Faculty & Staff News
Fourth-year student Christopher Larrimore, M.Sc., received honorable mention recognition in the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine National Student Researcher of the Year Award competition. The award honors one winner and two honorable mentions who demonstrate excellence in research, as considered through their publication history and active involvement in research activities.
On February 15, the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine hosted its inaugural health exposition at the Tampa Bay Regional Campus as a way to provide students an opportunity to network and explore different medical specialties.
The event began with a speaker series, where physicians from various specialties spoke about why they chose medicine and their various career paths. Keynote speaker Ronald Burns, D.O., FACOFP, president of the American Osteopathic Association, highlighted the program’s second half. Burns discussed the osteopathic profession, as well as what it really means to be an osteopathic physician. In addition, he answered questions regarding the recent merger and the USMLE pass/fail exam.
The exposition ended with a networking social hour, where students were able to chat with the speakers, as well as learn about shadowing and research opportunities. The event, which helped many of the students gain insight into a variety of specialties, also served as a reminder of why they chose to pursue medicine in the first place.
APA
American Psychological Association
Washington DC
Catherine Grus, Ph.D., started her journey into the psychology world in high school, followed it into academia, and now is the newly appointed Chief Education Officer of the American Psychological Association.
Grus credited a high school psychology course and topics like perception for igniting her interest in the field. That led her to earning a B.A. in Psychology from Western New England College and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from NSU’s College of Psychology. Grus was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Miami’s School of Medicine for a decade and joined APA in 2005.
Grus said NSU faculty helped her direct her passion and prepared her to work in the field.
“I was fortunate to have so many professors who were experts in their areas, both in the courses they taught and in supervision,” Grus said. “I have really positive memories of the faculty, and I’m still in touch with many of them.”
Grus is no stranger to what the position entails, having assumed it on an interim basis in 2018. She said the position broadly covers all aspects of education, including increasing the quality of psychology education programs, accreditation, continuing education, and applying psychology to K-12 education.
Full story: https://psychology.nova.edu/news-events/2020/cop-grusapa.html
Christopher Ramirez, B.S
Christopher Ramirez, B.S., 2018 graduate of the Legal Studies program in the Department of History and Political Science (DHPS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), was a member of the winning mock trial team for Florida State University College of Law’s Black Law Students Association (BLSA). The team won first place in the Constance Baker Motley Mock Trial Competition at the Southern Region of the Black Law Students Association’s regional convention, held in Charleston, SC.
Ramirez is a first year law student at FSU. While at NSU, he was a member of the undergraduate Mock Trial Team and was a federal work student in DHPS. Gary Gershman, J.D., Ph.D., is the NSU Mock Trial Team coach.
Broward Mayor Dale V.S. Holmes, Willowstein Lawson, former regional coordinator for Senator Nelson, and Halmos College Dean Richard Dodge, Ph.D.
On Thursday, February 13, Black History Month was celebrated with the Broward Black Elected Officials (BBEO). Attending was Halmos College Dean Richard Dodge, Ph.D. The title of the event was “Forward Together Uniting the Diaspora”. This community event featured special presentations by Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Congressman Alcee L. Hastings.
BBEO is a not-for-profit organization created to galvanize Broward County’s black elected officials around socio-economic issues affecting those most impoverished in our community. Past-President Levoyd Williams and the team of elected officials at the time the organization was established, saw the need for a countywide collaborative effort as an effective strategy for leveraging solutions to help people living in underserved neighborhoods. Over the years, BBEO has continued its legacy of providing a wide range of resources to help the residents of Broward County.
Armando Rodriguez, Ed.D., Director of International Programs at NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice, visited with the Mariot Simon, Vice President of the University of Belize, and the Dean of the School of Education, Nestor Chan to discuss a potential partnership and cohort in Belize. Chan is an alumnus of FCE&SCJ’s doctoral program; he graduated in 2014.
While visiting, Rodriguez was able to attend an informal meetup with a few FCE&SCJ alumni, which over 70 call Belize home.
The Ambassador of Sweden to the US, Karin Olofsdotter, visited NSU on February 6, 2020. She met with President George Hanbury, Ph.D., and Interim Provost Ron Chenail, Ph.D. The Ambassador delivered a lecture on Sweden’s political system, economy, and society in Stephen Levitt’s LL.M., comparative government class of thirty students. Levitt is an associate professor in the Department of History and Political Science in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS).
According to Levitt, “The Ambassador’s visit was a highlight of the semester for the students. In her lecture, she highlighted features of Swedish government and society. The NSU students were able to compare and contrast Swedish government and society with what they have learned about government and society in the United Kingdom and Germany. The students enjoyed the lecture and asked many interesting questions.”
The Ambassador emphasized Sweden’s continued support for the European Union and the Swedish people’s warm relationship with the United States and its citizens. She was named Ambassador to the US on September 1, 2017. Previously she was the Director-General for Trade at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She also held the position of Deputy Director-General and Head of the Department for Promotion of Sweden, Trade, and CSR. Her career in the Foreign Service began in 1994 when she was posted to the Swedish Embassy in Moscow.
Ambassador Olofsdotter has affection for the US. She was a high school exchange student and later earned her B.A.in psychology, economics, and Russian from the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. She speaks English, French, and Russian.
Richard Ashworth, Pharm.D.
Walgreens Boots Alliance recently named NSU College of Pharmacy alumnus, Richard Ashworth, Pharm.D. (’99), President of Walgreens. Ashworth, who started at NSU when it was still known as Southeastern University, credits his ability to work his way up the ranks of Walgreens from stock boy to now President, partly to his time at NSU.
In a 2015 “SharksRx” Magazine interview, the 2014 Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award recipient said, “Pharmacy is all about helping patients achieve improved health and well-being.” He continued, “So it can’t be about tablets in a bottle…that’s not what pharmacy is about.” He concludes, “Pharmacy is about making a difference in people’s lives.”
Dean Clark said, “I am extremely proud of Dr. Ashworth for this accomplishment. It is exciting to see our Sharks dominate in the profession of pharmacy, taking on the leadership roles we envision for our students.”
Congratulations and thank you for being a shining example of what can be accomplished with the foundation laid by the NSU Edge and dedication to the profession of pharmacy, Richard!
To read the complete article from 2015, please click here
Writing and Communication Center (WCC) Faculty Coordinator, Janine Morris (CAHSS), and Administrative Coordinator, Nikki Chasten (CAHSS Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media Master’s Student), presented at the third annual Global Society of Online Literacy Educators (GSOLE) conference on January 31, 2020.
GSOLE is an international organization for online educators to connect with those who teach digital literacies in the areas of reading, alphabetic writing, and multimodal composition. The annual conference focuses on online literacy education, and discusses topics such as constraints and support for online literacy educators, best online classroom practices, visual and multimodal literacy enhancement, course and program accessibility, digital composition, and much more.
Morris presented results of a study supported by a 2017 CCCC Research Initiative Grant, alongside Catrina Mitchum (Arizona State University) and Marcela Hebbard (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). Their presentation, “Removing Virtual Boundaries: Student Backgrounds as Sites for Literacy Education” argued for the importance of getting to know students’ backgrounds in online courses to improve retention and literacy instruction.
Chasteen’s presentation, “Creating Collaborative Communities in Online Composition” discussed how online writing instructors can foster a sense of community among students by using collaborative pedagogy. “I have a strong passion for online instruction and I have made it the focus of my research in the Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital media program. It was an honor to present my findings to leaders in the field of online instruction,” said Chasteen.
View the 2020 GSOLE Conference Program: https://www.glosole.org/2020-conference-program.html
To learn more about the M.A. in Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media, visit: https://cahss.nova.edu/departments/wc/graduate/crdm/index.html
Fiorella Rossi, Ph.D., Deepesh Tourani, and Vlad Beljanski, Ph.D.
Researchers from NSU Cell Therapy Institute led by Dr. Vladimir Beljanski recently published a manuscript in the journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy in which they report novel therapeutic combinations with a goal to enhance therapeutic properties of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs). This enhancement has potential benefits for future application of stem cells in clinics. MSCs are adult stem cells most commonly isolated from bone marrow (BM) and are being increasingly tested in clinics in various therapeutic applications, including tissue regeneration. MSCs respond to excessive inflammation and secrete factors that have anti-inflammatory properties. However, the promise of therapies based on MSCs is somewhat hindered by their apparent modest clinical benefits, including the need to utilize a large number of cells in patients. Therefore, Dr. Beljanski’s team examined approaches that would make these cells more potent through therapies which would also reduce the number of cells needed in clinics. Specifically, his team examined how MSCs respond to stress by examining the stress-response mechanism called autophagy, which is activated when cells encounter a hostile environment.
His team targeted autophagy with drugs already used in clinics and then examined whether addition of drugs improved MSCs’ therapeutic efficacy. First, his team examined how MSCs respond to such drugs by looking at expression of genes known to be responsible for therapeutic benefits of MSCs. Then they performed experiments in which MSCs were “mixed” with activated immune cells isolated from healthy people to evaluate how the drugs affect the ability of MSCs to “deactivate” immune cells. Both in cases of gene expression and in experiments where cells were mixed, the team found favorable response when, in addition of MSCs, the drugs were also used. Furthermore, the research team found that application of drugs that target autophagy resulted in increase of several other molecules such as Programmed death-ligand 1, and secretion of an enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, both of which are known to potently decrease inflammation.
The findings of this scientific study indicated that autophagy can be targeted to enhance MSCs therapeutic properties and it has the potential to be applied in the development of other cell-based therapies. NSU would like to thank the National Institute of Health for funding this research and making it possible to expand the future of scientific research at our university.
About National Institute of Health (NIH): The NIH is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It serves as the nation’s premier federal medical research agency and is involved in conducting and funding medical research that improve the lives of people. The NIH consists of 27 different Institutes and Centers. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the NIH under Award Number R15GM128189.
The content in this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.