December 22, 2024

EagleEye

A Newsletter for UMW Faculty and Staff

O’Dell and UMW PreHealth Students Volunteer at Remote Access Medical Clinic

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PreHealth Advisor and Professor of Biology Deborah O'Dell

PreHealth Advisor and Professor of Biology Deborah O’Dell

UMW PreHealth Advisor and Professor of Biology Deborah O’Dell and 8 UMW PreHealth students (Arianna Chase, Gabriella Nguyen, Rita Bishai, Carolina Llamas-Plascencia, Mallory Thompson, Olivia Pierce, Katherine Scott, and Rachel Cervantes-Amaro) gave their time to assist medical, dental, and vision professionals providing services to the community in Montross, VA on Sept 16 & 17.  Dr. O’Dell and the students left UMW at 4 am to travel to Westmoreland High School to assist at the Remote Access Medical (RAM) clinic, returning to UMW at 4:30pm.  Their assistance allowed medical professionals to provide services to over 400 clients from the Northern Neck. Students were also able to network with professionals and medical and dental students from schools such as VCU/MCV, UVa and organizations such as RAM and the Virginia Department of Health.  The Center for Career and Professional Development provided transportation for the students that allowed them to participate.

Deborah O’Dell Featured on Upcoming With Good Reason

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An interview with Associate Professor of Biology Deborah O’Dell will be featured on With Good Reason from Aug. 18 through Aug. 24.

The program is broadcast at 2 p.m. on Sundays on Radio IQ 88.3 Digital in Fredericksburg. You can find other broadcast times at: http://www.withgoodreasonradio.org/when-to-listen/

O’Dell will talk about her recent study that found cell phone radiation can cause changes to our cells in a program called Do Cell Phones Call Cancer?

The program will also feature Karen Ballen of University of Virginia Health Systems who says that for those diagnosed with blood cancer, the future is bright.

Later in the show, Richard Heller of Old Dominion University, will talk about new electro-magnetic treatments that are fighting deadly melanoma.

Plus, there’s a whole field of cancer research devoted just to developing treatments for the treatments — medications that can help ease the punch of chemotherapy side effects.Kimberly Lane of Radford University and her team are researching ways to ease the side effects of a potent chemotherapy drug used against with colon cancer.

Join With Good Reason’s Facebook page at (http://www.facebook.com/pages/With-Good-Reason-radio/203141233005 ) and link to the show on the site, or subscribe to our podcast: www.tinyurl.com/wgrpodcast

Audio files of the full program and its companion news feature will be posted the week of the show to the website:

https://www.withgoodreasonradio.org

Biology Professors Present at National Conference

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Deborah O’Dell and April Wynn presented a poster titled “Transforming the Biology Major Through Course Based Research” at the AAC&U/PKAL meeting “Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education” held Nov. 4-5 in Boston. The poster was co-authored by O’Dell and Wynn and Biology Professors Andrew Dolby, Lynn Lewis, Alan Griffith and Deborah Zies. The presentation described changes in the biology major that ensure that every biology student participates in authentic research before they graduate.

O’Dell and Sumner present at International Delta Kappa Gamma Society Convention

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Deborah O’Dell and Suzanne Sumner presented the workshop “Craft(y) Faculty Development:  Teachers as Learners” for the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International Convention, July 5 – 9, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn.

Delta Kappa Gamma is a professional honor society with the mission to promote professional leadership development of women educators and excellence in education.

Biology Professors Publish Paper in Virginia Journal of Science

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Deborah O’Dell, associate professor of biological sciences, and Andrew Dolby, professor of biological sciences, have had their paper, “A Comparison of Techniques Measuring Stress in Birds,” published in the Virginia Journal of Science.

This paper was co-authored with  former UMW Biology students Michael A. Carlo, Abigail Kimmitt, Ellen Bikowski and Katherine R. Morris

Biology Students Awarded Grant, Attend Research Meeting

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Deborah O’Dell, associate professor of biology, and her research student Virginia Lyle King attended the Virginia Academy of Science Undergraduate Research Meeting on Oct. 18 at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. O’Dell assisted in judging student presentations for the VAS Undergraduate Research Grant. King presented her work with Riley Scalzo on “Cell Phone Radiation Induced Gene Expression in Human Glioblastoma Cells.”  King and Scalzo were awarded one of the $500 grants to support their work.

Professors Present at AAC&U STEM Conference

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Kathryn Loesser-Casey, professor of biology, and Debra Hydorn, professor of mathematics, gave the poster presentation “A New Course to Develop Students’ Scientific Reasoning and Practice Skills” at the AAC&U conference Transforming STEM Education: Inquiry, Innovation, Inclusion and Evidence, Oct. 31-Nov. 2, in San Diego, Calif. The poster provided information about the development of IDIS 101 Scientific Reasoning and Practices to prepare incoming students for college-level science course work, which was developed through support from the NSF STEREPS grant. In addition, Deborah O’Dell, associate professor of biology, gave the poster presentation “Using Clickers in the STEM classroom to Promote Student Engagement and Learning” about her experiences using a student response system.

Faculty Members Represent UMW at Virginia Academy of Science

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Werner Wieland, Professor of Biological Sciences at University of Mary Washington, has been elected a Fellow of Virginia Academy of Science.   Professor Wieland attended the Annual Meeting of VAS May 23-25, 2013 where his student Yoshi Takeda presented results from their work as part of the UMW Summer Science Institute entitled “Turtles of the Fredericksburg Canal: Introduced Species and Estimates of Population Sizes.

Professor Wieland has been an active member of VAS since 1984 and has held a variety of leadership positions in the Academy.   In May 2005, he was elected VAS Vice-President and served as Program Chair for the 84th Annual Meeting in 2006.  He was President of the Academy in 2007-2008 and has served as Editor of the Virginia Journal of Science since 2002.

At the same meeting Deborah O’Dell, Professor of Biological Sciences,  was elected President of the Virginia Academy of Science.  Professors O’Dell,  Rosemary Barra, Theresa Grana, Stephen Fuller, Lynn Lewis, and Deborah Zies of the Department of Biological Sciences also made presentations at the meeting.  Professor Stephen Gallik attended as Councilor for the Section on Biology.