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Atnreakn Alleyne, doctoral candidate in political science and international relations, has been selected as a Strategic Data Project Fellow by Harvard's Center for Education Policy Research. Alleyne, a resident of Camden, N.J., has been placed in a two-year fellowship in the Delaware Department of Education, where he will work with the Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Unit to evaluate education reform efforts. Alleyne is also one of seven recipients of the 2012 national K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award recognizing graduate students who show exemplary promise as future leaders of higher education. He and his wife are the founders of a college-access organization for underrepresented students.
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Ying Mao (left), UD doctoral student in mechanical engineering, developed improvements to the arm
exoskeleton systems used in joint rehabilitation. Read more on UDaily. |
Ying Mao, doctoral student in mechanical engineering, earned the "Best Student Paper" award at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation out of nearly 800 accepted student papers. Titled "Transition from Mechanical Arm to Human Arm with CAREX: a Cable Driven ARm EXoskeleton (CAREX) for Neural Rehabilitation," the paper outlined Mao's improvements to the arm exoskeleton systems that are used in joint rehabilitation, in particular, to help patients regain neuromuscular functions in the arm following stroke. Mao's cable-driven CAREX system is lighter than conventional exoskeletons which makes agile arm movement possible, and does not require joint alignment between the patient and the machine. Sunil K. Agrawal, professor of mechanical engineering and a co-author on the paper, serves as Mao’s adviser.
Luis A. Cifuentes
Oceanography alum Luis A.
Cifuentes was recently
named associate vice
president for research and
dean of graduate studies at
Texas A&M University at
Corpus Christi. After earning a Ph.D. in
oceanography at UD in 1987, Cifuentes
joined the faculty of Texas A&M in 1988 as an
assistant professor in oceanography. His
adviser in UD's School of Marine Science and
Policy was Professor Jonathan H. Sharp, with
whom he co-authored several papers on
topics of estuarine research.
Charles Hummel
Charles F. Hummel, curator
emeritus at Winterthur
Museum, Garden and Library,
received the 2012
Distinguished Service to
Museums Award from the
American Association of Museums, as well as
the Allied Professionals Special Recognition
Award from the American Institute for
Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works.
Hummel was an important figure in both the
Winterthur Program in American Material
Culture, and the world-renowned
Winterthur/University of Delaware Program
in Art Conservation (WUDPAC). A 1955
graduate of the material culture program, he
became one of the leading founders of the
WUDPAC program, whose impact can be felt
at arts institutions throughout the world.
Steven Leath
University of Delaware
alumnus Steven Leath has
been named the 15th
president of Iowa State
University. Leath received his
master's degree from UD in
1981 in the Department of Plant and Soil
Sciences in the College of Agriculture and
Natural Resources. He credits his time and
his professors at UD for preparing him for
the future, saying, "The University of
Delaware did a real good job of
transforming college graduates into
independent researchers." Read more about Steven Leath on UDaily.
Norine Watson
Norine Watson, who
earned bachelor's and
master's degrees in nursing at UD, has been selected as
the 2012 Nurse of the Year by
the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont
Hospital for Children where she is director of
nursing excellence. The award recognizes
Watson's impact on increased nursing
satisfaction, educational preparation and
national professional certification;
engagement in exemplary practice; and,
most important, designation by the
American Nurses Credentialing Center as a
magnet hospital. Watson served as president
of the Delaware Nurses Association from
2008-10 and was a member of the executive
board from 2007-11. Read more about Watson's recent award on UDaily.
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Erik Koepf and Cory Budischak with the Mobile Solar Demonstration System at the Newark Center for Creative
Learning's GreenFest. |
In 2010, the Newark Center for Creative Learning (NCCL) was looking for new ways of teaching solar energy to middle-school students and approached UD's National Science Foundation-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Solar Hydrogen program. The result was a creative new solar education outreach tool.
With help from Prof. Bob Opila in materials science and engineering, and Dr. Steve Hegedus from UD's Institute of Energy Conversion, a team of graduate student engineers designed and built a solar photovoltaic learning center dubbed the MSDS (Mobile Solar Demonstration System). It was an instant success at NCCL and beyond. The MSDS started appearing at events around the UD campus and the larger community, as schools and other outreach programs requested the system for hands-on demonstrations of solar power. Original team members included Cory Budischak, Keith Douglass, Erik Koepf, Sarah Mastroianni and Roy Murray, together representing chemical, electrical and mechanical engineering; chemistry; and physics and astronomy.
To meet increased demand, Budischak and Koepf subsequently developed a second-generation demonstration module and formed the start-up company Illuminate Learning to design and manufacture solar learning tools for teachers and students. Currently, UD's Engineering Outreach Office is coordinating a statewide effort to bring solar learning into Delaware classrooms with a small fleet of solar learning stations, teacher seminars and a training video created with the assistance of University Media Services.
Coordinated by master of public administration (MPA) student Rafig Gurbanzada, an international group of UD graduate students joined forces to provide relief to local victims of Hurricane Sandy last fall. Responding to a call for volunteers from the Delaware Emergency Management Agency, Gurbanzada, along with fellow MPA student Redhi Setiadi, recruited additional grad students, and on Nov. 10, the group was able to assist a disabled Dover resident by pumping water out of his flooded basement.
The group's efforts were supported with logistics by the Zakat Foundation of America, an international faith-based relief organization.
Gurbanzada is an army officer attached to the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Azerbaijan; Setiadi is an Indonesian International Education Foundation (IIEF) scholar studying local government organizations in rural settings. Additional UD graduate student volunteers were Sebahattin Acikgoz, A. Caglar Deniz, Abdulkadir Ozden, Samet Ozturk, Ibrahim Temel, Burak Yildirim and others.
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Teresa Frazier moved to Alaska with her
youngest daughter to serve as a family nurse
practitioner with the Alaska Area Indian
Health Service. |
Teresa Frazier graduated from UD's family nurse practitioner program in 2012, and in that same year, she moved to Alaska to begin a three-year commitment to serve as the primary health care provider in the remote Native Alaskan Yup'ik village of Togiak. Recruited by the Indian Health Service at a nursing conference she attended while in graduate school, she welcomed the challenge.
"I was looking for a rural clinic setting to practice in, with the extreme variety of health care scenarios that come up," said Frazier. "Here, I see all ages and types of patients: emergency, prenatal, elderly, pediatric, chronic health conditions, acute conditions, everything. It's what I wanted to do."
The first week she arrived in Togiak, she encountered a patient with botulism (likely from fermented beaver tail or seal oil) who almost died; a toddler in respiratory arrest having a seizure (brought directly into her living room, not the clinic); and an elderly patient in the early stages of a stroke. She treated them all successfully.
"It's a hard way of life here, but I fell in love with the people and the culture," added Frazier. "I love being in a place where I'm challenged, and where health care is truly needed."
