PRISM Scholars Newsletter

JENNIFER L. ROSS

PROFESSOR AND PHYSICS DEPARTMENT CHAIR

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Time: 11-11:45 AM

Attendance Options:

In person: Augsburg University, Foss Center, Hoversten Chapel

Virtual: Register (see link below)

Session Date and Time:

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

3:00 - 4:30 PM

Hagfors Center

Session Description:

Augsburg celebrates the creativity and scholarship of undergraduate students with its annual Zyzzogeton Student Research Poster symposium. The event falls at the end of each academic year and is a culmination of achievement featuring work across departments. Over 80 students participate each year, showcasing their research in various science, social science, and humanity disciplines. A “Zyzzogeton” is a green leaf-hopper as well as the last word in the Webster Collegiate Dictionary, which is a fitting symbol to mark the end of the academic year. Zyzzogeton is free and open to all students, faculty, and staff.

Dr. Andrea Prinzi, Ph.D. MPH: The fusion of public health, communication, and clinical research in American Medicine

March 16th -1 pm

https://minnstate.zoom.us/j/93696764655 (Passcode: 869799)

Bio: Andrea started her career as a clinical microbiologist (med-tech) at Children’s Hospital Colorado and worked there for over 12 years. During that time, she received her specialist certification in clinical microbiology from the American Society of Clinical Pathologists (ASCP) and her master’s degree in public health (epidemiology) in 2014. During her time at CHCO, Andrea was deeply involved in teaching and training other clinical microbiologists as well as providers and ran several microbiology-focused courses on the Anschutz Medical Campus. She has extensive experience in bacteriology, virology, mycology, mycobacteriology, and parasitology, with additional training in BSL3+/4 work. In 2018, Andrea began her Ph.D. journey in the Clinical and Translational Science program on the University of Colorado Anschutz Campus. Her research interests include antimicrobial and diagnostic stewardship (with an emphasis on pneumonia diagnostics and management), development of effective teaching methods for clinicians, and the fusion of public health, clinical science, and medicine to improve patient outcomes, quality improvement, infectious disease epidemiology, and science communication. Andrea has been a blog writer for the American Society for Microbiology since 2018. Her articles and biography can be found at: https://www.asm.org/Biographies/Andrea-Prinzi. Currently, Andrea is an infectious disease medical science liaison for a large in-vitro diagnostics company and actively works to bridge the gap between the clinical lab and clinical practice.

Dr. Carol Bascom-Slack: Crowd-sourcing Environmental Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance

March 30th -1 pm

https://minnstate.zoom.us/j/93696764655 (Passcode: 869799)

Bio: Dr. Carol Bascom-Slack received her Ph.D. from Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences where she studied the dynamics of chromosome segregation to understand the underlying cause of conditions such as Down Syndrome. After post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School, she taught undergraduates at Yale University for 15 years. While at Yale, she co-taught Yale’s first course-based research experience (CURE) for undergraduates. She later worked closely with Dr. Jo Handelsman to develop and co-teach the first iteration of Tiny Earth, an antibiotic discovery CURE. Most recently, she developed the Prevalence of Antibiotic Resistance in the Environment (PARE) program. PARE engages undergraduates in an authentic classroom research experience to shed light on the environmental presence of antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) microbes and educate them about stewardship. Thousands of undergraduates and high school students across the U.S. and internationally contribute GPS-tagged AMR prevalence data to a database. Dr. Bascom-Slack’s research program is rooted in the social sciences to understand faculty motivations and barriers to integrating authentic experiences into their classes.

SciTech connects college STEM majors to paid internships at small Minnesota companies -- it's a one-stop shop for finding STEM internships statewide! Gain hands-on experience, network with pros, build your resume, and "earn while you learn."

In order to be eligible for SciTech internships, students must meet the following criteria:

• Minnesota resident OR living in and attending college in Minnesota
• At least 18 years of age
• In good academic standing (2.5+ GPA)
• College junior or senior (at least 60 credits completed) OR
• Technical or community college student (at least 24 credits completed) OR
• Enrolled in a STEM degree at an accredited U.S. college
• Legally eligible to work in the U.S. (international students may participate if they have CPT/OPT work authorization)

Deadline to apply: Varies

For more information on how to apply and to view a list of current internship opportunities, visit https://scitechmn.org/.

Seeking applicants for a paid, 10-week summer internship supporting programs at NASA Headquarters (interns will work remotely/virtually).

This position will examine strategies for advancing the biological diversity and ecological forecasting programs within NASA’s Earth Science Division. Interns will advance the use of remote sensing for detecting, understanding, and forecasting patterns of life on Earth. his position will examine linkages and synergistic relationships between these programs and other activities within and outside of NASA.

Applicants with a background in conservation biology, ecology, evolution, computer programming, statistics, or communications/journalism are sought. Interns will advance outward communication of program activities, build program infrastructure, develop and implement evaluation metrics for science projects, and support science review. The mentor will develop projects specific to the intern’s background and interests on these themes.

For more information and to apply for this opportunity, visit the NASA website. (Note: to apply online, you will need to create a user account)

The University of Virginia is hosting an NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) summer program in multi-scale systems bioengineering and biomedical data sciences. The objective of the program is to train undergraduates from a variety of STEM backgrounds and provide them with the skills, confidence, and mentorship necessary for successful careers in the exciting field of systems bioengineering.

Students will be matched with faculty mentors for a 10-week research project, culminating in a paper and public symposium. All students will participate in collaborative, hands-on, and closely mentored projects in the areas of: 1) Molecular Pathways and Cellular Modeling and 2) Tissue-/Organ-/Population-Level Modeling, which will immerse them in a combination of experimentation and computational analyses.

Students will acquire the practical skills, knowledge, ethical grounding, and communication skills necessary to be productive in advanced graduate study and be successfully employed in the modern biotechnology industry. The program will also provide students with career advising, grounding in research ethics, training in scientific communication, and ongoing mentorship after completion of the program.

APPLY: https://www.nsfetap.org/award/102/opportunity/104
Website: https://engineering.virginia.edu/systems-bioengineering-reu/about

Highlights:

• $6000 stipend for 10-week research program

• Reimbursement of travel costs up to $400

• Free on-campus housing and dining plan

• Introductory “boot camp” short course on systems bioengineering modeling basics

• Weekly workshops on ethics and professional development

• Presentation at the Systems Biology Summer Research Symposium in August

• Opportunity for travel funds to present at the national BMES conference in October

Program Dates: May 30 - August 5, 2022

General Application Review Begins: March 15th

Interested in computing and technology? Consider attending MICS 2022!

The Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium (MICS) is a regional conference dedicated to providing an educational experience to students and instructors at higher education institutions. The conference focuses on the teaching of computing and its use in all disciplines and the incorporation of the study of this technology in the curriculum.

Activities include

• Keynote speaker Samrat Saha, Head of Customer Engineering, Select Accounts for Retail North America at Google Cloud

• Presentation of technical papers and posters

• Programming competition

• Robotics competition

MICS 2022 will be held in Milwaukee, WI at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) on April 1-2, 2022. The current plan is for an in-person conference experience. Participants typically come from Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Students from 2-year and 4-year colleges are encouraged to attend!

This is the 54th anniversary of the Symposium. Established in 1967, it is one of the nation’s oldest conferences on computer-related issues and associated opportunities at smaller institutions of higher education.

From https://micsymposium.org/mics2022/ .

To express interest in possibly attending MICS 2022 please fill out the 2022 MICS Expression of Interest Form.

The College of St. Benedict and St. John's University will host the Spring 2022 Pi Mu Epsilon Conference on Friday and Saturday, April 8-9, 2022.

This year's keynote speaker will be Dr. Sommer Gentry, a Professor of Mathematics at the United States Naval Academy and a Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

The main focus of this conference is to provide students the opportunity to present research in all areas of mathematics, the mathematical sciences, mathematics education, or other fields in which mathematics and mathematical thinking is used in exciting and innovative ways.

Students interested in presenting can visit the following link to submit their abstract and presentation details: https://www.csbsju.edu/forms/0KE8JWQ26T. The deadline for submission is Friday, April 1.

For more information on the conference: https://www.csbsju.edu/mathematics/pi-mu-epsilon-conference.

Interested in learning more about research and how it relates to the human experience? Click below:

Diversity in Action: March/April

Diversity in Action: January/February

Do you have suggestions for opportunities to include in the upcoming newsletter? Feel free to forward them to stem@augsburg.edu.

Email: dupont@augsburg.edu
Website: https://www.augsburg.edu/stem/
Location: 2211 Riverside Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Phone: (612) 330-1042