BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY
OF PENNSYLVANIA
RESEARCH
& CREATIVE
ACTIVITIES
2014
BRIGHT IDEA
INDEX
Hard Habits to Break .......................................... 02
Can What You Eat Affect How You Learn?.............. 05
Jazz Odyssey....................................................... 06
Community Impact.............................................. 07
Student researches wireless power transfer for U.S. Navy
Chris Vanek, a senior electronics engineering technology
major, worked on research on wireless power transfer
(WPT) technology sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory in Washington, D.C. He designed and
implemented a 4 megahertz inductive-resonance WPT
system that transferred 75 watts of power wirelessly to a
light bulb.
The WPT system, designed under the guidance of Biswajit
Ray, professor of electronics engineering technology,
worked up to a separation distance of 50 centimeters
between the transmit and receive coils. The wireless power
transfer technology is becoming increasingly popular
for consumer electronics, electric vehicle charging, and
implantable biomedical devices.
The current engineering challenge is to design systems
that maintain high power and high efficiency capability for
dynamic loads with changing distance and orientation.
Shown above are Vanek (left) and his adviser Biswajit Ray,
professor of physics and engineering technology.
For the Health of the Hive.................................... 08
Lab Notes........................................................... 10
SHOWN ABOVE:
Psychology major Laurie
Ganey discusses her summer
research project, Evaluation
of Neuroscience-Inspired
Educational and Play Initiatives
at the fourth annual Susquehanna
Valley Undergraduate Research
Symposium held at Geisinger
Medical Center.
PUBLICATION DESIGN:
Eric Foster
Office of Marketing and
Communications
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
is committed to equal educational and
employment opportunities for all persons
without regard to race, religion, gender,
age, national origin, sexual orientation,
disability or veteran status.
release the neurotransmitter dopamine, which
is picked up by dopamine receptors. After a
short time, the dopamine is reabsorbed by the
nerve cells to be used again.
Cocaine and drugs like it hijack our bodies’
dopamine system by blocking the reabsorption
of the chemical. The dopamine receptors are
stimulated far longer than normal … creating
an intense euphoria. The chemistry of the brain
is altered and, with repeated exposure, those
changes can become persistent, setting the
stage for addiction.
From Left: Student researchers
Jake Beach and Olivia Best, faculty
researcher Kevin Ball, and student
researchers Amanda Faudale and
Jon Luo.
HARD HABITS
TO BREAK
Turns out the expression “some habits are hard
break” is true in a very literal sense. And the
reasons are biological.
Neuroscientist Kevin Ball, associate professor
of psychology at Bloomsburg, is conducting
research that may provide clues on how to help
people kick a drug or overeating habit.
Ball was awarded a three-year grant of
$263,271 from the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) in August 2014. He is using an animal
model to study the effects of chronic stress on
relapse to cocaine seeking, as well as dieters’
relapse to unhealthy eating habits.
“With cocaine, after addicts complete rehab,
the majority go back to using the drug within
a few months to a year,” says Ball. “A similar
thing happens with dieting. A majority of people
relapse to their old eating habits within a year.
2
“Addiction to drugs, like cocaine, heroin or
amphetamines is so difficult to beat because
they cause very big changes to brain structure
and chemistry.”
While drug addiction and maladaptive food
seeking are not the same, “there is a lot of
overlap in the brain systems that drive both
behaviors,” says Ball. “Food seeking doesn’t
entail the same profound change to the brain.
There are a lot more factors involved. Partly it’s
evolutionary. It’s in our DNA. When food was
scarce, it was advantageous to seek out caloriedense foods. In advanced economies, food isn’t
scarce anymore.”
The chemistry of addiction
When we do something pleasurable, such as
eat food we like or have sex, or are exposed to
stimuli that predict such things, our nerve cells
It appears that many of the physical changes
in the brain that underlie adaptive forms of
learning and memory also occur after exposure
to addictive drugs. Addiction, therefore, is
sometimes conceptualized as a maladaptive
form of learning. This type of learning can be
very long lasting—addicts are vulnerable to
relapse for months, years, or a lifetime after
treatment.
The role of stress
in triggering relapse
“We know that chronic stress contributes
to many diseases … from heart disease to
cancer. I’m studying the role of chronic stress
in relapse,” says Ball, “because chronic stress
induces lasting changes in brain regions
implicated in addiction and relapse.”
Everything we do has an effect on our brains. Repeatedly
practicing a musical instrument … particularly if we enjoy it
… will strengthen that neurological connections associated
with that activity, reinforce that activity and make it more likely
for us to repeat it. However, the changes to our brains are such
that we are able to consciously control the behavior.
Drugs change the chemistry and structure of the brain so
profoundly and quickly that it’s very difficult to overcome the
addiction and very easy for our behavior to relapse to addiction,
particularly in response to stress.
Acute stress can be adaptive, says Ball. It
activates your body’s fight or flight mechanism,
like you would experience if you walked into
your office to find a cobra sitting on your chair.
But chronic stress is not adaptive when your
fight or flight mechanisms are continually
activated.
“Today we are exposed to stresses that activate
our fight or flight mechanisms constantly.
Stress at home. Stress at work. Money worries.
Information overload,” he says.
Kevin Ball and his team are researching whether dopamine
antagonists can help people exposed to stress overcome the
tendency to relapse into addiction.
Continued on Next Page
3
HARD HABITS TO BREAK
Continued from Previous Page
Stress and cocaine both activate the dopamine
system, albeit via different mechanisms. And
that activation of the dopamine system by
stress can reactivate an addictive behavior.
A possible remedy
In his study, Ball will investigate whether a
dopamine antagonist, a drug to block dopamine
receptors in the body, will reduce the effects of
chronic stress on later relapse vulnerability.
The study will be conducted in three stages.
1) Self-Administration Phase: Rats will be given
the opportunity to self-administer cocaine or
highly palatable food pellets.
2) Extinction Phase: The cocaine or food
pellets will be withdrawn and a source of
stress introduced. For rats, the stressor can
entail being confined to a small open container
in a bright space. Some of these rats will be
administered a dopamine antagonist.
3) Reinstatement Phase: The rats will have the
opportunity to respond for cocaine — or foodassociated cues. This is the measure of relapse
in the model.
The question that Ball is seeking to answer is
whether the dopamine antagonist, given during
the chronic stress, helps to shield the rats from
relapsing into the addictive behavior.
CAN WHAT YOU EAT
AFFECT HOW YOU LEARN?
A study conducted by senior pyschology major
Paige Michener, working with faculty mentor
Eric Stouffer, suggests that a high-fat diet can
affect your ability to learn.
The researchers found that rats fed a highfat diet were less likely than rats on a low-fat
diet to be able to learn a Conditioned Cue
Preference (CCP) task. The task requires rats
to form an association between environmental
cues and the presence of a rewarding stimulus
(water).
Michener and Stouffer theorize that the highfat diet impairs the hippocampus, a major
component of the brains of humans and other
vertebrates. The hippocampus plays important
roles in the consolidation of information from
short-term memory to long-term memory and
spatial navigation.
A RESEARCH
TRADITION
One of the possible mechanisms that
could have caused the damage to the rats’
hippocampus is the increase in oxidative stress
that was caused by the high-fat diet.
The behavioral studies that Kevin Ball is
conducting are part of a continuing tradition at
Bloomsburg.
Results from previous research, Morrison et al.
(2010), on the effects of diet in rats found that
those that had been fed the high-fat diet had an
increase in oxidative stress damage, damage to
neurons resulting from reactive oxygen species,
or free radicals, produced during metabolism.
A 2001 Bloomsburg graduate, Ball was
mentored by Steven Cohen, who retired in
2009 after 36 years of service. Cohen, with
more than 75 publications and 39 research
grants, was the first Bloomsburg University
professor to be awarded research grants from
the National Science Foundation and the
National Institutes of Health.
Ball’s latest grant is his second from the
National Institutes of Health. A 2011
grant focused on the the effects of MDMA
(colloquially known as ecstacy) and neurological
bases of addiction.
4
Steve Cohen, left, mentored Kevin
Ball during his undergraduate
research at Bloomsburg.
Michener presented the findings of the study,
along with previous findings, at the Society for
Neuroscience 2014 Conference in November in
Washington, D.C.
In an earlier project with another student,
Stouffer demonstrated that rats fed a high-fat
diet showed impaired latent learning in a task
that depended on the hippocampus, but there
was no impairment on a latent learning task
that was independent of the hippocampus. This
suggested that the high-fat diet had selectively
damaged the hippocampus while leaving other
Paige Michener (right), and mentor Eric Stouffer. Her
project, Effect of a High-Fat Diet on a HippocampusDependent Conditioned Cue Preference Task was funded
by the 2014 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship,
and Creative Activity (URSCA) Awards summer
program. Michener was honored for the Best Poster in
Social Sciences and Humanities at the fourth annual
Susquehanna Valley Undergraduate Research Symposium
held at Geisinger Medical Center.
learning-related brain structures intact, Stouffer
says.
The projects also suggest that consuming a
high-fat diet can contribute to a decline in
cognitive performance much earlier than would
be expected with typical aging.
This research could enhance our understanding
of the long-term risk factors associated with a
high-fat diet on learning and memory abilities.
5
Community Impact
An ongoing study of a neighborhood in Berwick
has shown that community redevelopment
efforts have markedly improved the way
residents feel about their neighborhood.
Sociology major Farron Hakanson conducted
the study in the Elm Street community of
Berwick over the summer. Mentored by Heather
Feldhaus, associate professor of sociology,
social work and criminal justice, Hakanson
was supported by the Undergraduate Research,
Scholarship, and Creative Activity (URSCA)
Awards summer program.
People in this
neighborhood
can be trusted.
Neighbors are
willing to work
together to
make this a
better place to
live.
I feel safer
now than I did
a year ago.
I would
recommend
my
neighborhood
as a good
place to live.
I have seen or
heard about
propertry
crime in my
neighborhood.
The research was done in partnership with the
Columbia County Housing and Redevelopment
Authority in order to gauge the cohesion within
a community through interviews with residents.
Jazz Odyssey
In recent years, blighted properties in the
area have been purchased and demolished or
rehabilitated and the nearby Sponslers Park
revamped so it was no longer an eyesore.
Bloomsburg’s Jazz Ensemble has been accepted
to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in
Switzerland. Twenty-five student musicians and
ensemble director Steve Clickard will travel to
the festival in July 2015. To earn the invitation
to perform, Clickard submitted a 20-minute
recording. The group, which will feature vocals
as well as instrumentals, may also perform in
Umbria, Italy, in July.
Researchers surveyed neighborhood residents
and compared current data to previously
compiled data to measure the level of change
within the community. Hakanson coordinated
student volunteers who went door to door to
collect survey responses from adult members of
the households.
The photographs show the ensemble rehearsing
this October.
Hakanson describes the neighborhood as going
through a transitional period with an influx of
younger residents in an area that was formerly
home to mostly older residents, who had grown
suspicious of outsiders.
Farron Hakanson,
far left, leads a
team of researchers in
Berwick.
Key findings include:
In 2010, 38 percent of respondents reported
that people in the neighborhood could be
trusted. That percentage increased to 61
percent in 2014. In 2010, 53 percent of
respondents said that neighbors are willing to
make this a better place to live. In 2014 that
improved to 70 percent.
Helping a resource for children
Psychology major Khadija Abdullahi, left, mentored by
Heather S. Feldhaus, spent the summer helping the
Bloomsburg Children’s Museum analyze survey data and
review literature on studies for similar organizations. Based
on the literature review and her prior experience collecting
data, Abdullahi recommended ways for the museum to
improve survey methods and questions.
6
7
For the
health of
the hive
MULTINATIONAL STUDENT
RESEARCHERS: From left to right:
Trimelle Polk (Southern Nazarene
University), Corey Bower (BU), Dilan
Ikizoğlu (Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi)
and Lauren Blatzheim (S.W. Oklahoma
State University) recording foraging visits
by control and neonicotinoid-treated
bees on an artificial flower patch. The
flower patch is part of the Beekeeping
and Development Center at Uludağ
University directed by Selvinar Cakmak.
Photo by John M. Hranitz.
Photo below Wikipedia and John Hranitz.
THIS PHOTO: JOHN HRANITZ, TAKEN BY AHMET KARAHAN
LEFT PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA
pollination systems.
There are 2.5 million honeybee colonies in the United
States. That sounds like enough to meet our agricultural
needs until you consider that 60 years ago, there were 6
million colonies of these pollinators that are so critical to
agriculture.
“However, in 2008, reports of bee colony collapses in
Europe and the United States led us to focus on the
integrative biology of bees,” says Hranitz. “My skill sets
are in the physiology and molecular biology of bees, which
compliments the skills of my colleagues. We want to
understand how beekeeping practices and the agricultural
environment affect the health of bees.”
John Hranitz, professor of biological and allied health
sciences, has been studying bees during the summer
in Turkey and Greece for nearly 10 years. Since 2006,
the research has been funded through three consecutive
grants from the National Science Foundation’s Research
Experiences for Undergraduates program.
Scientific consensus is that a variety of factors contribute to
bee colony collapse, including mites, fungus and pesticides.
Each factor may individually weaken a colony and, in
combination, cause its collapse.
The project has entailed collaboration among more than 60
students and 12 faculty working at nine universities in the
United States, Republic of Turkey, Greece, and Bulgaria.
Each year builds on previous years, with questions refined
by earlier research. The team brings together many areas of
expertise with a desire to study bees through research with
students. Hranitz calls Turkey “an ideal place to study bees.”
A major focus for the researchers over the past several years
has been the use of pesticides and its effect on bees.
“Do the pesticides weaken the bees and make them more
susceptible to other stressors? The European Union has
already banned some of the pesticides believed to cause
problems,” says Hranitz, “particularly neonicotinoids, which
are applied to seeds, the soil, or directly to plants. As the
plant grows, systemic pesticides are in plant fluids of the
stem, the leaves and the flower and, through the nectar and
pollen, can poison bees.”
“Turkey and Eastern Europe are an epicenter of bee diversity
— there are a lot of species in a small area. Turkey has four
to six times the diversity of bee species than comparable
land area in the U.S.,” according to team taxonomist Victor
Gonzalez.
Pesticide producers have researched their poisons carefully
to find doses and application strategies that minimize risks
to pollinators, including bees, says Hranitz. Despite their
research, evidence is mounting that use of neonicotinoids in
the real world exposes bees to sublethal doses of pesticides.
Users may not follow application instructions and climate
To support research and disseminate evidence-based
practices in the region, Uludağ University in Turkey
created a center for beekeeping where Hranitz’s group has
conducted research since 2010. Initially, Hranitz and faculty
and students from several U.S. universities focused on
understanding invasive bees and plants and their habitat as
8
change may affect pollinator presence
relative to seed germination and plant
blooms. Also neonicotinoids remain in
plants for about 100 days.
“Researchers are now focused on the
sublethal effects of pesticides as a
contributor to colony collapse disorder
(CCD),” Hranitz says. “A researcher at
Harvard University recently replicated
CCD by feeding bees with sublethal
doses of neonicotinoid-tainted sugar
syrup. Understanding the mechanisms
by which sublethal doses of pesticides
may affect CCD is essential to convincing
policymakers to re-examine neonicotinoid
use.
“We’re finding that even very small
doses of pesticides – about one fifth of
the lethal dose that kills 50 percent of
bees – impairs their foraging. We may
be giving them a slow death. Now we’ve
begun research on the effect of pesticides
on larvae and later expression of adult
behaviors.”
Over several years, student teams have
completed studies of sublethal doses
of pesticides, each addressing specific
questions as illustrated (right).
Continued on Next Page
9
LAB NOTES
Chemistry major selected for Yale program
Jocelyn Legere, a chemistry major concentrating on
nanotechnology, was selected for a competetive project at
Yale University this summer. Legere, from York, conducted
group research on catalysts and their effectiveness in
converting carbon dioxide into useful materials as part of the
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program at Yale
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She was selected to
work in Yale University faculty member Nilay Hazari’s group
during the eight-week fellowship. Like the research Legere
conducted in summer 2013 with her mentor and adviser
Eric Hawrelak, associate professor of chemistry at BU,
Hazari’s research works with the same kind of materials in
inorganic chemistry. Learn more about Legere’s experience
at: bloomuexplore.blogspot.com.
FOR THE HEALTH OF THE HIVE
Continued from Previous Page
Student projects related to
research have won first-place and
third-place awards in the national
competition of Beta Beta Beta,
the biology honor society. These
studies have been published
in the Journal of Economic
Entomology and, Journal of
Experimental Biology; others have
been submitted and are under
review while others are being
prepared for publication.
A historical perspective on beekeeping
Historically, beekeeping was easy in the Americas
because honey bees had few population controls.
Introduced to the Americas by Europeans, honey
bees left their enemies – parasites, pathogens
and strongest competitors – behind. Their social
structure and ecology allowed them to compete
well with native bees for pollen and nectar. In this
climate, small farmers and hobbyists found it easy
to maintain hives and reap the benefits of honey
and other hive products.
By the 1980s, introductions of numerous pathogens
and parasites increased the level of effort and
investment needed beyond what many small
farmers and hobbyists were willing to undertake.
Today, most honey bees are maintained by a small
10
number of professional beekeepers.
In this industry, the migratory pollination services
provided by bees are more valuable than the hive
products, earning contracts worth as much as
$10,000 per pollination event. However, recent
developments with Colony Collapse Disorder
(CCD) have made it difficult for professional
beekeepers to maintain their colonies. Losses
as high as 80 percent of colonies have been
reported in some apiaries. To place the demand
for bees in perspective, a February 2012 story on
National Public Radio reported that 75 percent of
all commercial hives in the U.S. are transported
to California each February to pollinate almond
orchards.
Students continue UltraCold experiment
Seven College of Science and Technology
students spent the winter, spring and summer
semesters collaborating with physics and
engineer technology faculty John Huckans
and Ju Xin to continue building Bloomsburg
University’s UltraColdBloom. The purpose
of this laboratory experiment is to trap and
laser- cool rubidium-87 atoms to sub-Doppler
temperatures (below 140 degrees micro kelvin).
Students Rachel Livingston, Dan McDonald,
Steve Zosh, Josh Halbfoerster, Nick Hitcho,
Matt Gift and Devon Perkins developed a wide
range of experimental skills and knowledge
in several areas of physics, including optics,
electronics, mechanics, and quantum
mechanics. The team expects to begin science
experiments later this year.
Livingston, Zosh, Halbfoerster, Hitcho and Gift
presented at the fourth annual Susquehanna
Valley Undergraduate Research Symposium at
Geisinger Medical Center in early August.
Shown above is the laser setup superimposed
with the paths of the laser beams.
11
LAB NOTES
Student Wins Emerging Scholar Award
at conference focused on feminism
Albra Wheeler, a Gender Studies Minor (GSM) student, won the
Emerging Scholar Award, at the conference The Multiple Faces of
Activism: Feminism in the 21st Century, at the University of Akron,
in Akron, Ohio. Wheeler’s paper, The Wonderbra: Oppression vs.
Liberation in a Patriarchal Society, traces the evolvement of modern
brassieres and looks at the bra through historical and feminist
perspectives. It aims to establish whether the Wonderbra signifies
submission to or emancipation from the patriarchal society. The
conference was open to graduate and undergraduate students from
several states, including Kentucky, Michigan, New York, Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
NSF grant awarded to Tapsak’s firm
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Zzyzx Polymers
a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant in the amount of
$737,000. This grant will support research and development efforts
on the firm’s novel plastic polymers manufacturing process. Mark
Tapsak, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at BU,
is one of the company’s cofounders. The project will demonstrate
the first commercial-scale processing of post-consumer plastic
materials for high-value applications using an approach known as
continuous mechanochemical compatibilization. In 2010, only 8
percent of the 230 million tons of plastic waste generated in the U.S.
was recovered for recycling. The Zzyzx Polymers project will focus
on using CMC to recycle materials without the need for extensive
cleaning or sorting. For more information, go to www.zpolymers.com.
Mining data, preserving privacy
Students Kyle Flick (left) and Leonid Kukuyev
(right) worked on a project this summer
with Hayden Wimmer, assistant professor of
business education and information technology
management, to develop a system that would
enable health care organizations to analyze
the data in medical records while preserving
privacy. The project was funded through the
2014 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship,
and Creative Activity (URSCA) Awards summer
program.
Analysis of medical records could identify
trends in disease and help advance the quality
of health care. However, the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
establishes strict regulations regarding the
privacy of electronic patient data. Differing
database architectures among health care
providers add an additional level of complexity.
The team created and tested a multi-agent data
integration system written in Java to address
these issues. In this proposed system, each
health care organization (HCO) has a locally
running agent. The HCO agent queries data from its
local database, applies normalization and anonymization
frameworks, and sends the data to the broker agent. The
broker agent is responsible for receiving data from the
health care organization agents and storing it in a central
database. The final product is a repository of unidentifiable
patient records, which is available for research.
Work in translation
Sarah Halter, a 2012 graduate in English who
returned to BU to earn her degree in Chinese,
spent summer 2014 translating the modern-day
popular Chinese novel Fulfilling My Green Sea and
Blue Sky into English. The project, funded through
the URSCA program, allowed Halter to translate
approximately half of the novel into a rough draft.
The novel, by Lán Xiăo Xī of Nanjing, focuses on
the lives of young professionals in modern China.
Halter, who has studied Chinese for three years,
lived in China and taught English at Shandong
University of Technology for three semesters.
Graduate published in Health Physics
Health physics graduate Kyle J. Higgins ’13 recently published a
paper, An Improved Method for Calibrating the Gantry Angles of
Linear Accelerators, in Operational Radiation Safety Journal, a
supplement to Health Physics Journal.
The paper is the result of the mutual collaboration between Naz
Afarin Fallahian and David Simpson, both associate professors of
physics and engineering technology, and Dr. Andrew O. Jones and
Jared Treas from the oncology department of Geisinger Medical
Center, Danville. Higgins has been admitted to Duke University to
pursue his advanced degree in medical physics.
12
13
LAB NOTES
MATH MAESTROS
Sophomore mathematics and
computer science major Devyn
Lesher (right) and his mentor Chris
Lynd (left) spoke in November at
the American Mathematical Society
conference in Greensboro, N.C.,
for a special session on difference
equations.
Students excavate at Ohio
Hopewell archeological site
Lesher, mentored by Lynd,
researched Difference Equations
and the Class of Periodic Left
Nested Radicals through the URSCA
program over the summer.
DeeAnne Wymer, professor of anthropology, took a
group of students to southern Ohio in mid-May to
conduct an archeological dig at a Hopewell habitation
site. The archeological field school experience enabled
the 12 students to rely on new imaging technologies to
uncover another living site of the Mound Builders from
2,000 years ago. Student participants were Zachary
Cooper, Ronald Derr, Mark Janke, Sara Kwiecien,
Erika Maxson, Vikram Mookerjee, Rudy Trent, Stevie
Spishock, Kassandra Stachowksi, Jackson Staples,
Lindsey Tennis and Jasmin Velez.
SUMMER
RESEARCH
PROJECTS
Lynd, assistant professor of
mathematics, computer science and
statistics, notes that it’s very rare
for an undergraduate at any level to
be invited to speak at the American
Mathematical Society conference.
Forty-six students had projects funded through the
2014 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and
Creative Activity (URSCA) Awards summer program at
Bloomsburg University.
Sawyer J. Davis, mentored by Gregory Zimmerman,
Prediction of Transport Properties at High
Temperatures and Pressures Using Stokes Partial
Molar Volume and Partial Molar Volumes
Khadija Abdullahi, mentored by Heather Feldhaus,
An Evaluation of the Children’s Museum
Martina Drew, mentored by Clay Corbin & Amber
Pitt, Factors influencing bird-window collisions
during summer and migration on Bloomsburg
University campus
Michael Ashton, mentored by Nada Jevtic, Nonlinear
Treatment of Data Collected from KEPLER Space
Telescope
JoEllen Blass, mentored by George Chavez, How
Much Do You Know?
Aaron Brown, mentored by Stephanie Schlitz and
Jing Luo, Linguistic Relativity Demonstrated by the
Influence of Culture on Color Categorization
Caitlin Carlin, mentored by Kristen Brubaker,
Analysis of the effects of heat stress on transcription
factors Hsf1, Nrf2, and FOXO found in the bee
species Megachile rotundata
Shelby Coleman, mentored by Christopher Hallen,
Drinking Before the Drills: A Study of Pure Water
Sites in the Northern Tier
14
Alyssa Duksta, mentored by Ted Roggenbuck &
Stephanie Schlitz, BU Writing Center Extramural:
Supporting Writing in Hazleton Area High School
Courtney Dunn, mentored by Jerry Wemple, The
Human Experience: A Comparison of Cameroon,
Africa and Juniata County, Pennsylvania
Susan Erdman, mentored by Shiloh Erdley,
Awareness and preparedness of medical social
workers regarding the needs of LGBT elders. Why it
matters: A review of current literature and practice
in a cohort of hospitals in Central PA
Kyle Flick, mentored by Hayden Wimmer, EHR Data
Integration System
Laurie Ganey, mentored by Mary Katherine Duncan,
Evaluation of Neuroscience-Inspired Educational
and Play Initiatives
Matthew Gift, mentored by Ju Xin, Construction and
characterization of a fiber-coupled optical cooling
system for a magneto-optical trap(MOT)
Teresa Grimes, mentored by Phillip Osburn,
Synthesis of a Mixed Thioether/NHC Ruthenium(II)
Pincer Complex: Investigations of Metal-Ligand
Cooperativity
Farron Hakanson, mentored by Heather Feldhaus, A
Community Development Research Project
Joshua Halbfoerster, mentored by John Huckans,
Construction of a Zeeman Slower and Ultra High
Vacuum System for Use in the Method of Laser
Cooling and Trapping
Sarah Halter, mentored by Jing Luo, Claire Lawrence,
Ted Roggenbuck, English Translation and Cultural
Literary Critique of the Modern-Day Chinese Novel,
Fulfilling My Green Sea and Blue Sky
Nicholas Hitcho, mentored by John Huckans,
Construction of Zeeman Slower and Ultra High
Vacuum System for Use in Laser Cooling and
Trapping
Ali Hussain, mentored by William Schwindinger,
Methylation of GNG7 promoter in normal mouse
tissue
Rachel Livingston, mentored by Ju Xin,
Construction and Characterization of a FiberCoupled Laser Optical
Margaret Mansell, mentored by Pamela Smith,
Implementing Clothesline Stories into Skilled
Nursing Facility
Kirk Jeffreys, mentored by William Coleman,
Investigation of synapsin II and Munc 13 colocalization at the earthworm neuromuscular
junction
Lacy Marbaker, mentored by Faith Warner and
Conrad Quintyn, The Effects of Susquehanna
River Water Pollution on Decomposition of Sus
scrofa domesticus: An Application of Forensic
Anthropology
Boenell Kline, mentored by Angela La Valley,
Attachment styles and ability to decode nonverbal
communication
Matthew Mattesini, mentored by Cynthia
Venn, Rapid Assessment of Coastal Ecosystem
Resilience: an example from Hurricane Sandy
Leonid Kukuyev, mentored by Hayden Wimmer, A
Multi-Agent System For Healthcare Data Privacy
Kayla McHale, mentored by Joseph Andreacci, The
validation of several bioimpedance analzyzers for
the assessment of body composition in adults
Amanda Lacerte, mentored by Toni Trumbo Bell, The
Interaction of Oligonucleotides with Coomassie Blue
G-250 in the Bradford Assay
Devyn Lesher, mentored by Chris Lynd, Left Nested
Radicals
15
Paige Michener, mentored by Eric Stouffer, Effect
of a High-Fat Diet on a Hippocampus-Dependent
Conditioned Cue Preference Task
LAB NOTES
Let Child’s Play be Child’s Play
For Michael Patte, professor of education and child life specialist,
play is serious business. Patte explores the way that play in
America has shifted from an unstructured, child-initiated activity
to one that is structured and adult-directed in his article, The
Importance of Play on Whole Child Development, soon to be
published in Child Life Focus.
Patte has collaborated with Fraser Brown, professor of playwork
at Leeds Metropolitan University, and together they published the
book, Rethinking Children’s Play, which applies the playwork
perspective to a variety of settings.
“Children’s lives have become progressively more structured both
inside and outside of school,” Patte says, “and I’m concerned
about the implications it has for their development as a whole
person.”
As part of his seminar class Play and Fine Arts for the Developing
Child, Patte created a pop-up playground in the Student
Recreation Center this November stocked with cardboard boxes
and other materials that children could fashion in any way they
chose.
David Perez, mentored by Eric J. Hawrelak, Catalytic
Synthesis of Nitrogen-Containing Heterocycles Using
Organocobalt Complexes
Zachary Rhoden, mentored by Eric J. Hawrelak,
Investigation of Internal Alkyne Tolerance of Catalytic
Cyclotrimerization via a [C6F5CpCo(CO)2] Catalyst
Christopher Rosengrant, mentored by Christopher
Hallen, How Did Drilling at Elk Creek Hunting Lodge
Pad 1 Affect Bloomsburg’s Water Supply
Jesse Rothweiler, mentored by Jennifer Johnson,
Buffering the Effects of Ostracism on the Attentional
Networks Using Facial Feedback Training
Jaimee Saemann, mentored by Faith Warner,
Impacts of Cochlear Implants on the Deaf
Community
Briana Sendatch, mentored by Pamela Smith,
Implementing Clothesline Stories into Skilled Nursing
Facilities
Eve Steransky, mentored by Christopher Podeschi,
The relationship between place attachment and
recreationist’s perception of trail quality in Glacier
National Park, Montana
David Strawn, mentored by William Coleman,
Investigation of the role of inhibitory
neurotransmission on readily releasable vesicle pool
size
Christopher Sullivan, mentored by Kevin Ball, Effect
of Chronic Restraint Stress on Relapse to Palatable
Food Seeking and Involvement of Dopamine D1-like
Receptors
Eric Thompson, mentored by Gregory Zimmerman,
Determination of Equilibrium Constants and
Limiting Equivalent Conductivities from Conductivity
Measurements on Aqueous Lanthanum Salt
Solutions
16
Benjamin Tice, mentored by, Faith Warner, Total
Freedom on the Dark-Side of the Internet: A CyberEthnography
ASM Tuhin, mentored by Aberra Senbeta, The Impact
of International Trade on Rising Income Inequality:
Contrast between Developing and Developed
Countries
Nicole Updegrove, mentored by Jennifer Johnson, Is
nature able to restore attention?
Shana Wagner, mentored by Michael Eugene Pugh,
Microsatellite DNA Analysis of Pacific Bluefin and
Yellowfin Tuna
Stephen Zosh, mentored by Fan Jiang, Electronic
Instrumentation Control of a Magneto Optical Trap
using LabVIEW Software
Students study the
geology of the west
Thirteen students in Bloomsburg’s
Department of Environmental, Geographical,
and Geological Sciences spent three weeks
in California’s Mojave Desert this summer
as part of the department’s new Special
Topics in Field Geology course — designed
to give students an opportunity to observe a
wide variety of earth processes, apply their
knowledge and reinforce skills in geological
observation and interpretation.
Led by faculty Chris Whisner, Jennifer
Whisner and Cynthia Venn, the group stayed
at rustic campsites, grilled trout caught in
mountain streams, worked on field notebooks
until late in the evening and endured rain,
snow, hail and 116-degree heat.
The group observed mining impacts, milehigh mountains, volcanoes, earthquake scars
and complex water resources issues on the
1,800-mile journey.
www.bloomu.edu