April 7th 2015
Jordan Gaston ’16, collaborator Sally Roberts, and Assistant Professor of Biology Tricia Humphreys had a peer-reviewed article, “Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of Non-Sexually Transmitted Strains of Haemophilus ducreyi,” published in the March 2015 issue of PLoS ONE.
April 7th 2015
Michael Petro ’15 and Robert Paul ’15 presented their Senior Projects with Assistant Professor of Biology Lisa Whitenack at the Midwest Regional meeting of the American Society of Biomechanics. Michael presented a poster on the biomechanics of long jump performance in collegiate men and women. Robert presented a talk on the swimming mechanics of darter fishes and won the award for Best Podium Presentation by an Undergraduate.
March 23rd 2015
Rebecca Dawson ’00, Allegheny College assistant professor of biology and global health studies, has been named to NerdScholar’s list of “40 Under 40: Professors Who Inspire.”
According to NerdScholar, the professors were chosen based on “their ability to captivate and engage students in the classroom, their outstanding involvement on campus and in the community, and their overwhelming passion for their subject matter.” Nominations were collected through student, alumni and faculty recommendations following an open call to several hundred colleges and universities across the country.
“Receiving this award is such an honor,” says Dawson, a native of Allison Park, Pa. “It is so very special to me because my nomination came from my students. They are what make this job so great; to know the feeling is mutual is priceless.”
Senior Erica Bryson, one of Dawson’s students who nominated her for the award, says you can tell by Professor Dawson’s enthusiasm and energy in class that she loves the material she is teaching. “Professor Dawson is a practice-what-you-preach type of person as a result of her passion in epidemiology, and she encourages those around her to do the same,” Bryson says. “I know she puts 100 percent into everything she does, and I am honored to have her as a professor and mentor.”
Sophomore Matthew Zaborowski, another student who nominated her for the honor, agrees. “Being an Allegheny College alumna, Professor Dawson is very passionate about the liberal arts and the environment and atmosphere that each student displays while attending Allegheny. She is a true inspiration, a great role model and a wonderful professor who is caring, committed and passionate,” he says.
Professor Dawson received her bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Allegheny, her master of public health degree in environmental health from Emory University and her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Her research interests have focused on topics related to environmental epidemiology, and she has made an impact on the local community through her work with the Community Health Needs Assessment in Meadville.
In August 2014, she collaborated with a professor at George Mason University to publish the first undergraduate textbook on epidemiology titled “Understanding Epidemiology: Concepts, Skills & Applications.”
To view Professor Dawson’s feature, go to www.nerdwallet.com/feature/40-Under-40-Professors-2015#Becky-Smullin-Dawson.
About NerdScholar
NerdWallet is a consumer finance website that helps people make better decisions when it comes to their money. NerdScholar is the higher education branch that offers advice and resources specifically for students.
March 23rd 2015
The day began with the first student walking into a classroom saying: “Yes! I love science! I want to be a scientist!”
It’s safe to say that March 17 was a good day for that student and many of his classmates.
This student, along with fourth-graders from all five Crawford Central elementary schools, got the chance to gain hands-on experience with a variety of science topics during the Fourth Graders as Scientists event, held on Allegheny’s campus March 17, 19 and 20. This is the third year for the event, which is held in conjunction with the Crawford Central School District and Partners in Education.
Allegheny professors, staff and students, as well as volunteers from outside the College, presented various science workshops to the fourth-graders. Topics ranged from agriculture and seeds, astronomy, circuits and electricity, and the water cycle to forces and friction, the rock cycle, animal adaptations, recycling, aquatic invertebrates and ecosystems, and bird migration and habitats.
“The program allows students to be exposed to a wide variety of science-related lessons in a setting outside the classroom,” said Lisa Whitenack, assistant professor of biology. “The topics that we cover are also covered by the science Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSAs), so this event compliments the hard work that teachers are doing to prepare students for those exams.”
“The kids are loving this!” added Julie Sloat, a fourth-grade teacher at West End Elementary School. “They like being able to experiment with lots of hands-on activities.”
On the first day of the event, Kerstin Martin, Allegheny garden manager, presented a workshop about where foods come from. During her talk, students completed a food passport activity. “I think it’s important to get children thinking more about their food and its origin,” she said.
At the same time in another classroom, students learned about aquatic macroinvertebrates (“water critters”).
“They had the opportunity to study the creatures that live in the stream to determine if the stream is healthy or not,” said Wendy Kedzierski, director of Creek Connections, a partnership between the College and K-12 schools that focuses on hands-on watershed education. “They learned that this is what scientists really do and get paid for, and that this is a career they could have in the future if they keep going to school.”
“This is fun!” added Dylan Garza, a fourth-grader from West End Elementary, as he used tweezers to search for macroinvertebrates in a small pool of water with his classmates. “Today we learned about constellations, energy and power, food and now insects.”
Throughout the jam-packed week, volunteers said they enjoyed seeing the look on the students’ faces as they participated in each session.
“These hands-on activities really bring science alive for them,” Kedzierski said. “We want to keep that momentum going.”
March 17th 2015
For the third year, Allegheny College, in conjunction with the Crawford Central School District and Partners in Education, is hosting the Fourth Graders as Scientists event (formerly called the Fourth Grade Science Symposium) on Tuesday, March 17, Thursday, March 19, and Friday, March 20, on the College’s campus.
During the event, fourth graders from all five Crawford Central elementary schools will be on campus to get hands-on experience with a variety of science topics to help them prepare for the science portion of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSAs), which the students will take in the spring.
Allegheny professors, staff and students, as well as volunteers from outside the College, will present various science workshops to students. Topics range from agriculture & seeds, astronomy, circuits & electricity and the water cycle to forces & fiction, the rock cycle, animal adaptations, recycling, aquatic invertebrates & ecosystems and bird migration & habitats.
“This program allows students to be exposed to a wide variety of science-related lessons in a setting outside the classroom,” says Lisa Whitenack, assistant professor of biology.
“One of the goals is to get kids at a very young age interested in science,” adds Wendy Kedzierski, director of Creek Connections, a partnership between the College and K-12 schools that focuses on hands-on watershed education. “These hands-on activities really bring science alive for them. We want to keep that momentum going.”
March 4th 2015
Allegheny College’s newest piece of technology offers students a chance to roll up their sleeves and act like a kid again — a combination of sands and smarts. This augmented reality sandbox, located in the basement of Alden Hall, arrived in late January and creates three-dimensional topographical maps based on the way students physically shape the sand.
Tyler Pecyna is the fact-checker for Pittsburgh Magazine. This article appeared in Pittsburgh Magazine’s Great Minds newsletter.
February 23rd 2015
Allegheny senior Kristy Garcia rolled up her sleeves and dug right into the sandbox, piling up clean, white sand to form a mountain.
Senior David Olson joined in as well, using his fingers to dig a trench at the base of the mountain.
As they watched the colors change from deep reds and oranges to bright greens to blues, they braced themselves for the fun part – placing their hand over the camera overlooking the sandbox to “make it rain.”
“That is so cool!” the wide-eyed environmental science majors said in unison as virtual rain washed over the mountain and sloshed into the trench.
It’s a common reaction when someone first sees Allegheny’s newest piece of technology, the augmented reality (AR) sandbox, in the basement of Alden Hall.
The AR sandbox, which arrived at Allegheny in January, combines the playfulness of a child’s sandbox with advanced technology to create a learning tool that can be used by students of all ages. When students shape the sand, a Microsoft Kinect 3-D camera and a projector with powerful software detect the movement and display a three-dimensional topographic and colored elevation map in real time.
According to Sam Reese, lab technician for the geology and environmental science departments, unlike street maps, topographic maps display 3-D characteristics of an area using lines, called contours, to represent elevation above or below sea level. Using topographic maps, engineers know where best to build a road, scientists know where rainwater will flow after a storm and hikers know where a trail is steepest.
“By using this technology, students can actually see how a topographic map portrays a 3-D world. Sometimes people don’t grasp that concept on a flat 2-D map,” Reese says. “The beauty of the sandbox is the simplicity of the model, as it tells a very complicated story.”
Reese explains that the College acquired the materials to construct the sandbox through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Allegheny carpenters built the actual box, and Craig Newell Welding in Cambridge Springs, Pa., built the metal apparatus that holds the camera and software in place. Dave Wagner, network and systems administrator in computer science and information technology services, set up the operating system and installed the software.
The idea for the AR sandbox came from a group of Czech researchers who posted a YouTube video displaying an early prototype that included elevation maps and a basic form of fluid movement, Reese says. A team at the W.M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences (KeckCaves) at the University of California Davis then added the topographic contour lines and improved the simulated fluid flow to create the current prototype. UC Davis provides the blueprints to build the system as well as the necessary software free of charge on its website.
Reese estimates that only a couple dozen AR sandboxes exist, mainly at museums. “It’s so new. The day our sandbox went live – Jan. 21 – an article appeared in the New York Times about augmented reality,” he says. “It’s really cutting edge for Allegheny to have this.”
Allegheny senior Kristy Garcia digs in the AR sandbox.
In addition to the geology and environmental science departments using the sandbox in labs and for independent research projects, the computer science and biology departments also plan to incorporate the technology into their class curricula.
College students won’t be the only ones digging in the sand. Creek Connections, a partnership between the College and K-12 schools that focuses on hands-on watershed education, plans to incorporate the AR sandbox in activities that explore topographic maps, watersheds and stream geology.
“People are used to street maps and Google maps that are very flat. But when we talk about watershed delineation and where rain will go, the concept becomes much easier when you can use a 3-D topographic map like this,” says Wendy Kedzierski, director of Creek Connections. “With the sandbox, you can see it as the sand builds up and the colors change. It makes the connection so much easier.”
Student Kristy Garcia, who works as a project assistant with Kedzierski and the Creek Connections program, agrees. “It’s definitely easier to understand topography when looking at the sandbox,” she says.
Kedzierski believes another benefit is that the sandbox will give students who prefer hands-on activities another opportunity for learning.
“The education that we provide in schools is a lot different from what they do every day in the classroom. Some of the children who have a hard time with traditional lecturing react differently when we do our Creek Connections activities,” Kedzierski says. “This is another tactile experience for those students.”
Reese believes that the AR sandbox is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to hands-on education.
“I believe virtual reality is going to augment the augmented reality,” he says. “It will be interesting to see how the AR software upgrades will add more bells and whistles to the sandbox over the next year or two.”
February 22nd 2015
By Tyler Stigall, Contributing Writer
February 19, 2015
The Campus
The laboratory of Dr. Lauren French, associate professor and department chair of biology at Allegheny, has a conspicuous lack of lab mice. French’s model organism of choice is a slightly less common test subject: the crayfish. Fortunately, she approaches her work with a sense of humor.
“This is the crunchy and squishy biology, as opposed to the warm and fuzzy,” she described.
What had been taken as biological gospel ten years ago is now being reexamined by Aydin Alikaya, ’15, and Gianni Vinci, ’15, two neuroscience students at Allegheny. The duo, former students and advisees of French, are exploring the process and mechanisms of neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells, in crayfish—hence her reference to the lack of lab mice.
February 13th 2015
Most people probably wouldn’t use the words “fun” and “taxes” in the same sentence.
Stephanie Martin does. In fact, Martin, associate professor of economics, enjoys taxes so much that this is her sixth year overseeing a program that gives hundreds of qualifying Meadville residents the chance to have their taxes filed by trained Allegheny College students – for free.
The national program, called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), provides free tax preparation services for Meadville residents who earned $50,000 or less in 2014. The Meadville VITA program is a partnership between Allegheny, the United Way of Western Crawford County, the Meadville Public Library and the Internal Revenue Service and is supported by the Crawford Heritage Foundation. A similar program had been in place under the direction of Janine Sickafuse, associate professor of economics, for approximately 20 years prior to the current program.
Last year, VITA helped 780 local taxpayers. This year, volunteers assisted more than 100 residents in the first week alone. Martin says the goal is to prepare 1,000 returns this season.
“What I really like about this program is that there are so many benefits to both the students and the residents,” Martin says. “For the students, they learn a valuable life skill, and they see Meadville in a whole new light. For residents, we help them get the credits they are eligible for, we save them money because they don’t have to pay for this service and we help them learn about their taxes.”
This year, more than 50 Allegheny students serve as VITA volunteers. When they commit to the program, they are required to attend a 30-hour training regimen that the IRS provides over winter break, then eight more hours of training with Martin on the software they will use. They also must pass a certification exam.
Once they complete these requirements, students spend four to six hours each week on site. During their shift, they rotate between greeters and tax preparers. They also are qualified to review each other’s work to make sure it is correct before the taxes are filed.
In return, students receive four academic credits. “The experience is graded like any other internship,” Martin says. “I also ask them to write reflections about the experience as part of their grade.”
This is the second year that senior Olivia Newman has worked with VITA. Olivia, a biology major/economics minor (with a focus on pre-veterinary medicine), says the program has helped her gain a newfound confidence.
“Before VITA, I was clueless about what to do when it came to taxes. Now I’m not, which is really cool,” she says. “I feel that if I can help other people figure it out, too, that’s awesome. That’s what drives me.”
“The Meadville residents are so grateful,” Martin adds. “One year, a woman owed about $1,000. But after we put in her mileage expenses, she ended up owing $20. The woman jumped up and hugged me.”
Zachary Blank, a sophomore who intends to major in economics, also feels he has benefited from serving as a first-year VITA volunteer.
“I’ve learned a lot about tax laws, and I’ve also worked on my people skills,” he says. “When sitting with residents, you have to know what questions to ask and how to delve a little deeper during the interview process to get the information you need.”
The VITA site is located at the Meadville Public Library (848 N. Main St.) and is open through March 12, and then March 23 to April 11. The site is open for appointments or walk-ins on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 12:30 to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4 to 7 p.m.; and Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m. For more information or to make an appointment, contact Meadville VITA at vita@allegheny.edu.
February 9th 2015
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“A smile is the same in every language.”
Any time Matt Zaborowski ’17 reads this quote, it reminds him why he has chosen to become a dentist.
Zaborowski, a global health major/biology minor from Bloomfield, N.Y., says he became interested in dentistry because of personal dental work he had done.
“I was born without adult incisors, which means I have undergone years of orthodontic work and surgeries to place implants,” he says. “Such work has increased my understanding of the multifaceted aspect of this profession. The cutting-edge technology used at both the orthodontist and oral surgeon’s offices, in conjunction with communication between my general dentist and these specialties to precisely identify the best course of action, is intriguing and is the reason why I developed an interest in the dental field.”
To help him become more involved in dentistry at Allegheny, Zaborowski joined the College’s Pre-Dental Society, a group dedicated to improving the oral health of the surrounding communities. As the group’s co-president, Zaborowski learned about a need for oral health awareness in the community and thought this was a perfect opportunity for the Pre-Dental Society to help.
As a result, as part of National Children’s Dental Health Awareness Month, the Pre-Dental Society joined with Meadville Medical Center to host a free Children’s Dental Health Fair. The fun, interactive fair for children ages 18 and under was held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Feb. 21 at the Lew Davies Community Building, 1034 Park Ave.
The fair included a fluoride station, healthy food demonstrations, good hygiene techniques and community-based oral health resources, along with free games, prizes and giveaways. (See photos above.)
“The goal was to provide a fun experience for the whole family while also giving children and adults techniques and resources they can use for a lifetime,” Zaborowski says. “We wanted to help the community understand how important oral health is. And at the same time, we hoped to get a better idea of what some of the barriers to oral health are.”
“We love to partner with Allegheny College. The students bring such enthusiasm and creativity to all our efforts,” adds Denise Johnson, M.D., chief medical officer at Meadville Medical Center. “The College is well known for its community engagement, and we in Meadville and the Medical Center do benefit.”
The idea for the fair came out of data compiled from the Meadville Community Health Needs Assessment, which Allegheny students participated in alongside representatives from Meadville Medical Center. The goal of the assessment was to determine the health needs and their associated risk factors in the area served by the Medical Center. Among several findings, the first phase of the assessment found indicators that poor oral health among children may be underreported, and that oral health may be more problematic than the data show.
“The fair was the first step toward increased education,” Zaborowski says. This summer, he plans to conduct assessments at the local dental clinics to help gather more information about the community’s oral health needs.
Although this is the first year for the fair, Zaborowski says he’d like to see it become an annual event. “The hope is that we’ll be able to assess over time whether increased education leads to improved oral health,” he says.
“My ultimate goal is to try to make kids smile more,” he adds.” I hope as I pursue a career in dentistry to be able to find this source in order to give people the confidence to wear smiles they can be proud of.”
Zaborowski says he’s grateful to have the opportunity to work on such a significant community project beginning in his sophomore year.
“I think it’s wonderful that the College gives us this opportunity to work with the professionals at Meadville Medical Center. It shows how Allegheny is part of the overall community,” he says. “It also shows that we’re all working together with the same goal.”
More information about the fair can be found at https://meadvillechildrensdentalhealthfair.wordpress.com.