Dr. Andrew M. Clark of Vero Beach, Fla., was named to the Board
of Trustees at its spring meeting. Clark is the president of Harris
Corporation’s Maritime Communication Services subsidiary.
He is in charge of a subsidiary that provides broadband satellite
communication systems and services to ships, offshore platforms
and buoys.
Prior to joining Harris, he spent 18 years as director of engineering
at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, Fla.
In addition to his professional
duties, Clark serves as a trustee
to the Link Foundation and is
a member of the Ocean Research
Advisory Panel. This body comprises
leaders in ocean industry and
academia, and advises the Secretary
of the Navy.
Dr. Leon M. Lederman, Nobel Laureate high-energy physicist, delivered
last May’s commencement address. One of the world’s
foremost physicists, Lederman earned the Nobel Prize in Physics
in 1988 and the Enrico Fermi Prize, given by President Clinton
in 1993.
Students are encouraged to seek major-related work experiences
to apply their classroom knowledge and clarify career goals. Last
summer three students pursued these objectives through highly competitive
internship experiences.
Leandro Almeida, a spring 2004 graduate, spent part of the summer
working at the world’s largest particle physics center. He
earned an all-expenses-paid summer internship at the European Organization
for Nuclear Research (CERN), in Geneva, Switzerland, participating
in experiments on matter.
Pamela Rodriguez and Mariana
Plazas-Mayorca, undergraduate
chemistry students, completed
summer research fellowships from
the National Science Foundation’s
Research Experiences for Undergraduates
program. The students are paid
a stipend to spend 10 weeks working
in a chemistry laboratory.
Rodriguez, from Ocala, Fla.
and a senior this fall, worked
in the Columbia University chemistry
department.
Venezuelan Plazas-Mayorca, also
a senior this fall, conducted
her research at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT).
Her work involves bacterial proteases.
Glen John, a junior from Grenada majoring in computer sciences,
has earned a full-year tuition scholarship for the 2004–2005
academic year from Microsoft Corporation. He also completed a summer
internship with Microsoft at its Redmond, Wash. headquarters.
The award is under the Microsoft Under- represented Minority Technical
Scholarship program. The scholarship is designed to encourage those
students from groups currently underrepresented in the field of
computer science to pursue technical degrees.
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Dr. Mary Helen McCay’s father always stressed the need for education.
To honor the difference the Southern Bell engineer made in her life,
the College of Engineering research professor established the Wilbur
Dean Johnston International Student Scholarship. With the first donation
of $10,000, scholarship awards were made to four students.
Recipients are: Georgia Stellos Kargiori,
a physics major from Cyprus; Toshimitsu
Umeta, a mechanical engineering major
from Japan; Nahed Bahman, an aviation
management major from Bahrain; and
communications major Eyre Mischka Hylton,
of Jamaica.
McCay plans additional contributions
of $10,000 annually for nine years.
Summer camps aren’t just for swimming and volleyball anymore. At
Florida Tech, three academic summer experiences exposed middle school
through early-college-age students to potential professions in psychology,
science and engineering.
Blood spatter, DNA, fingerprints and psychological profiling. Such is
the work of the forensic scientist and psychologist and also the stuff
of the Florida Forensics Camp.
Students analyzed “crime” scenes,
learned about the work of forensics
professionals and became sleuths in
a murder mystery dinner activity. They
competed in an essay contest on capital
punishment, squared off in a forensics
jeopardy game and experienced mock
court sessions.
Florida Tech began offering the state’s
only forensic psychology bachelor’s
degree program last fall. Marshall
Jones, former law enforcement officer,
heads the program.
The Department of Marine and Environmental Systems took high school students
and college freshmen and sophomores on an odyssey of discovery in the
Marine Science Summer Camp. Leading the adventurers was Dr. Elizabeth
Irlandi, assistant professor of oceanography.
Campers explored Brevard’s Atlantic
Coast and the Indian River Lagoon to
examine coastal processes, getting “hands-on” and “wet
feet.” They learned about beach
erosion and nourishment, the consequences
of freshwater delivery to the Indian
River Lagoon, and the transport and
fate of pollutants in coastal systems.
The Dream Builders civil engineering construction management camp gave
middle and high school students a look at the world of civil engineering.
Older students participated in field
trips to local construction sites;
design and construction projects; laboratory
testing; and computer assignments using
Microsoft Project, AutoCAD and West
Point Bridge Design software.
The 7th–9th graders built catapults,
concrete bowling balls and floatable
cardboard boats. They also learned
about developing project cost estimates,
scheduling and bridge design.
Faculty enthusiasm for hydrogen energy potential is catching. Almost
a dozen students make up a multidisciplinary senior design team working
on converting a motor glider into a fuel cell airplane. Soon alternative
fuel research possibilities will spread even further. A $900,000 NASA
grant, made possible by U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, arrived last summer and
made Florida Tech’s Hydrogen Research Center a reality. The center’s
focus is to make hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cell technology practical
for ground and air transportation.
Aiming to improve several different
aspects of hydrogen fuel usage, including
production, safety and performance,
the center will look for ways to make
the technology both reliable and economically
feasible.
Research professor, Dr. Mary Helen
McCay, is the center’s principal
investigator.
A husband and wife research team, studying the regulatory mechanisms
of cell growth, earned a $912,700 National Institutes of Health grant
for four years.
Dr. Alan C. Leonard, professor and
Dr. Julia Grimwade, associate professor
of biological sciences, earned the
funding to further their efforts to
understand the genetic switches that
trigger the reproduction of the bacterium
Escherichia coli.
“One of the fundamental problems
in biology is to understand how cell
growth is regulated,” said Leonard. “We
think of the inner workings of the
cell as machinery and some of the machines
need to be switched on at a specific
time for the cell to reproduce.”
Studies in the Leonard/Grimwade laboratories
have led to the identification of key
pieces of the switch. Understanding
their role will shed new light on controlling
bacterial growth and perhaps aid in
the understanding of abnormal cell
growth seen in cancer.
The researchers intend to use the
information obtained from studies of
bacterial cell growth to produce inhibitors—novel
antibiotics—that would enter
the bacteria and prevent critical switch
components from completing their interactions.
This would impact a variety of human
diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria.
Working with Leonard and Grimwade
are doctoral students Kevin McGarry,
Christian Nievera, Diana Miller, Sanchi
Chandan and Julian Torgue.
Physicist Dr. Joseph Dwyer would be the first to admit that he’s
more Clark Kent than Superman. Even so, the National Science Foundation
CAREER award-winner is studying lightning using X-Ray detectors. This
has taught him how lightning might look to the Man of Steel. More importantly,
he’s learned that lightning is much more complex than once thought.
Dwyer and researchers from the Department
of Physics and Space Sciences and the
University of Florida’s International
Center for Lightning Research and Testing
are the first to use X-ray detectors
and rocket-triggered lightning to study
nature’s light show. They discovered
that lightning flickers in X-rays just
as it does in visible light, but 10,000
times faster. Their research was published
in Geophysical Research Letters.
“ We’re trying to answer one of the biggest questions about the biology
and management of tarpon—where do they come from and how do we best protect
them?” said Dr. Jonathan Shenker, director of Florida Tech’s Sportfish
Research Institute and associate professor of biological sciences.
“ The big question is, ‘do the lagoon nurseries provide the adults
we find in our areas, or do our adults migrate from other nursery areas in the
Caribbean, off Cuba, Mexico and elsewhere?’”
To find out, a fishing tournament
Shenker led reeled in dozens of people
willing to go to the Indian River Lagoon
and coastal waters and fish for tarpon.
Anglers from small fry to senior citizens
participated in the three-month tournament,
which ran July through September.
A new partnership between Florida Tech and a Virginia-based software
firm, MAP ROI Systems Inc., will give Florida’s small businesses
better access to U.S. government contracts.
The university is now developing courses to train small business owners
around the state. Florida Tech will also establish a network operations
center for the software, offer courses to small businesses, and provide
software and Web access.
The program was made possible by a
$1.5 million grant from the U.S. Dept.
of Labor. U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon was
instrumental in bringing MAP ROI to
Florida Tech.
A whole field of study encompasses the day-to-day challenge of getting
along with others at work. The study of intra-office relationships, called
industrial-organizational psychology, focuses scientific reearch on problems
people encounter in the workplace.
A research study, published in the
July issue of The Industrial-Organizational
Psychologist, rated Florida Tech’s
doctoral program in industrial-organizational
(I/O) psychology third in the United
States. Offered through the School
of Psychology, the program is under
Chair, Dr. Richard Griffith.
The study also ranked the university’s
master’s program in I/O as 10th
in the country. “We’re
especially proud of these rankings
because ours are very young programs,” said
Griffith. “The I/O faculty, staff
and students have worked very hard
and they have my highest praise.”
A $9,000 gift to Evans Library will digitize and make the contents of
the library’s Edwin A. Link Special Collection available online.
The gift comes from Florida Tech trustees Marilyn C. Link and Andrew
M. Clark, and the Link Foundation. Marilyn is also a special advisor
to the foundation and Clark is on the foundation’s board of trustees.
The collection contains many personal
papers, maps, charts, correspondence
and blueprints of Edwin A. Link (1904-1981),
an inventor, aviator and industrialist.
He invented the first successful flight
simulator, the Link Trainer, and founded
the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution
in 1971. The campus Link Building is
named for him.
“This gift will further Ed Link’s
legacy worldwide and for all time,” said
Dean of Libraries, Dr. Celine Lang.
Dr. John Trefry, professor of oceanography, received $605,000 from the
U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, through
a contract with Battelle Science and Technology International. The funding
supports the fifth, sixth and seventh years of field research by Trefry
and his team on the potential, long-term impacts of offshore oil exploration
and production in the Alaskan Arctic.
The scientists will explore natural
processes in rivers and offshore waters
so that any future industrial inputs
can be detected early. “We want
to know about potential problems before
any significant impacts occur,” said
Trefry.
Trefry, who earned the prestigious
2002 gold medal from the Florida Academy
of Sciences, has a 25-year history
of studying potential environmental
impacts from offshore oil exploration
and production.
On the Florida Tech team with Trefry
are senior research associate, Bob
Trocine, and graduate students Debra
Woodall and Matt Alkire. The scientists
are working with researchers from Battelle;
Kinnetic Laboratories; University of
Alaska, Fairbanks; University of Texas,
Austin; and Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution.
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