April Professional Notes
04/30/2019
A round-up of awards, presentations, papers and the other professional achievements of SLU faculty, staff and students.
Faculty and Staff
Awards and Fellowships
Ness Sandoval, Ph.D., associate professor and co-director of public and social policy in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, has been honored by the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis for his demographic work to help business in the St. Louis region.
The award recognizing Sandoval as a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Member of the Year was presented at the group’s Annual Adelante Awards ceremony on Friday, April 26.
Marla Berg-Weger, Ph.D., professor in the School of Social Work in the College for Public Health and Social Justice, received the 2019 Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Award. She received the
award for excellence in service to older adults.
Berg-Weger is also the executive director of Gateway Geriatric Education Center and a Gerontological Society of America Fellow.
Publications
Terri Rebmann, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and biostatistics and director of the Institute for Biosecurity, recently published a blog article in the Notebook, published by the Reinert Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. In the post, Rebmann discusses how social justice is inherent in the field of infectious disease epidemiology and shares teaching approaches to engage students in social justice issues.
Keon Gilbert, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Behavioral Science and Health Education, co-edited Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional, published by the American Public Health Association.
Workshops, Presentations and Lectures
Benjamin Looker, Ph.D., of the Department of American Studies, delivered a paper, “Race, Liberalism, and Neighborhood Exceptionalism in the Great Society City,” at the Organization of American Historians (OAH) 2019 annual conference in Philadelphia.
Appointments
Sophia M. Chung, M.D., professor and Walter F. and Sharon Ryan Davisson Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology, has been voted in as the vice chair of the ACGME RRC Ophthalmology for 2019 to 2021.
Her appointment is effective in July 2019.
Studies
Robert M. Lewis, an assistant professor of urban planning and development, is launching a six-month study into how public transportation affects the economies of the St. Louis metro area and Missouri.
His research will help quantify the impact public transportation has on urban, suburban and rural communities statewide. Lewis' study will define the current public transportation landscape, rider demographics and spending by transit agencies across the state.
Lewis’ research is commissioned by the Citizens for Modern Transit, in partnership with the Missouri Public Transit Association and AARP St. Louis.
Students
Awards
The Saint Louis University Library Associates have announced the winners of the 2019 Undergraduate Writing Award. The award was inaugurated in 2014 and is now completing its fifth round. This year’s genre was poetry. (with photo)
Prizes
- First Prize, $500, Parvuna Sulaiman for her poem, “On the Nature of Theft.”
- Second Prize, $300, Tannock Blair for his poem “Empties.”
- Encouragement Award, Kevin Schulte for his “Haiku For a Fallen Friend.”
All three students are seniors in the College of Arts and Sciences. Their poems are available online in the Spring issue of Kiln, the undergraduate literary journal.
The awards ceremony took place as part of SLU’s Eighth Annual Student Reading on Wednesday, April 24, in the Pius XII Memorial Library’s second floor gallery.
The Undergraduate Writing Award rotates annually between short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. Next year’s prize will be awarded for creative nonfiction. Details of the 2020 cycle, including submission requirements and timeline, will be posted in the fall semester on the Undergraduate Writing Award website.
On Friday, March 29, 2019, four Master’s of Health Administration (MHA) students competed in the 2019 The Ohio State University Healthcare Case Competition and took second place in the contest.
The rigorous, regional case competition allows first year MHA/MBA/MPA students to compete and gain exposure to the world of health care.
SLU’s team included Andrew Haffner, Grant Optican, Jenna Anthony, Austin Loomis and their coach, Kenton Johnston, Ph.D.
Over the weekend of April 6, Saint Louis University's military drill team, Parks Guard, attended the 60th annual National Military Excellence Competition at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. The team competed in the Two-Man Trick Drill against nine other top universities including Rutgers, Penn State, Michigan State and the Naval Academy.
The team’s two newest members of the team, sophomore Colleen Corcoran and student John Leede, won the Second Place trophy. The two Air Force ROTC Cadets practiced their routine for more than 60 hours since January.
Fellowships
American Studies doctoral students Mary Maxfield and Cicely Hunter received two of the twelve competitively awarded graduate research fellowships from “The Divided City,” an urban humanities initiative administered by Washington University. The fellowships are funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and support work on social inequality in urban and metropolitan spaces.
- Hunter’s project is “Blaring Silence: The Silent Protest Parade of 1917 and Its Historical Influence on Activism.”
- Maxfield’s project is “De-Centered Citizens: Queer St. Louis and Community Space, 1975-2019.”
Saint Louis University Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) junior Logan Stahl was recently chosen to work at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in its clinical laboratory alongside the Mayo Clinic laboratory professionals in the summer of 2019.
More than an internship, this position is a highly sought-after opportunity for students to work with Mayo Clinic professionals as they interact with blood, tissue and bodily fluid specimens and perform a wide range of tests using both manual techniques and state-of-the-art equipment. The work being done by the professionals and the students can directly affect a patient’s diagnosis.
“I am really looking forward to the clinical experience I will get while at the Mayo Clinic because it is such a prestigious and state-of-the-art institution,” Stahl said. “I got a position in the Cell Kinetic Laboratory working with Flow Cytometry, which is a technique that I would not get a lot of exposure to in many other labs.”
“Logan is one of our hardest working students and he always comes to class prepared and he is not afraid to ask questions,” Amanda Reed, MLS program director, said. “Logan is always eager to participate in classroom discussions and answer tough questions, which are all traits that will serve him well at the Mayo Clinic. I believe this experience will only increase Logan’s passion for Medical Laboratory Science. He will have the opportunity to experience an area of the clinical laboratory that other students will not get to see. I believe that this experience will challenge him, but also inspire him to explore less traditional areas of the clinical laboratory as possible career paths.”
The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit organization committed to clinical practice, education and research. The clinic provides expert, whole-person care to everyone who needs healing. Operating in five states, the Mayo Clinic cares for more than one million people a year and their location in Minnesota has been recognized as the best hospital in the nation by US News and World Report.
SLU McNair scholar Carissa Villanueva has been accepted to the 2019 Summer Program in Biostatistics & Computational Biology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University.
Villanueva, who is majoring in both mathematics and anthropology, previously participated in the McNair Summer Research Internship Program at SLU and completed a research project, “Effects of Racial and Ethnic Background on Maternal Health in the U.S.,” under the guidance and supervision of her McNair faculty mentor, Mary Vermilion, Ph.D.
She presented her work at the inaugural McNair Summer Research Symposium at SLU. The following October, she would get another opportunity to present her work at the UNM McNair Research Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Villanueva was one of three SLU McNair Scholars recognized as “Outstanding Scholar” last summer for her overall participation during the internship program and was highly recommended by the McNair program director, Jamie D. Motley, Ph.D., for the summer program at Harvard.
“Carissa demonstrated an exceptional work ethic, level of commitment, dependability and team spirit throughout the eight weeks of the program,” Motley said. “She took advantage of every opportunity that we provided to prepare for the GRE, meet with her mentor, attend workshops and seminars and engage in fruitful dialogue with her peers.”
After completing her summer research at Harvard, Villanueva will return to SLU and continue her participation in the McNair Scholars Program while working toward the completion of her degree programs and preparing for graduate school. She currently plans to apply to doctoral programs in biostatistics.
Scholarships
Eight students have been selected as recipients of the University’s Mev Puleo Scholarship in Latin American Theology, Politics and Culture for its 2019 summer immersion in San José, Costa Rica.
The Department of Theological Studies has awarded scholarships to the following students:
- Diamond Hardiman
- Julia Griffin
- Brielle Heraty
- Mary O'Connell
- Marissa Ornelas
- Mikhail Faulconer
- Gabriela Keator
- Carly Manshum
The first alternate is:
- Emily Jazbani
Exhibit Reviews
The Saint Louis University Museum of Art exhibition, Race and Representation: Euro-American Depictions of Native Americans and Their Cultures, organized by Bradley Bailey, Ph.D., of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, and students Jordan Behenna, Nicholas di Napoli, of SLU-Madrid, Raegan Jackson, Braden Kirvida, Bailey McCulloch, Mary McGuire, Marguerite Passaglia and Ela Sutcu, was reviewed in the Spring 2019 issue of All the Art.
Interviews
Tandra Taylor, a doctoral student in the Department of American Studies, was featured in an article in AdVantage due to her appointment to a position promoting diversity and inclusion at Lewis and Clark Community College.
Symposia
The Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures held its annual graduate and undergraduate symposium on Saturday, April 6.
The seventeen panels ranged in topics such as experience with service learning and volunteering, translation, pedagogy, politics, current events, history, immigration, and cultural comparisons in media, recycling and religion.
Each year this event provides students with the opportunity to present their own research in a variety of topics in languages, literatures, and cultures. Students shared projects regarding diverse themes in language and culture in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian, and Spanish.
Sixty-one students presented their research.
The morning started with breakfast and opening remarks by Pascale Perraudin, Ph.D., associate professor of French, continued with morning panel sessions, followed with a break for lunch and wrapped up with afternoon sessions.
The acrobatic salsa dance team Sazón kicked off the afternoon. The team’s dancers represent cultures from around the world including Chile, Iraq, México, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, the United States and Venezuela.
Scholar Bowl
Fourteen teams of undergraduate public health students from across the United States competed in the 2019 Public Health Scholar Bowl at Saint Louis University on Saturday, April 6.
Now in its seventh year, the Scholar Bowl challenges undergraduate student teams to test their public health knowledge and allows them to connect with their peers and compete for cash prizes in a quiz bowl competition and a case study challenge.
This year, the case study focused on partnering with local communities to implement evidence-based approaches.
2019 Case Study Competition Winners
- First place, Mercyhurst University
- Second place, The George Washington University
Quiz Bowl Winners
- First place, The Ohio State University
- Second place, Emory University
Participating Teams
- Brown University
- DePaul University
- Emory University
- George Washington University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Kent State University
- Lindenwood University
- Macalester College
- Mercyhurst University
- Saint Louis University
- Temple University
- The Ohio State University
- Truman State University
- The University of Alabama at Birmingham
The Public Health Scholar Bowl is an annual, student-organized event hosted in April by Saint Louis University's College for Public Health and Social Justice.
With the end of the academic year approaching, submit your awards, accomplishments, publications, presentations and notable achievements to Newslink by Friday, May 10, to be considered for inclusion in two special End-of-Year Professional Notes features.
The first feature will be a roundup of student achievements and will be published just prior to SLU's May 18 commencement.
The second feature will focus on faculty and staff achievements and will be published on Wednesday, May 29.
Submit achievements here. Email photos to newslink@slu.edu.