Category: Academics

Research Uses Ecology Diversity Analyses in Food Desert Study

“Food Deserts” are usually defined as geographic areas without local access to fresh food. Using community ecology statistics, Halmos Environmental Science alumna Annie Goyanes, ’21 and her faculty adviser J. Matthew Hoch, Ph.D., looked at supermarkets to quantify the availability of healthy food. They tested whether produce diversity is correlated with neighborhood income or demographics. Abundance and diversity of fresh produce was quantified in supermarkets in Broward County.

J. Matthew Hoch, Ph.D.

Their research, conducted while Goyanes was an undergraduate, was recently published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Their research determined that food deserts should not only be defined by geographic measures, but other influential factors such as diversity and quality of food available. Previous food desert studies often involve lengthy interviews, and/or food index surveys, focus group discussions, administered consumer surveys, and an inventory of food. These methods represent a new application of statistics that have been traditionally used in ecology. This is a quick and easy way to identify gaps in food availability in potentially marginalized communities, which opens an easier path to solving those problems.

This research was supported by a President’s Faculty Research and Development Grant from Nova Southeastern University.

Halmos Faculty Present Juneteenth-inspired Panel Discussion

In June, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences writing, arts and politics faculty members joined together to present an interdisciplinary Juneteenth-inspired panel discussion for the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale titled “Looking Forward, Looking Back: Freedom, Afrofuturism and Reflections on Juneteenth.” The free virtual event took place on Saturday, June 19, and featured three Halmos College faculty members: Ransford Edwards, Ph.D., assistant professor of politics for the Department of Humanities and Politics; Kandy Lopez-Moreno, associate professor of art + design for the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts; and Rachel Panton, Ph.D., assistant professor of writing for the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts.

The event launched “Community Voices,” NSU Art Museum’s new initiative supported by the Community Foundation of Broward that focuses on exploring social and racial inequalities and challenging social structures, including representation in museums. “Looking Forward, Looking Back: Freedom, Afrofuturism and Reflections on Juneteenth” kicked off the series and examined the historical context of emancipation, as well as the ongoing tension between the rhetoric of recovery and an imagined and unenslaveable Black future in art, literature, and pop culture.

Learn more about the panel discussion and future “Community Voices” events for the NSU Art Museum by viewing WLRN’s news story here.

College of Business and Entrepreneurship Elevates Virtual Events

The H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship is taking virtual events to the next level with their new 3-D event floorplan featuring the William S. Spears Courtyard Atrium in the Carl DeSantis Building located at the Davie campus.

In May 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Huizenga Business Innovation Academy (HBIA) faced the difficult task of turning their highly hands-on, experiential learning summer boot camp course  fully virtual, in a matter of three weeks. After much research, they partnered with Remo, an interactive virtual event platform, to facilitate their “live classroom” team and networking activities. Remo allows for camera and microphone sharing between the guests sitting at each table, so conversations are semi-private once all the virtual seats at the table are full. This feature allowed HBIA faculty, administration, and students to meet virtually and feel like they were gathering in a real setting with the autonomy to move freely between tables and speak with other attendees around the virtual conference floor.

Over a year later, the college and the Business Innovation Academy are still using Remo and have held various events such as career fairs, holiday parties, study sessions, academic conferences, business trade shows and recruitment events.

“This platform has allowed us to safely continue working with our community partners throughout the pandemic and is a refreshing break from the traditional Zoom meetings” said, Monica Paneque, director of the Huizenga Business Innovation Academy.

Now, the college is taking the virtual event space to the next level with one of the most popular venues on-campus, the DeSantis building Courtyard Atrium. In innovating the representation of NSU’s first and only virtual event space, the Huizenga Academy’s program manager, Najeeb Ahmed, took his technical design skills and drew sketches from various perspectives of the atrium. With the help of a talented graphic designer, the college was able to bring their vision to life! If you have ever visited the atrium on campus, you will see how this new digital floorplan offers a familiar and amazing NSU virtual experience for events.

With all the excitement around our virtual venue that complements the on-campus experience, the Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship has hosted more than 100 virtual events to date and plans to continue using the platform even into a post-COVID era. For instance, the virtual conference experience allows the college to attract attendees to events from all over the world without the worry of space capacities, travel restrictions or double booking. Should your college, department, or association like to learn more about reserving our virtual atrium, you are welcome to contact us at HBIA@nova.edu.

Halmos Faculty Co-Authors Article with Fischler Faculty

Santanu De, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Santanu De, M.Sc., Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (HCAS), authored an article in The Quarterly Review of Distance Education with Vanaja Nethi, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Education in the Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice.  The article is entitled, Impact of Science Mobile Applications on Interest and Learning among Undergraduate Science Students.

One of the challenges facing undergraduate science programs is keeping students interested in science and minimizing attrition from their discipline. Prior research shows that showcasing real-life applicability of science is one way to keep students interested. In this exploratory study using secondary data from two undergraduate science courses, we examined the impact of science mobile apps on students’ interest and learning. The results show empirically that students think science mobile apps do help increase their interest in science. Furthermore, the ubiquitous mobile phone allows 24/7 access to these science apps, enabling enhanced learning and mastery of scientific concepts.

De’s research interests include STEM education, pedagogy, reproductive physiology, developmental biology, cell biology, and protein biology. He is a member of  the Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS), an editorial board member of several journals including The American Journal of BioScience, and faculty adviser of  NSU’s Med-ED student medical organization.

For more information about the article

Halmos Researcher’s Efforts Focus on Visualizing Virus Variants

Associate Professor Louis R. Nemzer, Ph.D.

NSU Associate Professor Louis R. Nemzer, Ph.D., in the Department of Chemistry and Physics at the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, developed a new method for visualizing amino acid substitutions in which changes in the physical and chemical properties are represented by vectors in a 3D space. While applicable to a wide range of biological applications, such as rational protein design, this work is particularly useful for understanding the behavior of COVID-19 variants and even predicting future threats.

Proteins are long chains of amino acids, and the most infamous today is certainly the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. Random mutations cause changes to its amino acid sequence, which leads to variants that may spread more easily or more effectively evade the human immune system.

As part of his research on amino acid properties, Nemzer created a new way to visualize changes in novel variants, utilizing recently available data on SARS-CoV-2 immune escape, which measures how well they can hide from the host’s antibodies. In addition, results were used from site-saturation mutagenesis experiments, in which all possible amino acid substitutions at a particular site in the spike protein were tested for their impact on binding affinity with ACE2 receptors.

“We live in the era of big data in biology, and the key now is finding new ways to visualize this vast amount of information to make the best use of it,” Nemzer said.

In some diagrams, the colors of the vectors show the impact of the substitution, while dashed lines indicate changes that require at least two nucleotide mutations to happen. He showed that sometimes clusters of chemically similar amino acids can have similar effects, but in other situations, only a specific change – such as swapping a charged amino acid in place of a neutral one – significantly reduces the virulence. The work is available now as a bioRxiv preprint.

REFERENCES:

Nemzer, Louis R. “Visualizing Amino Acid Substitutions in a Physicochemical Vector Space.” bioRxiv (2021).

Fischler Professors Collaborate on Book Chapter

Professor David B. Ross, Ed.D.. and Associate Professor Gina Peyton, Ed.D., at NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice coauthored the chapter, “The Never-Ending Intellectual Theft of Truth: How the Mainstream Media Cartel Dismembers the Facts.” In R. Blankenship (Ed.), “Deep Fakes, Fake News, and Misinformation in Online Teaching and Learning Technologies” (pp. 39-68). The abstract of the book chapter is listed below:

The purpose of this chapter is to examine how the fake news has originated. This term has been in existence for decades, since the evolution of the printing press, which also disseminated false information. The mainstream media and non-mainstream media or just individuals in general have their own biases and agendas, so misinformation, disinformation, exaggerations, and deceptions will exist. This chapter will provide individuals from any political perspective or other beliefs evidence to make their own judgments. Digital citizenship and literacy will be explored using various examples of obtaining information and use of devices. In addition, this chapter will consider how researchers should take risks to explore controversial topics such as fake news to inform an audience using research.

For more information, please click here.

3 Grants Target Students with Innovative Oceanic Solutions

Ocean Exchange™ is looking for undergraduate and graduate students who are adept in developing innovative solutions that have a beneficial impact on the ocean. The organization – which is affiliated with the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation – is offering three monetary awards this year.

The Ocean Exchange Collegiate Award 2021 will give a $25,000 grant to a solution that advances the decarbonization of the maritime shipping industry, either while underway or while in port. The solution should be globally scalable and applicable to any segment, including commercial ocean carriers, ferries, and coastal transportation, large recreational yachts, towing and barge vessels, the cruise industry, and defense/security maritime sectors.

The Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation Award 2021 will give a $10,000 grant to a solution that advances our understanding of the ocean and that helps minimize our impact on these resources, resulting in more resilient bodies of water including healthy marine life and coastlines.

The Broward College Innovation Award 2021 will give a $10,000 grant to a solution that advances our understanding of the ocean and that helps minimize our impact on these resources, resulting in more resilient bodies of water including healthy marine life and coastlines.

Eligibility requirements

  • Teams or individual innovators are invited to register
  • Applicants must be undergraduate or graduate student with active student status within one year
  • Solution must be student-led.
  • Teams must pitch in person
  • Delegates representing business, academia, government, and non-profits will select winners at the event in Fort Lauderdale

Important Dates

  • Submit registrations by 11:59 p.m. GMT Monday September 20, 2021
  • Finalists will be selected by our Solutions Review Team to travel to Fort Lauderdale (expenses paid) to present at Ocean Exchange Oct 24-26, 2021
  • Collegiate pitches will be conducted Sunday, Oct 24 and Monday Oct 25

Ocean Exchange™ is an international platform for accelerating the adoption of and the transfer of solutions across industries that positively impact environments, economies and health while respecting cultures around the world.

Students can register their solutions here.

NSU Undergraduates Take on Chocolate Bark Challenge

During the Winter 2021 semester, eight undergraduate students from the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the H.Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship were selected to participate in a special topics communications course partnering with Hoffman’s Chocolates and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation. The eight-week online course, offered through the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts, gave students the opportunity to work closely with leadership, chocolatiers, and marketing and design professionals from Hoffman’s Chocolates and the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation and develop a new chocolate bark product.

Now in its third year, the special topics course partnering with Hoffman’s Chocolates took on a new challenge by also partnering with the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation to design a new chocolate bark and marketing campaign focused on conservation of Florida’s coastal and Everglades ecosystems. Selected students represented a variety of majors — Art + Design, Communication, Marine Biology and Marketing — and worked in two teams to develop their chocolate bark products, packaging and marketing campaigns featuring paintings by Guy Harvey.

“I’m especially proud of this year’s cohort of dedicated, ambitious students,” said Miriam Ahmed, Ph.D., assistant professor of graphic design for the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts, who taught the course. “They weren’t afraid to push beyond their comfort zones, and they pursued avenues for achieving the tougher goal of centering sustainability within their communication strategies, marketing, and product packaging.”

An advantage of the course’s online format, Ahmed said, was that it allowed students the chance to collaborate remotely with team members from the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation who are located in the Cayman Islands.

On April 20, the student teams pitched their proposed flavor profiles to leadership and representatives from Hoffman’s Chocolates, the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, NSU and its Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts. During the final presentation, students showcased “Spiced Paradise” featuring a spiced-ginger rum and dark chocolate bark and “Citrus Coast” featuring a Key Lime Bay white chocolate bark. Both flavors were selected for upcoming production by Hoffman’s Chocolates.

The flavors will be paired with the 2020 Orange Blossom chocolate bark developed by students from last year’s special topics course. The product’s launch was postponed because of COVID-19, and the bark is now set to launch this summer along with this year’s winner.

“Hoffman’s and the GHOF were excellent partners, providing students with exciting interdisciplinary experiential learning opportunities,” said Shanti Bruce, Ph.D., chair and professor for the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts.

For more information about the special topics course and its “Battle of the Barks,” click here.

Students design social media campaign for Guy Harvey Research Institute

During the Winter 2021 semester, undergraduate Communication students in COMM 4300: Social Media Theory and Practice had the opportunity to put their social skills into action and design a strategic social media campaign for NSU’s Guy Harvey Research Institute. Each winter, the course, offered through the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, partners with a real-world client seeking to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity with its social media presence.

“The best way for students to learn how to conduct a bona fide social media campaign is by partnering with a real client with a real need, and we were excited to have the chance to work with Dr. Shivji and the Guy Harvey Research Institute,” said Whitney Lehmann, associate professor of communication for the Department of Communication, Media, the Arts. “Dr. Shivji had a very clear, strategic vision for the GHRI’s social presence, and it was an invaluable learning experience for students to work with him and his team to design a unique and effective campaign tied to their organizational goals.”

Students kicked off the semester by conducting an initial client interview with Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., professor for the Department of Biological Sciences and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center. Following the interview with Shivji and Tyler Plum, the GHRI’s social media manager and a master’s student in the Department of Biological Sciences, the undergraduate students conducted an audit of the GHRI’s social media presence and presented Shivji and Plum with proposed objectives, strategies and tactics tied to priority audiences and organizational goals. Campaign deliverables included new social media branding, a social media manual, targeted Twitter lists for networking with members of the media, and a revamped YouTube channel for archiving and curating GHRI video content.

“Working with Dr. Lehmann and her students was not only tremendously informative for us in terms of learning better strategies for social media platform construction and use, but it was also a pleasure interacting with the impressively creative undergraduates,” Shivji said. “The end result of this campaign is a vastly better social media platform for the GHRI to disseminate our work.”

For more information about the B.A. in Communication program, COMM 4300: Social Media Theory and Practice and other courses offered through the curriculum’s Strategic Communication concentration and minor, click here.

Follow the Guy Harvey Research Institute on social media @nsughri, the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences @nsuhcas, and the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts @nsu_dcma

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