Tag: Halmos College of Arts and Sciences

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.

Researchers Continue Algal Bloom Study on Lake Okeechobee

From left, Robert Smith, Viviana Mazzei, and Emily Karwack with the United States Geological Survey, and Lauren Krausfeldt and Jose Lopez with Nova Southeastern University.

Since 2019, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences (HCAS) faculty member Jose Lopez, Ph.D., has been co-leading an Army Corps of Engineers-funded project with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to better understand the blue green (cyanobacterial) algae dynamics. These algae are at the heart of many of these harmful algal blooms (HABs) and microbial communities in the Lake Okeechobee watershed. After a couple of years of relative calm with no massive harmful algal blooms, the blue green algal communities have now made their presence known again in a big way.

Lopez, along with faculty and students from Florida Gulf Coast University, USGS, and the South Florida Water Management District, has continued the project using artificial mesocosms. These controlled outdoor experiments at the Franklin Lock test the effects of adding nitrate, ammonium, urea or phosphorus supplements to an environment. In addition to this work, the group conducts monthly environmental water sampling across Lake Okeechobee.

“The artificial mesocosm experiments are based on taking Caloosahatchee River water and placing it into large replicate cylinders, which essentially creates a closed system for systematic study,” Lopez said. This also allows the team to add various nutrient supplements to the natural river water communities and monitor the effects physiologically and allows the group to see which genes are activated without degrading the surrounding habitats.

Lopez’s laboratory at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center has been applying deep “-omics” techniques (metagenomics/metatranscriptomics approaches with deep DNA sequencing) to better understand the microbial community dynamics and drivers that could lead to HABs. HCAS assistant researcher Lauren Krausfeldt, Ph.D., has conducted most of the metagenomic analyses for the project. The large cache of genomic data will likely provide important baselines and references, adding richer context for future comparisons and possible HAB predictions.

This research is funded in part by the Army Corps of Engineers to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NSU via the Caribbean Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit.

 

NSU Research Focuses on Elusive, Vulnerable Big Cat: The Leopard

Credit: Nikolay-Zinoviev

The majestic leopard – the only great cat species (Genus Panthera) to roam about both Africa and Asia today – is classified as highly vulnerable by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). An international team involving scientists from Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Nottingham Trent University, the University of Cambridge, University of Leicester in U.K. and the University of Potsdam in Germany hope to improve that status.

Because of its elusive nature, and its adaptation to multiple landscapes (rain forest, savannah, deserts and mountain sides) an accurate estimation of their global census has not been possible.

Using the latest technologies of population ecology and molecular evolution, researchers sampled the genome DNA sequence of 23 individual leopards from eight geographically separated subspecies locales. Ancient DNA sequences for 18 archival specimens along with five living leopards were combined to refine our understanding of the leopard’s movements, population reductions, divergence and isolation, and over the past half million years.

The new study was published in Current Biology in May.

 “This study changes everything about genetic contributions to conservation management of the world’s leopards, particularly the highly threatened Amur leopard,” said Stephen J. O’Brien, Ph.D., a professor and research scientist in NSU’s Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, who is a collaborating author and also led the genetic analyses the Florida panther restoration two decades ago.

O’Brien, is also the Chief Scientific Officer at the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

See full story.

Students Win Awards at Microbiology Conference

In March 2021, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences biology faculty member Julie Torruellas Garcia, Ph.D. co-organized the 2021 Florida and Southeastern Branches of the American Society for Microbiology Joint Virtual Meeting. This meeting was well attended by microbiology researchers from across the southeastern region of the United States.  Garcia and fellow biology faculty member Robert Smith, Ph.D. attended the virtual conference to support their research students who gave presentations.

Garcia mentored Chloe Barreto-Massad, a ninth grade student at the American Heritage School, in her research project entitled, “Using antiSMASH to Compare Antimicrobial Genes of Commensal E. coli (Normal Flora) to Pathogenic E. coli” who was awarded second place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation. Garcia also mentored NSU undergraduate biology major, Sukriti Prashar, who was awarded third place for Outstanding Undergraduate Oral Presentation for her presentation entitled, “Characterizing the mechanism of inhibition displayed by imidocarb dipropionate on Yersinia pestis.”

Smith mentored graduate students Laura Garcia-Dieguez who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Periodic spatial disturbance of biofilms modulates expression of quorum sensing virulence genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa” and Ivana Barraza who gave an oral presentation entitled, “Increasing the frequency of periodic spatial disturbance decreases surface attachment protein expression in Staphylococcus aureus.” Smith also mentored undergraduate students Camryn Pajon, Taniya Mariah and Brandon Toscan in their research poster presentation entitled, “Periodically disturbing the spatial structure of a microbial community composed of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus affects its composition” and undergraduate students Estefania Marin Meneses and Gabriela Diaz Tang who won second place for their poster presentation entitled, “Growth efficiency as a determinant of the inoculum effect.”

This year’s meeting included a Microbiology Art Contest with the theme “Microbes Shape our World”.  NSU graduate student in the Masters in Biological Sciences program, Laura Garcia-Dieguez, won First Runner Up for her artwork entitled, “Our World.”

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.

NSF Grant Funds Dental Research Project

Project CHOMPER principal investigators Cecil Lewis (top left) and Tanvi Honap (top right), with co-investigators (below from left) Cara Monroe, Marc Levine, Anne Stone, Brenda Baker, Andrew Ozga, and Keith Prufer.

Andrew Ozga, Ph.D., a Halmos College of Arts and Sciences faculty member, and project leading University of Oklahoma researchers Drs. Cecil Lewis and Tanvi Honap were awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant or their project “CHOMPER: Calculus and Hominid Oral Metagenomes for Pathogen Evolution Research.”

Oral diseases, such as dental caries and periodontitis, affect nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide, and are often referred to as the “silent epidemic.” These diseases are caused by bacteria found in the normal oral cavity and can cause disease in an opportunistic manner. The core aims of the CHOMPER project are to study how the genomes of these oral disease-causing bacteria differ depending on host species, geographic location, and dietary lifestyle, as well as how these genomes have evolved over time.

The CHOMPER team has collected dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) samples from nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, housed in museums in the U.S., and from archaeological human remains from archaeological sites in the Americas and Africa. These ancient human populations span a period of nearly 10,000 years and encompass the transition of humans from a forager to agricultural lifestyle. Using cutting-edge ancient DNA techniques, the team will reconstruct the genomes of oral pathogens from the dental calculus samples to answer questions regarding strain diversity, biogeography, genome structure, and the presence of genes associated with virulence and antibiotic resistance.

The CHOMPER team also includes researchers Drs. Cara Monroe and Marc Levine (University of Oklahoma), Drs. Anne Stone and Brenda Baker (Arizona State University), and Keith Prufer, Ph.D., (University of New Mexico). The CHOMPER project aims to encourage positive oral health outcomes through public presentations focused on the impact of oral disease and the role of the microbiome in oral health.

Student Wins NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship

This spring, Halmos College of Arts and Sciences marine biology major Nikolas Kuncis was awarded the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship. Given to only 120 undergraduates a year, Mr. Kuncis is conducting research with Halmos faculty member Joshua Feingold, Ph.D. This is NSU’s second winner of this prestigious award.

The Hollings Scholarship Program provides successful undergraduate applicants with awards that include academic assistance (up to $9,500 per year) for two years of full-time study and a 10-week, full-time paid ($700/week) internship at a NOAA facility during the summer. The internship between the first and second years of the award provides the scholars with hands-on, practical experience in NOAA-related science, research, technology, policy, management, and education activities. Awards also include travel funds to attend a mandatory NOAA Scholarship Program orientation and the annual Science & Education Symposium, scientific conferences where students present their research, and a housing subsidy for scholars who do not reside at home during the summer internship.

https://www.noaa.gov/office-education/hollings-scholarship

 

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