NEWS
September 2002
"News
from the College of Life Sciences
at the University of Maryland, College
Park"
NEWS ITEMS
- The
Dean's Message
- Upcoming
Events
- Faculty
- New Grants
- Faculty - Publications, Honors
and In the News
- Alumni, Student and Staff News
- New Peer Mentor Web Page Is Launched
- Winston Churchill Scholarship
- Funding
Alerts
- How
to Post Your News Here
FROM
THE DEAN
This week we begin another academic year that is guaranteed to be filled with both challenges and opportunities. Our biggest challenge for the next couple of years is likely to be continuing our growth and development within a shrinking state budget. As many of you are aware, the state is widely reported to be facing a shortfall of at least one billion dollars. The implications of this for the university are not yet fully known; however, we should certainly expect significant reductions in the University and College state budget. However, we have had double digit increases in our state budget for the past several years and reductions in state funding will be buffered by substantial increases in external funding for research and annual giving. External funding for research increased by 14% in FY02 and annual giving to the College last year exceeded $5M. In addition, the new $23M Chemistry and Biochemistry teaching wing will be complete next fall and the state has provided the funds to plan our new $62M Bioscience building. A new $1.8M grant from HHMI will enable us to make major improvements in our undergraduate programs. Our outstanding undergraduates deserve nothing less. This year we are welcoming our best freshman class ever in the College--334 students with an average GPA of 3.94. Our graduate programs also continue to grow in size and strength. We welcome 144 new graduate students this year, an increase of more than 10% as compared to Fall 2001; average GRE scores for this year's entering class were all above 1934.
The
University's annual Bioscience Day
will be held on November 19 in the
Stamp Student Union. This year's
program will feature a keynote address
by Dr. Mark Adams, Vice President
of Bioinformatics at Celera Genomics
and four faculty-organized mini-symposia,
on Biodiversity, Scientific Contributions
to Homeland Security, Molecular
Aspects of Disease Pathogenesis,
and From Engineering to Action:
Neural Prostheses for Movement.
Organizers are Sara Via, Catherine
Fenselau, David Mosser, and Cindy
Moss and Avis Cohen. There will
also be Employment Networking, open
to all, and a poster session, with
prizes for the best graduate student
posters. Please keep this day open,
and think about ways to make use
of it in your courses. For more
information, go to http://www.bioscienceday.umd.edu.
With a generous gift of $50,000, Drs. Wayne T. and Mary T. Hockmeyer have established an annual merit based fellowship for one or more graduate students in the College. Wayne Hockmeyer is a member of the College's Board of Visitors and serves as the Chairman of MedImmune, Inc. a biotechnology company based in Gaithersburg, MD. Mary Hockmeyer holds a PhD in Education from the University of Maryland.
The
Maryland High Tech Council is sponsoring
its annual BioForum in Greenbelt,
MD on October 22. This is a major
regional event, widely attended
by venture capitalists and state
legislative, corporate and academic
leaders. I strongly encourage everyone
with research programs that have
technology transfer potential to
attend. You can register at www.mdhitech.org.
Congratulations to Cathy Beard, who has been appointed Director, Administrative Services for Biology. Cathy will be spearheading the transfer of grants accounting from the College office to the department and will be taking on the oversight of all departmental administrative functions. Good luck, Cathy!
Over the summer, many members of the College have been recognized nationally and internationally. Congratulations to Beth Gantt who won the Stephen Hales Prize from the the American Society of Plant Biologists and to Anne Simon who was the Richard Francki Lecturer at the International Virology Congress. Daphne Soare's work on pressure receptors in alligators and Sarah Tishkoff's work on human heredity continues to receive a great deal of attention, while Margaret Palmer's work on habitat restoration was featured in The Economist. Janice Reutt-Robey and colleagues' paper on "Autocatalytic Oxidation of Lead Crystallite Surfaces," was accepted as a report in Science, while Sergei Suhkarev and colleagues had a paper published in Nature Structural Biology this month.
Congratulations to Roger Davenport in Biology who has just received his first major NIH grant, to David Poeppel and Anne Simon, who have large new NIH grants, to Heven Sze for her large grant from the NSF genomics program and to all of the faculty members listed below who also have new sources of external funding for their research.
Congratulations also to Reid Compton, who won the first Provost's Faculty Advisor Award. Well done, Reid!
Beginning
this fall we will be required to
comply with new INS reporting requirements.
The new Student/Exchange Visitor
Information System (SEVIS) requires
that detailed and absolutely current
information be maintained and reported
by the University for F-1 and J-1
students and scholars. Every semester
these students/scholars must verify
this information through a web page
that will be available on Testudo
(www.testudo.umd.edu)
in October. If any information changes,
it must be updated immediately.
Students, exchange visitors and
faculty who are not American citizens
or resident aliens and who plan
to leave the country for any reason
must inform the International Education
Services office well in advance
to ensure that the necessary paperwork
is in the right hands--either the
traveler or the appropriate consulate.
Please consult the University's
International Education Services
web page at www.umd.edu/ies/sevis for
further information.
My very best wishes for the coming semester!
Norma
Allewell
Dean
UPCOMING
EVENTS
Schedule
of Classes
September 16: Last Day of Schedule
Adjustment for Fall
November 12: Last Day to Drop with
a W
Events
September 11: Memorial Events on the Mall 8:30-11:00am
September 25-26: First Look Fair, McKeldin Mall 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
September 27: Undergraduate Admissions Visit Maryland Day
September 27-29: Family Weekend
October 8: Faculty and Staff Convocation, 3:00-5:00pm, Main Chapel
October
8-9: Board of Visitors Dinner and
Meeting
October 14: Undergraduate Admissions Visit Maryland Day
October 21-23: Chemistry & Biochemistry External Review Committee Visit
October 22: Bioforum in Greenbelt (www.mdhitech.org)
November 5: Proteome Society Meeting - (See information below)
November 7-9: Entomology External Review Committee Visit
November 8-10: Homecoming Weekend
November 11: Undergraduate Admissions Visit Maryland Day
November
19: Bioscience Research and Technology
Review Day
November
21-23: Diversity Partners Visit
December 21: Life Sciences Commencement (in the evening, time TBA)
December 22: Campus Commencement
* November 5: Proteome Society Meeting - "Proteomics: New Techniques and Novel Technology." The deadline to submit abstracts is September 30th. Up to four oral presentations and six posters will be selected. Information can be found at http://www.proteome.org/3Events/f_events.htm. The Society will be meeting on campus in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry in October. Details will be sent as they become available.
April
12, 2003: Alumni Association Gala
Awards (nominations are due September
27, 2002)
May
2003: The College will be helping
to host the American Society for Microbiology
- Education Section national meeting
in May 2003. This will be the 10th
anniversary meeting, linked to the
ASM National Meeting to be held in
Washington, DC. We anticipate that
several high-profile speakers will
be part of the 10th Anniversary program.
Watch for more details about the meeting
in the coming months.
FACULTY - NEW GRANTS
An
award of $46,000 given to Dr. Herman
Ammon, Chemistry & Biochemistry,
from the University of Oklahoma for
the project "Accurate Theoretical
Predictions of the Properties of Energetic
Materials" is just the first 6 months
of a 5-year MURI (Multidisciplinary
University Research Initiative) grant
that involves 9 chemists and physicists
from 7 universities around the country.
For
the project "Effect of Neisserial
Porin in Immune Cell Apoptosis" Dr.
Marco Colombini, Biology, was
awarded $46,000 from the Boston University
School of Medicine.
Dr.
Roger Davenport, Biology, was
awarded a 4-year NIH grant in excess
of $800,000 to study "Signals In Collapse
Induced Branching And Defasciculation."
An
NSF grant for $218,000 to study "Reproductive
Skew in Cooperative Breeding Primates"
over 3 years was awarded to Dr.
Jim Dietz, Biology.
Dr.
Doug English, Chemistry & Biochemistry,
received a 3-year NIST award for $94,000
to study "Isolation and Immobilization
Strategies Applied to Single Molecule
Spectroscopy: A Programmed Approach."
Dr.
David Hawthorne, Entomology, will
research "QTL Mapping and Population
Structure of Insecticide" with a $200,000
grant from the USDA for 2-years.
Dr.
Steve Hutcheson, CBMG, was awarded
a 3-year NSF grant for $330,000 to
study Regulation of type III protein
secretion in Pseudomonas syringae.
Drs.
Charles Mitter and Jerry Regier,
and Mr. Andre Mignault, all
of Entomology, and colleagues in London
and San Antonio have received a 3-year,
$270,000 grant from NSF entitled "Phylogenetics
of Life History and Development in
Bombycoid Moths."
Dr.
John Ondov, Chemistry & Biochemistry,
received two grants this month. With
a grant from DOE he will receive $40,000
as "Support for NETL (National Energy
Technology Laboratory) Source Attributions
Efforts." A grant from NIST for $73,000
will fund his research project "Preparation
of Standards and Development of Methodologies
for National Surveillance Against
Terrorist Attacks with Fission-products
Radionuclides."
Dr.
Margaret Palmer, Biology, will
research Jointly Changing Climate
and Land Use in the MidAtlantic under
a cooperative agreement through the
EPA. Her portion is $176,000. The
other investigators are Dr. Glenn
Moglen, Civil & Environmental Engineering,
and Dr. Nancy Bockstael, Agriculture
& Resource Economics.
A
$1 Million, 5-year NIH grant has been
awarded to Dr. Anne Simon,
CBMG. The grant will support her project,
"Mechanisms of Virus Replication and
Gene Expression."
Dr.
Heven Sze, CBMG, received a 4-year
NSF grant of over $1 Million for her
project "Discovering Transporters
for Essential Minerals."
Dr.
Devarajan Thirumalai, Chemistry
& Biochemistry, was awarded a 3-year
NSF grant for $411,000 to research
Topics in Protein Folding and Protein
Dynamics.
Dr. Sara Via, Biology & Entomology, and Dr. David Hawthorne, Entomology, received a $106,000 NSF grant for the Geographical Mosaic of Specialization.
FACULTY - PUBLICATIONS, HONORS AND IN THE NEWS
A
team from the Department of Cell Biology
and Molecular Genetics has been awarded
a 2002-2003 Instructional Improvement
Grant from the Office of Undergraduate
Studies/Center for Teaching Excellence.
Team members Drs. Spencer Benson,
Paul Bottino, Chuck Delwiche, Jocelyn
DeRuggerio, Steve Mount and
Ann Smith will work to develop
a Center for Teaching and Learning
in Bioinformatics.
Dr.
Spencer Benson, CBMG, and a team
from UM were funded to participate
in a faculty/course development workshop
entitled "SENCER - Science Education
for New Civic Engagement and Responsibility"
in Santa Clara, CA. The team included
Dr. Sue Gdovin (Center for Teaching
Excellence), Dr. Robert Infantino
(LFSC) and Deborah Roberts, a
4th grade teacher and doctoral student
in the College of Education. The team
will work to modify aspects of the
course "Microbes and Society" around
SENCER philosophies, and work with
the College of Education to encourage
pre-service elementary school teachers
to enroll in this course and utilize
its approaches in their own teaching
and subsequent curriculum development
course work.
We
are extremely pleased to report that
Dr. Reid Compton, Biology,
has won the first annual Provost's
Faculty Advisor of the Year Award.
Congratulations to Reid for this significant
honor! Dr. Kaci Thompson, Director
of Undergraduate Research & Internship
Programs, was a finalist for the Professional
Academic Advisor Award.
Dr.
Michele Dudash, Biology, was elected
treasurer of the American Society
of Naturalists for a 3 year term.
Michele also co-chaired day long symposium
on the "Evolution of mating systems
in the genus, Mimulus" in honor of
the contributions made by Dr. Robert
Vickery Jr. (University of Utah) at
the Botanical of Society of America
annual meetings held in Madison, Wisconsin
last month.
Dr.
Catherine Fenselau, Chemistry
& Biochemistry, is among those interviewed
at a meeting of the American Chemical
Society concerning noninvasive systems
to determine blood sugar levels for
diabetics. United Press International,
August 18 http://www.inform.umd.edu/CampusInfo/Departments/InstAdv/newsdesk/Clips/2002/0819.html
We
are delighted to report that Dr.
Elisabeth Gantt, CBMG, was selected
by the American Society of Plant Biologists
to receive the Stephen Hales Prize
in 2002. The award is made biennially
to an individual who has served the
science of plant biology in noteworthy
ways. Beth was presented the award
last month in Denver. Dr. Albert
Ades said, "We are very lucky
to have her as a colleague."
Dr.
Jeffrey Jensen, Biology, has been
named a 2002-2003 Lilly-Center for
Teaching Excellence Teaching Fellow.
Dr.
Arthur Popper, Biology, was the
invited keynote speaker at the international
Ecological and Evolutionary Ethology
of Fishes meeting in Quebec City,
Quebec on August 16. His topic was
"Listening in the Dark."
The
Ohio State University Extension and
the Ohio Agricultural Research and
Development Center were privileged
"to have two of worldwide experts
on" beneficial insects, Drs. Mike
Raupp and Paula Shrewsbury,
Entomology, on hand for a plant care
workshop. Akron Beacon Journal, August
10 http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/living/3836589.htm
Reported
in The Economist on August 8, Dr.
Margaret Palmer, Biology, ran
a symposium on the subject of restoring
damaged habitats at a recent meeting
of the Ecological Society of America
and the Society for Ecological Restoration,
in Tucson, Arizona. According to Dr
Palmer, successful habitat restoration
requires an understanding of theories
about population biology, competition
between species, biodiversity and
the stability and variation of ecosystems.
http://www.economist.com/science/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1270447
Dr.
Janice Reutt-Robey, Chemistry
& Biochemistry, with Dr. Ellen Williams,
Physics, and Dr. Konrad Thuermer had
a paper, "Autocatalytic Oxidation
of Lead Crystallite Surfaces," accepted
as a report in Science.
Congratulations
to Dr. Anne Simon, CBMG, who
was elected as the 2002 Richard Francki
Lecturer "in recognition of her outstanding
contributions to plant virology."
Anne delivered a plenary address at
the International Virology Congress
held on July 30th in Paris.
Dr.
Sergei Sukharev with researchers
Monica Betanzos, and Chien-Sung
Chiang, all from Biology, are
published in Nature Structural Biology
this month. The title of the article
is "A Large Iris-Like Expansion Of
A Mechanosensitive Channel Protein
Induced By Membrane Tension." http://www.nature.com/nsblink/v9/n9/abs/nsb828.html
Reported
in the Washington Post, a band of
beavers, who won't go away, is posing
a problem at the near-by Greenbelt
Metro station. Dr. Kaci Thompson,
Director of Undergraduate Research
& Internship Programs, knows of no
way to discourage a beaver. "It's
their instinct." August 8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57353-2002Aug7.html
On
WYPR Radio (Baltimore) Dr. Sarah
Tishkoff, Biology, joined radio
host Marc Steiner and others in discussing
recent archeological finds that have
shaken scientists' understanding of
human evolution.
ALUMNI, STUDENT AND STAFF NEWS
Congratulations
to Sarah Hankerson, Biology
Ph.D. candidate and winner of first
place in the student presentation
competition at this year's meeting
of the American Society of Primatology.
Sarah's paper was titled "The alarm
reactions of neighboring groups have
long-term effects on marmosets." She
compared the behaviors of tamarins
in a group that saw a scary snake
model with those of individuals that
only heard the vocalizations of a
group that saw them. (PS: Sarah is
the 4th lab student of Dr. James
Dietz to win an ASP student award
in four years.)
Reported
in the Annapolis Capital, Sharon
Jacobson, an undergraduate student
in physiology and neurobiology, spent
two months in Kenya "sleeping on a
bug-ridden cot, using an outhouse
and eating rice for dinner nearly
every night." But she never thought
about coming home. "After all, her
experience was nothing her mother,
sister and brother hadn't gone through"
as Christian missionaries. Jacobson,
who wants to be a doctor and had previously
worked in Romania, was a teacher at
informal church-run schools and worked
in AIDS ministry in Kenya. Annapolis
Capital, August 12. http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/live/08_12-10/CSP
We are pleased to announce that Rich Keaton, a graduate student in the lab of Larry Sita, Chemistry & Biochemistry, has received an American Chemical Society Graduate Fellowship sponsored by Procter & Gamble Co. Congratulations, Rich.
Dr. Michael Smith, postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Arthur Popper, Biology, was awarded a two-year NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders for a research project entitled "Aging and susceptibility to hearing loss in zebrafish."
Congratulations
to Dr. Qibing Zhou, a Post-doctoral
Associate from the Rokita Group, Chemistry
& Biochemistry, will start as an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Chemistry
at Virginia Commonwealth University
this fall.
NEW
PEER MENTOR WEB PAGE IS LAUNCHED
The
new peer mentor page has been launched.
It can be viewed at www.life.umd.edu/peer-mentor
The Peer Mentor Program was established in the College during the Spring 2002 semester to provide undergraduates the opportunity to receive academic guidance from their peers. It is comprised of peer mentors from various specializations within the College.
The
peer mentors are located in the Information
Resource Center (IRC) in Symons Hall
(room 1317). They are eager to help.
Undergraduates should feel welcome
to visit! To contact the Peer Mentors
go to 1317 Symons Hall or e-mail to
lfscmentors@umail.umd.edu.
WINSTON CHURCHILL SCHOLARSHIP
The
University has been invited to nominate
two students for the prestigious Winston
Churchill Scholarship, which enables
outstanding American students in science,
engineering and mathematics to pursue
one year of graduate study at Churchill
College, Cambridge University. Applications
packets are due on campus by September
30, 2002. An information session about
the scholarship and visit from program
executive director Harold Epstein
will be held on Thursday, September
19, 0117 Armory, from 3 - 5 PM. For
further information about this event,
contact Camille Stillwell, campus
Coordinator of National Scholarships,
at 314-1289 or email cstillwe@deans.umd.edu
For more information about the Churchill
Scholarship go to:
www.thechurchillscholarships.com
For information about other scholarships
and fellowships coordinated through
our campus' National Scholarships
Office go to: www.inform.umd.edu/nso
