Category: Health Care

Assistant Professor Presents at ADEA Workshop

From left: Aryia Amini, NSU College of Dental Medicine Director of BEDI; Ana Lopez, chair-elect ADEA; and Elias Moron, NSU College of Dental Medicine Faculty presenter.

Congratulations to Elías M. Morón, DDS, MPH, MHL, MHSM, clinical assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University’s College of Dental Medicine, for his publication in the Journal of Dental Educationand for his presentation at the 2022 ADEA Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Workshop in Saint Louis, Mo., on October 26th, 2022.

The title of publication and poster presentation was “Oral Health Inequities: Recommended Public Policies to Achieve Health Equity” that was co-authored with Ana Lopez, who is the chair-elect of the ADEA.

This year’s workshop featured scholars and authors from the Sept. 2022 JDE special issue that included Morón, focused on expanding and improving social justice, equity, access, diversity, inclusion and health equity in the academic health professions and oral health.

Posted 11/06/22

USchool Participates in Community Service Seminar

Students visited Broward Outreach Center and Feeding South Florida to sort and pack donations and serve lunch. Using the donations from our recent Socktober Drive, they created nearly 100 care packages for people in our community experiencing food and housing instability.

For the second day of the program, students volunteered on campus at the Lower School Scarecrow Breakfast and the Best Buddies Halloween Party to provide a fun morning for Lower School students and a lively afternoon for Special Olympics athletes.

Students developed leadership skills through team building, planning, communication, and leading events.

Learn more about NSU University School’s college preparatory program for students in Preschool – Grade 12 at www.uschool.nova.edu.

Posted 11/06/22

Education Professor Receives Visionary Award for Distinguished Leadership

Anymir Orellana, Ed.D.

Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice Professor Anymir Orellana, Ed.D., is the recipient of the Visionary Award for Distinguished Leadership from the Florida Distance Learning Association.

The award recognizes a leader who has demonstrated commitment in the field of education and has made significant contributions to distance learning in the organization.

Orellana said upon learning of the award, she was honored and excited. However, she also voiced her immense gratitude for her friend and colleague Gabriela Mendez, the person who nominated her for the recognition.

Orellana said she wanted to thank Mendez publicly.

“Not very many have good friends who take time to nominate you and appreciate you in such a way,” she said. “I thank her, and I thank the committee.”

Mendez said she nominated Orellana because she motivates her and others to constantly improve their online courses.

“As a great academic, she is always reading and learning about new topics and shares her knowledge with her colleagues by teaching us how to use technology and how to organize our courses. Dr. Orellana and I challenge each other to think beyond how teaching online is today to envision how it could be to benefit all students. Dr. Anymir Orellana is an inspiration to her colleagues and students.”

Orellana joins others from NSU to receive this distinction. In 2021, NSU President Dr. George Hanbury was granted the award, and in 2013, the award was received by FCESCJ Professor Hui Fang Huang “Angie” Su.

Orellana will be recognized at the FDLA/FAMTE 2022 virtual conference to be held in February 2023.

Posted 11/06/22

Audiology Department Offers Care to Special Needs Athletes

On Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, the Audiology Department continued its long history with Special Olympics of Florida by providing hearing care to athletes with special needs.

Students from the second-year class tested the athletes’ hearing. Those athletes who were found to have permanent hearing loss were evaluated for new hearing aids.

Hearing aids will be provided through the Starkey Cares program, which has partnered with Special Olympics International for the past year.  Eight athletes were evaluated with four of them needing new amplification.

Thank you to the students and faculty who participated in the event.

Posted 11/06/22

Halmos Faculty Publishes Papers in International Journal, GigaScience

Stephen J. O’Brien, Ph.D., National Academy of Sciences USA member and faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (HCAS), recently published two papers in the international journal GigaScience. This journal publishes ‘big data’, including ‘omics’, studies from across the entire spectrum of life and biomedical sciences.

Stephen J. O’Brien, Ph.D.

The two papers deal with different disciplines in the genomic sciences, both of which O’Brien has a distinguished research record in.

One was a Review paper published in June 2022, titled “A decade of GigaScience: A perspective on conservation genetics” (citation below). This paper provides O’Brien’s perspective on the history and new developments in the currently burgeoning field of wildlife conservation genetics and genomics – a discipline he was one of the pioneers of and remains active in. This area of research provides key knowledge to inform successful conservation intervention in an era experiencing a rapid pace of wildlife extinctions resulting from anthropogenic activities.

The second paper, published in September 2022, is human biology focused, and titled “The Pioneer Advantage: Filling the blank spots on the map of genome diversity in Europe” (citation below). This paper provides a review of the gaps remaining in human genome sequencing data, which although spurring a revolution in biomedical research, still has major geographic genome deserts regarding genome biodiversity of humans.

O’Brien, S.J. A decade of GigaScience: A Perspective on Conservation Genetics. GigaScience, Volume 11, 2022, giac055, https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giac055

T.K. Oleksyk, W.W. Wolfsberger, K. Schubelka, S. Mangul, and S.J. O’Brien. The Pioneer Advantage: Filling the blank spots on the map of genome diversity in Europe. GigaScience, Volume 11, 2022, giac081, https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giac081

Posted 10/23/22

Education Professor Gets Award From Haitian Studies Association

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice Professor Charlene Desir, Ed.D., has been selected to receive the 2022 Award for Service by the Haitian Studies Association (HSA).

Charlene Desir, Ed.D.

Desir was presented with the HSA Service Award at the Association’s 34th Annual Conference in Washington D.C.

The award honors a person or organization in recognition of years of dedication and service to the Haitian Studies Association, the field of Haitian Studies, or to the people of Haiti.

“The steadfast commitment you have shown to the academic, psycho-social and spiritual development of Haitian immigrants and other disenfranchised populations in both the U.S. and Haiti have earned you this special recognition,” the organization said.

Desir has been a part of the organization since she was a first year-student in college at Tufts University. She went on to serve as the HSA’s youngest president in 2012.

She said she first encountered them while walking on campus after a rather dejecting experience in class.

“And I saw a sign that said, ‘Haitian Studies Association, an Academic Conference on the Study of Haiti’ and I walked in. I just walked in; I wasn’t registering– nothing. I walked in and sat down. And that’s how it began. And I stayed there until this day.”

Desir said the association has been there for pivotal moments of her academic career, through the earning of her degrees and she even published her first paper in their journal.

The organization also witnessed the start of Desir’s Emerging Scholars program.

“It’s a mentoring program for undergrad and graduate students in the U.S. and Haiti that want to be an academic and study Haitian issues as part of their work,” she said.

The program is now in its 10th year, and some of the scholars even came out to watch Desir receive her honor.

Overall, Desir said the honor was incredibly special to her.

“As an academic, to be recognized for service was really important for me, because we’re expected to publish, we’re expected to research, we’re expected to teach and to give back and to be recognized as one of the people that gave back to the institution — this academic institution, and it was recognized that I created an academic legacy plan for the organization, I think was profound.”

Congratulations Charlene Desir and thank you for all your hard work!

Posted 10/23/22

Book Drive Benefits Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Awareness

From left, Amanda Perry, student in the Master of Science in speech-language pathology, Raquel Garcia, assistant professor of the Department of Speech Language Pathology, and Vanessa Lewinsky, student in the Master of Science in speech-language pathology.

September was Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) awareness month. The NICU is a critical care unit that services premature infants, as young as 21 weeks gestational age, and term infants with a variety of medical conditions. Reading to babies in the NICU has been shown to support baby’s brain growth, motoric development, and sensory experiences. Additionally, it promotes parent bonding, reduces infants/parental stress, and creates positive sensory experiences for the developing infant.

Raquel Garcia, SLP.D., CCC-SLP, CLC, CNT, BCS-S, an assistant professor in the Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences Department of Speech-Language Pathology, is a trained speech-language pathologist, and certified neonatal therapist. She completed a social media drive for board books to donate to community hospitals in honor of NICU awareness month.

Garcia’s goal was to collect 30 board books in 30 days. By October 1, 2022, Garcia collected more than 250 board books in English, Spanish, and Haitian-Creole. Garcia has already donated 50 board books to hospitals impacted by Hurricane Ian, Tampa General Hospital, and University Hospital on NSU’s Campus.

Interested in learning more about reading in the NICU and/or donating board books to Dr. Garcia, please email her at rw602@nova.edu.

Posted 10/23/22

NSU Honored for Its Bee-Sustaining Efforts

NSU was recently named a Bee Campus USA affiliate.

“This award is a direct result of the combined efforts of the entire team working to increase our sustainability efforts across the campus, with special thanks to our Student Sustainability Coordinator, Tatum Hedrick, who worked diligently to ensure NSU received this award,” said Seth Mangasarian, Physical Plant Director for NSU’s Office of Facilities Management.

Bee City USA and Bee Campus USA are initiatives of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, with offices across the country. Bee City USA’s mission is to galvanize communities and campuses to sustain pollinators by providing them with healthy habitat, rich in a variety of native plants, and free of pesticides. Pollinators such as bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees, honey bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds, and many others are responsible for the reproduction of almost 90 percent of the world’s flowering plant species and one in every three bites of food we consume.

“The program aspires to make people more PC—pollinator conscious, that is,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces’ executive director. “If lots of individuals and communities begin planting native, pesticide-free flowering trees, shrubs and perennials, it will help to sustain many, many species of pollinators.”

According to Bee Campus USA coordinator Laura Rost, “How each city or campus completes the steps to conserve pollinators is up to them. Affiliates play to their own strengths, designing pesticide reduction plans, improving habitat, and holding events ranging from garden tours to native plant giveaways to bee trivia nights.”

For more information about Bee Campus USA, visit https://www.beecityusa.org/

Posted 10/23/22

NSU Researchers Helping Save Coral Reefs

Amanda Zummo (NSU graduate research assistant) treats diseased corals in the Dry Tortugas as a grouper looks on. Photo: Karen Neely

Corals in Florida have been heavily impacted by a disease that has moved through the reef tract since originating near Miami in 2014. The disease, termed Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) causes lesions that move quickly across affected coral colonies, often killing them within weeks. The disease reached Dry Tortugas National Park in summer of 2021, and response teams at the Park continue efforts to mitigate the impacts. They got assistance this fall from two research cruises focused specifically on helping diseased corals.

Scientific divers mix a medicinal paste used to treat diseased corals. Photo: Karen Neely

Led by Keys-based scientists with Nova Southeastern University (NSU), the missions included 17 scientific divers from NSU, Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, and the University of the Virgin Islands. Much of the funding was provided by a Coral Emergency Response Fund established by NOAA and the National Fish and Wildlife Federation; additional funds came from the National Park Service and donated staff time by the collaborating institutions.

Divers spent nearly 250 hours underwater carefully surveying an area larger than 20 football fields. Corals with SCTLD lesions were treated with a medical paste that is applied by hand onto the diseased tissue. The paste has been used on nearly 20,000 diseased corals in Florida and is also used on corals elsewhere in the Caribbean. Treated corals monitored for over three years in Florida show high survivorship after treatments.

The divers on the Dry Tortugas missions treated more than 6,000 corals. Most were located at a high-priority reef near Loggerhead Key, known for its high coral cover and diversity. But divers also focused efforts on areas around Fort Jefferson, which are popular with snorkelers and those walking the moat wall within the National Park. All of these efforts are expected to help preserve these corals, along with the fisheries habitat, aesthetic value, and reproductive capacity they provide for the future of Florida’s reefs.

Posted 10/23/22

USchool Student Receives Top Review Recognition

Haleigh Mish

We are proud to announce that junior Haleigh Mish, who is on our NSU University School Cappies team and serves as a theatre critic for shows at schools in Broward and Palm Beach counties, was selected as the TOP review for J.P. Taravella High School’s Radium Girls play.

Haleigh received top recognition out of 47 student reviews and is featured on the Florida Theatre On Stage website: http://www.floridatheateronstage.com/cappies/

Learn more about NSU University School’s college preparatory program for students in Preschool – Grade 12 at www.uschool.nova.edu.

Posted 10/23/22

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