Science Journal - December 2015

December 2015

Thriving on Stress:

Learning from Lizards in Tracy Langkilde's Lab PG 4

Transition State PG 12

Reinventing Statistics Education PG 16

Table of Contents

FEATURE STORIES:

4 Exploring the Nature of Stress

Follow Tracy Langkilde as she looks at how certain animals adapt to stress in their environments.

12 Transition State

Learn about the change in leadership in the Department of Chemistry.

16 Reinventing Statistics Education

Discover how faculty in the Department of Statistics are transforming the way we teach statistics.

Read short briefs about some of the amazing research projects happening now in the college.

24 Research in Action

COLLEGE NEWS:

DEPARTMENT NEWS

ALUMNI NEWS:

Doug Cavener Named Verne M. Willaman Dean

FACULTY SPOTLIGHT:

Weinreb Family Endows Early Career Professorship

Teaching New Pedagogy Strategy in China Transforming Science Education with Tombros Fellowships

Faculty Promotions

Outstanding Alumni

New Faculty

All Science Tailgate

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT:

Snapshot of Philanthropy

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors

C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching

Commencement Summer 2015 Student Marshal

Millennium Society

Staff Highlight Faculty Highlight

Undergraduate Scientists

Upcoming Events

Years of Service Recognition

Above and Beyond: Focus on Graduate Students

Intellectual Property Focus Climate & Diversity Corner College Welcome Day

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College Welcomes New Director of Development

Faculty Awards and Honors

Share Your News

Editor: Tara Immel Writers: Barbara Collins, Whittney Gould, Carley LaVelle, Carrie Lewis, Brenda Lucas, Joslyn Neiderer, Samantha Schwartz, Sam Sholtis, and Bill Zimmerman. Special thanks to all of our other contributors!

Design: Carley LaVelle, Penn State Science Marketing Office Printer: Watkins Printing

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Dear Friends of the College, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to this issue in my new role as dean of the Eberly College of Science.

Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to immerse myself in our college community and promote our mission. I am struck by the passion that our faculty and students have for learning, discovery, and problem solving; the dedication of our hard-working staff in keeping the college running efficiently and in collegial manner; and the engagement and generosity of our science alumni.

My transition has not been the only one in recent months; we have recruited, hired, and also shifted some of the best faculty and staff into pivotal roles that will help the college succeed in achieving its strategic objectives. As you will read in this issue, Barbara Garrison, the former head of the Department of Chemistry, has passed the torch to Tom Mallouk, Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry. Mallouk will continue his research and teaching while enhancing faculty development, working on educational improvements, and managing the daily administrative duties as head.

The college has also hired a director of

undergraduate research, Tomalei Vess. This newly created position manages the Office of Science Engagement and will help transform the science undergraduate experience by providing students with co-curricular experiences, such as research, internships, and co-ops, that will enrich their education by enabling them to apply and practice what they learn in the classroom.

We also have new leadership in the alumni relations and development office. Joyce Matthews has joined our team as the new senior director of development. Joyce has 15 years of fundraising experience, most recently in the College of Information Sciences and Technology. I look forward to her leadership during the next capital campaign, which begins in summer 2016.

We have a great foundation on which to build future success in the college. As the new dean, I will continue to reach out to our college community as we build and shape the future of our college.

Please join me in transforming the Eberly College of Science to achieve its full potential as a vibrant and diverse scientific and educational community that is internationally renowned for excellence, and for improving the world through its discoveries and solutions to life’s most pressing challenges.

Sincerely,

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

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Cover Story 4

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Exploring the Nature of

By Whittney Gould

It’s only getting more stressful in our stressful world, particularly if you are an animal trying to deal with a pesky invasive species or the impacts of humans in your environment.

Associate Professor of Biology Tracy Langkilde’s career thrives on that stress. Langkilde conducts research in evolutionary ecology by studying the stress caused by global environmental change, and how animals are able to deal with these stressors.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

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Cover Story Get Twitchy With It One of the animals Langkilde studies is the eastern fence lizard, a species commonly found in the southeastern United States. For thousands of years, when fence lizards faced adversity, they had TRACY LANGKILDE a pretty simple approach to survival: laying very still and blending into their surroundings. This was quite a successful approach for them—until fire ants invaded their territory.

Fire ants were not deterred by frozen-in-place eastern fence lizards, and proceeded to bite and sting the lizards anyway. Sometimes, the lizards died from these attacks. The survival behavior that had worked for their species for years was no longer protecting them from predators.

Some lizards broke from the standard approach and started to twitch to flick off attacking ants off or run away, which was a much more successful way to survive. Stressing out about survival fueled this adaptive behavior.

“Fire ants have a venomous sting and act as both a novel predator and a novel toxic prey to many animals, including fence lizards,” says Langkilde. “They are predicted to eventually occupy over 50 percent of the terrestrial surface of the earth, so many animals are going to have to deal with these threats.”

Langkilde noticed that in areas where fire ants had lived for years, a higher percentage of lizards exhibited the twitching and flicking behaviors than in areas where fire ants had not yet invaded.

“Getting constantly attacked by fire ants seems like it should be stressful,” Langkilde said. “We tested this by capturing lizards from fire ant–invaded and uninvaded sites and tak6

ing blood samples.”

They discovered that the populations of lizards who live among fire ants on a regular basis were, in fact, more stressed.

Langkilde then tested whether there were any benefits to these higher stress levels. By applying drops of the stress hormone corticosterone mixed with oil to the lizards’ backs, Langkilde could mimic the stress caused by fire ant attacks.

“We can make unresponsive lizards from uninvaded sites very responsive to fire ants simply by stressing them out. By being stressed out, lizards from populations dealing with invasive fire ants are primed for future encounters with predators,” Langkilde said.

Her team began to monitor the health of the lizards exposed to varying levels of stress. Their findings showed that the duration, intensity, and frequency of stress were key factors in determining whether it was beneficial for the lizard or not.

“Chronic stress, usually defined by stress occurring over a long period, is generally thought to be bad,” said Langkilde. But Langkilde’s team found that this really depends on how much stress is experienced. “A small amount of stress every three days for nine days total was good for the lizards,” Langkilde said, “in that it enhanced the immune system.”

But more stress than that can be bad for the lizards, she said. When the lizards were given higher amounts of the stress hormone, at the same frequency and over the same duration, they experienced negative effects. “This higherintensity stress caused the immune system to crash,” Langkilde said.

“We generally expect long-term stress to produce negative consequences, but our results demonstrate that really intense stress can produce a similar result," said Gail McCormick, Penn State Eberly College of Science

Person-to-person: Gail McCormick

Gail McCormick, a Ph.D.

Health Sonia Cavigelli from the College of Health

candidate in the Langkilde lab,

and Human Development on the impacts of stress on

works closely with Langkilde

development.

on the stress research, focusing on the effects of stress on the

Outside of the lab, McCormick has many interests.

eastern fence lizard, both

Her passion for science sparked an interest in science

within an animal’s lifetime and

communication and led her to an internship with Penn

across generations, resulting from exposure to fire ant

State Research Communications. It has been a great fit

invasion.

and she thinks science communication could be a big part of her future career.

“What about stress produces negative consequences?

When do they occur, and how do frequency, intensity,

She also has a very creative side. She enjoys theater,

and duration of the stress contribute to those

both performing on stage and being behind the scenes

consequences? And how does an animal’s previous

as a stage manager. “Performing is a different kind

experience with stress affect how they respond? Those

of creative outlet for me,” she said. It’s made all the

are some of the questions I’m investigating,” she said.

sweeter by the support of her Langkilde lab family, including Langkilde herself, at her performances.

Evolutionary biology and ecology research provide room for interdisciplinary collaboration, which

In addition to her theater skills, McCormick is a very

McCormick is happy that Langkilde encourages. “I’ve

accomplished paper artist. She cuts paper by hand

been able to work with other faculty members across

and layers it to create highlights and shadows in her

Penn State on topics that interest me.” McCormick and

pieces. “It has a photographic effect,” she said of her

Langkilde work closely with Alumni Professor of Biology

work. Recently, she’s been commissioned to create this

Katriona Shea on the application of disturbance theory

art, both for clients with personal requests and for an

to their stress response research, and are currently

editorial spread in a magazine. You can view her paper

working with Associate Professor of Biobehavioral

art at gailmccormick.wordpress.com.

a graduate student in the Langkilde lab who is leading this project. “This matches up with what we know about post-traumatic stress disorder in humans—that a short but intense stressor can produce lasting consequences.”

Langkilde’s team was curious about how the high levels of stress experienced in fire ant–invaded areas might affect the next generation.

They are currently testing the effects of stress on both pregnant lizards and the babies they give birth to. They want to know whether stress

during pregnancy could make the offspring better prepared for life’s stresses.

“We are putting the offspring of lizards that experienced high and low stress during pregnancy into high- and low-stress field enclosures that vary in the presence of fire ants,” Langkilde said. “We predict that babies of stressed moms will do better in high-stress environments.”

While Langkilde isn’t sure yet whether it’s a behavioral reaction of the mothers to stress or something the offspring experience during

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

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Cover Story development, pregnant lizards exposed to high stress. stress gave birth to bigger babies that survived “We exposed wood frogs from quiet Pennbetter than the offspring of pregnant lizards ex- sylvania woods to road noise,” said Langkilde, posed to lower-stress environments. “and found that this dramatically increased “Hormones can be important regulators of their stress levels.” fetal growth. High levels of stress hormones Road noise also has effects on the immune circulating in stressed mothers could be passed function of these frogs, making them less likely directly to their offspring. Or it may be that to produce antimicrobial peptides, compounds high-stress moms are eating more and allocat- in the frog’s skin that defend against pathogen ing more nutrients to their young,” said McCor- invasion. Langkilde found that road noise also mick. had effects on female wood frog reproductive beResearch Langkilde has conducted on “beard- havior. Road noise impaired their ability to loed lady” fence lizards, or female lizards who cate calling males. Wood frogs have a very short display a more masculine, colorful appearance, reproductive window, breeding for only a few could also be worth examining in the context of "WE GENERALLY EXPECT LONG-TERM STRESS stress response. “Males TO PRODUCE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES, really don’t like these bearded ladies. So they BUT OUR RESULTS DEMONSTRATE THAT breed later and invest less energy in reproducREALLY INTENSE STRESS CAN PRODUCE A tion, but their babies are SIMILAR RESULT." tougher, having a higher survival rate. Bearded ladies also sprint much faster than more femi- days each spring. nine lizards,” said Langkilde.

“This could have important implications for Could these adaptations make bearded ladies their mating success,” she said. or their offspring better able to deal with stress?

Langkilde wanted to know whether wood “In high-stress lizard populations, 90 percent frogs could adapt to a noisy environment. “Peoof the females are bearded, so it’s possible,” she ple living near train tracks or highways often said. tune this noise out over time,” Langkilde said.

“We wanted to know if frogs could do the same.”

Who Needs Noise-Canceling Headphones?

Her team took wood frog eggs from both noisy Langkilde took these questions about stress environments such as forests adjacent to New and applied them to a different species: wood York interstate highways, and quiet countryside frogs native to the northeastern United States. environments. They raised the tadpoles under Sound is very important to this species, because common conditions in the lab until they became they use calls to find mates and detect incom- frogs. Then they compared the stress responses ing predators. For wood frogs that live nearer to of each group to prolonged exposure to high levsound pollution like road noise from high-traf- els of road noise. fic roads, this can complicate things and cause As with their previous study, the “country 8

Penn State Eberly College of Science

frogs” were really stressed by the road noise, and weren’t able to tune it out over the course of the eight-day experiment. The “city frogs,” however, were not at all stressed by the noise.

This is very interesting because these frogs were raised in the same environment, and the only change was that one group of eggs was collected in a more stressful environment than the other, says Langkilde. “It is possible that frogs from roadside ponds have evolved to be desensitized to road noise, in order to avoid the costs of being stressed.”

Langkilde’s research will continue to examine the consequences of stress caused by environmental change. “What is the effect of stress within a lifetime and across generations? Can

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

animals adapt to high-stress environments, and how do they do so? How can we predict when stress will become bad? Those are questions I’m working to investigate further,” she said.

Her findings are all the more important because they could inform topics of stress and human health.

Enthusiasm for Mentoring Mentoring students is a much-loved part of Langkilde’s job as principal investigator of her lab.

“She's very easy to talk to and enthusiastic.

I like the freedom to ask interesting questions and explore them in a variety of different ways,” said Christopher Thawley, a graduate stu-

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Cover Story

"BY BEING STRESSED OUT, LIZARDS FROM POPULATIONS DEALING WITH INVASIVE FIRE ANTS ARE PRIMED FOR FUTURE ENCOUNTERS WITH PREDATORS."

10

Penn State Eberly College of Science

dent in the Langkilde lab.

“She’s done a great job of creating a lab where everyone can work to their strengths and help each other out,” added graduate student Caty Tylan.

Her graduate students like her commitment to a low-stress environment.

“You never have to worry about coming to her for help, even if it’s something you messed up on,” said Dustin Owen, also a graduate student in her lab. “She’s really good about helping you and providing feedback without making you feel stupid or uncomfortable.”

“She is conscious of the needs of students and researchers to have a good balance between productive work and a healthy social life,” added graduate student Braulio Assis.

Since coming to Penn State, Langkilde has mentored more than 50 undergraduate researchers in addition to the graduate students she advises.

“Their involvement is critical to the success of my projects, and they benefit from the experience,” Langkilde said.

“Dr. Langkilde has been by far my greatest mentor at Penn State,” said undergraduate researcher Mark Herr. “She doesn’t merely allow students to act as lab technicians for the various graduate students in the lab. From the beginning, she’s encouraged me to conduct my own projects.”

“She’s taught me how to write scientific papers. She’s edited grant proposals of mine and assisted me with funding at every step. It’s truly incredible, especially when you consider that she has lots of other undergraduates in the lab and does the same for them,” he added.

In addition to field and lab work, the Langkilde Lab works to hone their writing skills, which postdoctoral researcher Chris Howey finds extremely helpful.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

“The members of the Langkilde Lab are very supportive and helpful with regard to writing manuscripts and other job-related documents.

Meeting every week to discuss these manuscripts continually pushes each of us to make progress on these assignments until they are published,” Howey said.

Langkilde Lab members also use their writing skills to write the lab blog, The Lizard Log (thelizardlog.wordpress.com).

“We wanted to share our love of research and the thrill of discovering new things with the general community,” said Langkilde. “My graduate students started the blog back in 2011 as a way to show people what fieldwork was like. It’s taken hold and is read by 900 people per month.”

The blog showcases posts and pictures of the lab members with updates on their research, travels, and even updates about past members of the lab.

“I hope that the blog gives readers a glimpse into how science is performed. Most people don’t have a good understanding of the scientific process, so hopefully readers can get a sense of how we’re doing our research so that they can better understand the results,” McCormick said. “And see just how cool our research is!”

As the blog updates indicate, Langkilde’s connection to her lab members doesn’t stop when they graduate. A recent trip to a conference with a few of the lab members was planned to include a stop to visit Brad Carlson, Langkilde lab alumnus and current assistant professor of biology at Wabash College. Langkilde is also proud to announce lab alumna Lindsey Swierk was recently awarded a Gaylord Donnelly Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale—the same fellowship that Langkilde herself received as a postdoc.

“I love seeing what they achieve when they leave,” she said. “We all still stay in touch.”

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Feature Story

Trans State: A Change of Leadership in the Department of Chemistry

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

ition

By Carrie Lewis

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

13

Feature Story BARBARA GARRISON

TOM MALLOUK

Passing the Torch Tradition at Penn State is deeply rooted, and changes in the leadership in the Department of Chemistry are no exception. Since 1983, the chemistry department has rotated department heads on a regular basis, generally every threeto-five years; earlier this year, the transition from Barbara Garrison to Tom Mallouk was made. Garrison is well known in the chemistry department, and across the country, as a well-respected leader in chemistry, as she has held this position not once but twice, with fifteen years between her two terms.

“Our chemistry department has a great tradition of excellence, and we are indebted to Barbara Garrison for her remarkable leadership of the department that included eleven years as department head and construction of the Chemistry Building,” said Doug Cavener, professor and Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly College of Science.

Garrison, Shapiro Professor of Chemistry, earned her bachelor’s degree in Physics, graduating summa cum laude from Arizona State University in 1971, and her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. She then went on to complete her postdoctoral studies in physical chemistry at Purdue University where she met her husband, Nick Winograd, Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry, Penn State.

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The physical sciences are notorious for being male-dominated fields, especially twenty-five years ago, but that didn’t stop Garrison from moving into high administrative roles. “I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was aware that there weren’t many women, but my department head at the time was very supportive,” said Garrison.

Just ten years after joining the faculty at Penn State, Garrison became one of the first women in the United States to be chair of a major chemistry department at the age of 40 and served her first term for five years, from 1989–1994.

Rather than focusing on the downsides of being in the minority as a woman in science, Garrison noted that she had a lot of doors opened for her because she was a female department head— she took part in external reviews for chemistry departments at multiple universities and served on various advisory committees, such as for the National Science Foundation and the Governing Board for the Council of Chemical Research.

In 2009, Garrison said yes to the job again because she enjoyed it so much the first time and knew it was a way she could contribute back to the department. The second time around was a bit easier, she said, which she largely credits to those around her. “I had already learned how to do a lot of things, like making decisions in certain situations and supervising staff, but more importantly, I had lots of great collegial faculty and staff members to help out and do things, which made delegating much easier,” said Garrison.

In addition to serving as the department head, Garrison was instrumental in the design of the Chemistry Building, as she chaired the planning committee. The planning process started in 1995, and the building was ready for occupation in 2004. (Ironically, at the same time, Garrison and her husband had just finished building their own house.) As chair of the committee, Penn State Eberly College of Science

Garrison was involved in writing the program statement for the building, which included listing all of the requirements for the building, such as the number of rooms, amount of space in each room, and utilizations and contents of each room. She worked closely with Ken Feldman, professor of chemistry, who meticulously enumerated the needs of the labs and put the whole building design in the program ChemDraw. Garrison commented that she found the process fun and enjoyable because they were constructing a building for the future that was for the entire department.

While fulfilling numerous administrative responsibilities, Garrison continued to run an active research lab, having thirty publications in her first five years at Penn State. In fact, she had started her research program before even coming to Penn State by initiating collaborations. “I collaborated a lot, especially with Nick.

I did it before it was fashionable!” said Garrison.

The Garrison Lab collaborates with numerous other groups as they work on modeling reactions on surfaces. One example is they create computer simulation models to better understand secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), an analytical process used to characterize the composition of solid surfaces. These molecular dynamic simulations mimic the ejection of molecules in layered compounds to help determine depth profiles and create elemental images that interface with experimental results.

During Garrison’s first term as department head, she hired Tom Mallouk from the University of Texas to join the Penn State faculty, and twenty-two years later, he has now moved into the position himself. As associate head for the department, the transition was obvious. “Barbara is leaving the department in very good shape, and its improved dramatically over the last twenty years,” said Mallouk. “There are SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

still some challenges, though.”

One of the first goals that Mallouk has is to improve the undergraduate experience. “There is a recognition that active learning is very important in the classroom, so we are trying to do more of that, as well as research experience, early on in the undergraduate experience,” said Mallouk. He further explained that rather than just having students learn the content of science to become competent for a test, it’s important that they also learn the process of science. Other goals Mallouk has during his term as department head are to hire great people, build programmatic strength in the department, and improve diversity.

“I am very pleased that Tom Mallouk agreed to take over the reins as department head, and I can report that he is already immersed in faculty development, working on educational improvements, and tending to a myriad of administrative responsibilities while maintaining a cutting-edge research program,” said Cavener.

In addition to his administrative responsibilities, Mallouk also balances his research lab and teaching. He believes that staying active in the lab and teaching ensure he stays connected to the primary mission of what they as a department are trying to do. His research group focuses on synthesizing nanoscale inorganic materials and understanding what they can do with them, particular in the areas of energy, electronics, and catalysis.

Mallouk is an Evan Pugh University Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Feature Story

Reinventing

S TAT I S T I C S

Education

By Tara Immel

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

" To effectively impact all students, there must be a way to personalize each instructor's teaching possibilities and each student's educational experience..."

D

Dennis Pearl has a CAUSE, and his goal is to improve statistics education and teaching.

CAUSE, which is the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education, is a national organization whose mission is to support and advance undergraduate statistics education through resources, professional development, outreach, and research. Pearl, who is a professor of statistics at Penn State, also serves as the director of CAUSE, where he has been working to develop a redesigned foundation for

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

statistics education across the country.

“To effectively impact all students, there must be a way to personalize each instructor's teaching possibilities and each student's educational experience,” Pearl said. “Support for statistics education at Penn State and across the country is high right now, and technology is continually improving and becoming more accessible. These elements are making it possible for that type of personalized education to be feasible.”

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Feature Story DENNIS PEARL

KARI LOCK MORGAN

Relevant Resources CAUSE has served as a catalyst for changing the way educators teach statistics by providing free resources to personalize pedagogy and content for different learners. Through the CAUSE website (causeweb.org), webinars, workshops, an electronic conference, as well as an in-person conference, the organization, and Pearl, have been making every effort to improve the way statistics is taught and learned.

The CAUSE website offers a multitude of resources to statistics educators worldwide. The resources are free to use and have everything from recordings of webinars on teaching methods and activities, to web app-based activities, data sets, and fun resources, such as videos, cartoons, and songs that can help facilitate learning.

Webinars have served as a way to help educate statistics educators without them needing to leave their desks. The webinars, which now come to dozens per year, are broken down into three areas: activities series, teaching and learning series, and research series. One from each series is offered each month and is recorded so that they can be viewed on demand any time. Industry partners, such as Minitab, Pearson Higher Education, W.H. Freeman Publishing, and SAS, help to cover the cost so that educators can access the webinars free of charge.

“Webinars offer a great way to present the new18

est innovations in teaching and learning statistics and CAUSE is grateful for the support from volunteers and sponsors who make those efforts a reality,” Pearl said.

CAUSE also hosts a biennial Electronic Conference On Teaching Statistics (eCOTS), which occurs on even number years. The next, to be held in May 2016, will focus on “Changing with Technology.” The conference, which is chaired

by Kari Lock Morgan, assistant professor of statistics at Penn State, is intended to spark new ideas for how educators can change with technology and provide a virtual meeting space for educators to engage with and learn from each other. eCOTS 2016 will feature keynote speakers, virtual panel discussions, breakout sessions, workshops, virtual posters, and affiliated mini-conferences taking place around the country.

In addition, CAUSE hosts a biennial United States Conference On Teaching Statistics (USCOTS), which is held on odd number years, and is well attended by the statistics educator community. Last held in May 2015 at Penn State and attended by about 450 people, the conference featured plenary sessions, active breakout sessions, poster sessions, and a dozen associated workshops disseminating the work of NSFfunded projects in statistics education. Both the eCOTS and USCOTS serve as a mechanism to invigorate the statistics education community on a regular basis and also provide the infrastructure for the dissemination and sharing of information from educators on teaching experiences, research results, and hot topics, such as data science.

Making Statistics Fun Pearl’s personal education research currently focuses on the latter aspect of the available resources: for teaching applied probability and for Penn State Eberly College of Science

A CARTOON FROM THE CAUSEWEB.ORG RESOURCES. It is suitable for a course website that makes use of a boxplot to display an outlier and also uses the term "statistically significant" in its punch line. The cartoon is free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

Credit: The cartoon is number 539 from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe.

using fun resources in teaching statistics. “Project UPLIFT (Universal Portability of Learning Increased by Fun Teaching) questioned whether or not the use of cartoons and songs would improve student learning and decrease anxiety,” Pearl said.

CAUSEweb.org hosts the largest collection of fun resources for college statistics teachers, which includes cartoons, jokes, quotes, songs, poems, word puzzles, magic tricks, and videos.

Pearl and his colleagues at University of Texas at El Paso and Georgia Perimeter College assessed the materials throughout the threeyear study, by observing students in three urban settings and interviewing them to gather their attitudes towards introductory statistics.

In one experiment, all students took a pretest and post-test measuring their anxiety about statistics. Students were randomly assigned to either the experimental group, where they were exposed to cartoons or songs inserted into short content items, or the control group, where they only received the content. The researchers analyzed the data to see if students who received SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

the extra fun content would perform better on related embedded multiple-choice exam questions, or experience a greater decrease in statistics anxiety over a semester.

The data showed that song items had a higher percent of correct answers among students who viewed the lesson in conjunction with the song compared with the control students who saw the lesson alone. The use of cartoons did not show any differences between groups on test item performance – but, along with songs, may have helped reduced student anxiety.

Building on their findings from project UPLIFT, Pearl and colleagues are beginning a new project, Project SMILES (Student-Made Interactive Learning with Educational Songs), which was just approved for funding by the National Science Foundation. This project will develop and experimentally test an innovation in online learning where students create a song by filling in key words (like Mad Libs) associated with a learning objective. The songs are played back though synthetic voice technologies and can be shared between students. “I’m really excited 19

Feature Story A CARTOON TO TEACH ABOUT THE CAPTURE-RECAPTURE METHOD. This is part of a three cartoon set from Dr. Weaver that took first place in the cartoon category of the 2007 A-Mu-sing competition. It is free to use in the classroom and on course web sites.

Credit: Cartoon by John Landers (www.landers.co.uk) based on an idea and sketch from Sheila O. Weaver (University of Vermont).

about how these interactive songs are being designed to challenge students to construct examples and/or context thereby fostering statistical literacy and reasoning skills,� Pearl said.

While Pearl primarily focuses on cultivating the resources, professional development, outreach, and research available to statistics educators across the country, Kari Lock Morgan is specifically focusing on improving how Penn State students learn statistics by redesigning introductory courses and refining teaching methods to make them more effective.

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Redesigning Statistics Education For many, statistics stirs up a mental picture of memorizing mathematical algorithms and computations but never really understanding them. Students have been taught through plug and chug type courses and retained information long enough for an exam, then disregarded it and moved on to the next topic. Although the content and teaching methods have not changed much over the last few decades, Lock Morgan is on a mission to change the perception, as well as the content and way that students learn statistics.

Traditionally, statistics has been taught such that students memorize mathematical equations, theory, and distributions. Although this method has worked for statistics majors and those who are very motivated and very interested in learning about the topic, it has been very difficult for students who need basic statistics knowledge on their way to another degree.

Many non-statistics students develop only superficial understanding and do not retain much of the information learned in class. These students can repeat theories and solve basic problems, but most are doing it through conditioning and memorization. Students may not actually understand the numbers they are calculating.

Lock Morgan, who was named a 2015 Eberly College of Science Center for Excellence in Science Education Tombros Fellow, has dedicated her career thus far to teaching statistics in a more intuitive way so that students comprehend the information and can apply it. “I am grateful that the fellowship allows me to focus more of my time where my passion truly lies; on making statistics more about conceptual understanding and solving real-world problems,� Lock Morgan said.

For her fellowship project, Lock Morgan chose to overhaul STAT 250: Introduction to BiostaPenn State Eberly College of Science

tistics. Rather than relying on formulas and theoretical distributions, she is introducing inference via simulation methods, which include bootstrap confidence intervals and randomization hypothesis tests. With today’s technology, statistics students are able to utilize computing to get answers in a simpler and more intuitive way. This provides students with a more general way to approach statistical problem, focusing on the big picture and helping students apply the methods to real world problems. It also builds conceptual understanding so students better understand their results, and can better interpret statistics they may encounter in other situations. The changes she is working on are in both content and pedagogy. “Incorporating real-life scenarios into teaching encourages the students to relate to the material and therefore be more engaged in class and the learning process. Students who have a solid understanding of the foundational aspects of this method are able to effectively collect data, analyze data, and interpret conclusions drawn from data and see the real-world value of statistics,” Lock Morgan said.

She aims to help students develop a strong intuitive understanding of inference through randomization methods. Once this ground work is established and students have a conceptual understanding and appreciation for the results, they can then compute using the more traditional methods of statistics, including t-tests and chi-square tests.

may be unusual to write a book with your entire family, but for us it has worked really well, probably because we all like each other a lot. We generally agree on big picture things, but each bring our own unique perspectives and opinions on the finer details, which ultimately improves the final product,” Lock Morgan said. The book has been heavily adopted in academia; teachers across the county are utilizing the innovative approaches in the text to help teach more effectively and assist students in actually learning and using the material.

Additionally, the Locks have developed a website, lock5stat.com, that provides resources to support their textbook and statistics education as a whole. Their online software, StatKey, a collection of web-based statistics applications, accompanies the textbook. Their website also provides data sets in several formats that educators can use in their classrooms. These datasets help teachers provide real-world examples to help students see the practical applications of statistics. As of July, StatKey has had 8 million page views, with over 1,000 sessions per day, and has been used in 138 countries.

Lock Morgan herself uses the datasets in her

A FAMILY OF STATISTICIANS. Pictured below are Patti Frazer Lock, Robin H. Lock, Dennis F. Lock, Kari Lock Morgan, and Eric F. Lock Credit: Photo from lock5stat.com

A Family Affair Lock Morgan is not alone in her quest to improve statistics education; her father, mother, and two brothers are also statisticians who have a passion for statistics and education. As a team, the five wrote Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data, a textbook for introductory statistics. “It SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

21

Feature Story classrooms and shows students how statistics ficially starting at Penn State, he has already applies in real life. As part of the Tombros Fel- gotten involved as a co-principal investigator on lowship, Lock Morgan has organized each class a statistics education grant proposal with Kari and lab to focus on answering a relevant scientif- and Dennis.” ic question, hoping to emphasize that statistics Beckman is a Penn State graduate himself, is an important tool in science. Several of these having earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematdatasets and questions come from researchers in ics in 2006, along with a Pennsylvania certithe biological sciences at Penn State, in an effort fication in secondary mathematics teaching. to give students an idea for how statistics may He later earned a master’s degree in statistics be used in their own departments. Additional- from the University of Minnesota, and since ly, she embraces innovative teaching methods, that time he has been working as a practicing such as active learning and the use of learning biostatistician and statistical consultant, while assistants, to get students more engaged in class simultaneously completing a doctorate in staand the learning process. In STAT 250, Lock tistics education, working with two leading exMorgan requires students to use the “...I’M ESPECIALLY PROUD OF THE WORK WE’RE i>clicker system.

DOING TO CONTINUALLY IMPROVE THE TEACHING The use of clickers in the classroom WE DO IN THE STATISTICS DEPARTMENT. ” encourages more class interaction and discussion, leading to better understanding perts in that field. and information retention.

Together, the statistics trio is working on a Revising course content and changing peda- NSF proposal to improve outreach and teacher gogical strategies not only helps with conceptual training. Their goal is to help students be betunderstanding, but improves student problem- ter prepared for statistics by improving how it solving abilities and their transfer of learning. is taught in high schools, while also refining Trying different approaches often leads to bet- the content and taking advantage of computing ter understanding and helps students learn bet- technology. The Common Core State Standards ter. in Mathematics recognize both the increased importance of statistics and the intuitive benTeamwork Approach efit of introducing inference via the simulation Lock Morgan, Pearl, and Matt Beckman, who methods enabled by computers, so the team will be joining the statistics faculty in January aims to prepare teachers to teach more statis2016, all recognize the need train high school tics and teach it in this conceptual way, particuteachers and better prepare students to use larly because many teachers will not have seen and understand statistics before they go to col- this approach, even if they have taken a statislege. “Matt will provide a terrific boost to Penn tics courses. “It’s fantastic that high schools are State’s growing stature as a center for statistics aiming to teach more statistics, and very exciteducation expertise,” said David Hunter, head ing that the Common Core is promoting the use of the Department of Statistics. “Even before of- of simulation methods. We want to do what we 22

Penn State Eberly College of Science

can to help make this happen!” Lock Morgan said.

It’s no surprise that with passionate and motivated faculty, and resourceful, dedicated staff, the Department of Statistics is becoming a wellknown leader in statistics education. “Statistical literacy has always been a vital component of a broad scientific education, and it is all the more so in today's era of 'big data'. This fact makes the educational mission of our department more important than ever; and Penn State statistics has such a huge footprint not only in Pennsylvania but beyond the Commonwealth through our World Campus programs that we are wellpositioned to play a strong leadership role in the practice of statistics education. In this context, I’m especially proud of the work we’re doing to continually improve the teaching we do in the statistics department. Adding experts like Kari, Dennis, and soon, Matt to our faculty not only enhances our day-to-day teaching but ensures that Penn State will remain at the cutting edge of research in statistics education,” said Hunter.

The outstanding research, resource, and educational improvements would not be possible without support and collaboration. Staff members have been essential in helping the faculty, department, and even CAUSE function on a daily basis. Hunter, Pearl, Lock Morgan, and the rest of the statistics faculty recognize the important roles that the statistics staff perform

in helping them to achieve their objectives and in elevating the department stature.

“Moving CAUSE from Dennis’s previous home of Ohio State here to Penn State in 2014 was a highly complex task. We’ve hired two additional staff members, half of whose time is devoted to CAUSE-related tasks. Lorey Burghard joined our department in December 2014 and serves as CAUSE’s program coordinator, and Bob Carey came on board in May 2015 to support CAUSE’s IT presence. Meanwhile, Kathy Smith, who was already on our staff, took on a huge additional workload almost from the day Dennis joined Penn State to tackle the Herculean task of moving the web hosting for CAUSE from Ohio State to Penn State. There’s so much overlap now between the statistics department’s various missions and CAUSE’s mission that our newly enlarged staff has worked seamlessly into the life of the department. So we have CAUSE to thank not only for increased visibility in the statistics education community but for some excellent new staff hires as well!” Hunter noted.

Teamwork has a been a key compon­ent for the successes that the statistics department has achieved. By using an inclusive approach, the department has been able to make great strides in improving statistics education through collaboration in resources, teaching, and learning.

A CARTOON SUITABLE FOR USE IN TEACHING the idea that association does not imply causation. Free to use in the classroom and on course web sites under a creative commons attribution-non-commercial 2.5 license.

Credit: The cartoon is number 552 from the webcomic series at xkcd.com created by Randall Munroe.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

23

Research Briefs

Research in Action

NIH Grant Enables Cavener Lab to Discover Mechanisms to Improve Insulin Regulation A typical day for Doug Cavener, the new dean of the Eberly College of Science, is anything but typical. While he spends most of his week attending to administration and fundraising duties for the college, one may also find him sitting at a microscope looking at fluorescent pancreatic beta cells with one of his graduate students or analyzing giraffe genome sequences at his computer. That’s because in addition to his administrative responsibilities, Cavener runs a research lab focused on the developmental and physiological regulatory processes that are important in the regulation of metabolic and neurological diseases.

Recently, the Cavener lab received a fouryear, $1.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study insulin regulation.

Maintaining a narrow range of circulating insulin is critical to ensuring normal blood glucose levels and preventing the onset of diabetes and its plethora of negative downstream effects on human health. “The regulation of insulin has been intensely studied since its discovery in 1921, but the molecular and cellular mechanisms that integrate insulin synthesis, quality control, trafficking, and secretion are poorly understood. The goal of our work is to understand 24

these mechanisms and apply them to the treatment of diabetes,” said Cavener. Barbara McGrath, senior research associate in the Cavener lab, added, “This new award from the NIH not only provides us funding to keep our momentum going, but it also signals to us that many of our peer researchers share our enthusiasm. That is enormously gratifying!”

Cavener and McGrath, along with postdoctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students, have been studying the function of the protein PERK, an eIF2α kinase, since its discovery in 2001. PERK is among a small number of genes that is so important for pancreatic beta cell function that its absence results in permanent neonatal diabetes in humans and mice. Permanent neonatal diabetes appears within the first six months of life for humans and persists throughout the lifespan due to the body’s inability to make enough insulin. Studies from the Cavener lab over the last few years have implicated PERK as a critical coordinator of insulin folding, quality and quantity control, trafficking, and secretion. This newly awarded grant from the NIH will allow Cavener’s team to reveal the mechanisms by which this important regulation is achieved and then apply these discoveries to the treatment diabetes.

—Carrie Lewis

Penn State Eberly College of Science

NSF Grant Helps to Further the Search for Earthlike Exoplanets A four-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is allowing scientists in the Eberly College of Science to better search for Earthlike planets outside of our solar system.

Jason Wright, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics and principal investigator on the grant, is searching for exoplanets, or planets that exist outside of our solar system and orbit a star instead of our sun. To do this, Wright and his team use data from some of the largest telescopes in the world: telescopes from the W. M Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the HobbyEberly Telescope in Texas.

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is a joint venture between Penn State and three other universities, and was designed by Larry Ramsey, distinguished senior scholar and professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State. Because the Hobby-Eberly Telescope was built in the late 1990s, it is getting a series of major hardware upgrades to make it even better at searching for exoplanets, which in turn requires updated software to collect the telescope’s data, says Wright. “We are working to develop new software for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope’s highresolution spectrograph so that it performs at a world-class level.”

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

The $356,000 grant makes the high-resolution spectrograph software upgrade possible.

The upgraded software will increase the HobbyEberly Telescope’s precision and will also take advantage of new data analysis techniques to retroactively improve the data from the telescope’s former spectrograph.

To discover exoplanets, Wright and his colleagues use Doppler spectroscopy, or the wobble method, to find Jupiter analogs, or exoplanets that are similar in size to Jupiter in our solar system. Jupiter analogs are large and exhibit some gravitational pull on their star, causing the star to “wobble.” Using the spectrograph, Wright can measure the radial velocity and Doppler light shifts of a star to determine if Jupiter analogs exist in that star’s system.

“Using this method, we can determine which stars are likely to have planets like Earth,” he says. “We can also find the Jupiter analogs orbiting stars already discovered to have Earthsized planets by NASA's Kepler spacecraft.”

Searching for Jupiter analogs is an important step in the search to find Earthlike planets. “We can’t find things like the Earth yet, but we are starting to find things like Jupiter, and that’s a game of patience, because Jupiter takes twelve years to go around the sun,” Wright says. “The goal of the grant is to find the Jupiter analogs as signposts for the interior planets that might be like Earth that we can’t detect yet.”

— Whittney Gould 25

College News

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6 Things to Know about Our New Dean For the first time in 16 years, the Eberly College of Science has a new dean. Dean Douglas Cavener took the position after being head of the Department of Biology for fifteen years.

4 2

One Man, Many Jobs In addition to the hefty job of being dean, Cavener still runs his research lab and mentors five graduate students. He is also an adjunct professor at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Arusha, Tanzania.

Class Photographer His BIOL 498A students are fortunate to have his photography skills during the class, as he is an avid photographer. You can see some of his photos framed on the wall in the dean’s office.

3

Bountiful Harvest Growing up on a farm introduced Cavener to the wonders of a home garden. He now has a bountiful tomato and peach harvest and even grows a variety of Chinese vegetables for his wife Lan. He can rattle off the names of them in Chinese, but doesn’t know much of the language otherwise: “I know 200–300 words in Chinese, but they are all related to food.”

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Diabetes and…Giraffes?

While he might be most known for his research on diabetes, Cavener is working with the Nelson Mandela African Institute to sequence the giraffe genome. “We wanted to choose an iconic African animal,” he said. Through this work, he may have recently isolated the gene that gives giraffes their long necks.

5

Music Man Cavener began college as a music major before switching to science. “I had the passion for music, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn't have had enough talent,” he said. These days he just enjoys playing Chopin at home on his 1915 Steinway grand piano.

6

Biology of Eco-Health His first trip to Tanzania sparked inspiration. “After my first trip there, I thought this would be a fabulous experience for our students,” he said.

He created BIOL 498A: The Biology of EcoHealth, a class that involves Cavener traveling to Tanzania with students every year.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Cavener Named New Dean of the Eberly College of Science At their July 17 meeting, the University Board of Trustees approved Douglas R. Cavener as the new dean of the Eberly College of Science.

Cavener has been serving as the college’s interim dean since January. He has been professor and head of the Department of Biology at Penn State since 2000 and has served as an adjunct professor of life sciences at the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology in Tanzania.

“Through strategic investments and recruitment of outstanding faculty, staff and students, the Eberly College of Science experienced a meteoric rise in national ranking under the leadership of Dan Larson, our former dean. I am therefore deeply honored to be appointed as the new dean of our college and truly believe that the best is yet to come,” Cavener said. “Our college mantra is excellence in everything we do with emphasis on the integration of teaching and research. As scientists and teachers, our chief enterprise is discovery and translating those discoveries to real life solutions. I look forward to working with my colleagues to achieve great success in the Eberly College of Science.”

As head of biology at Penn State, Cavener expanded the department’s research and teaching in neuroscience, ecology, plant biology, evolutionary biology, infectious disease dynamics and genomics.

His previous experience includes serving as a faculty member at Vanderbilt University’s molecular biology department from 1982 to 2000.

“Our process of searching for new deans is a SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

very comprehensive, inclusive and rigorous process, which attracts many outstanding candidates. However, when the outcome is that one of our accomplished faculty leaders emerges as the successful candidate, as in the case with Doug, we think that speaks volumes about both him and the depth of talent we have at Penn State.

I very much look forward to working with him in his new role,” said Nicholas Jones, Penn State’s executive vice president and provost.

Cavener’s research focuses on the regulation of metabolic and neurological processes that are particularly prone to maladaptions that lead to diseases such as metabolic syndrome and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. His work, which has received support from a number of agencies including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, has direct biomedical implications for several human diseases, including diabetes, neurological disorders, cancer, osteoporosis and growth defects.

In addition, Cavener is leading a team of scientists to sequence the genome of the giraffe for the purpose of determining the genetic basis of the giraffe’s unique morphology and turbocharged cardiovascular system.

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a recipient of the Dobzhansky Prize from the International Society for the Study of Evolution.

Cavener holds a bachelor of arts degree in biology from Pasadena College, a master of science degree in genetics from Brown University and a doctorate in genetics from the University of Georgia. —Bill Zimmerman

27

College News

Teaching New Pedagogy Strategy in China

When four Penn State Science faculty members, along with four undergraduate students, departed for a whirlwind trip in July to teach pedagogical concepts and practices at Fudan University in China, they were not completely sure of what to expect. The group, which included faculty members Sarah Ades, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; Wendy Hanna-Rose, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology; Jackie Bortiatynski, director of the Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE); and Meredith DeFelice, senior lecturer of biochemistry and molecular biology; along with learning assistant (LA) students Sarah Chang, Nathan Shugarts, Nathan Kramer, and Scott Berman, were on a mission to help Chinese faculty learn about the what it requires to teach science effectively and to provide hands-on, heads-on experience about how to implement this knowledge. Although they were confident in the content and workshop activities they had organized, the team was anticipating some resistance to the paradigm shift that they were planning to present.

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Ji Yang, associate dean for undergraduate education in the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University, teamed up with the Penn State faculty to organize the workshops and worked diligently to recruit the best and brightest life sciences faculty in China to engage with the group. Faculty from the top universities in China were invited to attend the three-day workshop taught by the Penn State faculty and student LAs. These Chinese faculty represented 20 universities across the country and were excited about the opportunity to engage with Penn State and develop more effective teaching skills.

While this trip was a first for most of the group, this was not the college’s first experience with Fudan University. Hanna-Rose chose to do her sabbatical there, and has returned every year since then. “I did my sabbatical at Fudan University in 2013 where I taught a class for Fudan students using active learning elements and a highly interactive style. As faculty leader for a Penn State Global Programs short-term experience, I returned to teach at Fudan with Penn State students in 2014. While my Fudan students were responsive to my teaching style, it was evident that they had relatively less experience than the Penn State students with active learning in the classroom. So I approached Dean Yang about sharing my pedagogical expertise with Fudan faculty in a series of workshops. He was enthusiastic about the idea but asked me to consider leading a workshop to target faculty from all over China. I realized this larger objective would require extra help and I turned to my colleagues from CESE who share my passion for implementing best pedagogical practicPenn State Eberly College of Science

es in higher education science classrooms. They agreed to accept the challenge and we started planning the workshop,” Hanna-Rose said.

The goal of the workshop was to educate faculty of a shift happening in teaching style and to aid them in implementing new teaching strategies. This new vision for teaching, known as active learning, changes the way faculty teach by engaging students; it encourages active participation and discussion rather than just passive listening. While it is commonly thought that this requires more work on both the part of the faculty member and the student, Hanna-Rose disagrees. “For faculty these teaching methods mean doing things differently, not necessarily taking more time. Faculty must gain a deeper understanding of how students learn in order to tailor classroom activities towards things like guided practice with feedback. And students don’t have to spend more time either—they just have to do things differently.”

For the students, it means actively listening and contributing in class and doing more than just reading course material or memorizing information for exams. By absorbing and understanding the material and actively participating in class or team discussion, students are more SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

likely to retain information and be able to apply it to real-life situations.

Changing years of teaching strategy isn’t easy. Rather than asking, “How can I teach this,” faculty are challenged to ask themselves “how can the student learn it?” This model of instruction changes the traditional teaching mindset of providing information to learn material to putting more responsibility on students to learn through participation. This participation includes exercises, such as engaging in case studies, debating, and class discussions.

Active learning techniques not only help students learn material more effectively, it also gets them engaging with other students, allows them receive immediate feedback from instructor and peers, provides them with an opportunity to talk about and process material while still in class, and increase motivation to learn because students know they will be actively participating in class.

In order to more effectively present the material, the Penn State instructors and LAs split the faculty into small groups to learn about active learning hands on. For three days, faculty worked in small group sessions to discuss different aspects of the new way of teaching and 29

College News understand ways to apply them.

The LA students were a key component in the sessions, providing a student perspective and offering feedback on a student outlook of learning.

Because the four Penn State students were all experienced LAs, they were well trained in new pedagogical ideas and served as group facilitators. As faculty discussed potential changes to make to their courses, the students also acted as sounding boards to consider how certain changes ideas may be perceived in the classroom. At the end of the workshop, each Chinese faculty member left with a product and instructions; they learned the skills necessary to

change their way of teaching and committed to incorporating it in a portion of their fall courses.

The resistance that the group had anticipated never transpired; the Chinese faculty were very accepting of the information and were excited about making changes in their classrooms.

Due to the success and positive feedback about the workshops, Yang hopes to host the group again next summer to help influence more faculty to embrace active learning and other pedagogical activities to improve student engagement and knowledge. —Tara Immel

Transforming Science Education with Tombros Fellowships

Kari Lock Morgan

Philip Bevilacqua

Every year, the Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE) selects three Tombros Fellows. In addition, this year the Office of Digital Learning also awarded a Tombros Fellowship to a faculty member interested in transforming online education. These Tombros Fellows are interested in developing, transforming, and creating new and innovative courses, using new teaching methodologies, and finding more effective ways to assess teaching success 30

Charles Anderson

Louis Leblond

for classes in the Eberly College of Science.

The four Tombros Fellows for 2015 are Kari Lock Morgan, Philip Bevilacqua, Charles Anderson, and Louis Leblond.

Lock Morgan, an assistant professor of statistics, is using her time as Tombros Fellow to transform STAT 250, Introduction to Biostatistics. The course satisfies the general education quantification credits requirement, but generally draws students from science majors. She is Penn State Eberly College of Science

changing the class to incorporate a simulation methods approach to teaching, rather than using a traditional approach that relied on heavy background knowledge and can seem disconnected from the concept being taught.

“This approach is visual, intuitive, intrinsically linked to the main concepts, the same for all statistics, generalizable to new situations, and it requires less background knowledge,” she said. “So it’s better for conceptual understanding and allowing students to better focus on the big picture.”

Bevilacqua is working to transform CHEM 110H, an honors section of the general chemistry class CHEM 110, often a general education requirement. Bevilacqua is infusing new technologies like screen casting, YouTube, and the interactive whiteboard app Doceri into the class to better teach complex ideas.

“I am able to show a demonstration and talk through it to my students,” he said. “It really cuts down on time and is a good way to explain difficult concepts.”

He is also able to assign lectures outside of class because he has recorded them with the new technology, allowing time to cover more content in the class over a semester than he would have without the use of this new technology.

Anderson is focusing on the development of a new first-year research course titled “Fast Farming.” Students in Anderson’s proposed class will use real-time rainfall, temperature, and soil data obtained from GIS platforms and social media outlets, in particular Plant Village, a community created by Penn State professors David Hughes and Marcel Salathé.

Students will use this data to determine plant tolerance for a variety of stresses that could affect agricultural productivity and communicate this information to agricultural producers around the world through the Plant Village onSCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

line community.

“By empowering freshman undergraduates to do real research, without pre-determined outcomes, and to connect this research to tangible challenges that they can read about in the news, the class aims to clarify the connection between basic scientific research and its application for the benefit of human societies,” Anderson said.

“This connection can sometimes seem very abstract for students who are in the early stages of their college careers, but the connection is always there, even if it is not immediately obvious.”

Leblond’s project is different than the other three in that his World Campus physics students are typically adult learners continuing their education online from home while working and raising a family instead of traditional-age resident students. He is using a tool called IOLab, which is a small portable Bluetooth-enabled device with sensors that can measure physics data such as force, acceleration, light, and sound.

“With the IOLab, you can do in the comfort of your home almost all the experiments that we currently do in our introductory physics course sequence,” said Leblond. “The IOLab enables quality hands-on physics labs for students taking online courses. The quality of the data is often even better with the IOLab and comes at a fraction of the cost.”

All of these class transformations use real data to show students a real-world application for the skills being taught.

“My hope is that by using real data from the students’ own fields, the students come to see the class as a subject that is useful, important, and relevant and applicable to their own lives rather than just a requirement they have to get through,” Lock Morgan said.

—Whittney Gould

31

College News

Climate & Diversity Corner Fostering a Close-Knit Academic Community with the First Year in Science and Engineering Program

The first year of college can be difficult and confusing for any new student, but particularly for those choosing to study challenging science or engineering curriculums. But there is extra support for Penn State freshmen in STEM majors in the form of a program called the First Year in Science and Engineering (FISE) program.

The program puts first-year students in science and engineering majors—from the Eberly College of Science, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and the College of Engineering—together in a special on-campus multicultural housing community where they can take advantage of inhouse tutoring and mentoring.

The mentoring takes place through both resident assistants, like a traditional oncampus housing experience, and special FISE program assistants. FISE program assistants are usually former FISE participants who mentor the first-year students and help them get their college experi32

ences off to a strong start.

“The program assistants played a significant role in my transition to Penn State,” said Bukola Toyobo, a current FISE program assistant and biology major. “They were my role models that year and helped me set a solid foundation in my scholarly pursuit for success. Because they had such a positive influence on me, I wanted to do the same and more for future communities of the FISE program.”

“The program assistants helped me tremendously because I was an out-of-state student,” said Samantha Fortier, a biobehavioral health major who is now also a FISE program assistant. “They guided me through the process of becoming a successful student and made sure I did not make that many mistakes.”

Toyobo, Fortier, and their fellow program assistants plan programs to help their students succeed. FISE programs cover topics ranging from academic acclimation and leadership development to planning Penn State Eberly College of Science

Intellectual Property Focus

Research Leading to Practical Benefits for Society Breast cancer survival rates have increased steadily over the last decade. As quoted by the American Cancer Society, on average, a stunning 100 percent of patients with stage I breast cancer survive for at least five years after diagnosis. However, this average survival rate falls to 72 percent for those with stage III and 22 percent for those diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer.

From these statistics, it is obvious that new methods of treatment are desperately needed to help increase survival rates of late-stage cancer patients. What is not readily apparent is the suffering experienced those who undergo widely used cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.

Unfortunately, for many cancer types, including breast cancer, cytotoxic treatments are considered the best line of defense or are the only option available.

Two Eberly College of Science faculty researchers, Dr. Yanming Wang and Dr. Gong Chen, seek to change this bleak reality for the over 1.6 million Americans diagnosed with cancer last year. Chen and Wang developed novel intellectual property that includes a small molecule therapeutic that allows the body to fight cancer naturally. This exciting intellectual property is protected under an issued U.S. Patent, granted to the Penn State Research Foundation on behalf of the inventors.

—Melissa Long, intellectual property and technology transfer liaison

What if our body had a natural switch, that when flipped, could help reverse cancer tumor growth?

“This switch exists,” says Wang, CANCER CELLS Photo Credit: who has been studying the PAD4 enzyme for over eight National Cancer Institute years. While the Wang lab has discovered how PAD4 can help the body fight bacterial infection, they have also found this enzyme to be commonly overexpressed in cancerous tissue. When they studied it further, Wang and his colleagues discovered that overabundance of PAD4 results in the silencing of tumor-suppressor genes, the body’s natural defense against cancerous cell growth.

In collaboration with Department of Chemistry faculty member Gong Chen, Wang developed a new small molecule chemical inhibitor to limit the activity of the PAD4 enzyme. When this inhibitor was tested in mouse models, the team discovered it to be very successful in reversing tumor growth. In fact, the PAD4 inhibitor reduced tumor size just as effectively as the most common chemotherapy drug with a 70 percent tumor shrinkage rate. But unlike this chemotherapy treatment, the PAD4 inhibitor did not alter normal (noncancerous) cell development and function.

Based on these exciting results, Chen and Wang think that the PAD4 inhibitor may represent a new potentially nontoxic chemotherapy treatment that helps the body to fight cancer naturally. They are currently working to raise the funding needed in order to move the small molecule inhibitor into FDA-recognized clinical trials.

—Whittney

Gould

for STEM research opportunities and a successful career fair visit.

Toyobo has a leadership role in the programs covering STEM research opportunities and leadership development.

“The goal of the STEM research opportunities program is for students to know what reSCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

search looks like in their field of interest, understand the process of applying to research laboratories on campus, and interacting with graduate students during lab tours,” Toyobo explained.

During the leadership program, FISE students learn to strengthen five qualities es-

sential for good leadership: delegation, confidence, communication, commitment, and perseverance.

Toyobo believes these programs are valuable due to her own experience as a FISE student: “FISE is essential in guiding freshmen on paths of scholarly pursuits. I can per33

College News sonally attest to it as a member of FISE my freshman year.

The placement of program assistants in the building to mentor freshmen encourages them to focus on academic goals like finishing the year on the dean’s list, as well as giving them opportunities to pursue professional experience like intern-

ships.”

Because the FISE students and mentors live together in the same special living option, it’s easier for the students to be successful, said Fortier. “FISE focuses on creating an environment where the students can seek high levels of intellectual achievements and personal

growth.”

“The FISE program trains students to balance their social and academic lifestyles to succeed from the start,” added Toyobo.

—Whittney Gould

Annual Postdoctoral Research Exhibition: An Exercise in Science Communication Since 2008, the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs on campus has organized and coordinated the Postdoctoral Research Exhibition on campus.

This event, a showcase of research conducted by postdocs at the University, is an opportunity for postdocs to present their research in poster format and be judged by their fellow postdoc peers.

“The research exhibition is a showcase of the research being done by postdocs across University Park, but also an exercise of science communication,” said Pallavi Eswara, progam coordinator in the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs. “Postdoc presenters are presenting their research to people outside their expertise and have to learn to communicate their science effectively.”

Postdocs help Eswara to or34

Sarah Rajtmajer and Marta Tomaszkiewic

ganize and judge the event.

This year, 27 postdocs judged the work of 32 postdoc presenters. For the last four years, the exhibition has given prizes for the top-performing postdocs at the exhibition. The first place winner this year took home $500, the second-place winners received $300, and the thirdplace winners $100.

Two of the three third-place winners, Sarah Rajtmajer and Marta Tomaszkiewic, are from the Eberly College of Science.

Rajtmejer presented her re-

search, titled “An Evolutionary Game Model for the Spread of Noncooperative Behavior on Social Networks and Associated Longitudinal Effects on Global Network Topology.”

“It was wonderful to see what other postdocs are doing throughout the University, and to have the opportunity to share my work as well,” said Rajtmajer. “I had some thoughtful conversations with postdocs and faculty from various departments about the relationship between my research and their own fields of interest.”

Tomaszkiewic’s research poster was titled “Comparative Analysis of the Hominine Y Chromosome Genomes.”

“It was a very enriching experience sharing my research with my peers at Penn State and explaining my everyday Penn State Eberly College of Science

work to postdocs from different fields,” she said.

Eswara has worked hard to build events like this in her work with the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, to provide a sense of community and also professional career-building events for postdocs. She is succeeding, according to Rajtma-

jer and Tomaszkiewic.

“The Postdoc Exhibition gives a sense of community to postdocs at the University as well as an opportunity to engage with faculty and administrators,” said Rajtmajer.

“In the end, science is an interdisciplinary field and we need people from different

scientific areas to be familiar about all the studies being performed at Penn State to build new connections, collaborations, and social networks,” said Tomaszkiewic.

—Whittney Gould

Welcome Day 2015 On Sunday, August 23, 2015, the Eberly College of Science welcomed more than 760 incoming freshman to Penn State. Our newest students were introduced to the college community with a day of activity led by NEXUS (Network for EXcellence in Undergraduate Science), a group of upperclassmen dedicated to helping new students transition to college. The day was capped by an extravaganza hosted by the college. Faculty and staff were encouraged to bring their families to spend time with the new students, play icebreaker games, conduct fun science experiments with the Office of Outreach, dress up for fun photos in a photo booth sponsored by the Office of Develpment and Alumni Relations, and enjoy delicious Creamery ice cream. The fun-filled festival also included an exclusive peek at the science clubs before the whole university involvement fair.

Welcome to the science family, Class of 2019!

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

35

College News

Staff Highlight: Selders Provides Critical Support Department heads may hold one of the toughest positions in academia, but they do not have to do their job alone thanks to excellent administrative support coordinators like the Department of Astronomy and Astrophyics’s Christine Selders.

Administrative support coordinators and department heads oversee and execute all academic and administrative functions. Selders has seamlessly facilitated the implementation of both drastic and small changes for four department heads over the past 25 years.

“Christine has been instrumental in developing how the department works,” said Donald Schneider, head of the department. “Her experiences and judgment are extremely valuable.”

As the main point of contact for administration, Selders balances a wide variety of complex administrative and office functions. She develops and manages various budgets, creates department policies, advises department head and faculty of University policies and procedures, fills open departmental positions, trains new employees, oversees department spa­ ce allocation, and manages renovation projects.

“It’s difficult to find a part of the infrastructure that does not depend on Christine,” said Suvrath Mahadevan, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics.

Selders has a busy schedule, yet she takes on additional projects in times of need. For example, when there are job searches in progress, Selders covers some of the responsibilities of those former staff members.

“The department was down two people at one point this summer, but Christine kept it run36

ning very smoothly, without any diminution in the effectiveness of the office. I don’t think the faculty realized the magic that was going on behind the curtains,” Schneider said.

Schneider admitted that even he, as an assistant department head, did not realize everything Selders does for the department until he became department head himself. Now he views their working relationship as a partnership and said that she is a tremendous asset to the department, college, and University.

An important component of Selders’s role is her intermediary communication between faculty and the department head. Former Department Head Lawrence Ramsey said he noticed faculty feel comfortable approaching Selders with issues so she could pass them on to him.

“Sometimes I was unaware that faculty members were upset if I did something wrong, so Christine was a very valuable conduit to me.

When Christine comes and talks about something, we respect it,” Ramsey said.

Faculty members are grateful for efforts like this from Selders. Mahadevan especially appreciates Selders’s attentiveness to assisting with grants, a meticulous process tasked to principle investigators of a study.

“Faculty teach, mentor, and have service. So without the support of very capable, competent people like Christine, we couldn’t do our jobs,” Mahadevan said.

“My position is always challenging, and sometimes bordering on overwhelming. But I know that is just a temporary state of mind,” said Selders. “We’re a small department, but we’re nationally and internationally recognized, and I’ve been a part of it." —Samantha Schwartz Penn State Eberly College of Science

Faculty Highlight: Robinett’s Advising Enhances the Student Experience In the Department of Physics, each of the 160 physics undergraduate and 25 graduate students receives compassionate support and excellent guidance from their one-man advising unit, Richard Robinett, associate head for undergraduate and graduate students and professor of physics.

Robinett, who started at Penn State as an assistant professor in 1986, has been a member of the physics department administration since 1996. He has held multiple positions, and even substituted for two associate deans during their extended absences.

Physics Department Head Nitin Samarth said that Robinett is “passionate, inspiring, energetic, and completely dedicated to the welfare of the students.”

Under Robinett’s advising over the past 15 years, physics undergraduates have won roughly half of the major academic prizes at the Schreyer Honors College Medals Ceremony.

Yet extraordinary students are not the only ones receiving Robinett’s attention. Carol Deering, the department’s graduate coordinator, said, “He checks on the students to see how they’re making out and make sure they’re on track. When students are struggling, he doesn’t dismiss them. He recommends alternatives.”

Colleagues say that Robinett’s empathetic nature is key to his success as an adviser and mentor. He makes a concentrated effort to get to know his students as individuals. He recognizes their unique potential for success and motivates them to achieve their academic and career goals.

Robinett’s advising has contributed to the Department of Physics’s second highest rate of SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

participation in experiential learning and pedagogical experiences in the college, according to the past two annual graduating-seniors surveys. Colleagues say that Robinett has a talent for matching undergraduates seeking research experience with researchers in the college.

Robinett has encouraged several students to apply for highly selective internships. Five students have participated in a first-class international experience with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, working with the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

Robinett supports other co-curriculars by advising the Penn State chapters of the Society of Physics Students and Sigma Pi Sigma physics honors society. Colleagues say he is heavily involved in these clubs’ outreach activities, advocating for their funding and giving them advice on how to host successful events.

Although advising occupies most of Robinett’s time, he still manages to teach two courses: PSU 016: First-year Seminar Science, a requirement of all first-year students, and PHYS 44: Topics in Contemporary Physics, a course designed to help juniors and seniors plan their next steps.

Aside from working directly with students, Robinett participates in the University Faculty Senate, multiple committees including the Undergraduate Education Advisory Committee, and professional associations. He has also beenpublished in refereed journals and textbooks.

“Richard never turns anything down,” said Samarth. “I don’t know anyone other than him who has the energy, passion, and empathy with students to excel at this job.”

—Samantha Schwartz 37

College News Years of Service Recognition We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the years of service that our faculty and staff have committed to Penn State. The college is fortunate to be able to recognize the following dedicated members of the college community for their service to Penn State in 2015.

40 Years of Service: Andrea Mastro Gary Mullen James Rosenberger 35 Years: Ross Hardison Sabrina Glasgow 30 Years: Michael Akritas G. Jogesh Babu Daniel Durachko Luen-Chau Li Przemyslaw Maslak Ming Tien Eric Younken 25 Years: Wenwu Cao Robin Ciardullo John Collins Charles Fisher Deborah Fisher Svetlana Katok Anatoly Katok Yakov Pesin Cathy Riemer Christine Selders Hope Shaffer Traci Shimmel Carol Thomas Jack Wilkinson Tara Witherite 20 Years: Joseph Bollinger Dmitri Burago

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Leanne Crosson Ann Daniel James Ferry Amy Homan Qi Li Dennis Lin James Miller Richard Ordway Michael Troyan Ping Xu 15 Years: Neena Chopra Howard Fescemyer Dale Hoover Paul Lammert Runze Li Jia Li Anton Petrunin Eric Post Beatrice Sirakaya Sergei Tabachnikov Zachary Tseng Edward Wagner 10 years: John Asbury Abraham Falcone Derek Fox John Fricks Robert Geist Yao Guo James Hager Melissa Hicks Cheryl Hile Mitchell Holland Helge Jenssen Michael Joyce

Andrey Krasilnikov Maria Krasilnikova Xiantao Li Kevin Luhman Megan Meinecke Irina Mocioiu Tracey Moore Lynne O'cain Kathleen Postle Radu Roiban Lorraine Santy Robert Schoch Durland Shumway Kathleen Smith Yanming Wang Lance White Krzysztof Wysocki 5 Years: Bradley Alters Igor Berezin Amine Benkiran Daniel Blankenberg Amanda Brown Sung Hyun Cho Carol Deering Meredith Defelice Franklin Dorman Carly Dreibelbis Kristin Dreyer Ana Laura Elias Arriaga Miriam Freedman Nathan Gemelke Ying Gu Steven Hair Nestor Handzy Megan Holmes

Jennifer Jackson Timothy Jegla Benjamin Lear Shundai Li Gabriele Monshausen Jason Morton Zifei Pei Randy Penn Nestor Perea Lopez Kirstin Purdy Drew Alexander Radosevich Paula Ralph Jan Reimann Breanne Robinson Megan Romer Alham Saadat Philip Smith Michelle Spiering Laura Ullrich Kurt Vandegrift

Thank you

for your service

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Department News Astronomy and Astrophysics HETDEX In 1998, everything changed. Before that, we thought we knew the laws of the universe. The force of the Big Bang began an expansion, while attractive gravitational pull of every piece of matter in the universe acted to slow the expansion down. The question was whether this pull was strong enough to reverse the expansion altogether and create a Big Crunch. But then in 1998, we discovered dark energy, a component of the universe that is causing the universe to fly apart, as if being pushed by anti-gravity.

But how has dark energy evolved with cosmic time? In 1917, before we knew about the motions of the universe, Einstein added a “Cosmological Constant” to his theory of general relativity to “hold back gravity” and prevent the universe from collapsing upon itself. Shortly thereafter, he declared this constant of integration to be his greatest blunder, as the observed dynamics of the universe seemed to make it unnecessary.

But the formalism remained, and it makes a clear prediction as to how dark energy should evolve. But is this idea correct?

Penn State astronomers are about to find out.

This spring, the Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) will begin a large survey, which will look 10 billion years back in time and map out how matter was disSCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

THE HETDEX TEAM AT PENN STATE. From left to right, Professor Derek Fox, Professor Robin Ciardullo, Dr. Nishant Agarwal, Professor Caryl Gronwall, Professor Donghui Jeong, undergraduate Hunter Brooks, Professor Donald Schneider, graduate student Brian Pomerantz, Dr. Jonathan Trump, graduate student Henry Gebhardt, and graduate student Mallory Molina.

Not pictured are graduate students Alex Hagen and Joanna Bridge, and undergraduate Mark Barnaba, Jr.

tributed when the universe was only one-quarter of its present size. By comparing these measurements to those made from the universe's baby picture (otherwise known as the cosmic microwave background), HETDEX will be able to measure history of universal expansion and determine just how important Dark Energy was at early times. Simultaneously, the millions of spectra obtained by the HETDEX project will enable a myriad of other projects, from the identification of stars torn from their parent galaxies to the measurement of star formation as a function of galactic environment.

—Robin Ciardullo, professor of astronomy and astrophysics 39

Faculty Spotlight Andrew Read Elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Andrew F. Read, Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and Entomology and Eberly Professor in Biotechnology at Penn State, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the leading academy of sciences of the United Kingdom. The Royal Society is a self-governing fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists.

The stated purpose of the society is to recognize, promote, and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

Each year, the Fellows of the Royal Society elect up to 52 new fellows and up to ten new foreign members who have made substantial contributions to the improvement of knowledge in science, engineering, or medicine.

40

Read is the director of Penn State's Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics and is leading Penn State’s initiative in evolutionary risk analysis and mitigation. He perhaps is best known for his research on how natural selection shapes the virulence of malaria and how the “unnatural” selection imposed by medicine shapes the evolution of disease-causing organisms.

Read’s research is aimed at determining what can be done to minimize the impact on human health and well-being of the evolution of pathogens and of the organisms that carry and transmit these pathogens.

Prompted by medical and public-health measures, this evolution can produce adaptations in pathogens that lead to drug and pesticide resistance, increased virulence and infectiousness, and the ability to evade formerly effective vaccines. Read is particularly interested in the question of how best to treat patients so as to minimize the evolution of resistance. His group works mostly on malaria, myxoma viruses in rabbits, and cancer-causing viruses in chickens, with new work on hospital-acquired infections. Read's research, which provides an improved understanding of pathogen evolution, can be used to inform

public-health decisions. His research currently is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Gates Foundation, and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK). —Sam Sholtis

Tom Mallouk Elected as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences Thomas Ma llouk, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Bioc hem i s t r y and Molecular Biology at Penn State University, has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Election to membership in the academy is one of the highest honors accorded to U.S. scientists or engineers by their peers.

Mallouk is an inorganic chemist who is highly regarded for his research on nanomaterials and their application to a broad range of scientific and technological problems.

He and his students showed in 1988 that inorganic crysPenn State Eberly College of Science

tal lattices can be grown one layer at a time on surfaces by wet chemical techniques. He used this approach to make surface structures for artificial photosynthesis, chemical sensing, and the separation of left-handed and right-handed forms of the same molecule, which is a critical step in many applications. In 1998, he developed an optical screening method for simultaneously evaluating hundreds of catalytic materials and used it to discover catalysts that improve the performance of fuel cells, water electrolysis, and glucose sensors. This method now is widely used for materials discovery. Currently, his group is developing nanoscale materials to address problems in photochemical energy conversion, energy storage, electronics,

catalysis, environmental remediation, and powered movement on the nanometer scale.

In 2004, they introduced the concept of polymeric “delivery vehicles” that carry reactive nanoparticles through tens of meters of soil and ground water in order to destroy pollutants. In 2007, together with colleague Joan Redwing, professor of materials science and engineering and of electrical engineering at Penn State, Mallouk's team fabricated the first silicon nanowire solar cells. In 2009, Mallouk and his students developed the first molecule-based solar cells that split water into hydrogen and oxygen with visible light. Recently, Mallouk's lab, in collaboration with colleagues Tony Jun Huang, professor of engineering science and mechanics

Faculty Promotions

To professor:

at Penn State and Ayusman Sen, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Penn State, have developed nanomotors that, for the first time, can be powered and controlled inside living cells, a breakthrough that holds promise for new methods for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. It was established in 1863 by a congressional act of incorporation, signed by Abraham Lincoln, which calls on the academy to act as an official adviser to the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.

—Sam Sholtis

Michael T. Green, chemistry Kenneth C. Keiler, biochemistry and molecular biology Katsuhiko Murakami, biochemistry and molecular biology Aleksandra B. Slavkovic, statistics

Congratulations to the following

Mathieu P. Stienon, mathematics

faculty members on their

Ae Ja Yee, mathematics

recent promotions in academic rank:

To associate professor: David D. Boehr, chemistry Tomás A. Carlo-Joglar, biology Jason T. Wright, astronomy and astrophysics

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

41

Faculty Spotlight

Faculty Awards and Honors John Badding, professor of chemistry and physics, has been selected to receive the 2015 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Physical Sciences.

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers selects candidates after reviewing nominations together with outside evaluations from peer institutions.

Augustin Banyaga, professor of mathematics, has been named a Distinguished Senior Scholar. The title is given by Penn State's Eberly College of Science in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education. Holders of this position have had a profound 42

effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, as well as exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.

Squire J. Booker, professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been named an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a science philanthropy whose mission is to advance biomedical research and science education for the benefit of humanity. As one of 26 new HHMI investigators chosen from 894 applicants, Booker joins a group of scientists, including 17 Nobel laureates, widely recognized for their creativity and research accomplishment. The HHMI chooses investigators based on a “people, not projects� philosophy allowing its investigators the freedom to explore creative approaches to difficult biomedical problems.

Booker will receive flexible support designed to enable him to move his research forward in creative new directions.

Jane Charlton, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been selected to receive the 2015 President's Award for Excellence in Academic Integration. The award is given to faculty members who excel at integrating teaching, research, and service to the University.

The award is presented by the Office of the President of the University, based on the recommendations of the President's Council and academic deans.

Charlton has also been selected to receive one of three Penn State Teaching Fellows Awards for 2015/2016.

The Teaching Fellow Award was established jointly in 1986 by the Penn State Alumni Association, the Undergraduate Student Government, and the Graduate Student Association Penn State Eberly College of Science

with the purpose of honoring distinguished teaching and providing incentive for teaching excellence at Penn State.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced the election of Eric D. Feigelson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics and of statistics, as the president of its new Commission on Astroinformatics and Astrostatistics at its General Assembly in August. The IAU is the world’s largest scholarly society in astronomy. Together with G. Jogesh Babu, professor of statistics, Feigelson is one of the founders of the field of astrostatistics that endeavors to improve applications of sophisticated methodology to the analysis and interpretation of astronomical data. Feigelson and Babu have organized research conferences, graduate-level summer schools, and coauthored a prize-winning textbook in the field.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

Charles Fisher, professor of biology and associate dean for graduate education in the Eberly College of Science, has been named a Distinguished Senior Scholar.

The title is given by Penn State's Eberly College of Science in recognition of a sustained record of extraordinary achievement in research and education.

Holders of this position have had a profound effect on their fields through creative innovation and internationally acclaimed scientific leadership, as well as exceptional accomplishments in teaching and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students.

Kin Fai Mak, assistant professor of physics, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science to receive funding for his research as part of the DOE's Early Career Research Program. With this funding, Mak will study a new method for transmitting information

by controlling a parameter of electrons known as the “valley degree of freedom” in twodimensional crystals. The research has potential application in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices, such as spin and valley transistors and polarization-sensitive LEDs. Gerald D. Mahan, distinguished professor of physics, has been honored with the 2015 Outstanding Achievement in Thermoelectrics Award from the International Thermoelectric Society (ITS).

The award recognizes the outstanding achievements of a senior scientist for contributions to the field of thermoelectricity. The award was presented at the banquet of the 2015 International Conference on Thermoelectrics in Dresden, Germany, where Mahan presented a plenary lecture.

Jennelle L. Malcos, lecturer in biology, has received the George W. Atherton 43

Faculty Spotlight Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award honors excellence in teaching at the undergraduate level across all Penn State colleges and campuses. Malcos is one of six awardees for 2015. Malcos teaches introductory courses in physiology, mammalian anatomy, and cell biology. She uses an innovative approach to ensure that students are actively engaged in learning despite the large size of these classes.

Mercedes Richards, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, has been elected as a Councilor of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

The AAS was founded in 1899 and is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America with over 7,000 members. Richards is one of three Councilors elected this year from among the membership of the AAS. She will serve a three-year term on the AAS Council, which is the governing body of the AAS and is responsible for the management of the affairs and property of the society.

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Marylyn Ritchie, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and the director of the Center for Systems Genomics, has been named the Paul Berg Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The professorship was created in 1995 by an anonymous donor in honor of Paul Berg, a 1948 Penn State graduate who was named a Distinguished Alumnus in 1974 and earned the Nobel Prize in 1980 for developing a method to map the structure and function of DNA. Song Tan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been selected to receive the 2015 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences.

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers selects candidates after reviewing

nominations together with outside evaluations from peer institutions.

David Weiss, professor and associate head of the Department of Physics, has been elected as chair of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics (DAMOP) of the American Physical Society (APS). DAMOP is the oldest and third largest division of the APS, with over 3,000 members. The chair is an elected position with administrative responsibility for all the division's operations, including the 1,100-attendee annual meeting.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

New Faculty Jeffrey S. Case, assistant professor of mathematics, is a geometric analyst interested in global problems in Riemannian, Lorentzian, conformal, and CR geometry. He uses ideas from conformal geometry to better understand CR geometry and smooth metric measure spaces. He applies these ideas to study optimization problems involving the “shape� of manifolds and to study inequalities important in differential equations. Prior to joining Penn State, Case was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University from 2010 to 2013 and an instructor in mathematics at Princeton from 2011 to 2015. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2007 and 2010, respectively, and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science at Minnesota State University in 2005.

Jack Huizenga, assistant professor of mathematics, focuses his research on algebraic SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

geometry. He studies the geometry of curves and surfaces, with a particular emphasis on moduli spaces of vector bundles and interpolationtype problems. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Huizenga was a research assistant professor and National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2012 to 2015. He earned master's and doctoral degrees in mathematics at Harvard University in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of Chicago in 2007.

Jesse R. Lasky, assistant professor of biology, studies the processes that generate and maintain biodiversity. His research has applications in conservation and agriculture. He is particularly interested in the causes of genetic variation across the geographical range of a species and how this variation changes over time. In particular, he is interested in how plant populations adapt to local environmental conditions and how that adaptation is

affected by species interactions. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Lasky was an Earth Institute Fellow from 2012 to 2014 and a postdoctoral researcher from 2014 to 2015 at Columbia University. He earned a doctoral degree in ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012 and a bachelor's degree in biology at Kenyon College in 2004.

X. Lance Lian, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and biology, focuses his research on understanding human development and disease by applying the principles of developmental biology to experiments with human-derived stem cells, and by experimentally editing the genetic code. In addition to gaining basic knowledge of human development at the cellular and- molecular level, Lian's research has application in the development of therapies to treat degenerative diseases like spinal-cord injury, heart disease, and diabetes. Lian also plans to study stem-cell-derived immunotherapy as a cancer 45

Faculty Spotlight treatment. Before joining the faculty at Penn State, Lian was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 2012 to 2014. He earned a doctoral degree in chemical engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012 and a bachelor's degree in bioengineering at Zhejiang University in China in 2006.

Lynn Lin, assistant professor of statistics, develops Bayesian methods and computational tools for classification, selection of subgroups of variables, detection of rare events, and the visualization of highly complex data. She applies her research to datasets of high-throughput singlecell biological research on immunology and vaccines.

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Lin was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 2012 to 2015. She earned a doctoral degree in statistics at Duke University in 2012, and bachelor's and master's degrees in statistics at the National University of Singapore in 2007 and 2008.

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Mikael C. Rechtsman, assistant professor of physics, uses both experimental and theoretical approaches to understand photonics, the science of light. In particular, he is interested in the new field of “topological photonics� with the goal of allowing light to be transported through complex materials—where normally random scattering would massively disrupt its flow. Rechtsman's research can be applied to devices that transport information using photons and in the development of extremely small optical components used across the telecommunications industry, such as waveguides, splitters, and optical diodes.

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Rechtsman was an Azrieli Postdoctoral Fellow at Technion Israel Institute of Technology from 2010 to 2015 and Courant Instructor at New York Univeristy's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences from 2008 to 2010.

He earned a doctoral degree in physics at Princeton University in 2008 and a bachelor's degree in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003.

Xin Zhang, assistant professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular biology, studies how the environment of the cell influences the folding of proteins into their proper three-dimensional structures. Zhang aims to develop tools that can monitor the stresses and cellular machineries within the cell that can alter the ways in which a protein can fold.

His research also has application in the development of diagnoses and therapies for human diseases rooted in defective protein folding. Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State, Zhang was a research associate at the Scripps Research Institute, California.

He earned a doctoral degree at the California Institute of Technology in 2010, a master's degree at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2004, and a bachelor's degree at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2001.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Student Spotlight

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors Braddock Scholarship Opens Doors to New Opportunities The Braddock Scholarship is open to high school seniors who have applied to both the Schreyer Honors College scholars and the Eberly College of Science and intend to pursue a major in a qualifying science field.

The scholarship provides up to $6,000 annually to these students over their four years in college, lessening the financial burden for these ambitious students.

For senior Braddock Scholar Shalome Sine, receiving the Braddock Scholarship was a financial saving grace: “Because of medical issues in my family, my parents were not in a position financially to help me pay for school. The Braddock Scholarship made it possible for me to attend Penn State.”

The scholarship is a big draw to students considering Penn State. “The scholarship was a major factor in choosing to attend Penn State in the first place,” said senior Braddock Scholar Janine Mistrick.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

The experience doesn’t end when the students receive the scholarship. The Braddock Scholars become a helpful science peer community for each other. The scholarship program includes events and meetings where the scholars can share ideas with their peers or hear faculty and staff speakers present on topics like fellowships, research opportunities, international experiences, and career path options.

“What I really enjoy about this scholarship are the meetings that gather the other students with faculty who have super helpful insight on how to make the most of my time at Penn State and where I can take my science degree,” said senior Braddock Scholar Sarah Chang. “Having those small discussions as an underclassman helped expand and shape what kind of career I would want to have after I graduate, especially since I had a narrow perspective of the opportunities out there for

BRADDOCK SCHOLAR SARAH CHANG PRESENTS her research findings from her internship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, an opportunity she was able to take in part because of her Braddock Scholarship.

science majors.”

Sine agreed. “The Braddock Scholarship has allowed me to explore all of my options as a scientist, and has given me the opportunity to then do research in my chosen field.”

The weight of the reputation of this scholarship program also helps these students obtain experience and opportunities they might not have been given a chance for without it.

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Student Spotlight “The backing of the Braddock Scholarship helped me show professors at a time when I had no particular lab or field skills that I was a dedicated scholar who was passionate about science and could be counted on to perform well in their lab,” said Mistrick.

“Being able to sign my name as ‘Shalome Sine, Braddock Scholar’ on my application email for a new lab was a significant part of what impressed the graduate students who re-

cruited me,” added Sine.

The Braddock Scholarship has allowed the scholars the financial freedom to pursue academic and research experiences they are passionate about.

Mistrick, a biology major, was accepted into an REU this past summer that allowed her study the ecology of the little brown bat in Alaska. Sine’s honors thesis research in a neuroscience lab helped her decide to pursue graduate school to be a clinical pyschologist. Chang

has decided that between graduation in May and beginning an M.D./Ph.D. program, she’d like to challenge herself with an interesting biomedical research project.

“The Braddock Scholarship helped relieve the growing financial pressure so that I was completely free to explore my interests with little limitation,” Chang said.

—Whittney Gould

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors Braddock Scholarship The Braddock Scholarship, an award for exceptional freshman science students, was established by the late Homer Frick Braddock, a Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania native, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from Penn State in 1906. The Braddock Scholarship is available to outstanding high-school seniors who are interested in studying science at Penn State.

Since 1984, this generous gift and prestigious financial award has provided needed and helpful funds to over 240 deserving students. The 2015 Braddock Scholars are: Freshman: Rebecca Brussard Colleen Conway Mackenzie Mauger Rosalie Sowers Stephen Thornton Sophomores: Matthew Allen Robert Liu Steven Makkar 48

Riddhi Patel Mila Tamminga Collin Van San Juniors: Nathan Arnett Laura M. Beebe Alice Y. Cai Sarah N. Galang Elizabeth M. Lesko Jiang Jingyi

James L. Johnston Michelle Lai Joseph K. Puthenpurayil Amanda C. Reese Kokila Shankar Grant T. Smith Seniors: Victoria A. Bertocci Joshua T. Bram Sarah Chang

Valerie M. Lindner Janine Mistrick Jacqueline R. Patterson Avik M. Sarker Shalome L. Sine Priyanka K. Solanki Rachel J. Thomas Anna K. Wing

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Doris N. McKinstry Scholarship The scholarship was established by Doris McKinstry to recognize and support outstanding female undergraduate students enrolled in (or planning to enroll in) the Biology or Premedicine majors in the Eberly College of Science, who have earned a grade point average of 3.0 or higher, and who are permanent residents of Pennsylvania. Students receiving the scholarship for 2015/2016 are: Freshmen: Coreena Chan Bridget Garrity Omobolanle Odusoga Sophomores:

Phoebe Ingraham Afsha Mumtaz Briana Neidig Victoria Oladipo Huyan Tran

Juniors: Casey Graham Victoria Spadoni Seniors: Maren Healey

Kayla Kisan Joohyeong Lee Bo Jung Haley Randolph

Millennium Scholars Program Penn State’s Millennium Scholars program was established to attract, support, and retain a cadre of high-achieving scholars whose shared expectation for academic excellence and inclusiveness will lead to future leadership positions in a STEM field. The following students have been awarded a scholarship: Cohort #1 (2013) Kaleb Bogale Emily Cribas Sachira Denagamage David Heineman Liyana Ido Rebecca Plessel Taylor Soucy Victoria Spadafora

Cohort #2 (2014) Tiffany Bamfo Stephanie Brown Connor Cassady Patricia DeTomas Medina Alexandra Nader Emma Price Gabrielle Swain Olivia Vilella Inger Wang

Sneha Yennawar Cohort #3 (2015) Brian Carvajal Arthur Chinery Phillip Clauer Amanda Craine Brandon Cruz Andrea Gade Talayah Johnson Idan Kantor

Jonathan Kizer Joash Lake David Lee Sarah Magee Fabiola Maldonado Ishan Phadke Takara Richard Olivia Richards Ivan Yen Madeleine Zalenski

Science Dean’s Scholarship The scholarship is for math and science students who begin their Penn State degrees at one of the Commonwealth campuses, and who transition to University Park to complete a degree in the Eberly College of Science. Students receiving the scholarship for 2015/2016 are: Juniors: Morgan Acker Susan Boun Whitney Brown Mia Casale Dillon Costantini Amber Delhagen Taylor Egner Edgar Elias Bria-Elise Jones Christina Kasmer

Wyatt Keck Michael Mensah Brandon Mouery Ryan Mouery Shea Myers Mit Patel Ruhiben Patel Tanmay Patel Brittany Ricardo Steven Sebzda Erica Sidorowicz

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

Alicia Tripp Seniors: Nicholas Borden Brittany Boucher Bridget Brafi Kimberly Brafi Megan Criswell Matthew Downing Anthonia George Colleen Gross Devina Harnita

Connie Hernandez Marisa Madsen Brieyanna McWilliams Juanita Mennor Ebone Selfridge Tadir Shapir Priscilla Sintim-Agyeman Joshua Wilkins

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Student Spotlight

Summer 2015 Student Marshal Meichen Bian of Hefei City, Anhui Province, China was honored as the student marshal for the Eberly College of Science during Penn State University's summer commencement ceremonies on Saturday, August 15, 2015 on the University Park campus.

Bian's faculty escort for the commencement exercises was Russell Cooper, professor of economics at Penn State.

Bian graduated with a 3.84 grade point average and bachelor of science degrees in mathematics and in economics. She was a Schreyer Honors College Scholar and a member of the dean's list for five semesters.

While at Penn State, Bian conducted research with Cooper examining the regional variation in financial return on investment in education in China. She found that the return on investment in education was higher in more economically developed regions of China. As part of her research, Bian demonstrated that the factors that influenced the regional variation in return on investment included the Chinese “hokou” system of household registration, patterns of migration, the level of parent's education, and job opportunities.

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“I am so honored and excited about this,” said Bian.“This honor will encourage me to reach my career and lifetime goals. I also really appreciate the people, including my parents, teachers, and friends, who supported me, helped me, and inspired me no matter what happened. They are so important to me. I also want to thank the Penn State community, which gave me great opportunities to challenge myself, made me feel warmed when difficulties occurred, and helped me to become the person that I want to be.”

“The most important lesson that I learned at Penn State is that if you really want something, then try your best and you can achieve it,” said Bian. “As an economics major I started to double major in math at the beginning of my junior year, which is a bit late. However, I completed the math courses within the two years with good grades. This experience told me that it is never too late to begin anything. If you like it and feel it matters, then you can do it.”

Following graduation, Bian plans to attend Duke University to pursue a master's degree in economics. She is the daughter of Yazhou Bian and Xiaoxia Liu. —Sam Sholtis

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Undergraduate Scientists

Javier Soliván-Rivera: Making the Transition to University Park After beginning his undergraduate career at Penn State Behrend, Javier Soliván-Rivera, a biology major focusing on vertebrate physiology, decided to move to University Park to finish his bachelor’s degree. While making the move to a larger campus certainly has its advantages, it didn’t come without challenges.

A variety of difficulties presented themselves to Soliván during his first semester at University Park. Although he had made several weekend visits to campus, he hadn’t anticipated the huge crowds of students filling the sidewalks between classes. He also had not imagined how many students could fit in one class in 100 Thomas Building, the largest lecture hall on campus that seats over 700 people. “When I arrived in 100 Thomas and saw the capacity it held, I began to doubt my decision of transferring,” Soliván said. Large classes were an anomaly at Behrend; at University Park, they are fairly common, especially for required courses.

Soliván also had to adjust to multiple-choice exams. With smaller class sizes at Behrend, faculty and instructors were able to offer open-ended exam questions. Many required courses at University Park are not conducive to this due to the number of students in a class. Workload on the two campuses was a change as well. “During my first semester I saw myself in the need of dropping a class to safeguard my GPA. Another challenge I faced was managing my workload.

At Behrend, I thought of myself as an excellent student. When I transferred I didn’t acknowledge the fact that the transition process would play a huge role in my performance here. I decided it was a good idea to enroll myself in 18 SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

credits and now I can say with confidence I wish I hadn’t done that,” Soliván said.

Soliván knew he had to make changes to adjust to life at a large university. Getting involved with both academic and extracurricular activities enabled him to meet new people and start forming friendships. “Finding a support group during your transition process is fundamental for your success. A lot of students that I have met that have transferred from other campuses usually face the transition process alone.”

Although his family supported him, they were nearly 2,000 miles away in Puerto Rico. Soliván credits a friend he met during his first semester at University Park for getting him on track and guiding him in the right direction. “Because of Anthony Melendez, another biology major, I met the wonderful biology and pre-medicine advising team. I would tell all change-of-assignment students to go to see their academic advisers. Academic advisers will do everything in their power to guide you to success. I still contact them frequently, even after being here for two years,” Soliván said.

The learning assistant (LA) program was another resource that Soliván regularly used to help through his coursework. A LA is an undergraduate student who facilitates small group work in large group settings, such as lecture and labs. The LA program in the Eberly College of Science, which is facilitated by the Center for Excellence in Science Education, offers LA help in select biochemistry and molecular biology, biology, chemistry, and physics courses.

“The LAs do an excellent job of helping you understand the material. They also provide a lot 51

Student Spotlight of flexibility for you to attend office hours and receive all the help you can get,” Soliván said.

After his first year at University Park, Soliván himself became a LA so that he could help other students, just as he was aided through various science courses. He is now the lead LA for Biology 110 and also serves as a teaching assistant for Introductory Physiology.

After overcoming the numerous challenges presented to him by the transition, Soliván began to realize how the move had many positive changes in his life.

“I have not only changed as a student, but also as an individual in society. I have had the opportunity to meet people from all around the world and learn their different cultural beliefs and practices. I have become more empathic with others, a quality that I developed through my experience as a learning assistant. The Eberly College of Science taught me how to serve society altruistically.”

Although Soliván initially questioned his decision to make the move, he now knows that it was the right choice for him and has advice for those considering a change of assignment: “If there is something I have learned about success-

ful students that have transitioned, it is that they get involved right away. Don’t be afraid to talk to your neighbor in your first class. Don’t be afraid to go sit down at your professor’s office hours so that he or she can get to know you.

Approach your advisers or instructors and tell them you want to get involved in something. But most importantly trust in yourself and the decision that you have made.”

After Soliván graduates in 2016, he plans to attend medical school to become a medical physician and specialize and either cardiology or neurology. He also plans to use the wisdom that he gained during his tenure at Penn State to continue his future success: “I oftentimes get asked how can I maintain a positive attitude when things get rough. My answer is simple: I have two options. The first one is to give up. The second is that I can learn from the experience, embrace it, and move on to seeking better opportunities. I know I will struggle in the future, but based on my previous experiences, I know that there are many more positive things in my future. All it takes is a positive attitude and a little bit of hope.”

—Tara Immel

Undergraduate Scientists Summer Exposure to Career Paths in Medicine Four Eberly College of Science students were selected to participate in the Penn State College of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. Summer Exposure program, which aims to prepare students for career paths combining clinical medicine and research. The students—Kaleb Bogale, Jenna Mandel, Rhea Sullivan, and Andrew Tucker—are all Schreyer scholars and were four of 52

Kaleb Bogale poses with Penn State Hershey graduate Student Joel Coble at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center research poster symposium.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

the five students total selected for the program.

Each student was paired with a College of Medicine faculty member mentor in a biomedical laboratory for the summer, with the opportunity to shadow a physician in a weekly clinical exposure session.

Tucker was paired with Sean Stocker for lab work in cellular and molecular physiology and shadowed allergy, asthma, and immunology specialist physician Faoud Ishmael.

Bogale worked in the lab of Steven Schiff in the Institute of Personalized Medicine and shadowed neurology physician Xuemei Huang.

He was able to work on a collaborative project investigating neonatal sepsis in Uganda while shadowing Dr. Huang in his clinic, which focused on Parkinson’s disease.

"HAVING THIS EXPERIENCE UNDER MY BELT HAS PROVIDED THE FOUNDATION FOR MY FUTURE WORK IN LABS." “My summer research project pushed me to learn Python, a computer programming language, in order to identify various bacteria based on their genetic fragments in the blood and cerebral spinal fluid of neonates,” he said.

He feels his biology coursework adequately prepared him for this challenge. “This computational analysis was only possible with an understanding of molecular and cellular biology that I learned in classes like BIOL 110H with Dr. Steve Schaeffer and BIOL 230M with Dr. Kimberly Nelson.”

Mandel conducted lab research with Leslie Parent and shadowed physician Kathleen Julian, both experts in infectious disease. Infectious disease was a new area for her.

“I had never been exposed to this field of medicine, and it was incredible to learn about SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

several new infectious diseases every week and watch a well-regarded physician care for her patients with the utmost respect and expertise,” she said.

For Mandel, this experience was life changing: “I had not previously worked in a laboratory, so I was unsure of what to expect. At summer’s end, I left Hershey knowing how to work efficiently in a laboratory, and now understand the importance of quantitation and consistency.”

She began an undergraduate research position in the lab of Melissa Rolls this fall as a result of her experiences. “Having this experience under my belt has provided the foundation for my future work in labs.”

Sullivan worked in Robert Levenson’s pharmacology lab while shadowing family and community medicine physician Dennis Gingrich.

She learned many new techniques in Levenson’s neuropharmacology lab that she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to learn in the neurodevelopmental disease lab she works in at the University Park campus (she works in the lab of Santhosh Girirajan). “I was really excited to learn all these biochemical techniques because my laboratory back at UP doesn’t work with any of these techniques.”

The experience has been great for her as she considers a future career in medicine, either on the research or clinical sides…or both.

“Programs like these are vital to a student’s Penn State career because they offer direct experiences that influence a future career and focus. Before the program I was really sure that I loved science and molecular biology, but had no idea what to do with it. Because of the Penn State College of Medicine M.D./Ph.D. Summer Exposure program, I was able to see myself in three possible career paths—M.D., Ph.D., and M.D./Ph.D.—all in one summer.”

—Whittney Gould 53

Student Spotlight

Above&Beyond Focus on Graduate Students

Unexpected Passion for Science Fuels Genetics Graduate Student When genetics graduate student Elyse Munoz started her college career, she was a political science major. But then she took an anatomy class.

“I took one class, loved it, and changed my major,” Munoz said.

Once she decided to pursue biology instead of political science and planned to attend graduate school in that field, Penn State was an easy choice for Munoz.

“I was really drawn to Penn State, because the biggest thing that Penn State has to offer, in my opinion, is a highly collaborative atmosphere, and that's really missing from a lot of other universities that I looked at. I thought it was so cool that there are so many people you could work with and that everyone wants to work together.”

This highly collaborative environment allowed her to conduct research in two labs as a graduate student. She started in the lab of Doug Cavener studying beta cell biology as it is applied to diabetes and insulin resistance.

But that experience taught her that she wanted 54

to conduct research with more direct application.

That was right about the time Scott Lindner arrived on campus. Lindner’s research combines molecular parasitology and structural biology to study the parasite that causes malaria.

The statistics on malaria are astounding: more than 627,000 people died from this condition in 2014, with over 80 percent of those deaths being children under the age of five.

With an estimated three to four billion people per year at risk for malaria, Lindner’s research could have a very positive effect on a lot of lives, and Munoz connected with that.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

“Because he’s a brand-new faculty member, his work is cutting edge, it’s very exciting. He’s really pushing the field in directions it hasn’t been able to go for technical reasons until now.

I’m getting exposed to so many different techniques,” said Munoz.

As part of the Lindner lab, Munoz is now focusing her graduate work at Penn State on the RNA metabolism of the malaria parasite.

“I work on two different RNA binding proteins that we believe are involved in translational repression.”

The malaria parasite is an interesting research subject, said Munoz, because of the multiple stages the parasite moves through: “It has a stage in humans, which is what we’re mostly familiar with, and there is also a stage in the mosquito. That jump from the human host or mammal host to the mosquito and back and forth is really critical. There are a lot of things physiologically happening there.”

Munoz hopes that the Lindner lab’s research could lead to novel drug targets or the development of a malaria vaccine, which is an aspect of this research that she is excited about. “I wantSCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

ed to work on something with more application, where I could see the direct result of my work.”

Her passion for her work has helped her to win a variety of graduate-level awards, including the American Society for Microbiology Robert D. Watkins Graduate Research Fellowship, the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences Dissertation Award, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and a Bunton Waller Graduate Award.

The Watkins and Sloan Fellowships and the Bunton Waller Graduate Award were available to Munoz as a result of efforts to recognize excellence achieved by underrepresented scientists. Munoz is proud to be a Hispanic female scientist.

“I’m a minority student. I am a woman in science. I want it to be clear that it doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter what your race or your color is, you can be successful in science, and I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good example of that.”

While Munoz is gaining valuable experience in the Lindner lab, she’s also sharing her knowledge to help mentor an undergraduate researcher. Munoz mentors Amanda Reese, a junior majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology.

Munoz also speaks to groups of underrepresented scientists like the Millennium Scholars and the McNair Scholars to encourage them to pursue their dreams in science.

It all goes back to the community for Munoz.

The keys to success lie with people working together and helping each other. “I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today without amazing mentors, or the support of Penn State and my fellow Penn State genetics graduate students.”

—Whittney Gould

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Student Spotlight

Natasha Batalha’s Research and Accomplishments are Out of This World Natasha Batalha, a third-year Ph.D. candi- learn about the chemistry and climate of plandate in the dual degree Astronomy and Astrobi- ets in our solar system, like Mars, and then apology program in the Department of Astronomy ply this knowledge in the future when we have and Astrophysics, is studying all things “astro.” more data on these exoplanets.

Although she came from a well-educated famBatalha’s research with James Kasting, Evan Pugh University Professor at Penn State, which ily in Brazil and had a great education herself, is fully funded through an NSF Graduate Re- Batalha recognized that the quality of STEM search Fellowship awarded to her during her education is not the same for everyone and that second year, focuses on exoplanet studies with even students at good schools can fall through the cracks. She has taken her passion to help an emphasis on early Martian climate.

“The idea is that there are these stark water others receive a good education to the next level features on the surface of Mars from a few bil- as the founder and president of Learn to Be @ Penn State, lion years ago, but we have no "WAS MARS REALLY A HABITABLE, WET a nationwide, nonprofit orgaidea how that is possible,” said PLACE EARLY ON IN ITS HISTORY?" nization with the mission of Batalha. “Mars today is a cold, dry place with a thin and tenu- providing free online tutoring to K-12 students ous atmosphere. If Mars, early on, had a thick in underserved communities. In just two years, atmosphere, though, then it’s possible that the organization at Penn State has provided greenhouses gases could have helped to keep it over 33,000 minutes of tutoring and is the secwarm over a prolonged period of time. We are ond-ranked chapter in the nation. Batalha has taking atmospheric models and trying to test also served as the Girl Scout co-chair of the this hypothesis of: was Mars really a habitable, Graduate Women in Science (GWIS) organizawet place early on in its history?” Batalha’s tion at Penn State and has organized STEM work on early Martian climate was recently workshops for local middle school girls.

Batalha received her bachelor’s degree in published in Icarus.

Batalha was inspired to pursue science at Physics from Cornell University, where she a young age by Sally Ride, the first American also continued her lifelong hobby of dancing. woman in space, and jokes that her dissertation In addition to her NSF fellowship, she was also is just an extension of her middle school science awarded the STEM Scholar Graduate Fellowfair project. In addition to her work at Penn ship during her first year at Penn State. — State, she has worked with the Space Telescope Carrie Lewis Science Institute to characterize planets outside of our solar system, called exoplanets, with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Batalha said that she hopes to use the information that they 56

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Chris Li Awarded Air Products Graduate Fellowship Most of the scientific research done at Penn at remote locations for small electronics like cell State University Park is considered basic re- phones and laptops. As part of this team, Li was search, so opportunities for graduate students to able to see a product go on the market that had experience the process of product development phenomenal performance, but he wanted to be are rare. However, Chris Li, a third-year Ph.D. able to understand how it worked in terms of the candidate in Chemistry, had the opportunity to structure of the reactions that were occurring. do just that this past summer as part of his in- It was then that he decided to pursue a graduate ternship at Air Products at their headquarters degree in chemistry to combine his engineering in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Li is the recipient skills with understanding the fundamentals of of the 2015 Air Products Graduate Fellowship, physical science. which includes the summer internship, as well As a member of Dr. Tom Mallouk’s lab, Li as one year of funding. works on designing energy application related As part of his materials, such internship, Li "ELECTROCHEMISTRY IS SOMETHING as sodium ion worked on a rebatteries. Chris search and deHE KNOWS VERY WELL..." studies the diffuvelopment team sion coefficient of at Air Products making a formulation for metal sodium ions using a technique called impedance etching. “Basically, we were mixing chemical A spectroscopy, an electrochemical technique that and chemical B trying to make a formulation he uses to probe a series of different structures for etching targeted metal on printed circuit of cathode material and compare the diffusion boards, which have layers and layers of differ- coefficients to get a structure-property relationent metals stacked together. I was involved in ship. The goal is to design a next-generation making that and then characterizing it with sodium ion battery with a faster diffusion coefelectrochemistry,” said Li. Although the process ficient that will make the batteries cheaper and of metal etching was new to Li, electrochemis- just as fast, if not faster, than the lithium ion try is something he knows very well, so he was batteries we use today. able to teach others on his team how to use it as Outside the lab, Li is an avid runner, running a characterization tool. seven marathons and one ironman race since he Li’s internship was not his first experience began running about four years ago. The time in industry research. After graduating from management and discipline skills required for the University of California, Davis, with a this type of running, as well as earning a Ph.D., bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, he are ones that he learned as an undergraduate worked as a staff engineer at SiGNA Chemistry, student as he worked all four years to pay for his Inc. on a team that designed and built a porta- own tuition and expenses. Li is the first member ble hydrogen storage battery that, when paired of his family to obtain a college degree and atwith a fuel cell, can provide portable electricity tend graduate school. —Carrie Lewis SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

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Alumni News Weinreb Family Endows Early Career Professorship

Penn State Chemistry Professor Steven M. Weinreb and his wife, Nancy, have endowed the Weinreb Family Early Career Professorship in the Eberly College of Science to support promising young faculty members in the Department of Chemistry.

“Our goal in establishing the professorship is to help the Department of Chemistry to support bright, young, faculty members at the very start of their teaching and research careers,” Steven Weinreb said. “We want to help assure that Penn State will have scientists, scholars, and educators with the greatest potential to contribute to our students, to our University, and to 58

our world.”

Steven and Nancy have been part of the Penn State community for more than 30 years, beginning in 1978 when Steven, now the Russell and Mildred Marker Professor of Natural Products Chemistry, first became a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry. Steven’s leadership positions at Penn State include serving as both department head and interim dean of the Eberly College of Science in the mid-1990s.

Nancy worked for many years as a library assistant with Penn State’s University Libraries. Now active as a volunteer in the community, she serves as head docent at the Palmer Museum, vice-president and secretary of the Schlow Library Foundation, and an active member of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The Weinreb’s sons, Paul and Michael, are Penn State alumni, and daughterin-law Carolyn earned her Ph.D. degree at Penn State.

The Weinrebs took advantage of the University's Faculty Endowment Challenge—a giftmatching program in which Penn State pays one-third of the cost of endowing a faculty position. “After being with the University for so long, and now having this opportunity to enhance our gift with matching funds from Penn State, Nancy and I felt now was the right time to give back,” Steven said.

Early Career Professorships rotate every Penn State Eberly College of Science

three years to a new recipient in the first ten years of his or her academic career, providing seed money for innovative research projects and flexible funding for new approaches to teaching.

The endowments typically require a minimum commitment of $500,000, but through the Faculty Endowment Challenge, donors may establish new Early Career Professorships for any of the University’s colleges or campuses with a commitment of $334,000. The University will commit the remaining one-third of the necessary funds, approximately $166,000, from unrestricted endowment resources, ensuring support for rising faculty stars.

Penn State’s alumni and friends are invaluable partners in fulfilling the University’s land-grant mission of education, research, and service. Private gifts from alumni and friends enrich the experiences of students both in and out of the classroom; expand the research and teaching capacity of our faculty; enhance the University’s ability to recruit and retain top students and faculty; and help to ensure that students from every economic background have access to a Penn State education. The University’s colleges and campuses are now enlisting the support of alumni and friends to advance a range of unit-specific initiatives. —Brenda Lucas

Eberly College of Science Welcomes Joyce Matthews, Senior Director of Development Joyce Matthews assumed her new role as senior director of development for the Eberly College of Science in October. Matthews brings fifteen years of professional success in fundraising, the last five years of which were with Penn State’s College of Information, Sciences, and Technology. She has been a Penn State employee for twenty-eight years. Under her guidance, the IST team exceeded their For the Future campaign goal well in advance of the campaign closing. Matthews looks forward to bringing this same success to the Eberly College of Science.

Matthews holds a bachelor’s degree from Shippensburg University in Public Relations/Journalism and master’s degree in Counselor Education with an emphasis on student personnel from Penn State.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

59

Alumni News

Five Honored with Penn State’s Outstanding Science Alumni Award

The Penn State University Eberly College of Science has selected five alumni to be honored with the Outstanding Science Alumni Award for 2015. The Board of Directors of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society established this award to recognize alumni who have a record of significant professional achievements in their field and who are outstanding role models for students in the college. Receiving this award are: Donna Bortner, ’84 B.S. Microbiology Alexa Dembek, ’91 Ph.D. Chemistry Sudhir Kumar, ’96, Ph.D. Genetics Caryl Russo Singer, ’82 B.S. Biology Larry Travis, ’71 Ph.D. Astronomy Donna Bortner is the chief executive officer at TransViragen, Inc, a company she cofounded in 2009. TransViragen focuses on the generation and analysis of genetically modified cell lines and animal models for scientific research. The company provides a variety of cus60

tom services to a growing list of clients in the government, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic sectors.

Prior to establishing TransViragen, Bortner worked for nearly twenty years in the pharmaceutical industry at GlaxoSmithKline. She joined GlaxoSmithKline as a postdoctoral fellow in the pharmacology department, where her research entailed the development of animal models to study mechanisms of cancer relevant to human disease. She went on to hold positions of increasing responsibility in the research division, most recently as the head of the company’s transgenics, viral-vectors, and sequencing operations in the United States. In this position, she led a team of scientists in research efforts focused on the development and application of genomic technologies to drug discovery and development, with particular emphasis on genetically modified rodent models. She also served as the chair of the institutional-biosafety and animal-welfare committees.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology with honors and high distinction from Penn State in 1984, she worked at the National Animal Disease Center until 1987. She went on to earn a doctoral degree in 1992 in Microbiology and Immunology at Duke University, where she was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow.

Alexa Dembek is the director of Central Research and Development at DuPont. She is responsible for the development of opportunities involving transformational emerging science.

Dembek joined DuPont in 1991 as a research chemist. In 1995, she took the position of techPenn State Eberly College of Science

nical manager at DuPont Protection Technologies. As her career progressed, she assumed roles that spanned a range of areas, including supply chain, operations, sales, marketing, and business leadership.

In 2005, Dembek was assigned leadership roles in DuPont Building Innovations, first as a commercial business segment manager and later as the North American marketing manager. In 2006, she transferred to DuPont Performance Polymers. In 2011, she was appointed the regional director of the Americas region.

Most recently, Dembek was named the global business director for Dupont’s cross-business Energy Storage venture.

Dembek holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Northern Illinois University. She completed her Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 1991 at Penn State.

Sudhir Kumar is the Laura H. Carnell Professor and the director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine at Temple University.

Kumar has developed new methods and algorithms for big data, and has translated them into widely used software packages and knowledge bases, such as MEGA and TimeTree. He uses integrative and comparative approaches to make fundamental discoveries in the fields of molecular evolution, functional genomics, and biomedicine.

Kumar’s research has been cited more than 90,000 times. One of his scientific articles was included in the Thomson Reuters Web of Science top-100 most-cited papers of all time and designated the top article of the decade by the Scopus database of peer-reviewed literature.

He received an Innovation Award in Functional Genomics from the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund in 2000 and is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science.

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

In 1998, Kumar joined the Arizona State University as an assistant professor and became the Regents Professor in 2012. Kumar joined Temple University in 2014 as the founding director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, a hub for transdisciplinary research in medicine, informatics, and molecular evolution.

Kumar received his bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering and master’s degree in biology from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science in India in 1990. He completed his Ph.D. degree in genetics at Penn State in 1996.

Caryl Russo Singer is the senior vice president for Barnabas Health Corporate Care, a division of Barnabas Health, the largest healthcare system in New Jersey. Russo is responsible for the workers’ compensation program and employee health services for Barnabas Health and its more than 22,000 employees. Russo is responsible for the occupational-medicine services offered through Barnabas Health Corporate Care in six sites located throughout New Jersey.

Prior to joining Barnabas Health, Russo was the director of marketing and communications for First Option Health Plan, a healthcare insurance provider in New Jersey. Additionally, Russo was the director of strategic communications for Enzon, Inc., a publicly traded biotechnology company.

Russo is active with numerous business and civic organizations including the New Jersey Self Insured Association and the MonmouthOcean Development Council. She also serves as a member of the Eberly College of Science Biotechnology Advisory Board, the Delta Dental Foundation Board of Directors, and the New Jersey Chapter Board of Directors of the Arthritis Foundation.

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in 61

Alumni News biology from Penn State in 1982, Russo received her master’s degree from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in business administration from Case Western Reserve University.

Larry Travis is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) emeritus researcher at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in the Earth Sciences Division of the Science and Exploration Directorate.

Travis served as associate chief at (GISS) from 1987 until his retirement in May 2015.

Travis joined GISS in 1978. He served as principal investigator for the Cloud Photopolarimeter Instrument on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter Mission and as co-investigator for the Photopolarimeter/Radiometer Instrument on the Galileo Orbiter Mission.

Travis’s research interests include exploration of planetary atmospheres, spacecraft design, and theoretical physics for explaining the transfer of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation.

He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Travis received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1980.

Travis graduated with bachelor’s degrees with distinction in astronomy and mathematics in 1965 and earned his master’s degree in astronomy in 1967 at the University of Iowa.

He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Penn State in 1971. —Joslyn Neiderer

2015 All Science Tailgate Thanks to all the science alumni and guests who braved the weather!

“Thank you to all of the staff who worked so that the All Science Tailgate could go on despite the uncooperative weather. My family (husband, sons, and in-laws) had a great time and enjoyed seeing the baseball field while enjoying lunch. My son is still enjoying his ‘science experiment.’

Thanks for all of the work you all do for PSU alumni. Go Lions!”

Cindy Schadder Kowalski, ’94 Premedicine

“I just wanted to say thank you for the great Saturday morning get-together. Although the weather was a bit rough, it was a very nice time. The students I met and talked to are examples of the great job the Eberly College of Science continues to do.”

Christopher J. Kardohely, DPM CDR MSC USN, ’85 Biology

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Snapshot of Philanthropy – Funding the Future of Penn State Science Thank you to the alumni and friends who have committed funds for scholarships to benefit students in the Eberly College of Science.

Below are gifts received between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015.

Meredith M. Gee Scholarship in Science (Non-Endowed) Established by: Meredith Gee (’79 B.S. CMPSC; ’85 M.S. CMPSC) Amount: $12,500 Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding undergraduate students enrolled in or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University Park who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Lee and Brenda Heikkinen Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Lee (’71 Sci) and Brenda Heikkinen Amount: $100,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

college expenses.

Paul Berg and Daniel J. Larson Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Paul (’48 B.S. Ag & Bio Chemistry; ’95 Honorary Ph.D. Sci) and Mildred Berg Amount: $250,000 Purpose: Encourage the establishment of endowments to provide support for academic excellence for graduate students. This fellowship shall recruit and recognize outstanding first year doctoral students who exhibit academic excellence and who plan to enroll in The Pennsylvania State University in a Ph.D. program offered in the Eberly College of Science

Verne M. Willaman Professorship in Science VII Established by: Estate of Verne M. Willlaman (’51 AB CH) Amount: $1,000,000 Purpose: Supplement departmental support for outstanding University faculty in the Eberly College of Science in order to provide a holder of the professorship with the resources necessary to continue and further the scholar's contributions to teaching, research, and public service.

Sinha Family Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Raj K. Sinha (’87 B.S. Sci) Amount: $100,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Weinreb Family Early Career Professorship Established by: Steven and Nancy Weinreb Amount: $334,000 Purpose: Ensure that the University can compete for the scientists, scholars, and educators with the greatest potential to contribute to our institution, our students, and our world.

John Krapcho Memorial Scholarship in the Chemistry Department Established by: A. Paul (’53 B.S. Chem) and Arlene F. Krapcho Amount: $50,000 Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in the Eberly College of Science, or successor academic unit, at The Pennsylvania State University who are majoring in or planning to major in Chemistry, or successor degree program, and who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary

SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

J. Keith Ord Scholarship in Statistics Established by: Daniel A. (’85 M.S. Stat) and Diane E. Griffith Amount: $100,000 Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding graduate students who have been admitted to The Pennsylvania State University as candidates for a graduate degree in Statistics, or successor degree program.

Daniel J. Larson and Tanya Furman Larson International Travel Endowment in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Daniel Larson and Tanya Furman and numerous alumni and colleagues Amount: $59,000 Purpose: Enrich the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University by providing monies for international travel for graduate and undergraduate students.

Purpose: Enrich the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University by providing unrestricted support to the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, or successor department(s).

Peter Craig Breen Memorial Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Chemistry Research Established by: Kevin J. Breen (’78 B.S. EMS; ’82 M.S. EMS) and Renee Romberger Breen (’80 B.S. GN AG; ’82 M.S. FD SC) Amount: $20,000 Purpose: Recognize undergraduate students enrolled in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University who are majoring in or planning to major in Chemistry and who have demonstrated excellence in academics and research focused in chemistry.

Department of Chemistry Program Endowment in Honor of Norman Deno Established by: Edward (’70 Ph.D. Chem) and Carol Billups Amount: $25,000 Purpose: Support and enhance programs and activities in the Department of Chemistry in the Eberly College of Science at The Pennsylvania State University.

Ronald and Susan Friedman Endowment Established by: Ronald M. and Susan Comet Friedman Amount: $50,000

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Alumni News

Three Faculty Honored with 2015 C.I. Noll Awards The Eberly College of Science is proud to announce another induction into The C. I. Noll Award list. This award is important within the college because it offers students the opportunity to evaluate faculty members in a positive manner. Recipients are not selected solely on the number of votes received. Instead, the content of the nominations is greatly considered. The C. I. Noll Award recognizes faculty who have taken a special interest in students and who, through interactions with the students, have had a positive impact upon them. The selections were reviewed by the Science LionPride Awards Committee, the college’s student ambassador group.

For the first time in the history of awarding the C. I. Noll Award, two professors will receive joint recognition in the tenured category. Drs. Sarah Ades and Kenneth Keiler are both assistant professors of biochemistry and molecular biology, and were honored as a team because of their collaboration on the development, implementation, and assessment of Microbiology 202 and BMB 488. Microbiology 202 had been taught with little modification for 20 years. Drs. Ades and Keiler transformed this course by challenging students to formulate questions and design experiments to learn about the world around them, such as how the environment affects disease to isolating bacteria and bacterophages from their own skin to test how they interact. Sections of BMB 488 are also organized around research questions but shared by several independent labs. Students perform individual research and then meet in a weekly seminar to cover the skills that are important for being a 64

scientist like how to read a scientific paper, how to present data and how public policy impacts science. Drs. Ades and Keiler are committed to improving science education and they frequently share their teaching approaches with other faculty at Penn State and beyond the University.

Dr. Sarah Ades joined the faculty at Penn State in 2002 and is the recipeint of a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. Ades also received a Tombros Faculty Fellowship from the Center for Excellence in Science Education in 2012, and the Tershak Teaching Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014.

Research in her laboratory seeks to explain the fundamental biology of cell-envelope sensing systems and then to develop methods to identify small molecule inhibitors of key pathways that can serve as lead compounds for antibiotic development and tools for basic research.

Prior to arriving at Penn State, Ades pursued postdoctoral work at the University of California at San Francisco and the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. She received her bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and her Ph.D. in biology from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Dr. Kenneth Keiler’s research focuses on how cells make protein, particularly under stressful conditions. He discovered and characterized a protein quality control system that is found in all bacteria and is required for growth or virulence in many pathogens. His goal is to understand the fundamental biochemistry, genetics, and cell biology of this system and related pathways, and to use this knowledge to develop antibiotics and tools for basic research.

Keiler also received a Tombros Faculty Fellowship from the Center for Excellence in Science Education in 2012, and a Tershak Teaching Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2014. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from The Massachusetts Institute of Technology with post-doctoral fellowships at Stanford University and the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Ilkirch, France.

Dr. Meredith Defelice is currently the director of curricular affairs and a senior lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and was the winner of the C.I. Noll non-tenured faculty award.

She is an alumnus of the National Institutes of SCIENCE JOURNAL December 2015

Health (NIH)-funded SPIRE postdoctoral program at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she received training and experience in both research and pedagogy.

Defelice came to Penn State in 2010, and since that time she has won teaching awards at the department level, the Paul M. Althouse Teaching Award, as well as the highest award for teaching excellence at the university level, the George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching. She has taught a variety of classes including large lecture classes, lab classes, and smaller elective classes. In her classes, Defelice has developed curriculum that incorporates active learning as well as peer instruction.

As part of her responsibilities, Defelice also coordinates the undergraduate learning assistants program for the BMB department and has trained the assistants to facilitate deeper discussions among small groups of students. During the summers, she is involved in outreach teaching as part of the Crime Scene Investigators Science-U summer camp through the Office of Science Outreach. She is currently a board member of the Penn State Eberly College of Science Center for Excellence in Science Education, and was a 2013-2014 Center for Excellence in Science Education Fellow.

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Alumni News

2015

Millennium Society Friends supporting science education, research and public service

Anonymous Anonymous Donald and Nancy Abraham Donald and Nancy Abraham Noreen Allcock HarryHarry andand Noreen Allcock John D. Alvarez JohnArthur D. Alvarez K. and Anne Gjesdahl Anderson Jill K. Grashof Anderson andAnderson Sydney H. Arthur and Anne Gjesdahl Brown Jill Grashof Anderson and George E. and Joy Andrews Sydney H. Brown Jane L. Apple Kenneth andAndrews Jennifer Arthur George E. andR.Joy Jeanne Atlas JaneJoy L. Apple D. Atwell Hee R. Chan Kenneth andBae Jennifer Arthur William C. and Christie Heritage Baird Jr. Jeanne Atlas and Susan Nitschke- Balog Douglas James Balog and Alvina Bartos Balog Joy D. Atwell Beath Hee Catherine Chan Bae Scott D. Beattie William C. and Thomas P. Bem Jeffrey L. and Lorie Baird J. Benovic Christie Heritage Jr. Paul and Mildred Berg Douglas and Susan NitschkeBalog George E. Bergey Stephen BermanBalog James Balog and and Nancy Alvina Bartos William and Barbara Bickel Catherine WilburBeath E. and Carol S. Billups and W. Gerald* Blaney ScottCarolyn D. Beattie Zenas Boone* Thomas P. Bem Rodney Boorse Jeffrey andCynthia Lorie J.Bradley Benovic ErikL. and Brooks Berg PaulCarter and Mildred Stephen Korzeniowski and Deborah G. George E. Bergey Brzezinski Frankand Burstein* Stephen Nancy Berman John W. and Susan M. Byrne William and Barbara Bickel H. Neil Carlson Wilbur E. andR.Carol S. Billups Douglas and Lan Cavener Ta-Kung Chen Carolyn and W. Gerald* Blaney Vernon and Jolene Chinchilli Zenas Boone* Robert A. and Lorraine Stankiewicz Clare Rodney Boorse Anita Collins Erik Mark and Cynthia Bradley A. Connolly S. and Deborah John G. and Janet M. Connor Carter Brooks Bruce and Jackie Davey Stephen Korzeniowski and Robert T. and Cheryl Russman Davis DeborahDenker G. Brzezinski Manfred E. DeVries FrankMary Burstein* John M. and Jane M. Dick JohnJack W. and M.Dickstein Byrne andSusan Pauline David and I. Michelle Diehl H. Neil Carlson Eugene and Betty Dirk Douglas Cavener BrianR. G.and andLan Karen Marcavage Dixon Jo Dixon Ta-Kung Chen Suzanne R. Dubnicka and Louis M. Vernon and Jolene Chinchilli Wojcinski Robert A. W. and John Dudley and Andee Aaby Robert Duminiak Lorraine Stankiewicz Clare E. Ruth Dunning* AnitaChristopher Collins R. Dyckman and Susan MarkScotto S. and Deborah A. Connolly Michael C. Eaton JohnTimothy G. and H. Janet M. Connor Eisaman and Johnnie L. Morgan Bruce and Jackie Davey Edmund and Josephine Elder Robert T. and Cheryl Russman Davis Christine N. Elia and Edwin C. Kellam III Manfred Denker Robert and Ann Emery and Kathie L. Enea MaryNed E. DeVries Kurt and Kelly Engleman JohnRay M. and and Mary Jane M. Dick Evert Jack and Pauline Dickstein David 66and I. Michelle Diehl Eugene and Betty Dirk Brian G. and Karen Marcavage Dixon

Ray and Mary Evert Gordon G. and Miriam Olander Fee Gordon and Miriam Olander Fee Maria G. Finn Barrett Maria FinnC. and Luanne Breuer Fisher Neal and Phyllis Flomenberg Barrett C. and and Susan Luanne Breuer Fisher Ronald Friedman Edward M. Frymoyer Neal and Phyllis Flomenberg Charles G. and Ann M. Garlisi Ronald and Susan Friedman Meredith Gee and Gareth Morrell Edward M. and Frymoyer D. David Laura George Bruce G. L. and Charles and Diane Ann M.Gewertz Garlisi Patrick L. Gianopoulos Meredith Gee and GarethA.Morrell Barrett E. and Michele Giffel E. Glas D. Kathryn David and Laura George Stacey L. Gleeson Bruce L. and Gewertz Joshua andDiane Brooke Goldberg Kolin Good Patrick L. Gianopoulos Howard R. and Nancy P. Gordon Barrett E. and Michele A. Giffel Katherine Goto Kathryn E.and GlasAgnes Granlund Rodger Daniel Diane Griffith Stacey L.and Gleeson Grant R. Grissom Joshua and Brooke Goldberg Cada R. and Susan Wynn Grove Andrew Kolin GoodP. Hackett Jeffrey W. Hamilton Howard R.C.and Nancy P.L.Gordon Marcus and Cheryl McGrady Hansen Goto Katherine Susan Houck and Paul E. Hardin Rodger and Agnes Granlund Robert and Terri Harrison Daniel andL. Diane Griffith Dennis Headings and Virginia Lee Corson Grant R. Grissom James and Diane Heald Cada R. and Susan Grove Alexandra H. and Wynn Paul Heerdt Lee and Brenda Heikkinen Andrew P. Hackett Kenneth W. Herko Jeffrey Hamilton John W. A. Herritt William and Elsa K. Hoke Marcus C.E.and Michael Holbert Cheryl L. McGrady Hansen Mitchell and Charity Holland Susan Houck and Paul E. Hardin J. Lloyd* and Dorothy Foehr Huck* Philip and Inskeep Robert Terri Harrison Konanur Janardan Dennis L. D. Headings and William and Sally Cunningham Johnson Virginia Lee Corson David G. and and Susan M. Jones James and Diane Heald Boris V. Kalan and Victoria V. Alexandra H. and Paul Heerdt Sadovskaya A. Kalinyak LeeKaren and Brenda Heikkinen Daniel A. and Megan Clements Kenneth W. Herko Kapinos Lech John A.Karubin Herritt Steven R. Katchur William E. and Elsa K. Hoke Andrea C. Kay Eric and Tara Keiter Michael Holbert Edwin C. Kellam III Mitchell and Charity Holland Karen E. and Matthew S. Keller J. Richard Lloyd* and Foehr Huck* andDorothy Rebecca Kemmerer Stuart M. and Toni Kipilman Philip Inskeep Robert C. Kline Konanur Janardan Karen Kmetik RobertD.M.and and Maureen Knabb William George M. Kosco Sally Cunningham Robert A. and Nancy K.Johnson Krall Janet KramerM. Jones David G.and and Brian and Susan Diane Krusko Boris V. Kalan and Douglas M. and Jean Langietti LaBoda Victoria V. Sadovskaya Tanya Furman and Daniel J. Larson Stuart and Karen Goldsmith Lessin Karen A.R.Kalinyak Richard and Patricia Neidig Lewis Daniel A.K.and Bruce Lloyd Megan Clements Kapinos Lech Karubin Steven R. Katchur Andrea C. Kay

William E. Logan Keith V. and Sharon Fellin Rohrbach William E. Logan John F. and Margaret O. Robison Harold U. Loomis Loomis Albert J. Romanosky Harold G. G. and and Robin Robin U. Keith V. and Sharon Fellin Rohrbach Stephen H. H. and Katherine A. Albert J. L. Romanosky Stephen and Katherine A. Mahle Mahle James and Gloria H. Rosenberger Beverly E. Maleeff James L. and Gloria H. Rosenberger Beverly E. Gloria MaleeffMalone GregoryM.M. Roszyk John and Gregory Roszyk andand Marnie Salisbury Louiseand Mapstone Benjamin Roter Salisbury John Gloria Malone Marnie Louis Martarano Edward M. and Janis Saylor Louise Mapstone Benjamin Roter Dean F. and Barbara B. Martin Michael J. Scheel Louis Martarano John R. Mashey and Angela M. Hey Joellen Schildkraut and Saylor Brian Annex Edward M. and Janis DavidF.G. and Kathy Maskalick Lynda Schneider Dean and Barbara B. Martin Michael J. Scheel Steven D. and Heather A. Maslowski Stuart F. and Anne W. Seides John Mashey andMathues Angela M. Hey Joellen Shaffer Schildkraut and Brian Annex JoyceR.and Charles Kenneth Brian E. Mattioni Eric SheaSchneider David G.and andStacy KathyL.Maskalick Lynda Joseph J. and Suzanne H. Matunis William L. Sheats Steven and Heather A. Maslowski and Anne W. Seides Beth A.D. Maxwell J.Stuart FrancisF.Shigley Richard P. and Lois Mathues Shiring McClain Allan W. and Kathleen A. Silberman Joyce and Charles Kenneth Shaffer Steven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystal Richard B. and Barbara Kesner Brian E. and Stacy L. Mattioni Eric Shea Richard H. McKee Silverman Joseph and Suzanne H. Matunis WilliamJ.L.and Sheats John E. J. and Eleanor P. McManigle Anthony Heands Johns Silvestri Edward A. and Rosemary A. Mebus Donald E. Smith Beth A. Maxwell J. Francis Shigley Elaine Bova Megonnell Dwight M. and Elfi Smith Richard and Theresa Lois Shiring McClain AllanL.W.and andFlossie Kathleen A. Silberman Timothy P. F. and M. Merkel Wilbur Vereen Smith Allen E. and Elizabeth B. Meyer Wendy Hansen Steven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystal Richard B. andSouther Joseph A. Miller and Rachel C. Wood Theodore I. and Carol Steinman Richard McKee Kesner Silverman George H. H. Millman Erland P.Barbara and Ellen Mills Stevens Robert and Barbara F. Minard Mary A. Stiles John E.D. and Eleanor P. McManigle Anthony J. and Heands Johns Silvestri David R. Mizner Donald W. Strickler Edward A. and Rosemary A. Mebus Donald E. Smith J. Patrick and Joanne Mooney Donald R. and Barbara Orvis Strobach Elaine Bova Megonnell DwightStruble M. and Elfi Smith Timothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. George Morgan F. and Theresa M. Merkel Carl Suffredini Nancy Davis Smith Timothy Wilbur L. andand Flossie Vereen Monica Morrow Jack F. and Laurie E. Sulger Allen E.D. and Elizabeth Meyer Wendy Hansen Souther Robert and Virginia B. Mulberger Glen Sutherland Gary L. and Beverly Mullen C. Wood Andrew J. and Carolyn Thomas Joseph A. Miller andB.Rachel Theodore I. and CarolP.Steinman Randy C. and Patricia A. Murphy Julie Timins George H. Millman Erland P. and Ellen Mills Stevens Edward B. and Kirsten Ravn Nelson Peter G. and Ann C. Tombros JosephD. F. Newell and Maureen David Karen Brinton Townsend Robert and Barbara F. Minard MaryC.A.and Stiles Essenthier-Newell Larry D. Travis David R. Mizner Donald W. Strickler Robert L. and Nancy Heyl Nielsen Wei Tu J. Patrick andMary Joanne Mooney DonaldVan R. Strobach and John A. and M. Nousek Thomas Winkle FrederickH. and Florence John G.Barbara and Barbara Vandenbergh Timothy Eisaman andOberender Orvis D. Strobach Harold C. and Nancy M. O'Connor David J. and Lydia B. Vandenbergh Johnnie L. Morgan George Struble Joseph V. and Joan L. Olivia Harry Veale Keith M.Morrow Olivia Ronald D. and Michelle A. Sincard Monica Carl Suffredini and Nancy Davis Roy A. Olofson Venezie Robert D. and Virginia Mulberger Jack F. and Laurie E. Sulger Virginia M. Olson Winston Walker Gary B. Mullen Glen Wartik Sutherland PhilipL. C.and andBeverly Shelly Ovadia Louise Donald and Barbara Rochelle Owens James W. Webb Randy C. and Patricia A. Murphy Andrew J. and Carolyn P. Thomas Lewis E. and Janice L. Patterson Owen W. and Anna M. Webster Edward Kirsten Ravn Nelson Julie Timins Thomas B. A. and Pavlosky Michael P. Weiner and Camille M. John M.F.Pearl Solbrig Joseph Newell and Peter G. and Ann C. Tombros Margaret and Jeffrey Peck Steven M. and Nancy V. Weinreb Maureen Essenthier-Newell David C. and Karen Brinton Townsend Nicholas and Gelsa Pelick Peter Weiss Eric andL.Seema Peterson Dennis Susan Wendt Robert and Nancy Heyl Nielsen Larry and D. Travis Eva Petkova Michael H. Wetzel John A. and Mary M. Nousek Wei Tu Kathleen Postle Robert and Donna Terefinko Whiteford Frederick and Florence Oberender ThomasD.Van Eric N. and Bonnie S. Prystowsky Fletcher andWinkle Ann Hottel Wicker Linda J.C.Pursell Verne Harold and Nancy M. O’Connor JohnM. G.Willaman* and Barbara D. Vandenbergh MaryAnne Rasmussen Donna Wolk Joseph Joan OliviaI. Silman DavidD.J.Wright and Lydia B. Vandenbergh HeatherV.L.and Rayle andL.Hillard Sarah and Gary J. Jones Suzanne Reich Christopher R. and Mary Jane Tershak Keith M. Olivia Harry Veale Paul H. and Patricia Reichenbacher Wronski Roy A. Olofson D. Carol and Ann Yakish Thomas P. Reiley S.Ronald Dale and Brian E. Reiter Stephanie D. Yancey Virginia M. Olson Michelle A. Sincard Venezie John W. and Barbara Rhee Andrej J. Zajac Philip C. and Shelly Ovadia Winston Walker Andrea J. Rhodes and Frederick G. Gary S. and Debra Zander Donald Louise Wartik Gluck and Barbara Rochelle Owens Jun Zhong F. Matthew EdanL.Rhodes Theodore L. and Lewis E. andand Janice Patterson James W. WebbNancy Ziff Richard W. Robinett and Sarah Q. Thomas A. Pavlosky Owen W. and Anna M. Webster Malone John M. Pearl Michael P. Weiner and Margaret and Jeffrey Penn Peck State Eberly CollegeCamille M. Solbrig of Science Nicholas and Gelsa Pelick Steven M. and Nancy V. Weinreb Eric and Seema Peterson Peter Weiss

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Marketing Office 509 Thomas Building The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-2112 sciencejournal@psu.edu

Upcoming Events January 7 • Mathematics and Seattle Area Alumni Reception at Jefferson Room, Sheraton Seattle

March 15 • American Physical Society and Baltimore Area Alumni Reception, Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor

February 13 • Science Alumni Mentoring Dinner and Workshop, Nittany Lion Inn

April 15–16 • Dean’s Advisory Board Meeting • Alumni Board Meeting • Benefactors Reception • Student Alumni Networking Event • Blue/White Football Game

February 19 •Nominations for the Eberly College of Science Alumni Board Due science.psu.edu/board-app

June 2–5 • Alumni Reunion Weekend • Science Luncheon

For more information on any of the events listed above, visit science.psu.edu/alumni/events.

This publication is available in alternative media on request. The University is committed to equal access to programs, facilities, admission, and employment for all persons. It is the policy of the University to maintain an environment free of harassment and free of discrimination against any person because of age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, service in the uniformed services (as defined in state and federal law), veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, marital or family status, pregnancy, pregnancy-related conditions, physical or mental disability, gender, perceived gender, gender identity, genetic information, or political ideas. Discriminatory conduct and harassment, as well as sexual misconduct and relationship violence, violates the dignity of individuals, impedes the realization of the University’s educational mission, and will not be tolerated. Direct all inquiries regarding the nondiscrimination policy to Dr. Kenneth Lehrman III, Vice Provost for Affirmative Action, Affirmative Action Office, The Pennsylvania State University, 328 Boucke Building, University Park, PA 16802-5901; Email: kfl2@psu.edu; Tel 814-863-0471. U.Ed. SCI 16-55.