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Assistant Professor of Anthropology Liza Gijanto Awarded Prestigious Howard Foundation Fellowship

June 19, 2017

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Liza Gijanto

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Liza Gijanto was awarded a highly-competitive Howard Foundation Fellowship in April 2017 for her project titled: Emancipation and Commerce: The Gambia Colony and American Plantations in the Age of British Abolition. The $33,000 fellowship for the 2017-2018 academic year will support Dr. Gijanto’s research which examines the nature of the impact of the Atlantic trade on the Gambia River. Dr. Gijanto was one of just eight nationwide 2017-2018 fellowship recipients and the only recipient in the field of archaeology. Other 2017-2018 fellowship recipients were selected from the fields of photography and anthropology and range from professors at large institutions such as UCLA to independent artists collaborating with organizations such as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This distinguished award will allow Dr. Gijanto to complete data-gathering for the Emancipation and Commerce project and begin writing a monograph describing the work. The project will advance understanding of the complex history of abolition in West Africa, a program that was ironically undermined by the continued consumption of goods produced by enslaved laborers in the Americas within an African colony founded to end the traffic of slaves. Dr. Gijanto will travel to two archives: the Peter Strickland Archive in Mystic, Connecticut and the British National Archives in Kew, London, during Fall 2017 and begin work on the monograph in Spring 2018.

The Howard Foundation is associated with Brown University and is one of few funders dedicated “to furthering the personal development of promising individuals at the crucial middle stages of their careers in the liberal and creative arts”. The Howard Foundation awards a limited number of fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals and those who have achieved recognition for at least one major project.

Assistant Professor Kristy A. Lewis’ Collaborative Research Project Investigates Community and Ecological Impacts after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

June 7, 2017

Kristy A. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Coastal Ecology

Kristy A. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Coastal Ecology at SMCM, received highly competitive funding from a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Gulf Research Program Synthesis Grant to participate in a collaborative project titled: Community Cohesion and Recovery after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. The work is crucial to disaster management as it examines a community’s ability to self-organize and mobilize after a major disruption such as the oil spill occurring in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Dr. Lewis’ two-year $77,000 award is part of a larger overall NAS award ($590,000; NAS Award # 200007629) directed by principal investigator Dr. So-Min Cheong at the University of Kansas Center for Research. Dr. Lewis will be the key personnel driving the ecological analyses while also working closely with collaborator Jacob Model of Stanford University to develop a comprehensive database of social and ecological data, called the Community Response Inventory (CRI). Dr. Lewis and collaborators will then develop statistical models to assess the association between the presence of local nonprofits, density of those networks, and how the ecological health of the system drives the ability of nonprofits, and thus communities, to respond to oil spills.

Specifically, the planned research uses environmental data in combination with community-level social and economic data to generate novel insights on community impact from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It fills an important gap in social capital and community resilience literature by bringing attention to organizations and nonprofits, and helps develop community skills to mobilize and coordinate. This project will also provide funding for an undergraduate research assistant at SMCM to support Dr. Lewis with her research. Dr. Lewis transitioned from a visiting assistant professor position to a tenure-track assistant professor position in July 2017 and will continue this research into 2018.

Research reported in this article was supported by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine under award number: 200007629.

Julia A. King Awarded Funding to Host Book-Preparation Conference

May 19, 2017

Dr. Julia A. King (far right) and collaborators including SMCM alumni Strickland ’08 (back row third from right), Mansius ’13 (front row third from right), and Webster ’16 (front row second from right)

Julia A. King, Professor of Anthropology, recently received a prestigious grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Dr. King received $4,000 from the NEH Chairman’s office to help fund a small two-day conference in May 2017 which brought together participants from a previous NEH-funded Collaborative Research Grant entitled: The Lower Potomac River Valley at Contact (ca. 1500-1720 AD). The conference provided an opportunity for collaborators to review, critique, and better integrate individual essays for a peer-reviewed manuscript with a hopeful submission date in September 2017. The book will describe the archaeological research focused on the history and development of the lower Potomac River valley before the age of George Washington. Dr. Barbara J. Heath, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, will serve as co-editor along with Dr. King. The conference was held at Stratford Hall, a historic house museum in Westmoreland County, Virginia and was additionally supported by the SMCM Provost’s office.

The book will consist of 14-15 chapters by different authors, all of whom participated in the original project which began in 2012. Collaborators, staff, and consultants assembled collections from 34 previously-excavated archaeological sites on both sides of the Potomac and used these assemblages to address three major topics related to Anglo-Native interaction: economic exchange and the rise of consumerism; the role of conflict, violence, and the threat of violence in the competition for resources; and the use of material culture to maintain or broker new or hybrid identities in a colonial setting. The project has resulted in several peer-reviewed articles, symposia at professional meetings, and the website colonialencounters.org. SMCM alumni Scott M. Strickland ’08, Mary Kate Mansius ’13, and Rebecca Webster ’16 attended the conference as participants and are preparing chapters for the book.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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SMCM Rising Senior Biochemistry Major Receives Research Award for Summer Project

May 4, 2017

SMCM student Elizabeth Johnson holds a white-throated sparrow

Elizabeth Johnson holds a white-throated sparrow on the St. Mary’s College of Maryland campus

Elizabeth Johnson, a rising senior biochemistry major, was awarded $1,000 from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) to support her 2017 summer research project. Johnson will be working on a cross-disciplinary project with Dr. Pamela Mertz, Chair and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Dr. Jessica Malisch, Assistant Professor of Biology, as part of SMCM’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). The title of her project is “Oh Say Can you CBG? A New Technique for Evaluating Stress Responses in Birds” which capitalizes on the expertise of biochemical mechanisms and methodology available in Dr. Mertz’s lab to help answer important biology research questions being explored in Dr. Malisch’s lab.

Corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) is a protein involved in vertebrate animals’ response to stressors. CBG and the hormone corticosterone help coordinate organismal responses to changes in the environment, but most field biologists do not account for CBG due to difficulty obtaining accurate measurements. Johnson’s research as part of the SURF program in June and July, 2017 will attempt to make CBG quantification more practical. Better understanding of the role of CBG will help ecologists interpret physiological data collected in the field and may help lead to medical advances in treating human stress disorders.

The SURF program at SMCM involves students, mentored by a faculty member, engaging in scholarly or creative work for eight-weeks over the summer. The ASBMB is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization whose mission is to advance the science of biochemistry and molecular biology and to promote the understanding of the molecular nature of life processes.

SMCM Student Research Projects Generating Steady Interest

May 2, 2017

The team of student and professors working on vCalc projects

The team of students and professors working on vCalc projects

A grant jointly funded by the Maryland Industrial Partnerships program and vCalc LLC in 2016 continues to generate steady interest at vCalc.com. St. Mary’s College of Maryland was awarded $97,361 to support student projects for vCalc.

The Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program promotes the development and commercialization of products and processes through industry/university research partnerships. MIPS provides matching funds to help Maryland companies pay for the university research. Projects are initiated by the companies to meet research and development goals.

vCalc (see 90 second YouTube video here) is a fast-growing calculator, equation and dataset library that helps users create, collaborate and quickly calculate. Topics range from complex scientific equations to practical everyday equations. vCalc has hundreds of calculators and thousands of equations created by engineers, professors and students from around the world.

The St. Mary’s research team developed equations for vCalc.com in math, chemistry, psychology, physics, and economics during the summer of 2016. The team was composed of students Caleb Svobodny, Austin Schlegel, Daria Vaseneva, Emma Skekel, Tyler Jones, Caroline Robertson, Savannah Bergen and Chris Lynch. Professors Emek Kose, Josh Grossman, Richard Platt, Randolph Larsen and Shizuka Nishikawa supported the project.

Kurt Heckman, president of vCalc, recently reported that several of the calculators created by SMCM students posted at vCalc.com are generating significant regular traffic to the site, including Savannah Bergen’s Characteristic Polynomial of a 3×3 matrix, which regularly gets used over 1,000 times per month, and Emma Skekel’s chemistry calculator to compute Kp from Kc, which sees 1,700 page hits per month, with an average time on page of 12 minutes and 38 seconds! According to Heckman, “that’s terrific engagement, and clearly an indication of how useful this calculator has become to chemistry students”.

SMCM Psychology Major Awarded Psi Chi Undergraduate Research Grant

April 10, 2017

Claire Kostelnik – Recipient of Psi Chi Undergraduate Research Grant

Senior psychology major Claire Kostelnik ’17 was selected as a recipient of a Psi Chi 2016-2017 Fall Undergraduate Research Grant for her SMP: “Intracerebral Injections of L655, 708 on Depressive-like Behavior.” Kostelnik is conducting the research under the mentorship of Aileen Bailey, Professor of Psychology and recipient of the college’s Aldom-Plansoen Distinguished Professorship.

Kostelnik received $1,500 to support her research which focuses on depression, a leading cause of mortality and disability worldwide. Together, Kostelnik and Bailey are continuing ongoing research in Dr. Bailey’s lab by exploring the antidepressant actions of a new drug (L655, 708) on a population of lab rats. They hope to demonstrate similar antidepressant actions as found in depression therapy drugs such as ketamine, without the typical 3-8 week effect delay.

Psi Chi is the International Honor Society in Psychology. SMCM has a large and active Psi Chi chapter, with dozens of members and annual recipients of student research grants.

Bailey and Student Receive Undergraduate Research Grant for Brain Research Study

April 7, 2017

Aileen Bailey – Professor of Psychology

Aileen Bailey, Professor of Psychology and recipient of the college’s Aldom-Plansoen Distinguished Professorship, and Zoey Forrester-Fronstin ’17 were selected as recipients of a Psi Chi 2016-2017 Spring Undergraduate Research Grant for Forrester-Fronstin’s project, “The influence of Orexin Antagonist, SB-334867, on Cognition.” Bailey described the project as an extension of research previously done in her lab and published as “Orexin receptor activity in the basal forebrain alters performance on an olfactory discrimination task” in Brain Research, 1594, 215-222 (Piantadosi, P.T., Holmes, A., Roberts, B.M., & Bailey, A.M., 2015).

Bailey said Forrester-Fronstin is looking at the connection between the neuropeptide orexin and its modulation of cognitive flexibility. Her research is loosely tied to research on Alzheimer’s disease as it focuses on one area of the brain that deteriorates in the disease. “Understanding how this area of the brain works to control cognitive ability may lead to a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease,” Bailey said.

Kyle Bishop Receives Grant for the Wellness Center

April 3, 2017

Kyle Bishop ’04 – Executive Director of the Wellness Center

Kyle Bishop, Executive Director of the Wellness Center, received a $16,000 grant in March to implement Maryland’s Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) project at SMCM. SBIRT is an evidence-based practice used to identify, reduce, and prevent problematic use, abuse, and dependence on alcohol and illicit drugs. The funding is coming to SMCM through Behavioral Health System, Baltimore, as part of a larger program funded by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.

Dr. Bishop and the Wellness Center staff will work with The Mosaic Group to incorporate screening tools, documentation, and reporting capacity into the Health Services’ electronic health record system. The Mosaic Group is a nationally recognized management-consulting firm with expertise in community health and human-services strategies, program design, and evaluation across a breadth of content areas including health information technology.

The SMCM Wellness Center is staffed by a team of medical and mental health professionals to assist students in addressing their physical and mental health concerns. The location, hours, list of services and more can all be found at www.smcm.edu/wellness/. Wellness Center staff began meeting with The Mosaic Group personnel in March to implement screening and referral tools that will hopefully help reduce substance abuse at SMCM.

Bowers and Research Student Selected for National Lab Program

April 2, 2017

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Geoff Bowers was recently named one of four faculty from across the nation that will be participating in the Visiting Faculty Program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) this summer. This program is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists in collaboration with the Department of Energy laboratories. The goal of the program is to bring faculty from institutions traditionally underrepresented in the research community to the national laboratories, expanding their workforce and giving faculty and their students opportunities to engage in and augment their professional scholarship. The competitive program requires a research proposal co-written with a PNNL scientist and involves working ten weeks this summer at the national lab.

Image of shale with an inset of microscopic elements

Shale in central New York with an inset showing a colorized helium ion microscope image of clay with cartoons of carbon dioxide and methane

Dr. Bowers will be working with H. Todd Schaef and his collaborators studying the interactions of minerals and organic matter in the subsurface with supercritical methane and carbon dioxide, work relevant to non-conventional gas extraction and sequestration. One of Dr. Bowers’s research students, Sydney Cunniff ‘17, will also be at the lab this summer working with Dr. Schaef and colleagues through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships program.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Continues Research for U.S. Department of Energy

February 14, 2017

Geoffrey M Bowers – Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Geoffrey Bowers, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, is continuing a long term collaboration with scientists at Michigan State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The research, for the U.S. Department of Energy, develops general principles for understanding the role natural solid surfaces play in our energy infrastructure.

Bowers recently received funding that will enhance new instrumentation in the SMCM museum studies’ program. He and his undergraduate researchers will use it to study how carbon-based molecules adhere to the surfaces of model and natural geological materials such as shale. They will also be able to examine how such materials decompose when exposed to heat.

“My collaborators at Michigan State and I have been working for the past seven years on understanding behaviors of molecules at places where solid surfaces and fluids (liquid or gas) meet out in the environment,” Bowers said.

Bowers said he and his collaborators are looking to identify the rules nature follows when a surface, like the outer surface of clay, comes in contact with fluid.

The College currently has a thermogravimetric analyzer/differential scanning calorimeter that will allow Bowers and colleagues to take composite materials and track the amount of mass lost at a given temperature and how much energy it took for it to happen.

Bowers said the TGA/DSC is a powerful instrument on its own but by attaching the output to an infrared spectrometer, they will be able to analyze and examine the chemistry of what is leaving the sample, an important component to their research.

Having a TGA/DSC integrated with an infrared spectrometer he said is “a unique feature for St. Mary’s College.” He suspects the number of non-research first institutions that have that kind of instrument and capability is “extraordinarily small.”

Bowers explained that this project is a building block in the creation of a macroscopic understanding of such things as pollutant transport, nutrient cycling, non-conventional gas extraction, and subsurface CO2 sequestration.

“Ultimately, predicting the fate and transport of contaminants in the soil or our watershed or even in the deep subsurface comes down to understanding the ways molecules interact with complex interfaces in complex fluids. We’re privileged to work on basic scientific questions that have practical impacts on society now and in the future. There are lots of great people working on these issues and I am happy that my undergraduate students and I can contribute to making the world a better place now and for generations to come,” he said.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland, designated the Maryland state honors college in 1992, is ranked one of the best public liberal arts schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Approximately 1,700 students attend the college, nestled on the St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Science, Chemical, Geological, and Biological Sciences Program, under Award Number DE-FG02-08ER15929

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes and warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.