West Virginia University has recognized two exceptional female faculty researchers and two graduate students with Women in Science and Engineering Awards.

In its second year, the WVU WiSE Awards support faculty initiatives and student scholarships with the goal of helping women successfully navigate careers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

Jennifer Hawkins, assistant professor in the Department of Biology and Amy Weislogel, assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geography each will receive $3,750 to pursue their research. Alison Sears, a graduate student in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources and Nicole Shamitko-Klingensmith, a graduate student in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, each will receive $1,250 to support their work.

Hawkins said she will use the award to assist in the discovery of plant genes and gene networks that promote positive plant-microbe interactions. Her research, she said could ultimately result in increased soil carbon sequestration.

“We hope our findings will lead to the development of environmentally friendly agricultural practices for many of our major cereal grain crops,” she said.

Weislogel’s award will support research that potentially could aid in energy exploration, carbon sequestration, and reconstructing global change and earth’s history.

“Through my work, I want to promote a better understanding of earth’s history and the implications of that history for resource distribution,” she said.

Sears, a graduate student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will use her funds to attend the American Geophysical Union’s 46th Annual Fall Meeting in San Francisco. While attending the conference, Sears will deliver her research results targeting the improvement of water supply and land use of reclaimed surface mine sites in Appalachia.

“The long-term outcome of my research will be to provide evidence that accurately designed retention ponds can maximize beneficial land use of the reclaimed sites by creating a wetland area for wildlife and vegetation, perennial stream flow to support aquatic life, or treatment retention ponds to treat contaminated surface water runoff,” she said.

Shamitko-Klingensmith, a graduate student in the C. Eugene Bennett Department of Chemistry, plans to use her funding to attend the 58th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Francisco. There she will have the opportunity to present her research findings related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease.

“As we age, the physical properties of our cells change, and these changes are often associated with increases in cholesterol, oxidative damage and cytoskeleton abnormalities,” she said.

“My research is focused on how these changes influence a cell’s vulnerability to toxicity associated with the b-amyloid peptide, which plays a prominent role in Alzheimer’s disease.”

The WiSE Giving Circle brings together alumnae and friends who seek to impact the field of science by encouraging and mentoring young women in their pursuit of professional careers within the National Science Foundation-funded STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering and math. The giving circle is an internal program that was developed simultaneously with WVU’s National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Grant, which seeks to “increase the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.”

The 2013-2014 WiSE Awards are funded by WiSE annual membership and donations, The Hall-de Graaf Endowment for Women in Science & Engineering, The Research Trust Fund Hall – de Graaf Science & Engineering Fund and the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

To learn more about the WiSE Giving Circle, contact Amanda Dymacek, associate director of development in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at Amanda.Dymacek@mail.wvu.edu or visit wisewomen.wvu.edu.

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Work is half complete on a new technical and vocational training center at the West Virginia Regional Technology Park in South Charleston.

When construction is finished in November, the $15 million Advantage Valley Advance Technology Center will host a wide range of training programs for local community colleges and industries.

Jim Skidmore, chancellor of the Community and Technical College System of West Virginia, had his first tour of the project with architects and project engineers Wednesday morning. He said officials had one word in mind when they designed the building.

“It was all about flexibility, flexibility, flexibility,” Skidmore said.

The building will house the technology and workforce training programs for several community colleges in the area. The day-to-day operations will be managed by Bridgemont and Kanawha Valley Community and Technical colleges, which will merge into one school later this year. The 55,000-square-foot building will have flexible areas for the specialized training and certification programs needed by local chemical companies and power plants.

“This facility will be equipped to address practically any customized training need for employers in the region,” Skidmore said.

Architect Todd Boggess of Princeton-based ETB Architects said he and other project officials met with local businesses to get their input on the design of the technical and industrial-use lab spaces.

“In working on the design, we met with local industries in the area to understand what their needs are from an educational and training standpoint,” Boggess said.

One of the central features of the new building is an area on the building’s first floor. The space can be divided into three smaller rooms that can be tailored for any type of technical training program. Equipment can be trucked in and set up for a six- to eight-week training course and then hauled out to make room for other classes.

While the facility will be run by the merged Bridgemont-Kanawha community college, the technology center won’t be used exclusively by them. Skidmore said at least five community and technical colleges are located within 90-minute drives of the center.

He said they would be able to work in partnership with the center, providing classes at their campuses through distance learning and online collaborative classrooms. When students need to take part in training at the technical labs at the center, they can commute from their campuses.  

“That way we can offer programs and classes without duplicating the technology labs at the other sites,” Skidmore said.

Officials are hoping to install the latest technology in the classrooms and computer labs. Skidmore said they would set up what are known as collaborative classrooms, where students can use iPads or other tablet devices to share work on monitors at the front of the class. He said programs and classroom technology would evolve with the latest innovations.

“We know the technology is going to change and we want to prepare to be flexible for those changes,” he said.

Huntington-based Neighborgall Construction is the general contractor on the construction project. Dixon Electrical Systems of Huntington is wiring the building, West Virginia Heating and Plumbing is completing the plumbing and sprinkler system, and Ohio-based Smith and Oby is installing the heating, air conditioning and ventilation units.

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By Ben Adducchio

The West Virginia University Solar Decathlon Team is starting its official practice trials of its home-building for this year’s competition.

WVU is one of 20 teams from around the world that’s competing in the 2013 Solar Decathlon, in October, in Irvine, Ca. WVU’s team is building a home in the style of a rustic log cabin that utilizes energy efficient technologies.

The team is made up of about 50 students, from multiple disciplines, working to get the home ready to go for October. The team recently celebrated its groundbreaking. Branden Bellanca is the student project leader on the team.

“Up to this point, everything has been on paper, the design work, everything. To actually see this pad out here, and to start getting the materials to build this house, it’s an awakening moment. This is actually happening,” he said.

The house will be the first log style home accepted into the decathlon. Before October’s competition, the team will need to practice building it and breaking it down over and over again. The building site is located on the Evansdale Campus, near the Student Recreation Center.

New team member and engineering major Laurel Pell, says solar technologies are easier than expected to incorporate into a home.

“I personally think it’s neat how you can just take sunlight, which you get everyday, and you can use that to power your home. That’s something that’s just invaluable,” she said.

The purpose of this home building is simple: it will help the students simulate the experience of constructing the home at the real competition. The house will be judged based on ten categories, but the team only has a short period of time to construct it.

WVU’s road to California has played out like a story of “The Bad News Bears.”

WVU doesn’t have an architecture school, so they have had to design a home without those kinds of resources.

To make up for it, WVU’s team is working with students from a university in Italy, Rome Tor Vergata, to export that kind of work.

“One of the coordinators over there for our team and one of his students were here for the groundbreaking. They were here for a week. They were a really great asset to have around. Once finals are over, we are going to get all the materials on the build site, and organize what we are going to do next,” Bellanca said.

Right now, the site is a cement pad. But soon the building will begin.

Andrea Argabright is the design team coordinator, working in landscape and interior design. She is walking around the pad and pointing out where different rooms will actually be. “Our Wood Science Department at WVU has provided us with the workshop and the training and we have volunteers from their program as well as our team; we are building our dining room table and chairs, all the living room tables,” she said.

“We are going to cut this log stump, and that’s going to be the counter top for our bathrooms. We are going to use their shop and build all of our kitchen cabinetry.”

The bricks and mortar, the actual building, starts mid May, according to Bellanca. He says a majority of his team members will stay in Morgantown this summer to continue to prepare for their competition in California in the fall.

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Each summer young girls in the state of West Virginia play on traveling softball teams where they play game after game.

Dr. Suzanne Konz of the Marshall University College of Health Professions is using her specialization in biomechanics to break down the windmill pitching- the underhand throwing method used in women’s fast-pitch softball. The motion is considered less stressful on the pitchers arm than the conventional overhead throw used in baseball. Konz said it’s a motion that needs to be examined.

“We know that the overhand pitch is more detrimental to integrity of the shoulder or the health of the athlete. I think people have this misconception that just because it’s a more natural motion, the underhand or the windmill pitch is much easier, but it’s kind of apples and oranges,” Konz said.

Konz conducted her study on roughly 30 athletes in game settings by filming their pitches and then using biomechanics to analyze each pitch. Konz closely examined the mechanics involved and how the players’ bodies responded to the pitching motion as they became tired. In softball unlike baseball, pitchers are allowed to throw almost every game so teams don’t have as many pitchers.

“What we wanted to look at is there is a breaking point when pitching mechanics change that we can help coaching staffs try to target preventive measures to improve their overall outcome within the game, maybe pushing that a little more or is there a point where we need to start bringing in the baseball type model where you have a larger pitching staff,” Konz said.

Konz will present her work May 31 at the American College of Sports Medicine. Konz’s study looked at what begins to happen to the pitcher after 40 pitches. She says in order to continue throwing at the same speed most begin to compensate with their bodies. Konz hopes to help prevent problems athletes might run into after they’re done playing and to know when limits should be put on the number of pitches thrown during a game.

“I guess that’s the ultimate goal that we can really figure out and try to change the mindset that you need that you need bigger pitching staffs, more rotation, rest and recovery to get the job done just as well. You know a fresh athlete will do much better than someone that’s been beaten, beaten, beaten down,” Konz said.

Konz has been in contact with some coaches and they’ve been receptive to learning more about her research.

“A lot of these younger coaches coming up are more about the science and protecting their athletes and want to know how to help their athletes so they’re very receptive to what’s going on, plus the fact that I can come back and say if I do a biomechanical breakdown of your athlete, we can really target what’s going on, so most of them are pretty receptive,” Konz said.

Gary McIlvain, the Chair of Kinesiology at Marshall said the kinds of research Konz can do is very unique.

“One of the main areas of research is injury prevention because if there are a lot of injuries happening in a certain sport or to a certain gender than this is the area that people go to bio mechanist stuff that people are trying to figure out why, she is one of the people that they go to, or if you’re wanting to make an athlete better, they can jump higher and come out of the sprinting blocks higher,” McIlvain said.

McIlvain said it’s great to have a professor on the cutting edge of biomechanics.

“Research in biomechanics is definitely a new horizon, there’s not many places in the country that have the equipment to be able to the research, so to be able to find someone as highly qualified as Dr. Konz is unusual and to be able to retain them is difficult,” McIlvain said.

Konz was previously at Oklahoma State University and began her research there by looking at pitchers in the Big 12 Conference.

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WVUToday

NASA’s Robotic Refueling Mission may be more than 200 miles overhead on the International Space Station, but for a core team of West Virginia University students and faculty, the experiment’s aspirations to make satellites work longer in space are anything but remote: they hit very close to home.

Since 2009, an ever-evolving team has been working closely with NASA engineers to jumpstart a new world of satellite repair capabilities in orbit. Technologies born in their facility off of I-79 in Fairmont, W.Va., could one day make their way to space and bring new life to costly spacecraft assets.

When Thomas Evans walks into the 60-foot high West Virginia Robotic Technology Center facility in Fairmont, he sees more than NASA logos, enthusiastic graduate students and multi-jointed robotic arms.

He sees innovation at work: the type of high tech development that accelerates the future, reshapes local industry and affects the lives of individuals nationwide.

Staffed by 10 faculty members and 12 students, and funded by a NASA grant, WVRTC is working hand-in-hand with NASA engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to develop the technologies needed to robotically fix and repair satellites in space. Five full-time staff members also work at the facility.

For the WVU team that reports to duty daily, the opportunity to work at WVRTC is a source of innovation, inspiration and pride.

Patrick Lewis, a Washington D.C., native and WVU graduate, began at WVRTC as a student worker in 2010 before becoming a full-time systems engineer in 2012. “I couldn’t have asked for a better first job as an engineer.”

The work, he says, is “cutting-edge,” and that’s exactly what makes it exciting and engrossing. “It’s a learning experience. It’s not designing something you already know how to build. It’s never been done before.”

Evans, who serves as WVRTC’s program manager, describes how the facility is helping NASA tackle unique challenges.

“Imagine a completely robotic tow-truck full of fuel and repair tools, traveling 22,000 miles over our heads at 6,800 miles per hour.” Evans said. “Then picture it approaching a client satellite that was never designed to be serviced.

“There isn’t a human in sight: every action has to either be controlled by humans from the ground below, or executed autonomously by the servicer.”

This is where WVRTC’s autonomous machine vision and accompanying algorithms, or computer commands, come into play. WVU experts are working with NASA Goddard’s Satellite Servicing Capabilities Office to give this conceptual tow truck the robotic eyes, “finger” sensitivity and smarts it would need to safely rendezvous with a customer.

WVRTC’s relationship with NASA has taken WVU faculty and staff to great heights, both literally and figuratively.

In 2011, WVU team members successfully tested their algorithms on a “Zero-G” airplane that simulates the weightlessness of the space environment. Their algorithms allowed a robotic arm to autonomously follow a free-floating target – a test to help NASA understand how WVU’s algorithms can be used to guide a robot to successfully grapple objects in space.

Last year, WVRTC conducted a remote tele-operations demonstration that had Johns Hopkins University engineers in Baltimore, Md., commanding a robot in the WVRTC facility 230 miles away cut a piece of protective satellite insulation. Objectives were met without the slightest slip, and the results provided valuable information on how robots can be controlled from vast distances and still perform complex tasks successfully.

Other WVTRC accomplishments include advancing “smart tool” sensor technology, including tactile, chemical and high-precision vision sensors. WVRTC is also helping NASA develop a new approach to controlling robotic motion under numerous constraints.

While NASA’s servicing mission may itself be conceptual, the technologies themselves are real and applicable to national objectives.

Servicing capabilities could potentially extend the lives of hundreds of orbiting satellites, expensive assets that deliver essential services such as weather reports, cell phone and internet communications, television broadcasts and disaster relief.

The technologies could also encourage the emerging commercial servicing industry that is rapidly gaining momentum.

Both Evans and Lewis see a bright future for WVRTC and the WVU individuals who are investing in its success.

Lewis believes in the Center’s ability to deliver high-quality, world-class products, so much so that he has made the WVRTC a career path and goal.

“That’s a dream of mine, that I could be with the Center from day one as it started up, and be a part of it as it grows.”

Evans regards WVRTC’s work as an important milestone for West Virginia, an achievement that solidifies the state’s position as a hub for game-changing technological developments.

“The WVRTC team and facility have the proven knowledge, creativity and resources to support agencies like NASA to be successful in critical operations,” he said. “It is our goal to expand these capabilities and apply them to additional national interests such as the U.S. Department of Defense and industrial applications. The benefit is substantial; it increases West Virginia’s technology infrastructure and provides advanced career opportunities for the state.”

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West Virginia University students Katherine Bomkamp and Ryan Campione, along with chemistry professor Jennifer Robertson-Honecker, will represent WVU at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair this week.

The three traveled to Phoenix to recognize students who are promising innovators in their respective fields by awarding up to 25 Academic Excellence or Presidential Scholarships to attend WVU. Scholarships will be given to students whose research and academic aptitude align with WVU’s institutional goals and research interests, including areas of study such as radio astronomy, rural healthcare and shale gas.

It will be the first time that WVU has offered awards or scholarships at the ISEF. WVU had about a dozen volunteer judges and student ambassadors at the 2012 Intel ISEF in Pittsburgh last year. Pittsburgh will host the fair again in 2015.

In addition, Bomkamp and Campione will be tweeting their experiences at the fair. The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science & the Public, is the world’s largest pre-college science competition, and includes about 1,600 high school students from more than 70 countries, regions and territories. Each year, finalists at the fair showcase their independent research as they compete for more than $4 million in awards.

“I’m most looking forward to talking with the students about their research,” Robertson-Honecker said. “I participated as a judge in the 2012 ISEF in Pittsburgh. The knowledge and enthusiasm displayed by the students was palpable, and quite a bit of the research was cutting edge.”

Robertson-Honecker has been an assistant professor in chemistry since 1998. She also earned a Ph.D. from WVU. She was recently a recipient of the WVU Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Bomkamp, a junior political science major from Waldorf, Md., is a two-time finalist at the ISEF. She was recently named one of Glamour magazine’s 2013 Top 10 College Women.

Campione is a senior industrial engineering major from Morgantown and is the Student Government Association President.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair is funded jointly by Intel and the Intel Foundation with additional awards and support from dozens of corporate, academic, governmental and science-focused organizations. To learn more about Society for Science & the Public, visit www.societyforscience.org.

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HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Thirteen undergraduate students have been selected to receive the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Fellowship at Marshall University for 2013.

SURE is aimed at undergraduates who are interested in performing research, according to Dr. Michael Norton, professor of chemistry and director of the program. Norton said SURE will fund thirteen research projects that have been selected for support by the SURE proposal evaluation committee.

“We want students to know how strongly Marshall supports undergraduate research,” Norton said. “This is the time when these young minds start utilizing their research skills in preparation for graduate school.”

The program has been conducted at Marshall since 2005, and is funded through the West Virginia Research Challenge Fund, administered by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, Division of Science and Research.   

Students will receive stipends totaling $4,000 each for their research for a period of ten weeks uninterrupted by classes during the summer. The SURE program, now in its ninth year, will begin Monday, May 20, and end Aug. 2. The awardees and their hometowns, majors, projects, and research mentors are listed below:

• Tanner Bakhshi; Ironton, Ohio: Molecular Biology; A Foundation for DNA Structures; Dr. Michael Norton
• Heath Blankenship; Huntington; Biology; Epigenetic Role of MLL2 in Spermatogenesis; Dr. Guo-Zhang  Zhu
• Hannah Bott; St. Albans, W.Va.; Chemistry; Probing a Complex Dissociation Energy Surface with Experimental and Theoretical Methods; Dr. William Price
• Amber Campbell; Woodstock, Va.; Biology; Effects of phthalates on stem cells; Dr. Nadja Spitzer
• Arrin Carter; Biology; Wytheville, Va.; Biological Engineering of a Neural Migratory Stream; Dr. Elmer Price
• Sumaiya Chaudhry; Huntington; Biochemistry; Detecting Forces in a Reference Frame; Dr. Sasha Zill
• Erin Fankhanel; Huntington; Biology; Nano-therapy for sepsis induced lung injury; Dr. Eric Blough
• Lindsey Harper; Belington, W.Va.; Psychology; Birth Practices Meta-Analysis; Dr. Paige Muellerleile
• Nguyet Le; International student from Vietnam; Chemistry; Combinatorial Approach to Studying Metal; Dr. Timothy Corrigan
• Brianna Mayfield; Weirton, W.Va.; Biotechnology; Cell Culture Bioassay Development for Prymnesium parvum Toxins; Dr. Elizabeth Murray
• Cody Stover; Point Pleasant, W.Va.; Chemistry; Bioavailability of Capsaicin in Small Cell Lung Cancer; Dr. Piyali Dasgupta
• Brian Warner; Ironton, Ohio; Chemistry; Thermal Decomposition of Propionaldehyde; Dr. Laura McCunn
• Christian Warner; Ironton, Ohio; Chemistry; Synthesis and Characterization of DNA/Dendron; Dr. Scott Day

The SURE program also has a Web page with more information including last year’s awardees and their projects. Visit www.marshall.edu/sure.

Norton can be contacted by e-mail at Norton@marshall.edu.

WVSU scientist uses fruit to engage students

Charleston Gazette
By Mackenzie Mays
May 9, 2013

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — While most people use tomatoes for food, Barbara Liedl is using them to teach students about teamwork, patience and the importance of hands-on learning.

Liedl, an associate professor and research scientist at West Virginia State University, is the only public tomato breeder in the country that specializes in the protected culture method, and she’s been using her unique niche to get students involved at State for nearly a decade.

Students study things such as genetics and plant reproduction in a laboratory, but the most important part is the dirty work at Liedl’s greenhouse, she said.

“Getting hands-on is critical. For me, it’s the only way. I believe very strongly that if I bring a student in to work on a project, if they don’t know how to actually grow a plant, what’s the point?” she said. “You can do all the fancy molecular stuff, but if you don’t understand how it grows, it’s really hard to get that connection.”

“The students get really excited once they invest in a project. It becomes theirs, and they get very passionate,” she said. “Ultimately, we have to work together as a team — sometimes the work is hard and hot and sweaty and you have to make sure everyone’s going to pull together.”

When Liedl recently attended a conference in Florida to share her students’ work — one student’s project took first place, while the other tied for second.

Liedl received strange looks when she shared that neither was a science major. One was an education major, and the other an English major.

“I had a lot of people at that conference who said, ‘I’m really sorry you don’t have any science students.’ But I said, ‘Why?’ Two years ago this student hated science, now he sees how he can bring science into his future classroom. I’ve made more of an impact by converting him than I would have having five science students because through him I’m going to be able to impact students for the rest of his career,” she said.
While West Virginia is not a major producer of tomatoes, WVSU’s work has garnered attention, drawing an international crowd of breeders to the school every 18 months to talk about tomato breeding in different countries.

Liedl, who received her bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in horticultural production and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota focusing on genetics and breeding of plants, is currently focusing on her unique expertise of breeding tomatoes via high tunnels on State’s campus.

High tunnels are unheated greenhouses that are ventilated and allow for season extension.

She also worked as an editor for a book published earlier this year titled “Genetics, Genomic and Breeding of Tomato.”

For Liedl, it’s not just about the red and green fruit, it’s about changing the way people think about their food.

“Ten years ago, gardening wasn’t something people did. The industry was really worried — nobody was buying, they weren’t looking at investing in any of that. But there’s been a complete turnaround. I think people have a better idea where their food comes from and pay more attention to where they’re buying it from,” she said. “That to me means they’re buying better produce that’s been locally grown and they’re keeping money local. So, if god forbid anything happens, we at least have the ability to produce our own food.”

“I never thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with tomatoes.”

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WVNET’s Director Dan O’Hanlon, vice chancellor of Technology for West Virginia’s Higher Education Policy Commission, along with a group of network engineers and architects have collaborated on an SDN-OPS course that is a hands-on, practical learning experience focusing on the many types of software-defined networking tools currently available. WVNET has been on the learning curve for SDN for the past year as their employees worked with RENCI at Duke to stand up the first Cisco ExoGENI Rack in the world.
 
WVNET’s MOOC lets students from all over the world learn how to create their own software defined network for free! Instructors will be some of the most qualified experts in every area of the SDN Community, including Brent Salisbury from KYRON (the Kentucky Regional Optical Network) who frequently blogs about SDN; Dustin Burns & Ed Henry — both talented network engineers from Connecticut; Bill Owens from NYSERnet, the NY State Educational Research Network; Ivan Pepelnjak, a CCIE for decades who is one of the most read bloggers in the SDN universe; and Steven Wallace the new Director of InCNTRE at Indiana University who has taught OpenFlow installation classes all over the country.
 
The WVNET course will begin May 16 and continue with different weekly lessons until July 14, 2013.  Students will learn about SDN and OpenFlow fundamentals, Hardware Switching and Constraints, OpenFlow Integration and Gateways, Data Center Orchestration, and how to Integrate SDN Networks into the Native Network Architecture.

For information on how to register, go to sdnops.wvnet.edu.

For information, contact Dr. Mary Stewart, Applications Systems Analyst Programmer Lead, WVNET, 304-293-5192 x231 or mstewart@mail.wvnet.edu.

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