FOCUS ON FACULTY Bradley Myers, associate dean for academic affairs in the UND School of Law, and Yee Han Chu, a Ph.D. student in teaching and learning, were recognized for having the best research paper and presentation at the Second Annual International Conference on Law, Regulations and Public Policy (LRPP), hosted by the Global Science and Technology Forum in Singapore. Chu, a social worker who has been teaching at the UND Social Work Department for several years on a part-time basis, and Myers received the award for their coauthored paper titled “Leaving Gifted Students Behind: the Misplaced Public Policy of Deference to Local Officials in the Public Schools of the United States.” Myers has been invited back to be the keynote speaker at next year’s conference in Bangkok, Thailand. UND researcher Jyotika Sharma, a microbial immunologist, and her team have demonstrated for the first time that a molecule involved in the human body’s initial response to infection or trauma may be the key to preventing sepsis, a life-threatening medical condition with a high mortality rate. Combating sepsis costs hospital ICUs $17 billion a year. Ongoing research in Sharma’s lab suggests that this, and another similar molecule, may be involved in controlling inflammation in chronic lung diseases as well. Elizabeth Harris, associate professor of creative writing in the UND English Department, recently won a national prize for literary translation from the PEN American Center. Harris was awarded the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Award for her translation from Italian of Antonio Tabucchi’s novel Tristano Dies, which is forthcoming from Archipelago Books. According to award judges, Harris’ work was a “rich and textured translation” that rose “to the challenge of the complex, exuberant Italian text.” Tabucchi, who died in 2012, is considered one of Italy’s most important writers. Marcus Weaver-Hightower, associate professor and chair of the Department of Educational Foundations & Research, recently was awarded the 2013 “Anselm Strauss Award for Qualitative Family Research” from the National Council on Family Relations. The award recognizes scholarly works that creatively push the field forward though their method, methodology or theory of method. WeaverHightower was honored for his article, “Waltzing Matilda: An Autoethnography of a Father’s Stillbirth,” published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography in 2012. It explores Weaver-Hightower’s experiences as a father when his first child, Matilda, was stillborn in 2006. Described as “powerful, evocative, well-written, and moving,” displaying “rigor and courage,” the article uses a series of narrative vignettes alongside social science research to explore how experiences of stillbirth — particularly for fathers — are often hidden. The article uses a method known as autoethnography, which takes personal experience as an entry point for analyzing social and cultural phenomena. The National Institutes of Health is renewing the funding of a UND neuroscientist’s study of a vital molecular facilitator of learning and memory. Saobo Lei, an associate professor in the Department of Basic Sciences in the School of Medicine & Health Sciences, will receive a $1.04 million R01 grant over the next three years for his work on molecules found in cells of the central nervous system that activate learning and memory. The NIH’s grant renewal is recognition of the significance of Lei’s work in pursuing potential treatments for neurological diseases that affect learning and memory, such as Alzheimer’s, anxiety, epilepsy, and schizophrenia.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has named Harmon Abrahamson, UND professor of chemistry, among its 2013 class of ACS Fellows, a prestigious honor bestowed upon 96 distinguished scientists who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in chemistry and made important contributions to ACS, the world’s largest scientific society. Abrahamson, along with the rest of the 2013 class, was recognized at an induction ceremony Sept. 9 during the Society’s 246th National Meeting & Exposition in Indianapolis. Rebecca J. Romsdahl, assistant professor in the UND Department of Earth System Science & Policy (ESSP), has earned a 20132014 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to conduct research in the United Kingdom. Her project is titled “Comparing Adaptation Planning for Climate Change at Local Government Levels in the United Kingdom and United States.” ESSP is part of UND’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. Romsdahl is the first UND Aerospace faculty member to get the U.S. State Department’s Fulbright Award, a program administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute for International Education. She will be hosted at Lancaster University on the coast northwest of London. The ongoing focus of Romsdahl’s research is global climate change and its policy implications. Romsdahl will analyze her findings in the U.K. with similar data collected in the U.S. to provide a comparative understanding of climate adaptation planning.
Myers
Chu
Sharma
Harris
Weaver-Hightower
Lei
Abrahamson
Romsdahl
UND Discovery n Autumn 2013 n 23