NEWS January 3,
2001
"News from the College of Life Sciences at the University
of Maryland, College Park"
NEWS ITEMS
1. The Dean's Message
2. Upcoming Events
3. Faculty Recognition
4. In the News
5. New
Faculty and Staff
6. Community Service
- Become a Speaker
7. Alumni and Student Notes
8. Funding Alerts
9. How to Post
Your News Here
FROM THE DEAN
Happy New Year! I hope that your holiday was enjoyable and restful.
I'm pleased to announce that Eden Garosi has joined the College
staff January 3 as Assistant to the Dean, replacing Wendy Loughlin,
as our undergraduate recruitment and admissions officer. Eden is a
University of Maryland, College Park alum and worked in the University
Admissions office as an undergraduate. She earned a Master's degree
at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Student Affairs in Higher
Education and comes to us from the Elliott School of International
Affairs at George Washington University.
As many of you know, a major College cleanup is scheduled for the
week of January 15. We are working with Jack Baker, the Director of
Operations and Maintenance, to have procedures in place for removing
all waste paper, equipment, furniture and chemicals from our buildings
during that week. All equipment being discarded must be removed from
inventory by departmental staff, and the office of Facilities Management
will be available to assist in the removal of hazardous materials.
Prizes (file cabinets, an office paint job, floor waxing, etc.) will
be awarded to the "most improved" lab in each building. The judges
will be the College Advisory Council.
We will also be launching a review of our undergraduate academic
and advising programs in January. This will be a substantial undertaking
which I expect to continue throughout the spring. As first steps,
I will be appointing a faculty committee and soliciting input from
departments, the Students Affairs staff and students. Please send
me your comments and suggestions.
At the graduate level, I have asked the Directors of the Graduate
Programs to form a Graduate Council which will work to strengthen
and coordinate our graduate programs. The College will be mailing
out several thousand copies of a flyer advertising our graduate programs
and the Graduate Council is planning College-wide recruiting days
(or weekends) during February.
The PCC has approved the proposal for offering the last two year's
of the General Biology major at the Shady Grove Center, and we expect
this program to be in place for the fall semester of 2001. Thanks
to everyone for their support and Bill Higgins for his hard work in
putting it together!
We have begun to work with Public Relations to redesign the College
web site. The prototype has a lot of potential and should be available
for viewing soon. Please send Gene Ferrick suggestions about new information
that should be included, or changes that should be made in the existing
site.
The New Year promises to be busy but rewarding. I look forward to
continuing to work with all of you to build the Life Sciences at College
Park.
Norma Allewell
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UPCOMING EVENTS
January 3-23 - Winterterm classes are in session.
January 15 - The campus is closed for the Martin Luther King Jr.
Holiday.
January 16-19 - College Clean Up Week! During this week, dumpsters
will be available for all your discarded paper, equipment and furniture.
Prizes will be awarded for the best office/lab transformation. Check
with your Chair's Office for details.
January 29 - Classes begin for Spring 2001.
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FACULTY RECOGNITION
Bob Denno, Entomology, and Andrea Huberty, Animal & Avian
Sciences, AGNR, are two of the co-authors on a paper in the November
30, 2000, issue of Nature: Elser et al. 2000. "Nutritional constraints
in terrestrial and freshwater food webs." Nature 408:578-580.
George Helz, Chemistry & Biochemistry, and Sara Via,
Biology and Entomology, were named University Distinguished Scholar-Teachers
this week. Join us in congratulating both of them. This is a wonderful
way to begin the New Year!
Lawrence Sita, Chemistry & Biochemistry, received a NSF
three-year grant for $386,900. The grant is titled "Mechanistic
Investigation of Amidinate-Based Catalysts."
Raymond St. Leger, Entomology, received a 3-year USDA grant
for $189,000 to study "Genes Related to Pathogenosis in a Fungal
Entomopathogen."
The Office of Research and Graduate Studies hosted the the Rainmakers
II Luncheon on December 1, 2000, to recognize the top award achievers
for the year. The faculty from Life Sciences included Sue Carter-Porges,
Phil DeShong, Catherine Fenselau, Bill Higgins, Bill Jeffery, Paul
Mazzocchi, John Ondov and Sergei Sukharev.
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IN the NEWS
The work of Gerald Borgia and Gail Pettricelli, both
in Biology, was noted in the Science News cover story of December
2, 2000. The article was titled "Will Mr. Bowerbird Fall for
a Robot?" Science News; Vol. 158, No. 23.
The Washington Post, December 4, 2000, featured the exploits
of our recent Biology Ph.D. graduate Dave Powell, who is now
a postdoc at the Smithsonian National Zoo. Dave is part of the Giant
Panda research team, which is now researching the two pandas brought
back to Washington DC. The team also includes Dr. Devra Kleiman, Adjunct
Professor of Biology. The article can be viewed at: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19847-2000Dec3.html
More about the project and the team is available on zoo's web site:
http://natzoo.si.edu/zooview/exhibits/panda/index.htm
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NEW FACULTY and STAFF
Eden Garosi has joined the College staff as Assistant to the
Dean for undergraduate recruitment and admissions. Eden is a University
of Maryland, College Park alum and worked in the University Admissions
Office as an undergraduate. She earned a Master's degree at the Indiana
University of Pennsylvania in Student Affairs in Higher Education
and comes to us from the Elliott School of International Affairs at
George Washington University.
Elizabeth Quinlan will begin as an Assistant Professor this
January in the Department of Biology. Dr. Quinlan's research is in
the development of the vertebrate visual system, cellular and molecular
basis of learning and memory. Since 1996, Dr. Quinlan has been a Postdoc
Research Associate in the Department of Neuroscience at Brown University.
Prior to that she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Neursocience
at the University of Virginia. She received her Ph.D. from the University
of Illinois at Chicago in 1993.
Patricia Shields will be joining the CBMG faculty in January
as a lecturer. Dr. Shields received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from
the University of Florida and did a Post Doc at the University of
North Carolina Chapel Hill in Environmental Virology. She was a Staff
Fellow at the FDA, a Senior Scientist at Lofstrand Labs and taught
for a couple of years at George Mason University. Dr. Shields research
interests are in virology, with special emphasis on survival and infectious
potentials of Hepatitis A virus variants.
Farzad Sanami is the new Computer Manager for
Biology. Farzad comes to our College from the University Health Center.
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COMMUNITY SERVICE - BECOME a SPEAKER
MDBio is a not-for-profit private corporation founded by the
Maryland legislature to aid in the development of biotechnology. They
have a budget of about $1.5M/year which they derive from the BioCenter,
a GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) facility in Baltimore. They use
these dollars to fund the development of manufacturing capabilities,
work force development and communications. They also run symposia
which have the potential to benefit the development of biotechnology.
One of the activities they are developing is a listing of potential
speakers for schools, colleges, universities and industries. Participation
by the College of Life Sciences in this program will help us in many
ways--in recruiting, fund raising, making connections, etc. UMBC is
also using it as an opportunity to give graduate students practice
in public speaking. Equally important, it is a valuable community
service. You are encouraged to sign up on their web site (www.mdbio.org).
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ALUMNI and STUDENT Notes
University of Maryland Business Plan Competition
- Spring Semester!!
$50,000 in Prize Money Available!
The first University of Maryland Business Plan Competition will be
held Spring Semester, 2001. Sponsored by Toucan Capital Corporation,
a very early stage venture capital firm, and open to all students
- undergraduate and graduate - as well as recent alumni - this competition
will offer up to $50,000 in total prizes this Spring. Toucan Capital
has committed sponsorship for two competitions per year making the
University of Maryland Business Plan Competition the first $100,000
annual commitment for a university business plan competition in the
country.
Who is Eligible -
Current UMCP Students
New UMCP Alumni (Graduates may compete if they graduated fewer than
5 years before their application.)
UMCP Faculty may also play a role on teams.
Teams must have at least one current student or qualifying alumni
and that person must contribute materially to the effort.
When - The date is still to be determined but will likely be sometime
in March.
Questions can be directed to -
Karen Thornton
Associate Director
Hinman CEOs Program
0105 Garrett Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
karent@eng.umd.edu
(301) 405-3677
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Helping Graduates Get Positions
-
Are you contacted by employers looking for new or soon-to-be graduates?
If the answer is yes and you want to get an announcement to the students,
then drop a note to Gene Ferrick at gferrick@deans.umd.edu. You or
a potential employer can get an announcement posted on our student's
electronic listserve, Lifelink. A number of employers have found this
to be a great way to get qualified fresh graduates for entry level
positions. For example, BBI BioSeq, Inc. in Gaithersburg hired Andrew
Steven as a research associate. Andrew recently received his B.S.
in Biochemistry.
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FUNDING ALERTS
The Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN)
plans to fund three to five new proposals in 2001. Proposals should
meet the following requirements:
1. The area of investigation must be related to food safety, food
constituents, applied nutrition, animal health sciences, risk analysis,
or microbial pathogens and toxins.
2. In addition to a principal investigator from the University of
Maryland, one or more collaborators from the FDA must be included.
3. Each proposal may have only one Principal Investigator (PI). All
others (FDA and University of Maryland) will be listed as Collaborators.
4. No individual may submit a proposal while serving as the PI on
a JIFSAN-funded grant that will be in effect the year covered by the
proposals, i.e. and individual may submit a proposal as a PI only
when the JIFSAN-funded grant on which they are PI will expire before
funding is initiated for the proposals selected.
5. The proposal may request funding for up to three years. Successful
proposals will be funded for one year with subsequent funding depending
on adequate progress reflected in an annual progress report, a continuation
proposal, and availability of funding.
Successful proposals will be funded for a graduate student ($20,000)
plus operational support ($10,000) or for a postdoctoral research
associate ($30,000) plus operational support ($10,000).
Pre-proposals are due no later than February 1, 2001 and should be
submitted to David R. Lineback, Director, JIFSAN, 0220 Symons Hall,
(dl156@umail.umd.edu). Forms for the pre-proposal and proposal
and other details can be found at http://www.jifsan.umd.edu/Callprol2001.htm.
List of funding alerts
Click above to see a list of funding alerts that may be relevant
to the Life Sciences.
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How to Post your NEWS!
If you would like to share your accomplishments or other news, please
send a note to Gene Ferrick at gferrick@deans.umd.edu. Future
issues will initially be at the beginning of each month.
Maintained by Gene Ferrick -
gferrick@deans.umd.edu.
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