Category: SharkBytes

Education Alumna Named Michigan Teacher of the Year; Appointed to the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council

Cara Lougheed, M.A.

Cara Lougheed, M.A., graduate of NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice (FCE&SCJ), has been named the 2019-2020 Teacher of the Year by the Michigan State Department of Education and appointed by Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to the Governor’s Educator Advisory Council.

She has taught English language arts and history for 21 years in Rochester Community Schools, beginning at Rochester High School in 1998. Over the years, Cara has been a social studies teacher leader, a building activities director, union building representative, and a national delegate representing Rochester at the NEA Representative Assembly each summer. She has worked collaboratively with colleagues and administrators over the years to create and write curriculum and to design an attendance incentive program for students.

Additionally, Cara is an advisory member of Oakland University’s (Rochester, Michigan) Vision 20/20 committee, which seeks the input of classroom teachers in making clearer connections and building relationships between the pre-k-12 and university communities. Currently, she is a student intern and mentor liaison to Oakland University and works in partnership with TeachingWorks and the Michigan Program Network (MiPN) to advance and improve teacher education in Michigan. This collaboration has led to the adoption by the Michigan Department of Education of “Core Teaching Practices” for teacher prep programs in Michigan.

Cara earned her M.A. in Teaching and Learning in 2001 with the FCE&SCJ.

Halmos College Alumna Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative Chair

Jamie Monty is the new (and a former) manager of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Ecosystem Conservation Area (Coral ECA). She serves as chair of the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative (SEFCRI) Team.

Jamie completed her master’s degree at Nova Southeastern University in coral reef restoration, using corals of opportunity, coral nurseries, and integrated stakeholder involvement. She started with DEP in 2005, assisting with the management of four aquatic preserves and revising the North Fork St. Lucie River Aquatic Preserve Management Plan. She joined CRCP in 2008 as the Fishing, Diving, and Other Uses coordinator, was promoted to assistant manager, and served as manager from 2012-2015. She was the lead developer of the Our Florida Reefs Community Planning Process.

Since her time with DEP’s CRCP, Jamie went on to serve as the section chief for Miami Dade County Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) Restoration and Enhancement Section, where she oversaw the coral and artificial reef, beach renourishment, seagrass, water quality and coastal restoration programs. While at DERM, she served as a SEFCRI team member in a local government seat, and as vice chair of that stakeholder group. Most recently, Jamie worked as a senior project manager for the environmental consulting firm Coastal Systems International, where she led coral mitigation, coral disease and coastal resilience projects for government agency clients.

In addition to Jamie’s education, experience and dedication to the goals of DEP’s CRCP and SEFCRI programs, her genuine and warm nature when interacting with CRCP staff, SEFCRI Team/Technical Advisory Committee (TAC)/Vice Chairs, and the public make her an asset. The broader experience she brings to CRCP will surely assist both CRCP and SEFCRI in achieving their goals. Jamie is excited to be back at the helm and to have the opportunity to continue working with Coral ECA stakeholders to balance the use and protection of Southeast Florida’s coral reef resources.

Halmos Faculty Session Leader at International Earth Biogenome Project (EBP) Conference

This past August, Halmos faculty member Jose Lopez, Ph.D. was the session leader for the Global Invertebrate Genome Alliance/Community of Scientists (GIGA) at the broader Earth Biogenome Project (EBP) Conference. The conference session gathered experts who discussed their research and recent advances that included full genome sequencing of invertebrate taxa such as Cnidaria, Mollusks, Placozoa, and Planaria.

The annual conference was held at historic Rockefeller University in New York City and was designed to further advance the mission of the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP) and Earth BioGenome Project.

Additionally, for the first time during the Annual Meeting, the Earth BioGenome Project (EBP) will partner with GIGA in a joint effort to engage and integrate with other large-scale genome projects, including previous G10K partnerships with B10K, Bat1K, GAGA and GIGA for non-insect invertebrates as well as other EBP-affiliated projects. The Earth Genome Project plans to eventually sequence all 1.5 million animals, plants and protists.

For more information: https://www.earthbiogenome.org/

Halmos Faculty Organize Tiny Earth Conference

This July, Halmos faculty member Aarti Raja, Ph.D. from the Department of Biological Sciences co-organized the annual Tiny Earth symposium with researchers from around the world. Faculty members Aarti Raja, Ph.D. and Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D.  then traveled to the Tiny Earth National Conference at the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery, Madison, WI. They were invited to present their research at the conference. Dr. Raja’s talk was entitled, “Tiny Earth at NSU: Journey from Classroom-based Research to Independent Research”. Dr. Torruellas Garcia’s talk was “Beyond Antibiotics: Targeting Bacterial Virulence Factors”.

Tiny Earth was launched in 2018, however it began six years earlier when Dr. Jo Handelsman (former scientific advisor to Barack Obama) founded a course—then called “Microbes to Molecules”—at Yale University with the goal of addressing both the antibiotic crisis and the shortage of science trainees. In short order, the course grew and became a part of a larger initiative until Handelsman returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and launched Tiny Earth in collaboration with its hundreds of partners worldwide.

CAHSS Faculty Presents at the Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society in Portugal

Elena Bastidas, Ph.D., faculty in the Depart of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), presented at the Fourteenth International Conference on The Arts and Society in Portugal. The conference was held at the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon. Her co-presenter was her daughter, Victoria Luzuriaga, a student studying art and psychology at The New School in NYC.

Bastidas and Luzuriaga presented their work on “Art as a Way of Facilitating Social Change Processes.” The presentation focused on Social Polygraphy, a methodology used to facilitate social processes. Using case studies from Bastidas’ work on youth peacebuilding efforts in Colombia, Luzuriaga dissected the methodology using arguments from the arts and psychology that helped the audience get a better understanding of the effectiveness of this methodology for conflict resolution efforts that depend on social change.

Bastidas’ research and teaching interests include quantitative methodology, conflict and international development, environmental conflict, and gender analysis in international development. She is also the director of the M.S. and Graduate Certificates in DCRS.

Impressions magazine Honored with Award

The College of Dental Medicine’s Impressions magazine was honored with the Silver Scroll Division 2 Award for Most Improved publications for the Spring and Fall 2018 editions in the Dental Journalism Awards sponsored by the International College of Dentists (ICD), USA Section.

The award was presented to Impressions Managing Editor Oline H. Cogdill during the annual seminar meeting of the American Association for Dental Editors & Journalists (AADEJ) held in San Francisco during September. This is the second time Impressions has been honored by the ICD. The magazine received the Honorable Mention for Outstanding Cover for the Summer 2016 edition in the Dental Journalism Awards. The Dental Journalism Awards is one of the ICD’s longest ongoing projects and is in its 48th year of competition. The awards are open to any English language dental publication throughout the world.

NSU Alumnus Gives Strangers a Second Chance at Life

Zachary Lechette Image courtesy of the City of Gastonia.

Making the choice to become a living donor isn’t for everyone, but for Zachary Lechette, Ph.D., it’s been a rewarding one. Lechette, an alumnus of NSU’s Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice has had the opportunity to give two strangers a second chance at life through organ donation. Lechette, who has served as a police officer since he was 20 years old and received his Ph.D. in Criminal Justice at NSU (’18), believes that helping people is in his blood…

Click here for the full story.

CAHSS Faculty and Students Present Guns, Grief, and Family Therapy: After School Shootings at AAMFT Conference in Austin, TX

Anne Rambo, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Family Therapy (DFT) in NSU’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), and 3 DFT students conducted an Institute at the 2019 American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) Conference. The Institute was entitled, “Guns, Grief, and Family Therapy: After School Shootings.” The conference was held in Austin, TX.  The three students included Alexandra Alfaro, Elizabeth Jarquin, and Porshia Cunningham.

Rambo also directs DFT’s master’s and graduate certificate programs and has extensive experience working with at-risk children and families. She has written three books for professionals, and one for parents, as well as numerous book chapters and articles and presents internationally on social justice and family therapy.

Halmos Faculty Consults For ‘Choral’, a Coral Art Installation in Chicago

On August 5, 2019, localStyle’s video art installation Choral began its two-month exhibition run at 150 North Riverside Plaza in Chicago, Illinois. The artists who designed the public art installation consulted with coral experts from Northwestern University, Shedd Aquarium, and Halmos faculty member Ph.D., Timothy Swain to learn about corals, current coral research, and the threats that coral reefs face worldwide.

The title ‘Choral’ is a homophonic pun because the artists see corals as the ‘voice of the Anthropocene’, the current geological age where human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and global ecology. In the Anthropocene, corals face a diversity of threats including the potential collapse of coral reef ecosystems globally due to oceanic heating caused by anthropogenic climate change. An interview that explains the background and motivations for the project and a short video can be found at https://150mediastream.com

NSU Assistant Professor Awarded the 2019 Recipient of Fredric Rosemore Low Vision Educational Grant

So-Yeon Sharon Lee, OD

The American Academy of Optometry Foundation (AAOF), in collaboration with the Fredric and Marion Rosemore Family Foundation, are pleased to announce the 2019 recipient of the Fredric Rosemore Low Vision Educational Grant.

So-Yeon Sharon Lee, OD, FAAO, Dipl-ABO, is an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University College of Optometry. She will receive a grant for her project, “Managing visual comfort and function in patients with low vision using Acuvue Oasys with Transitions contact lenses,” which is intended to improve the quality of life for the visually impaired. The grant is designed to enable institutions to provide care and support personnel directly related to the field of low vision.

Lee will be honored at the AAOF Celebration Luncheon during Academy 2019 Orlando and 3rd World Congress of Optometry joint meeting on October 23-27, 2019.
The American Academy of Optometry Foundation (AAOF) is a 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization that develops and provides financial support for optometric research and education in vision and eye health to improve patient clinical care and is an affiliate of the American Academy of Optometry.

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