Professor Tom Stoffregen‘s most recent publication is with Ph.D. candidate Yawen Yu, recent Ph.D. graduate Jane Yank, and former NIH-supported post-doc Sebastien Villard:
Yu, Y., Yank, J. R., Villard, S., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2010). Postural activity and visual vigilance performance during rough seas. Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, in press.
Carol Nielsen elected CS representative to University Senate
Congratulations to Carol Nielsen, Executive Secretary in the Academic Office, for being elected to a three-year term to the University Senate. Ms. Nielsen will be a Civil Service representative in the Academic Affairs area. Her term will start July 1 and end June 30, 2013.
Ph.D. candidate Lesley Scibora awarded 2010-11 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
Lesley Scibora, Ph.D. candidate in Kinesiology with an emphasis in exercise physiology, has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Graduate School for 2010-2011. This prestigious and highly competitive fellowship will support Ms.Scibora in her research and dissertation preparation during the the 2010-11 academic year. Ms. Scibora is advised by Prof. Moira Petit.
Danielle Templeton awarded 3-year postdoc fellowship
Danielle Templeton, Ph.D. candidate in Kinesiology with an exercise physiology emphasis, has been offered a three-year Cardiology T32 PostDoctoral Fellowship at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She’ll be working with Dr. Christopher DeSouza and Dr. Brian Stauffer on a study titled, “Dietary Linoleic Acid, Cardiovascular Function and Heart Failure.”
The fellowship begins this August. Congratulations, Danielle!
Two groups from School of Social Work studying abroad this spring
You can follow two groups of students and faculty from the School of Social Work as they study aboard this spring.
Associate Professor Liz Lightfoot is leading a study tour in Namibia from May 17 to June 2. The group members include 18 graduate students. Read their blog.
Assistant Professor Ross Velure Roholt is leading 10 Youth Studies undergraduates and four Youth Development Leadership graduate students on a study in Northern Ireland from May 23 to June 9. Read their blog.
School of Social Work’s Lee named Fesler-Lampert Chair in Aging Studies
Hee Yun Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Social Work, has been named the 2010-2011 Fesler-Lampert Chair in Aging Studies at the University of Minnesota Center on Aging.
The endowed chair funds researchers and scholars who want to pursue projects that will further knowledge and understanding about aging and its effects on people. Dr. Lee has been studying aging for more than 20 years, focusing on the quality of life and care among elderly immigrants and refugees. Holding the chair will give her the opportunity to pursue a community-based participatory research project that will examine health literacy—specifically cancer literacy and pertinent screening behaviors—among elders in the Hmong community in the Twin Cities area.
The long-term goal of the project is to create effective, culturally competent, and community-based interventions that increase cancer screening and ultimately improve the health and well-being of elder Hmong refugees. The chair was created in 1999 by the Center on Aging with support from the University of Minnesota Graduate School and the generosity of David and Elizabeth Fesler.
Amanda Matzek wins Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
Amanda Matzek, Ph.D. candidate in Family Social Science, has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the Graduate School for 2010-2011. The prestigious fellowship is intended to enable Ph.D. candidates of particular promise to devote full-time effort to the research and writing of the dissertation during 2010-11 academic year.
Wade awarded 2010 Faculty and Staff Research Award for project on autism
Prof. Michael Wade, Kinesiology, has been presented a 2010 Faculty and Staff Research Award for his project, “Sensitivity to biological motion in children with autism spectrum disorder.” The $5,000 award is from the CEHD Office of Research and Policy. Dr. David R. Johnson, senior associate dean for research and policy, commented, “This is a great accomplishment given the very competitive set of proposals.”
Kin undergrad Sigrid Casey featured in Rec Sports Member Newsletter
Sigrid Casey, Kinesiology B.S. student, is featured in the Recreational Sports Member Newsletter for April. Read about Sigrid’s interests and aspirations, download the Member Newsletter PDF.
Konczak publishes with doctoral students Aman and Lu
Prof. Juergen Konczak, Kinesiology professor, has published an article with graduate students Joshua Aman and Chiahao Lu titled “The integration of vision and haptic sensing: a computational and neural perspective.” It will appear online this month in the journal Cognitive Critique. This is the first review paper to be published by students Aman and Lu, who are Prof. Konczak’s assistants in the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab.
Doctoral student recognized for excellence in UMNews story
Doctoral candidate Phebe Veronica Jatau is one of four students highlighted in a UMNews story on research by recipients of the Graduate School’s 2009-10 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships. Her research focuses on high school dropout rates among northern Nigerian women and the gender gap and inequities that pervade the educational system. Jatau is in the literacy education track in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Continue reading “Doctoral student recognized for excellence in UMNews story”
Faculty expert on Thailand speaks about current crisis
Gerald Fry, professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development, was interviewed recently about the current conflict in Thailand by MinnPost. Fry, who was selected with colleague David Chapman as a recipient of the 2009 Award for Global Engagement, has traveled to Thailand more than 50 times and has written several books and articles about Thailand. Fry was planning to lead a group of 19 University of Minnesota students to Thailand this week, but the trip was canceled because of the violence erupting in Bangkok.
Gunnar’s research on stress in child care settings receives national attention
Recent research led by Regents Professor Megan Gunnar, Institute of Child Development, has attracted national media attention. Her study of preschoolers attending full-day, licensed child care showed that their levels of the stress hormone cortisol exceeded their cortisol levels when they were at home. The study, published in the journal Child Development, found children’s cortisol levels highest in settings with intrusive or over-controlling care providers, where children were frequently moved between activities, had relatively little free play time, and spent long periods of time in structured activities led by the providers.
Researchers studied about 150 three-and four-year-olds in 110 different family child care homes, observing both the children’s behavior and the behavior of their care providers. They sampled saliva to measure the children’s cortisol levels.
Continue reading “Gunnar’s research on stress in child care settings receives national attention”
STEM Center featured on KARE 11
Tamara Moore, co-director of the STEM Education Center, and the center’s project with a local school are the subject of a KARE 11 Sunrise segment, “What’s Cool in Our School.” The STEM Center has partnered with Central Middle School in Columbia Heights to create a pilot program integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics concepts in a new engineering class at the school.
Students in the class are learning to combine these concepts through the hands-on tasks of designing and making a cardboard chair that can support 200 pounds. Moore, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, discusses the real-world applications of STEM with the students and describes how important it is to integrate STEM in teacher training and student learning.
LaVoi attending International Working Group on Women and Sport (IWG)
Nicole LaVoi, Tucker Center Associate Director and Lecturer in the School of Kinesiology, is in Sydney, Australia, attending the International Working Group on Women and Sport’s (IWG) World Conference on Women with over 500 delegates from around the world. She is presenting her abstracts, “Developing and Empowering Physically Active Girls: An Evidence-based Multidisciplinary Approach” and “The Occupational Sex Segregation of Female Youth Soccer Coaches.”
Kinesiology faculty blog from Uganda soccer coach training program
Jens Omli, Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, and Stacy Ingraham of the School of Kinesiology, University of Minnesota; former Gopher soccer player and Arkansas State assistant soccer coach Lisa Berg, Macalester College soccer coach Ian Barker; University of Northern Illinois soccer coach Carrie Barker; and Wheaton College soccer coach Michael Guiliano are blogging from Africa as they deliver a youth soccer coaching education program to over 160 men and women coaches from across Uganda. Check out their blog.
Graduate students study social development in Namibia
Liz Lightfoot, associate professor in the School of Social Work, is leading a study tour in Namibia from May 17 to June 2. The group members, who include 18 graduate students, will post their activities on this blog .
The group will visit with Namibian social workers in governmental and nongovernmental organizations working in the area of social development, and will visit social development projects run by local people in rural areas. The trip also will include viewing Namibia’s famed wildlife at Etosha National Park, visiting Swakopmund—the Adventure Capital of Africa—and camping in a Bushman camp.
ICI’s Check & Connect in The Huffington Post
Check & Connect, a school-engagement program of the Institute on Community Integration (ICI), was highlighted in “Solving the Mental Health Crisis for Our Children,” a May 6 article in The Huffington Post written by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
Read more about Check & Connect in the spring 2009 issue of Connect.
Jitendra presents at CEC
Educational Psychology professor Asha Jitendra presented at the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual convention in Nashville in April. She presented a paper entitled “Main idea and summarization: Improving text compehension for students with learning disabilities,” co-authored with M. Gaijria (Thomas Aquinas College professor). Jitendra presented posters on “Improving learning of ration and proportion for secondary students with behavior disorders” with co-authors M. George (director, Centennial School, Bethlehem, PA), K. Starosta (doctoral candidate, Lehigh University) and J.R. Star (Harvard University assistant professor) and “An analysis of ration and proportion instruction in middle school mathematics textbooks” with Fumio Someki (UM doctoral candidate in Educational Psychology).
Professor Jitendra was part of invited CEC panel sessions on “Developing a research agenda” and “Teaching middle school students ration and proportion problem solving using schma-based instruction.” She was an invited strand leader, leading several sessions on improving the learning of students struggling with mathematics.
Johnson and Symons present at CEC
Educational Psychology associate professor Frank Symons and research associate LeAnne Johnson, both of special education, presented a session at the Council for Exceptional Children’s Conference in Nashville last month, discussing results from a randomized control trial examining the impact of teacher preference when adopting and implementing evidence-based classroom management practices. Using treatment integrity as an outcome variable, they presented evidence to enhance efforts to scale-up implementation of evidence-based practices.