival rates have increased steadily

over the last decade. As quoted by the American

Cancer Society, on average, a stunning 100 percent

of patients with stage I breast cancer survive for at

least five years after diagnosis. However, this average

survival rate falls to 72 percent for those with stage

III and 22 percent for those diagnosed with stage IV

breast cancer.

From these statistics, it is obvious that new methods of

treatment are desperately needed to help increase

survival rates of late-stage cancer patients. What

is not readily apparent is the suffering experienced

those who undergo widely used cancer treatments

like chemotherapy and radiation.

Unfortunately, for many cancer types, including

breast cancer, cytotoxic treatments are considered

the best line of defense or are the only option avail-

able.

Two Eberly College of Science faculty researchers, Dr. Yanming Wang and Dr. Gong Chen, seek to change

this bleak reality for the over 1.6 million Americans

diagnosed with cancer last year. Chen and Wang

developed novel intellectual property that includes

a small molecule therapeutic that allows the body to

fight cancer naturally. This exciting intellectual prop-

erty is protected under an issued U.S. Patent, granted

to the Penn State Research Foundation on behalf of

the inventors.

—Melissa Long, intellectual property and technology

transfer liaison

What if our body had a natural switch, that when flipped, could help reverse cancer tumor growth?

“This switch exists,” says Wang, who has been studying the PAD4 enzyme for over eight years. While the Wang lab has discovered how PAD4 can help the body fight bacterial infection, they have also found this enzyme to be com-monly overexpressed in cancerous tissue. When they studied it further, Wang and his colleagues discovered that overabundance of PAD4 results in the silencing of tumor-suppressor genes, the body’s natural defense against cancerous cell growth.

In collaboration with Department of Chemistry faculty member Gong Chen, Wang developed a new small molecule chemical inhibitor to limit the activity of the PAD4 enzyme. When this inhibitor was tested in mouse models, the team discovered it to be very successful in reversing tumor growth. In fact, the PAD4 inhibitor re-duced tumor size just as effectively as the most common chemotherapy drug with a 70 percent tumor shrinkage rate. But unlike this chemotherapy treatment, the PAD4 inhibitor did not alter normal (noncancerous) cell devel-opment and function.

Based on these exciting results, Chen and Wang think that the PAD4 inhibitor may represent a new potentially nontoxic chemotherapy treatment that helps the body to fight cancer naturally. They are currently working to raise the funding needed in order to move the small molecule

inhibitor into FDA-recognized clinical trials. —Whittney

Gould

CANCER CELLS Photo Credit:

National Cancer Institute

Intellectual Property F

ocusfor STEM research opportu-nities and a successful career fair visit.

Toyobo has a leadership role in the programs covering STEM research opportunities and leadership development.

“The goal of the STEM re-search opportunities program is for students to know what re-

search looks like in their field of interest, understand the process of applying to research laboratories on campus, and interacting with graduate stu-dents during lab tours,” Toyobo explained.

During the leadership pro-gram, FISE students learn to strengthen five qualities es-

sential for good leadership: delegation, confidence, com-munication, commitment, and perseverance.

Toyobo believes these pro-grams are valuable due to her own experience as a FISE student: “FISE is essential in guiding freshmen on paths of scholarly pursuits. I can per-


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Since 2008, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs on campus has organized and coordinated the Postdoctoral Research Ex-hibition on campus.

This event, a showcase of re-search conducted by postdocs at the University, is an oppor-tunity for postdocs to present their research in poster format and be judged by their fellow postdoc peers.

“The research exhibition is a showcase of the research being done by postdocs across Uni-versity Park, but also an exer-cise of science communication,” said Pallavi Eswara, progam coordinator in the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. “Postdoc presenters are presenting their research to people outside their expertise and have to learn to communicate their science ef-fectively.”

Postdocs help Eswara to or-

ganize and judge the event. This year, 27 postdocs judged the work of 32 postdoc present-ers. For the last four years, the exhibition has given prizes for the top-performing postdocs at the exhibition. The first place winner this year took home $500, the second-place winners received $300, and the third-place winners $100.

Two of the three third-place winners, Sarah Rajtmajer and Marta Tomaszkiewic, are from the Eberly College of Science.

Rajtmejer presented her re-

search, titled “An Evolutionary Game Model for the Spread of Noncooperative Behavior on Social Networks and Associ-ated Longitudinal Effects on Global Network Topology.”

“It was wonderful to see what other postdocs are do-ing throughout the Univer-sity, and to have the oppor-tunity to share my work as well,” said Rajtmajer. “I had some thoughtful conversations with postdocs and faculty from various departments about the relationship between my re-search and their own fields of interest.”

Tomaszkiewic’s research poster was titled “Comparative Analysis of the Hominine Y Chromosome Genomes.”

“It was a very enriching ex-perience sharing my research with my peers at Penn State and explaining my everyday

Sarah Rajtmajer and Marta

Tomaszkiewic

Annual Postdoctoral Research Exhibition: An Exercise in Science Communication

sonally attest to it as a mem-ber of FISE my freshman year. The placement of program as-sistants in the building to men-tor freshmen encourages them to focus on academic goals like finishing the year on the dean’s list, as well as giving them op-portunities to pursue profes-sional experience like intern-

ships.”Because the FISE students

and mentors live together in the same special living option, it’s easier for the students to be successful, said Fortier. “FISE focuses on creating an environ-ment where the students can seek high levels of intellectual achievements and personal

growth.”“The FISE program trains

students to balance their so-cial and academic lifestyles to succeed from the start,” added Toyobo. —Whittney Gould


work to postdocs from different fields,” she said.

Eswara has worked hard to build events like this in her work with the Office of Post-doctoral Affairs, to provide a sense of community and also professional career-building events for postdocs. She is suc-ceeding, according to Rajtma-

jer and Tomaszkiewic.“The Postdoc Exhibition

gives a sense of community to postdocs at the University as well as an opportunity to en-gage with faculty and adminis-trators,” said Rajtmajer.

“In the end, science is an interdisciplinary field and we need people from different

On Sunday, August 23, 2015, the Eberly College of Science welcomed more than

760 incoming freshman to Penn State. Our newest students were introduced to the

college community with a day of activity led by NEXUS (Network for EXcellence

in Undergraduate Science), a group of upperclassmen dedicated to helping new

students transition to college. The day was capped by an extravaganza hosted by

the college. Faculty and staff were encouraged to bring their families to spend time

with the new students, play icebreaker games, conduct fun science experiments

with the Office of Outreach, dress up for fun photos in a photo booth sponsored by

the Office of Develpment and Alumni Relations, and enjoy delicious Creamery ice

cream. The fun-filled festival also included an exclusive peek at the science clubs

before the whole university involvement fair.

Welcome to the science family, Class of 2019!

Welcome Day 2015

scientific areas to be famil-iar about all the studies be-ing performed at Penn State to build new connections, col-laborations, and social net-works,” said Tomaszkiewic. —Whittney Gould


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Department heads may hold one of the toughest positions in academia, but they do not

have to do their job alone thanks to excellent administrative support coordinators like the Department of Astronomy and Astrophyics’s Christine Selders.

Administrative support coordinators and department heads oversee and execute all aca-demic and administrative functions. Selders has seamlessly facilitated the implementation of both drastic and small changes for four depart-ment heads over the past 25 years.

“Christine has been instrumental in develop-ing how the department works,” said Donald Schneider, head of the department. “Her expe-riences and judgment are extremely valuable.”

As the main point of contact for administra-tion, Selders balances a wide variety of complex administrative and office functions. She devel-ops and manages various budgets, creates de-partment policies, advises department head and faculty of University policies and procedures, fills open departmental positions, trains new employees, oversees department spa ce alloca-tion, and manages renovation projects.

“It’s difficult to find a part of the infrastruc-ture that does not depend on Christine,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics.

Selders has a busy schedule, yet she takes on additional projects in times of need. For ex-ample, when there are job searches in progress, Selders covers some of the responsibilities of those former staff members.

“The department was down two people at one point this summer, but Christine kept it run-

ning very smoothly, without any diminution in the effectiveness of the office. I don’t think the faculty realized the magic that was going on be-hind the curtains,” Schneider said.

Schneider admitted that even he, as an as-sistant department head, did not realize every-thing Selders does for the department until he became department head himself. Now he views their working relationship as a partnership and said that she is a tremendous asset to the de-partment, college, and University.

An important component of Selders’s role is her intermediary communication between fac-ulty and the department head. Former Depart-ment Head Lawrence Ramsey said he noticed faculty feel comfortable approaching Selders with issues so she could pass them on to him.

“Sometimes I was unaware that faculty mem-bers were upset if I did something wrong, so Christine was a very valuable conduit to me. When Christine comes and talks about some-thing, we respect it,” Ramsey said.

Faculty members are grateful for efforts like this from Selders. Mahadevan especially appre-ciates Selders’s attentiveness to assisting with grants, a meticulous process tasked to principle investigators of a study.

“Faculty teach, mentor, and have service. So without the support of very capable, competent people like Christine, we couldn’t do our jobs,” Mahadevan said.

“My position is always challenging, and some-times bordering on overwhelming. But I know that is just a temporary state of mind,” said Selders. “We’re a small department, but we’re nationally and internationally recognized, and I’ve been a part of it." —Samantha Schwartz

Staff Highlight: Selders Provides Critical Support


In the Department of Phys-ics, each of the 160 physics undergraduate and 25 gradu-

ate students receives compassionate support and excellent guidance from their one-man ad-vising unit, Richard Robinett, associate head for undergraduate and graduate students and professor of physics.

Robinett, who started at Penn State as an as-sistant professor in 1986, has been a member of the physics department administration since 1996. He has held multiple positions, and even substituted for two associate deans during their extended absences.

Physics Department Head Nitin Samarth said that Robinett is “passionate, inspiring, en-ergetic, and completely dedicated to the welfare of the students.”

Under Robinett’s advising over the past 15 years, physics undergraduates have won roughly half of the major academic prizes at the Schreyer Honors College Medals Ceremony.

Yet extraordinary students are not the only ones receiving Robinett’s attention. Carol Deering, the department’s graduate coordina-tor, said, “He checks on the students to see how they’re making out and make sure they’re on track. When students are struggling, he doesn’t dismiss them. He recommends alternatives.”

Colleagues say that Robinett’s empathetic nature is key to his success as an adviser and mentor. He makes a concentrated effort to get to know his students as individuals. He recognizes their unique potential for success and motivates them to achieve their academic and career goals.

Robinett’s advising has contributed to the Department of Physics’s second highest rate of

participation in experiential learning and peda-gogical experiences in the college, according to the past two annual graduating-seniors sur-veys. Colleagues say that Robinett has a talent for matching undergraduates seeking research experience with researchers in the college.

Robinett has encouraged several students to apply for highly selective internships. Five stu-dents have participated in a first-class interna-tional experience with CERN, the European Or-ganization for Nuclear Research, working with the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

Robinett supports other co-curriculars by ad-vising the Penn State chapters of the Society of Physics Students and Sigma Pi Sigma physics honors society. Colleagues say he is heavily in-volved in these clubs’ outreach activities, advo-cating for their funding and giving them advice on how to host successful events.

Although advising occupies most of Robinett’s time, he still manages to teach two courses: PSU 016: First-year Seminar Science, a requirement of all first-year students, and PHYS 44: Topics in Contemporary Physics, a course designed to help juniors and seniors plan their next steps.

Aside from working directly with students, Robinett participates in the University Faculty Senate, multiple committees including the Un-dergraduate Education Advisory Committee, and professional associations. He has also been-published in refereed journals and textbooks.

“Richard never turns anything down,” said Samarth. “I don’t know anyone other than him who has the energy, passion, and empathy with students to excel at this job.” —Samantha Schwartz

Faculty Highlight: Robinett’s Advising Enhances the Student Experience


40 Years of Service:Andrea MastroGary MullenJames Rosenberger

35 Years:Ross HardisonSabrina Glasgow

30 Years: Michael AkritasG. Jogesh BabuDaniel DurachkoLuen-Chau LiPrzemyslaw MaslakMing TienEric Younken

25 Years:Wenwu CaoRobin CiardulloJohn CollinsCharles FisherDeborah FisherSvetlana KatokAnatoly KatokYakov PesinCathy RiemerChristine SeldersHope ShafferTraci ShimmelCarol ThomasJack WilkinsonTara Witherite

20 Years:Joseph BollingerDmitri Burago

Leanne CrossonAnn DanielJames FerryAmy HomanQi LiDennis LinJames MillerRichard OrdwayMichael TroyanPing Xu

15 Years:Neena ChopraHoward FescemyerDale HooverPaul LammertRunze LiJia LiAnton PetruninEric PostBeatrice SirakayaSergei TabachnikovZachary TsengEdward Wagner

10 years:John AsburyAbraham FalconeDerek FoxJohn FricksRobert GeistYao GuoJames HagerMelissa HicksCheryl HileMitchell HollandHelge JenssenMichael Joyce

Andrey KrasilnikovMaria KrasilnikovaXiantao LiKevin LuhmanMegan MeineckeIrina MocioiuTracey MooreLynne O'cainKathleen PostleRadu RoibanLorraine SantyRobert SchochDurland ShumwayKathleen SmithYanming WangLance WhiteKrzysztof Wysocki

5 Years:Bradley AltersIgor BerezinAmine BenkiranDaniel BlankenbergAmanda BrownSung Hyun ChoCarol DeeringMeredith DefeliceFranklin DormanCarly DreibelbisKristin DreyerAna Laura Elias Ar-riagaMiriam FreedmanNathan GemelkeYing GuSteven HairNestor HandzyMegan Holmes

Jennifer JacksonTimothy JeglaBenjamin LearShundai LiGabriele MonshausenJason MortonZifei PeiRandy PennNestor Perea LopezKirstin Purdy DrewAlexander RadosevichPaula RalphJan ReimannBreanne RobinsonMegan RomerAlham SaadatPhilip SmithMichelle SpieringLaura UllrichKurt Vandegrift

Years of Service Recognition We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the years of service that our faculty and staff have committed to Penn State. The college is fortunate to be able to recognize the following dedicated members of the college community for their service to Penn State in 2015.

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Thank you for your service


In 1998, everything changed. Before that, we thought we knew the laws of the universe. The force of the Big Bang began an expansion, while attractive gravitational pull of every piece of matter in the universe acted to slow the expan-sion down. The question was whether this pull was strong enough to reverse the expansion al-together and create a Big Crunch. But then in 1998, we discovered dark energy, a component of the universe that is causing the universe to fly apart, as if being pushed by anti-gravity.

But how has dark energy evolved with cosmic time? In 1917, before we knew about the motions of the universe, Einstein added a “Cosmological Constant” to his theory of general relativity to “hold back gravity” and prevent the universe from collapsing upon itself. Shortly thereafter, he declared this constant of integration to be his greatest blunder, as the observed dynamics of the universe seemed to make it unnecessary. But the formalism remained, and it makes a clear prediction as to how dark energy should evolve. But is this idea correct?

Penn State astronomers are about to find out. This spring, the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will begin a large survey, which will look 10 billion years back in time and map out how matter was dis-

Astronomy and Astrophysics HETDEX

Departm

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tributed when the universe was only one-quar-ter of its present size. By comparing these mea-surements to those made from the universe's baby picture (otherwise known as the cosmic microwave background), HETDEX will be able to measure history of universal expansion and determine just how important Dark Energy was at early times. Simultaneously, the millions of spectra obtained by the HETDEX project will enable a myriad of other projects, from the iden-tification of stars torn from their parent galax-ies to the measurement of star formation as a function of galactic environment. —Robin Ciardullo, professor of astronomy and astrophysics

THE HETDEX TEAM AT PENN STATE. From left to right,

Professor Derek Fox, Professor Robin Ciardullo, Dr.

Nishant Agarwal, Professor Caryl Gronwall, Professor

Donghui Jeong, undergraduate Hunter Brooks,

Professor Donald Schneider, graduate student Brian

Pomerantz, Dr. Jonathan Trump, graduate student

Henry Gebhardt, and graduate student Mallory Molina.

Not pictured are graduate students Alex Hagen and

Joanna Bridge, and undergraduate Mark Barnaba, Jr.


Faculty

Spotlight

Thomas Mal louk , Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, P h y s i c s , and Bio-chemistry

and Molecular Biology at Penn State University, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Election to membership in the academy is one of the highest honors accorded to U.S. sci-entists or engineers by their peers.

Mallouk is an inorganic chemist who is highly regarded for his research on nanoma-terials and their application to a broad range of scientific and technological problems. He and his students showed in 1988 that inorganic crys-

Andrew F. Read, Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Entomology and Eberly Professor in

Biotechnology at Penn State, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the lead-ing academy of sciences of the United Kingdom. The Royal Society is a self-governing fel-lowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists. The stated purpose of the so-ciety is to recognize, promote, and support excellence in sci-ence and to encourage the de-velopment and use of science for the benefit of humanity. Each year, the Fellows of the Royal Society elect up to 52 new fellows and up to ten new foreign members who have made substantial contributions to the improvement of knowl-edge in science, engineering, or medicine.

Read is the director of Penn State's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and is lead-ing Penn State’s initiative in evolutionary risk analysis and mitigation. He perhaps is best known for his research on how natural selection shapes the virulence of malaria and how the “unnatural” selection im-posed by medicine shapes the evolution of disease-causing organisms.

Read’s research is aimed at determining what can be done to minimize the impact on hu-man health and well-being of the evolution of pathogens and of the organisms that carry and transmit these pathogens. Prompted by medical and public-health measures, this evolution can produce adapta-tions in pathogens that lead to drug and pesticide resistance, increased virulence and infec-tiousness, and the ability to evade formerly effective vac-cines. Read is particularly in-terested in the question of how best to treat patients so as to minimize the evolution of resis-tance. His group works mostly on malaria, myxoma viruses in rabbits, and cancer-causing viruses in chickens, with new work on hospital-acquired infections. Read's research, which provides an improved understanding of pathogen evo-lution, can be used to inform

Tom Mallouk Elected as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences

Andrew Read Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society

public-health decisions. His re-search currently is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foun-dation, Gates Foundation, and the Biotechnology and Biologi-cal Sciences Research Council (UK). —Sam Sholtis


tal lattices can be grown one layer at a time on surfaces by wet chemical techniques. He used this approach to make surface structures for artifi-cial photosynthesis, chemical sensing, and the separation of left-handed and right-handed forms of the same molecule, which is a critical step in many applications. In 1998, he de-veloped an optical screening method for simultaneously evaluating hundreds of cata-lytic materials and used it to discover catalysts that improve the performance of fuel cells, water electrolysis, and glucose sensors. This method now is widely used for materials dis-covery. Currently, his group is developing nanoscale materi-als to address problems in pho-tochemical energy conversion, energy storage, electronics,

catalysis, environmental re-mediation, and powered move-ment on the nanometer scale. In 2004, they introduced the concept of polymeric “delivery vehicles” that carry reactive nanoparticles through tens of meters of soil and ground wa-ter in order to destroy pollut-ants. In 2007, together with colleague Joan Redwing, professor of materials science and engineering and of electri-cal engineering at Penn State, Mallouk's team fabricated the first silicon nanowire solar cells. In 2009, Mallouk and his students developed the first molecule-based solar cells that split water into hydrogen and oxygen with visible light. Re-cently, Mallouk's lab, in collab-oration with colleagues Tony Jun Huang, professor of engi-neering science and mechanics

at Penn State and Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Penn State, have developed nanomotors that, for the first time, can be powered and controlled inside living cells, a breakthrough that holds promise for new methods for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organiza-tion of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the gen-eral welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which calls on the academy to act as an of-ficial adviser to the federal gov-ernment, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.

—Sam Sholtis

Faculty Promotions

Congratulations to the following

faculty members on their

recent promotions in academic

rank:

To professor:

Michael T. Green, chemistry

Kenneth C. Keiler, biochemistry and molecular biology

Katsuhiko Murakami, biochemistry and molecular biology

Aleksandra B. Slavkovic, statistics

Mathieu P. Stienon, mathematics

Ae Ja Yee, mathematics

To associate professor:

David D. Boehr, chemistry

Tomás A. Carlo-Joglar, biology

Jason T. Wright, astronomy and astrophysics


John Badding, professor of chemistry and physics, has been selected to receive the

2015 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Physical Sciences. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers selects candidates after reviewing nominations together with outside evaluations from peer institutions.

Augustin Banyaga, professor of mathematics, has been named a Distinguished

Senior Scholar. The title is given by Penn State's Eberly College of Science in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education. Holders of this position have had a profound

effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, as well as exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.

Squire J. Booker, professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular

biology, has been named an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a science philanthropy whose mission is to advance biomedical research and science education for the benefit of humanity. As one of 26 new HHMI investigators chosen from 894 applicants, Booker joins a group of scientists, including 17 Nobel laureates, widely recognized for their creativity and research accomplishment. The HHMI chooses investigators based on a “people, not projects” philosophy allowing its investigators the freedom to explore creative approaches to difficult biomedical problems.

Booker will receive flexible support designed to enable him to move his research forward in creative new directions.

Jane Charlton, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been selected to

receive the 2015 President's Award for Excellence in Academic Integration. The award is given to faculty members who excel at integrating teaching, research, and service to the University. The award is presented by the Office of the President of the University, based on the recommendations of the President's Council and academic deans.

Charlton has also been selected to receive one of three Penn State Teaching Fellows Awards for 2015/2016. The Teaching Fellow Award was established jointly in 1986 by the Penn State Alumni Association, the Undergraduate Student Government, and the Graduate Student Association

Faculty Awards and Honors

Facu

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with the purpose of honoring distinguished teaching and providing incentive for teaching excellence at Penn State.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced the election of Eric D.

Feigelson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics and of statistics, as the president of its new Commission on Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics at its General Assembly in August. The IAU is the world’s largest scholarly society in astronomy. Together with G. Jogesh Babu, professor of statistics, Feigelson is one of the founders of the field of astrostatistics that endeavors to improve applications of sophisticated methodology to the analysis and interpretation of astronomical data. Feigelson and Babu have organized research conferences, graduate-level summer schools, and co-authored a prize-winning textbook in the field.

Charles Fisher, professor of biology and associate dean for graduate education in

the Eberly College of Science, has been named a Distinguished Senior Scholar. The title is given by Penn State's Eberly College of Science in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education. Holders of this position have had a profound effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, as well as exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.

Kin Fai Mak, assistant professor of physics, has been selected by the U.S. Department of

Energy's (DOE) Office of Science to receive funding for his research as part of the DOE's Early Career Research Program. With this funding, Mak will study a new method for transmitting information

by controlling a parameter of electrons known as the “valley degree of freedom” in two-dimensional crystals. The research has potential application in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices, such as spin and valley transistors and polarization-sensitive LEDs.

Gerald D. Mahan, distinguished professor of physics, has been honored with the 2015

Outstanding Achievement in Thermoelectrics Award from the International Thermoelectric Society (ITS). The award recognizes the outstanding achievements of a senior scientist for contributions to the field of thermoelectricity. The award was presented at the banquet of the 2015 International Conference on Thermoelectrics in Dresden, Germany, where Mahan presented a plenary lecture.

Jennelle L. Malcos, lecturer in biology, has received the George W. Atherton


Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award honors excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level across all Penn State colleges and campuses. Malcos is one of six awardees for 2015. Malcos teaches introductory courses in physiology, mammalian anatomy, and cell biology. She uses an innovative approach to ensure that students are actively engaged in learning despite the large size of these classes.

Mercedes Richards, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been elected as a

Councilor of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The AAS was founded in 1899 and is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America with over 7,000 members. Richards is one of three Councilors elected this year from among the membership of the AAS. She will serve a three-year term on the AAS Council, which is the governing body of the AAS and is responsible for the management of the affairs and property of the society.

Marylyn Ritchie, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and the director of

the Center for Systems Genomics, has been named the Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The professorship was created in 1995 by an anonymous donor in honor of Paul Berg, a 1948 Penn State graduate who was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1974 and earned the Nobel Prize in 1980 for developing a method to map the structure and function of DNA.

Song Tan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been selected to receive the

2015 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers selects candidates after reviewing

Facu

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nominations together with outside evaluations from peer institutions.

David Weiss, professor and associate head of the Department of Physics, has been elected

as chair of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) of the American Physical Society (APS). DAMOP is the oldest and third largest division of the APS, with over 3,000 members. The chair is an elected position with administrative responsibility for all the division's operations, including the 1,100-attendee annual meeting.


Jeffrey S. Case, assistant professor of mathematics, is a geometric analyst interested in global problems in Rieman-nian, Lorentzian, conformal, and CR geometry. He uses ideas from conformal geom-etry to better understand CR geometry and smooth metric measure spaces. He applies these ideas to study optimiza-tion problems involving the “shape” of manifolds and to study inequalities important in differential equations. Prior to joining Penn State, Case was a National Science Foun-dation Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University from 2010 to 2013 and an instruc-tor in mathematics at Princ-eton from 2011 to 2015. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics at the University of California, San-ta Barbara in 2007 and 2010, respectively, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science at Minnesota State University in 2005.

Jack Huiz-enga, assis-tant professor of mathemat-ics, focuses his research on algebraic

New Faculty geometry. He studies the geometry of curves and surfaces, with a particular em-phasis on moduli spaces of vec-tor bundles and interpolation-type problems. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Huizenga was a research assistant professor and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2012 to 2015. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics at Harvard University in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and a bachelor's degree in math-ematics at the University of Chicago in 2007.

Jesse R. Lasky, assistant professor of biology, studies the processes that

generate and maintain biodi-versity. His research has applications in conservation and agriculture. He is particu-larly interested in the causes of genetic variation across the geographical range of a species and how this variation changes over time. In particu-lar, he is interested in how plant populations adapt to local environmental conditions and how that adaptation is

affected by species interac-tions. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Lasky was an Earth Institute Fellow from 2012 to 2014 and a postdoctoral researcher from 2014 to 2015 at Columbia University. He earned a doctoral degree in ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and a bachelor's degree in biology at Kenyon College in 2004.

X. Lance Lian, assis-tant professor of biomedical engineering and biology, focuses his

research on understanding human development and disease by applying the principles of developmental biology to experiments with human-derived stem cells, and by experimentally editing the genetic code. In addition to gaining basic knowledge of human development at the cellular and- molecular level, Lian's research has applica-tion in the development of therapies to treat degenerative diseases like spinal-cord injury, heart disease, and diabetes. Lian also plans to study stem-cell-derived immunotherapy as a cancer


treatment. Before joining the faculty at Penn State, Lian was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 2012 to 2014. He earned a doctoral degree in chemical engineer-ing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 and a bachelor's degree in bioengineering at Zhejiang University in China in 2006.

Lynn Lin, assistant professor of statistics, develops Bayesian methods and

computational tools for classi-fication, selection of subgroups of variables, detection of rare events, and the visualization of highly complex data. She applies her research to datas-ets of high-throughput single-cell biological research on immunology and vaccines. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Lin was a postdoc-toral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 2012 to 2015. She earned a doctoral degree in statistics at Duke University in 2012, and bachelor's and master's degrees in statistics at the National University of Singapore in 2007 and 2008.

Facu

lty Spotlight

Mikael C. Rechtsman, assistant professor of physics, uses both experi-mental and

theoretical approaches to understand photonics, the science of light. In particular, he is interested in the new field of “topological photonics” with the goal of allowing light to be transported through complex materials—where normally random scattering would massively disrupt its flow. Rechtsman's research can be applied to devices that transport information using photons and in the develop-ment of extremely small optical components used across the telecommunications industry, such as waveguides, splitters, and optical diodes. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Rechtsman was an Azrieli Postdoctoral Fellow at Technion Israel Institute of Technology from 2010 to 2015 and Courant Instructor at New York Univeristy's Cou-rant Institute of Mathematical Sciences from 2008 to 2010. He earned a doctoral degree in physics at Princeton Univer-sity in 2008 and a bachelor's degree in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003.

Xin Zhang, assistant professor of chemistry and of biochemis-try and molecular

biology, studies how the environment of the cell influ-ences the folding of proteins into their proper three-dimen-sional structures. Zhang aims to develop tools that can monitor the stresses and cellular machineries within the cell that can alter the ways in which a protein can fold. His research also has applica-tion in the development of diagnoses and therapies for human diseases rooted in defective protein folding. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Zhang was a research associate at the Scripps Research Institute, California. He earned a doctoral degree at the California Institute of Technology in 2010, a master's degree at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004, and a bachelor's degree at the University of Sci-ence and Technology of China in 2001.


Student Spotlight

The Braddock Scholarship is open to high school seniors who have applied to both the Schreyer Honors College schol-ars and the Eberly College of Science and intend to pursue a major in a qualifying science field.

The scholarship provides up to $6,000 annually to these students over their four years in college, lessening the finan-cial burden for these ambitious students.

For senior Braddock Scholar Shalome Sine, receiving the Braddock Scholarship was a fi-nancial saving grace: “Because of medical issues in my family, my parents were not in a posi-tion financially to help me pay for school. The Braddock Schol-arship made it possible for me to attend Penn State.”

The scholarship is a big draw to students considering Penn State. “The scholarship was a major factor in choosing to attend Penn State in the first place,” said senior Braddock Scholar Janine Mistrick.

The experience doesn’t end when the students receive the scholarship. The Braddock Scholars become a helpful sci-ence peer community for each other. The scholarship program includes events and meetings where the scholars can share ideas with their peers or hear faculty and staff speakers present on topics like fellow-ships, research opportunities, international experiences, and career path options.

“What I really enjoy about this scholarship are the meet-ings that gather the other stu-dents with faculty who have super helpful insight on how to make the most of my time at Penn State and where I can take my science degree,” said senior Braddock Scholar Sarah Chang. “Having those small discussions as an un-derclassman helped expand and shape what kind of career I would want to have after I graduate, especially since I had a narrow perspective of the opportunities out there for

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors

Braddock Scholarship Opens Doors to New Opportunities

science majors.”Sine agreed. “The Braddock

Scholarship has allowed me to explore all of my options as a scientist, and has given me the opportunity to then do re-search in my chosen field.”

The weight of the reputation of this scholarship program also helps these students ob-tain experience and opportuni-ties they might not have been given a chance for without it.

BRADDOCK SCHOLAR SARAH CHANG

PRESENTS her research findings from

her internship at the Icahn School of

Medicine at Mount Sinai, an

opportunity she was able to take in

part because of her Braddock

Scholarship.


Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors

Freshman:Rebecca BrussardColleen ConwayMackenzie MaugerRosalie SowersStephen ThorntonSophomores:Matthew AllenRobert LiuSteven Makkar

Riddhi PatelMila TammingaCollin Van SanJuniors: Nathan Arnett Laura M. Beebe Alice Y. Cai Sarah N. Galang Elizabeth M. LeskoJiang Jingyi

James L. JohnstonMichelle Lai Joseph K. Puthenpurayil Amanda C. Reese Kokila Shankar Grant T. Smith Seniors:Victoria A. Bertocci Joshua T. BramSarah Chang

Valerie M. Lindner Janine Mistrick Jacqueline R. Patterson Avik M. Sarker Shalome L. SinePriyanka K. Solanki Rachel J. Thomas Anna K. Wing

Braddock Scholarship The Braddock Scholarship, an award for exceptional freshman science students, was established by the late Homer Frick Braddock, a Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania native, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from Penn State in 1906. The Braddock Scholarship is available to outstanding high-school seniors who are interested in studying science at Penn State. Since 1984, this generous gift and prestigious financial award has provided needed and helpful funds to over 240 deserving students. The 2015 Braddock Scholars are:

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“The backing of the Brad-dock Scholarship helped me show professors at a time when I had no particular lab or field skills that I was a dedicated scholar who was passionate about science and could be counted on to perform well in their lab,” said Mistrick.

“Being able to sign my name as ‘Shalome Sine, Braddock Scholar’ on my application email for a new lab was a sig-nificant part of what impressed the graduate students who re-

cruited me,” added Sine.The Braddock Scholarship

has allowed the scholars the fi-nancial freedom to pursue aca-demic and research experienc-es they are passionate about. Mistrick, a biology major, was accepted into an REU this past summer that allowed her study the ecology of the little brown bat in Alaska. Sine’s honors thesis research in a neurosci-ence lab helped her decide to pursue graduate school to be a clinical pyschologist. Chang

has decided that between grad-uation in May and beginning an M.D./Ph.D. program, she’d like to challenge herself with an interesting biomedical re-search project.

“The Braddock Scholarship helped relieve the growing fi-nancial pressure so that I was completely free to explore my interests with little limita-tion,” Chang said. —Whittney Gould


Freshmen:Coreena ChanBridget GarrityOmobolanle OdusogaSophomores:

Phoebe IngrahamAfsha MumtazBriana NeidigVictoria OladipoHuyan Tran

Juniors:Casey GrahamVictoria SpadoniSeniors:Maren Healey

Kayla KisanJoohyeong LeeBo JungHaley Randolph

Cohort #1 (2013) Kaleb BogaleEmily CribasSachira DenagamageDavid HeinemanLiyana IdoRebecca PlesselTaylor SoucyVictoria Spadafora

Cohort #2 (2014) Tiffany BamfoStephanie BrownConnor CassadyPatricia DeTomas MedinaAlexandra NaderEmma PriceGabrielle SwainOlivia VilellaInger Wang

Sneha YennawarCohort #3 (2015) Brian CarvajalArthur ChineryPhillip ClauerAmanda CraineBrandon CruzAndrea GadeTalayah JohnsonIdan Kantor

Jonathan KizerJoash LakeDavid LeeSarah MageeFabiola MaldonadoIshan PhadkeTakara RichardOlivia RichardsIvan YenMadeleine Zalenski

Millennium Scholars Program

Doris N. McKinstry ScholarshipThe scholarship was established by Doris McKinstry to recognize and support outstanding female undergraduate students enrolled in (or planning to enroll in) the Biology or Premedicine majors in the Eberly College of Science, who have earned a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, and who are permanent residents of Pennsylvania. Students receiving the scholarship for 2015/2016 are:

Penn State’s Millennium Scholars program was established to attract, support, and retain a cadre of high-achieving scholars whose shared expectation for academic excellence and inclusiveness will lead to future leadership positions in a STEM field. The following students have been awarded a scholarship:

Juniors:Morgan AckerSusan BounWhitney BrownMia CasaleDillon CostantiniAmber DelhagenTaylor EgnerEdgar EliasBria-Elise JonesChristina Kasmer

Wyatt KeckMichael MensahBrandon MoueryRyan MoueryShea MyersMit PatelRuhiben PatelTanmay PatelBrittany RicardoSteven SebzdaErica Sidorowicz

Alicia TrippSeniors:Nicholas BordenBrittany BoucherBridget BrafiKimberly BrafiMegan CriswellMatthew DowningAnthonia GeorgeColleen GrossDevina Harnita

Connie HernandezMarisa MadsenBrieyanna McWilliamsJuanita MennorEbone SelfridgeTadir ShapirPriscilla Sintim-AgyemanJoshua Wilkins

Science Dean’s Scholarship

The scholarship is for math and science students who begin their Penn State degrees at one of the Commonwealth campuses, and who transition to University Park to complete a degree in the Eb-erly College of Science. Students receiving the scholarship for 2015/2016 are:


Bian's faculty es-cort for the com-mencement exercises was Russell Coo-per, professor of eco-nomics at Penn State.

Bian graduated with a 3.84 grade point average and bachelor of science

degrees in mathematics and in economics. She was a Schreyer Honors College Scholar and a member of the dean's list for five semesters.

While at Penn State, Bian conducted research with Cooper examining the regional variation in financial return on investment in education in China. She found that the return on invest-ment in education was higher in more economi-cally developed regions of China. As part of her research, Bian demonstrated that the factors that influenced the regional variation in return on investment included the Chinese “hokou” system of household registration, patterns of migration, the level of parent's education, and job opportunities.

Meichen Bian of Hefei City, Anhui Province, China was

honored as the student marshal for the Eberly College

of Science during Penn State University's summer

commencement ceremonies on Saturday, August 15, 2015

on the University Park campus.

Summer 2015 Student Marshal

“I am so honored and excited about this,” said Bian.“This honor will encourage me to reach my career and lifetime goals. I also really appreci-ate the people, including my parents, teachers, and friends, who supported me, helped me, and inspired me no matter what happened. They are so important to me. I also want to thank the Penn State community, which gave me great opportunities to challenge myself, made me feel warmed when difficulties occurred, and helped me to become the person that I want to be.”

“The most important lesson that I learned at Penn State is that if you really want some-thing, then try your best and you can achieve it,” said Bian. “As an economics major I started to double major in math at the beginning of my junior year, which is a bit late. However, I com-pleted the math courses within the two years with good grades. This experience told me that it is never too late to begin anything. If you like it and feel it matters, then you can do it.”

Following graduation, Bian plans to attend Duke University to pursue a master's degree in economics. She is the daughter of Yazhou Bian and Xiaoxia Liu. —Sam Sholtis

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After beginning his undergraduate career at Penn State Behrend, Javier Soliván-Rivera, a biology major focusing on vertebrate physiol-ogy, decided to move to University Park to finish his bachelor’s degree. While making the move to a larger campus certainly has its advantages, it didn’t come without challenges.

A variety of difficulties presented themselves to Soliván during his first semester at Universi-ty Park. Although he had made several weekend visits to campus, he hadn’t anticipated the huge crowds of students filling the sidewalks between classes. He also had not imagined how many students could fit in one class in 100 Thomas Building, the largest lecture hall on campus that seats over 700 people. “When I arrived in 100 Thomas and saw the capacity it held, I be-gan to doubt my decision of transferring,” So-liván said. Large classes were an anomaly at Behrend; at University Park, they are fairly common, especially for required courses.

Soliván also had to adjust to multiple-choice exams. With smaller class sizes at Behrend, fac-ulty and instructors were able to offer open-end-ed exam questions. Many required courses at University Park are not conducive to this due to the number of students in a class. Workload on the two campuses was a change as well. “Dur-ing my first semester I saw myself in the need of dropping a class to safeguard my GPA. Another challenge I faced was managing my workload. At Behrend, I thought of myself as an excellent student. When I transferred I didn’t acknowl-edge the fact that the transition process would play a huge role in my performance here. I de-cided it was a good idea to enroll myself in 18

credits and now I can say with confidence I wish I hadn’t done that,” Soliván said.

Soliván knew he had to make changes to ad-just to life at a large university. Getting involved with both academic and extracurricular activi-ties enabled him to meet new people and start forming friendships. “Finding a support group during your transition process is fundamental for your success. A lot of students that I have met that have transferred from other campuses usually face the transition process alone.”

Although his family supported him, they were nearly 2,000 miles away in Puerto Rico. Soliván credits a friend he met during his first semester at University Park for getting him on track and guiding him in the right direction. “Because of Anthony Melendez, another biology major, I met the wonderful biology and pre-medicine advising team. I would tell all change-of-as-signment students to go to see their academic advisers. Academic advisers will do everything in their power to guide you to success. I still con-tact them frequently, even after being here for two years,” Soliván said.

The learning assistant (LA) program was another resource that Soliván regularly used to help through his coursework. A LA is an un-dergraduate student who facilitates small group work in large group settings, such as lecture and labs. The LA program in the Eberly Col-lege of Science, which is facilitated by the Cen-ter for Excellence in Science Education, offers LA help in select biochemistry and molecular biology, biology, chemistry, and physics courses. “The LAs do an excellent job of helping you un-derstand the material. They also provide a lot

Undergraduate ScientistsJavier Soliván-Rivera: Making the Transition to University Park


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of flexibility for you to attend office hours and receive all the help you can get,” Soliván said. After his first year at University Park, Soliván himself became a LA so that he could help other students, just as he was aided through various science courses. He is now the lead LA for Biol-ogy 110 and also serves as a teaching assistant for Introductory Physiology.

After overcoming the numerous chal-lenges presented to him by the transi-tion, Soliván began to realize how the move had many positive changes in his life. “I have not only changed as a student, but also as an individual in society. I have had the oppor-tunity to meet people from all around the world and learn their different cultural beliefs and practices. I have become more empathic with others, a quality that I developed through my experience as a learning assistant. The Eberly College of Science taught me how to serve soci-ety altruistically.”

Although Soliván initially questioned his de-cision to make the move, he now knows that it was the right choice for him and has advice for those considering a change of assignment: “If there is something I have learned about success-

ful students that have transitioned, it is that they get involved right away. Don’t be afraid to talk to your neighbor in your first class. Don’t be afraid to go sit down at your professor’s of-fice hours so that he or she can get to know you. Approach your advisers or instructors and tell them you want to get involved in something. But most importantly trust in yourself and the deci-sion that you have made.”

After Soliván graduates in 2016, he plans to attend medical school to become a medical physician and specialize and either cardiology or neurology. He also plans to use the wisdom that he gained during his tenure at Penn State to continue his future success: “I oftentimes get asked how can I maintain a positive attitude when things get rough. My answer is simple: I have two options. The first one is to give up. The second is that I can learn from the experience, embrace it, and move on to seeking better op-portunities. I know I will struggle in the future, but based on my previous experiences, I know that there are many more positive things in my future. All it takes is a positive attitude and a little bit of hope.” —Tara Immel

Four Eberly College of Science students were selected to participate in the Penn State Col-lege of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. Summer Exposure program, which aims to prepare students for ca-reer paths combining clinical medicine and re-search. The students—Kaleb Bogale, Jenna Mandel, Rhea Sullivan, and Andrew Tuck-er—are all Schreyer scholars and were four of

Undergraduate ScientistsSummer Exposure to Career Paths in Medicine

Kaleb Bogale poses with Penn

State Hershey graduate Student

Joel Coble at the Penn State

Hershey Medical Center

research poster symposium.


the five students total selected for the program. Each student was paired with a College of

Medicine faculty member mentor in a biomedi-cal laboratory for the summer, with the opportu-nity to shadow a physician in a weekly clinical exposure session.

Tucker was paired with Sean Stocker for lab work in cellular and molecular physiology and shadowed allergy, asthma, and immunology specialist physician Faoud Ishmael.

Bogale worked in the lab of Steven Schiff in the Institute of Personalized Medicine and shadowed neurology physician Xuemei Huang. He was able to work on a collaborative project investigating neonatal sepsis in Uganda while shadowing Dr. Huang in his clinic, which fo-cused on Parkinson’s disease.

“My summer research project pushed me to learn Python, a computer programming lan-guage, in order to identify various bacteria based on their genetic fragments in the blood and cerebral spinal fluid of neonates,” he said.

He feels his biology coursework adequately prepared him for this challenge. “This compu-tational analysis was only possible with an un-derstanding of molecular and cellular biology that I learned in classes like BIOL 110H with Dr. Steve Schaeffer and BIOL 230M with Dr. Kimberly Nelson.”

Mandel conducted lab research with Leslie Parent and shadowed physician Kathleen Ju-lian, both experts in infectious disease. Infec-tious disease was a new area for her.

“I had never been exposed to this field of medicine, and it was incredible to learn about

several new infectious diseases every week and watch a well-regarded physician care for her pa-tients with the utmost respect and expertise,” she said.

For Mandel, this experience was life chang-ing: “I had not previously worked in a labora-tory, so I was unsure of what to expect. At sum-mer’s end, I left Hershey knowing how to work efficiently in a laboratory, and now understand the importance of quantitation and consistency.”

She began an undergraduate research posi-tion in the lab of Melissa Rolls this fall as a result of her experiences. “Having this experi-ence under my belt has provided the foundation for my future work in labs.”

Sullivan worked in Robert Levenson’s phar-macology lab while shadowing family and com-

munity medicine physician Dennis Gingrich. She learned many new techniques in Lev-

enson’s neuropharmacology lab that she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn in the neurodevelopmental disease lab she works in at the University Park campus (she

works in the lab of Santhosh Girirajan). “I was really excited to learn all these biochemical techniques because my laboratory back at UP doesn’t work with any of these techniques.”

The experience has been great for her as she considers a future career in medicine, either on the research or clinical sides…or both.

“Programs like these are vital to a student’s Penn State career because they offer direct ex-periences that influence a future career and fo-cus. Before the program I was really sure that I loved science and molecular biology, but had no idea what to do with it. Because of the Penn State College of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. Summer Exposure program, I was able to see myself in three possible career paths—M.D., Ph.D., and M.D./Ph.D.—all in one summer.” —Whittney Gould

"HAVING THIS EXPERIENCE UNDER MY

BELT HAS PROVIDED THE FOUNDATION

FOR MY FUTURE WORK IN LABS."


“I took one class, loved it, and changed my major,” Mu-noz said.

Once she decided to pursue biology instead of political science and planned to attend graduate school in that field,

Penn State was an easy choice for Munoz. “I was really drawn to Penn State, because

the biggest thing that Penn State has to offer, in my opinion, is a highly collaborative atmo-sphere, and that's really missing from a lot of other universities that I looked at. I thought it was so cool that there are so many people you could work with and that everyone wants to work together.”

This highly collaborative environment al-lowed her to conduct research in two labs as a graduate student. She started in the lab of Doug Cavener studying beta cell biology as it is applied to diabetes and insulin resistance. But that experience taught her that she wanted

Unexpected Passion for Science Fuels Genetics Graduate Student

Above&BeyondFocus on Graduate Students

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to conduct research with more direct applica-tion.

That was right about the time Scott Lind-ner arrived on campus. Lindner’s research com-bines molecular parasitology and structural bi-ology to study the parasite that causes malaria.

The statistics on malaria are astounding: more than 627,000 people died from this con-dition in 2014, with over 80 percent of those deaths being children under the age of five. With an estimated three to four billion people per year at risk for malaria, Lindner’s research could have a very positive effect on a lot of lives, and Munoz connected with that.

When genetics graduate student

Elyse Munoz started her college

career, she was a political science

major. But then she took an

anatomy class.


“Because he’s a brand-new faculty member, his work is cutting edge, it’s very exciting. He’s really pushing the field in directions it hasn’t been able to go for technical reasons until now. I’m getting exposed to so many different tech-niques,” said Munoz.

As part of the Lindner lab, Munoz is now focusing her graduate work at Penn State on the RNA metabolism of the malaria parasite. “I work on two different RNA binding proteins that we believe are involved in translational re-pression.”

The malaria parasite is an interesting re-search subject, said Munoz, because of the mul-tiple stages the parasite moves through: “It has a stage in humans, which is what we’re mostly familiar with, and there is also a stage in the mosquito. That jump from the human host or mammal host to the mosquito and back and forth is really critical. There are a lot of things physiologically happening there.”

Munoz hopes that the Lindner lab’s research could lead to novel drug targets or the develop-ment of a malaria vaccine, which is an aspect of this research that she is excited about. “I want-

ed to work on something with more application, where I could see the direct result of my work.”

Her passion for her work has helped her to win a variety of graduate-level awards, includ-ing the American Society for Microbiology Rob-ert D. Watkins Graduate Research Fellowship, the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Disser-tation Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Bunton Waller Graduate Award.

The Watkins and Sloan Fellowships and the Bunton Waller Graduate Award were available to Munoz as a result of efforts to recognize ex-cellence achieved by underrepresented scien-tists. Munoz is proud to be a Hispanic female scientist.

“I’m a minority student. I am a woman in sci-ence. I want it to be clear that it doesn’t mat-ter where you come from, it doesn’t matter what your race or your color is, you can be successful in science, and I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good example of that.”

While Munoz is gaining valuable experience in the Lindner lab, she’s also sharing her knowl-edge to help mentor an undergraduate research-er. Munoz mentors Amanda Reese, a junior majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology. Munoz also speaks to groups of underrepresent-ed scientists like the Millennium Scholars and the McNair Scholars to encourage them to pur-sue their dreams in science.

It all goes back to the community for Munoz. The keys to success lie with people working to-gether and helping each other. “I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today without amazing men-tors, or the support of Penn State and my fellow Penn State genetics graduate students.” —Whittney Gould


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Natasha Batalha, a third-year Ph.D. candi-date in the dual degree Astronomy and Astrobi-ology program in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, is studying all things “astro.” Batalha’s research with James Kasting, Evan Pugh University Professor at Penn State, which is fully funded through an NSF Graduate Re-search Fellowship awarded to her during her second year, focuses on exoplanet studies with an emphasis on early Martian climate.

“The idea is that there are these stark water features on the surface of Mars from a few bil-lion years ago, but we have no idea how that is possible,” said Batalha. “Mars today is a cold, dry place with a thin and tenu-ous atmosphere. If Mars, early on, had a thick atmosphere, though, then it’s possible that greenhouses gases could have helped to keep it warm over a prolonged period of time. We are taking atmospheric models and trying to test this hypothesis of: was Mars really a habitable, wet place early on in its history?” Batalha’s work on early Martian climate was recently published in Icarus.

Batalha was inspired to pursue science at a young age by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, and jokes that her dissertation is just an extension of her middle school science fair project. In addition to her work at Penn State, she has worked with the Space Telescope Science Institute to characterize planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, with NA-SA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Batalha said that she hopes to use the information that they

learn about the chemistry and climate of plan-ets in our solar system, like Mars, and then ap-ply this knowledge in the future when we have more data on these exoplanets.

Although she came from a well-educated fam-ily in Brazil and had a great education herself, Batalha recognized that the quality of STEM education is not the same for everyone and that even students at good schools can fall through the cracks. She has taken her passion to help others receive a good education to the next level as the founder and president of Learn to Be @

Penn State, a nationwide, nonprofit orga-nization with the mission of

providing free online tutoring to K-12 students in underserved communities. In just two years, the organization at Penn State has provided over 33,000 minutes of tutoring and is the sec-ond-ranked chapter in the nation. Batalha has also served as the Girl Scout co-chair of the Graduate Women in Science (GWIS) organiza-tion at Penn State and has organized STEM workshops for local middle school girls.

Batalha received her bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University, where she also continued her lifelong hobby of dancing. In addition to her NSF fellowship, she was also awarded the STEM Scholar Graduate Fellow-ship during her first year at Penn State. —Carrie Lewis

Natasha Batalha’s Research and Accomplishments are Out of This World

"WAS MARS REALLY A HABITABLE, WET

PLACE EARLY ON IN ITS HISTORY?"


Most of the scientific research done at Penn State University Park is considered basic re-search, so opportunities for graduate students to experience the process of product development are rare. However, Chris Li, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry, had the opportunity to do just that this past summer as part of his in-ternship at Air Products at their headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Li is the recipient of the 2015 Air Products Graduate Fellowship, which includes the summer internship, as well as one year of funding.

As part of his internship, Li worked on a re-search and de-velopment team at Air Products making a formulation for metal etching. “Basically, we were mixing chemical A and chemical B trying to make a formulation for etching targeted metal on printed circuit boards, which have layers and layers of differ-ent metals stacked together. I was involved in making that and then characterizing it with electrochemistry,” said Li. Although the process of metal etching was new to Li, electrochemis-try is something he knows very well, so he was able to teach others on his team how to use it as a characterization tool.

Li’s internship was not his first experience in industry research. After graduating from the University of California, Davis, with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, he worked as a staff engineer at SiGNA Chemistry, Inc. on a team that designed and built a porta-ble hydrogen storage battery that, when paired with a fuel cell, can provide portable electricity

Chris Li Awarded Air Products Graduate Fellowship

at remote locations for small electronics like cell phones and laptops. As part of this team, Li was able to see a product go on the market that had phenomenal performance, but he wanted to be able to understand how it worked in terms of the structure of the reactions that were occurring. It was then that he decided to pursue a graduate degree in chemistry to combine his engineering skills with understanding the fundamentals of physical science.

As a member of Dr. Tom Mallouk’s lab, Li works on designing energy application related

materials, such as sodium ion batteries. Chris studies the diffu-sion coefficient of

sodium ions using a technique called impedance spectroscopy, an electrochemical technique that he uses to probe a series of different structures of cathode material and compare the diffusion coefficients to get a structure-property relation-ship. The goal is to design a next-generation sodium ion battery with a faster diffusion coef-ficient that will make the batteries cheaper and just as fast, if not faster, than the lithium ion batteries we use today.

Outside the lab, Li is an avid runner, running seven marathons and one ironman race since he began running about four years ago. The time management and discipline skills required for this type of running, as well as earning a Ph.D., are ones that he learned as an undergraduate student as he worked all four years to pay for his own tuition and expenses. Li is the first member of his family to obtain a college degree and at-tend graduate school. —Carrie Lewis

"ELECTROCHEMISTRY IS SOMETHING

HE KNOWS VERY WELL..."


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Penn State Chemistry Professor Steven M. Weinreb and his wife, Nancy, have endowed the Weinreb Family Early Career Professor-ship in the Eberly College of Science to support promising young faculty members in the De-partment of Chemistry.

“Our goal in establishing the professorship is to help the Department of Chemistry to support bright, young, faculty members at the very start of their teaching and research careers,” Steven Weinreb said. “We want to help assure that Penn State will have scientists, scholars, and educators with the greatest potential to contrib-ute to our students, to our University, and to

our world.”Steven and Nancy have been part of the Penn

State community for more than 30 years, begin-ning in 1978 when Steven, now the Russell and Mildred Marker Professor of Natural Products Chemistry, first became a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry. Steven’s leadership positions at Penn State include serving as both department head and interim dean of the Eberly College of Science in the mid-1990s.

Nancy worked for many years as a library assistant with Penn State’s University Librar-ies. Now active as a volunteer in the commu-nity, she serves as head docent at the Palmer Museum, vice-president and secretary of the Schlow Library Foundation, and an active mem-ber of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The Weinreb’s sons, Paul and Michael, are Penn State alumni, and daughter-in-law Carolyn earned her Ph.D. degree at Penn State.

The Weinrebs took advantage of the Univer-sity's Faculty Endowment Challenge—a gift-matching program in which Penn State pays one-third of the cost of endowing a faculty po-sition. “After being with the University for so long, and now having this opportunity to en-hance our gift with matching funds from Penn State, Nancy and I felt now was the right time to give back,” Steven said.

Early Career Professorships rotate every

Weinreb Family Endows Early Career Professorship


three years to a new recipient in the first ten years of his or her academic career, providing seed money for innovative research projects and flexible funding for new approaches to teaching. The endowments typically require a minimum commitment of $500,000, but through the Fac-ulty Endowment Challenge, donors may estab-lish new Early Career Professorships for any of the University’s colleges or campuses with a commitment of $334,000. The University will commit the remaining one-third of the neces-sary funds, approximately $166,000, from un-restricted endowment resources, ensuring sup-port for rising faculty stars.

Penn State’s alumni and friends are invalu-able partners in fulfilling the University’s land-grant mission of education, research, and service. Private gifts from alumni and friends enrich the experiences of students both in and out of the classroom; expand the research and teaching capacity of our faculty; enhance the University’s ability to recruit and retain top students and faculty; and help to ensure that students from every economic background have access to a Penn State education. The Univer-sity’s colleges and campuses are now enlisting the support of alumni and friends to advance a range of unit-specific initiatives. —Brenda Lucas

Joyce Matthews assumed her new role as senior director of development for

the Eberly College of Science in October. Matthews brings fifteen years of

professional success in fundraising, the last five years of which were with Penn

State’s College of Information, Sciences, and Technology. She has been a

Penn State employee for twenty-eight years. Under her guidance, the IST team

exceeded their For the Future campaign goal well in advance of the campaign

closing. Matthews looks forward to bringing this same success to the Eberly

College of Science.

Matthews holds a bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University in Public

Relations/Journalism and master’s degree in Counselor Education with an

emphasis on student personnel from Penn State.

Eberly College of Science Welcomes Joyce Matthews, Senior Director of Development


Alu

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The Penn State University Eberly College of Science has selected five alumni to be honored with the Outstanding Science Alumni Award for 2015. The Board of Directors of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society established this award to recognize alumni who have a re-cord of significant professional achievements in their field and who are outstanding role models for students in the college. Receiving this award are:

Donna Bortner, ’84 B.S. MicrobiologyAlexa Dembek, ’91 Ph.D. ChemistrySudhir Kumar, ’96, Ph.D. GeneticsCaryl Russo Singer, ’82 B.S. BiologyLarry Travis, ’71 Ph.D. Astronomy

Donna Bortner is the chief executive of-ficer at TransViragen, Inc, a company she co-founded in 2009. TransViragen focuses on the generation and analysis of genetically modified cell lines and animal models for scientific re-search. The company provides a variety of cus-

tom services to a growing list of clients in the government, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors.

Prior to establishing TransViragen, Bortner worked for nearly twenty years in the phar-maceutical industry at GlaxoSmithKline. She joined GlaxoSmithKline as a postdoctoral fel-low in the pharmacology department, where her research entailed the development of animal models to study mechanisms of cancer relevant to human disease. She went on to hold positions of increasing responsibility in the research divi-sion, most recently as the head of the company’s transgenics, viral-vectors, and sequencing op-erations in the United States. In this position, she led a team of scientists in research efforts focused on the development and application of genomic technologies to drug discovery and de-velopment, with particular emphasis on geneti-cally modified rodent models. She also served as the chair of the institutional-biosafety and animal-welfare committees.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology with honors and high distinction from Penn State in 1984, she worked at the Na-tional Animal Disease Center until 1987. She went on to earn a doctoral degree in 1992 in Mi-crobiology and Immunology at Duke University, where she was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow.

Alexa Dembek is the director of Central Research and Development at DuPont. She is responsible for the development of opportunities involving transformational emerging science.

Dembek joined DuPont in 1991 as a research chemist. In 1995, she took the position of tech-

Five Honored with Penn State’s Outstanding Science Alumni Award


nical manager at DuPont Protection Technolo-gies. As her career progressed, she assumed roles that spanned a range of areas, including supply chain, operations, sales, marketing, and business leadership.

In 2005, Dembek was assigned leadership roles in DuPont Building Innovations, first as a commercial business segment manager and later as the North American marketing man-ager. In 2006, she transferred to DuPont Per-formance Polymers. In 2011, she was appointed the regional director of the Americas region. Most recently, Dembek was named the global business director for Dupont’s cross-business Energy Storage venture.

Dembek holds a bachelor’s degree in chemis-try from Northern Illinois University. She com-pleted her Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 1991 at Penn State.

Sudhir Kumar is the Laura H. Carnell Pro-fessor and the director of the Institute for Ge-nomics and Evolutionary Medicine at Temple University.

Kumar has developed new methods and al-gorithms for big data, and has translated them into widely used software packages and knowl-edge bases, such as MEGA and TimeTree. He uses integrative and comparative approaches to make fundamental discoveries in the fields of molecular evolution, functional genomics, and biomedicine.

Kumar’s research has been cited more than 90,000 times. One of his scientific articles was included in the Thomson Reuters Web of Sci-ence top-100 most-cited papers of all time and designated the top article of the decade by the Scopus database of peer-reviewed literature. He received an Innovation Award in Functional Genomics from the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund in 2000 and is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 1998, Kumar joined the Arizona State Uni-versity as an assistant professor and became the Regents Professor in 2012. Kumar joined Tem-ple University in 2014 as the founding director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, a hub for transdisciplinary research in medicine, informatics, and molecular evolu-tion.

Kumar received his bachelor’s degree in elec-trical and electronics engineering and mas-ter’s degree in biology from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science in India in 1990. He completed his Ph.D. degree in genetics at Penn State in 1996.

Caryl Russo Singer is the senior vice presi-dent for Barnabas Health Corporate Care, a di-vision of Barnabas Health, the largest health-care system in New Jersey. Russo is responsible for the workers’ compensation program and em-ployee health services for Barnabas Health and its more than 22,000 employees. Russo is re-sponsible for the occupational-medicine services offered through Barnabas Health Corporate Care in six sites located throughout New Jersey.

Prior to joining Barnabas Health, Russo was the director of marketing and communications for First Option Health Plan, a healthcare in-surance provider in New Jersey. Additionally, Russo was the director of strategic communica-tions for Enzon, Inc., a publicly traded biotech-nology company.

Russo is active with numerous business and civic organizations including the New Jersey Self Insured Association and the Monmouth-Ocean Development Council. She also serves as a member of the Eberly College of Science Biotechnology Advisory Board, the Delta Den-tal Foundation Board of Directors, and the New Jersey Chapter Board of Directors of the Arthri-tis Foundation.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in


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biology from Penn State in 1982, Russo received her master’s degree from Georgetown Universi-ty and a Ph.D. in business administration from Case Western Reserve University.

Larry Travis is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) emeritus researcher at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in the Earth Sciences Division of the Science and Exploration Directorate. Travis served as associate chief at (GISS) from 1987 until his retirement in May 2015.

Travis joined GISS in 1978. He served as principal investigator for the Cloud Photopola-rimeter Instrument on the Pioneer Venus Or-biter Mission and as co-investigator for the Pho-topolarimeter/Radiometer Instrument on the Galileo Orbiter Mission.

Travis’s research interests include explora-tion of planetary atmospheres, spacecraft de-sign, and theoretical physics for explaining the transfer of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation.

He is a member of the American Astronomi-cal Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science. Travis received the NASA Ex-ceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1980.

Travis graduated with bachelor’s degrees with distinction in astronomy and mathemat-ics in 1965 and earned his master’s degree in astronomy in 1967 at the University of Iowa. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Penn State in 1971. —Joslyn Neiderer

2015 All Science Tailgate Thanks to all the science alumni and guests who braved the weather!

“Thank you to all of the staff who worked so that the All Science Tailgate could go on despite the

uncooperative weather. My family (husband, sons, and in-laws) had a great time and enjoyed

seeing the baseball field while enjoying lunch. My son is still enjoying his ‘science experiment.’

Thanks for all of the work you all do for PSU alumni. Go Lions!”

Cindy Schadder Kowalski, ’94 Premedicine

“I just wanted to say thank you for the great Saturday morning get-together. Although the weather

was a bit rough, it was a very nice time. The students I met and talked to are examples of the

great job the Eberly College of Science continues to do.”

Christopher J. Kardohely, DPM CDR MSC USN, ’85 Biology



Snapshot of Philanthropy – Funding the Future of Penn State Science

Thank you to the alumni and friends who have committed funds for

scholarships to benefit students in the Eberly College of Science.

Below are gifts received between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015.

Meredith M. Gee Scholarship in Science (Non-Endowed)Established by: Meredith Gee (’79 B.S. CMPSC; ’85 M.S. CMPSC)Amount: $12,500Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding undergraduate students enrolled in or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University Park who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Paul Berg and Daniel J. Larson Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in the Eberly College of ScienceEstablished by: Paul (’48 B.S. Ag & Bio Chemistry; ’95 Honorary Ph.D. Sci) and Mildred BergAmount: $250,000Purpose: Encourage the establishment of endowments to provide support for academic excellence for graduate students. This fellowship shall recruit and recognize outstanding first year doctoral students who exhibit academic excellence and who plan to enroll in The Pennsylvania State University in a Ph.D. program offered in the Eberly College of Science

Weinreb Family Early Career ProfessorshipEstablished by: Steven and Nancy WeinrebAmount: $334,000Purpose: Ensure that the University can compete for the scientists, scholars, and educators with the greatest potential to contribute to our institution, our students, and our world.

Lee and Brenda Heikkinen Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of ScienceEstablished by: Lee (’71 Sci) and Brenda HeikkinenAmount: $100,000Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Verne M. Willaman Professorship in Science VIIEstablished by: Estate of Verne M. Willlaman (’51 AB CH)Amount: $1,000,000Purpose: Supplement departmental support for outstanding University faculty in the Eberly College of Science in order to provide a holder of the professorship with the resources necessary to continue and further the scholar's contributions to teaching, research, and public service.

John Krapcho Memorial Scholarship in the Chemistry DepartmentEstablished by: A. Paul (’53 B.S. Chem) and Arlene F. KrapchoAmount: $50,000Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science, or successor academic unit, at The Pennsylvania State University who are majoring in or planning to major in Chemistry, or successor degree program, and who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary

college expenses.

J. Keith Ord Scholarship in StatisticsEstablished by: Daniel A. (’85 M.S. Stat) and Diane E. GriffithAmount: $100,000Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding graduate students who have been admitted to The Pennsylvania State University as candidates for a graduate degree in Statistics, or successor degree program.

Sinha Family Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of ScienceEstablished by: Raj K. Sinha (’87 B.S. Sci)Amount: $100,000Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Daniel J. Larson and Tanya Furman Larson International Travel Endowment in the Eberly College of ScienceEstablished by: Daniel Larson and Tanya Furman and numerous alumni and colleaguesAmount: $59,000Purpose: Enrich the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University by providing monies for international travel for graduate and undergraduate students.

Ronald and Susan Friedman EndowmentEstablished by: Ronald M. and Susan Comet Friedman Amount: $50,000

Purpose: Enrich the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University by providing unrestricted support to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, or successor department(s).

Peter Craig Breen Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Chemistry ResearchEstablished by: Kevin J. Breen (’78 B.S. EMS; ’82 M.S. EMS) and Renee Romberger Breen (’80 B.S. GN AG; ’82 M.S. FD SC)Amount: $20,000Purpose: Recognize undergraduate students enrolled in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who are majoring in or planning to major in Chemistry and who have demonstrated excellence in academics and research focused in chemistry.

Department of Chemistry Program Endowment in Honor of Norman DenoEstablished by: Edward (’70 Ph.D. Chem) and Carol BillupsAmount: $25,000Purpose: Support and enhance programs and activities in the Department of Chemistry in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University.

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The Eberly College of Science is proud to an-nounce another induction into The C. I. Noll Award list. This award is important within the college because it offers students the opportu-nity to evaluate faculty members in a positive manner. Recipients are not selected solely on the number of votes received. Instead, the content of the nominations is greatly considered. The C. I. Noll Award recognizes faculty who have taken a special interest in students and who, through interactions with the students, have had a posi-tive impact upon them. The selections were re-viewed by the Science LionPride Awards Com-mittee, the college’s student ambassador group.

For the first time in the history of awarding the C. I. Noll Award, two professors will receive joint recognition in the tenured category. Drs. Sarah Ades and Kenneth Keiler are both as-sistant professors of biochemistry and molecu-lar biology, and were honored as a team because of their collaboration on the development, imple-mentation, and assessment of Microbiology 202 and BMB 488. Microbiology 202 had been taught with little modification for 20 years. Drs. Ades and Keiler transformed this course by challenging students to formulate questions and design experiments to learn about the world around them, such as how the environment af-fects disease to isolating bacteria and bactero-phages from their own skin to test how they in-teract. Sections of BMB 488 are also organized around research questions but shared by sever-al independent labs. Students perform individu-al research and then meet in a weekly seminar to cover the skills that are important for being a

scientist like how to read a scientific paper, how to present data and how public policy impacts science. Drs. Ades and Keiler are committed to improving science education and they frequent-ly share their teaching approaches with other faculty at Penn State and beyond the Universi-ty.

Dr. Sarah Ades joined the faculty at Penn State in 2002 and is the recipeint of a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foun-dation. Ades also received a Tombros Faculty Fellow-

ship from the Center for Excellence in Science Education in 2012, and the Tershak Teaching Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014.

Research in her laboratory seeks to explain the fundamental biology of cell-envelope sensing systems and then to develop methods to identify small molecule inhibitors of key pathways that can serve as lead compounds for antibiotic de-velopment and tools for basic research.

Prior to arriving at Penn State, Ades pursued postdoctoral work at the University of Califor-nia at San Francisco and the Institute of Ge-netics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. She received her bachelor’s de-gree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and her Ph.D. in biology from The Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy.

Three Faculty Honored with 2015 C.I. Noll Awards


Dr. Kenneth Keiler’s research focuses on how cells make protein, par-ticularly under stressful conditions. He discovered and characterized a pro-tein quality control system that is found in all bacteria

and is required for growth or virulence in many pathogens. His goal is to understand the funda-mental biochemistry, genetics, and cell biology of this system and related pathways, and to use this knowledge to develop antibiotics and tools for basic research.

Keiler also received a Tombros Faculty Fel-lowship from the Center for Excellence in Sci-ence Education in 2012, and a Tershak Teach-ing Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from The Massachu-setts Institute of Technology with post-doctoral fellowships at Stanford University and the In-stitute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Ilkirch, France.

Dr. Meredith Defelice is currently the director of curricular affairs and a se-nior lecturer in the Depart-ment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and was the winner of the C.I. Noll non-tenured faculty award.

She is an alumnus of the National Institutes of

Health (NIH)-funded SPIRE postdoctoral pro-gram at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she received training and experience in both research and pedagogy.

Defelice came to Penn State in 2010, and since that time she has won teaching awards at the department level, the Paul M. Althouse Teaching Award, as well as the highest award for teaching excellence at the university level, the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has taught a variety of classes including large lecture classes, lab classes, and smaller elective classes. In her classes, Defelice has developed curriculum that incorporates ac-tive learning as well as peer instruction.

As part of her responsibilities, Defelice also coordinates the undergraduate learning assis-tants program for the BMB department and has trained the assistants to facilitate deeper dis-cussions among small groups of students. Dur-ing the summers, she is involved in outreach teaching as part of the Crime Scene Investiga-tors Science-U summer camp through the Office of Science Outreach. She is currently a board member of the Penn State Eberly College of Sci-ence Center for Excellence in Science Educa-tion, and was a 2013-2014 Center for Excellence in Science Education Fellow.


2015

Millennium SocietyFriends supporting science education, research and public service

AnonymousDonald and Nancy AbrahamHarry and Noreen Allcock John D. AlvarezArthur K. and Anne Gjesdahl AndersonJill Grashof Anderson and Sydney H. BrownGeorge E. and Joy AndrewsJane L. AppleKenneth R. and Jennifer ArthurJeanne AtlasJoy D. AtwellHee Chan BaeWilliam C. and Christie Heritage Baird Jr.Douglas and Susan Nitschke- BalogJames Balog and Alvina Bartos BalogCatherine BeathScott D. BeattieThomas P. BemJeffrey L. and Lorie J. BenovicPaul and Mildred Berg George E. BergeyStephen and Nancy BermanWilliam and Barbara BickelWilbur E. and Carol S. BillupsCarolyn and W. Gerald* BlaneyZenas Boone*Rodney BoorseErik and Cynthia BradleyCarter BrooksStephen Korzeniowski and Deborah G. BrzezinskiFrank Burstein*John W. and Susan M. ByrneH. Neil CarlsonDouglas R. and Lan CavenerTa-Kung ChenVernon and Jolene ChinchilliRobert A. and Lorraine Stankiewicz ClareAnita CollinsMark S. and Deborah A. ConnollyJohn G. and Janet M. ConnorBruce and Jackie DaveyRobert T. and Cheryl Russman DavisManfred DenkerMary E. DeVriesJohn M. and Jane M. Dick Jack and Pauline DicksteinDavid and I. Michelle DiehlEugene and Betty DirkBrian G. and Karen Marcavage DixonJo DixonSuzanne R. Dubnicka and Louis M. WojcinskiJohn W. Dudley and Andee AabyRobert DuminiakE. Ruth Dunning*Christopher R. Dyckman and Susan ScottoMichael C. EatonTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganEdmund and Josephine ElderChristine N. Elia and Edwin C. Kellam IIIRobert and Ann EmeryNed and Kathie L. EneaKurt and Kelly Engleman

Ray and Mary EvertGordon G. and Miriam Olander FeeMaria FinnBarrett C. and Luanne Breuer FisherNeal and Phyllis Flomenberg Ronald and Susan FriedmanEdward M. FrymoyerCharles G. and Ann M. GarlisiMeredith Gee and Gareth MorrellD. David and Laura GeorgeBruce L. and Diane GewertzPatrick L. Gianopoulos Barrett E. and Michele A. GiffelKathryn E. Glas Stacey L. GleesonJoshua and Brooke GoldbergKolin GoodHoward R. and Nancy P. GordonKatherine GotoRodger and Agnes GranlundDaniel and Diane GriffithGrant R. GrissomCada R. and Susan Wynn GroveAndrew P. HackettJeffrey W. HamiltonMarcus C. and Cheryl L. McGrady HansenSusan Houck and Paul E. HardinRobert and Terri HarrisonDennis L. Headings and Virginia Lee CorsonJames and Diane HealdAlexandra H. and Paul HeerdtLee and Brenda HeikkinenKenneth W. HerkoJohn A. HerrittWilliam E. and Elsa K. HokeMichael HolbertMitchell and Charity HollandJ. Lloyd* and Dorothy Foehr Huck*Philip InskeepKonanur JanardanWilliam D. and Sally Cunningham Johnson David G. and and Susan M. Jones Boris V. Kalan and Victoria V. SadovskayaKaren A. KalinyakDaniel A. and Megan Clements KapinosLech KarubinSteven R. KatchurAndrea C. Kay Eric and Tara KeiterEdwin C. Kellam III Karen E. and Matthew S. KellerRichard and Rebecca KemmererStuart M. and Toni KipilmanRobert C. KlineKaren KmetikRobert M. and Maureen KnabbGeorge M. Kosco Robert A. and Nancy K. Krall Janet and Brian KramerDiane KruskoDouglas M. and Jean Langietti LaBodaTanya Furman and Daniel J. LarsonStuart R. and Karen Goldsmith LessinRichard and Patricia Neidig LewisBruce K. Lloyd

William E. Logan Harold G. and Robin U. LoomisStephen H. and Katherine A. MahleBeverly E. MaleeffJohn and Gloria MaloneLouise MapstoneLouis MartaranoDean F. and Barbara B. MartinJohn R. Mashey and Angela M. HeyDavid G. and Kathy MaskalickSteven D. and Heather A. MaslowskiJoyce and Charles MathuesBrian E. and Stacy L. MattioniJoseph J. and Suzanne H. Matunis Beth A. Maxwell Richard P. and Lois Shiring McClainSteven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystalRichard H. McKeeJohn E. and Eleanor P. McManigleEdward A. and Rosemary A. MebusElaine Bova MegonnellTimothy F. and Theresa M. MerkelAllen E. and Elizabeth B. Meyer Joseph A. Miller and Rachel C. WoodGeorge H. Millman Robert D. and Barbara F. MinardDavid R. MiznerJ. Patrick and Joanne MooneyTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganMonica MorrowRobert D. and Virginia MulbergerGary L. and Beverly B. MullenRandy C. and Patricia A. MurphyEdward B. and Kirsten Ravn NelsonJoseph F. Newell and Maureen Essenthier-NewellRobert L. and Nancy Heyl NielsenJohn A. and Mary M. NousekFrederick and Florence OberenderHarold C. and Nancy M. O’ConnorJoseph V. and Joan L. Olivia Keith M. OliviaRoy A. OlofsonVirginia M. OlsonPhilip C. and Shelly Ovadia Donald and Barbara Rochelle OwensLewis E. and Janice L. PattersonThomas A. PavloskyJohn M. PearlMargaret and Jeffrey PeckNicholas and Gelsa PelickEric and Seema PetersonEva PetkovaKathleen PostleEric N. and Bonnie S. Prystowsky Linda J. Pursell MaryAnne RasmussenHeather L. Rayle and Hillard I. SilmanSuzanne ReichPaul H. and Patricia ReichenbacherThomas P. ReileyBrian E. ReiterJohn W. and Barbara RheeAndrea J. Rhodes and Frederick G. GluckF. Matthew and Edan RhodesRichard W. Robinett and Sarah Q. MaloneJohn F. and Margaret O. Robison

Keith V. and Sharon Fellin RohrbachAlbert J. RomanoskyJames L. and Gloria H. RosenbergerGregory M. Roszyk and Marnie SalisburyBenjamin RoterEdward M. and Janis Saylor Michael J. ScheelJoellen Schildkraut and Brian AnnexLynda SchneiderStuart F. and Anne W. SeidesKenneth ShafferEric SheaWilliam L. SheatsJ. Francis ShigleyAllan W. and Kathleen A. Silberman Richard B. and Barbara Kesner SilvermanAnthony J. and Heands Johns SilvestriDonald E. SmithDwight M. and Elfi SmithWilbur L. and Flossie Vereen SmithWendy Hansen SoutherTheodore I. and Carol Steinman Erland P. and Ellen Mills Stevens Mary A. Stiles Donald W. StricklerDonald R. Strobach and Barbara Orvis StrobachGeorge StrubleCarl Suffredini and Nancy DavisJack F. and Laurie E. SulgerGlen SutherlandAndrew J. and Carolyn P. Thomas Julie TiminsPeter G. and Ann C. TombrosDavid C. and Karen Brinton TownsendLarry D. TravisWei TuThomas Van WinkleJohn G. and Barbara D. VandenberghDavid J. and Lydia B. VandenberghHarry VealeRonald D. and Michelle A. Sincard VenezieWinston WalkerLouise WartikJames W. WebbOwen W. and Anna M. WebsterMichael P. Weiner and Camille M. SolbrigSteven M. and Nancy V. WeinrebPeter WeissDennis and Susan WendtMichael H. Wetzel Robert and Donna Terefinko WhitefordFletcher D. and Ann Hottel WickerVerne M. Willaman*Donna WolkSarah D. Wright and Gary J. JonesChristopher R. and Mary Jane Tershak WronskiS. Dale and Carol Ann YakishStephanie D. YanceyAndrej J. ZajacGary S. and Debra ZanderJun Zhong Theodore L. and Nancy Ziff

Through their generosity, Millennium Society members epitomize the spirit of the Eberly College of Science’s dedication to academic excellence and innovation in education, and through their philanthropy these individuals help shape the future of the college.

The Millennium Society is an annual recognition society open to all alumni and friends of the Eberly College of Science who have made a minimum gift of $1,000 in a given fiscal year. This reflects gifts made to the college between July 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015. U.Ed. SCI 16-10

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AnonymousDonald and Nancy AbrahamHarry and Noreen Allcock John D. AlvarezArthur K. and Anne Gjesdahl AndersonJill Grashof Anderson and Sydney H. BrownGeorge E. and Joy AndrewsJane L. AppleKenneth R. and Jennifer ArthurJeanne AtlasJoy D. AtwellHee Chan BaeWilliam C. and Christie Heritage Baird Jr.Douglas and Susan Nitschke- BalogJames Balog and Alvina Bartos BalogCatherine BeathScott D. BeattieThomas P. BemJeffrey L. and Lorie J. BenovicPaul and Mildred Berg George E. BergeyStephen and Nancy BermanWilliam and Barbara BickelWilbur E. and Carol S. BillupsCarolyn and W. Gerald* BlaneyZenas Boone*Rodney BoorseErik and Cynthia BradleyCarter BrooksStephen Korzeniowski and Deborah G. BrzezinskiFrank Burstein*John W. and Susan M. ByrneH. Neil CarlsonDouglas R. and Lan CavenerTa-Kung ChenVernon and Jolene ChinchilliRobert A. and Lorraine Stankiewicz ClareAnita CollinsMark S. and Deborah A. ConnollyJohn G. and Janet M. ConnorBruce and Jackie DaveyRobert T. and Cheryl Russman DavisManfred DenkerMary E. DeVriesJohn M. and Jane M. Dick Jack and Pauline DicksteinDavid and I. Michelle DiehlEugene and Betty DirkBrian G. and Karen Marcavage DixonJo DixonSuzanne R. Dubnicka and Louis M. WojcinskiJohn W. Dudley and Andee AabyRobert DuminiakE. Ruth Dunning*Christopher R. Dyckman and Susan ScottoMichael C. EatonTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganEdmund and Josephine ElderChristine N. Elia and Edwin C. Kellam IIIRobert and Ann EmeryNed and Kathie L. EneaKurt and Kelly EnglemanRay and Mary Evert

Gordon G. and Miriam Olander FeeMaria FinnBarrett C. and Luanne Breuer FisherNeal and Phyllis Flomenberg Ronald and Susan FriedmanEdward M. FrymoyerCharles G. and Ann M. GarlisiMeredith Gee and Gareth MorrellD. David and Laura GeorgeBruce L. and Diane GewertzPatrick L. Gianopoulos Barrett E. and Michele A. GiffelKathryn E. Glas Stacey L. GleesonJoshua and Brooke GoldbergKolin GoodHoward R. and Nancy P. GordonKatherine GotoRodger and Agnes GranlundDaniel and Diane GriffithGrant R. GrissomCada R. and Susan Wynn GroveAndrew P. HackettJeffrey W. HamiltonMarcus C. and Cheryl L. McGrady HansenSusan Houck and Paul E. HardinRobert and Terri HarrisonDennis L. Headings and Virginia Lee CorsonJames and Diane HealdAlexandra H. and Paul HeerdtLee and Brenda HeikkinenKenneth W. HerkoJohn A. HerrittWilliam E. and Elsa K. HokeMichael HolbertMitchell and Charity HollandJ. Lloyd* and Dorothy Foehr Huck*Philip InskeepKonanur JanardanWilliam D. and Sally Cunningham Johnson David G. and and Susan M. Jones Boris V. Kalan and Victoria V. SadovskayaKaren A. KalinyakDaniel A. and Megan Clements KapinosLech KarubinSteven R. KatchurAndrea C. Kay Eric and Tara KeiterEdwin C. Kellam III Karen E. and Matthew S. KellerRichard and Rebecca KemmererStuart M. and Toni KipilmanRobert C. KlineKaren KmetikRobert M. and Maureen KnabbGeorge M. Kosco Robert A. and Nancy K. Krall Janet and Brian KramerDiane KruskoDouglas M. and Jean Langietti LaBodaTanya Furman and Daniel J. LarsonStuart R. and Karen Goldsmith LessinRichard and Patricia Neidig LewisBruce K. Lloyd

William E. Logan Harold G. and Robin U. LoomisStephen H. and Katherine A. MahleBeverly E. MaleeffJohn and Gloria MaloneLouise MapstoneLouis MartaranoDean F. and Barbara B. MartinJohn R. Mashey and Angela M. HeyDavid G. and Kathy MaskalickSteven D. and Heather A. MaslowskiJoyce and Charles MathuesBrian E. and Stacy L. MattioniJoseph J. and Suzanne H. Matunis Beth A. Maxwell Richard P. and Lois Shiring McClainSteven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystalRichard H. McKeeJohn E. and Eleanor P. McManigleEdward A. and Rosemary A. MebusElaine Bova MegonnellTimothy F. and Theresa M. MerkelAllen E. and Elizabeth B. Meyer Joseph A. Miller and Rachel C. WoodGeorge H. Millman Robert D. and Barbara F. MinardDavid R. MiznerJ. Patrick and Joanne MooneyTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganMonica MorrowRobert D. and Virginia MulbergerGary L. and Beverly B. MullenRandy C. and Patricia A. MurphyEdward B. and Kirsten Ravn NelsonJoseph F. Newell and Maureen Essenthier-NewellRobert L. and Nancy Heyl NielsenJohn A. and Mary M. NousekFrederick and Florence OberenderHarold C. and Nancy M. O'ConnorJoseph V. and Joan L. Olivia Keith M. OliviaRoy A. OlofsonVirginia M. OlsonPhilip C. and Shelly Ovadia Donald and Barbara Rochelle OwensLewis E. and Janice L. PattersonThomas A. PavloskyJohn M. PearlMargaret and Jeffrey PeckNicholas and Gelsa PelickEric and Seema PetersonEva PetkovaKathleen PostleEric N. and Bonnie S. Prystowsky Linda J. Pursell MaryAnne RasmussenHeather L. Rayle and Hillard I. SilmanSuzanne ReichPaul H. and Patricia ReichenbacherThomas P. ReileyBrian E. ReiterJohn W. and Barbara RheeAndrea J. Rhodes and Frederick G. GluckF. Matthew and Edan RhodesRichard W. Robinett and Sarah Q. Malone

John F. and Margaret O. RobisonKeith V. and Sharon Fellin RohrbachAlbert J. RomanoskyJames L. and Gloria H. RosenbergerGregory M. Roszyk and Marnie SalisburyBenjamin RoterEdward M. and Janis Saylor Michael J. ScheelJoellen Schildkraut and Brian AnnexLynda SchneiderStuart F. and Anne W. SeidesKenneth ShafferEric SheaWilliam L. SheatsJ. Francis ShigleyAllan W. and Kathleen A. Silberman Richard B. and Barbara Kesner SilvermanAnthony J. and Heands Johns SilvestriDonald E. SmithDwight M. and Elfi SmithWilbur L. and Flossie Vereen SmithWendy Hansen SoutherTheodore I. and Carol Steinman Erland P. and Ellen Mills Stevens Mary A. Stiles Donald W. StricklerDonald R. and Barbara Orvis StrobachGeorge StrubleCarl Suffredini and Nancy DavisJack F. and Laurie E. SulgerGlen SutherlandAndrew J. and Carolyn P. Thomas Julie TiminsPeter G. and Ann C. TombrosDavid C. and Karen Brinton TownsendLarry D. TravisWei TuThomas Van WinkleJohn G. and Barbara D. VandenberghDavid J. and Lydia B. VandenberghHarry VealeRonald D. and Michelle A. Sincard VenezieWinston WalkerLouise WartikJames W. WebbOwen W. and Anna M. WebsterMichael P. Weiner and Camille M. SolbrigSteven M. and Nancy V. WeinrebPeter WeissDennis and Susan WendtMichael H. Wetzel Robert and Donna Terefinko WhitefordFletcher D. and Ann Hottel WickerVerne M. Willaman*Donna WolkSarah D. Wright and Gary J. JonesChristopher R. and Mary Jane Tershak WronskiS. Dale and Carol Ann YakishStephanie D. YanceyAndrej J. ZajacGary S. and Debra ZanderJun Zhong Theodore L. and Nancy Ziff


2015

Millennium SocietyFriends supporting science education, research and public service

AnonymousDonald and Nancy AbrahamHarry and Noreen Allcock John D. AlvarezArthur K. and Anne Gjesdahl AndersonJill Grashof Anderson and Sydney H. BrownGeorge E. and Joy AndrewsJane L. AppleKenneth R. and Jennifer ArthurJeanne AtlasJoy D. AtwellHee Chan BaeWilliam C. and Christie Heritage Baird Jr.Douglas and Susan Nitschke- BalogJames Balog and Alvina Bartos BalogCatherine BeathScott D. BeattieThomas P. BemJeffrey L. and Lorie J. BenovicPaul and Mildred Berg George E. BergeyStephen and Nancy BermanWilliam and Barbara BickelWilbur E. and Carol S. BillupsCarolyn and W. Gerald* BlaneyZenas Boone*Rodney BoorseErik and Cynthia BradleyCarter BrooksStephen Korzeniowski and Deborah G. BrzezinskiFrank Burstein*John W. and Susan M. ByrneH. Neil CarlsonDouglas R. and Lan CavenerTa-Kung ChenVernon and Jolene ChinchilliRobert A. and Lorraine Stankiewicz ClareAnita CollinsMark S. and Deborah A. ConnollyJohn G. and Janet M. ConnorBruce and Jackie DaveyRobert T. and Cheryl Russman DavisManfred DenkerMary E. DeVriesJohn M. and Jane M. Dick Jack and Pauline DicksteinDavid and I. Michelle DiehlEugene and Betty DirkBrian G. and Karen Marcavage DixonJo DixonSuzanne R. Dubnicka and Louis M. WojcinskiJohn W. Dudley and Andee AabyRobert DuminiakE. Ruth Dunning*Christopher R. Dyckman and Susan ScottoMichael C. EatonTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganEdmund and Josephine ElderChristine N. Elia and Edwin C. Kellam IIIRobert and Ann EmeryNed and Kathie L. EneaKurt and Kelly Engleman

Ray and Mary EvertGordon G. and Miriam Olander FeeMaria FinnBarrett C. and Luanne Breuer FisherNeal and Phyllis Flomenberg Ronald and Susan FriedmanEdward M. FrymoyerCharles G. and Ann M. GarlisiMeredith Gee and Gareth MorrellD. David and Laura GeorgeBruce L. and Diane GewertzPatrick L. Gianopoulos Barrett E. and Michele A. GiffelKathryn E. Glas Stacey L. GleesonJoshua and Brooke GoldbergKolin GoodHoward R. and Nancy P. GordonKatherine GotoRodger and Agnes GranlundDaniel and Diane GriffithGrant R. GrissomCada R. and Susan Wynn GroveAndrew P. HackettJeffrey W. HamiltonMarcus C. and Cheryl L. McGrady HansenSusan Houck and Paul E. HardinRobert and Terri HarrisonDennis L. Headings and Virginia Lee CorsonJames and Diane HealdAlexandra H. and Paul HeerdtLee and Brenda HeikkinenKenneth W. HerkoJohn A. HerrittWilliam E. and Elsa K. HokeMichael HolbertMitchell and Charity HollandJ. Lloyd* and Dorothy Foehr Huck*Philip InskeepKonanur JanardanWilliam D. and Sally Cunningham Johnson David G. and and Susan M. Jones Boris V. Kalan and Victoria V. SadovskayaKaren A. KalinyakDaniel A. and Megan Clements KapinosLech KarubinSteven R. KatchurAndrea C. Kay Eric and Tara KeiterEdwin C. Kellam III Karen E. and Matthew S. KellerRichard and Rebecca KemmererStuart M. and Toni KipilmanRobert C. KlineKaren KmetikRobert M. and Maureen KnabbGeorge M. Kosco Robert A. and Nancy K. Krall Janet and Brian KramerDiane KruskoDouglas M. and Jean Langietti LaBodaTanya Furman and Daniel J. LarsonStuart R. and Karen Goldsmith LessinRichard and Patricia Neidig LewisBruce K. Lloyd

William E. Logan Harold G. and Robin U. LoomisStephen H. and Katherine A. MahleBeverly E. MaleeffJohn and Gloria MaloneLouise MapstoneLouis MartaranoDean F. and Barbara B. MartinJohn R. Mashey and Angela M. HeyDavid G. and Kathy MaskalickSteven D. and Heather A. MaslowskiJoyce and Charles MathuesBrian E. and Stacy L. MattioniJoseph J. and Suzanne H. Matunis Beth A. Maxwell Richard P. and Lois Shiring McClainSteven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystalRichard H. McKeeJohn E. and Eleanor P. McManigleEdward A. and Rosemary A. MebusElaine Bova MegonnellTimothy F. and Theresa M. MerkelAllen E. and Elizabeth B. Meyer Joseph A. Miller and Rachel C. WoodGeorge H. Millman Robert D. and Barbara F. MinardDavid R. MiznerJ. Patrick and Joanne MooneyTimothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. MorganMonica MorrowRobert D. and Virginia MulbergerGary L. and Beverly B. MullenRandy C. and Patricia A. MurphyEdward B. and Kirsten Ravn NelsonJoseph F. Newell and Maureen Essenthier-NewellRobert L. and Nancy Heyl NielsenJohn A. and Mary M. NousekFrederick and Florence OberenderHarold C. and Nancy M. O’ConnorJoseph V. and Joan L. Olivia Keith M. OliviaRoy A. OlofsonVirginia M. OlsonPhilip C. and Shelly Ovadia Donald and Barbara Rochelle OwensLewis E. and Janice L. PattersonThomas A. PavloskyJohn M. PearlMargaret and Jeffrey PeckNicholas and Gelsa PelickEric and Seema PetersonEva PetkovaKathleen PostleEric N. and Bonnie S. Prystowsky Linda J. Pursell MaryAnne RasmussenHeather L. Rayle and Hillard I. SilmanSuzanne ReichPaul H. and Patricia ReichenbacherThomas P. ReileyBrian E. ReiterJohn W. and Barbara RheeAndrea J. Rhodes and Frederick G. GluckF. Matthew and Edan RhodesRichard W. Robinett and Sarah Q. MaloneJohn F. and Margaret O. Robison

Keith V. and Sharon Fellin RohrbachAlbert J. RomanoskyJames L. and Gloria H. RosenbergerGregory M. Roszyk and Marnie SalisburyBenjamin RoterEdward M. and Janis Saylor Michael J. ScheelJoellen Schildkraut and Brian AnnexLynda SchneiderStuart F. and Anne W. SeidesKenneth ShafferEric SheaWilliam L. SheatsJ. Francis ShigleyAllan W. and Kathleen A. Silberman Richard B. and Barbara Kesner SilvermanAnthony J. and Heands Johns SilvestriDonald E. SmithDwight M. and Elfi SmithWilbur L. and Flossie Vereen SmithWendy Hansen SoutherTheodore I. and Carol Steinman Erland P. and Ellen Mills Stevens Mary A. Stiles Donald W. StricklerDonald R. Strobach and Barbara Orvis StrobachGeorge StrubleCarl Suffredini and Nancy DavisJack F. and Laurie E. SulgerGlen SutherlandAndrew J. and Carolyn P. Thomas Julie TiminsPeter G. and Ann C. TombrosDavid C. and Karen Brinton TownsendLarry D. TravisWei TuThomas Van WinkleJohn G. and Barbara D. VandenberghDavid J. and Lydia B. VandenberghHarry VealeRonald D. and Michelle A. Sincard VenezieWinston WalkerLouise WartikJames W. WebbOwen W. and Anna M. WebsterMichael P. Weiner and Camille M. SolbrigSteven M. and Nancy V. WeinrebPeter WeissDennis and Susan WendtMichael H. Wetzel Robert and Donna Terefinko WhitefordFletcher D. and Ann Hottel WickerVerne M. Willaman*Donna WolkSarah D. Wright and Gary J. JonesChristopher R. and Mary Jane Tershak WronskiS. Dale and Carol Ann YakishStephanie D. YanceyAndrej J. ZajacGary S. and Debra ZanderJun Zhong Theodore L. and Nancy Ziff

Through their generosity, Millennium Society members epitomize the spirit of the Eberly College of Science’s dedication to academic excellence and innovation in education, and through their philanthropy these individuals help shape the future of the college.

The Millennium Society is an annual recognition society open to all alumni and friends of the Eberly College of Science who have made a minimum gift of $1,000 in a given fiscal year. This reflects gifts made to the college between July 1, 2014 – June 30, 2015. U.Ed. SCI 16-10

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Science Journal - December 2015