Category: Academics

USchool Students Selected as 2022 National Merit Scholarship Finalists

NSU University School is proud to announce that all four seniors who were named Semifinalists in the prestigious and highly competitive National Merit Scholarship Program have advanced to Finalist standing!

Madison Draizin, Nicole Steinberg, Zachary Hardgrave, and Brian Zhi represent the top 1% of program entrants and will be considered for Merit Scholarship awards based on their academic abilities, skills, and accomplishments.

Congratulations to all!

Posted 03/13/22

Criminal Justice Students Get Hands-On Demonstration from Brevard Sheriff

A group of undergraduate students at NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice got a hands-on opportunity to learn about criminal justice from a Florida Sheriff.

The students, along with criminal justice Professors Grace Telesco, Ph.D., and Jennifer Allen, Ph.D., were invited by Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey to participate in an exciting and realistic virtual experience involving the MILO, or Multiple Interactive Learning Objectives.

MILO is a scenario-based firearms training system that is used by all branches of law enforcement, military, security, and public safety agencies across the country and the world. Along with the first-hand virtual experience and a lunch outing with Sheriff Ivey, the students also got a chance to meet Junny, the sheriff’s bloodhound.

Posted 03/19/22

Graduate Assistant Coordinator Partners with Story Booth

Bianca Oliveira

Bianca Oliveira, NSU Writing and Communication Center Graduate Assistant Coordinator (GAC) and M.A. student in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts’ Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program, partnered with NSU’s Department of Humanities and Politics’ (DHP) community series, Story Booth, in collecting stories from the student body and community during Banned Books Week of the Fall 2020 semester, September 28 – October 2, and 2021 Carnival season, February 16 – March 16.

As the former undergraduate English major ambassador of DHP, Oliveira worked with Aileen Miyuki Farrar, Ph.D., DHP Associate Professor and Associate Chair, to encourage students to tell their stories. Fall 2020’s installation of Story Booth, “Ban Me,” asked participants to consider the constraints and liberties of censorship. Responses were posted to the Story Booth website, accessible here. Oliveira’s contribution was featured in the 18th volume of Digressions, NSU’s literary and arts journal. The Winter 2021 “Carnival” Story Booth asked students about the carnivalesque. Participants joined a Zoom recording booth to speak about their experiences with Carnival; Oliveira spoke on the history and cultural impact of Brazil’s Carnival. You can access all students’ stories here. Other Story Booth themes have included “Book to Film Adaptations,” “Two-Minute Memoirs,” “A Collaborative Truth,” and “Haunted Histories,” and “Friendship.”

The Story Booth series fosters community at NSU through literature and language, asking questions that prompt participants to create their own stories. Each Story Booth story helps connect the NSU community across the disciplines and cultures by sharing unique experiences of the authors. When asked how Story Booth relates to her work at the WCC, Oliveira asserts that “we need to question how we interact with others. When students visit the WCC, consultants are assigned roles larger than 45-minute tutors. Being cognizant of this can allow us to holistically assist those who seek our help.”

To learn more about Story Booth, you can visit their website at https://nsudhp.wixsite.com/storybooth.

More Information about the NSU Writing and Communication Center can be found here.

Posted 03/13/22

Halmos Hosts Graduate Science Research Symposium

On February 24-25, the Halmos College of Arts & Sciences (HCAS) held its 4th Biannual HCAS Graduate Science Research Symposium. The symposium included presentations from NSU graduate and postdoctoral students, faculty, & collaborators highlighting research from across the college. The event was organized by a committee from the Department of Biological Sciences in tandem with the Department of Marine & Environmental Sciences and the Student Government Association (SGA). Jose Lopez, Ph.D.; Tyler Cyronak, Ph.D; Rosanna Milligan, Ph.D.; Eben Gering, Ph.D.; Graduate SGA President, Gretchen Spencer; & librarian Keri Baker, all played an integral role in assuring the event ran smoothly both in person and online. The Graduate SGA greatly contributed to the event, organizing & providing coffee breaks, lunches, a banquet, & a post-event happy hour at the local LauderAle Brewery.

This year’s event welcomed two Keynote Speakers, Lauren Toth, Ph.D. & John K. Reed, M.S., whose research the community poured into the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center Auditorium to hear. After the presentations, attendees participated in a vote to award their favorite student presenters. This year’s awards of Barnes and Noble gift cards were donated by the Department of Biological Sciences and were awarded to:

  • First Place: Vanessa Blanchard on “Parasites of raptorial birds of South Florida” and Camryn Pajon on “Carbon source driven metabolic buffering determines the co-existence of Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa”
  • Second Place: Colleen McMaken on “Microbial impacts on loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green (Chelonia mydas) sea turtle hatching success”
  • Third Place: Nick Jones on “High incidence of partial colony mortality constrains realized growth for three coral species (Montastraea cavernosa, Porites astreoides and Siderastrea siderea) in southeast Florida”

Congratulations to the winners and everyone involved for another great HCAS Graduate Science Research Symposium! There is a possibility that the event could become a yearly occurrence run by a student committee in the future. We eagerly await to see what other types of research will be shared at the next event!

Posted 03/13/22

Halmos Partners with Montachem International to Explore Global Plastics

From left, Isabelly Verissimo (Behavioral Neuroscience and Pre-Med), Jerry Murcia, CEO Montachem International Inc., Eve Fatout (Education). C. Avila, COO Montachem International Inc., Valeska Ribeiro Antunes (Political Science).

This past fall semester, the Department of Humanities and Politics (DHP) in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center, partnered with Montachem International Inc. on a case competition exercise titled “Global Issues, Student Solutions.” Montachem is a leader in the distribution of thermoplastics and plastic resins to producers around the world and the initiative provided an opportunity for undergraduate students at NSU to avail of insight and expertise from Montachem personnel while exploring the role of plastics in the modern world.  “Global Issues, Student Solutions” ran as a case competition in a section of INST 1500, Global Issues, the introductory survey course in the B.A. in International Studies program.  Under the direction of course instructor  Ransford Edwards, Ph.D., students engaged in research projects addressing the challenges posed by the completing costs and benefits of global plastic usage.  Based on a review of their work by a faculty panel and feedback from officials at Montachem, three students were recognized at a recent luncheon hosted by DHP. Each student is the recipient of a cash award funded by a generous gift from Montachem International.

“We are very proud of our association with NSU on the ‘Global Issues, Global Solutions’ plastics challenge project in 2021,” said J.C. Avila, COO of Montachem International. “Waste in general, and plastics’ waste in particular, are serious issues that seem to require a philosophical change, we humans need to think differently about the waste we generate every day and how we deal with it. The work presented by the students after understanding the depth of this challenge is very encouraging as they presented interesting solutions and ideas but most importantly demonstrated the need to bring this subject up for discussion at all levels in our society to start finding solutions.”

Montachem CEO Jerry Murcia added, “Plastic waste mismanagement has created a global ecological crisis that needs to be addressed by adopting environmentally minded and balanced solutions. Montachem is proud to have supported this project, which in turn has raised awareness of this ongoing problem.  The creative solutions presented by NSU students move us towards a circular economy where intentional business decisions encompass the importance of social justice and positive environmental impact.” Both Montachem and the DHP look forward to continuing their partnership, engaging students in addressing this important challenge.

“My biggest take-away from my research is that there are many ways in which we can help alleviate our climate crisis; we just need to agree on a plan,” said competition winner Eve Fatout, a junior Education major.Joint runner up Valeska Antunes, a sophomore political science major, noted, “I dedicated myself to this project because I saw it as an opportunity to do something meaningful while in college.” The other runner up, Isabelly Verissimo, a sophomore Behavioral Neuroscience major, who recently represented her home country of Brazil at the Global Peace Summit in Turkey, said that part of the reason she took the Global Issues class was so that she could explore issues such as this one that fall at the intersection of science and public policy.

Posted 02/28/22

NSU Leads $300K NSF Grant to Tackle Major Florida Challenges

Florida faces many pressing regional issues such as hurricane and flood mitigation, an aging population, harmful algal blooms, among others. These societal challenges are particularly relevant to our state but widespread around the U.S. and world. Solving these intractable problems requires team-based solutions that cross disciplinary boundaries, and likely require collaborations between academia, government, industry, and other stakeholders.

A recently awarded, collaborative $300,000 NSF grant will fund research support staff from Florida universities to do researcher “matchmaking,” creating interdisciplinary teams of faculty from across the state. Each team will focus on a Florida-based challenge and receive professional development support in their idea development and grant seeking.

The leaders of this project (listed below) come from five Florida institutions (led by Nova Southeastern University) and represent expertise in team science, technology-supported collaboration, faculty training and mentorship, research project ideation and proposal development, large-scale networking events, and education/social science research.

  • Melanie Bauer (Nova Southeastern University) serves as the PI/Project Director
  • Roxana Ross (Nova Southeastern University)
  • Joshua Roney (University of Central Florida)
  • Stephen Fiore (University of Central Florida)
  • Beth Hodges (Florida State University)
  • Jeanne Viviani (Florida Atlantic University)
  • Leigh Brasfield (University of West Florida)

This initiative was born out of a statewide network of research development professionals, the Florida Research Development Alliance (FloRDA; https://florda.org/), with current members from 21 Florida institutions. Success in this project will provide a model for replication and scaling by states and other sizable networks focused on addressing major societal challenges.

For more information, please contact the project lead, Melanie Bauer (mbauer1@nova.edu).

Posted 02/27/22

Halmos Faculty Presents on Using Dialogues for Social Justice

McKay

Judith McKay, J.D., Ph.D., director of the doctoral program, and faculty in the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (HCAS), presented at the Association for Graduate Liberal Programs Annual Conference held virtually.  The conference theme was Unmute Yourself: Voice, Representation, Power. McKay’s presentation was entitled, “Using Dialogues to Build a Socially Just Community.”

McKay is the faculty adviser to the Social Justice Roundtable and works with students in the community through Community Resolution Services, a practicum and volunteer site for DCRS. Community Resolution Services hosts Story Café, We Love our Families series, The Women’s Roundtable, and is involved in offering workshops for the county’s Crisis Intervention Teams, and other events for community groups and organizations.

McKay’s scholarly interests include social justice, conflict coaching, strategic community planning, and violence prevention and intervention in family, neighborhood, and organizational conflicts.  For more information about Community Resolution Services or the Social Justice Roundtable, please contact McKay at mckayj@nova.edu.

Posted 02/13/22

Halmos Research Proposal Earns Coveted Grant

D. Abigail Renegar, Ph.D.

Our oceans are plagued by chemical contaminants that have relatively unknown effects on the health and resilience of coral reefs.  Filling in some of the knowledge gaps is D. Abigail Renegar, Ph.D., of the Halmos Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences.  Renegar investigates the impacts of coastal pollution, climate change, ocean acidification, and other anthropogenic stressors on corals.  Her newly proposed research will test the effects of UV light exposure on chemical contaminants as many are photo-reactive, have photo-enhanced toxicity, or create toxic photo-transformation products that impact organisms. By identifying the chemicals posing the greatest risk to reefs, the research will support targeted actions reducing contaminant levels and impact.

Renegar’s proposal was chosen by the 2021-22 Ocean Insight Grant Program as one of seven winners selected from hundreds of entries from around the world. Ocean Insight is a spectral technologies company that collaborates with researchers to discover, refine, and deliver new approaches to solving problems.  As a winner, Renegar will be honored at a virtual Ocean Insight Grant Program Awards event, with scheduling and other details to be announced.

Renegar runs the Coral Histology Laboratory, the Coral Restoration/Toxicology Laboratory, and the Land-based Coral Nursery at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center on NSU’s Oceanographic Campus.  Her research interests focus on scleractinian coral biology, conservation, and restoration with particular interest in the assessment of chronic nutrient exposure impacts of single hydrocarbon, crude oil, and dispersed oil effect thresholds of scleractinian corals.

Posted 02/13/22

NSU University School Students Selected As Business Fellows

NSU University School is proud to congratulate our inaugural cohort of Business Fellows. Our fellows are Madison Davidovic, Ariel Perczek, Noah Perry, Veronica Benarroch, Ria Batta, Jaell-Ann Auguste, Amanda Landau, Dana Wrubel, Ryan Wooflson, David Delarosa, Ethan Esquenazi, and Diego Andaluz.

Through a partnership with the NSU’s H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, these students are working directly with professors and students at the college and experiencing different industries and career opportunities in the subjects of accounting, finance, management, marketing, entrepreneurship, real estate, and sports management.

These Upper School Fellows recently visited the Alan B. Levan NSU Broward Center of Innovation and explored its many entrepreneurial resources including the Cybersecurity Range, Media Production Studio, Levl5: Space Dock, and North Star Pitch Room among other spaces.

Congratulations to our Fellows on their selection to participate in this prestigious opportunity!

Posted 02/13/22

Fischler Academy Director Publishes Article on Teacher Education

Discovering the best way to train future teachers is not a simple task, but it’s a task that was taken on by Fischler Academy Director Luke Williams.

Luke Williams at NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice co-authored an article that was recently published in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education. The article details research that was conducted through the examination of literature about teacher education. The research was then used to develop recommendations and guidelines for programs interested in improving field-based learning for future educators.

Teaching and Teacher Education is read across the world and focuses on teachers, teaching, and teacher education through an international perspective and context. The publication covers early childhood through secondary education, teacher preparation, and higher education concerning teacher professional development and teacher education.

Read the full article.

Posted 02/13/22

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