Category: Academics

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

Halmos College Joins in Illuminating Earth’s Biodiversity

Following the pioneering footsteps of biodiversity giants EO Wilson and Thomas Lovejoy, the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) was launched to create a “network of networks” with sights on sequencing the genomes of a majority of the earth’s living organisms. The overall goal of the venture is to read the complete genomes of about 1.8 million species of macro-organisms on the planet, encompassing all of the known species of mammals, reptiles, fishes, insects, trees flowers, mushrooms, and single-celled protists. The plan requires a hierarchical approach and known classification, identifying organisms that include Phyla, Classes, Families to finally reach the known species of living organisms represented by samples that people can collect and archive. Agreement on uniform sequencing standards and other consortia, such as the quality of sequence data, is important before addition to the EBP list. All these points have now been expounded, compilated, and published in a new set of papers in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week.

Halmos College of Arts and Sciences Department of Biological Sciences faculty member Jose (Joe) Lopez, Ph.D., plunged into this large-scale genome endeavor in 2013, with his co-founding of the Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA). Partially inspired by the earlier Genome10K project started by NSU HCAS professor, Stephen J. O’Brien, Ph.D., the GIGA community of scientists focuses solely on aquatic animals without spines (“invertebrates”) and recently became a non-profit entity. Lopez represents GIGA in the EBP network and is a member of the working group and co-author on three of the new PNAS papers. Lopez is also helping contribute up to 50 invertebrate species samples, including soft corals from local Broward coral reefs, for genome sequencing through the related Aquatic Symbiosis Genome (ASG) project in conjunction with the Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) program at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the UK.  Lopez works closely with Mark Blaxter, Ph.D. Program leader for the DToL program and lead author on the PNAS paper “Why sequence all eukaryotes?”

“It has been an honor to serve with a distinguished group of scientists dedicated to the genome sciences,” says Lopez.  “The EBP poses clearly ambitious and non-trivial goals. But we have to start somewhere, and often basic science has to be done before we move to more specialized applications. Because the genomes of the planet’s organisms are all different (leading to biodiversity) due to evolution, they can provide answers to speciation/extinction, conservation, better health and how organisms interact symbiotically. The genomes also hold the potential for discovery of treatments for human disease. The sequencing effort is already bringing diverse scientists from different institutions and countries together toward a common goal and should be supported widely. Obtaining funding, such as convincing NSF to support the mega projects, presents a steep hill to climb. But we do need to take up the challenge, or else other countries will leap-frog ahead of us.”

Posted 01/30/22

Art + Design Students Partner with MD Lab to Draw Cadavers

 

Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts collaborated with the Department of Medical Education on a special assignment – drawing cadavers. Students had the opportunity to tour the MD lab and were introduced to 16 cadavers and skeletal and muscular models.

“It is one of my favorite field trips in the semester, because it is life changing,” said Associate Professor of Art + Design Kandy Lopez-Moreno. “Not only are they trying to replicate what they are seeing, but they are also questioning their existence as human beings.”

Lopez-Moreno collaborated with Professor Vijay Rajput, M.D., chair for the Department of Medical Education, to coordinate the visit to the lab. Students were required to take the NSU Environmental Health and Safety Education course module on Canvas prior to the visit.

Learn more about NSU’s B.A. in Art + Design.

Posted 01/30/22

Honors College Grant to Aid Underprivileged High-Schoolers

Andrea Nevins, Ph.D.

The Farquhar Honors College has been awarded a planning grant for $25,000 from the Teagle Foundation to support a new initiative that helps underserved high school students realize their full potential through the humanities. This Knowledge for Freedom program will feature a three-week symposium titled “One Person Can Change the World” for underprivileged high school juniors in Broward County.

The program aims to open the door to higher education to those who have been historically neglected, allowing them to engage with the humanities on a college level as they probe the processes and contexts of change. With an improved understanding of how change occurs, students will put theory into practice by conceiving an actionable project to facilitate change on an issue important to them.

Along with this project, the program will provide students with important resources to aid in the college application process such as recommendation letters, writing aid, and general support.

The program is helmed by Andrea Nevins, Ph.D., dean of the Farquhar Honors College, who is the Principle Investigator (PI).
Robin Cooper, Ph.D., assistant dean for Research and Strategic Initiatives in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences (HCAS), and Melissa Dore, Ph.D., director of Academic Support and Administration in HCAS, will serve as Co-PIs. Aileen Farrar, Ph.D., associate chair and associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Politics in HCAS, will serve as the lead faculty.

“The Honors College is excited about the opportunity to collaborate with NSU faculty and staff across the campus, including several colleagues in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences on this important project,” said Dean Nevins. “We believe that the tremendous curiosity Honors College students have about the world is what leads to positive change, which is what this project hopes to accomplish in our local community.”

Once the planning stage is complete, the Honors College could be awarded an implementation grant of up to $300,000 to support the execution of the program.

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