Creative Activities
Summer 2012
Research &
14 Improving Patient Safety
Artist Captures Glacial Retreat
8 Grant Suppor ts Test-Bed
6 Muscular Aging & Honey Bees
Fading Giants
Eleventh Edition
Summer 2012
Research &
New Acting Associate Dean for Research Leads Research Development
Creative Activities
This year the SIUE Graduate School bids farewell to Associate Dean for Research, Dr. Christa Johnson. Although we must say goodbye to a valued colleague, we are pleased to welcome a new addition to the Graduate School and Office of Research and Projects. Dr. Susan Morgan joins us from the Department of Civil Engineering.
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2 Empowering Blind Computer Programmers
6 Studying Muscular Aging through Honey Bees 7 Research Spotlight: Advancing Atomic Spectrometry on a Smaller Scale
Cellular Rearrangement: the Cause of Salivary Gland Pathology?
8 Major Research Instrumentation Grant Supports Supply-Chain Research in School of Engineering Health Sciences 10 SIUE is Among 11 Centers of Excellence in Pain Education 12 Exploring Dental Pain Relief 13 Childhood Obesity and Early Literacy: Connecting the Dots 14 Predicting the Unpredictable: Research targets symptom clusters in Multiple Sclerosis 15 Research Collaboration for Patient Safety
19 Emerging Economies and Economic Growth
Arts & Humanities
20 Fading Giants: Artist Captures Glacial Retreat 22 Documenting the Endangered Languages of Nepal: NSF CAREER Grant supports effort 24 Sculpting Illusions: SIUE Art Professor Masters Art of tromp l’oeil
26 Sculpture on Campus 27 Translating the Tamil Voice 28
Archiving The Wide, Wide World: Dr. Jessica DeSpain Explores Cosmos of 19th Century Publishing Networks
30 A Mysterious and Familiar Past: History professor explores the role of popular histories, sentimentalism and gothic in our national self-understanding
Morgan has overseen multiple grant projects, including a major NSF institutional grant supporting scholarships for students in engineering. She brings with her a gift for organization and a commitment to the development of all faculty projects.
Center for STEM Research, Education and Outreach 32 Institute for Urban Research NCERC: Advancing Biofuels Research
17 Computer-Aided Drug Design Benefits Pharmaceutical Discoveries
33 Environmental Resources Training Center
18 Understanding Social Interactions between “Geeks” and “Non-Geeks” in the Workplace
As she steps into the role of Acting Associate Dean for Research, Dr. Susan Morgan brings myriad accomplishments to the position. She has not only proven herself an avid researcher and teacher, but has also gained the respect of her colleagues as a strong and fair-minded chair of the Department of Civil Engineering for the past 4 1/2 years.
Research Centers 31 Illinois Education Research Center
16 Studying the Role of EB1 Protein in Cancer Metastasis
Business
Susan Morgan
4 Investing in STEM Education, Research and Outreach
For the last six years, Christa Johnson has given pivotal leadership in the development of faculty research and projects at SIUE. Her diligence, commitment to faculty and general positive outlook played a key role in the facilitation of and steady increase in externally sponsored projects for our institution. It is no wonder that her work at SIUE has earned her the respect and trust of other institutions.
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Engineering & Science
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34 Supporting Agencies of Research & Projects 35 2011 SIUE Internal Grant Winners
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On the Cover:
“Global RetreatThe Last Glaciers of Glacier National Park” by Todd Anderson, Assistant Professor SIUE Department of Art and Design
Jerry B. Weinberg
A Message from the Dean “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” – Carl Sagan
Few could express in words the passion of discovery, as could the late Dr. Sagan. For those lucky enough to contribute to an invention, a scholarly revelation or the creation of an artwork, this sense of exhilaration and fulfillment is familiar. Over the last year, the SIUE faculty has demonstrated its internal drive and dedication to contribute to U.S. and international scholarship, reflected in SIUE’s increasing external support statistics. In fiscal year 2011, SIUE faculty and staff submitted 377 new proposals to outside agencies, showing an 8 percent increase over fiscal year 2010 and a remarkable 46 percent increase from fiscal year 2007. Nearly 40 percent of SIUE faculty members submitted proposals, 46 percent of whom received awards. As a result, SIUE faculty and staff received more than $34 million in new externally sponsored research and public service awards. This remarkable achievement is one of the reasons why SIUE sponsored activity is ranked sixth nationally among Master’s granting institutions, as reported in Washington Monthly magazine, moving up from the eighth position in 2010. As impressive as the numbers may be, they fail to impart the tales of investigation, discovery and creation behind the research. In this issue you will read about Dr. Andy Stefik’s work to develop computerprogramming environments for blind students; you will encounter Todd Anderson’s remarkable prints of diminishing glaciers; you will see Dr. Joseph Schober’s study of a protein that contributes to cancer metastasis; and you will learn about Dr. Jason William’s study of how honey bees can help us understand muscular deterioration. These are but a few of the great stories in this edition. Research and Creative Activities is one means by which we bring to life the scholarship at SIUE. Very soon, we will launch a new website to highlight faculty work and SIUE’s march toward recognition within the society of scholars. The new Research and Creative Activities website will bring both written words and videos of SIUE faculty. Hearing from our investigators, one can directly experience their passion and commitment to their research. We hope you will be a frequent visitor to these web resources as we share with you SIUE activities, creations, outreach and discoveries. Sincerely, Dr. Jerry B. Weinberg, Associate Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
Defining Excellence t h e
ca m p a i g n
f o r
S I U e
Scholarships, research grants and awards, travel funds, and other programs support the educational, scholarly and creative activities of SIUE graduate students and faculty. Through support of the University’s first major gifts campaign, we will attract and retain top faculty, and provide our best and brightest students with more financial aid. Help us define excellence in research and creative activities at SIUE.
siue.edu/definingexcellence
“The tools we are building have capabilities beyond what a traditional screen reader can do, which offers blind users a way to gather context information that is not visible on a monitor.�
3 Engineering & Science
Empowering Blind Computer Programmers: Research earns Stefik the 2011 Java Innovation Award As a young undergraduate student, Dr. Andreas Stefik, assistant professor of computer science in the SIUE School of Engineering, took a class from an instructor who was blind. It was shortly after the completion of the class that he read a statistic that shifted his perceptions and shaped his future research. “I read that approximately 60 percent of people who are blind are not in the workforce, and I thought to myself: what kind of work can you do when you’re blind? If we think of employment for the blind as a social issue, is it exclusionary?” In his doctoral thesis at Washington State University, Stefik explored how a unifying technology could potentially pave the way for workforce opportunities within the blind population. But since becoming a member of the SIUE faculty in 2009, Stefik has put his research into practice. In 2009, he was awarded a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to work with schools for the blind. The research—a collaboration between SIUE and researchers at Washington State University—explores how the visually impaired and blind can develop code that specifically addresses needs within their own population. “The technology that currently exists to aid the blind and visually impaired doesn’t just work poorly; often these technologies do not work at all,” he said. According to Sefik, teaching blind people how to program could potentially serve a dual need: facilitating blind and visually impaired people to create technology for themselves while gaining high-tech skills that may increase employment opportunities for the future. Results stemming from his initial research earned Stefik and his team the
2011 Java Innovation Award at a recent JavaOne Conference in San Francisco. The prestigious award, also known as the Duke’s Choice Award, recognizes extreme innovation in the world of Java technology and acknowledges the most innovative projects using the Java platform. Stefik and his team were recognized for making their NetBeans development environment accessible to the visually impaired. NetBeans is a specialized computer program facilitating software development, and its design assists the visually impaired, for whom computer programming is more challenging due to its visual basis. The use of Sodbeans has also been included, improving the functionality of Netbeans. Sodbeans enhances keyboard functionality and employs auditory feedback to assist programmers using the system. “It is compatible with most screen readers,” Stefik said. “More importantly, the tools we are building have capabilities beyond what a traditional screen reader can do, which offers blind users a way to gather context information that is not visible on a monitor. For example, when there are bugs in the software the blind students are writing, our software literally talks to them, explaining a computer program’s behavior in plain English.” Currently the research team is taking the project a step further by writing a technical guide to the software systems Sodbeans and Quorum, a general purpose computer programming language. In addition, Stefik and his collaborators at Washington State host an annual workshop for middle-
and high-school students to learn ways to enhance the NetBeans software. Stefik said it is an honor to have been nominated and selected by Oracle Corporation, the prestigious industry group sponsoring the award. Stefik’s research team continues to develop means to empower blind and visually impaired individuals to overcome the barriers in programming, and ultimately, obtain careers in the computing profession. He is currently considering means to expand his work to include individuals living with other disabilities.
STEM Literacy for the Next Generation: SIUE Center leads in STEM education, research and outreach When she first saw the posting for a director of the new Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Research, Education and Outreach, Dr. Sharon Locke was in Johannesburg, South Africa. While serving as an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Witwatersrand, Locke was intrigued by the SIUE Center’s mission of community outreach and learning. Locke was hired as an assistant professor and STEM Center director at SIUE in 2010. Since then, she has worked tirelessly with the STEM Center staff and faculty fellows to develop, strengthen and promote STEM education through regional partnerships and outreach initiatives. Locke and her team committed themselves to organizing and executing enrichment activities for teachers and pre-college students, and to conducting innovative research on STEM teaching and learning. Her work with SIUE faculty has developed a network of researchers, teachers and administrators working to strengthen science education and support educational practice in the area.
“The institution is open to new ideas and I feel incredibly fortunate to be here.” Upon her arrival, Locke found research potential in the University’s location, its mission and in “the real critical mass of people here,” she said. “That mass added to STEM’s dedication to bringing a community of scholars together to promote outreach and research initiatives. The University seemed extremely committed to STEM education. The members on the search committee were passionate about it. There was a great need in this region. The institution is open to new ideas and I feel incredibly fortunate to be here.” Such a grateful sentiment is humble coming from Locke, a highly accomplished geoscience and science education
Before taking on her fellowship in South Africa, Locke was a program director and cluster coordinator in the Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings at the National Science Foundation from 2006 to 2008. The former role has enabled her to mentor SIUE faculty in their funding bids from that agency. She has also been the principal investigator for programs supporting the increased participation of students with disabilities in science, based at the University of Southern Maine. She has served as a proposal reviewer for several government agencies and from 2003-2006 served as a distinguished speaker for the National Association of Geoscience Teachers. Locke earned her Ph.D. in geosciences from the University of Minnesota. Locke and team have been working to facilitate important partnerships with companies and organizations such as The Boeing Company and the U.S. Department of Defense through Scott Air Force Base and the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM). She spent her first year at SIUE building partnerships and expanding the Center’s interaction with other universities and organizations, such as the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and the St. Louis Academy of Science. The new collaborations have opened promising new avenues. STEM’s joint Education Partnership Agreement with USTRANSCOM, for example, allows professionals, including scientists and engineers through the STEM Center and USTRANSCOM, to cooperate in increasing STEM initiatives and include a broader audience of Southwestern Illinois educators and students. These efforts will raise the bar regionally
5 Engineering & Science
researcher. In fact, everything Locke did before directing the STEM Center has prepared her for the challenges and opportunities she faces in her current role. Although her background is in geoscience research, training teachers has always been stimulating: “Those teachers train the next generation of scientists. Through workshops I was able to shape the focus of what they did.” Throughout her various career paths, Locke has reached out to educators through active learning techniques and group interaction.
in educating the next generation of skilled science and technology workers and give area youth the tools to find meaningful and lasting employment opportunities in an increasingly global economy. As part of its relationship building efforts, the STEM Center’s MOSAIC (Minds on Science Activities in the Community) program creates volunteer opportunities for SIUE students through partner organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club and community centers. At its heart, MOSAIC seeks to increase STEM literacy and interest in the region by engaging more young people in STEM activities in an informal setting and by promoting positive attitudes towards STEM.
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STEM also plays a vital supporting role in assisting faculty in their outreach efforts, whether through the East St. Louis Center or the Girl Scouts. Locke views the development of outreach initiatives as part of the Center’s vision to continue SIUE’s tradition of community engagement. 2.
Basic research projects at the STEM Center contribute to the fundamental understanding of STEM teaching and learning. The Center team is federallyand state-funded through entities including NSF, NASA and the Illinois State Board of Education. Among their current projects, for example, Center staff studies what motivates individuals to engage in citizen science programs. Pamela Gay, a Center research assistant professor who specializes in citizen astronomy through her “Zooniverse” program, received the 2011 St. Louis Academy of Science Outstanding Educator Award. Other Center research examines the impact of infusing technology into high school STEM instruction. Locke not only conducts her own research in this area but also works collaboratively with SIUE faculty on their own grants and projects. Locke aims for all research studies supported through the STEM Center to have a positive, direct and lasting impact on education, whether at the K-12, undergraduate or graduate levels or for the general public.
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1. SIUE Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift and fourstar Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, commander of the United States Transportation Command at Scott Air Force Base, sign an Education Partnership Agreement, paving the way for the expansion and enhancement of STEM education efforts. 2. The SIUE East St. Louis Charter High School is home to a nearly $1 million cutting-edge STEM classroom. 3. The STEM Center’s Odyssey Science Camp provides children the opportunity to experience the excitement of science firsthand.
Stress and Bees: Studying muscular aging through the lives of honey bees Dr. Jason Williams, assistant professor of biological sciences, has always had a curiosity for the underlying mechanisms of organisms. “I’ve had a lifelong interest in determining how the differences in an organism’s physiology permit it to do what it does or live where it lives,” he said. Such fascination has led Williams to his current project of exploring how exercise-induced oxidative stress contributes to muscular aging—and this is being accomplished with the aid of hard-working honey bees. According to Williams, during exercise, the body burns energy that was originally produced using a combination of oxygen and ingested food. Unfortunately, this process also generates dangerous byproducts, known as reactive oxygen species (ROS), which have the ability to cause extensive damage throughout the body. The culmination of destruction on an organism by ROS constitutes oxidative stress. The lives of honeybees provide an excellent model for the harmful longterm effects of oxidative stress. In previous research performed by Williams, he compared in-colony
worker honey bees, which rarely fly, to forager honey bees, which fly up to eight kilometers a day while gathering nectar and pollen. He found that forager bees not only had decreased ability to limit the damage of ROS but also had a decreased capacity to produce energy. From these previous findings, Williams can now study the effects that oxidative stress has on subcellular components of muscle, such as mitochondria. “Mitochondria are critical components of cells because they produce the vast majority of ATP, or energy needed to perform all cellular functions,” he said. “However mitochondria are at extreme risk of oxidative damage because they are the main generator of reactive oxygen species. Dysfunctional mitochondria may be a major factor in reduced muscle performance and muscle mass in aged animals.” The goal of this current study is to determine if damage to the mitochondria and mitochondrial dysfunction accrues with excess use of flight muscles or if the damage or dysfunction can solely be attributed to age. “I hope to be able to link metabolically-intensive exercise to the accumulation of muscle damage
over the course of an animal’s life span,” he said. Williams also hopes his research will increase the knowledge and understanding of countless human diseases. “Oxidative stress has profound biological impacts,” he said. “It has been implicated in virtually every human disease and is the basis for the stress theory of aging and senescence. In order to diagnose and treat these illnesses, and especially extend muscle performance later into life, we require fundamental and integrative knowledge of the onset and accrued damage due to oxidative stress.” In 2011, Williams was awarded the Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigator Award from SIUE to support his research. He is currently collaborating with Jason Vance, Ph.D, assistant professor of biology at the College of Charleston, on a study correlating agerelated changes in honey bee flight with measures of mitochondrial dysfunction.
“I hope to be able to link metabolically-intensive exercise to the accumulation of muscle damage over the course of an animal’s life span.”
7 Research Spotlight
Advancing Atomic Spectrometry on a Smaller Scale Testing for heavy metals in blood, urine and soil is a difficult task—one that could take many weeks and several thousand dollars to complete. Dr. Edward Navarre, assistant professor of analytical chemistry, and Dr. Brad Noble, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are collaborating to develop a solution that is easily accessible to many researchers and science students. Their goal is to create a smaller-sized instrument based upon an atomic spectroscopy instrument that is large and often cost prohibitive. “The overall idea of the project is to work on a portable instrument for measuring the amount of a chemical element in a sample,” Navarre said. “The innovation lies in the term ‘portable’.” Each year, thousands of people are affected by heavy metal poisoning, leading to both physical and mental damage and, in rare instances, cancer or even death. However, the size and costs of current atomic spectrometers have limited the feasibility of testing. The new device is planned to be much smaller at approximately the size of a breadbox and will yield results in minutes. It will be easily used in a variety of different settings from lead poisoning testing of children in clinics to water sample testing for contaminants in field analysis. Navarre and Noble hope that this portable device may be useful for a variety of users, from forensic experts to health inspectors, science students and professors.
“The overall idea of the project is to work on a portable instrument for measuring the amount of a chemical element in a sample.”
Cytoarchitectural Rearrangement: the Cause of Salivary Gland Pathology? Salivary glands produce saliva, which not only aids in digestion through the secretion of an enzyme that breaks down starch into simple sugars but also fights infection through the production of antibodies. But when the makeup of these structures is compromised, these processes and their overall function cannot properly exist. Dr. Anita Joy, assistant professor and section head of anatomy in the SIU School of Dental Medicine is investigating two situations in which rearrangement of cellular components leads to dysfunction—salivary gland cancer and Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that affects multiple glands throughout the body. Joy is examining these pathologies with hopes of better understanding why and how these abnormalities occur. “Through bioimaging techniques, we are looking at comparing select membrane and cytoskeletal proteins of both normal and abnormal human salivary cells,” she said. “We think that these components in the abnormal cells are being compromised and therefore the function is affected. If we can pinpoint the causes of that, then eventually this research may help researchers who are working on treatment methods.” Joy also believes that her research could give more insight into the creation of artificial salivary glands. “Although rare, these pathologies can be quite detrimental to an individual’s way of life or even fatal. Our research could one day help through our structural understanding and eventual support in the production of artificial salivary glands.” Joy was awarded a 2011 New Directions Grant from SIUE as well as a pilot study grant from the School of Dental Medicine. In the future, she will be collaborating with Dr. Fengxia Wang, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, on the creation of mathematical models that describe structure and function relationships in normal and abnormal salivary glands.
Instrumentation Grant Supports Supply-Chain Research in School of Engineering
In a world of expanding markets and global supply chains, manufacturers, both large and small, are faced with an ever more complicated product life cycle. From inception to design to manufacturing, delivery and sales, U.S. businesses must deal in a much broader, diverse and more complex system of supplyand-demand than ever before.
With competitiveness of local manufacturers and the training of future industrial engineers in mind, Dr. Sohyung Cho, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering, created a supply-chain testbed to aid in the strategic development and management of product life cycles. Together with Dr. Felix Lee, professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering and chair of that department, Dr. Kevin Hubbard, associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering and director of the SIUE Southwest Illinois Advanced Manufacturing (SIAM) Center, and Dr. Luis Youn, professor of electrical and computer engineering and chair of that department, Cho received a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Grant from the National Science Foundation. The award helped the team create a state-of-the-art environment for testing and improving supply chain logistics. The new laboratory provides students and other users a platform for analyzing various stages of a product’s life, including computer-aided design, computer-aided analysis, warehousing, retail and consumer interface. Users can follow a product from its creation to manufacturing to retail sale. With the support of the $192,000 MRI award, the team was able to incorporate an intelligent robot, an open-architecture conveyor, an automatic storage and retrieval system, logistics software and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID represents the latest in sensing technology that enables manufacturers to track products throughout the supply chain with radio “tags.” Such advanced technologies have enabled Cho and his team to develop a high-tech platform to test and analyze operational strategies at various levels. “This project can help companies to simulate operations virtually, as well as physically,” Cho said.
9 Engineering & Science
To compete in these markets and meet customer demand, manufacturers must develop ever faster, leaner and more economical business operations while also ensuring product quality.
While virtual supply chain simulators are now popular with many industrial planners, Cho argues that the physicality of SIUE’s test-bed also provides a significant analytical advantage. Virtual simulators are limited in their ability to illustrate the nuances of supply networks since their results are based on algorithmic assumptions. The test-bed will not only allow users to properly envision the complex relationships between various levels of the product chain, it will enable them to witness real-life dynamics within the network rather than make assumptions about them. This creates an ideal environment for testing out new product life cycles and for training students. Indeed, it is in the training of future industrial engineers that the testbed finds its next great benefit. SIUE students are encouraged to test supplychain modules by tracking universitymade chess sets that are then sold at the university bookstore. Student teams take ownership of developing key components of the integrated test-bed, whether it is the automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS), a programmable logic controller (PLC) or the robot. Each student is further involved in developing a quality control module, a robot control module for automated material handling, a database/Web service module for customer order processing and more. This process exposes students to key technologies while allowing them to follow product development and distribution at all levels. In developing the platform, Cho has aimed to provide a key resource for education, research and the community. “It is my goal that the test-bed play a significant role in exposing SIUE students to state-of-the-art technology in supply chains, and facilitating and encouraging their career development in this field,” Cho said. “Also, I hope by providing real-life applications in a flexible and generic environment, the test-bed becomes a significant tool to train researchers and local industries.”
“This project can help companies to simulate operations virtually, as well as physically.”
SIUE is Among 11 Centers of Excellence in Pain Education Chronic pain affects about 100 million Americans, costing up to $635 billion in medical treatment and lost productivity, and producing immeasurable suffering for people of all ages. Though many medications exist to treat chronic pain, unintended side effects can occur, including opioid addiction, overdose and diversion; acetaminophen associated hepatotoxicity; and other complications affecting the kidneys, heart and gastrointestinal systems from other commonly used analgesics. Additionally, non-pharmacologic interventions, patient education and case management play a significant role in these patients’ care. More and more, the health-related fields are seeing the need to develop a variety of pain management approaches. Yet, pain treatment is not taught extensively
in many health professional schools, resulting in inconsistent, and sometimes inadequate, patient care. To address this critical situation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pain Consortium has selected SIUE and 10 other institutions as designated Centers of Excellence in Pain Education (CoEPEs). “Virtually all health professionals are called upon to help patients suffering from pain,” said NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins. “These new centers will translate current research findings about pain management to fill what have been recognized as gaps in curricula so clinicians in all fields can work with their patients to make better and safer choices about pain treatment.”
The new Centers of Excellence in Pain Education were selected by the NIH Pain Consortium after a contract solicitation process and review. Along with SIUE, awardees include: University of Washington, Seattle University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia University of Rochester, N.Y. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston University of Alabama at Birmingham Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine, Philadelphia University of California, San Francisco University of Maryland, Baltimore University of Pittsburgh
The CoEPEs will act as hubs for the development, evaluation and distribution of pain management curriculum resources for medical, dental, nursing and pharmacy schools to enhance and improve how health care professionals are taught about pain and its treatment. Along with curriculum development, the CoEPE will serve as an expert resource on pain management education of health professionals nationwide. In the company of other nationally recognized institutions, SIUE and its partners, Southern Illinois University Medical School and Saint Louis University, stand out this year as the only designated Midwestern CoEPE. SIUE School of Pharmacy Associate Professor Chris Herndon, PharmD., led SIUE’s grant application. “This is an incredibly exciting opportunity,” Herndon said. “The subsequent impact on professional education and patient care in our region will be immeasurable.” The SIUE center will be a core training resource that incorporates diverse approaches in medicine, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, psychology and social work. Students will experience a hybrid model of education that allows them to work in interdisciplinary teams but also to gain the discipline-specific knowledge needed for their fields. Courses are designed to be convenient for working professionals with both classroom and distance-learning. Importantly, the course will be in modular form, available for widespread distribution to educators and health professionals nation-wide. Herndon’s team is developing an all encompassing semester-long course which will be taught at SIUE and SLU, with recorded lectures and course content available for download on the NIH website. “Any institution will be
equipped to teach the class. Educators will have access to slides, narrated content, assessment tools, quizzes, tests, as well as facilitator/teacher guides,” he said. The course structure aims to allow health professional students of different backgrounds to share their approaches and ideas for innovative pain treatment. Case-based scenarios will form the backbone of the curriculum resources. The first half of the curriculum will have the same learning objectives for all students, regardless of professional background, allowing them to work with other health fields. The second half will include more in-depth topics with learning objectives specific to each health care profession. The course will culminate with students from different disciplines coming together for one cumulative capstone project. Mimicking a real-life scenario, the multidisciplinary team will work together to develop one care plan for a patient. “Health care professionals are typically trained in silos,” Herndon said. “We may have preconceived notions of what pain services other professionals can provide, but how can we ask for their help, refer our patients to them or ask for input if we don’t know what they do?” Herndon emphasized that this is not a pharmacy grant, but a multidisciplinary, multi-university endeavor. He called upon fellow health care educators whom he knew to be passionate for inter-professional learning to develop the grant proposal. “Each faculty lead is responsible for developing course content that is applicable to his or her area,” he said. “As leaders in higher education, it is vital that we collaborate and develop ways for our students to learn from each other and alongside each other.”
A Collaborative Initiative The following faculty members are involved in the NIH Center of Excellence in Pain Education Dr. Keith Hecht, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, SIUE School of Pharmacy Dr. Erin Timpe, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, and Director, Drug Information & Wellness Center, SIUE School of Pharmacy Dr. McKenzie Ferguson, Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice, SIUE School of Pharmacy Dr. Kevin Rowland, Associate Professor, SIUE School of Dental Medicine Dr. Carol Wesley, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Work, SIUE College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Michael Neumeister, SIU School of Medicine Dr. Mary Ann Lavin, Saint Louis University School of Nursing Dr. Ray Tait, Saint Louis University School of Medicine
11 Health Sciences
”As leaders in higher education, it is vital that we collaborate and develop ways for our students to learn from each other and alongside each other.”
Exploring Dental Pain Relief: Targeting stress hormone receptors Dr. Kevin Rowland is tackling one of our culture’s most iconic notions of suffering—pain in the dental chair. An associate professor and section head of physiology in the Department of Applied Dental Medicine, Rowland pursues all possible means to alleviate dental pain. “Pain is a big part of dentistry because it brings people to the dentist and it also keeps people away from the dentist,” he said. “If we can alleviate the painful experiences that people have when they go to the dentist, then they’re more likely to return on a regular basis and improve their overall health.” Despite the frequent occurrence of dental pain, medications that are used to mitigate the pain often come with negative side effects such as addiction (in the case of narcotics) or liver, kidney and hearing problems (in the case of ibuprofen, acetaminophen and aspirin). Through multiple research projects, Rowland is discovering improved ways to ease both acute and chronic pain more effectively. In one research study, Rowland explores a new drug called tetracaine anesthetic paste (TAP). TAP is a topical anesthetic that lessens the pain of the process of fixing the tooth. An SIU School of Dental Medicine graduate and one of his patients, who is a pharmacist, originally formulated the paste and brought it to Rowland for further research. Rowland’s goal is to examine the short and long-term effects of the drug on the oral cavity.
The first stages of the study involving animal models showed promising results and allowed Rowland to advance the study to the next level. “First, we wanted to find out what kind of changes we could expect in the oral cavity. We investigated the cellular changes that occurred in the oral mucosa of rats,” he said. “We found only transient changes (meaning no negative long-term effects), which allowed us to move quickly into the testing of volunteer human subjects.” Upon application of TAP on the oral cavity, volunteer patients are submitted to an electric pulp tester which sends minute amounts of electricity into the tooth. The pulp is the area of pulpous material containing nerves inside the hard enamel and dentin. “It seems that when we apply it on a tooth, the tooth becomes completely numb,” he said. “We are seeing that it is highly effective. When the maximum current setting for the pulp test is applied, the patients feel no pain when normally they would jump out of their chairs.” Rowland’s interest in pain relief has similarly led him to study the role hormones and hormone receptors play in the registration of pain. His second study examines stress hormone receptors in the pulp and their ability to cause the release of natural analgesics. Rowland determined that stress hormone receptors are present in the pulp and that, under painful conditions, the number of receptors increases,
allowing the pulp to become more sensitive to the stress hormones. “We are now conducting a follow-up study in which we attempt to correlate levels of pain with natural opioid release from the receptors. We want to know when it would be appropriate to target those stress hormone receptors in order to stimulate this release of opioids. Also, would there even be enough opioid released to fully alleviate the pain?” In the end, Rowland hopes his research will improve future methods of alleviating dental pain. “We are looking at different dental procedures that could benefit from this research. Someday, a cavity filling may be done without any use of injections,” he said. Without the pain of injections, one wonders if more people will be willing to make the trip to the dental chair?
“If we can alleviate the painful experiences that people have when they go to the dentist, then they’re more likely to return on a regular basis and thus, improve their overall health.”
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Childhood Obesity and Early Literacy: Connecting the dots The increase in sedentary activities among children, even among preschoolers, is a main contributor to the childhood obesity epidemic in the United States. While health risks related to obesity are abundant and well documented, one investigator believes there is still something to discover about its impact on childhood learning. Dr. Stacie M. Kirk, assistant professor of special education and communication disorders, is collaborating with Dr. Erik Kirk, assistant professor of kinesiology and health education, to investigate physical activity and its relationship to the development of early literacy skills. S.M. Kirk was awarded a $75,000 grant from Active Living Research (ALR), a national program office of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to perform the study. The project is a partnership with the East St. Louis Head Start program. “What makes our research unique is that the link between physical activity and literacy at such an early age, until now, has yet to be studied,” she said. “We hope to identify a positive relationship between physical activity and early literacy skills because early literacy is a predictor of future success in school.” The team also aims to dispel misconceptions about preschool, including the fallacy that it is just
another form of childcare. “Preschool is an educational setting and preschool teachers, particularly those we are working with in East St. Louis, are dedicated to educating young children,” she said. Secondly, Stacie Kirk asserts, too many people assume that small children naturally get enough physical activity. “We want to make clear that this is often not the case and that teachers need to be actively involved in getting kids moving throughout the day,” she said.
“We hope to identify a positive relationship between physical activity and early literacy skills because early literacy is a predictor of future success in school.” In addition to her collaboration with Head Start, Kirk has involved four SIUE undergraduate early childhood education majors in the project. They have been collecting data, including classroom observations of physical activity, conducting individual early literacy assessments with children, and providing teachers with new ideas and activities for students. Connecting physical activity with positive learning benchmarks at the
earliest stages of development can be inexpensive, simple to implement and, based on initial data, effective at positively impacting early learning. So far, the data have shown that children receiving additional physical activity throughout the day experience a statistically significant increase in the areas of alliteration and rhyming, two key skill areas in early literacy development. “We have been working with teachers to give them ideas on how to include physical activity, not just during recess time, but also inside the classroom,” she said. “For example, something as simple as a game of ‘Simon Says’ can get kids moving while teaching them how to follow directions.” The ultimate goal is to use the results from this study to provide a basis for developing an effective and economical approach for preventing and treating overweight or obese children, especially those at greater risk of developing delays in the area of early literacy. It is the hope that information gleaned from this study can be disseminated and implemented in additional Head Start and childcare programs across the country. S.M. Kirk said that in the future she plans to examine how physical activity can affect other curriculum areas, such as math, and find possible correlations between physical activities and different types of learning.
Predicting the Unpredictable: Research targets symptom clusters in multiple sclerosis Affecting more than 400,000 people in the U.S. alone, multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological disease, often first identified in young and middle aged adults. People may experience mild symptoms, such as numbness in the limbs, or symptoms as severe as paralysis. The progress, severity, and specific symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from one person to another. Of those diagnosed with MS, approximately 85 percent are diagnosed with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). People with this particular form of the disease experience attacks of worsening neurologic function. These relapses, or “flare-ups,” can often be followed by intermittent recovery periods during which the disease does not progress or progresses only partially. Unfortunately, RRMS is also variable and irregular. The symptoms can be difficult to identify, and they vary according to the course of the disease and treatment types. Difficulty in diagnosing RRMS symptoms can often lead to increased patient disability and health care costs.
For these reasons, Dr. Pamela Newland, a postdoctoral fellow in the SIUE School of Nursing, is taking strides to assist those diagnosed with RRMS. Through the National Institutes of Health’s Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Postdoctoral Fellowship, Newland has developed a research program targeting symptom clusters in MS. Symptom clusters can be defined as two or more symptoms that occur at the same time or in correlation with each other. The approach of studying symptom clusters in cancer and heart disease has illustrated its usefulness in describing how well a patient can function on a daily basis and providing insights into how to treat the symptoms. Newland is using the approach to characterize and describe symptoms experienced by patients with RRMS, validate the changes in symptoms experienced by RMMS patients over time, and identify and examine the relationships between symptom clusters and the course of the disease. Newland hopes that understanding symptom clusters can assist nursing and other
“Our goal is to identify and characterize symptom clusters which could hold promise for future assessment and therapies for individuals with MS.”
disciplines with prioritizing patient care and needs. Newland, and her research collaborators, Drs. Louise Flick of St. Louis University’s School of Nursing, Florian P. Thomas of the Saint Louis University Department of Neurology and St. Louis VA Medical Center, and William Shannon of Washington University’s School of Medicine, are also using exploratory mixed research methods. This innovative approach uses both qualitative and quantitative design. “RRMS is a disease that’s difficult to manage,” Newland said. “Patients cope through a number of medications. However, medications alone can’t remedy symptoms entirely. Our goal is to identify and characterize symptom clusters which could hold promise for future assessment and therapies for individuals with MS.” To launch the study, the team is recruiting and interviewing patients, administering questionnaires, and conducting focus groups of those diagnosed with RRMS. “I love recruiting and interviewing patients,” Newland said. “As a nurse, spending time with patients is very close to my heart. At the same time, I want to have a broader scope. Research allows me to make a contribution at a much deeper level.” Following the identification of symptoms, she plans to conduct another study validating her expanded symptom list and determining how often certain symptoms occur individually versus with others. Newland and her colleagues will then explore associations between symptom clusters and clinical outcomes. “I believe in the work that I am doing,” she said. “The outcomes are not instantaneous. However, I am striving, little by little, to make a difference in the lives of those with MS.”
“Nurses need effective tools to ensure patient safety, and it’s our goal to find those tools.” As the research liaison for SSM DePaul Health Care Center in St. Louis, Dr. Ann Popkess, assistant professor in the SIUE School of Nursing, works with SSM DePaul to coordinate, educate and mentor nurses and nurse managers to improve the assessment of patient needs using evidence-based practice and research. In 2011, the SIUE/SSM DePaul collaborators expanded their partnership to SSM’s entire network, which includes seven facilities in the St. Louis Metro region. Under this expansion and through the SSM Nursing Quality Practice Council (QPC), Popkess and her partners identified two significant projects to improve overall patient safety. The QPC began examining how nurses were completing assessments on patients who were at risk for “elopement.” Elopement refers to the moment when a patient who is aware that he/she is not permitted to leave a health care facility still does so intentionally. “Attempting to prevent elopement is an essential part of patient safety and has become a primary focus of the QPC,” Popkess said. Only limited research has been conducted on elopement risk assessment, so Popkess and the QPC essentially started from scratch. Using a questionnaire developed by the National Center for Patient Safety, they created an assessment tool. They used the tool in a pilot study of eight cases to determine if the sample cases were, in fact, examples of elopement and if they were likely to be deemed at-risk for elopement by the tool. According to Popkess, “Preliminary analysis indicates that the tool is reliable in identifying patients at risk for elopement. There was a statistically
significant, moderate correlation between those cases that were scored as elopement risk by staff and those that were actual elopement cases.” In addition to elopement assessment, Popkess and her team are studying how to lessen the incidents of falls in elderly patients by identifying potential cognitively impaired patients using a more sensitive tool, the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) (Folstein & Folstein, 1975). The MMSE will be used in addition to the current assessment data on subjects qualifying for the study to determine if subjects are cognitively impaired. The study will determine if a more specific cognitive assessment tool can help nurses identify patients at greater risk for falling, even when the standard admission tools had labeled them alert and oriented. “The potential impact of a new assessment tool is significant,” Popkess said. “Falls account for 30 to 40 percent of hospital inpatient safety incidents and can lead to increased hospital stays, poor quality of life, increased costs and serious physical injury. The question at SSM was whether the current mental status assessment tools can be sensitive yet accurate enough to identify those who may be mildly impaired or forgetful, and consequently at greater risks for falls. Nurses need effective tools to ensure patient safety, and it’s our goal to find those tools.” According to Popkess, full participation of SSM staff nurses in evidence-based practice projects is significant in itself. The time and energy nurses invest in learning the research, data collection and analyses processes will provide significant opportunities to advance and improve patient care throughout the SSM network.
Doctor of Nursing Practice In August 2011, the SIUE School of Nursing welcomed the inaugural cohort of post-masters Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students. The highly-anticipated DNP represents the School’s first doctoral degree and is the fifth graduate degree. DNP graduates are prepared as leaders in quality improvement, project management, evidencebased practice, information systems, health care policy, inter-professional collaboration and population health. Coursework is provided in a flexible, five-semester online format, and is complimented with short, on-campus intensive experiences. To receive full professional training, students complete practicum hours in their specialty area while developing, implementing and evaluating a scholarly, evidence-based practice project that improves patient care.
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Front-line Assessment: School of Nursing collaboration with SSM DePaul promotes patient safety
Studying the Role of EB1 Protein in Cancer Metastasis Each year, cancer kills more than 550,000 Americans. In almost all of these cases, cancer metastasis is a major contributing factor. During metastasis, tumor cells travel from the primary site in the body to invade other healthy organs, initiating a rapid progression of the disease. Once metastasis occurs, treatment can be difficult and the patient’s prognosis becomes poor.
Mouse melanoma cell
“If we know more about EB1 and its true role in cancer progression, then we can target it with an inhibitor and prevent the progression of cancer.”
Among those seeking ways to control the spread of cancer cells is Dr. Joseph Schober, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the SIUE School of Pharmacy and the winner of an Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA)(R15) grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Schober’s research targets a specific protein called EB1, which has been linked to cancer cell motility. “Some experimental data produced in my lab supports the idea that the EB1 protein promotes growth and metastasis of cancer cells. The question I am trying to answer is, ‘How does EB1 do that?’” At the center of cell motility are two major cytoskeletal systems: microtubules and actin. “We know that communication occurs between the systems. What we know very little about, though, is the molecular machinery and signaling that mediates the communication.” Schober believes that EB1 is in the position to mediate the relationship between microtubules and actin and thus control cell
motility. “My aims are to locate EB1 in signaling pathways and examine the depletion of EB1 on microtubule adhesion sites,” he said. “It is my hope that a greater understanding of EB1’s role in metastasis can eventually lead to new pharmaceutical interventions in the spread of cancer. If we know more about EB1 and its true role in cancer progression, we can target it with an inhibitor and prevent the progression of cancer.” In support of his research, Dr. Schober was awarded a 2011 SIUE New Directions Grant with Dr. Maria Kontoyianni, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the SIUE School of Pharmacy, as well as the 2009 SIUE Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigator Award. In addition to the AREA grant, Schober received a recent grant from the American Association for Colleges of Pharmacy. Schober is currently collaborating with Kontoyianni and Dr. Guim Kwon, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the SIUE School of Pharmacy.
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3-D Pharmacology: Computer-aided drug design benefits pharmaceutical discoveries The pharmaceutical industry spends $800 million to $1 billion on the research and development of new prescription medications each year. Much of the expense occurs in the early stages of development when only one in every ten thousand discovered compounds actually earns FDA approval. In addition, the entire process can last more than 12 years and occur without a guarantee of FDA approval or profitability. Recent research by Dr. Maria Kontoyianni, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the SIUE School of Pharmacy, offers innovative techniques for making drug development faster and less expensive. Using computer-aided drug design, Kontoyianni‘s lab develops computational tools to better understand drug recognition by macromolecular targets and employs discovery approaches to specific disease areas. A representative example of an ongoing research project examines Cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes and their critical role in drug metabolism.
“CYP enzymes bind to medications,” Kontoyianni said. “Some enhance the enzyme’s metabolizing ability while others reduce it. In either case, the biological effect of the drug(s) is impacted.” According to Kontoyianni, simulating the relationship between specific CYP enzymes and certain drugs with computer-aided drug design allows drug discovery to occur at faster, cheaper and safer rates. It is an integral part of drug discovery and can serve as a catalyst between chemists and pharmacologists. Kontoyianni employs high-power computing to study the drug-receptor interactions in three-dimensional space in order to understand the recognition of a drug by a protein or an enzyme. “The goal is to understand what makes a drug act one way or another and predict whether a new drug will induce or inhibit these enzymes,” Kontoyianni said. “In drug discovery, the ability to predict how a new chemical entity or potential drug is metabolized is critical because these enzymes transform
current drugs into other molecules, which in turn can lead to unwanted effects. The long-term impact is the development of pharmaceutical compounds that have the potential to reduce the toxicity of currently prescribed drugs.” Not only is Kontoyianni’s research leading the way in drug discovery innovation, but it is also the first of its kind. “No research has been published thus far for even one P450 enzyme exploring substrates (drugs which are metabolized), inhibitors (drugs which inhibit the P450 activity) and inducers. Most of them focus on substrates only. There is no prior publication that is as extensive across major and minor Cytochrome P450 enzymes or as systematic methodologically.” Kontoyianni is currently collaborating with Dr. Tom Poulos, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of California Irvine, and Dr. Rommie Amaro, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California San Diego.
“The long-term impact is the development of pharmaceutical compounds that have the potential to reduce the toxicity of currently prescribed drugs.”
“Geeks” As Colleagues?: Understanding social interactions between IT professionals and their “non-geek” colleagues Studying the management of technology professionals, Dr. Jo Ellen Moore, professor of computer management and information systems, has published research in the top journals of her field, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and Academy of Management Review. In addition to studying issues such as job burnout and retention of technology workers, Moore recently partnered with Dr. Mary Sue Love, associate professor of management and marketing, to study how so-called “technology geeks” interact with others in organizations.
“Our model provides insights for practice and future research regarding technology professionals in organizations.”
In their article, “An Examination of Prestigious Stigma: The Case of the Technology Geek,” published in the International Journal of Social and Organizational Dynamics in IT, Moore and Love examine the technology worker through the social psychological lens of “prestigious stigma” and how it can affect work settings. The two researchers argue that prestigious stigma is significant for technology professionals who feel the pressure to perform high-level technical feats in stressful situations. In general, the culture of high achievement in the technical world does not value social integration and people skills as much as technical skill, a fact that can lead to social difficulties between technical and non-technical co-workers. Moore and Love have sought to describe communication between “geeks” and “non-geeks” and, ultimately, to “improve the integration of ‘geeks’ and their indispensable expertise within organizations,” Moore said. “We looked to create a model to aid in interactions between IT professionals and their coworkers and managers. Our model provides insights for practice and future research regarding technology professionals in organizations.”
In this research, Moore and Love strive to help both technology professionals and “non-techies” better understand how their behavior in interactions may lead to negative consequences. Drawing from their model, Moore and Love list multiple steps that coworkers on both sides of the technical literacy divide can follow to improve interactions with each other. Among their recommended tactics is admitting when one does not understand something. Technology professionals are often accustomed to being solutions experts, but just as non-technical workers count on other professionals to lead them in technical issues, “geeks” may look to their colleagues for better understanding of the business and social aspects of work. Moore and Love hope that following such tactics will help reduce frustration for both sides, improving knowledgesharing within organizations.
For Moore, these topics emerged from personal work experiences. “Coming out of college, I was a math major and what some might consider a ‘tech geek.’ I was a recent graduate working in the IT department and I was really good at the technical stuff,” she said. “I was so good that the promotions came quickly, and I went from being one of the top techies in my company to being an inept manager, seemingly overnight. I found that managing people was a completely different thing from doing the technical work. “This experience led me to graduate studies in human behavior and has been a driving force for my research. The research we are performing at SIUE is allowing us to better understand IT people and what we can all do to get the most from these valued employees.”
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Professor Spotlight: Studying emerging economies and economic growth on an international scale “Many of the graduate students I work with are also from emerging economies and provide their own unique perspectives.” For Dr. Ali Kutan, professor and graduate program director in the School of Business Department of Economics and Finance, research on emerging markets and the enlargement of the European Union are natural issues to study. “As a native of Turkey, I was born and raised in an emerging economy, so these are issues that have particular significance to me,” he said. “Working on these publications allows me to research important topics and stay upto-date in the fields of economics and finance,” he said. Kutan’s recent research focuses on three areas: n Investigating the impact of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs on financial markets, particularly during a financial crisis, and testing whether the IMF advice to countries in crisis can stabilize financial markets in these economies and boost investor confidence. n Studying the impact of monetary policy actions by central banks on inflation and economic growth. For example, in a recent working paper, Kutan; Ari Belasen, assistant professor of economics and finance; and graduate student Kelly Ayres investigated the impact of inflation targeting policy on reducing inflation
and increasing economic growth in emerging economies.
n Studying the link between natural disasters and financial market behavior. In a recent study, Lin Wang, a graduate student in economics and finance, and Kutan examine how natural disasters in Japan and the United States have affected stock market returns and volatility. He serves as the co-editor of Economic Systems and managing editor of Emerging Markets Finance and Trade. He helps produce three to four special journal issues each year with content based on the various conferences he attends. He also serves on the editorial board of Journal of Economic Studies and Eurasian Economic Review. Kutan translates the knowledge he gains into an essential resource for graduate students. He also gives his students the opportunity to work with him and co-author journal articles. “Many of the graduate students I work with are also from emerging economies and provide their own unique perspectives,” he said. Working with graduate students on research publications is an important aspect to their education. “Allowing students to have published work
prepares them for the rigors of doctoral programs,” Kutan said. “Having published work is also an asset because it gives students a clear advantage over other candidates for some of the best Ph.D. programs.” This hands-on approach is definitely paying off and has created an environment where a full 25 percent of SIUE’s master’s in economics and finance graduates go on to doctoral programs. Kutan’s work on journals and special issues is not only important for his development as a faculty member, the findings are necessary for economic development and have implications on designing policies for economic growth. A recent special journal issue focused on China, one of the largest emerging markets, and included topics such as financial markets and energy consumption. These topics are significant because they uncover economic and financial challenges that emerging economies, like China, are facing. In addition to his work with academic publications, he is also an associate member of the Emerging Market Group, Cass Business School, London, and a research fellow at the William Davidson Institute, University of Michigan Business School.
Fading Giants: Artist Captures Glacial Retreat
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“The idea that these incredible natural forms that I had the pleasure of experiencing wouldn’t be around for my children to see was very distressing.”
Some of the most majestic landscapes of the American West can be found in Glacier National Park (GNP) of Northwestern Montana. Native Americans called this land of rugged peaks and glacial-carved valleys “the backbone of the world.” Due to climate change, however, that backbone appears to be fading. Observers note the glaciers retreating at an alarming rate, and a 2009 report estimated that they could disappear completely as early as 2020.
woodblocks. The art form is laborious but creates a stunning finished product.
Scientists and environmentalists have long studied this grave trend, but SIUE professor and artist Todd Anderson seeks to capture the glacial shift through the medium of printmaking.
To create the prints, the carved woodblocks are rolled with paint and transferred to paper. The reproducible nature of this medium allows the artist to create multiple copies of the originals and make them available at lower prices to a broader audience.
“The glaciers of GNP have been scientifically documented for analytical purposes, but they have not been cohesively and comprehensively expressed through a purely creative lens,” Anderson said. “The creative process generates new insights, empathy and bonds that are singularly unique.” Entitled “Glacial Retreat–The Last Glaciers of Glacier National Park,” Anderson’s project is comprised of prints created from intricately carved
In the summer of 2011 Anderson traveled to GNP to hike, camp, sketch and paint among the glaciers with colleague Bruce Crownover. The artists created plein air watercolors of the 25 remaining glaciers within the park. These watercolors will ultimately serve as the basis for the suite of woodblock prints, currently under preparation in Anderson’s art studio.
Anderson says that he was initially driven to design the project when he saw news coverage of glacial retreat in the park. “I spent a lot of time climbing and hiking in the West when I was younger,” Anderson said. “The idea that these incredible natural forms that I had the pleasure of experiencing wouldn’t be around for my children to see was very distressing.”
Spanning several years, Anderson’s work will serve as a historical record of the major changes occurring in the landscape. In addition to the historical and aesthetic significance of the work, the project aims to forge more personal connections with the issue in his audience. “Viewed either individually or as a suite, the artwork will reveal the sheer beauty of glaciers as well as create an awareness of the magnitude of their impending disappearance on geological and ecological scales,” Anderson said. “Ideally, disseminating the work will help generate dialogues about glacial retreat and the larger issue of climate change.” Slated for completion in 2018, the work was initially funded by a STEP seed grant through SIUE. STEP grants support faculty members in the beginning stages of their research as they embark on innovative and potentially significant projects. Of the support for his project, Anderson said, “I am very fortunate to be at SIUE doing work for which I feel a profound sense of purpose.”
“The reasons behind language endangerment are as varied as the threatened languages themselves, but never have anything to do with their sound systems, grammatical structure or family history,�
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Documenting the Endangered Languages of Nepal: NSF CAREER Grant supports effort Language endangerment is a familiar issue for Dr. Kristine Hildebrandt, assistant professor of English language and literature. She has often visited and studied the languages of Nepal, a small South Asian country located between India and China, and home to more than 100 distinct languages from multiple lineages. She is also well aware that these languages are quickly disappearing due to migration and external political and social pressures. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) categorizes 30 percent of these languages as ‘definitely endangered,’ and 20 percent as ‘severely or critically endangered.’ In fact, Hildebrandt is committed to preserving endangered languages in Nepal – a commitment that helped earn her an Early Career Development (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Her proposal, “Documenting the Languages of Manang, Nepal for Local and International Impact,” outlines her plans to research, document, analyze and archive four tribal languages in the Manang District of Nepal: Manange, Gurung, Gyalsumdo and Nar-Phu. The five-year grant—the first CAREER grant awarded to a faculty member at SIUE—is among the most prestigious grants awarded by the NSF to support the careers of young academic researchers and help them become national leaders in research and education. CAREER grants support “junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.” Hildebrandt, who earned her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California Santa Barbara, is leading a
team with Dr. Shunfu Hu, professor of geography in the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Jessica Krim, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in the School of Education, and a handful of student researchers. The research group will use the CAREER grant to provide significant and innovative education and outreach activities for students at SIUE and at Tribhuvan University, the national university of Nepal. Student research assistants will transcribe and digitize the data collected on four tribal languages of Nepal. They will work with Hu to create several outputs, including an online digital atlas documenting where each language is natively spoken and vocabulary, grammar and discourse databases that delve into the linguistic nuances and myriad dialects of the Manang region in northern-central Nepal. Students will also be able to travel with Hildebrandt to Nepal to assess language attitudes and assist Krim with the creation of educational materials. Hildebrandt has been working in Nepal for the past 14 years, recording variations in speech sounds between languages and interviewing native speakers. As a linguist, she not only studies the speech sounds and grammatical structure of tribal languages, but also the attitudes and opinions the speakers have about their native language and why some languages in Nepal are thriving while others are dying out.
An online digital atlas will use Google Maps Application Programming Interface (API) to show where the four languages are spoken (Figure 1) and how they are spoken (Figure 2).
1.
“The reasons behind language endangerment are as varied as the threatened languages themselves, but never have anything to do with their sound systems, grammatical structure or family history,” she said. “Rather, the reasons are societal in nature.” 2.
Sculpting Illusions: SIUE professor masters art of tromp l’oeil At first glance, it may be hard to decipher the unique character of Paul Dresang’s hyperreal sculptures. It takes a second look at his work to recognize it as ceramic art, not an everyday object. An SIUE Distinguished Research Professor of Art and Design, Dresang is a master of the artform trompe l’oeil, French for “deceive the eye.” His sculptural pieces mimic seemingly mundane items of daily life–an old leather bag, a tin can, a teapot–but they are made entirely of porcelain clay. Dresang accomplishes mindbendingly realistic shapes and glazes through a relatively simple medium. By blurring the lines between reality and image, Dresang’s work draws upon his audience’s tactile and visual senses, tricking them visually but enticing them to touch and to question their own sense of reality.
“I choose to engage viewers through the intricate, formal, trompe l’oeil details of the work. I hope they will want to touch it, need to touch it,” said Dresang. “I want my work to provide the ultimate lure of the object, and I am finished and most satisfied only when they, too, are hooked.” Dresang, who has been teaching ceramics at SIUE since 1977, draws inspiration for his trompe l’oeil pieces from items that were once used, and likely cherished, by someone else. The notion of the found object brings a sense of nostalgia and personality to his pieces. “I look for inspiration pieces in antique stores and flea markets, even garage sales,” Dresang said. “I am never sure what I’m looking for until I see it. These items have some sort of inherent character about them that signifies time
and use.” Indeed, it is reference to the found objects’ patina incorporated into Dresang’s sculptures that creates a fresh paradox between the old and the new, the soft and the hard, the personal and the virtual. Once Dresang’s inspiration is in place and initial sketches have been made, the process of creating these intricately detailed works begins with cutting and shaping slabs of clay into basic shapes. Minute details are then forged with painstaking precision, while colors and textures are applied–a process that may take months. In an average year, Dresang will complete three sculptural pieces. Despite the relative slowness of his process, Dresang has proven himself as a prolific and nationally recognized artist, having displayed his work in galleries and collections throughout the world, including at the Renwick Gallery in the Smithsonian.
“I want my work to provide the ultimate lure of the object, and I am finished and most satisfied only when they too are hooked.”
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Dresang is also an accomplished creator of functional pots, and splits his time between the two forms of ceramic art about which he says he is equally passionate. “Each type of work informs the other in many ways,” he said. “The practice and skill development from making pots supports more accuracy when assessing the details of forms, be it a ‘simple’ cup or a trompe l’oeil sculpture.” Dresang credits SIUE for providing him sabbatical time to focus intensely on his work and other projects that aid his development as an artist and teacher. “During my sabbatical, I spent time designing and building a new, more efficient kiln for the ceramics department,” he said. “I was also able to do some research with various glazes and clay bodies.” He takes pride in bringing new insights into the classroom studio to share with undergraduate and graduate students
as they develop their own approaches. However, imparting methods and techniques is only part of Dresang’s job as an instructor. His students also look to him as a model for how to work and live as an artist. “Watching his commitment to the work and the way he purposefully structures his day with preparation, inspiration, editing and all the physical work that goes into being an artist has been a valuable experience for me,” said Ashley Drissell, a current MFA student in ceramics. Up close, Dresang’s work illustrates for audiences exactly how dedicated he is to the art. It is the tiniest details that most clearly illustrate the unwavering passion he has for his craft. “Making things is what makes me happy, and that’s why I’ll continue to do it.”
Paul Dresang’s work can be found in private collections, galleries and museums throughout the world. The Renwick Gallery, National Museum of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC The Tai Pei County Ceramics Museum, Tai Pei, Taiwan The Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin The Mint Museum of Craft and Design, Charlotte, North Carolina The Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Minneapolis Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles The Eccles Museum, Logan, Utah SIUE Permanent Collection, Edwardsville
“The creative freedom that is nurtured through programs like Sculpture on Campus is evidence of just how much the University trusts and respects the vision of SIUE students.”
Sculpture on Campus No matter where they are on SIUE’s campus, wandering pedestrians are sure to be greeted by stunning large-scale sculpture. From the mysterious to the beautiful to the historical, these student works of art have been accenting the natural beauty of campus for more than ten years. Thanks to Sculpture on Campus, a unique program supported by Kimmel Leadership, Sculptors at Wagner, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of Administration, students create new pieces each year to engage with the SIUE community. The sculptures encourage passersby to interact with and appreciate their surrounding environment. “I haven’t seen a program like this at any other University,” said Thad Duhigg, sculpture professor and chair of the Department of Art and Design.
“Not only do participating art students benefit from this opportunity, but all members of the campus community get the rare chance to make sculpture part of their daily lives.” Every spring, the Sculpture on Campus Program encourages students to propose and design large-scale, outdoor sculpture. Through a juried competition process, up to 12 students are selected to build and display their pieces throughout campus. Participants receive a stipend to offset the cost of materials, but the true benefit of this program is not measured in dollars. “The experience of proposing, designing and installing major sculptural works is invaluable for students,” Duhigg said. “These pieces make an excellent addition to student portfolios and
provide a hands-on experience that can’t be found at most universities.” Each fall, the program invites notable guest judges to campus to select prizewinners. Prestigious sculptors Luis Jimenez and Karyn Olivier are among the many artists who have come to campus not only to judge student work, but to spend one-on-one time with students, offering them advice as artists. “None of these incredible opportunities would be possible without the overwhelming support of the University and the community,” Duhigg said. “The creative freedom that is nurtured through programs like Sculpture on Campus is evidence of just how much the University trusts and respects the vision of its students.”
Dr. Anushiya Ramaswamy strives through her work to lend voice to a people that may otherwise go unheard. Ramaswamy, a professor of English at SIUE, is the primary translator for Shobasakthi, the foremost Sri Lankan Tamil writer who gives a first-hand perspective of the oppressed Tamil people in Sri Lanka. Much of his work describes decades-long war against ethnic minorities in Sri Lanka and the lives of Tamil refugees in Europe. “Shobasakthi writes beautifully and painfully about what it is like to live hand-to-mouth in a culture that doesn’t want you,” said Ramaswamy. “As a Tamil refugee and former child soldier, he is telling the story of the hundreds of thousands of Tamils who have been persecuted and driven from their home.”
“My work represents people who do not get any kind of exposure outside of a small cultural group.”
Since 1983, the civil conflict between the Sri Lankan government and minority group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has caused hardships for the entire population, with mass migration of Tamils escaping the turmoil of life in a country at war. More than 800,000 Tamils have been forced to find refuge around the globe. Ramaswamy chose to translate Shobasakthi’s work into English because so little has been written about Sri Lanka from the Tamil perspective, and almost nothing written about it in English. “My work represents people who do not get any kind of exposure outside of a small cultural group,” she said. “If those groups are able to get their message published in English, they will be heard; if not, their history and meaning will unfortunately evaporate.” Ramaswamy describes the process of translating these pieces as complex and time consuming. These are not simple word-for-word translations. Ramaswamy must translate complicated ideas, emotions and cultural history between two languages that often do not share the same concepts.
“Languages are like people, they have their own unique histories and experiences,” Ramaswamy said. “Often, the target language will not have the resources you need for an ideal translation. As a translator, you must make do with the language tools that are available to you.” These challenges make the process highly creative, but Ramaswamy says that the product is not hers. “I try to mimic the voice, humor and sentence structure that exists in the original work. The product that I finish should be able to stand on its own, and the reader shouldn’t feel like they wish they were reading the original.” Ramaswamy says that her hope is for her readers to feel a sense of awareness at the end of the piece. “The stories and sufferings of a whole population have a chance to be heard in these translations. There are no habeas corpus laws or freedom of the press in Sri Lanka. It is only in such testimonial writings that we get to hear the victims speak,” she said. Since 2008, Ramaswamy has translated two of Shobasakthi’s novels–Gorilla, published by Random House India, and Traitor, published last year by Penguin India. More recently, she translated a movie script by Shobasakthi called Passport, which follows the story of a child soldier leaving Sri Lanka. Ramaswamy is the director of the Expository Writing Program at SIUE. She teaches theory of composition, classical rhetoric, African American literature and postcolonial studies. Her work has appeared in World Literature Today and Callaloo, among other publications. Her latest translation is a collection of poetry by N.D. Rajkumar, Give Us This Day A Feat of Flesh, by Navayana Publishers, New Delhi.
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Tamil in Translation: Giving an international voice to a Sri Lankan minority writer and the people he represents
Archiving The Wide, Wide World: Dr. Jessica DeSpain explores cosmos of 19th century publishing networks
DeSpain, who studies 19th century American literature and transatlantic book history, is completing her first book project, Nineteenth Century Transatlantic Reprinting and the Disembodied Book, exploring British/American relations during the 19th century through the medium of the transatlantic reprint. She has also taken on a project of international scale. Exploring the many variations of one of the 19th century’s most popular books of the American sentimental genre, Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World, DeSpain seeks to open the text and its editions to readers with digital innovation. DeSpain is creator and editor of The Wide, Wide World Digital Edition, a fully searchable digital compilation of the illustrations, cover designs and textual variants of the 142 versions of Warner’s novel. Warner’s popular book saw many transatlantic reprints between 1851 and 1950. By placing these variations side-by-side, the archive offers a compelling narrative of marketing, publishing and reading history, and serves as a teaching resource for students of book history and literature. “The purpose is to have a case study that allows researchers to observe how the text, illustrations, fonts and covers have changed over the years,” said DeSpain. “The conclusion is that there is a ‘remix’ culture occurring with the varying editions of the book, and it shows that one text can have multiple meanings.” When George Palmer Putnam first published The Wide, Wide World in 1851, there were no international copyright laws. Publishers changed text, illustrations, and cover to appeal to their audiences. According to DeSpain, “Warner’s book is a great case study to investigate how texts were destabilized during this time.” What happens when no copyright laws are in place? One might consider the ways the 19th century illustrations and texts were manipulated in order to appeal to readers and their stereotypical ideas of American life and women.
For example, according to DeSpain, American issues of the book employed illustrations depicting Ellen, the novel’s protagonist, in “anything from typical Victorian dress to, in 1890, a prairie-style garb that was nostalgic of the country’s disappearing frontier landscape.” Later, publishers gave Ellen pearl earrings and a mink stole, dress consistent with the concept of a 1920’s modern girl. Besides fashion, publishers focused on language as a means to appeal to readers’ conceptions of America.
“The purpose is to have a case study that allows researchers to observe how the text, illustrations, fonts and covers have changed over the years.”
One British publisher promoted Warner’s descriptions of American life and landscape as a rustic counterpart to British civilization, while another changed Warners’s dialogue, fixing the rural characters’ perceived grammar errors to appeal to the “more refined” British reader. Such cases reveal not only the historical background of publishing laws, but also national and cultural preconceptions informing the publishing trade. DeSpain started digitizing each page of each edition in 2006. Her interest in Warner’s text began when she was a graduate student in the University of Iowa’s English Department and Center for the Book. While working on her dissertation, she realized the need to see each textual variant side-by-side and has since made her way through the many editions spread across the U.S. and Britain, seeking the digital means to create a comparative tool. Since arriving at SIUE in 2008, DeSpain has continued to build her own collection and archive, slowly developing what she calls the digital “variorium” of The Wide, Wide World’s versions. She has, for instance, borrowed an 82-book collection from the Constitution Island Association, the historical society that curates Warner’s home and papers. She has spent recent months digitizing the books at SIUE’s Interdisciplinary Research and Informatics Scholarship (IRIS) Center with a dedicated team of five undergraduate and graduate students. “The comparative capabilities of the digital environment we are creating will open up a virtual window into the world of 19th and early 20th century transatlantic distribution and reception networks that would not be possible in print,” DeSpain concluded.
Current stages of The Wide, Wide World digital archive may be viewed at: wwwarchive.siue.edu/archive.html.
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If a book by the same name continues to flux over almost 100 years, is it the same book? According to Dr. Jessica DeSpain, assistant professor of English language and literature, it is and it isn’t.
A Mysterious and Familiar Past: History professor explores the role of popular histories, sentimentalism and gothic in our national self-understanding Ever since the release of Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot” (2000), the historian who teaches the American Revolution must contend with the sentimental nationalism so prominent in the film: a rag-tag collection of pure-hearted rebels test their mettle against the coiffed tyranny of British officers. However, a history class is supposed to raise troubling questions and present historical events as products of varied, often contradictory motives. History is often uncomfortable and always complicated. “Yet sometimes, I depend upon the tropes of popular history to ignite the passions and interest of an unfocused class,” said Jason Stacy, an assistant professor in the Department of Historical Studies. “Contrary to claims of cool professionalism, I often depend upon the convenient vigor of popular history.” In his new book project, A Mysterious and Familiar Past – Gothic and Sentimental Histories in the Early American Republic, Stacy seeks to study the origins of this ambivalent relationship between popular and professional history which he claims lies in the earliest American debate over the proper way to frame the nation’s history. According to Stacy, the American histories of the early
19th century emulated Roman and Greek precedents or produced didactic histories like Parson Weem’s wellknown Life of George Washington (1806). In Weems’ hands, the past served exhortatory ends by strengthening character and inculcating virtue in future citizens; truth was less a concern than the truthfulness of the lessons purveyed. But by the 1840s, said Stacy, authors of popular histories, influenced by the advent of mass-produced inexpensive books and inspired by the popularity of authors of historical fiction like Sir Walter Scott, transformed historical writing to suit popular tastes. Nevertheless, the earlier, exhortatory style of historical writing did not disappear; select American authors sought to realize history’s critical possibilities by incorporating popular democratic, sentimental, and patriotic themes into their stories of the past. These authors, not all self-proclaimed historians, used history as an analytical exercise that offered critical responses to the present while at the same time seeking popular audiences. For example, George Lippard (18221854), in histories like The Nazarene; or, The last of Washington (1846) and Legends of the Revolution (1847),
utilized Gothic imagery and appeals to the nation’s founding to critique social inequality in the 19th century. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), in Leaves of Grass (1855-1892) utilized sentimental historical anecdotes to demonstrate his theory that American democracy proved eternal and bound by transcendent empathy. George Bancroft (1800-1891), in his ten-volume History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent (1854-1878) projected the ideals of the Democratic Party onto the past to write histories that embedded contemporary political arguments into America’s origins. John William Draper (1811-1882), a chemist by training, incorporated popular conceptions of biological and chemical theory into his three-volume History of the American Civil War (1867-1870), and his History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874) to offer a unified theory of human history. Whether using Gothic, sentimental, political or scientific structures in their critical histories, these authors sought to elevate contemporary tastes into transcendent themes of the American past and, in doing so, turned popular contemporary historiographical styles into histories that could challenge assumptions about the present.
Jason Stacy, assistant professor of historical studies, stands near the on-campus gravesite of one of the region’s first settlers, William Bolen Whiteside. Whiteside settled in the area with his father as a young man in the late 18th century and began a farm of his own in the early 19th century on what is now the SIUE campus. Whiteside lived during the time period when the types of histories Stacy studies were becoming popular.
31 Arts & Humanities
According to Stacy, A Mysterious and Familiar Past will be the first book to argue that the origins of the modern antipathy between popular and professional history lies in the earliest debates over the proper way to remember the nation’s past. In this way, according to Stacy, “the project will be the first publication to trace the ambivalent relationship between professional and popular American history to the debates over the proper way to write history in the early American Republic.”
Center for STEM Research, Education and Outreach
Illinois Education Research Council
The SIUE Center for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Research, Education and Outreach (STEM Center) is building a community of researchers and educators committed to engaging students and the public in STEM. During the last year, the STEM Center has received funding from such sources as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
By 2010, approximately 21 percent of students tracked from their 2003 high school graduation date had transferred back from a four-year college to a two-year college. This trend, called “reverse transfer,” is just one common thread in a longitudinal study of the Illinois class of 2003 released by the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) at SIUE.
Funded through an NSF Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) grant, STEM Center researchers are studying how an interactive science content course for elementary education majors, originally taught at SIUE, might best translate to a community college setting. In partnership with Lewis and Clark Community College and Southwestern Illinois Community College, STEM researchers are studying the impact of mentoring, as well as the students’ science knowledge base, their self-efficacy in science teaching, and their attitudes toward science after completion of the course. Supported by the ISBE, the MASLI-3 summer workshops will increase rural K-12 teachers’ knowledge in engineering design and technology concepts. Teachers explore practical incorporation of the content into their classrooms while also developing networks to support science instruction. CosmoQuest, an online community encouraging the participation of citizen scientists in the discovery of knowledge in astronomy, is partially supported by NASA. One project includes MARIA (Moon’s Albedo, Regolith and Impact Assessment), a study of how users interact with Moon Mappers, an online learning environment designed to increase knowledge about the moon. Through programs like the Minds on Science Activities in the Community (MOSAIC), the STEM Center works with community partners, like the Leu Civic Center in Mascoutah, Ill., and the Bethalto Boys and Girls Club, to create activities promoting positive attitudes toward STEM and generating a sense of community in exploration. siue.edu/stem
Specializing in research that supports Illinois P-20 education policymaking and program development, the IERC conducts independent research and policy analysis, collaborating with outside researchers to strengthen and inform Illinois’ administrators. Their research outcomes are used to enhance the education system and its delivery to citizens. While the IERC has access to many databases regarding Illinois students, its most fruitful data source has perhaps been the IERC’s own longitudinal study of the high school class of 2003 and its educational progression. Recent findings regarding reverse transfer rates appeared in IERC’s study on how students who start at four-year colleges use the community college system. Findings revealed that not only was reverse transfer one of the major forms of student mobility, it was also used as a way for some students to persist in postsecondary education. Reverse transfer trends could be connected to the students’ financial aid and academic preparation, as well as distance between home and the four-year institution. Another area of the research occupying the IERC has included focus on the college-readiness patterns for the Illinois class of 2003 and how those patterns relate to postsecondary outcomes. The information included in the report could assist state policymakers as they develop definitions and measures of college readiness to better pinpoint where and when educational interventions need to be made. Among other projects, the IERC has evaluated the state of school leadership in Illinois, compiling a comprehensive analysis of the state’s principals, including information about their academic backgrounds, career paths, teachertalent management practices, and school administrators’ attrition and retention patterns. With these studies, the IERC may pass on significant information to Illinois administrators, teachers and program directors to use in their development of educational programs. View all IERC reports at ierc.siue.edu siue.edu/ierc
33 Research Centers
Institute for Urban Research The SIUE Institute for Urban Research (IUR) advances the understanding of urban issues through internal and external programming, publications and partnerships. Internally, the IUR funds faculty research that explores topics of importance to urban areas and neighborhoods. The IUR has facilitated projects that studied tax increment financing success, industrial pollution, highway traffic flow, property tax burdens, the effect of arts programs and regional migration, to name a few. Externally, the IUR works with regional leaders to address the needs of the public, private and nonprofit sectors. The IUR is able to deliver customized services to clients through a contractual relationship. These services include grant writing, facilitating economic development partnerships, program evaluation, strategic planning and client surveys, among other initiatives. The IUR is also an information source for the region. The IUR website hosts historical resources, calendars, event information and staff blogs. Annually, the IUR has published important scholarly works addressing issues of concern in the St. Louis region, including St. Louis Currents: The Bi-State Region after a Century of Planning (essays on the region; electronic 2009, print 2010), The Making of an All-America City (essays on East St. Louis, 2011), and An East St. Louis Anthology (historical essays on the city, 2012). The IUR hosts regular brown-bag discussions on urban issues on the SIUE campus. The IUR participates in several innovative partnerships. The IUR is a principal member of the Applied Research Collaborative (ARC). Through this consortium, the IUR partners with UMSL’s Public Policy Research Center and SLU’s Office for Community and Social Research to address significant research projects for clients. The IUR is also a member of the St. Louis Metropolitan Research Exchange (an association of research institutions in the region) and the University Collaborative (a team of university programs working in East St. Louis). The IUR is the local hub of the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) that originated at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, which remains a partner. siue.edu/graduate/iur
NCERC: Advancing Biofuels Research The NCERC at SIUE is a nationally-recognized research center dedicated to the development and commercialization of biofuels, specialty chemicals, and other renewable compounds. Established through federal and state initiatives, with support from the Illinois and National Corn Growers Associations, the Center promotes rural development and economic stimulus and is providing tomorrow’s workforce with the skills needed to meet the challenges of a changing energy environment. Designated as a Biorefining Center of Excellence, the Center assists in developing the technologies needed to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil and provide consumers with economically sound and environmentally responsible fuel options. Research initiatives in renewable energy at the Center are supported through grants, contracts and donor contributions. This year, staff researchers have conducted several innovative studies on distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS), the co-product from corn-to-ethanol production and a great animal feed ingredient. A study of amino acids in DDGS by Dr. Yan Zhang, assistant director of analytical research, indicates that production processing conditions can directly impact on the digestibility of amino acid of DDGS as swine feed. A study of fat quality in DDGS by Zhang suggests that the high level of antioxidant capacity in DDGS might help to prevent the rancidity of fat in DDGS. In evaluating the complicated relationship between fuel, feed and food, the research team is also exploring the nutritional value of eggs produced by layers fed with DGGS. Next to its high-tech research facility, the Center houses several innovative technologies, including its latest acquisition: the nearly $3.5 million in corn fractionation equipment supported through Cereal Process Technologies LLC (CPT) and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The new equipment will pave the way for the Center to conduct training and advanced ethanol research at the Center’s pilot scale ethanol facility. Representatives from the Illinois Corn Marketing Board and Illinois Corn Growers Association have predicted the new system would tremendously advance the Center’s research capabilities and expand the Center’s marketability for partnerships with private-sector companies in the biofuels industry. siue.edu/ethanolresearch
Environmental Resources Training Center The SIUE Environmental Resources Training Center (ERTC) recently completed the installation of a 120-foot wind turbine and 140 photovoltaic (solar) panels as part of an alternative energy project, funded by the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation (ICECF) and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. The turbine and solar panels are expected to generate as much as 40 percent of the electricity necessary each year to operate the Center’s training-scale wastewater and drinking water treatment plants, laboratories and research offices. ERTC Director Paul Shetley said Center staff members were eager to implement resource conservation techniques that employed the use of wind and sunlight. In addition to conserving energy, students will learn firsthand how the new, greener, energy sources power the building as well as accomplish research that is conducted at the ERTC. Designated by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency as one of the state’s centers for continuing education, the ERTC is available for personnel involved in the operation, maintenance and management of drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. The Center opened its doors in 1977 and recently began offering the Water Quality Control Operators program, which opens greater training opportunities to individuals in the industry. In the current economy, numerous employment opportunities are available for those who complete ERTC programs. The American Water Works Association reports that nearly 50 percent of today’s drinking water and wastewater plant operators will retire within the next 5-10 years, leaving many open positions. Graduates are eligible to take Illinois and Missouri certification exams to become certified as public drinking water supply operators and wastewater treatment operators. Those who complete ERTC courses are awarded continuing education units (CEUs) by the University and receive education credits that apply toward official certification as drinking water or wastewater treatment system operators, or in cross connection control under requirements administered by the IEPA. siue.edu/ertc
Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy American Association of Teachers of German Amsted Rail Anderson Hospital Anheuser-Busch, Inc. Basler Electric Company Boxcar Productions / Mannie L. Jackson Brown Shoe Company, Inc. Cassens Chicago Herpetological Society Chicago State University (NSF) Children First Foundation Christian Wolf, Inc. Citan Enterprises, LLC City of Alton City of Collinsville City of O’Fallon Commerce Bank Community Development Block Grant Community Link Covidien Department of Health & Human Services Department of Natural Resources, Office of Mines & Minerals DMR Kenetic East St. Louis School District #189 East-West Gateway Council of Governments Electri International ESD China Limited Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. Forward Research, Inc Freiezo Wind Energy Solutions Fulbright German Studies Seminar Furniture Brands International Grill Sponge, LLC Health Resources & Services Administration Hydrodynamics Technologies Illinois Arts Council Illinois Attorney General’s Office Illinois Board of Higher Education Illinois Community College Board Illinois Corn Marketing Board Illinois Department of Children & Family Services Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Affairs Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Development Illinois Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity Illinois Department of Human Services Illinois Department of Natural Resources Illinois Department of Public Health Illinois Department of Transportation Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Illinois River Energy Subcontract/ Illinois Corn Marketing Board Illinois Space Grant Consortium Illinois State Board of Education Illinois State Board of Education: Mathematics & Science Partnership Ipsos Forward Research, Inc. Izzo Golf
Lewis & Clark Community College Library Company of Philadelphia Long Island Veterinary Specialists Madison County Employment and Training Department Madison County Government Madison County Government-Community Development Department Madison County Planning & Development Madison Student Support Center Mallinckrodt, Inc. Maritz Research Metastable Instruments, Inc. Metro East Park & Recreation District National Science Foundation National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Endowment for the Humanities National Great Rivers Research and Education Center National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Health-Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Nurturenergy Inc. Omicron Psi Chapter Peerless-Premier Appliance Company PHP, LLC Povaddo, LLC Primate Conservation International Ralcorp Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation Southwest Research Institute Space Telescope Science Institute SSM Depaul Health Center St. Clair County Health Department St. Clair Housing Authority St. Clair Regional Office of Education Stoecker and Associates Streamline Automation, LLC Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Agency The Flipple Company The University of Virginia - Harrison Institute for American History Thikket, LLC Tri City Regional Port District Triumph Fabrications - St. Louis U.S. Department of Commerce / Economic Development Administration U.S. Department of Education U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Unit Rail University of Florida University of Georgia University of Oklahoma (NSF) USDA - Agriculture Research Service Verenium Corporation Washington University in St. Louis Win-Reed Medical Technologies, LLC Wisconsin Campus Compact Wolters Kluwer Health Wuhan University Open Fund
35 Support
Supporting Agencies of Research and Projects in Fiscal Year 2011
A Highlight of the 2011 SIUE Internal Grant Award Winners 2011 Annette and Henry Baich Award
2011 Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigators
The Annette and Henry Baich Award is given annually to the most outstanding S.T.E.P. grant proposal for basic research conducted within the parameters of the Sigma Xi Society.
The Vaughnie Lindsay New Investigator Awards recognize junior faculty members whose research or creative activities have the promise of making significant contributions to their fields of study and to SIUE in general.
Winner: Dr. Andrew Neath, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, College of Arts and Sciences Project: “Statistical Model Selection and the theory of Social Choice.” The project seeks to create a method for determining models that can accurately describe experimental data, or more specifically, “describe the underlying truth behind an experimental result.”
2011 Hoppe Research Professor The Hoppe Research Professor Awards are two-year research grants recognizing faculty members whose research or creative activities have the promise of making significant contributions to their disciplines. Winner: Dr. Andrew Neath, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, College of Arts and Sciences Project: “Statistical Model Selection and Decision Making in the Presence of Uncertainty.” Funding from the Hoppe award allows Dr. Neath to expand the scope of his study that was made through the S.T.E.P. and the Annette and Henry Baich Award. Decision making on the basis of observed data is at the forefront of science. Dr. Neath argues that it is vital for statisticians to continually assess the procedures put forth to the scientific community at large. The ultimate goal of Dr. Neath’s research program is provide a more coherent approach for practitioners to use in solving statistical decision problems.
Winner: Dr. Kristine Hildebrandt, English Language and Literature, College of Arts and Sciences Project: “Phonation Types and Laryngeal Classes in the Indic Languages.” The project uses phonetic analysis to test phonetic theories as they are applied to various languages of the Indian subcontinent. At root, the project considers how the knowledge that people have about the pronunciation of speech sounds is represented in the mind and at what levels speakers are able to differentiate meaningful sound variation. Winner: Dr. Jason (Jake) Williams, Biological Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences Project: “The effect of exercise induced oxidative stress on muscle mass, ROS production, oxidative capacity.” This project proposes an innovative strategy to study how oxidative stress and intensive exercise can be tied to muscle damage and aging. Using honey bees as a model organism, Dr. Williams explores the link between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other potential negative effects of oxidative stress over the course of an animal’s lifespan.
Photo by Salvatore Cincotta
2011 Distinguished Research Professor
2011 Paul Simon Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award
The Distinguished Research Professor rank recognizes faculty members who have made an outstanding contribution to research as a result of their continued commitment to scholarship beyond the period of their promotion to Professor.
Dr. Allison Funk, the 2011 Distinguished Research Professor of English Language and Literature, was promoted to Professor at SIUE in 2001, and has since produced poetry earning her an honored place among Midwestern and American female poets. Funk has been the recipient of prestigious awards, including writing residencies at the Dora Maar house in France, the Hawthornden International Writers Retreat near Edinburgh, Scotland, and at the Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY. She has also received fellowships from the Ragdale Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The 2011 Distinguished Research Professor Award is given to Dr. Edward Sewell from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics for his contributions to the field of operations research, particularly in the area of combinatorial optimization. As Sewell explains it, “the primary goal of operations research is to use existing resources and technologies more efficiently, and its primary tool is mathematics…A combinatorial optimization problem is one in which one selects the best solution from a finite number of possible solutions.” Sewell’s expertise has been applied to areas like pediatric vaccine economics, the maximum stable set problem, and production planning.
The Paul Simon Outstanding Teacher-Scholar award is presented to an SIUE faculty member to recognize the role of the interdependence of research/scholarship and teaching. The Award confirms SIUE’s belief that an individual must be a good scholar to be a good teacher. Winner: Dr. Michael Shaw, Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences During his tenure at SIUE, Dr. Shaw has created an extraordinary record of accomplishment in teaching, research, and scholarship. During his 17 years at SIUE, Shaw has actively contributed to modern chemistry, particularly in spectroeletrochemistry. He has received several NSF grants in support of his research. Shaw’s dedication to his students is evident in his many published works.
Help Support SIUE Research and Creative Activities These awards are supported annually through the SIUE Graduate School Research & Development Fund and through the generosity of SIUE donors, alumni, emeriti and friends. You may also help support the research conducted by SIUE faculty by choosing to designate a gift to the SIUE Graduate School. An envelope has been provided in this publication for friends of SIUE research to designate gifts, or if you choose, you may visit siue.edu/definingexcellence to support an SIUE research program today.
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