Tuesday, April 1, 2008 * Volume 25, Number 12
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Jen Dietrich, assistant professor and Alison Aune, associate professor, Department of Art and Design, will participate in the upcoming 32nd InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) World Congress Mind+Media+Heritage in Osaka, Japan, August 5-9, 2008. They will participate in a round table presentation and exhibition on the “Personal Cultural and Environmental Interests in Youth Art Works” based on research with art teacher Aryn Bergsven, UMD art education alum Robb Quisling, and art education and graphic design major Sarah Mennes concerning personal, cultural, and environmental interests in youth art works at Harbor City International School in Duluth. Dalibor Froncek, professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, developed a method for scheduling police officer shifts for the Superior Police Department. David McCarthy, professor in the Department of Education recently made two presentations regarding educational technology at the National Association of Teacher Educator’s (ATE) National Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Furthermore, he presented two additional pre-conference presentations with a focus on What’s New in Educational Technology. David serves on the ATE National Commission on Technology and the Future of Teacher Education and also serves as the ATE development specialist in technology. Tom Wegren, professor, Department of Music, has just released his CD Northern Class. It features live piano performances of Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert, Scott Joplin, Manuel De Falla, Louis Gottschalk and others. The CD is available at the UMD Bookstore. UMD’s Natural Resources Research Institute, along with the Minnesota Sea Grant program, are partnering with the City of Duluth on the “Duluth Residential Stormwater Reduction Demonstration Project for Lake Superior Tributaries.” NRRI’s Valerie Brady, research associate, is facilitating coordination of the $167,400 grant from MPCA/USEPA to the project partners, who also include South St. Louis Soil and Water Conservation District, and the Minnesota Conservation Corps. The project is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of technologies such as rain gardens, rain barrels, and cisterns to reduce stormwater runoff in residential areas. Steve Bortone, director, had three papers published: “Coupling Fisheries with Ecology through Marine Artificial Reef Deployments,” in American Fisheries Society Symposium, 49:917-924. “Comparison of Visual Survey and Seining Methods for Estimating Abundance of an Endangered, Benthic Stream Fish,” with Frank Jordan, Howard Jelks, and Robert Dorazio in Environmental Biology of Fishes journal, 81:313-319. “Insight into the Status and Trends of Tarpon in Southwest Florida through Historical Data Recorded on Scales,” as a chapter in Biology and Management of World Tarpon and Bonefish Fisheries, pp. 69-77. Jeff Gunderson, associate director, presented, “Combined Outdoor and Indoor Aquaculture System for a Northern Baitfish -- Nocomis biguttatus,” at Aquaculture America 2008 in Orlando, Fl., in February. Cindy Hagley, water quality extension educator; Jesse Schomberg, coastal communities educator; and Sue O’Halloran, University of Wisconsin-Superior, received a $26,700 grant from Minnesota’s Lake Superior Coastal Program for “View From the Lake: Expanded Outreach Through K12 Curricula, the Web, and Sustainability Programming.” Douglas Jensen, aquatic invasive species program coordinator, co-facilitated a breakout session, “Spread by Recreational Activities,” at the Predicting Invasive Potential of Exotic Species, IGERT-MN Futures Symposium at the U of M-Twin Cities in March. Jensen gave an invited presentation, “Successful Education Efforts to Meet the Aquatic Invasive Species Challenge,” at Michigan’s Call to Action on Aquatic Invasive Species workshop, hosted by Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in East Lansing, Mich., in March. Barbara Liukkonen, water resources extension educator, organized and hosted three workshops about harmful algal blooms in Minnesota lakes. The workshops were held in Sauk Centre, Mankato, and St. Paul, Minn., in March and were sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Center of Excellence for Great Lakes and Human Health, and Minnesota Sea Grant. MEDICAL SCHOOL-DULUTH NEWS Lester R. Drewes, Ph.D. co-organized the scientific program for the 14th Annual Blood-Brain Barrier Consortium sponsored by the Oregon Health & Science University Blood-Brain Barrier and Neuro-Oncology program and authorized by the International Brain Barriers Society (IBBS). Drewes also moderated the workshop entitled “How to advance translational blood-brain barrier research.” Joseph R. Prohaska, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, published “CCS and SOD1 mRNA are reduced after copper supplementation in peripheral mononuclear cells of individuals with high serum ceruloplasmin concentration” in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, which was a collaborative effort with colleagues from the University of Santiago, Chile (Suazo, M., Olivares, F., Mendez, M.A., Pulgar, R., Prohaska, J.R., Arrendondo, M., Pizarro, F., Olivares, M., Araya, M., and González, M. (2008) 19, 269-274). Clay Carter, Ph.D., adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and assistant professor in the Department of Biology, published “Tobacco nectaries express a novel NADPH oxidase that is implicated in the defense of floral reproductive tissues against microorganisms” in Plant Physiology (Carter, C., Healy, R., O-Tool, N.M., Naqvi, S.M., Ren, G., Park, S., Beattie, G.A., Horner, H.T., Thornburg, R.W. (2007) 143: 389-399). See the next issue of Currents Faculty/Staff News --- This issue Subscribe for an E-mail notice of each Currents issue: instructions To submit material to CURRENTS, email currents@d.umn.edu The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
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