Halmos Student and Faculty Publish Sea Grass Article in Conjunction with USGS

This spring, Halmos Graduate student Erin M. Smith, with principle investigator (PI) Amy Hirons, Ph.D., co-PIs Dimitrios Giarikos, Ph.D. and Andre Daniels published an article entitled, “Heavy Metal Accumulation in Seagrasses in Southeastern Florida” in the Journal of Marine Biology and Oceanography.

Seagrass beds are among the most ecologically important systems in the marine environment. Seagrass environments also serve as critical habitat at some point in the life cycle of many species targeted for recreational and commercial fishing, as well as a major food source in the coastal ecosystem, with over 154 marine species known to feed on living seagrass. This provides a pathway for contaminants in the seagrasses to enter the marine food web. This study assessed the heavy metal concentrations in the three main seagrass species found in southeastern Florida seagrass beds.

The results show that the seagrasses in southeastern Florida waters do contain various concentrations of heavy metals. Higher concentrations of heavy metals were found during the wet season, while Zinc in seagrasses was at significantly higher concentrations during the dry season. The research detected that heavy metals were highest in leaves with attached epiphytes. Epiphytes in marine systems are species of algae, bacteria, fungi, sponges, and any other sessile organism that grows on the surface of a plant, typically seagrasses or algae. These epiphytes on southeastern Florida seagrasses contribute to heavy metals.

Seagrass beds provide important habitat for a wide range of marine species. Especially important in south Florida is the impact these beds have on sea turtles and manatees.

Hirons and Giarikos are faculty with Halmos College. Daniels is with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) which is located in the NSU Center for Collaborative Research on the Fort Lauderdale/Davie campus.

Counseling Association Newsletter Publishes two Articles by NSU Students

Two graduate students from NSU College of Psychology M.S. in Counseling program recently wrote articles that were published in the Winter 2020 newsletter of the Florida Association for Multi-Cultural Counseling and Development (FAMCD) a division of the Florida Counseling Association.

An article by Bruce Steinberg titled “A Patchwork of Protections” covered the patchwork of civil rights that members of the LGBTQ+ community face in Florida due to a lack of protections at the state or federal level. An article by Alessandro Antonucci titled “Immigrants in Therapy: Unique Challenges, Extraordinary Resilience” discussed the challenges that immigrants and refugees face when settling and adjusting to life in a new country. Both articles emphasized the need for counselors to understand these issues while providing therapy to clients from diverse backgrounds.

Assistant Professor Justin Maki, Ph.D., LPC, NCC, encouraged his students to submit articles to the FAMCD newsletter.

“I’m very proud of both of these students and their contributions to the newsletter, as well as for representing NSU and the Department of Counseling,” Maki said.

To read the newsletter articles, visit https://bit.ly/2z1SM9Z.

Educating Today’s Youth in a Career in Respiratory Therapy

The Department of Cardiopulmonary Sciences hosted two Palm Beach County public schools to NSU’s Palm Beach campus. Both of these events were focused on educating middle and high school students about a career in respiratory therapy. Approximately 50 students from L.C. Swain Middle School and Inlet Grove High School, enrolled in Pre-Medical Sciences program through Palm Beach Public Schools who attended this year’s career event.

At the event the students developed experience performing CPR on a high-fidelity simulator, intubate mannequins with an artificial airway, listen to breath sounds, and check oxygen saturations. For the students it was a great opportunity to interact with NSU current Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Therapy students who assisted at various stations. They all were extremely engaged, and everyone seemed to enjoy the overall experience.

The teachers from both programs stated how grateful they were for this opportunity, and how they would like to schedule this again as a potential annual event. The need for respiratory therapists amplified in the present-day Covid-19 crisis to engage and manage ventilators, which made this event more important and captivating for future career events to all who attended.

Sea Turtles Able To Nest In Peace As COVID-19 Empties Broward Beaches

Orders to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic mean people aren’t allowed on the beaches in Broward County. Derek Burkholder, Ph.D., Halmos College Research Scientist and director of the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program, explains there’s an upside to that for marine life:

“One of the things that we’re experiencing with having our beaches closed to the public, is that it does kind of open up opportunities for our sea turtles,” Burkholder said.

Three different types of sea turtles come to lay their eggs on Broward beaches: leatherbacks come first. There are about a dozen nests so far, Burkholder said. Any day now the loggerheads should start laying their eggs — they make up the most nests in Broward. Later in the season, green sea turtles will make some nest, too. Loggerheads that come ashore in Broward County usually leave about 50 percent of the time, Burkholder said.

“For whatever reason, maybe they don’t like the conditions, maybe there’s not enough sand or maybe there’s too bright a light, or somebody running down the beach with a camera taking their picture … something might spook them back into the water without laying a nest. That’s what we call a ‘false crawl,’ he said. “For me it’ll be interesting to see what the loggerheads do and if we get a higher nest ratio to the false crawls, without a lot of people out there … If you don’t have quite as much trash on the beach, if you don’t have as many beach chairs on the beach and things like that they’re running into, then we might see more favorable conditions for these animals.”

Even though the beaches are closed to the public, the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program will continue to monitor the 24 miles of beach every day.

NSU’s Faculty, Alumna, and Graduate Student Publish in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship

Kelly Concannon and Janine Morris (CAHSS Associate and Assistant Professors), Writing & Communication Center Faculty Coordinators, along with CAHSS Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Master’s student Nicole Chavannes and alumna Veronica Diaz (both WCC graduate assistant coordinators at the time) published “Cultivating Emotional Wellness and Self-Care through Mindful Mentorship in the Writing Center,” in WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 44, no. 5-6.

Building from a month-long commitment to mindfulness and self care project conducted in fall 2018, the authors suggest how, “administrators can implement mindfulness practices,” and that “setting in motion mindfulness practices with writing center tutors cultivates more effective working relationships in [writing centers].” The article takes readers through a journey of practicing mindfulness through the eyes of the authors, as it goes on to detail the week by week experiences the four encountered. The article ends with strategies for bringing mindful mentorship into writing centers, such as encouraging communication and sharing self-care goals among each other.

“I enjoyed working with Dr. Morris, Dr. Concannon, and Nicole on this project. As our mentors, Dr. Morris and Dr. Concannon offered us continuous support in our efforts to establish our own mentorship responsibilities. Our work together on this project pushed me to reassess my understanding of personal and professional ‘self-care,’ and as a result, made me a more present mentor to my fellow consultants,” said Diaz.

Learn more about the M.A. in Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media here.

Halmos College Research Group Announces Publication of a Special Issue of Frontiers in Marine Science

The DEEPEND Consortium is excited to announce the publication of a special issue of Frontiers in Marine Science, focusing on the results of their research over the past 5 years. The special issue will be titled: “Deep-Pelagic Ecosystem Dynamics in a Highly Impacted Water Column: The Gulf of Mexico After Deepwater Horizon.” It begins with a description of DEEPEND, including the overall aims, approaches, and rationale for studying the patterns and processes of the oceanic Gulf of Mexico as related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, followed by a detailed methodology paper, data from which the bulk of DEEPEND studies were derived.

Overarching topics in this 16-paper special edition include:

  • Pelagic community abundance and distribution (encompassing microbial biota, pelagic crustaceans, cephalopods, and fishes),
  • Time-series analysis (encompassing petrogenic contamination, assemblage structure, and population genetics),
  • Environmental drivers,
  • Taxonomy (new species discoveries), and
  • Trophic interactions.

These research papers also encompass cross-cutting themes of biodiversity, connectivity, behavior, diel vertical migration, carbon flux, the biological pump, anthropogenic impact, and the epipelagic zone as nursery habitat for both shallow- and deep-living taxa.

Halmos has two members on the issue’s editorial staff, Dr. Tracey Sutton (Lead Editor) and Dr. Joe Lopez (Contributing Editor). To learn more about DEEPEND’s Special Edition in Frontiers of Marine Science and to view the published articles, visit: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/10575/deep-pelagic-ecosystem-dynamics-in-a-highly-impacted-water-column-the-gulf-of-mexico-after-deepwater.

School Psychology Students Launch Self-Care Flyers

 

Offers tips for dealing with COVID-19 pandemic

What started out as a directed study project for School Psychology doctoral students Catalina Uribe and Catherine Ivey turned into an effort to spread awareness of self-care techniques during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ivey said the spread of COVID-19 made them reconsider what direction their work could go in instead of a directed study. Ivey said they decided to adapt a five factor self-care wellness model into flyers to share on social media. The flyers outline self-care activities that can be performed from home as people engage in self-isolation to help curb the spread of the virus.

Uribe said the goal with the flyers was to collect information backed by research and present it in a way that wasn’t daunting to the audience. As the project develops, Uribe and Ivey said they might create videos and use other social media channels.

“Some people don’t have strong support systems, especially students at the graduate level,” Ivey said. “That loneliness and isolation can be mentally crippling.”

 

The flyers are available on tumblr: https://feelgoodflyer.tumblr.com/.

Full story: https://psychology.nova.edu/news-events/2020/cop-feelgood.html.

Halmos Researchers Battle Coral Disease with Human Drug

What started as a coral disease outbreak near Miami in 2014 has since spread throughout most of the Florida Reef Tract as well as to some other parts of the Caribbean. The disease has been termed “Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.” Experts are working to determine the pathogen that causes the disease, but it is known to spread through the water, and most scientists involved in the collaborative efforts suspect it is bacterial because of how it responds to antibiotics.

Research collaborations among numerous agencies and institutions are following multiple pathways. These include genetic studies to identify the pathogen and to assess how corals respond physiologically, laboratory studies on transmission and progression rates, development of pharmaceutical products for treatment, and considerations for creating healthier environments for corals to heal. “I think there’s a lot of similarities between how we should be treating coral diseases and how we should be treating human diseases,” Halmos Research Scientist Karen Neely, Ph.D. said.

In a race to save the remaining corals, researchers have been treating already-infected coral colonies with a paste combined with amoxicillin. A Spectrum News crew accompanied the group during a day of field work at Looe Key Reef, one of the most coral dense regions in the Florida Keys. The video can be viewed online at https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2020/02/27/researchers-try-to-slow-disease-destroying-atlantic-reef.

“Most of the time, scientists and marine biologists spend a lot of time documenting declines of ecosystems. We’re actually some of the few that are lucky enough to be able to get out here and try to do something about it,” Neely said.

At Looe Key Reef, the scientists have saved over 800 corals. Additional work at eight other sites has brought the team’s tally of treated corals to over 1500. Other efforts by teams in Biscayne National Park and Southeast Florida bring the total to over 2000. Neely is unsure how the reefs would have fared if not for their intervention efforts. “We were out here a couple of weeks ago, and as we looked around, we realized everything here was either dead or had been treated by us,” she said.

Education Alum Named Superintendent of Bangs Independent School District

Joshua Martin, Ed.D., graduate of NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice has been named the new superintendent for the Bangs Independent School District (Texas).

Dr. Martin has been a Texas educator for 18 years. In that time, he has served as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, principal, and Special Programs director. Recently, he was Chief Academic Officer at Farmersville Independent School District, in Farmersville, Texas. In each of these roles, he has been driven to work towards finding and cultivating the best within his students by mentoring teachers and campus administrators to provide the best learning environments possible.

Dr. Martin’s projected start date is April 16. He earned his Doctor of Education in 2011 with FCE&SCJ.

 

COM Outlook Earns Top Honors in AACOM Excellence in Communications Awards Program

In March, NSU’S Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine’s COM Outlook magazine captured the first-place prize in the best magazine category in the national American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) Excellence in Communications (EIC) Awards Program.

“Winning this award is a wonderful achievement,” said Scott Colton, B.A., APR, director of medical communications and public relations for the osteopathic medicine college and the Health Professions Division. “It takes a truly collaborative effort to create each issue of COM Outlook, which makes winning the award especially gratifying.”

Colton, who spearheads the magazine’s editorial content, credits the talented team from NSU’s Office of Publications and Creative Services for playing a major role in the magazine’s award-winning success. “It truly is a pleasure to work with such wonderful colleagues who complement the magazine’s journalistic strength with their artful mix of editing, design, and art direction.”

AACOM’s EIC Awards Program is designed to recognize the important role communications plays in advancing osteopathic medical education and the profession. It also seeks to inspire higher levels of performance among its members.

 

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