Category: SharkBytes

Education Graduate Authors Book on Overcoming Cancer

Alvin Haywood, Ed.D.

Alvin Haywood, Ed.D., graduate of NSU’s Abraham, S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice, recently authored his third book, “Take Up Your Bed and Walk: This is My Story!” a tale of how he overcame cancer.

Haywood was born in Vallejo, California, and attended public schools there from kindergarten through the community college level. Upon transferring to San Jose State University (CA), he later received undergraduate degrees in social work and psychology, a master’s degree in education, and teaching and administrative credentials.

After retirement from 34 years of elementary and middle school teaching and overcoming a bout with cancer in 2007, Haywood enrolled in Fischler’s doctorate program. His book focuses on personal stories of diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and Haywood’s optimistic outlook and faith.

Haywood is also the author of “Cultivating Early Reading Development: Reaping the Benefits of School Success” and “Students Loving Math: What’s Reading Got to do With It?”

He earned his Doctor of Education from NSU in 2015. For more information on his book, “Take Up Your Bed and Walk: This is My Story.”

Fischler College Spotlights Alumnus Ford Craig

Ford Craig

In 1991, Ford Craig received is Doctor of Education from the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice. Craig currently lives in Seward, Nebraska, with his wife Doris. They have two grown daughters, Jody and Jill. Doris and Ford help with raising their three wonderful granddaughters.

Craig been busy during his 50 years of full and part time work experience. He serves as an adjunct faculty member with Concordia University and served as a consultant evaluator for the North Central Accrediting Association. Additionally, he served as a manuscript evaluator for the Teaching English in the Two-Year College and was a member of the Midwest Regional Conference on English in the Two-Year College. In the 1970s, he began his career in education as an English and speech teacher for Palmer Public Schools and Saint Paul Public Schools. Over the years, Craig found success through varying academic positions with North Platte City Schools, McCook Community College, Mid-Plains Community College Area, and the University of Phoenix.

Craig earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English education from Wayne State College, a Master of Science in English education from Kearney State College, and a Specialist in Education in educational administration from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. During his spare time, Craig contributes to his community through numerous churches in his area, including the Presbyterian Church of York, Nebraska, and Friedens United Church of Christ in Seward, where currently is pastor.  You can also find him working on cars and writing. Currently, Craig is working on a narrative for genealogy on his side of the family. He also served as an editor of a two-part book series on the history of the Mid-Plains Community College area.

Although his career has been filled with many accomplishments, he is very proud of being presented with the Who’s Who Among American Teachers Award while at McCook Community College. Looking toward the future, Craig intends to experience the continued success of his career. Fins up to you Ford Craig!

Halmos Faculty Combine Art, Science in Presentation

For the past four years, Halmos College of faculty have been engaged in interdisciplinary efforts to combine science and art at NSU through a program where undergraduate art students visit the microbiology lab to learn how to use bacteria as “paint” and agar plates as their “canvas” to create agar art.

In June 2021, Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D., and Katie Crump, Ph.D., from the Department of Biological Sciences; Kandy Lopez Moreno, M.F.A., from the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts; and former NSU visiting professor Veronique Cote, M.F.A., presented their poster titled, “Creating an Interdisciplinary Curriculum within the Undergraduate Arts and Sciences Through Agar Art,” at the 2021 American Society for Microbiology’s Conference for Undergraduate Educators.

In their presentation, they shared the agar art curriculum including learning outcomes and assessment tools and discussed the benefits of integrating science into the arts. They have written a manuscript of their work that was submitted for publication in the Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education and is currently under review.

Theatre Alumna Returns to NSU to Serve as Directing Mentor

Actor, teaching artist, theatre director and NSU theatre alumna Jody-Ann Henry returned to her alma mater this winter to serve as directing mentor for the Stage 2 production of Sarah Delappe’s award-winning play “The Wolves,” which took place April 10-11 via Zoom. Henry, who serves as director of theater at Lithonia High School in Atlanta and as a moderator for the Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) Professional Learning Community for Middle School Theatre, graduated from the B.A. in Theatre program in 2011 and has a decade of teaching experience and more than 20 years of acting experience.

Jody-Ann Henry

“As directing mentor, Jody-Ann brings real-world knowledge about professional theatre from her own successful career,” said Bill Adams, professor of music and theatre voice for the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s a score for our students!”

“The Wolves” is a high-energy, high-impact play about coming of age in contemporary American society featuring members of a girls’ high school soccer team. The play examines in-depth issues of inclusion and exclusion, teamwork, acceptance and selectivity while challenging preconceived notions of girlhood and femininity.

To learn more about Stage 2, NSU’s student-managed theatre company housed within the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts, click here.

To learn more about the B.A. in Theatre program, click here.

NSU Grad Enjoys 15 Years at the Government Accountability Office

Gerard Aflague

July 2021 will mark Gerard Aflague’s 15-year work anniversary at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Aflague serves as a senior information technology analyst, where he primarily audits federal information technology (IT) systems and programs that generally benefit the American people by way of screening passengers boarding airplanes, delivering a variety of information to the American public via publicly accessible computers, and safeguarding criminal justice data for public safety use.

Through his congressional audit work, Aflague helps to answer questions Congress members seek to understand about federal IT programs by teaming up with other auditors to research, conduct interviews, report detailed findings and recommendations, and publish congressional reports to improve government operations and services to more than 300 million Americans.

In 2004, Aflague graduated from Nova Southeastern University (NSU) with a Master of Science in Management Information Systems from the College of Computing and Engineering. During that time, he also worked in Guam for the Customs and Quarantine Agency, where he was involved in international relations and capacity building for customs organizations in order to assist smaller island nations in utilizing IT to help better enforce laws, among other things.

When asked what one thing he could tell himself prior to attending NSU, Gerard replied, “Try to be as inquisitive as you can be with respect to the opportunities that IT can afford you. Realize that this field is not one size fits all, rather, there are thousands of careers and organizations offering employment. Keep your mind open; there’s not just one path you can take.”

Halmos Alumna Earns Doctoral Degree from University of Surrey, UK

Michelle Rushefsky

Michelle Rushefsky, Ph.D., 2012 graduate in International Studies and English in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center, was awarded a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.

Rushefsky’s thesis was titled “Horror Capriccios: (Re)imagining British Nineteenth-Century Fiction through the Veil of American Horror.”

She credits her undergraduate education at NSU for setting her on the path to this tremendous milestone in her academic career.

“NSU provided the initial freedom to explore different subjects which led me to the love of my life, literature,” she said. “Because of NSU, I continue to pursue academic achievement. The professors during my undergraduate years pledged support and fostered substantial academic rigor that inspired me not only as an early career researcher, but as an aspiring lecturer.”

Humanities Hosted 3rd Annual Crossroads Student Conference

On April 10, 2021, NSU’s Center for the Humanities hosted its 3rd Annual Crossroads Humanities Student Conference, under the direction of center director Aileen Farrar, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Humanities and Politics in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences (HCAS) and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center. Preparations for the conference included a series of pre-conference events, including a Digital Humanities Workshop, led by Sarah Stanley, M.A., the Digital Humanities Librarian of Florida State University; a Style Us “Conference Conventions & Etiquette Workshop,” part of the Department of Humanities and Politics Style Us: Writing and Professionalization Series; and a “Humanities to a Career in Tech” talk with Iris Nevins and Jasmine Haugabrook of the email marketing company, Mailchimp. Each event served as additional opportunities to connect students with the academic and professional applications of the humanities in our increasingly digital cultures.

This year’s conference theme, “Networks,” invited participants to explore diverse and interdisciplinary issues of networks and networking, from the social, political, and cultural to the technological, environmental, and biological. More than 150 members joined panels and events during this one-day virtual conference, including presenters and attendees from Greece, Indonesia, India, the UK, and all over the U.S., including Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Ohio, and Michigan. Undergraduate and graduate presenters represented a distinguished range of disciplinary studies from medicine and law to English, History, Political Science, Philosophy, Sociology, and more. The Center for Humanities was especially pleased to welcome peers from the “Making Diversity Meaningful in the Humanities: MDC-FIU Pathway Partnership.”

Adding to the day, two special guest speakers—Jessica Harvey, Project Manager of the Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, and Nina Schick, a political commentator and broadcaster who specializes in disinformation and technology and the author of Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse —delighted audiences with expansive perspectives on the growing need for humanities scholarship and skills in areas of conservation and politics, especially in an age of rapid technological advancement. Nina Schick’s talk, titled “Deepfakes and the Age of Synthetic Media,” was sponsored by the Department of Humanities and Politics’ Stolzenberg Doan International Studies Lecture Series.

At the end of the day, conference members gathered for the closing ceremonies. Three lucky winners of the Virtual Mural Raffle were awarded special Crossroads Conference grab bags. The pictures posted by Rachel Northrop from the University of Miami, Kate Poppenhagen from the University of Colorado Denver, and Greter Camacho Melian from Nova Southeastern University along with conference pictures posted by many other participants throughout the day can be viewed in the conference gallery: https://nsudhp.wixsite.com/crossroadsconference/gallery

The Crossroads Conference is also proud to announce the winners of the 2021 Digital Humanities Contest:

  • 1st Place – “A Different Image, Another Sound: Resistant Rhetoric and Black Identity” by Nhadya Lawes (U of Miami)
  • 2nd place – “A Meta-Analytic Review: The Implications of Virtual Reality with Immersion on Secondary Language Acquisition” by Dylan Darling and Greter Camacho Melian (NSU)
  • 3rd Place – “Griot to DJ: Remixing and Blending Globalizing Culture” by Sarah Djos-Raph (U of Louisiana at Lafayette)

Each project represents exemplary studies of impactful issues in digital humanities and will be posted to the Humanities Center website over the summer: https://hcas.nova.edu/humanities/.

The next Call-For-Papers for the Crossroads Humanities Student Conference (2022) will be released in Fall 2021. Ask to be added to our listserv for more updates by emailing humanities@nova.edu or follow us on Instagram @nsu_humanities.

Halmos Alumna Publishes on Everglades Marine Biology Research

From left, Kiersten Monahan, Dyane Oliva, and J. Matt Hoch

Kiersten Monahan

Kiersten Monahan, a 2019 alumna of the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences in marine biology, was published in the journal Florida Scientist this past winter for her research titled “Comparison of Phosphate Uptake by Epiphyton, Metaphyton, and eEpipelon in the Everglades.”

Monahan’s publication encompassed her Honors in Major thesis research with mentor and college faculty member J. Matthew Hoch, Ph.D. Her research took place in the Everglades, the largest remaining subtropical wilderness in the United States and the results of her research could aid understanding effects of phosphorus pollution in nutrient-polluted waters.

The Honors in Major program is a university-wide program administered by the Farquhar Honors College. It is a unique opportunity for high-performing NSU undergraduate students in their senior year.

Faculty Members Hold Discussion on Healthcare Management

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D.

Mark Jaffe, M.D.

With the COVID-19 pandemic showcasing disparities in our health care delivery system, a timely discussion titled “Who Should Manage Healthcare? A Conversation with
a Philosopher, a Clinician, and You” was presented on May 5, 2021 via Zoom to the members of the Lifelong Learning Institute by two Halmos College of Arts and Sciences Faculty.

Ben Mulvey, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Humanities and Politics who has been a member of the NSU faculty since 1988, and Mark Jaffe, M.D. associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who has been a member of the NSU faculty since 2004, presented their respective viewpoints and members of the audience weighed in with their own perspectives as the pair tackled the cost, quality and access of health care in the U.S. today.

NSU’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) was founded in 1977 and serves lifelong learning passions of retired adults. The LLI, a center within the College of Osteopathic Medicine, is located on NSU’s Fort Lauderdale East Campus. older-adult learning.

Pregnant Shark Migration Tracked from Space

This spring, Forbes Magazine published an article on an amazing international collaboration.

For the first time, researchers have been able to record in near real-time the migration of a pregnant scalloped hammerhead shark (Sphyrna lewini) from the Galápagos Islands in Ecuador to Isla del Coco in Costa Rica, located over 435 miles (700 kilometers) away.

This collaboration: the Charles Darwin Foundation’s shark ecology project, the Galapagos National Park Directorate (GNPD), Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, and Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University (USA) have teamed up to study the migrations and population genetics of the world’s largest scalloped hammerhead shark aggregation.

Scalloped hammerhead sharks are a globally endangered species. It inhabits different habitats throughout its life cycle, making information about their movement and use of habitat disjointed at best. Enter a special hammerhead shark: Cassiopeia. Measuring about 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long, this pregnant female was tagged in February of this year during an expedition to Darwin Island.

Satellite tracking data revealed that after swimming north of Darwin Island for about 10 days, Cassiopeia started swimming eat until she reached Isla del Coco. The trek Cassiopeia made between the two islands means she covered around 390 nautical miles (700 km) in just under 14 days, travelling an approximate of 28 nm (50 km) per day. While previous studies have documented inter-island movements of hammerheads using passive acoustic tags, the tags weren’t able to capture the precise pathways the sharks would take. With satellite tags, scientists were able to see exactly the route she went.

HCAS biology faculty member Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute and Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center stated, “The data being collected in this study will be key for establishing a flexible management system that provides this protection at precisely the right places and times.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2021/05/04/migration-of-a-pregnant-hammerhead-shark-documented-from-space/?sh=1b7e8fba5256

 

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