Eberly Magazine Summer

Dear friends, During my first year with the Eberly College, I have seen firsthand how strong the entrepreneurial spirit is within West Virginia University and the Eberly College. We are committed to growth and development internally as well as externally. This edition of the Eberly magazine explores some of the ways that the College has created and fostered entrepreneurship among its faculty, students, graduates, and friends.

Thanks to the generosity of our donors and friends, the College has several internal grant programs to help new ideas develop into fruitful endeavors. The competition for these funds is always tight, and there are always many more great ideas than resources available for investment. The overarching criterion by which projects are selected for funding is their demonstrated promise for bringing new external funds into the University and College. The College earns additional entrepreneurial funds through return of overhead on research projects and from teaching that is done in summer and online (i.e., extended learning) courses. These hard-earned funds are invested to test new ideas and open up new avenues of learning and scholarship for our students.

Our philosophy is that professional development for our students and employees is not just welcomed, but strongly encouraged. Many of our staff are also our students, engaged in courses to improve their technical skills, earn certification, or complete an academic degree so they can contribute even more to the work of the College and University. The College provides many internships for students to extend their classroom knowledge to real working environments while they are working toward an academic degree. This provides them the opportunity to “try out” careers and employers so they are well prepared to enter the workforce upon graduation.

Thanks to the strong learning foundation provided by liberal arts training, many of the Eberly College’s 60,000 alumni have taken the spirit of entrepreneurship with them once they leave WVU to build successful businesses, careers, and lives. Having traveled some during the past eight months, I have been astounded by not only our alumni’s successes, but also by the diversity of the businesses they have created.

The stories in this edition provide but a few examples of how people in and around the Eberly College are using entrepreneurship to build personal skills and extend business and economic growth to communities in West Virginia, the nation, and around the world.

Sincerely,

Robert H. Jones, PhD Dean

ADMINISTRATION James P. Clements, PhD, President, West Virginia University Michele Wheatly, PhD, Provost Robert Jones, PhD, Dean Joan Gorham, EdD, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs Fred King, PhD, Associate Dean, Research and Graduate Studies Asuntina Levelle, JD, Associate Dean, Financial Planning and Management Katherine Karraker, PhD, Associate Dean, Undergraduate Studies L. Christopher Plein, PhD, Associate Dean, School of Applied Social Sciences Bonnie Fisher, Director of Development EDITORIAL STAFF Rebecca Herod, Executive Editor Devon Copeland, Co-Executive Editor Kathy Deweese, University Editor Dustin Mazon, Web Designer ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Forrest Conroy Graham Curry

Contents IN THIS ISSUE

2 Around the College 4 Vox Populi 4 Filling the Gap

6 The Three Cs of Entrepreneurial Success

9 Accessible Workplaces 10 Energy from the Ground Up 12 Reversing the Science “Brain Drain” in West Virginia

14 A Dream Worth Fighting For 19 Fair Trade 2.0 22 Creating Pride of Place 26 Awards and Honors 26 Filling in the Blanks of the Evolutionary Tree 28 West Virginia Hills Lead Grad to New Galaxies

34 Teaming Up for Takeoff 36 Safety Zone

COVER PHOTOGRAPHY Scott Lituchy EDITORIAL OFFICE Rebecca Herod Director of Marketing and Communications PO Box 6286 Morgantown, WV 26506-6286 Rebecca.Herod@mail.wvu.edu CHANGE OF ADDRESS WVU Foundation PO Box 1650 Morgantown, WV 26507-1650 wvuf@wvuf.org VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT eberly.wvu.edu

32 New WVNano Director’s Pursuit of More Multidisciplinary Research is No Small Matter

Tara Curtis Colleen DeHart Jessica Hammond Tony Sotelo Christine Schussler Ashley Wells Daniel Friend, Photography Manager M.G. Ellis, Senior Photojournalist Brian Persinger, Photojournalist Scott Lituchy, Multimedia Producer Chris Schwer, Multimedia Specialist Taylor Jones, Photography Intern

Craig Underwood accepts the Eberly College Alumni Award from Dean Jones at the 2010 December Convocation Reception. Underwood gave the keynote at the event.

30 Intellectual Hotspot

32 New and Notable

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

PHOTOGRAPHY

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39 Linking Chemistry Students with Real-life Experience 40 Researching New Tools for Parents of Autistic Children

This issue is packed with stories of students and professors in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences who are doing their part to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers — science, technology, engineering, and math.

The WiSE Giving Circle brings together West Virginia University alumni and friends who want to impact the field of science by encouraging and mentoring young women in their pursuit of professional careers within the STEM disciplines.

This collaborative effort supports faculty initiatives and student scholarships.

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Community Design Team members and local residents meet to share ideas and discuss plans to revitalize Montgomery, W.Va.

Look for the WiSE logo on articles and read about the women who are contributing to the development of a more diverse science and engineering workforce.

To learn more, visit http://wisewomen.wvu.edu/ Look for the Global Influences edition of Eberly in the fall. If you would like to access archival editions of the magazine, go to eberly.wvu.edu and select the Alumni link.

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Sophomore Katherine Bomkamp invented a prosthetic device to alleviate phantom pain suffered by amputees.

WVU is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

West Virginia University is governed by the West Virginia University Board of Governors and the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission.

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Around the College Five Local People, One Global Plan

experts about contemporary global issues.

“The scholars gain a global perspective that they can share with

by Ashley Wells, photo by Brian Persinger their classes. The diplomats are also able to contribute to the education Over the past 30 years, the West Virginia Consortium for Faculty of the next generation of diplomats and decision-makers,” said Jack and Course Development in International Studies (FACDIS) has Hammersmith, director of FACDIS. worked to help teachers give students the international insight and “FACDIS represents a unique set of opportunities for all faculties knowledge they need to succeed. in West Virginia to keep abreast of current trends and developments This year marks the 30th anniversary of FACDIS, a coalition of on the international stage. This helps keep our teaching and research 20 colleges and universities in the state of West Virginia. It all started in all questions concerning global history, politics, economics, and with a conversation between five political scientists who saw a need for cultures fresh and directly engaged with the world in which we all live better teaching of international topics in their state: professors Sophia and work,” said Michael Lastinger, associate provost of international Peterson, West Virginia University; Clair Matz, Marshall University; academic affairs at WVU. Pat Ryan, Fairmont State University; Mike Strada, West Liberty One of the crucial aspects of the program is making sure that University; and Hang Yul Rhee, Shepherd University. the information presented to instructors in the workshops, seminars, “We were five people,” Peterson said. “We had never had a and institutes ends up in the classrooms. FACDIS organizers ask grant among us, and here we were thinking of writing a grant for a faculty at the end of each program how they plan to incorporate what program that we eventually wanted to include every institution in they’ve learned into their lessons.

West Virginia where teachers FACDIS has led to an increase taught an international topic. in international courses in the We had great plans. state, but its main purpose is to “At the time, it was the strengthen existing ones. largest and most comprehensive Not only is FACDIS professional development contributing to the education of program grant ever received in students in the state by enhancing West Virginia. We were surprised course materials, but also by when we got it.” attracting and retaining a high Through FACDIS, caliber of instructors. institutions can borrow video Kwame Agyenim-Boateng, equipment, books, and other FACDIS Director Jack Hammersmith and Gretchen Peterec, assistant director associate professor of political items from other member science and international relations institutions that have more access at West Virginia Wesleyan College, said the FACDIS program is the to such resources. Annual workshops are held to discuss international only reason he stayed in West Virginia to teach. teaching topics, and the program also offers professional development “Both the FACDIS Workshop in fall and the annual John A. opportunities and resources for high school teachers.

Maxwell Scholar-Diplomat Program in spring have motivated me to The Summer Public School Institutes, started in 1987, provide an continue to stay and teach in West Virginia. The director and staff are opportunity for public school teachers to come together for one week wonderful, and they make FACDIS great every year,” he said. during the summer to learn about a particular international topic.

For students and faculty in the state of West Virginia who have Past topics have included the Arab Middle East, Using the Internet never been outside of the United States, or even the state, the new to Teach International Topics, and Religion and the World. Several perspectives and resources provided through FACDIS are contributing of these institutes have included fully funded trips abroad to Canada, to a more well-rounded education. The next generation in the state, China, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela. A number of FACDIS organizers hope, will be more globally and culturally aware, the teachers who’ve attended these institutes abroad had never been and they may gain exposure to people and ideas that they would not outside of the United States, and the opportunity gave them real-world have otherwise encountered. experiences to relate to in their lesson plans.

“If you think about it, 30 years is a generation,” said Peterson.

In addition to its West Virginia programs, FACDIS now also “Now, we’re starting on the next 30 years; it’s the beginning of a whole hosts an annual scholar-diplomat series in Washington, DC, where new generation.” participants have the opportunity to speak with policymakers and 2

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Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

Department of Geology and Geography Receives $11 Million Software Grant

by Tony Sotelo, photo by M.G. Ellis The Department of Geology and Geography received a software grant renewal worth $11.8 million from Landmark Graphics Corporation of Houston, Texas.

“This in-kind gift supports important work in the energy field that WVU is aggressively undertaking as part of our Advanced Energy Initiative,” said Curt M. Peterson, vice president of research and economic development.

Landmark is a leading supplier of software for the oil and gas industry and is a brand of Halliburton’s Digital and Consulting Solutions Division.

Chair of the Department of Geology and Geography Steve Kite spoke about the importance of corporate support to the success of his department at an The company’s software solutions contribute significantly to event honoring the contributions of Landmark Graphics Corporation. the potential for sophisticated energy research and education in the “Efforts to foster industry involvement in our geophysical Department of Geology and Geography. research and teaching missions have extended over the past 25 Professor of geology and principal investigator on the grant, years,” Wilson said. “We do the best we can to equip our students Tom Wilson, said the grant is critical to the department’s energywith the skills they need to become leaders in the energy and related research and teaching missions. environmental sectors. The Landmark/Halliburton University “The geophysicist is traditionally involved in the 3-D/4-D Grant helps our students step into the world with confidence that visualization of subsurface geology and the evaluation of its they can succeed.” influence on energy resource distribution,” Wilson said. “These are The gift-in-kind was made through the WVU Foundation, a increasingly sophisticated tasks that require the use and integration private nonprofit corporation that generates and provides support of a variety of data.” for WVU and its nonprofit affiliates.

He added, “It would be impossible for academia to keep up with Landmark is the leading supplier of software, optimized the rapid industry-driven advances in processing and computercomputing solutions, and services for the upstream oil and gas assisted interpretation without industry support. Halliburton’s industry. The company’s software solutions span exploration, repeated commitments to our research and teaching programs have production, drilling, business-decision analysis, and data played a key role in helping us maintain our long-term commitment management. Landmark offers a broad range of consulting, to future students to provide challenging and timely training in the services, and infrastructure energy sciences.”

Wilson has “The researchers and educators of the Eberly College of Arts technologies that enable customers to optimize their incorporated several of and Sciences are an integral part of our University-wide technical, business, and Landmark’s software tools Advanced Energy Initiative (AEI) effort that focuses not decision processes. into a computer-aided only on unraveling America’s energy challenges, but also on Founded in 1919, subsurface interpretation the next generation of professionals for continued progress Halliburton is one of the class that he developed for in this critical field.”— Curt M. Peterson world’s largest providers the graduate curriculum. of products and services The software has to the energy industry. With more than 45,000 employees in nearly helped students learn concepts and skills that are essential to the 70 countries, the company serves the upstream oil and gas industry visualization of subsurface problems associated with a variety of throughout the life cycle of the reservoir. This includes locating applications in fossil fuels and mineral exploration. hydrocarbons and managing geological data, drilling and formation The development of new technology, such as this software, has evaluation, well construction and completion, and optimizing allowed Wilson to shift the content of his geophysics classes to include production through the life of the field. a greater focus on computer-based interpretation and modeling.

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Filling the Gap

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s a student in the WVU Master of Public Administration Program and a six-year resident of Morgantown, I have learned the importance of making a significant and sustained contribution to the improvement of my community. In the MPA Program, I have learned to express my concern for my community by promoting the public interest. I would define “the public interest” as an aggregate of basic values including the right to life, health, individual and societal freedom, and care and concern.

As I neared graduation, I began reflecting on my experience, and specifically on my time in the Public Administration Master’s Program. Through experiential learning, I have realized that academic institutions can play an integral part in engaging in the community.

Through course work and internships, students can work to “fill a gap” by providing entrepreneurial services and ideas while still in an academic setting. The opportunity to help and contribute to citizens, businesses, and organizations in need within the community is both exciting and rewarding.

My most recent experience of filling the gap occurred when I enrolled in an elective course called Fundraising and Foundation Management. We learned about the fundamentals of fundraising and of public and nonprofit foundations. Taught by Ellen Goodwin, WVU Alumni Association’s vice president of development, the focus of the course is a final project helping a nonprofit develop a fundraising plan to reach its goals and objectives.

Our final project required students to partner with a local nonprofit to provide it with a comprehensive fundraising plan, which would provide a starting point for the organization’s first annual fundraising campaign. After seeing a television advertisement for the local nonprofit Buckle Your Baby for Life, Goodwin thought this new nonprofit would be the perfect organization to help.

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by Carol Ann Funkhouser, photo by Brian Persinger Fundraising consultation is a growing industry in the United States, and many firms charge anywhere from $100 to $300 an hour for these services. Consultation includes management of capital campaigns, annual giving and stewardship programs, strategic planning and case development, volunteer training and board seminars, well-planned and successful special events, marketing and public relations services, sponsorship and

how he predicted the partnership between the organization and the students in the class would work. Originally, he saw the opportunity as a public service project where he could speak to students about his career and the nonprofit. However, after meeting with the class, he realized that this partnership could provide fresh insight on how to make Buckle Your Baby for Life more successful.

Williams founded Buckle Your Baby for

Funkhouser with Jacques Williams, Buckle Your Baby for Life founder. Funkhouser graduated in 2009 from West Virginia University with a bachelor’s degree in advertising. In May, she earned her master’s degree in public administration from the University.

donor recognition programs, and direct mail and telemarketing programs. For many small nonprofits, fundraising consultation is not an option due to budget constraints, however, this is the perfect gap-filling opportunity for academic institutions like West Virginia University.

Buckle Your Baby for Life’s founder, attorney Jacques Williams, attended an early class session to discuss the organization and

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

Life in 2004, after seeing an influx of personal injury cases involving child fatalities and injuries due to car accidents. He began the organization in response to a lack of proper restraint of children in cars. In 2009, his law firm Hamstead, Williams and Shook began helping families in need in north-central West Virginia.

Research on the effectiveness of child safety seats has found they reduce fatal injury

by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for toddlers in passenger cars. According to West Virginia State Code 17C-15-46, children under the age of eight and less than 4’9” tall must be restrained in a child passenger safety device. However, many families are without the resources to purchase a child safety seat, leaving their children in danger during every car ride.

The Buckle Your Baby for Life Program is a resource for these families, providing one free of charge. In addition, the program shows how to properly install the seats while instilling lifelong habits of car restraint. It was clear to me that this was a great organization, with a great mission. However, because of the overwhelming need, the organization was unable to help every family in need.

The nonprofit was at a standstill; it didn’t have enough donors nor the funding to implement a plan to attract donors. The biggest challenge as a small nonprofit was developing awareness and public support, particularly in the form of funding. It was the perfect opportunity for our class to step in and fill a gap.

Our class could get hands-on experience by creating something meaningful and beneficial, while Buckle Your Baby for Life could receive an entrepreneurial service that would normally cost it $3,000 to $4,000. For Jacques WIlliams, our class was providing his organization with a method for addressing fundraising challenges more aggressively. Our class had an opportunity to develop our newly learned skills and to help a great nonprofit apply academic concepts in a practical situation.

This is the great advantage of living in an academic community like Morgantown. The city and surrounding community are able to rely on students to provide services, and the students are able to learn from progressive leaders.

It is my hope that other community organizations can take advantage of relationships like these.

The best part of these partnerships is that they are only limited by the creativity and originality of the faculty. Faculty members must be receptive to exposing their students to this type of partnership and identifying situations students can engage in to benefit the community. Students must take advantage of these opportunities by providing their best work to truly make a difference. With these partnerships and a sincere commitment to concern for the public good, we can all benefit from small projects that make Morgantown a better place.

Vox Populi

Partnerships in Eberly That Are Filling the Gap The Capstone Course for the Department of Public Administration aims to link MPA academic preparation to professional career through analysis of practice settings. This past semester, students filled the gap in various organizations all over West Virginia. The projects included: Mountain Line Transit Authority (Morgantown) Students conducted in-depth marketing research to analyze student, faculty, and community member use of Mountain Line’s public bus service.

Students designed, conducted, and analyzed the results of a rider survey. The students presented the results of the survey and their recommendation to Mountain Line’s Board of Directors and Executive Management Team.

Ansted-New Haven Community Improvement Association (Fayette County) Students assisted in the development of a new economic workforce model based on home-based Internet work opportunities. Students worked to identify specific occupations that would support “distanceearning” opportunities and develop skills and training needed.

WVU Extension Service Community, Economic and Workforce Development (Lewis County) Students organized and hosted a strategic planning session for the Lewis Country Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors to address emerging issues. Students developed a comprehensive strategic plan.

Scotts Run Settlement House (Osage) Students created and conducted a survey to assess services provided for local senior citizens and address potential need for other services. Students were responsible for the collation of data, emphasizing key areas of current satisfaction, areas of educational opportunities, and the greatest needs that are not being met.

Mon Valley Homeless Initiative (Westover) Students assisted in a community-wide effort to collect information on the number and characteristics of individuals and families experiencing homelessness on a single night. The group was responsible for analyzing data from Monongalia, Marion, Taylor, and Preston counties.

Northern West Virginia Brownfields Assistance Center (Morgantown) Students researched and identified existing best practices of models of brownfield inventory sites, and researched alternative approaches to measure the effect of redeveloping these sites. Students provided a final report with recommendations to be presented to senior staff at the West Virginia Water Research Institute.

United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties (Morgantown) Students reviewed and revised discussion points, focus areas, and other critical issues for the United Way Board to consider for the 2012-2017 strategic plan. Students facilitated forums with board members, stakeholders, and staff to define future critical issues and short- and long-term strategies.

Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. (Arthurdale) Students worked with the executive director and board members to research and offer recommendations to develop sustainable strategies to meet the mission of the organization.

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The Three Cs of Entrepreneurial Success

by Craig Underwood

I

recently had the honor of speaking to the fall graduates of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences to share a few lessons that have helped me as an entrepreneur and in other endeavors. These are lessons I first learned during my time at WVU, and have been reinforced throughout my life. I hope that by sharing these lessons with readers of Eberly, they will help you as you pursue your passions and when you are faced with great challenges and opportunities.

Dictionary.com defines entrepreneur as “a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, usually with considerable initiative and risk.” But I prefer the definitions of J.B. Say, the 1800s French economist, who defined the term as one who “shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield,” and of management guru Peter Ducker who, in a 1996 interview with Inc. Magazine said, “There is only one definition: an entrepreneur is someone who gets something new done.”

one The Value of Creative Perseverance

If you are going to create a new enterprise or creatively address an unmet need, there is no substitute for hard work. I know of no entrepreneurial success that did not require almost inconceivable hours, often accompanied by personal sacrifice. As I often tell my teams, “If this were easy to do,

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Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

photo by M.G. Ellis

Craig Underwood, a Charleston, W.Va. native, graduated from West Virginia University in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. He earned a master’s degree from the University of Oxford and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago. He is the founder and co-founder of six for-profit and nonprofit enterprises, including his role as founder and managing partner of Underwood Partners in Boston, Mass.

“Just as pursuing an entrepreneurial endeavor requires hard work and creative perseverance, it also requires courage and strength in the face of doubters.” —Craig Underwood someone else would have done it already and we wouldn’t have the opportunity to be entrepreneurs. That’s what entrepreneurs do — they take on the hardest challenges.”

But, as critical as hard work is, working hard without working smart is a fool’s mission.

It makes no sense to attempt to overcome a challenge by trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. When I was CEO of The Loyalty Group in Canada, I tried for six years to sign A&P as our grocery partner. But I never went back to the CEO with the same presentation or the same arguments. Instead, I always came with new data — another example of a program that had benefited another partner, or a new way of using technology or engaging customers or employees. Eventually the CEO agreed to join, saying we had become “too logical to ignore,” and A&P became one of our most successful sponsors, adding millions of households to the program.

I had two West Virginia role models for creative perseverance. The first was Charleston attorney Dave Hendrickson, who promised a student-run radio station as part of his campaign for student body president in 1978. After Dave won the election, he was faced with and overcame numerous hurdles:

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challenges with the University, with the FCC, and with other factors, but he never gave up. Instead, he found a creative way to climb over or bash through every roadblock he encountered. As a result of his creative perseverance, U92 thrives today.

My second role model was closer to home.

My late father, Cecil H. Underwood, was both the youngest and the oldest governor of West Virginia, elected a few days after turning 34 and again on his 74th birthday. Less talked about is the fact that he unsuccessfully ran three times between those milestones.

He was a role model for never giving up, but also for creative perseverance. When he ran successfully in 1996 he didn’t recycle the slogans of past campaigns. Instead, he developed one of the first political websites, adopted the slogan of “A Leader for New Times,” and traveled the state with a piece of fiber optic cable to remind people of the coming 21st century opportunities in job creation, education, and health care enabled by new technology he promised to champion.

The fact that Eberly graduates learned how to learn is clearly one of the most important skills gained from completing a rigorous liberal arts curriculum at WVU. Without the ability to realize that the world is changing, to access, study, and synthesize

information to understand these changes, and to be able to draw insights from this new knowledge, we would not be able to see creative ways to address challenges and create new opportunities.

The Importance of Collaboration

One of the most important lessons I learned was the importance and power of working with others to reach a common goal.

I have never believed that value is maximized in any enterprise by following the ideas and decisions of only one executive, no matter his or her experience and expertise. I am truly a collaboration evangelist; I believe that many heads are far better than one. In every enterprise I have been a part of, I have seen great ideas come from employees outside of the executive suite and from customers and business partners outside of company headquarters.

Immediately after being elected WVU’s student body president, I reached out to then-President Gene Budig, Dean of Students Joe Gluck, other student leaders, administration members, and faculty advisors to help implement our campaign promises.

We worked together with the WVU Student Foundation and Morgantown businesses to develop a “Student Survival Handbook” that connected new students with local businesses.

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three Courage

One of the traits that all entrepreneurs share is courage — the courage to pursue passions and dreams. They have the courage to take a risk, to start something when you don’t know what the outcome will be, or as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., so eloquently photo by Daniel Friend described faith, “taking the first Eberly College Dean Robert Jones gives Underwood the Alumni Recognition Award during the Dec. 12, 2010, Convocation Reception. step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Just as pursuing an entrepreneurial We also formed a coalition of students, endeavor requires hard work and creative staff, faculty, and Morgantown citizens that perseverance, it also requires courage registered over 3,000 students and passed the and strength in the face of doubters. city’s first safe housing code.

Entrepreneurial endeavors can encounter The coalition loyalty model that underlies strong resistance from those who are the AIR MILES Canada shopping reward benefiting from the status quo, even those program, my greatest business success to date, benefiting from the use of J.B. Say’s loweris 100 percent dependent on collaboration. yielding economic assets.

Businesses work together to create a powerful As I prepared my remarks for rewards program that increases customer Eberly’s graduates, I realized that creative loyalty and profitability and creates a huge perseverance, collaboration, and courage are permission-based marketing database. The not only characteristics shared by successful business I co-founded in Canada and those in entrepreneurs. They are requisites for success other countries based on our model have 50 in today’s highly competitive and globally to 70 percent of all households as members. challenging job market. I was particularly Collective annual sales exceed $3 billion. struck by the need for courage to pursue one’s One of the most important pieces of dream leaving college today, or after losing a advice I can give any entrepreneur, or anyone job, or making the decision to make a midlife pursuing a challenging goal, is “Do not go it career change. alone; never be afraid to ask for help.”

Over the past two years I have seen Again, if you think about it, collaborative learning is a basic principle of a this kind of courage in many recent college graduates. Two examples come to mind. The liberal arts degree. No one comes to WVU, first is my friend, fellow WVU alumnus, and or any institution of higher education, nephew Chris Richardson, who is pursuing his and tries to learn everything on their own. dream of becoming a professional basketball Students collaborate with professors in and coach. While at WVU, Chris had several out of the classroom, with the great thinkers part-time jobs as a sports journalist. Indeed, through reading and debating their works, he described himself on Facebook as a “sports and with fellow students in team projects journalist” not a “student.” As he neared and study groups.

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graduation, Chris had a professional resume with more real-world experience than most college seniors and received offers to work as a sports writer.

Instead, he chose to move to Russellville, Arkansas, to work as a volunteer assistant men’s basketball coach and now is in his second year in that role at the University of Charleston. Chris often works 80-plus hours a week, but he does so without pay. He finds time for his “real” job (helping to manage the uniforms for several other university sports teams), which pays far less than the sports journalism offers he turned down, but he is pursuing his dream of making it in one of the riskiest professions.

I saw this same spirit of risk-taking when I worked on my friend Alan Khazei’s campaign for a Massachusetts US Senate seat. One of the most amazing things I witnessed were the number of young people who worked as volunteers on the campaign, usually sleeping on a supporter’s couch or floor and working 15-20 hour days, seven days a week. I learned that this was the norm, rather than the exception. For decades, young people, inspired by a cause or a candidate, have found a way to get to the epicenter of a campaign and work as many hours as possible, with the hope of reaching their goal of becoming a paid, fulltime staff member.

One final “C.” Those of us who graduated from WVU are fortunate. Less than 30 percent of Americans have earned a fouryear degree. And those of us with a college degree are much more likely to be financially successful than those who were not able to attend or graduate from college. I hope as you pursue and realize your dreams and achieve success, you will have compassion for others less fortunate than yourselves. I hope you will use your talents to give back to those who helped you along the way, including our great university.

Vox Populi

Accessible Workplaces by Rebecca Herod, photos by M.G. Ellis Helping those with disabilities find and keep jobs — these are the goals of rehabilitation professionals and social workers. An Eberly College organization is helping to show employers the benefits of hiring those with disabilities.

Employers often express concern over real and perceived barriers to hiring and retaining workers with disabilities. Despite the legal mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers’ impressions of the accommodation process may focus on possible obstacles instead of the benefits. To respond to employer concerns in productive ways, rehabilitation professionals and social workers need to understand these concerns.

Located in Morgantown, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) is a free service funded by the US Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy. The organization provides technical assistance on workplace accommodations to employers and individuals, as well as guidance for people with disabilities looking to establish their own businesses.

Graduate research assistants Nicole Kimble and Crystal Harper

An integral part of this service is explaining the rights of employees with disabilities as outlined in the Disabilities Act, as well as other relevant laws.

JAN is helping people across the United States imagine the possibilities created by accessible, inclusive workplaces.

For the past three years, Division of Social

Left to right, Anne Hirsh co-director of JAN; Crystal Harper, graduate research assistant in social work; Lou Orslene, co-director of JAN; Lisa Dorinzi, alumna of the Department of Communication Studies and JAN consultant; Jenna Lapointe, graduate research assistant in social work; Helen Hartnett, assistant professor of social work; Nicole Kimble, graduate research assistant in social work

Work Assistant Professor Helen Hartnett has led a research team that conducted surveys and compiled a large database on behalf of the service.

“What is the bottom line? Workplace accommodations are low cost and high impact,” said Anne Hirsh, co-director of JAN. Working out of an office in Stansbury Hall, the team completes telephone surveys with JAN clients who have agreed to participate. During the five-year, grant-funded project, the team hoped to draw attention to the “landscape” of disability in the United States. This includes geographical areas most commonly represented in the surveys, patterns of employer accommodation, and more generally, the complicated nature of working in “disabling” environments.

WVU researchers find that those who make the decision to accommodate employees report numerous direct and indirect benefits: 89 percent report that accommodation allowed the company to retain a qualified employee, 71 percent report increased productivity from the

accommodated worker, and 59 percent report increased company productivity.

Indirect benefits include better company morale, more interactions with co-workers, and increased interactions with customers.

Many employers reported that the benefits of accommodations directly affect the happiness, morale, and quality of the work of an employee. Quality employees also are being retained.

Clearly, retaining a qualified worker benefits the productivity of a company, JAN staffers said.

“Across hundreds of surveys detailing both triumphant and painful situations, what has clearly emerged is a genuine reverence for the process of accommodation based on the part of both individuals and employers who have contacted JAN for assistance,” Hartnett said.

If you are an employer or employee with questions about job accommodation or the Americans with Disabilities Act, or you would like to read more job accommodation success stories, visit the JAN website at AskJAN.org.

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photo by M.G. Ellis

Tim Carr’s recommendation regarding US energy policy can be summed up in one word: “MORE!” Carr, Marshall S. Miller Professor of Energy in the Department of Geology and Geography, says the United States and the world will need more of everything: more renewables, more nuclear and — yes — more fossil fuels.

“Increasing world populations have justified demands for higher standards of living that require more access to energy. Without energy, our entire industrial, cultural and health infrastructure would collapse.”

Carr’s research focus these days is on the evaluation of geologic formations that would be suitable for the underground storage of carbon dioxide captured from fossil fuel burning.

“We could begin geologic sequestration tomorrow, but it would be very expensive. We need more research on ways to reduce cost and to scale it up to handle the large amount of CO2 we produce,” he said.

Sequestration, Carr explained, already takes place at a smaller scale in the oil and gas industry, where CO2 is injected into older oil and gas fields to stimulate additional oil production.

“Although we started dealing with emissions from energy use more than 50 years ago, more progress is required. Reducing environmental impact is a fundamental prerequisite to energy use.”

He suspects that carbon storage in geological formations may never be “cheap,” but he said he is convinced that costs will come down. And he believes that risks related to unplanned leaks of CO2 from geologic sites are overstated by opponents of such storage.

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“For example, every year we store three trillion cubic feet of natural gas in underground geologic storage sites around the country,” Carr said.

“We inject gas into the earth (in this case, methane), take it out, repeatedly without incident.” This, he said, is equivalent to many millions of tons of CO2.

Carr is very enthusiastic about the research possibilities that will evolve from the recent announcement that the US-China Energy Center at WVU’s National Research Center for Coal and Energy will be recognized as a formal participant in the official energy agreement between the United States and China.

“They are doing things in China that we just aren’t doing here, at least not to the same extent,” he said.

Carr, who has traveled to China three times in the past year, noted that China is ranked number one in the use of renewable energy, but is also building one new coal plant per week and a new nuclear plant every month.

In particular, China’s coal-to-liquids (CTL) projects hold particular relevance for Carr’s own work in sequestration.

“The challenge, from a research perspective, in investigating capture and sequestration of CO2 from power plants is that the CO2 comes out of the plant at very low concentrations,” he said. “With CTL, you get a pure stream of CO2 with which to work.”

With support from several grants, including a recent one from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Carr also is working with the Department of Energy on an “online carbon atlas” for North America that makes available key geospatial data (carbon sources, carbon sinks, etc.) required for implementing carbon capture and storage on a broad scale (see “The Clean Green Team

in the fall 2010 edition of Eberly).

“Unfortunately, a lot of the data is scattered,” Carr said.

“Through NatCarb (The National Carbon Sequestration Database and Geographic Information System), we are pulling the information together in a web-based system

effort is extraordinary.”

As an example, he noted that if you could build a million wind generators “cheek to jowl” across an area the size of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, you would still meet only 1/7th of future US energy needs.

“History tells us that energy transitions are long-term, deliberate affairs,” he said.

But Carr brings an entrepreneur’s optimism to the challenge. He has been involved in a start-up company developing “There’s plenty of energy projects using CO2, and he was out there. We can make it a licensed private available in an economically viable and detective and ran a night watchman environmentally sound way with hard, business during his undergraduate dedicated work over many decades by large days.

“There’s numbers of bright, young people with strong plenty of energy there. We technical backgrounds in the geoscience and out can make it available in an engineering disciplines.”—Tim Carr economically viable and along with analytic tools such as pipeline environmentally sound way with hard, measurement, carbon storage capacity, and dedicated work over many decades by large cost estimation.” numbers of bright, young people with strong Although his work now focuses primarily technical backgrounds in the geoscience and on fossil fuels and providing solutions for engineering disciplines.” the CO2 emissions challenge, he remains Providing those skills, he said, is a supportive of a broad palette of energy sources. primary mission of WVU and the Advanced “Scientists should provide a factual basis Energy Initiative. for making decisions, not just promote their Tim Carr’s doctoral work was in paleontology niche,” Carr said. and he began his professional career in the oil “If you pressed me, I suppose I would say and gas industry, where he spent more than that we need to do more to expand the use of a decade working on research projects and on nuclear power.” exploration projects in Alaska, the North Sea, In Carr’s view, providing the growing and East Greenland as well as the lower 48 world population with the energy resources states. Before coming to WVU, Carr was chief it will need requires what he called, “a long, of energy research and senior scientist for the hard slog” of deliberate action, extremely high Kansas Geological Survey, as well as the cotechnology, and high capital investment. director of the Energy Research Center at the “One of the reasons this is so University of Kansas. challenging,” he said, “is that the scale of the eberly.wvu.edu

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Reversing the Science “Brain Drain”in West Virginia When Matthew Powell first began work at Protea Biosciences, Inc., in 2004, the Morgantown, W.Va.-based business startup was housed in a spare office and extra lab in the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry at West Virginia University.

Fast forward seven years and the commercial biotech company has flourished, making a name for itself and the state in the field of bioanalytics, a young but growing research area.

And it’s bringing Powell, a graduate of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, and more than a dozen other WVU alumni along for the ride.

Protea Biosciences develops new technology to improve the identification of biomolecules — the products of living cells and organisms. The company, which uses its capabilities to develop products, services and pharmaceuticals, now fills a building on Hartman Run Road, and has grown to include roughly 30 employees and international subsidiaries.

“The first time I exhibited for the company, the question you got was ‘who are you? You’re from West Virginia?’” Powell said.

As the company’s reputation grew, so did the number of folks who began to pay attention to its research and development. For a company that is full of young scientists with big ideas, the experience has been invaluable.

“People look for us now as a company that provides answers,” said Powell, a Brooke County, W.Va., native and Protea Biosciences’ director of research and development.” “We hear ‘I have this problem, can you help me? I need solutions.’”

Powell manages the new development of products and services, protein sample preparation and analysis.

“I’ve played a direct role in all the growth,” he said.

“It’s not common for a young scientist to have this kind of experience in West Virginia.”

The company, CEO Steve Turner has said in the past, is poised to expand to the next level through a new cancer research collaboration with the WVU Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center(MBRCC). Using its newest Brent Reschke, senior scientist at Protea Biosciences, Inc., stands with the company’s technology, laser ablation electrospray ionization, research new Laser Ablation Electrospray Ionization technology. Reschke is a 2010 graduate of the C. Eugene Bennett Chemistry doctoral program.

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Photos courtesy of Protea Biosciences, Inc.

by Devon Copeland

is being conducted to help understand why some leukemia cancer cells become resistant to treatment and unresponsive to chemotherapy.

The work is being conducted at Protea Biosciences’s Morgantown laboratories and the

Ryan Dunkerly came to Protea Biosciences in 2007. A graduate of Eberly’s philosophy program, Dunkerly works as the company’s marketing and communications manager. He said he loves being a

“Protea Biosciences is reversing the trend of the exportation of talent to importation. We bring people to Morgantown instead of giving them a degree and (watching them leave.)”— Matthew Powell laboratory of Laura Gibson, PhD, professor of microbiology, immunology and cell biology and deputy director of the MBRCC. The collaboration will be a first use of Protea Biosciences’ proprietary laser ablation electrospray ionization technology, which allows a researcher to rapidly identify immense numbers of the different chemicals within cells. Laser ablation electrospray ionization uses a special laser to burn a tiny hole in an individual cell, releasing a plume of cellular particles.

The plume is intersected by a jet of ionizing gases and analyzed in a mass spectrometer — providing researchers with a wealth of data on the composition of the cells.

Powell said it only makes sense to partner with WVU. “It’s scientific responsibility,” he said.

“You always want to increase scientific knowledge. I’m a West Virginian. I’ve lived here my whole life. Helping WVU is important to me for pride.”

He said in the past few years, the company has already begun to demonstrate its value to WVU alumni and to the state.

“Protea Biosciences is reversing the trend of the exportation of talent to importation. We bring people to Morgantown instead of giving them a degree and (watching them leave),” he said.

“Our field is only 10 to 12 years old. It’s different from other areas of science that are 50 years old. There are jobs in this field. We license technology. It’s a young, aggressive field.”

Employees at Protea Biosciences say the opportunities for professional fulfillment aren’t exclusive to scientists.

philosopher in a sea of scientists.

“It’s good. I’m kind of geek proud,” he said.

“It’s fulfilling to be able to look at the cuttingedge technology and figure out ‘how do we communicate that information.’ It’s an interesting place to be. We’re a niche of a niche market. We know specifically who we’re talking to.”

scientist, to senior scientist, to his current role as principal scientist. He became familiar with the company while completing his graduate degree in Chemistry at WVU and said joining Protea Biosciences was a natural fit for him.

“You have a good foundation when you go through the education I went through at WVU,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of growth.

When I joined the company, there were two other scientists. I’ve seen how the company can diversify. I appreciate being a part of that.

“My role has changed a lot since I’ve been here and I’m doing things here I didn’t imagine I’d be doing, but I adapt. My main focus was developing technology, and the company has grown into supporting analytics.”

Dunkerly said he’d like to see Protea Biosciences’ ability to pluck young talent straight from the University, research new

Scientists conduct research at Protea Biosciences’ Hartman Run Road laboratory in Morgantown.

The seven-year old company employs roughly 30 employees.

He said his liberal arts education from Eberly taught him the critical thinking skills to adapt and grasp the research Protea Biosciences scientists are working on at any given time.

“In philosophy, you’re taught to read and understand analytically, think critically and respond,” Dunkerly said. “The word philosophy in greek literally means the love of learning. It is not the specificality of what you know but the routine for how you learn new information that is important.”

Since joining Protea Biosciences four years ago, Trust Razunguzwa has gone from staff

technology and adapt commercially to address the needs in the science community replicated across West Virginia.

“Protea Biosciences is a model for what we need in the state at large,” he said. “This type of entrepreneurial ability needs to happen at large. If this works this can be the model for how things work.

“Most of the people who work here are from West Virginia and went to WVU. Protea Biosciences is of West Virginia. I think that is inspiring, particularly to me.”

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A

DREAM WORTH FIGHTIN

N U RU I N T E RN AT I O N A L TAC KL ES P OV E RT Y

by Jessica Hammond

(This page and facing) West Virginia University students participate in Nuru’s April 2010 BH2O+ (Be Hope To Her) event, a nationwide campaign raising awareness about the need for accessible clean water in Africa.

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NGFOR

“We were all a very close-knit group — different majors and different backgrounds, but we all really connected,” he said.

One late night during finals week, and after several cups of coffee, they decided they wanted to do something monumental with their lives.

“We said, ‘What if we really did something; not just talk about it, but do it? Something bigger than us,’” Williams reminisced.

The three friends had no idea that their grand aspiration would become a reality and that after pursuing separate dreams all over the country they’d one day reunite for a common goal.

He then decided to leave the Marine Corps to pursue a different, more personal mission.

Harriman entered Stanford’s MBA program with the goal of developing a business model for an idea that would ultimately become the nonprofit, Nuru International.

Meanwhile Hancox’s path had taken him through medical school

The Pursuit of ‘Something Bigger than Ourselves’

Harriman deferred an appointment to the US Naval Academy and enrolled at WVU in 1992, but after completing his sophomore year he accepted the appointment at Like most college students, Jake the academy.

Following Harriman, John Hancox, and Billy his time at the Williams dreamed about changing Naval Academy he the world — some way, somehow. joined the Marine The three friends met nearly two Corps, where decades ago during their freshman he took part year at West Virginia University in the security detail after while living in Arnold Hall. Williams the 2001 USS remembers that the dorm had a Cole bombing “really special community feeling.” and assisted in tsunami relief efforts in Asia.

An officer during the initial invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Harriman returned to the United States and was accepted into the Force Recon Unit, the special operations team of the Marine Corps.

He was awarded the bronze star for combat exploits after serving as Photos courtesy of Nuru International a special operations officer in Iraq.

and into a career as a dermatologist in Morgantown, and the two had remained in touch over the years.

“We were roommates before he left WVU for the Naval Academy,” Hancox said. “We stayed close friends during my medical training and his military training and service.

Although we had talked extensively for years about our desire to be involved in something ‘bigger than ourselves,’ we didn’t know what shape that would take.”

Hancox, who earned a bachelor’s degree at WVU and attended the University’s medical school, said eberly.wvu.edu

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Find Nuru International on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nuruinternational On Twitter @IAMNURU

he knew early on in college that he wanted to do work in developing countries. As an undergraduate student, he traveled to Bulgaria and Mexico for mission work. During medical school, he spent a month

done. Williams, who received his master’s degree in English, began working part time for the organization in 2007 as an “on-ground” promotion specialist. When Nuru officially launched in 2008, he became the

“This is one small thing that I can do to hopefully change the lives of many.”— John Hancox in India as part of the International Health Programs. All of those experiences, Hancox said, opened his eyes to the plight of the extremely poor.

After Harriman’s military service, the two began to more clearly define a plan to alleviate poverty in developing countries.

“Jake saw the direct connection between poverty and terrorism firsthand. We did initial planning together, but when Jake went to Stanford to obtain his MBA, Nuru was born.”

Now four years old, the international nonprofit organization strives to combat extreme poverty by teaching community leaders how to solve problems, so that those leaders can relay solutions to others.

What began as a conversation in a freshman dorm, had become a legitimate organization and brought all three of the men back together.

Billy Williams came onboard just as Nuru’s business model was nearly 16

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grassroots movement director.

Before Nuru, Williams worked as an analytical chemist for a major pharmaceutical company. He worked

Jake Harriman

closely with the college ministry of Chestnut Ridge Church in Morgantown and served as a chief in his tribe, the Youghiogheny River Band of Shawnee Indians.

Hancox has been a partner and the organization’s board chairman

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

since its inception.

“Overall, my desire to create Nuru was born from my Christian faith, which motivates me to treat others as I would want to be treated and causes me to see poverty as an injustice which should be attacked with fervor. I feel that living comfortable, insulated lives in the US while ignoring the plight of over a billion extremely poor people is a tragedy,” he said.

“This is one small thing that I can do to hopefully change the lives of many.”

A Plan to End World Poverty

Harriman was convinced there was a link between extreme poverty and the terrorism missions he’d experienced firsthand during his military service.

As he pursued his MBA, he conducted research on poverty eradication efforts and crafted the structure for Nuru.

The organization, which began work in Kuria, Kenya, in 2007, focuses on five areas of development: agriculture, water and sanitation, health care, education, and community economic development.

Kuria is Kenya’s second poorest district.

“Aimlessly tossing money at people in challenged communities in Africa isn’t working. Fixing their problems for them rather than with them isn’t working either,” Hancox said.

The organization was able to raise its startup funds with the help of Silicon Valley investors, West Virginians, and WVU alumni who supported its goal of helping communities find sustainable

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How NURU works

1 2 3 4 5

Nuru focuses on five areas of development Agriculture

Local farmers form groups and are taught modern, technologically appropriate farming techniques. Each farmer receives a loan of high-quality seed and fertilizer and the farmers plant, weed, and harvest together in their groups. At the end of the season, the group repays their loans.

Water and Sanitation

The goals are to provide clean water access to the entire community within a 20-minute walk from each family’s home and adequate sanitation for community members.

This program has implemented ongoing clean water and sanitation training in association with one of Nuru’s partner organizations, the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology.

Also, rather than creating an advanced rainwater catchment solution at the household level, Nuru encourages local rainwater catchment technology that is both effective and very cost-efficient.

Health Care

The health care program trains community health workers to make home visits and trains families how to prevent health problems such as malaria and dysentery.

Nuru also has provided extensive training to community members in lifesaving disease prevention techniques such as basic hygiene and hand washing, and has distributed hundreds of subsidized anti-malarial bed nets and soap for hand washing stations.

Education

The Education Program sponsors a local primary school to serve as a model school for the entire community. The model schools will serve as teaching institutions for each community, pioneering new techniques, providing teacher training, and mobilizing parents to take an active role in their children’s education.

Nuru’s first sponsored school is Taragwiti Primary School, and Nuru officially began academic management of the school on January 1.

Community Economic Development

Nuru provides financial training and resources to help rural households living in extreme poverty build savings and invest in income-generating activities. The organization provides access to basic financial services that allow farmers to learn how to manage savings, loans, and business opportunities.

Billy Williams

solutions to their challenges.

“Despite trillions of dollars spent on confronting poverty over the last few decades in sub-Saharan Africa, the living standard has not changed,” Hancox said. “Therefore, spending is not the only answer. There must be a fundamental shift in a community, led by the community — not forced upon them from outside sources.”

Nuru acts as a “general contractor,” coordinating between other organizations and the community to meet the area’s needs. The goal is to produce sustainable results that last after Nuru leaves, preferably within five years.

“We don’t seek to reinvent the wheel, but try to match existing technologies and programs to communities in need,” Hancox John Hancox said.

“Our goal is to exit the community and have the people be self-sufficient. We seek ‘sustainable holistic rural community development,’ which means that the locals have the tools to thrive without outside assistance.”

The organization has developed

a measurement instrument it uses in the field to capture baseline data and show results. Hancox said they hope it will determine what works in the model and what doesn’t, and will set a standard by which other groups measure their efforts.

In the meantime, foundations, organizations and universities including Engineers without Borders, Harvard Law School and the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology, are paying attention.

“Our uniqueness lies not in attacking poverty, but in the approach. Our listening, our focus on rural communities, our holistic approach, our coordination with other nongovernmental organizations, our measurement and evaluation, and our emphasis on sustainability are — we feel — setting us apart,” he said.

From Morgantown, WV, to Kuria, Kenya

There are about 25 Nuru campus chapters across the country, but the first one was started at WVU. “It’s amazing that a globally reaching organization was started in Morgantown,” said Sarah Moore, president of the chapter. A graduate student in WVU P. I. Reed School of Journalism, Moore said the group works to raise money and awareness about extreme poverty and Nuru’s work.

Among the initiatives Nuru has started is its education program component, with WVU graduate student Meghan Baird at the helm. eberly.wvu.edu

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Did You Know?

800 million

people go hungry every day.

One out of every six people on the planet has no access to clean water.

ne quarter

of children in poor countries do not finish primary school.

27,500 children

die every day of preventable diseases. This is equivalent to a school bus full of children dying every

three minutes.

1,400,000,000

people live in extreme poverty — that is, on less than $1.25 a day.

Source: Nuru International

Baird, who’s pursuing a master’s degree in school counseling, served as the education program manager for Nuru until December 2009. She has a degree in international studies with a focus on African and Middle Eastern studies.

“We spent a long time collecting data on the new site. We also had to develop a counterpart in Kenya,” she said. “I developed a council of retired teachers to help me brainstorm and they provided me with wisdom.”

Andrew Cogar 18

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Baird and Magige have worked on creating one-and five-year plans to rebuild Kenya’s school system that address teacher education, supply collection, and lesson plans.

Forging Ahead

Always looking forward, Nuru is planning its next move and exploring other communities.

“We have learned many lessons in Kuria and want to apply them to a new location in Africa or Central America,” Hancox said. “We want to continue to research and publish the best techniques for fighting poverty.”

Andrew Cogar, a lawyer in Morgantown and fellow WVU alum, serves on Nuru’s board of directors.

The board oversees Nuru’s finances, the organization’s development and gives feedback on its operations.

He said Nuru is fighting a noble battle by forging a new and effective path toward eliminating extreme poverty.

“Nuru embodies the proverb that ‘to teach a man to fish’ empowers that man to feed himself and his family for

“Our goal is to exit the community and have the people be self-sufficient.” — John Hancox Francis Magige, the education program manager on the Kenya project, worked with Baird to establish relationships with local residents. Kenya’s school system is divided into primary and secondary schools. Primary school is pre-school to eighth grade, and secondary school is ninth through twelfth grade.

One challenge educators are working to combat is the number of students who drop out of school when they’re about 13 years old — around eighth grade.

Boys tend to drop out to become maize truck loaders. The girls leave school before their female circumcision ceremony and begin the quest for a husband.

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

a lifetime,” he said.

What started as a dream shared among college friends one night during finals week, is now aiding families and ending poverty one community at a time. The trio and a support system of staff, volunteers and donors that has grown to hundreds worldwide, isn’t stopping anytime soon.

“We want to continue to educate people about the problem of extreme poverty and hopefully motivate more people to join us in the fight,” Hancox said. “We want to share with folks the amazing results that we have seen and expect to see in the future.”

Geography professor Bradley Wilson and Fair Trade 2.0 member Amanda Rivera enjoy a cup of La Hermandad-produced coffee. Photo by Brian Persinger

Students Partnering with Farmers in Nicaragua to Create Micro-lending Fund

by Ashley Wells

Where did your morning cup of coffee come from? Whether it’s a major coffee retail chain, a gas station, or the grocery store, you probably never encountered the person who picked the coffee beans or heard the story of that farmer’s struggle to make ends meet. A student-led group on the WVU campus called Fair Trade 2.0 is working to change that by partnering with a coffee cooperative called La Hermandad in Nicaragua. eberly.wvu.edu

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Photos Courtesy of Bradley Wilson

La Hermandad, which means the brotherhood or sisterhood in Spanish, is an organization representing 30 farming families and supports more than 100 people in the community of San Ramon, Nicaragua. Bradley Wilson, assistant professor of geography, has been working with La Hermandad members and other agricultural cooperatives engaged in the fair-trade coffee market since 2005. Wilson said there is a paradox in the coffee supply chain that most consumers are unaware of.

While we pay top dollar for a latte, farmers at the other end of the coffee chain barely earn enough to survive.

“This isn’t a fair trade. When coffee travels to the US, the exporter, shipper, roaster and retailer all take their cut of the profits. After all is said and done, only about 10 percent of the profit from La Hermandad President Sebastian Mairena a pound of coffee goes back to the country of origin. Of that 10 percent only a fraction goes to the farmers and workers that labored all year to produce it,” he said.

The Fair Trade Certified label guarantees that farming organizations receive a stable price for their coffee. But often that is not enough to live on. That is why Wilson and students started Fair Trade 2.0. They are concerned with improving access to nutritious food in coffee farming communities by creating direct relationships.

In October, Fair Trade 2.0 launched the Café con Leche Campaign as a fundraiser to support agricultural diversification projects by La Hermandad member farmers. Students sold coffee by the pound during finals week when students and professors alike need coffee the most. The money will be used to create a low-cost credit fund to buy dairy cows, hens for eggs, and supplies for planting and maintaining a garden to produce vegetables for sale.

“Without access to low-cost credit for food production, farmers are struggling to put food on the table each year. As we all know, one cannot live by coffee alone,” Wilson said.

“For farmers that is especially true.

They need diverse income sources and the means by which to produce their own food.” The Fair Trade Fair trade certified symbol 2.0 initiative began last summer when members Bradley Wilson at La Hermandad of La Hermandad came to Wilson with the idea of funding small food sovereignty projects in the cooperative.

Food sovereignty is the concept that access to healthy and culturally appropriate food is a basic need best met through sound agro-ecological farming methods that are sustainable and farmer-led.

There are nearly no loans for producing food in Nicaragua, especially micro-loans that can be paid back relatively quickly. La Hermandad leaders asked Wilson if he thought there might be support from the United States to make them a loan for dairy cows, chickens, and a market garden. Wilson discussed the idea with Amanda Rivera, a senior geography major from Bridgeport,

West Virginia, to see what she thought. “My family is actually from Latin America, and my grandfather was a coffee farmer in El Salvador. So, coffee has always been important to my family,” said Rivera. “I was immediately interested and began telling my friends. It just snowballed from there.”

For two weeks in October, “He told us that ‘the distance between us is Rivera and other students vast but the connection we feel in our hearts is gave away free coffee in Brooks Hall and asked for donations to support the Café very close.’ Then he welcomed us as members con Leche Campaign. They of the cooperative. It was an inspiring moment said they were shocked at the outpouring of support. for all of us.”—Bradley Wilson “They walked into my office, holding a jar with $50 in it. It blew my mind. WVU students, faculty and staff immediately keyed into the issue and wanted to support the campaign,” Wilson said.

With growing interest, the group decided to raise funds by selling coffee by the pound. The group received a shipment of 100 pounds of coffee on the Monday of finals week, 70 percent of which was sold by pre-order. All of the coffee was sold three days later. Through coffee sales and donations, the Café con Leche Campaign has raised enough capital for La Hermandad to purchase one dairy cow and populate a fifty-chicken hen house.

“Estimating modestly, that’s roughly 7 to 9 liters of milk and at least 25 eggs a day,” Wilson said.

The loan will give the farmers an alternative means of income. The repayment of the loan will be returned to the micro-loan fund to be invested in other projects at a later time. “These problems with economic development are things I hear about all the time in geography class.

Being a part of Café con Leche Campaign is how I wrap my head around what it all means and employ those concepts to really make a difference,” said junior Evan Chapman, a native of Evansville, Indiana. “It’s really important to understand that it was the farmers who suggested this. It’s not us telling La Hermandad what to do, but rather they were reaching out to us, looking for support,” he said.

Family portrait: “I think in that sense we are working with them, or for them. It is a Sebastian and Sarahi Mairena, president different kind of development model, one based on solidarity, not charity. and secretary of La Hermandad pictured We are listening.” Fair Trade 2.0 celebrated the end of semester by calling here with their La Hermandad members via Skype on the cooperative’s only computer. children Sarita and Sebastiancito after a La Hermandad President Sebastian Mairena, expressed his gratitude long day harvesting bananas on the farm. and welcomed the students as the newest members of the cooperative for all the work they put in to help the community.

“He told us that ‘the distance between us is vast but the connection we feel in our hearts is very close.’ Then he welcomed us as members of the cooperative. It was an inspiring moment for all of us,” Wilson said.

Fair Trade 2.0 plans to continue raising funds and selling coffee for the Café con Leche Campaign. To contact Fair Trade 2.0 for more information on how you can support the Café con Leche Campaign or about future coffee sales, contact Dr. Bradley Wilson, assistant professor of geography, at bradley.wilson@mail.wvu.edu; Amanda Rivera, campaign coordinator, at arivera@mix.wvu.edu; or Evan Chapman, sales coordinator, at echapma7@mix.wvu.edu.

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CREATING PRIDE OF

by Jessica Hammond photos and video by Scott Lituchy

PLAC 22 22

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Eberly EberlyCollege Collegeof ofArts Artsand andSciences SciencesMagazine Magazine

by Jessica Hammond Photos and video by Scott Lituchy

The completed Montgomery, West Virginia, mural

Green space, parking spots, signage, crosswalks, and traffic

CE Members of the Community Design Team work with local residents and students to paint a mural during their visit in October 2010.

patterns make a community feel comfortable, organized, and inviting — but most people don’t spend much time thinking about them. The truth is, attention to these design details can affect economic development, commerce, tourism, real estate, and recreation in a town. eberly.wvu.edu

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CDT coordinator Jenny Selin, standing at center talks with CDT team members and local residents who met to discuss plans to revitalize Montgomery on October 10, 2010. With Selin are, from left, Peter Butler, WVU landscape architecture professor; WVU architecture and community development student Jen Parsons; and Steve Selin, WVU recreation, parks, and tourism professor.

The Community Design Team (CDT) at West Virginia University helps people make the most of their community by bringing students, volunteer professionals from a variety of disciplines, and area leaders to the table to map out towns’ strategic plan for success.

Through CDT, students apply the skills they learn in the classroom to communities in need around West Virginia. A multidisciplinary team incorporates professionals and students from several sectors of the University, including the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Design; the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences; and the WVU Extension Service.

“It’s incredibly rewarding, and the students are putting everything that they are learning into practice,” said Margaret Stout, professor of public administration.

Stout went on her first CDT trip in October 2010 to Montgomery County, and teaches a public planning course where students execute applied fieldwork for communities around the state.

Stout said her favorite aspect of the partnership is that students are not simply observing, they are creating changes for real people in real communities. CDT, 24

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she said, is the perfect model for giving students well-rounded work experience.

“This is a land-grant University, this is precisely what we are supposed to be doing,” she said.

CDT helps communities identify goals and plan how to achieve them, which often includes suggestions for improving the physical and environmental design of the community, as well as addressing local issues.

For former mining towns like Montgomery, students said the collaboration is critical for helping communities reinvent themselves when their economy has changed.

“This is a great opportunity for professionals from WVU and the state to work together with each community,” said Jennifer Selin, CDT coordinator. She said the program gives communities access to a wealth of professionals in marketing and design, historic preservation, civil engineering and public health, among other fields.

“After the initial visit, residents choose which projects and plans to work on.

Follow-up projects have been a particular focus as professors and students partner with communities to complete those first

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

plans and projects. The Eberly College has made key contributions as a partner throughout the CDT process,” she said.

A couple of Eberly capstone students, Selin said, have edited, researched, and written sections of CDT reports. In the past several semesters, a professional writing and editing capstone student has worked for the CDT office.

Since the WVU Extension Service and the Davis College started CDT in 1997, the program has worked with 43 West Virginia communities and one site in Point Marion, Pennsylvania.

Some students have been able to participate in a CDT visit, stay overnight with a local resident, and become part of the team.

Jon Kincaid, a first-year master’s degree student in public administration, was a member of Stout’s public planning class when they went to Montgomery.

His group examined viable pedestrian walkways, the safety of walking around the riverfront, street signage, and sidewalks.

His duties included making sure the town was in compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act regulations, which he said was key to sound city planning.

As West Virginia natives, Kincaid and his wife plan to remain in the state, and he said it is crucial for people to be active participants in shaping their communities.

“It’s important to be proud of where you’re from. Investments in the economy and political situations change, but participation is what makes a vibrant community the bedrock and foundation of a successful city,” he said.

There’s an extension agent in each county, and WVU’s Extension Service has played a large part, funding the initiative and gathering input on the communities from the local agents.

Doug Hylton, the Main Street program manager of Ronceverte, worked with a CDT team in 2001.

“The most important thing the team did for us was bring our community together,” Hylton said. “They spent time

looking at our depressed economy and ways to improve it.”

Following the team’s recommendations, the city council hired a group to create a comprehensive master plan for Ronceverte.

Design, said working with people in Rainelle—and not for them—was an important part of the process.

Andy Pendleton, Rainelle area planning commissioner, said the CDT focused

“They helped us improve our town with a positive attitude for a better tomorrow, if not for a better today.” —Andy Pendleton primarily on the downtown area, and suggested painting some of the buildings, and adding more businesses to the empty building space.

“They helped us improve our town with a positive attitude for a better tomorrow, if not for a better today,” she said.

“We did not always know how WVU public administration student Andrea Bowman talks with local residents of Montgomery. to make things One of the primary pieces of that plan happen, but with this visit we feel like we are was surveying the town to start the moving forward in a positive way.” historic landmark designation process.

David Millard, a member of the In May 2005, Ronceverte was declared a Glenville downtown board and co-chair historic landmark. of the town’s “Street Gang,” established to In September 2005, it became a spark economic development, worked with Main Street USA/West Virginia Program a CDT team in fall 2009. through the West Virginia Development The town committed funds to the Office. The Main Street Program creation of a park in downtown Glenville. offers support, training, and assistance The sidewalks and main streets are going for downtown development in 12 to be redone after work on the water and communities in West Virginia. sewer lines is completed.

Jennifer Parsons, a second-year PhD “They suggested we reface and paint student in human and community the downtown buildings, create a courtyard development in the Davis College of park, and label and brand our town more Agriculture, Natural Resources, and efficiently,” Millard said. “Probably the

most important thing the CDT did for us was signage. We had to redo a lot of it to get it where it should be.”

“I have really developed meaningful friendships and relationships from the CDT and this project,” Millard said.

Diana Wilson, executive director of the Upper Kanawha Valley Economic Development Corporation, was thankful and excited that the CDT came to Montgomery to help improve and develop the downtown area.

The CDT was able to visit thanks to a grant from the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health’s Division of Rural Development.

“We are a nice, small community on the river, sandwiched between the mountains,” Wilson said.

“People in the community sometimes don’t see the positives of our downtown.

We are our own worst critics. Having the team come in with fresh, optimistic eyes gave us a more positive outlook.”

“We have a critical access hospital, which enabled us to receive the grant that paid for the CDT to come,” Wilson said. “Doctors who are looking at Montgomery need to not only like the hospital, they need to like the town and want to live here.”

A few additional suggestions the CDT made for Montgomery included improving the housing market and transportation options. The team also suggested that Montgomery preserve their historic landmarks and improve public facilities for citizens.

Wilson said her favorite part about the visit was how it pulled the community together. Working on a mural to improve the appearance of downtown galvanized the town’s participants. “It’s a whimsical piece. It makes you smile when you look at it.”

It’s attention to the details that those involved said can make a real difference and result in a true pride of place.

See a video of the CDT trip to Montgomery at http://bit.ly/llHgnY.

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by Ashley Wells photos by Brian Persinger 26

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Awards & Honors Many people have heard of the Human Genome Project, the scientific project to map out the different genes in the human DNA. What people may not be as familiar with is the Assembling the Tree of Life (AToL) project. AToL is an attempt by the scientific community to fully chart the evolutionary timeline of all species on Earth.

Thomas Kammer, paleontologist and Eberly College Centennial Professor of Geology at West Virginia University, is part of a 13-member team of biologists and paleontologists funded by the National Science Foundation to research and map the living and fossil echinoderm portion of the Tree of Life.

The cross-disciplinary approach needed to analyze the echinoderm component of the tree of life requires experts from paleontology, genomics, informatics, developmental biology, anatomy, and phylogenetics.

Echinoderms are exclusively marine invertebrate animals, meaning that they have no spinal column. They include five living

classes: starfish, sea urchins, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, and crinoids. These echinoderms are the closest relatives to animals with spinal columns, also called vertebrates.

There are 16 other echinoderm classes that are now extinct and known only from fossils. Kammer specializes in the fossil record of crinoids, which are the most abundant and widespread fossil echinoderms. One type of living crinoid, feather stars, crawls around on coral reefs, where they hide from predators by day and feed on plankton at night.

Sea lilies, another type of living crinoid, are found in the deep sea where they attach to the seafloor with a stem so they are not swept away as they feed on plankton that is carried along by ocean currents. Most fossil crinoids had a stem, but lived in shallow water before they adapted and began taking refuge from predators in the deep sea.

Kammer said that through this research scientists can gain an understanding of how all echinoderms developed their great powers of regeneration, with the ability to replace

Above: Thomas Kammer, Eberly College Centennial Professor of Geology, holds two samples of marine limestone that are composed almost entirely of the skeletal pieces of crinoids. Left: Kammer stands in his research laboratory next to various collections of fossil crinoid specimens from the Mississippian Period (359 to 320 million years ago) of the United States, ranging from West Virginia to New Mexico.

A trimmed slab of limestone with a complete crinoid animal including the stem at the base and the body above with arms that were used for feeding on plankton.

complete organ systems and body parts lost to predators.

If the genetic basis of regeneration were better understood, he said, it could have applications in medicine for regenerating damaged or lost tissue and organs in humans.

Paleontologists have been included in the project because crinoids are the bridge between all living echinoderms and their evolutionary origins over 500 million years ago. Although echinoderms are not the largest species, they are among the most diverse in terms of anatomy and the number of species in their fossil record. “The overall project is important for understanding the evolutionary relationships between the living groups of echinoderms, whose genomes are just beginning to be analyzed by geneticists,� Kammer said.

Assembling the Tree of Life is an ongoing NSF program to map out the relationships (phylogenies) between all life forms on Earth, including living and fossil organisms. The five-year, $3-million project began January 1. Kammer’s portion of the project grant is $168,210.

The team includes scientists from Ohio State University, Duke University, Louisiana State University, Nova Southeastern University, the Smithsonian Institution, University of California-San Diego, University of Michigan, University of Tennessee, University of Guam, and Abilene Christian University.

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Intellectual Hot Spot:

Young Inventor FIRES UP Her Brain to Beat Pain

by Colleen DeHart photo by M.G. Ellis At the age of 16, Katherine Bomkamp saw a need in her community and decided to take the initiative to fix it.

Now Bomkamp, a West Virginia University sophomore political science major from Waldorf, Maryland, is the first WVU student to be inducted into the National Museum of Education’s National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors.

Her invention, which will help the world’s millions of amputees, is called the pain-free socket. The product incorporates thermal-bio feedback into prosthetics to eliminate phantom pain in amputees. Phantom pain, the pain of a nonexistent limb caused by the brain continuing to send signals 30

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and commands to the limb, affects 80 percent of the world’s 10 million amputees.

“I incorporated thermal-bio feedback into the prosthetic socket, which is the concept of very controlled and concentrated heat, that heats up the severed nerve endings. It forces the brain to focus on the heat rather than send signals to the limb that is not really there,” she said.

The idea for the invention came when Bomkamp was prompted by her high school science teacher to develop a project worthy of the International Science and Engineering Fair.

Bomkamp’s father was in the US Air Force for 20 years. He was last stationed at the Pentagon, which brought Bomkamp and her family to Maryland. She decided to focus her research on finding a solution to phantom pain after frequent visits to Walter Reed Army Hospital.

“Walking in there, it is gut-wrenching seeing all the very young amputees who are in the hospital,” she said. “I knew I wanted to do something to help eliminate and help some of the pain they were experiencing.”

When she started researching phantom pain, she found that there was no medication on the market to help eliminate it.

Most amputees are prescribed barbiturates and anti-psychotics, which are very expensive and have a high addiction rate, and are not proven to work 100 percent of the time. Bomkamp knew she wanted to approach the problem holistically, and more cost-effectively.

“My thought process was when I pull a muscle or strain something, I put heat on it,” she said. “I wanted to see if I could somehow transform that into a mobile setting, and if it would even work.”

She came across a study using thermal-bio feedback to cure a man’s phantom pain, but that was through electrodes and wasn’t mobile. Bomkamp wanted to incorporate that aspect of thermal-bio feedback into a mobile situation.

After two-and-a-half years of research and construction, Bomkamp has created a finished product that phantom pain researchers are confident will work.

She recently applied for a patent for the product.

Currently, she is working with WVU’s Office of Technology Transfer to find funding options and discuss commercialization of the product.

Awards & Honors “I have only been a WVU student for a few months, and they have been incredibly helpful,” she said last October. “That is part of the reason why I chose to come here. I knew they had the resources to help me with this.”

Ultimately, her next goal is to get the product to amputees.

“I hope that it will cure the pain they are experiencing,” she said. “For some people phantom pain is just annoying, but for others it is debilitating. I hope to adapt it to all prosthetic types and allow these people to live their lives as pain-free as possible.”

She especially wants to help military amputees.

“They have already given up so much for our country, and they deserve all the advancements out there,” she said.

Despite having excelled in creating a workable device to help others, Bomkamp’s career goals don’t involve lots of science and engineering. She hopes to attend law school and possibly go into corporate law, where she can continue to work with patents.

To Market, To Market: The Office of Technology Transfer The Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is responsible for the protection and commercialization of intellectual property (IP) for all WVU organizations. The OTT reports to Curt Peterson, vice president for research and economic development, and its budget is funded by the WVU Research Corporation.

Prior to July 1999, IP protection and technology transfer activities were handled by the Office of Sponsored Programs. To put more emphasis and effort into this key and growing activity for WVU, the OTT was established in July 1999.

Faculty members and other researchers are the primary source of intellectual property, either through

“I hope that it will cure the pain they are experiencing. For some people phantom pain is just annoying, but for others it is debilitating. I hope to adapt it to all prosthetic types and allow these people to live their lives as pain-free as possible.”—Katherine Bomkamp

the invention of new products or processes, or through know-how and expertise in certain fields.

Intellectual property can be protected through patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets.

Commercialization occurs primarily through licenses of patents and/or know-how to existing companies, and, in some cases, through the creation of a joint venture or even a start-up company.

The OTT exists to serve the faculty, staff, students, and administration of the University and the public

But, even though her future goals don’t involve inventing products, Bomkamp said she is always thinking of ways to fix problems.

“That is just the way my brain works,” she said.

In addition to being inducted into the National Gallery for America’s Inventors, in 2009 she placed fourth in the bioengineering and materials category of the International Science and Engineering Fair and in 2010 she was recognized with an award from the International Council on Systems Engineering.

At the International Science and Engineering Fair, Bomkamp competed against students from all over the United States and more than 50 countries.

Bomkamp has received other awards including the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research Award, US Air Force Award, first place in the senior division of the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division, the La Plata Lions Club Award, and several Charles County Regional Science Fair and North Point High School Fair awards.

For more information on the National Gallery for America’s Young Inventors, visit nmoe.org.

by carrying out its mission to: • Encourage invention and innovation at WVU; • Protect the intellectual property rights of WVU by patent, copyright, or other means; • Transfer the results of WVU research to the public by bringing researchers and the business community together in a relationship of mutual advantage; • Generate income for future research and education; and • Contribute to local, state, regional, and national business competitiveness and economic development.

To learn more about OTT and its programs and resources, visit wvu.edu/~research/techtransfer.

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WVNano

Director's Pursuit

of More Multidisciplinary Research is

No Small Matter

by Devon Copeland In Greek mythology, muses presided over different arts and sciences, acting as guides and sources of inspiration.

New WVNano director and tenured professor in the Department of Physics, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky is carrying the torch of the modernday muse in her new role. She’s leading the way toward a more multidisciplinary approach to the cutting-edge research conducted at the University and proudly bearing the message that science is everywhere and means something to everyone.

If she motivates a few non-scientists along the way, she’ll count those as a bonus.

A veteran faculty researcher, Leslie-Pelecky has experience leading multidisciplinary science education and research efforts. But a

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not-so-secret joy of hers comes from sparking the love of science in students who don’t think they can “handle” it.

“When I teach, I’ve taught non-specializing students that were just trying to find a science they could understand,” she said.

“If you dig in a little bit, work a little bit, you can do it. When they get an ‘A’ they just feel really great about it.”

For about 20 years, Leslie-Pelecky has dug in to the university setting, teaching those who think they can’t grasp science and looking for answers to major world problems.

Scientists, she said, are on the forefront of problem solving whether it be climate change, alternative energy sources or cancer research.

“When the president says that energy research is important,

Photo by Randy Anderson

New

forward to jumping back into the classroom in the future and teaching nanomaterials and nonmajor science courses soon.

After all, ask Leslie-Pelecky what prompted her pursuit for answers and she’ll pinpoint a certain physics class in high school that sparked the passion she now ignites in others.

“Things changed colors, we got to play with light, we got to play with sound,” she said of the class. “Science asks you to use your brain a little.”

Leslie-Pelecky, who earned her PhD from Michigan State University and a BS in physics and BA in philosophy from the University of North Texas, brings to WVU a long history of education and research activity outside the lab and classroom.

She serves on a number of advisory boards including the National High Field Magnet Laboratory board, the American Institute of Physics Media Relations Advisory Board, and the editorial board of the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology.

A prolific writer and popular speaker, she is the author of two books: The Physics of NASCAR and Biomedical Applications of Nanotechnology with Vinod L. Labhashetwar in 2007. She is also the author of more than 60 articles and papers in refereed publications and has presented talks and workshops throughout America on topics from “NASCAR and the Science of Speed” to “Broadening Middle-School Student Images of Science and Scientists.”

WVU faculty and staff have welcomed Leslie-Pelecky with open arms, and she said it’s starting to feel like home.

“I can’t think of a more exciting place to be right now,” she said.

“The potential we have and with the outstanding leadership and researchers we have, we are poised to succeed.”

New & Notable

Photo by Jake Lambuth

then we puff up a little bit,” she said. “These are difficult problems, that’s why we’re at a university, we’re creating solutions.”

Leslie-Pelecky’s research focuses on using nanomagnets (magnets less than one thousandth the diameter of a human hair) to improve magnetic resonance imaging, chemotherapy and other cancer diagnostic and treatment processes.

She said she was drawn to her new post at WVNano, West Virginia’s focal point in nanoscale science, engineering and education, because of the progress the University has made in the multidisciplinary approach and its growing collection of laboratory equipment that facilitates advanced research.

While her research focuses on nanomagnets, Leslie-Pelecky said she refers to herself as a scientific “mutt,” learning what she needs to better understand a problem.

“When you’re working on a problem, it’s not just a physics problem anymore,” she said.

She said she hopes to see the disciplinary research lines between the sciences blur to allow for a more collaborative workspace. The seeds, she said, are already being planted.

For example, a 3,300 square foot clean room housed at the College of Engineering and Mineral Resources but shared across all research disciplines involved with nano research, is the key hub in a set of laboratories supporting WVNano.

Together with labs in physics, chemistry and health sciences, the clean room provides the means to build new nano and micro-scale devices and systems to improve lives, health and security.

Having recently finished her first semester at the helm, Leslie-Pelecky didn’t teach any courses this spring and instead has been focusing on the administrative demands of her new job. She said she looks

WVNano Director Diandra Leslie-Pelecky works with a piece of the physics department’s advanced equipment.

What is WVNano?

West Virginia’s focal point in nanoscale science, engineering and education since 2004, WVNano’s research targets materials, devices, and biomolecular systems for use in public security, health, energy, and environmental applications.

Research groups across the WVU campus and the state combine strengths and pursue innovations that lead to key implications for the technologies of the future.

Nanotechnology is the study and use of materials on a very small scale. Hundreds of new life-improving products from coatings to more effective cancer drugs are on the horizon through nanotechnology research because materials take on new properties at such a tiny scale.

Founded and led by WVU, WVNano’s work also involves research at Marshall University and West Virginia State University.

Learn more about WVNano at:

http://wvnano.wvu.edu/

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A Teaming Up forT KEOFF

by Ashley Wells photo by Chris Schwer

With a thunderous noise, a Terrier-Orion sounding rocket blasts off of the Wallops Flight Facility launch pad on the eastern shore of Virginia, scaring hundreds of seabirds over miles of sandbars and swamp on the Atlantic coastline.

Rushing upward at more than 20 times the acceleration of gravity, within seconds it has risen tens of miles above a cheering crowd of onlookers. Eventually it tops 74 miles in less than two minutes.

For the third year in a row, West Virginia University students and faculty from the Sounding Rocket Student Program have sent experiments, or payloads, into suborbital space.

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WVU’s Sounding Rocket Program The students and professors have gone holds planning meetings with ATK employees, partnership with ATK began when Durney to RockOn, a weeklong student workshop writes test plans, and conducts a test readiness saw an article about the initiative in The Daily on rapid payload sponsored by NASA and review. The students are able to test the payloads Athenaeum. Interested in collaboration, he managed by the Colorado and the Virginia at the ATK facility in Rocket Center, West became the liaison between ATK and the space grant consortiums, since 2009. The Virginia, by subjecting it to conditions similar Sounding Rocket team at WVU. workshop draws students and faculty from 13 to those it would experience during an actual universities across the rocket launch. country.

Aside from the But the twopractical experience semester long project the students gain involves a considerable from working with amount of planning for the company, Durney the launch, and that’s said they hone their where the University’s communications skills. partnership with the Many students, he said, private company Alliant do not fully grasp the Techsystems (ATK) importance of being comes into play. able to write reports ATK’s Missile or speak in front of Subsystems and groups. He said strong Components division communication skills is the largest military are just as critical in the contractor in West profession as technical Dimitris Vassiliadis, a lecturer in the Eberly physics department, and members of the Sounding Rocket program assemble payload hardware.

Virginia. Its products ability.

Showing that the company is interested in include propulsion and warheads for tactical “Professionally, the experience of the students’ project and providing them with missile systems, tank ammunition, fuses for participating in teleconferences about the the opportunity to see real-world application of hand grenades, and composite structures for design and progress of the payload was the principles they are learning, Durney said, is aircraft, among others. invaluable to me when discussing my own valuable career experience.

In addition to the West Virginia division, research projects with other collaborators,” “A significant number of the company’s the corporation has operations in 24 states, said Robert Baylor, a first-year doctoral engineers and management are WVU alumni,” Puerto Rico, and internationally. The West candidate in physics who also earned his said Dimitris Vassiliadis, a lecturer in the Virginia division employs 1,500 people — 125 bachelor’s degree in physics at WVU. Department of Physics who organized the of whom are WVU graduates — including Sounding Rocket Student Program. “Their the facility’s recently retired vice president and For more information or to discuss continued support demonstrates that they still general manager, Keith Funkhouser. a similar partnership, contact Dimitris care a lot about the gold and blue.”

ATK offers internships to students Vassiliadis in the Department of Physics, at The program invites undergraduates attending universities and colleges in the 304-293-1824, ext. 33463 or in science, technology, engineering, and region. Through that program the company dimitris.vassiliadis@mail.wvu.edu. mathematics (STEM) disciplines to design has recruited 15 WVU graduates since 2005.

Information about ATK can be found at and build sophisticated payloads for the annual “Programs like this foster collaboration www.atk.com. launches. Leading up to each launch, the team between industry and universities, and provide industry with a pipeline of future workers. It is a win-win for all,” said Chuck Durney, a manager in ATK’s Strategic Facilities Program Refresh your memory. Read about the creation of the WVU Management Office.

Sounding Rocket Program and the first launch in the fall 2009 STEM edition of Eberly (pg. 30). The online archive edition is at eberly.wvu.edu/alumni under Publications.

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SAFETY !

ZONE

by Ashley Wells Photos by Brian Persinger

You might know WVU for such recent football safety greats as Robert Sands and Eric Wicks, but you are probably less familiar with another great person in a “safety” position at WVU. Her name is Barbara Foster, and she is both the safety program coordinator for the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at WVU and the safety director for the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry. The role of a safety manager is a behind-the-scenes job. Safety professionals often go unacknowledged, despite the important work that they do. Laboratories contain dangerous chemicals that pose serious health risks, if handled improperly, and the equipment can often be dangerous if used incorrectly. People can be severely injured or even die without the safety precautions that professionals like Foster implement and enforce.

Foster acts as the official liaison between all science departments in the College and makes sure that department heads, faculty, and the dean of the College all stay informed and up-to-date on laboratory safety procedures. She works with new faculty to ensure that their labs are set up safely and correctly. She also writes the safety rules and regulations, inspects labs, and presents seminars for the employees and

students in the science departments in the Eberly College.

“We have to be what we want to see in a lab,” Foster said.

There are about 30 teaching labs, prep rooms, and chemical storage areas and more than 50 research labs in chemistry

NatioNal ReseaRch couNcil

Updated edition

Prudent Practices in the Laboratory

Prudent Practices in the

Laboratory Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards

the NatioNal academies PRess

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under Foster’s guidance, as well as the safety programs of all of Eberly’s science buildings on campus. To maximize the safety of everyone involved, Foster has implemented a chain of command in the laboratories.

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

The first line is the faculty, who are wellversed in safety procedures. Next are the teaching assistants and lab staff who oversee the students. Teaching assistants frequently demonstrate procedures in lab courses so students can see the experiment steps before they have to perform them. Foster works with all of the graduate assistants to make sure that they are up to speed on safety procedures.

“My favorite part of this job is working with the students, faculty, and staff in an academic environment,” she said. “We all work as a team to make sure those procedures and experiments in the science departments are safe and up to the standards required by the University and various federal agencies.”

Her commitment to and respect for her students and the faculty with which she works is an integral aspect of her approach to her job, and she sees herself as a mentor and model to students who may not realize that they could have a career in safety management.

“When former students come back and ask me for advice on how to have a career in safety management, that is an incredibly validating experience,” Foster said.

Her extensive expertise and commitment to working collaboratively with others to achieve goals is what led the National Academies to ask that she co-chair the committee formed to update Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Disposal of Chemicals (1995). Recognition of this kind by the National Academies is considered to be a prestigious honor among scientists.

Now, in addition to her work at WVU,

“She really is an expert on this subject matter. The important thing to bring forward to people is what an asset Barbara Foster is to WVU.” —William F. Carroll

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Foster will influence the safety regimens of countless other labs across the country and the world through her contributions to an update of Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards.

Prudent Practices is the seminal reference book on laboratory safety in the world. The book details effective safety procedures, proper handling of chemicals, chemical waste management, and much more. It is the manual that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) uses to establish its safety policies.

Foster said that it is very difficult to give a reference manual any kind of longevity. With science, technology, and research advancing at an exponential rate, it is hard to know when a safety manual will become obsolete.

“The 16 years between the last edition and this current one saw innumerable innovations, and the next 15 years are likely to see exponentially more. The most the committee can do is be as forward-thinking in their philosophy as possible and try to cover as many bases as they can,” Foster said.

Before revising the book, the committee surveyed people who used it. The survey provided useful feedback about what needed to be updated, what was missing, and what should be kept throughout the revision process. In particular, the rapidly evolving field of nanotechnology was missing from the book. The committee also added information on lab security to the updated edition.

“In order to update something like this, you have to know where you are, where you’ve been, and also where you’re going,” Foster said.

Committee co-chair William F. Carroll Jr., the former president of the American Chemical Society and vice president for industry issues for Occidental Chemical Corporation, said he found Foster’s input invaluable. Together they oversaw a committee of 15 members committed to laboratory safety in academic, research, governmental, and industrial labs.

“She really is an expert on this subject

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matter. The important thing to bring forward to people is what an asset Barbara Foster is to WVU,” Carroll said.

Kenneth Moloy, an industry professional from E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company, was one representative from industry.

“I found Barbara to be really great to work with. I have a different perspective, being from an industry background, and I feel like all voices at the table were heard,” he said.

The committee recommends a “culture of safety,” a phrase which is seen many times throughout the book. To Foster, this means setting an example for others by following the safety rules and enforcing them.

“The culture of safety encompasses everything you do in a lab and every aspect of what you do. It starts at an individual level, with each person in the lab,” she says. But it doesn’t stop there.

“In general, safety programs are not successful unless there is strong support from the administration. I enjoy working with Dean Robert Jones and the department chairs in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, all of whom understand the need for established and enforced safety regulations,” she said.

Foster has a lot of experience with creating a culture of safety in laboratories.

She first started working in the WVU labs in 1991, the same year that OSHA instituted The Lab Standard, 29 CFR 1910.1450. This was also the first time that anyone had seen the phrase “chemical hygiene plan,” which is a plan that spells out a lab’s specific policies and standard operating procedures to protect its staff from injury caused by the handling of chemicals. Every lab must now have one of these, and Foster has written them for every science department in the Eberly College.

“To be successful in safety management, a person has to be dedicated and committed. They have to lay a firm foundation in a chemical hygiene plan that is relevant to their workplace, and then they have to enforce it,” she said.

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

Foster has given presentations and lectures on safety management issues across the nation, and she receives many calls from people who want advice on how they can create a culture of safety in their own labs.

While her advice and wisdom on safety management issues has helped scores of other professionals, only the Eberly College at WVU has had access to her wealth of knowledge on a daily basis.

Now anyone can go online to read Prudent Practices for free and receive the best practices that Foster and the committee have recommended. Because all of the committee’s work was done pro bono, the National Academies are able to offer the manual for free online, making it more widely available to students and teaching assistants who may not be able to afford the $100 price tag for the hard copy edition.

As a free tool for students, faculty, and other professionals, the manual is just one more step toward Foster’s goal of helping scientists, both at WVU and elsewhere, to advance science as safely and securely as possible.

You can access the 2011 edition of Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards at http://bit.ly/jSMOZx Barbara Foster is certified as a chemical hygiene officer through the National Registry of Certified Chemists.

She is a member of the American Chemical Society. In 2006, her service to the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety earned her the Tillmanns-Skolnick Award, and in 2007, she served as the chair for the same division. She also sits on the Board of Editors of the ACS Journal of Chemical Health & Safety, serves as a reviewer for the ACS Journal of Chemical Education, and is a member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 45 Technical Committee.

Linking Chemistry Students with Real-life Experience

by Jessica Hammond West Virginia University Chemistry graduate students have the opportunity to gain real-life work experience thanks to West Virginia University Eberly College of Arts and Sciences alumnus Don Brodie.

Brodie, who received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1969, created an internship program for WVU chemistry graduate students.

“I owe a debt of gratitude to the University,” he said. “(Although) I wasn’t the best chemistry student, I was able to link chemistry to business and that was my advantage.”

“I would have liked a similar situation when I was in school, and that is why I initiated this program.”

Brodie is CEO of the Purolite Company, a chemical manufacturing plant that makes polymers that are used in a number of different ways, one of which is to purify water. One very familiar example is the use of Purolite’s product in Brita Water Filters, which removes heavy metals and improves the taste of drinking water.

The polymers also are used to recover gold, Alumnus Don Brodie uranium, copper, nickel, and cobalt from water and other substances.

In 2010, Cheng Zhong worked as the company’s first WVU intern.

He has since earned his PhD after working with Chemistry Professor Mike Shi, and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Working for Purolite in China, Zhong said, helped him better

appreciate industrial scale chemistry and its applications.

“My favorite part was the totally different experience in the industrial process department, in comparison to academic research labs.

Efficiency is always the most important consideration in the industrial lab. It took me some time to get used to the different research style, but I learned a lot,” he said.

Zhong said he expects his industrial experience and the knowledge he gained to give him a significant advantage in the job market. He learned how to cooperate with — and learn from — coworkers on the production line, while developing his own ideas for process improvement.

“In the lab, experiments were small-scale reactions, less than 1kg. But in production, the scales could be up to several tons,” Zhong said.

The reactions needed to be optimized before they could move on to production, considering such factors as temperature control, pressure control, product purification, and storage.

Zhong commended his fellow Mountaineer for creating an opportunity for him to gain the real-world edge he needs to be competitive in the field.

“My experience in China could not have been better,” he said.

“Don Brodie is a great guy. To me, he is not just a businessman, but a man with a big heart. I wish his enterprise a bright future and hope to work with him in the near-term.”

The Brodie Discovery and Innovation Fund

by Christine Schussler Two WVU Department of Chemistry professors have been named the first-ever recipients of the newly established Brodie Discovery and Innovation Fund.

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences alumnus Don Brodie is again giving back to the University through a generous five-year commitment.

The gift will provide critical research support to non-tenured assistant professors within the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry.

Brodie, who graduated in 1969 with a degree in chemistry, has said that he and his wife hope to help professors build a successful career at WVU. The couple said they believe it’s important to show appreciation for, and encourage, the significant and transformational ideas that come out of the University.

I am a manufacturer myself, and I see the fruits of research,” Brodie said.

“All research is not always commercialized, but it needs to be a stepping stone at least for things to come. From the time I graduated college till now, I have seen advances from R&D that were unimaginable when I was growing up. It’s hard to believe there will be more, but there will be.”

The 2010-2011 recipients of the Brodie Discovery and Innovation Fund awards are professors Justin Legleiter and Jonathan Boyd.

Legleiter’s research in nanoscience focuses on decoding nanoscale molecular mechanisms and how they may trigger neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease.

Legleiter earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Murray State University and a doctoral degree in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University. He has conducted postdoctoral work as a fellow in neurology/ biophysics at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco.

Boyd’s forensic research examines the responses of living organisms to toxicants, which represent a set of complex interactions that build upon current state of health, previous history, and additional environmental influences. Ultimately the responses form a dynamic system of overall susceptibility. He aims to identify how various chemicals would interact with animals prior to animal testing.

Boyd received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Texas and a doctoral degree in environmental toxicology from Texas Tech University.

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Researching New Tools for Parents of Autistic Children

by Ashley Wells photos by Taylor Jones Researchers and faculty at West Virginia University are performing videotaped training sessions to help children with autism reach their full potential.

WVU psychology professor Claire St. Peter Pipkin is working on the project, which addresses treatment for the developmental disorder that appears in the first three years of a child’s life and affects the brain’s normal development of social and communication skills.

Funded by a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Resources, the research project aims to teach parents of children with autism to correctly implement an intervention for autism based on applied behavior analysis. Applied behavior analysis is a subdiscipline of psychology that focuses on how changes in the environment can affect behavior.

“There are currently some major barriers to rural children with autism receiving treatments based on applied

who live near someone trained often can’t afford to pay for regular teaching sessions.

“We are testing whether parents can be trained to implement the intervention themselves through the use of written or videotaped instructions.”

Although St. Peter Pipkin and her team are specifically targeting young children with autism who live in rural West Virginia, she said she believes the use of this technology also has implications for the treatment of other Assistant Professor Claire St. Peter Pipkin populations that struggle to access resources, such based intervention for rural children as low-income parents in urban areas. with autism.

There is already substantial evidence “The research should provide supporting early, intensive intervention an immediate benefit to families of children with autism in the West “We are testing whether parents can be trained to implement Virginia because it will increase the the intervention themselves through the use of written or availability of treatment resources,” she videotaped instructions.”— Claire St. Peter Pipkin said. “Training parents to implement applied behavioral analysis therapy may also help reduce their stress levels.” behavior analysis,” she said. for autism based on applied behavior For more information about the study, “First, there are not many people in analysis, St. Peter Pipkin said. If using contact Claire St. Peter Pipkin at claire. the state who are well-trained on how videotaped training is effective, it could stpeterpipkin@mail.wvu.edu. to do the intervention. Second, parents greatly increase access to empirically

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Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Magazine

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The WVU Career Services Center staff members (Sarah Rotruck Glenn, David Durham, and Toni Jones) can help alumni achieve their career goals. The Center uses MountaineerTRAK, a Web-based recruiting management system that is available 24/7 for convenience. We also encourage you to join the Career Network/Mentor Program where you can assist students by sharing your specialized skills, regional information, professional experience, or career related knowledge. To learn more about our alumni services, or to become involved, visit careerservices.wvu.edu.