Georgia Southern professor teams up to lead workshop on plastic pollution in Vietnam
Georgia Southern University Professor of Biology Lissa Leege, Ph.D., was part of a team that recently led a workshop in Vietnam on the negative effects plastic pollution has on the ocean. Leege said she expects the workshop will indirectly reach the 2,300 high school teachers and 40,000 high school students of the Binh Dinh Province through the 100 educators who attended.
“It was a privilege to be a part of this effort, and I am hopeful that this will be the start of a broader, country-wide initiative,” she said. “The conference highlighted the global nature of the plastic problem. Because Western nations often export plastic recycling to Southeastern Asian nations, the plastic that we use here often ends up becoming their problem. But that comes back to us in contaminated seafood and unhealthy marine ecosystems.”
Numerous high level government officials from Vietnam attended the workshop in a show of support for the conference. Vietnam is the fourth-largest source of plastic waste discharge into the oceans, which affects the province of Binh Dinh’s primarily fishing-based economy.
The workshop was a part of a National Geographic Society Education Grant focused on educating high school teachers about reducing plastic pollution in the ocean. Leege partnered with faculty from Loyola University Chicago, Baylor University and University of California, Riverside during the workshop.
Wilson named to board of directors for United States Center for Coaching Excellence
Charles “Hal” Wilson Jr., associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, was elected in June to serve on the Board of Directors of the United States Center for Coaching Excellence (USCCE). Wilson will serve a three-year term in the role of Accredited Program Representative Board Member.
“I am excited to be joining the Board of Directors of USCCE, to learn from the current board members, to represent all of the nationally accredited programs and to help further the USCCE mission of strengthening the quality of coach development systems,” said Wilson.
USCCE is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating and enhancing the professions of sport coaching, coach education and coach development.
Georgia Southern University’s undergraduate minor and master’s degree programs in coaching are both nationally accredited by the National Committee for Accreditation of Coaching Education.
Georgia Southern Division of Continuing Education welcomes new director
The Georgia Southern University Division of Continuing Education has named Diane Badakhsh, Ed.D., as its new director. Prior to joining the division, Badakhsh served as the director of Continuing and Professional Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
“I am excited about being at a university with Georgia Southern’s reputation for academic excellence and personal attention and to lead a division with the sole purpose of connecting the resources of the university with the needs of the community,” Badakhsh said. “Continuing education is for everyone and is a lifelong endeavor.”
Badakhsh holds a doctorate in educational leadership with a focus on higher education from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is also a licensed professional counselor, certified employee assistance professional and a certified program planner. Her specializations include needs assessments for business and industry, succession planning, budget development and management, and strategic planning.
Georgia Southern professor wins Mathematical Association of America service award
Professor of Mathematics, Martha Abell, Ph.D., has been awarded a Certificate of Meritorious Service by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Southeastern Section.
“I never imagined I would be selected to serve on national committees or have the tremendous opportunity to serve on the MAA Instructional Practices Guide leadership team,” Abell said. “And while I never imagined these experiences happening, I am grateful that they did. I became a better faculty member, mentor and administrator because of these collaborations, and I accept this award in recognition of all who worked with me along this incredible journey.”
Each Section nominates a person for the award every five years. The sections are sorted into five groups and a different group submits their nominations each year.
Abell, who has taught math at Georgia Southern for almost 30 years and is the former Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, won the Southeastern Section Distinguished Service Award in 2016.
Department of Biology researchers host Citizen Scientist Training Workshop
Researchers from the Georgia Southern University Department of Biology hosted a Citizen Scientist Training Workshop earlier this summer in Waverly, Georgia. The workshop was funded by Georgia Southern University’s Office of the Provost through a faculty service award and was organized and led by biology professors Loren Mathews, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Sargent, Ph.D., and biology alumna Lindsey Stanfield Jones.
Mathews and Sargent are members of the interdisciplinary Satilla Science Group, whose goal is to study, restore and protect the ecologically important Satilla River estuary.
“Our hope was to give participants the knowledge and basic skills needed to collect scientific data,” Mathews said. “This will allow them to play an active role in research, conservation and restoration efforts in the Satilla River and other coastal Georgia ecosystems.”
Participants learned important measures of coastal water quality, such as temperature, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, light, turbidity, and the types, sources and potential biological impacts of microplastics. Participants then received hands-on training on how to use field equipment to measure and record these data.
RiteCare Center golf tournament raises $14,000 for Georgia Southern University center
Georgia Southern University’s RiteCare Center for Communication Disorders will receive more than a $14,000 donation after the Valley of Savannah Scottish Rite held its annual golf tournament that benefits the center.
Eleven teams teed up at Bacon Park Golf Course in Savannah, Georgia, in June to raise money for the RiteCare Center on the Armstrong Campus. It is one of approximately 180 centers throughout the U.S. that is supported by the Scottish Rite, and it is a functioning outpatient speech-language pathology clinic, serving individuals from Savannah and the surrounding areas. The clinic also serves as a training facility for graduate students in the Communication Sciences and Disorders program.
RiteCare Centers were established in 1950 in Colorado as a philanthropic project of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Supreme Council Southern Jurisdiction to help children with speech and language disorders.
Profits from the tournament are added to a lump sum donation, which is given to the RiteCare Center each year in December.
Georgia Southern faculty has papers republished in influential paper list
An article by Charles Champ, Ph.D., professor of statistics, was republished in Technometrics, which is completing its 60th year of publication. To commemorate the occasion, Technometrics published a special 60th anniversary virtual issue that includes electronic reprints of 35 classic articles. The concepts explored in these articles are the foundation of statistical methods and tools used by practitioners in the physical, chemical, engineering and information sciences.
Champs article, “A multivariate exponentially weighted moving average control chart weighted moving average control chart,” was originally published in 1992.
Graduate student awarded scholarship for independent study in marine science
Erin Arneson, a graduate student in the James H. Oliver Jr., Institute for Coastal Plain Science (ICPS) and Department of Biology, was one of five students selected for the Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship.
The scholarship is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and provides funding for independent graduate level studies in a wide array of marine sciences. Arneson’s research revolves around the impacts of ocean acidification on corals that are abundant on the rocky hard bottoms that occur off the coast of Georgia. Ocean acidification happens when seawater absorbs carbon dioxide and increases its acidity.
Arneson, who is advised by Daniel Gleason, Ph.D., biology professor and Director of the ICPS, does research in close collaboration with the staff at Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary, which is one of the largest near-shore, live-bottom reefs in the Southeastern United States.
Georgia Southern biology professor gives presentation at Critical Care Nurses Conference
Biology professor Ed Mondor, Ph.D., and his brother Eugene Mondor, who is a registered nurse, recently gave a talk at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses — National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition in Orlando.
Their talk, entitled “Got the Travel Bug? When Tropical Diseases Aren’t Just Tropical,” focused on the insect-vectored tropical diseases Typhus, Chagas, Zika, Dengue and Malaria, which are showing up in critical care patients with increasing frequency in North America as international travel increases.
The presentation featured insects of medical importance, the diseases they transmit and the effects of insect transmission on human health, as well as key physical assessment findings, laboratory investigations and summarized first-line management strategies for critically-ill patients. More than 8,500 critical care nurses attended the exposition.
Biodynamics and Human Performance Center Awarded $9,965 Grant
The Biodynamics and Human Performance Center on Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong Campus has been awarded a $9,965 internal grant from the Faculty Research Committee for a research project titled “Heart Rate Variability: A Versatile Health Biomarker.”
The project will be led by Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology faculty members Bryan Riemann, Ph.D., Greg Grosicki, Ph.D., and Andrew Flatt, Ph.D. They will aim to optimize heart rate variability (HRV) assessment protocol and explore associations between HRV and a variety of health- and fitness-related measures.
Located in the Waters College of Health Professions, the Biodynamics and Human Performance Center is dedicated to providing high-quality education, research and service activities related to the study of human movement.