Tag: Halmos College of Arts and Sciences

Associate Professor Featured in Her First Solo Museum Exhibition

Kandy G Lopez, LoriAnn, 2023 Yarn and spray paint on plastic canvas. Courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries, NY ©

“Future Past Perfect” presents seven concurrent exhibitions of emerging South Florida artists who have already established a consistent body of work that has garnered attention. For each of these artists, this is their first solo museum exhibition. Experienced collectively, these solo exhibitions demonstrate how these artists confronted their fears of the unknown while grappling with the tragic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, and explored themes such as politics, migration, global warming, and social justice in their work. Their distinct artistic practices were honed and influenced by the isolation experienced during this period, resulting in exponential growth, maturity, and mastery of their work. 

The COVID-19 pandemic presented unforeseen challenges to the artistic community, derailing the career trajectories of many emerging artists. Those who were art students during the pandemic navigated the intimidating task of building an art practice in isolation and through remote learning, while museums and galleries remained shuttered for extended periods of time. Forced to rely on the internet as their primary platform for sharing their work with the public, these artists experienced limited personal contact with fellow artists and professionals. However, the unparalleled opportunity for uninterrupted studio time allowed them to delve deeper into their creative process. Their artistic journeys are now ready to be shared with a wider audience, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the remarkable creations born from this concentrated period of studio introspection. “Future Past Perfect” showcases the vibrant diversity of South Florida’s communities and captures a regional renaissance that is bursting with talent that has yet to receive widespread recognition. 

The exhibitions featured in “Future Past Perfect” were curated by Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater and the Museum’s Bryant-Taylor Curator Ariella Wolens.

Opening Event Details:

  • Saturday, July 29, 2023
  • 6 – 8 p.m.
  • Drinks and light bites provided
  • Free for members; $20 for non-members

Link to opening event:

https://nsuartmuseum.org/event/members-preview-reception-future-past-perfect/

Link to Exhibition details:

Posted 07/21/23

Honors Students and Faculty Collaborate Using Research Grant

From left, Amenia Farraj, Jalynn Sylvain, and Dr. Charlene Désir

Faculty and students in the Farquhar Honors College received a $15,000 President’s Faculty Research and Development Grant to study Gen Z college students’ interest in and ways of learning. Their research, titled “In Their Words: Collaborative Assessment of Undergraduate Intellectual Curiosity,” will bridge the generational gap in traditional and modern understandings of education to encourage innovation in the classroom.

The research project is a collaboration between faculty members Charlene Désir, Ed.D., professor in the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice (FCESCJ), Rachel Panton, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Hamos College of Arts and Sciences, and Georgina Arguello, Ed.D., assistant dean and associate professor in FCESCJ, and honors students Amenia Farraj, and Jalynn Sylvain.

The project was conceived by the students after hearing about Désir’s research on youth education at an honors Research Roundtable event—an event created to connect honors students with faculty research opportunities.

“As an educator, I am humbled always to learn from students, they are my first teachers and this juxtaposition gives me the opportunity to model being a learner/student,” said Désir. “This project is a way for me to be inspired from the knowledge of undergrads . . . and learn ways teachers can effectively engage with them.”

The study aims to highlight the different modalities and environments in which college students learn, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic changed the learning landscape and emphasized the role of technology.

“Often, I think older adults can accuse emerging adults of not being intellectually curious because the younger generation receives information differently from what we experienced or even prefer,” said Panton. “I want to understand how we can better synthesize the knowledge that they bring from their communities, their families, and digital technologies into our classrooms.”

The researchers will use a mixed-methods approach and hope to publish and share their results creatively, such as through a children’s book and Mako Radio segment.

“This [project is] an opportunity to [combine] faculty and student interests and allow[s] us to explore students’ interests in learning in our own community,” said Farraj, a junior political science major. “Working with Dr. Désir and the other faculty has been an enlightening experience.”

Learn more about the President’s Faculty Research & Development Grant.

Posted 07/16/23

Honors Student Named a Barry Goldwater Scholar

Farquhar Honors College student Courtney White was named a 2023 Barry Goldwater Scholar — an honor recognizing her outstanding passion for research in the natural sciences. As a Barry Goldwater Scholar, she’ll receive a $7,500 scholarship to fund her senior-year tuition.

“I am truly honored to have been welcomed into the Goldwater community,” said White, a junior chemistry and marine biology major. “When I got the notification, I was speechless. To be awarded such a prestigious scholarship is a surreal experience. Being selected as a 2023 Barry Goldwater Scholar has reaffirmed my aspirations to pursue a career in research and given me the confidence to chase that dream.”

Courtney White

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship is awarded to students who are passionate about pursuing a research career in the natural sciences, mathematics, or engineering. White dreams of becoming a researcher at the intersection of chemistry and marine biology to make a difference in the world and is already taking steps to do just that.

Though an undergraduate student, White has already gained considerable research experience. She’s currently pursuing an honors thesis to develop a new technique to measure persistent organic pollutants in keratinous tissue like hair, feathers, and bones that may harm our health and environment. She also works alongside her thesis advisors Dimitrios Giarikos, Ph.D., and Amy Hirons, Ph.D., professors in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences (HCAS), as a full-time research technician.

“I am passionate about using my knowledge, curiosity, and love of learning to have a meaningful impact on the world around me,” said White. “If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you. My goal is to be always exploring, ever evolving, and continuously growing; as a result, I’ve learned to seek out those challenging experiences, whether it be in research, class, leadership, or in my personal life.”

One of her proudest research achievements was being named an undergraduate scholar for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Educational Partnership with Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI). Through this program, she’ll be spending her summer in Alaska to work on a National Science Foundation-funded project exploring the life histories of baleen whales.

Supplementing her research prowess, White is dedicated to helping others around her through leadership. She works as a tutor and lab assistant and holds numerous leadership positions on campus, including within the Honors Student Advisory Board, Chemistry Club, Marine Biology Club, and NSU’s chapter of the American Association of University Women.

As White prepares to step into her senior year as a Barry Goldwater Scholar, she reflects on the mentors and leaders within her own life that have helped her receive this honor, including Giarikos, Hirons, Andrea Nevins, Ph.D., dean of the Farquhar Honor College, and Marlisa Santos, Ph.D., professor in HCAS.

“The Honors College has made my undergraduate experience more valuable than I ever could have imagined,” said White. “I’ve made connections and established some of the most important relationships in my life through the Honors College . . . I’m excited to continue to grow, challenge myself, and curate positive change in my community.”

Learn more about the Barry Goldwater Scholarship.

Posted 07/16/23

MEEC Will Open Environmental Art Gallery on July 15

On Saturday, July 15, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Marine Environmental Education Center (MEEC) will be hosting the opening of its new Environmental Art Gallery. The MEEC Environmental Art Gallery is curated by NSU students and features both NSU Halmos College of Arts and Sciences students and alumni art. All art on display will be for sale, with a portion of the proceeds funding the MEEC. The reception will be part of a beach clean up featuring food trucks, the artists, environmental educational vendors, and more! Everyone is welcome.

The Marine Environmental Education Center at the Carpenter House was fostered from a partnership between Broward County Parks and Recreation and Nova Southeastern University. Overseen by the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, the Marine Environmental Education Center now serves as a public education facility while preserving the historic charm of the home. Come visit and see the original rooms, fixtures, hard wood floors, cabana house and beach views as well as all the educational displays and live animals!

RSVP for the opening at https://tinyurl.com/MEECartgallery

Posted 07/03/23

Halmos Faculty Member Participates in Trinidad Conference

Cheryl Duckworth, Ph.D.

Cheryl Duckworth, Ph.D., faculty and director of the M.S. program and Graduate Certificates in the Department of Conflict Resolution Studies (DCRS), in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (HCAS), participated in the International Peace Research Association Conference held in Trinidad. As Editor in Chief of the Peace and Conflict Studies Journal, she participated in an Editor’s Panel that worked to improve access, equity and inclusion in academic publishing.  She also presented her research on the role of youth leadership in creating school cultures of peace.

Duckworth is the faculty facilitator for the Peace and Conflict Education Working Group in DCRS. She teaches qualitative research methods, peace education, foundations of conflict resolution, and History, Memory and Conflict Resolution.

Posted 07/02/23

Halmos Faculty Member Presents at Crustacean Congress

Tamara Frank, Ph.D.

Tamara Frank, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences in the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center presented at the 10th International Crustacean Congress, May 22-26, in Wellington, New Zealand. The title of her presentation was “The Micronektonic Crustacean Assemblage in the Gulf of Mexico:  Temporal Changes Since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.”

Frank was interviewed for the Armatus Oceanic Deep-Sea Podcast:  036 – Crustacean Congress special — Armatus Oceanic

Frank’s research interests include: visual physiology of deep-sea organisms, marine bioluminescence, micronekton ecology with emphasis on effects of downwelling light on distribution patterns, vertical migrations of micronekton, and development of in situ sampling instrumentation.

Posted 07/02/23

Halmos Student Explores Sea Turtle Hatchling Success

Once numbering in the millions, sea turtle populations have dwindled to the thousands with six of seven extant sea turtle species currently listed as endangered or threatened globally. The decrease in their once abundant populations are primarily attributed to human actions and lifestyles such as fishing practices, illegal poaching, habitat loss, climate change, and pollution. Because humans are the greatest threat to sea turtle populations, sea turtles have become a key species for conservation efforts. Conservation efforts have included monitoring sea turtle nesting beaches to help keep track of populations, introducing legislation to protect nesting females and hatchlings (such as light ordinances), studying the diseases and injuries affecting juvenile and adult populations, and employing satellite tags to track their movement to understand their behaviors.

Colleen McMaken

For more than 30 years, NSU has been contracted by Broward County to implement and manage the Broward County Sea Turtle Conservation Program (BCSTCP), which monitors sea turtle nesting activity on over 24 miles of Broward County beaches. More research is constantly being done to gain a better understanding of these imperiled species. One area that is starting to gain more speed is understanding the microbiome of sea turtles to determine what microbes are negatively affecting healthy individuals and egg hatching success. In 2021, a Department of Marine and Environmental Sciences master’s student, Colleen McMaken, studied with Jose Lopez, Ph.D. at the Molecular Microbiology and Genomics (MMG) laboratory at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center (GHOC) and the BCSTCP to create the most comprehensive study of bacterial impacts on sea turtle eggs to date within the continental US. The department is part of the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center (HCAS).

“Having the association between NSU and the BCSTCP provided a unique opportunity where I could be involved with the daily sea turtle monitoring and collect samples from nesting females and nests myself, while also being able to take those samples and sequence the bacterial DNA in house within the MMG,” says McMaken.

The environment is already known for impacting sea turtle nests, most notability temperature which determines the gender of the turtles. However, their research found that the environment, rather than the mother, may be playing a stronger role in influencing the microbiome of sea turtle eggs. Additionally, their research found that the abundance of certain bacteria (Pseudomonas) may influence the hatching success of the eggs themselves.  Being able to identify pathogens influencing the success of sea turtle eggs and understand their transmission can help reduce threats to the conservation of these threatened and endangered species. This research is now available through MicrobiologyOpen.

McMaken graduated with her M.S. in Marine Sciences in 2022 and presented this research in a talk entitled, “Microbial impacts on loggerhead (Caretta caretta) & green (Chelonia mydas) sea turtle hatching success” at the Florida Branch of the American Society for Microbiology (FLASM) meeting the same year. The funding for the research, along with her attendance to the FLASM meeting, were generously sponsored by NSU’s President’s Faculty Research and Development Grant (PFRDG) with McMaken as principal author.

Currently McMaken works as a research technician at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA and is still doing research.

Posted 06/19/23

Local Shark Attack Victim’s Story Inspires NSU to Action

Earlier this year while getting ready for work, Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) media relations/public information officer Joe Donzelli had NBC’s Today Show on in the background when something caught his attention.

It was the story about Ella Reed, a Florida teenager who had been bitten by a shark while wading in the surf near her home.

“Working at NSU all these years, my ears prick up when I hear someone talking about sharks,” Donzelli said. “When I focused in on the story, I said to myself, ‘Oh, we’ve gotta get her to come shark tagging with our research scientists. That can’t be the only encounter she has with a shark.’”

Donzelli was impressed with her poise and courage – not everyone would be so blasé having been bitten by a shark. And something else in the story caught his attention.

“I heard that Ella was interested in being a marine biologist, and given NSU’s preeminence in the field, I knew this was a perfect match,” he said.

So, when he got to work, Donzelli reached out to the reporter who did the story for the Today Show. Almost immediately the reporter was intrigued and said he would reach out to the family to see if they were interested, after all, he already had a relationship with them. And, sure enough, they jumped at the chance.

“When I got the invitation to go shark tagging, I was super excited,” Ella said.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and researchers from NSU’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI) welcomed a crew from NBC’s The Today Show, along with Ella, her friend Kloe (who was with Ella and helped her when she was bitten), her brother and parents, who joined Mahmood Shivji, Ph.D., director of NSU’s GHRI and the Save our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center, and Derek Burkholder, Ph.D., an NSU research scientist and their crew for a day on the Atlantic Ocean to catch, tag, and release sharks off the Florida Coast.

You can see The Today Show story HERE

“Understanding sharks is vitally important for restoring and maintaining the overall health of our oceans,” Shivji said. “As high-level and apex predators, they play a major part in balancing the marine ecosystem, and if there are no sharks, the oceans and by extension, the Earth, will suffer.”

Shivji said that some estimates show that annually 100 million sharks are removed from the oceans.

“Clearly that is not a sustainable number, and many shark species have declined by 70-90 percent,” he said. “By learning as much about sharks as we can, that information can be used by ocean management authorities to properly conserve sharks for generations to come.”

When the day finally came to head out on the ocean, Donzelli said that the one thing everyone was nervous about was would they be able to catch a shark during the trip. He had been on trips in the past where they spent the entire day on the water and didn’t catch a thing.

“There’s an old saying – it’s called fishing, not catching,” he said with a laugh.

But nothing was going to dampen this day for Ella – after pulling up a few empty bait lines, bingo, they had a shark. And not just any shark, a nine and a half foot long, 500+ pound female tiger shark.

And true to form, Ella, fearless as ever, jumped right in and worked side by side with our marine biologists to gather tissue samples from the shark and even put the tag on its dorsal fin.

The group managed to catch two additional sharks – nurse sharks – during the trip, and each time Ella and her group was right there working with NSU researchers, enjoying every minute. In fact, with one of the nurse sharks, Ella, fearless as ever, jumped in the water and got up close and personal with the large fish.

When the group returned to shore, there was one more surprise for Ella and her family.

“We talked with our admissions folks, and they agreed that we needed to nurture her love of the ocean and marine biology,” Donzelli said. “So, we are reserving a spot for Ella when she graduates from high school and will work to provide her with as many scholarship opportunities as we can. We’d be lucky to have her become an NSU Shark.”

Posted 06/18/23

NSU Students Get Hands-On Shark-Tagging Experience

Nova Southeastern University students tagged 10 sharks through a graduate-level course that partners with a non-profit, the Field School. David Shiffman, NSU adjunct professor led the class to South Beach, in waters more than 100 feet deep, showing them the important roles of shark scientists.

The Field School helped with safely holding the sharks. Students touched the sharks to collect data from them, tagging the new sharks. When away from the sharks, the students sorted bait, prepared the drum line, which is a technique used to reel in the sharks and handled the boat’s maintenance.

Weeks of reading textbook pages, listening to lectures, and studying led up to hands-on experience with the top of the food chain. With three days on the boat, students learned exactly what takes to be a shark scientist. Unlike your regular classroom, this one took sail with plenty of lessons on deck.

Madeline Hammond, the graduate assistant for Dean Holly Lynn Baumgartner for the NSU’s Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, participated in the outing.

“This three-day trip was the field portion of a class that was offered as an elective for the master’s programs in the HCAS’s Department of Marine & Environmental Sciences,” she said. “It was the first time this class was offered, as this was Dr. David Shiffman’s first semester as an adjunct faculty.”

Shiffman is a well-known conservation biologist and many of the students were excited for the opportunity to take a class with him and gain hands-on experience on a research vessel; the first section filled up quickly, so the department and Shiffman opened a second section to allow more students to take the course, Hammond said.

Shiffman, a University of Miami alum, knew the founders and many of the crew of the Field School.

“This, along with the opportunity to experience spending overnights on a research vessel and the ability to invite guest scientists on board to speak with students, led Shiffman and the program office to host the field-portion of our class on the Field School boat in Key Biscayne,” Hammond said.

“As a student, I really liked this opportunity because it allowed me to learn whether or not I would enjoy the day-to-day life of being a field scientist, and it also gave me the opportunity to make connections with different scientists pursuing various environmental career paths that I otherwise may not have met,” she said. “As the first group of students to take this class, we offered Dr. Shiffman and the program office a ton of feedback … about the course so that they can decide whether to offer this class again in the future and if so, how they can adjust it to make it an even better experience for students in the future.”

See the video of their experiential journey!

Read the story The Current!

Producer: Paulina Riojas

Videographer: Ashley Lopez and Paulina Riojas

Posted 06/18/23

NSU Juneteenth Event Features Breakfast Book-Reading, June 19

Learn more and find out at the NSU Belonging, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (BEDI) Advisory Council’s “Juneteenth with a Breakfast + Book Reading” discussion on Monday, June 19, at the Alvin Sherman Library from 9 to 11 a.m. Join us in-person or via Zoom in reading, On Juneteenth, by Annette Gordon-Reed.

The “Breakfast + Book Reading” of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annette Gordon-Reed’s 2021 book “On Juneteenth.” To discover more about the history of Juneteenth and African American cultural traditions and access the book in print, eBook, or as an e-audiobook, click here to access the BEDI library guide compiled by the Alvin Sherman Library.

For this event, we are excited to have a panel discussion facilitated and moderated by Ransford Edwards, Ph.D., associate professor of political science from the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, William Hawks, Ed.D., assistant professor of management from the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship, and Tamara Lumsden from Campus Life.

The event will take place at the Adolfo and Marisela Cotilla Gallery on the second floor of the Alvin Sherman Library on NSU’s Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. For those attending online, here is the Zoom link to participate, and we request that you fill out the registration form.

The first ten registrants will receive a free copy of the book, so register now! Find out more or quickly scan the QR code in the attached flyer. Please share this information to encourage participation in this celebratory event.

Please also visit the BEDI Advisory Council website for information about upcoming commemorative and BEDI-related events.

Posted 06/01/23

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