UD's Stephen Herbein (center) is honored at the Association for Computing Machinery Student Research Competition. See Awards.

For the Record, Dec. 20, 2013

University community reports recent awards, books, presentations

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10:31 a.m., Dec. 20, 2013--For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent awards, books, media and presentations include the following:

Campus Stories

From graduates, faculty

As it neared time for the processional to open the University of Delaware Commencement ceremonies, graduating students and faculty members shared their feelings about what the event means to them.

Doctoral hooding

It was a day of triumph, cheers and collective relief as more than 160 students from 21 nations participated in the University of Delaware's Doctoral Hooding Convocation held Friday morning on The Green.

Awards

Computer science major Stephen Herbein earned a silver medal at the Association for Computing Machinery Student Research Competition in Denver in November. The event was held as part of the annual ACM/IEEE Supercomputing Conference. Herbein’s poster, titled “Fine-grained Gathering of Scientific Data in QMCPack Simulations on Titan,” highlighted research he conducted during an internship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The work involved increasing the granularity — or level of detail present — in data collected from the scientific application QMCPack without compromising the application's scalability. A UD senior, Herbein is advised by Michela Taufer, the David and Beverly Mills Chaired Professor of Computer and Information Services. Fellow Blue Hen Michael Matheny also participated in the competition. Both Herbein and Matheny are Honors Program students.

University of Delaware students and alumni were honored during the annual Delaware Association for Public Administration (DAPA) awards dinner held Dec. 4 in Wilmington. Jenna Bucsak, a second year graduate student pursuing a master of public administration degree, was recognized with the Outstanding Student Public Service Award. Bucsak was recognized for her work in state government and education. She served as a legislative fellow with the House Majority Caucus in 2012, where she staffed the Education, Labor, and Telecommunications, Internet and Technology committees. She has also provided research support to Gov. Jack Markell’s Charter School Working Group. Lolita Lopez, a UD graduate who received a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education and a master’s in mental health counseling and who is president and CEO of Westside Family Healthcare, was presented the Public Service Award. She was cited for her tireless work on behalf of underserved constituents. The presentation was made by State Sen. Bethany Hall-Long, professor in the School of Nursing. On hand for the event were Kathy Murphy, president of DAPA, a policy scientist in the Institute for Public Administration and instructor in the School of Public Policy and Administration, and Maria Aristigueta, director of SPPA, Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration and vice president of the American Society for Public Administration, of which DAPA is a local chapter. Aristigueta commented on the state of local chapters.

Cindy Holland, assistant director, Career Services, received the 2013 award for Innovative Programs and Practices from the American Association for Employment in Education (AAEE) on Nov. 4 at the annual conference in Denver.

Allan Greenberg, who was the architect for Gore Hall and the addition to P.S. du Pont Hall on UD’s Green, has been named to Architectural Digest’s 2014 AD100 list, honoring the world’s preeminent architects and designers.

Books

David Blacker, professor of philosophy of education and legal studies, has authored The Falling Rate of Learning and the Neoliberal Endgame, published by Zero Books, which looks at how the educational world is being affected by Marx’s law of the falling rate of profit. To hear Blacker discussing his new book, click the podcast at From Alpha 2 Omega

Jan Blits, professor of education, has written a book titled, The Heart of Rome: Ancient Rome's Political Culture, published by Lexington Books. The essays in this book examine the political activities and institutions of pre-Imperial Rome in conjunction with the habits of the hearts and the minds of the Romans. Relying on the writings of ancient authors, the essays analyze significant political developments and events.

Media

Work by designers with UD connections was recognized in the Dec. 16 edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured a project by the Lead Graffiti printmaking collective as part of the magazine's 2013 "Year in Sports Media" section. Lead Graffiti, which is a Newark, Del., design studio with a variety of presses and type, is operated by Ray Nichols, retired professor of art and former coordinator of the visual communications program at UD, and Jill Cypher, former graphic designer for the University's Publications Office. Sports Illustrated highlighted the studio's annual "Tour de Lead Graffiti," in which designers attend the 23-day Tour de France cycling race and create a poster at the end of each day telling the story of that day's action. The magazine illustrated the item with a poster created by Nichols, Cypher and Mark Deshon, a 1978 UD alumnus and retired associate policy scientist with the Institute for Public Administration. For more about the project, and to see all 23 posters, visit the website.

Presentations

Joseph Fox, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, delivered the keynote address at a Dec. 11 event at the New York Academy of Sciences, "Bioorthogonal Chemistry in Biology and Medicine." Fox's research focuses on the development of new types of chemical reactions, the application of those new reactions to the synthesis of naturally occurring and designed molecules with biological function, and the use of design concepts in organic synthesis. His work has applications in biology, nuclear medicine, imaging, therapy and materials science. 

Nancy Weiss, director, and Steven M. Eidelman, faculty director, of the National Leadership Consortium on Developmental Disabilities, within the College of Education and Human Development, conducted the first Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion from Dec. 2-5 at the Pearlstone Center in Reisterstown, Md. The Jewish Leadership Institute on Disabilities and Inclusion, through funding from the Ruderman Family Foundation and the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, looks to engage the Jewish community to develop inclusion initiatives by offering Jews with disabilities multiple points of entry in their communities. 

Cathy Matson, professor of history, gave a research presentation titled “Working on the Dock of the Bay: Outfitting Philadelphia’s Ships in the Revolutionary Era” at an international conference, On the Anvil of Labor History in the Revolutionary Era, Nov.7-9 in Philadelphia. The conference was held in honor of the work of historian Billy G. Smith, and it featured research in social and economic history across a broad spectrum of international topics on labor and class, race and slavery, commercial expansion, and everyday economic life in 18th-century transnational contexts.

To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to ud-ocm@udel.edu.

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