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David Mead and John Sedbrook
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David Mead, President of Lucigen Corporation and an alumnus of the Department of Biological Sciences, returned to campus on Thursday to meet with faculty, staff, and students and to deliver a seminar highlighting the research his company is conducting in discovering novel genes and exotic organisms in the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park. “Only a few decades ago, experts had thought it impossible for life to exist such inhospitable conditions,” noted John Sedbrook, Assistant Professor of Genetics in the Department of Biological Sciences. “Yet Dr. Mead's company has employed cutting edge genomics techniques to demonstrate that these hot springs harbor a diversity of life that cannot survive under laboratory conditions.” Click Read More for more photos.
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Kenton Machina
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Philosophy Professor Emeritus Kenton Machina and Technology Professor Anu Gokhale are the recipients of a $474,000 three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to increase the number of students—especially women, African-Americans and Hispanics—in computing majors.
Machina and Gokhale will target a finite mathematics course to encourage students to participate in activities showing how mathematics connects with real-life computing in a wide range of occupations. They will involve many undergraduate students in entertaining blogs or podcasts that relate mathematics to computing in various academic fields such as accounting, network design, artificial intelligence and industrial control systems. Computing professionals, including women and under-represented minorities from such fields, will interact with students outside of the classroom, detailing their professional lives and their reliance on mathematics to solve real-life problems.
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Kelly Rice
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Kelly Rice, a School of Communication alumna, is the recipient of an Emmy for an undercover investigation of Charlotte, North Carolina restaurants serving banned seafood. The story, “Something's Fishy,” first aired in May of 2007 on WCNC, a Charlotte television station. Rice, an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate, hid a camera in her purse at ten different restaurants in Charlotte—ranging from sports bars to high-end steak houses—and ordered red snapper and grouper. The samples were then sent to a lab at Nova Southeast University in Florida for DNA testing. Consumer fraud was revealed when she found that a third of the restaurants were substituting tilapia for red snapper and Asian catfish for grouper. The state issued a warning and made the restaurants sign a statement promising not to substitute again.
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Martha Frieburg
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Martha Frieburg, Chief Clerk in the Department of English, won first place for her decorative table display at the 2008 Chili Cook-Off contest held on the ISU campus on Thursday. “Martha's display was beautiful,” said Associate Dean Sally Parry, who attended the event. “But what I appreciated most about her display is that she created it using a number of recycled items and materials.” Displays were judged on creativity, uniqueness, theme, and overall presentation.
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Griffin Hammond
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Griffin Hammond, a graduate student and instructor in the School of Communication, is the winner of national video contest. His video, “‘Wonderful’ Movie Trailer,” earned the most votes in the national POM Tea video contest, sponsored by the POM pomegranate juice company. Hammond said, “I tried to get the word out as best I could, and I can’t thank the ISU community enough for helping me out. They said I won by an overwhelming majority of votes.”
Hammond’s video will be featured in a POM advertising campaign in independent movie theaters across Los Angeles and New York. To view his winning video, visit www.pomvideo.com
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John Baur
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Professor John Baur, Department of Chemistry, received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University in 1990. Since coming to ISU in 1993, Baur has taught courses ranging from introductory analytical chemistry to graduate electrochemical methods. Baur's research centers on developing the Scanning Electrochemical Microscope (SECM) for obtaining chemical images of dynamic surfaces, including living biological systems and catalysts for fuel cells. He hopes to improve technique quality, adapt the instrument for use in cell growth media, and employ it in investigating biological and chemical processes.
Baur has delivered numerous invited and peer-reviewed presentations, both national and international, and has published over twenty articles in professional journals. His work has been supported by grants from NIH, NSF, and the Research Corporation.
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