Tag: Halmos College of Arts and Sciences

Halmos Student Presents at the Pi Sigma Alpha Virtual Conference

Angel Vasquez

Angel Vasquez, a student in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Institute, presented his research at the Pi Sigma Alpha National Student Research Conference. Pi Sigma Alpha is the National Political Science Honor Society and this year’s conference was held virtually.

“Participating in the Pi Sigma Alpha virtual conference allowed me to present my research to a scholarly audience and to experience academia firsthand,” he said. “This experience has informed me about other career options and piqued my interest in other fields within the social sciences. The feedback that I obtained from the panelists reviewing my research project has significantly improved it and is already guiding my future research interest.

“I was also glad to interact with peers from other colleges and hearing their interesting perspectives. I am deeply thankful for the professors of the Department of Humanities and Politics for their enthusiastic support and guidance, and I can only be excited to participate in next year’s Pi Sigma Alpha conference!”

NSU Writing Center Coordinators Co-host Annual Conference

Janine Morris, Ph.D., and Eric Mason, Ph.D., NSU Writing and Communication Center (WWC) faculty coordinators, co-hosted the 2021 Southeastern Writing Center Association (SWCA) annual conference along with members of the 2020-2021 SWCA board. Morris is an assistant professor and Mason is an associate professor in the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences. The conference was held virtually February 11-13, 2021.

The 2021 SWCA conference theme was “Trauma and Transformation,” and highlighted transformations writing center professionals and the field undertake during times of crisis and change. NSU WCC leadership and consultants presented on numerous panels and the conference had more than 400 participants from 50 institutions across the United States.

“It was a pleasure to plan and co-host the 2021 SWCA conference with my writing center colleagues from across the southeast region,” Morris said. “The conference was truly a collaborative endeavor, and I was thankful that so many people attended and had the opportunity to connect when meeting in person wouldn’t be possible.”

To learn more about SWCA, visit its website.

Learn more about the WCC here.

Halmos Music Masterclass Series Featured Industry Pros

During the Winter 2021 semester, the Department of Communication, Media, and the Arts (DCMA) in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences hosted a Music Masterclass Series featuring an array of workshops and guest lectures hosted by industry professionals.

Mihoko Watanabe

“The Music Masterclass Series was not only designed to enhance the learning experience of NSU’s music students, but rather expose the entire NSU community to a plethora of music topics and careers that exist within the music industry,” said DCMA Assistant Professor of Music Jessica Muñiz-Collado. “It was great having each of these guest artists meet with our students.”

Featured artists and industry professionals included:

  • Miguel Pilgram, an entrepreneur and owner of the NYSW Jazz Lounge, who discussed the business of music and the live music industry sector;
  • Miguel Merino, a drummer, linguist and educator, who discussed the culture of music in the Middle East and, specifically, Egyptian music;
  • Mihoko Watanabe, a flutist, professor of flute at Ball State University (where she received her doctorate degree), who discussed the vibrant music culture of Japan;
  • Andrew Maguire, a percussionist and a drummer for the traveling Hamilton Broadway production in Los Angeles, who discussed the musical theatre industry and good practicing methods;
  • And Pablo Mieglo, the artistic director and conductor for the Symphony of the Americas, who spotlighted the classical music industry.

During the Fall 2020 semester, the department also hosted game composers Ravi Krishnaswami and Jason Menkes, who gave a masterclass on composing music for video games.

For more information about NSU’s B.A. in Music program, click here.

Halmos Biologist Discusses Bacteria in Our Lives on Telemundo

This May, biology faculty member Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D. was interviewed by Antonio Texiera, host of the news show “Al Rojo Vivo” on the Spanish language network, Telemundo.  During the interview, Garcia shared the results of the types of bacteria that were identified from the inside of cars, on children’s toys and on sofas and rugs for the segment “Amenaza Escondida” or “Hidden Threats”.

In her three segments, she discussed the topics of bacteria in your living room furniture, on your children’s toys, and how cars can represent a source of bacterial infection. Each of these segments are available on YouTube. Click the headlines below to watch.

“Armchairs in the living room can hide large quantities of mold and bacteria, experts reveal”

“Hidden Threats: Excess bacteria found on children’s toys”

“Cars could represent a source of infection by transporting thousands of bacteria”

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.”

Halmos Professor Shares Expertise in Voting Rights

Charles Zelden

Charles Zelden, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Humanities and Politics (DHP) in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center and sought-after political expert, recently shared his expertise.

In an interview conducted by CBS4’s BoBeth Yates titled “Voting By Mail Becomes More Difficult Now,” Zelden was asked to comment on how the new Florida voting law will affect voters’ abilities to cast their ballots.

“They’re not making it impossible to vote, just more difficult,” he said. “So for example, the old rule was that you could register for a two-election cycle period to automatically receive an absentee ballot. Now, it is a one-year every cycle, you’ve got to re-register for.”

Zelden academic interests include American Constitutional History, Civil Rights, Legal Studies, and the Judicial Process.

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.

Student Wins Marine Industries Memorial Scholarship

This May, first-year marine science graduate student Megan McGrath – from the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences – was awarded the 6th annual Frank Herhold Memorial Scholarship from the Marine Industries of South Florida (MIASF). The award was recognized in the MIASF 60th Anniversary Annual Meeting and Awards Luncheon on May 20.

Megan McGrath

Megan’s research is on the presence of UV-filters in ambient seawater and tissue of Acropora cervicornis, and the possible impacts UV-filters have on coral fecundity, or fertility. With major advisor D. Abigail Renegar, Ph.D., Megan will be taking samples of A. cervicornis (Staghorn coral) from Nova Southeastern University’s offshore coral nursery, two locations managed by the Coral Restoration Foundation in the Florida Keys, as well as The Florida Aquarium. This is the first-time tests for UV-filters on coral reefs will be completed in mainland USA, and the first time ever UV-filters will be compared to A. cervicornis ability to reproduce.

Created in 1961, MIASF is a not-for-profit trade organization focused on the sound growth of the marine industry for the benefit of its members and their customers, local communities, and the environment. MIASF is comprised of more than 500 members in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties and is the owner of the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

Halmos Researchers Delve into Oil Spill Impacts on Coral Species

D. Abigail Renegar

This past winter, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences marine science researcher D. Abigail Renegar, Ph.D. with college alumnus Nicholas Turner, Ph.D. published a research paper entitled, “Species Sensitivity Assessment of Five Atlantic Scleractinian Coral Species to 1‑Methylnaphthalene” in Nature’s scientific reports.

This is the first publication of results from the Coral-Tox project, which was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The central objective of this project was to provide a foundation for science-based decision-making regarding oil spill response in coral reef environments.

This paper includes the first published species sensitivity distribution for stony corals, which indicate that the Atlantic staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis, was the most sensitive to hydrocarbon exposure of the five species tested. As staghorn coral is listed a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, this result is an important consideration in the oil spill response planning process. Future publications from this project will continue to transform our understanding of the impacts of spilled oil in coral reef environments.

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.

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