Between the Columns: November 2015

in this issue

ACCOLADES PG. 2 /

SPECIAL DEDICATION PG. 2 / HEALED EARS PG. 3 / BOOKSHELF PG. 3 / POWER FOOD PG. 6 / BURST BACTERIA PG. 7 / ARTFUL ARRANGEMENT PG. 8

Between the Columns a newsletter for faculty & staff of the University of Maryland November 2015

OFFICE MAXED

Terp Experts Weigh in on Making Your Workspace Work for You

ACCOLADES Amy Burk, an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences, was selected to serve on the Equine Science Society board and the Maryland Horse Industry Board.

Ana Patricia Rodríguez, an associate professor in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, won the Maryland-DC Campus Compact’s Alan G. Penczek ServiceLearning Faculty Award.

East Asian linguistics Professor Robert Ramsey won the Korean Language Society’s highest professional honor, the Ilsuk Korean Linguistics Award.

Michelle Mazurek, assistant professor of computer science, and Jeff Foster, professor of computer science, received a Google Research Award to improve the privacy of apps on the Android platform.

Bioengineering Assistant Professor Silvina Matysiak won a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award.

Engineering Professor Gerry Galloway was a 2015 recipient of the U.S. Army Engineer Regiment Gold Order of the de Fleury medal.

ADDRESSING A PROBLEM

UMD recently assigned a street address to each building on campus to help emergency responders. To learn your new address and get more information, visit maps.umd. edu/addressing.

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Special Dedication

UMPD Officer a Force Behind Fundraising for Olympians

BY NATALIE KOLTUN ’16

We all know the cliché about cops chapter of the organization. It wasn’t at a doughnut shop. But what about on until after she became a police officer top of one? at UMD that she began heading its For the fourth year, Sgt. Paige Miller fundraisers. Now, after 12 years of of the UMD Police Department organized bonding with athletes and supporting the local version of “Cops on Rooftops,” a the program, it’s second nature. Miller 30-hour campout on the Dunkin’ Donuts is constantly preparing for the next big in College Park. event—whether its January’s Polar Bear Starting at 6 a.m. Oct. 24, Miller and Plunge, where officers raise money by her fellow officers perched on the roof racing into the icy Chesapeake Bay, or and greeted customers through bullhorns, a springtime bocce ball tournament sold raffle tickets and competed in a at Maryland Day with athletes from doughnut-eating contest to raise $8,472 the Prince George’s County chapter of for Special Olympics, exceeding their Special Olympics. $7,000 goal.

“I really love getting the athletes’ What drew Miller to law enforcement perspectives on things,” Miller says. nearly 17 years ago was her desire to help “Every organization appreciates monetary people. But this goes well beyond her donations, so the money we raise gets normal police duties. She has devoted put to good use, but working with them countless hours off the clock—from ourselves is just invaluable to everyone.” brainstorming new fundraising ideas to Through her longstanding relationship rallying fellow officers—in support of the with the program, Miller’s name has Special Olympians who have become like become almost synonymous with Special family to her. In June, the Police Chiefs’ Olympics, says Capt. Laura Dyer.

Association of Prince George’s County After all these years, many of the named her the Community Services officers even know the athletes by name, Officer of the Year.

Dyer says. “I think it makes a much Inspired by her high school softball bigger impact on them and the officers coach’s efforts, she discovered a local than she realizes.”

Photo by Josh Loock

Hearing as Healing Program Aims to Help Holocaust Survivors

BY LIAM FARRELL

NELI MELMAN HAS LOST many things that cannot be replaced: a childhood stolen and a homeland ravaged by war; loved ones murdered along with nearly 34,000 other Jews by German death squads at the Babi Yar ravine in 1941; and her medical career squashed by systemic anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

Something can be done, however, about her hearing loss.

Melman was the first patient to get new hearing aids and training in how to use them as part of a partnership between the University of Maryland and the Holocaust Survivor Program at Rockville’s Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA).

Lisa Rickard, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, says research has shown that hearing loss in the elderly can contribute to cognitive, psychosocial, and physical decline if not treated.

“Communication is a human right,” Rickard says. “It’s just an incredible opportunity to interact with this courageous, yet frail, community.”

Siemens Government Technologies Inc. and Sivantos Inc. donated 40 pairs of hearing aids to JSSA, which then reached out to UMD faculty and students for help in issuing them to patients. With support from the Conference on Jewish Material

Claims Against Germany and local donors, JSSA assists more than 400 Holocaust survivors who are in financial need in Maryland, Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia.

Like Melman, most of the survivors that JSSA helps are from Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, says Ellen Blalock, the agency’s Holocaust Survivor Program coordinator. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the survivors fled eastward to escape certain death. The refugees who returned to the Soviet Union after the war suffered decades of oppression and were only able to emigrate to the United States when they were older and out of the workforce.

For the 70 years since the end of the war, Blalock says, survivors have remained haunted by the hatred, violence and loss they experienced during the Holocaust.

“Our survivors matter to us and they have value,” she says.

“We can’t go back and fix the past, but we can change the future.”

“It’s just an incredible opportunity to interact with this courageous, yet frail, community.”

—Lisa Rickard, clinical assistant professor

Rickard assists Neli Melman with her new hearing aids.

BOOKSHELF Using a World War II-era spy manual as a jumpingoff point, Simple Sabotage, co-authored by Rob Galford of the Smith School’s Executive Education program, discusses how to fix what is undermining everyday workplace effectiveness.

Photo by John T. Consoli

In The Long Emancipation, history Professor Ira Berlin explores how slavery ended not in an instant, but over nearly a century as the concept of universal liberty gradually took hold.

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OFFICE MAXED

Terp Experts Weigh in on Making Your Workspace Work for You

BY KAREN SHIH ’09

Are you feeling overwhelmed by ever-rising stacks of documents?

Do blah-beige walls and drab furniture get you down? Does your back tighten up whenever you just think about the office chair?

Don’t feel defeated—we talked to a professional organizer, an interior designer and an ergonomic adviser to figure out the best ways to improve your workspace, whether you’re ensconced in the corner office or drowning in a sea of cubicles.

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PICK UP THOSE PILES “If you’re going to start an organizing job, the first step is always to purge,” says Natalie Schrier ’98, owner of Cut the Clutter in New York City, where for seven years she’s helped Manhattanites and more configure their cramped square footage into usable space. “Organizing is like a domino effect.

You can’t put things away unless there’s room for them.” Start with low-hanging fruit, she says, like outdated magazines that can easily be recycled.

Then, after the big clean, keep tidying and purging regularly—ideally, 15 minutes a day, but at least once a semester.

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PERSONALIZE—WITH LIMITS “If a picture of your spouse smiling at you keeps you going throughout the day,” that’s great, says Schrier. But “make sure there’s not a huge volume of it covering your desk, leaving you nowhere to do your work.” Kyriacos agrees on photos and knick-knacks—but not on plants. Schrier says they’re “good because they provide oxygen,” while Kyriacos has seen too many dried-up and yellowed leaves to fully support them in the office. “You don’t want to see a living thing suffering like that.”

EMBRACE ERGONOMICS Did you know we have an expert on campus who can come to your office to do a free evaluation?

Now you do and have no excuse to dangle your feet, have your elbows at a bad angle and tilt your neck down at a screen. “Be proactive,” says Saul Grosser of Occupational Safety. “If you work in a workspace that’s not adjusted properly, you’ll get musculoskeletal disorders, like issues with wrists, backs, necks and shoulders.” He’s created a series of videos and checklists to get you started (https://des.umd.edu/os/erg/index.html). If you want a more in-depth adjustment, contact him at sgrosser@umd.edu to set up an appointment.

BRIGHTEN YOUR SPACE “Color makes a big difference,” says Zoe Kyriacos, who’s worked for two decades in Facilities Management at umd, designing renovated and new spaces across campus, from arranging walls and furniture to picking paint colors and fabrics. For example, “yellow is supposed to inspire creativity and red can be stimulating, even aggressive,” perhaps good for someone in sales, she says.

It doesn’t just have to be paint—in fact, she doesn’t like accent walls in small offices. The pop of color might come from a pillow on a chair, removable wall stickers—like the poppies from Ikea she has on her own beige walls—or framed artwork. In addition, try not to depend solely on the fluorescent ceiling lights. A second, gentler lighting source on your desk can soften the space.

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FORM A FILING SYSTEM While you might think that means running out to the Container Store and going wild with a label maker, Schrier cautions against that. First, figure out the environment you thrive in: Do you prefer a pristine surface for inspiration or do you need to see everything you’re working on?

That determines your filing system, which might involve tucking everything away in drawers, or keeping items in a tiered organizer on your desk.

Remember to keep like items together—“You can’t have student papers in seven different cabinets.”

And something as simple as always putting things back after using them can keep clutter at bay.

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able to look beyond your screen across the office or out a window, even if for just 10 seconds at a time, can help your eyes as well. For managers, it’s important to avoid defaulting to having chairs across your desk. Consider creating a separate, more egalitarian seating area to make you more approachable and the environment more relaxed.

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STAND UP Three years ago, staff members at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center had to cobble together pieces from Ikea to create standing desks, but today, Maryland Correctional Enterprises, the university’s official furniture supplier, has started manufacturing them. That means they’re now available to everyone across campus, says Kyriacos. Benefits include burning calories, better oxygen flow and alleviation of back pain, says Grosser. “The best set-up is an adjustable sit/stand workstation.”

REARRANGE YOUR FURNITURE Face outward as much as possible, says Kyriacos, so you’re aware when people are coming by. Being

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Digester Could Chomp Down on umd’s Carbon Footprint

BY KAREN SHIH ’09

YOUR PANDA EXPRESS LEFTOVERS and

kale stems from the umd Farmers Market could one day heat your office or power your computer.

That’s the long-term goal of environmental science and technology Assistant Professor Stephanie Lansing, microbiology Professor Steve Hutcheson and Environmental Science and Technology (ENST) students, who have launched a pilot anaerobic digester system at Terp Farm in Upper Marlboro.

It uses microorganisms to break down biodegradable material without oxygen.

“This is essentially the same thing as a cow,” says Hutcheson. “But a cow can produce methane in two days, while the average anaerobic digester takes 30 days.

Why are they different?”

That’s one of the questions they hope to answer as they work to develop the most efficient system for the microorganisms to do their job.

They collect food waste across campus, from the farmers market to restaurants in Stamp Student Union to the dining halls. Then, they shred and load about five kilograms of it, along with 10 liters of water, into a container that’s connected to the first of two 750-liter tanks. The material

flows into the first one, where microorganisms break it down into organic acid, then into the second one, which contains different microorganisms that convert the acid into liquid fertilizer (for the farm) and methane gas.

Students in an ENST capstone class last fall designed the digester, whose construction was supported by $20,000 from the umd Sustainability Fund. The first tank was installed in March.

Now the challenge is to maintain consistent heat and pH levels in the tanks, which need to be at about human body temperature to keep the microorganisms happy and hungry. Attempts to heat them over the summer resulted in the plastic tanks melting slightly, causing leaks.

Ultimately, Lansing hopes to use methane gas in place of natural gas for heating or in fuel cells for producing electricity, which could help the university reach its goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2020.

{ DIVERSITY Tip }

By Kumea Shorter-Gooden, chief diversity officer and associate vice president

UMD President Wallace Loh greets Convocation honorees Sarah J. Lopez (left) and Jeanette M. Payne (right) before the Oct. 13 ceremony. Loh delivered his “State of the Campus” address earlier this month, and it can be viewed here: youtube.com/ watch?v=hTn_R1V9SKw.

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Aeschylus once said: “Everyone’s quick to blame the alien.” We often attribute difficulty in a community to the person who's different or unfamiliar—the only black person, someone with a visible disability, an immigrant, an lgbtidentified person. We need to fight the human tendency to “pathologize” people who are different and see them as the problem. “Different” shouldn’t automatically mean “less than” or “wrong”; instead, “different” can mean an alternative style or approach that's equally (or more) valuable.

Look for more Diversity Tips in future issues of Between the Columns.

Illustration by Jeanette Nelson

Sights Set on Bacteria Researcher’s “Enzybiotics” a New Weapon Against Drug-Resistant Superbugs

BY CHRIS CARROLL

Death from a minor cut or sore throat doesn’t figure highly among modern anxieties, but times may be changing: According to the World Health Organization, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are flourishing worldwide amid overuse of the former wonder drugs.

Yet there might be a way to fight bacteria without antibiotics by literally exploding the pests with a high-tech version of a process that evolved in nature.

Daniel Nelson, an associate professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine and at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research in Rockville, extracts enzymes called lysins from viruses that infect bacteria— bacteriophages—and engineers bacteria-fighting drugs he’s dubbed “enzybiotics.”

Lysins work by breaking chemical ties in bacterial cell walls, “like cutting the steel girders in a building,” he says.

Previous lysins from his lab have killed animal and human pathogens like staph and pneumonia, but a new one he’s identified destroys one of the scariest superbugs—MRSA, which haunts hospitals and kills thousands of Americans yearly. Unlike older

enzymes, the MRSA-killer cleaves the cell wall in two dimensions, like cutting both vertical and horizontal girders in a building.

“That means it has to chew up even less of the cell wall to have this explosion,” he says.

Enzybiotics are only now entering human testing, and they may eventually be used in combination with antibiotics.

“In the lab, we can dump enough antibiotic on something to kill it, but at a level that’s toxic,” he says. “By using enzybiotics to break up the cell wall, you could use a far lower antibiotic dose and have it be effective.”

One advantage of enzybiotics over antibiotics, researchers say, is that they can target specific harmful bacteria and avoid killing the “good” microbes in our bodies.

And perhaps best of all, Nelson says that researchers have been searching for enzybiotic resistance in bacteria—and have yet to find it.

GET YOUR FLU SHOT Don’t let the colder weather wear you down. Protect yourself by getting a flu shot at the University Health Center.

Appointments can be made by calling 301.314.8184.

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PHILLIPS PARTNERSHIP TO PUMP UP ARTS COLLABORATIONS

BY LAUREN BROWN

A new partnership between the university and one of the nation’s most renowned museums will substantially expand opportunities for scholarly work and research, as well as open UMD employees’ access to masterworks of impressionist, modern and contemporary art.

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and UMD announced an agreement to develop new courses and programming, create internship and fellowship opportunities, co-host events and launch educational and artistic collaborations.

UMD faculty, staff, students and Alumni Association members will get free admission to the museum and have special access to its 4,000-artwork collection, facilities and staff.

“This is a unique opportunity for the entire campus,” says UMD President Wallace Loh. “It will enhance education and scholarship in art, art history and humanities, as well as in interdisciplinary study. It will provide a new platform for UMD’s presence in the nation’s capital.”

The two institutions will work together to build a gallery and educational and storage facility in Prince George’s County that will encourage experimentation and innovation, to be named

“The Phillips Collection at the University of Maryland.”

Other highlights of the six-year, renewable agreement include: ·· enriching UMD’s arts curriculum through new courses and joint teaching; ·· co-publishing scholarly work; ·· co-presenting the Sunday Concert series with UMD’s School of Music; ·· engaging UMD in the Phillips’ International Forum, which convenes leading artists, collectors, philanthropists and public leaders; ·· digitizing the museum’s archives and library; ·· renaming and expanding the museum’s Center for the Study of Modern Art as the “UMD Center for Art and Knowledge at The Phillips Collection” for interdisciplinary collaborations; ·· supporting joint arts outreach to communities in D.C. and Prince George’s County.

Loh credited many university units for helping to make the partnership possible, including the Office of the Provost, College of Arts and Humanities, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and UMD Foundation Board of Trustees.

Between the Columns is published twice per semester by University Marketing and Communications. Story ideas are welcome and should be sent to Liam Farrell, managing editor, at lfarrel1@umd.edu or by calling 301.405.4629. The mailing list is generated through University Human Resources. Any changes to names and addresses should be made through ares.umd.edu.

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