2003 Edition - Contents

by John A. Koropchak, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Dean

For the past year or so, the SIUC community has been involved in the development of a long-term vision for the campus targeting the year 2019, when we will celebrate our sesquicentennial. Among the educational benefits of this plan, called Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment, are substantial advancements in graduate programs and research at SIUC, as indicated by the overarching goal of becoming one of the nation's top 75 public research universities by 2019.

The rationale for this goal can be summarized by one word in the plan's title: excellence. Research institutions such as SIUC, the only research university in the southern half of Illinois, sit at the top of the quality spectrum of institutions of higher learning.

Research (defined broadly to include scholarly and creative activities and research training) is considered one of the most important determinants of a university's reputation. It affects the success of virtually all aspects of the university, including the ability to recruit and retain high-quality students and faculty and the ability to attract resources.

Faculty doing cutting-edge research or scholarship teach students not just what is in today's textbooks, but also what will be in the textbooks of the future. Improving the university's educational quality and reputation through research will increase the value of the degrees earned by our students—present, future, and even past.

The new ideas generated by research and scholarship also may be transferred to the commercial sector, leading to economic development and job creation at the most advanced levels—those that hold the greatest promise to enhance the quality of life for our citizens.

Another word in the Southern at 150 title indicates in part what is required to achieve this goal: commitment. Rising to the top 75 among public universities in research productivity will require the unified commitment, spirit, imagination, ingenuity, and creativity of the SIUC faculty, staff, students, and administration.

Research at universities is driven by faculty, and the number and quality of our faculty will determine SIUC's capacity for research productivity and our ability to attract external research awards. Achievement of the Southern at 150 goals will require continued commitment to hiring of new faculty through approaches such as the Strategic Faculty Hires Initiative.

Research at universities is primarily done by graduate students and postdocs, and therefore the size and quality of the graduate student body will also influence the level of research productivity on campus. An important objective of Southern at 150 is to increase the graduate student body by about 50 percent, to nearly 6,000 from its current level of about 4,000. Since most graduate students are supported by an assistantship or fellowship, achieving this result will also require increasing these sources of support by about 50 percent.

Part of this increase can be achieved if we successfully attract $20 million or more from the university's upcoming capital campaign to establish endowments to support new fellowships. Another part can be achieved by increasing the number of teaching assistantships across campus, with the concurrent benefit of enhanced undergraduate instruction. We are currently pursuing additional state funding via the RAMP process for additional teaching assistantships to satisfy part of this need. Additional research assistantships can be generated with the increased external funding that is also part of the overall objective.

Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment sets many lofty and challenging objectives for the university with regard to graduate programs and research. We must remain committed to these objectives. Attaining them promises tremendous benefits for our students, our faculty and staff, and the citizens of Illinois.

The Center for Graduate Teaching Excellence is taking shape and will become fully operational during the 2003-04 academic year. An Advisory Committee chaired by Dr. Elyse Pineau has been established, and the committee is working closely with the Graduate Council's Educational Policy Committee to outline the center's role and scope.

The center ultimately will assume responsibility for the Graduate School's summer TA training workshop. The intent is to ensure that TAs across campus receive high-quality training to enable them to carry out their responsibilities in undergraduate education through disciplinary-specific programs housed within departments as well as the center itself. In addition, the center will provide university-wide opportunities for students to enhance their teaching credentials.

Unfortunately, budget constraints forced us to cancel an FY03 Request for Proposals (RFP) intended to fund departmental initiatives to enhance existing teaching assistant training programs or to develop new training programs. We hope to reissue the RFP in FY04, budget permitting.

Last year, the "Enhanced Recruiting and Retention of High Quality Graduate Students" RAMP initiative to increase graduate assistant stipends by an average of 10 percent was listed as SIUC's number one priority. Studies of SIUC's graduate assistant stipend levels indicate that increases are badly needed to assist departments in recruiting excellent graduate students.

The IBHE has agreed, and the proposal is included in SIUC's tentative budget for FY04. The legislature and the governor both have to consent before this plan can become reality. We are optimistic, however, that even in this budget climate the plan will gain their approval.

This year the Graduate School has prepared a $1-million FY05 RAMP request for "Increased Teaching Assistantships" on campus. There has been a substantial decline in the number of teaching assistantships in the past decade, and the colleges clearly need more TAs to meet their undergraduate teaching responsibilities. We hope that success with this proposal will begin to address this problem and at the same time support the goals expressed for increased graduate enrollment in the Southern at 150 plan.

The RAMP requests for inclusion in the FY05 budget have not been finalized, but we believe that this initiative will also receive a high priority.

Graduate student enrollment for fall semester 2002 totaled 4,300, an increase of 5 percent from fall semester 2001, when 4,093 graduate students were enrolled. (Note: These figures do not include MEDPREP students, who are included in certain other university counts of graduate enrollment.)

This increase continues the steady growth that SIUC's Graduate School has seen every year since fall semester 1997, when graduate enrollment was only 3,371.

The Spring 2002 edition of Graduate Highlights noted that much of the increase over those years was due to the growing number of international graduate students studying at SIUC. Although that number grew again—by 20 students—between fall semester 2001 and fall semester 2002, most of the enrollment increase for this time period was attributable to U.S. students.

SIUC's graduate program figures prominently in a recent series of booklets aimed at showing graduate schools by example how to recruit, educate, and retain students from groups whose members do not typically enroll.

The three-volume "Inclusiveness Series," published in February by the Council of Graduate Schools, draws on the experiences of institutions that have won the council's Peterson's Award. This prize, given to SIUC in 1996, honors graduate schools that have adopted innovative reforms to make their programs more attractive and accessible to students from underrepresented groups. The booklets include comments from Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Dean John Koropchak, who served on the council's Inclusiveness Project Advisory Committee, and Joseph Brown, director of Black American Studies.

In addition, the second volume, "Recruiting for Success," showcases the work of Pat McNeil, assistant dean of the Graduate School and a person Koropchak describes as "the touchstone of our inclusiveness efforts" and "the central advocate for this program."

In a three-page piece titled "Nurturing is My Pastime—I Do It 24/7," McNeil describes the Graduate School's recruitment strategies for inclusiveness, including a seven-state network that helps her identify promising undergraduates; the PROMPT program, a partnership with 12 HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) and four tribal colleges; various fellowship packages; and an effective mentoring system.

Interested in working with McNeil to recruit underrepresented graduate students to SIUC? Contact her at 453-4330 or pmcneil@siu.edu. The Graduate School also is working with the SIU Foundation to raise funds for an endowment for minority fellowships. If you'd like to contribute, send a check made out to SIUC to Pat McNeil, Graduate School, mailcode 4716.

Grants and contracts awarded to SIUC during the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2002 (FY02) totaled $61.4 million, 13% more than the university received in FY01.

This amount is second in SIUC history only to FY00's $78 million total, which included an unusual, one-time $25 million award for the university's Clean Coal Program.

Federal and state agencies, corporations, private foundations, and other agencies gave SIUC $28.3 million for research projects, a 10% increase over FY01 levels. Funding for training programs totaled $6.5 million (a 6% decrease), and funding for service and other projects totaled $26.6 million (a 23% increase). The federal share of this year's external funding—$21.3 million—went up by a whopping 50% over last year. Figures were reported by the Office of Research Development and Administration (ORDA) in December 2002.

We are happy to report that graduate assistant funding from FY02 grants and contracts amounted to $4.2 million. Congratulations go to the faculty and the graduate students who successfully competed for these external awards. Such awards are critical to advancing knowledge and to providing research opportunities and support for both doctoral- and master's-level students at SIUC.

SIUC (including the School of Medicine) ranks #16 among higher education institutions in the number of inventions disclosed per $1 million spent on research, according to figures reported in summer 2002 by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). Over the five-year period from 1996 to 2000, SIUC announced 0.7 inventions for each $1 million spent.

The university also ranked #37 with respect to licenses and options executed relative to the number of inventions disclosed, #51 in patent applications per $1 million spent on research, #56 in the number of startup companies formed per $10 million of spending on research, and #68 in licensing income per dollar of research spending. Expanded licensing income gives universities more flexibility in funding graduate assistantships and providing undergraduate research opportunities.

Nine licenses/options were executed by SIUC in FY02. In addition, 20 inventions were disclosed, seven patent applications were filed, and six patents were awarded.

Need to find out various things about graduate programs and research endeavors at SIUC? A lot of information is available online.

Eight Technology Enhancement Grants totaling $43,000 were made in FY03 to faculty and students in the following departments/programs: Art and Design, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Environmental and Resources Planning, Geology, and Physics. For a list with full details, contact Paulette Patterson at 453-4551. Funds purchased computers and components, scanners, digital cameras, and software.

During the 2002-03 academic year, SIUC contracted with Peterson's consulting group for assistance with developing comprehensive graduate recruiting enhancement strategies. Our main goal in hiring these consultants was to increase recruitment of high-quality graduate students across campus.

In fall 2002, the consultants interviewed department chairs and graduate program directors about program strengths and weaknesses to allow them to assist departments in developing recruiting programs. This information went back to the relevant departments and colleges to ensure accuracy.

This spring, the consultants held two sets of workshops: one on capacity analysis and strategic planning, and one on web design and marketing. In the first set, the aim was to help departments articulate their vision for their graduate programs and better determine how many graduate students their programs could accommodate. In the second set, the aim was to help departments improve their recruitment strategies and better market their programs.

The latter included helping departments (1) develop "speaking points" as part of a coordinated response to inquiries from prospective students, (2) publicize their strengths to prospective students, and (3) improve their web sites, one of the most important sources of information for students.

This effort is ongoing. Only one thing has already been put into effect: links to SIUC graduate program information from the Peterson's web site. We believe this may have already paid off in increasing graduate applications, which are up significantly compared to this time last year.

If you have questions about the Peterson's work, please contact David Wilson (dwilson@siu.edu) or John Koropchak (koropcha@siu.edu).

A $1.14 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke was awarded to Douglas Smith and Robert Jensen (Psychology), Ronald Browning (Physiology), and Richard Clough (Anatomy) for their long-term research on vagus nerve stimulation and recovery from brain injury.

Playwright David Rush (Theater) was named Outstanding Playwriting Teacher of the Year by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Rush's musical Prairie Lights was produced in Chicago in fall 2002 and has been nominated for a Jeff Award (Chicago's equivalent of the Tony).

John Crelling (Geology) received the 2002 Joseph Becker Award (Iron and Steel Society) at the 85th Steelmaking and 61st Ironmaking Conference held in March 2002. This prestigious industry award recognized his extensive research in coal carbonization.

Karl W.J. Williard (Forestry) won the American Water Resources Association's 2002 Pyramid Award, which recognizes achievement and leadership potential. Williard specializes in forest hydrology and watershed management.

Jonathan Wiesen (History) received the 2002 Best Book Prize in Business History, sponsored by the Hagley Museum and Library and the Business History Conference, for West German Industry and the Challenge of the Nazi Past, 1945-1955. In addition, Wiesen and two co-planners received a $10,000 award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to sponsor the international conference "Advertising and Public Relations in Modern German History" at McMaster University later this year.

The International Communicology Institute selected Richard Lanigan (Speech Communication) as the featured scholar at its 2002 summer conference at Brock University, Canada.

Kathryn Ward (Sociology) has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Research Institute for the Study of Man, and the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies for her research in Bangladesh on women, work, and economic empowerment.

Allison Joseph (English) won the 2003 Word Press Poetry Prize, received the first-place prize in the 2002 Wallace W. Winchell Poetry Competition, and also won 2002 poetry awards from Georgia State University Review and from Yawp Magazine. Her fourth book of poetry, Imitation of Life, has been published by Carnegie Mellon University Press (2003).

Bakul Dave (Chemistry and Biochemistry) was awarded a patent in August 2002 for a process using organically modified sol-gels to convert carbon dioxide into methanol.

Mike Magnuson (English) published Lummox: The Evolution of a Man (HarperCollins) in 2002, along with an accompanying CD titled Loud.

Uday Desai (Political Science) has been named editor of Policy Studies Journal. Desai also edited Environmental Politics and Policy in Industrialized Countries, published in 2002 (MIT Press).

The American Society of Civil Engineers honored John Nicklow (Civil Engineering) with its 2002 Excellence in Civil Engineering Education New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award for zone III, which covers 14 states.

Harris Deller (Art and Design) was one of 10 artists exhibiting work in the 4th Annual National Ceramic Invitational in West Palm Beach, FL, in December 2002.

Marcia Anderson (Workforce Education and Development) received the Award of Merit for Outstanding Service to Business Education, presented at the annual Association for Career and Technical Education conference in December 2002.

Kay Carr (History) has been named editor of the Illinois History Journal.

Patricia Elmore (Educational Psychology and Special Education) recently was honored with the Association for Assessment in Counseling Exemplary Practices Award for her work on "Competencies in Assessment and Evaluation for School Counselors." Elmore also edits the journal Measurement and Evaluation in Counseling and Development.

The work of metalsmith Richard Mawdsley (Art and Design) was included in a 2002 exhibit, Contemporary Judaica, at the Aaron Faber Gallery in New York City.

Kathy Chwalisz and Stephanie Dollinger (Psychology) have received a five-year, $1.3-million grant from the National Institute of Nursing for their research project, "SIU Rural Caregiver Telehealth Intervention Trial."

Louis Vieceli (emeritus, Rehabilitation Institute) was among the inaugural inductees into the Hall of Fame for Leaders and Legends of the Blindness Field in 2002. Vieceli is a nationally recognized authority on job placement of blind people.

The U.S. State Department is funding projects led by Jyotika Ramaprasad and James Kelly (Journalism) to strengthen journalism training in Tanzania and in South Asia.

E. Beth Lordan (English) was represented in Best American Short Stories 2002 with her story "Digging," which was originally published by the Atlantic Monthly in September 2001.

Shaowei Chen (Chemistry and Biochemistry) received the Oversea Young Investigator Award in 2002 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The award includes a three-year grant for collaborative research.

Jennifer Dunn (Sociology) published Courting Disaster: Intimate Stalking, Culture, and Criminal Justice (Aldine de Gruyter, 2002).

A research grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and a Kennan [Institute] Short-Term Research Award have been awarded to Theodore Weeks (History) to support his new book project.

Nicholas Pinter (Geology) received a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for research on flooding and flood control on transboundary rivers in Europe. He also won a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany), one of only 10 given to scholars worldwide.

The American College Personnel Association named Patrick Dilley (Educational Administration and Higher Education) an Emerging Scholar. The 2002 award included a $1,500 research grant. Dilley's Queer Man on Campus: A History of Non-Heterosexual College Males, 1945 to 2000 (RoutledgeFalmer, 2002) is the first historical examination of gay collegiate life.

Boyd Goodson (Chemistry and Biochemistry) received a 2002 Research Innovation Award from the Research Corporation to support his studies of molecular structure and dynamics in biomolecular thin films using nuclear magnetic resonance.

Anthony Steinbock (Philosophy) was named editor of Continental Philosophy Review and also editor of Northwestern University Press's book series in continental philosophy.

F. Bary Malik (Physics) was elected a fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences in February 2002. He also was awarded a fellowship from Fundacao Luso-American Para o Dosenvolvimento to give a plenary address at the 26th International Workshop on Condensed Matter Theories held in Portugal in September 2002.

The Illinois Arts Council awarded 2003 Artists Fellowships to Philip Brown (Music) and Jon Tribble, managing editor of the Crab Orchard Review (English). Printmaker Joel Feldman (Art and Design) won an IAC finalist award.

Jonathan Hill (Anthropology) co-edited Comparative Arawakan Histories: Rethinking Language Family and Culture Area in Amazonia (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2002).

Steven Miles (History) received a Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship for study at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research during academic year 2002-03.

Charles Fanning (English) edited Selected Writings of John V. Kelleher on Ireland and Irish America (SIU Press, 2002), his 11th book, and gave the plenary address for the American Conference for Irish Studies in June 2002 in Milwaukee.

John Phelps (Forestry) was appointed in October 2002 to a two-year term on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Science Advisory Board.

Kingdom of the Instant, the seventh book of poems by Rodney Jones (English), was published by Houghton Mifflin in August 2002. Jones also is the winner of the 2003 Harper Lee Award, a $5,000 prize given annually by the Alabama Writers' Forum to a living, nationally recognized Alabama writer.

Bidyut Gupta (Computer Science) has been named program chair for the ISCA International Conference on Computers and Applications, to be held next year.

Michael Madigan (Microbiology) won the 2002 Carski Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Society of Microbiology.

Christopher Kohler (Zoology) has been elected second vice president of the American Fisheries Society.

The Journal of Operations Management named associate editor Gregory White (Management) Editor of the Year for 2002.

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, by Brady Udall (English), was named a top fiction pick by the New Yorker and Newsweek in summer 2002, and Udall was profiled in the Chicago Tribune.

Colby Smith, an MFA student in art, won a 2002 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award from the International Sculpture Center, and his work was featured in the October 2002 issue of Scupture magazine.

An exhibit of portraits of African-American coal miners in Southern Illinois, coordinated by MFA photography student Lee Buchsbaum, was on display at the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.

Kari Staros, a doctoral student in world history, has received a Gladys Krieble Delmas grant for study in Venice.

A $24,000 NASA Earth System Science Fellowship has been awarded to Emily Molander, a doctoral student in geology, for research training with faculty member Nicholas Pinter.

Amy Cheng, a doctoral student in applied psychology, was selected as one of two runners-up for the 2002 Pitney Bowes Award for Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis (Dissertation) in the Field of Diversity. An article based on Cheng's thesis has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Vocational Psychology.

Joshua Sanseri, an MFA student in photography, has won the grand prize in the college/university portfolio category of the Photographic Imaging Education Association's 2003 contest. Dimitri Skliris, another MFA student in photography, took first place in 2002 in the same category, while Robert Booker, a master's student in professional media practice, took grand prize in 2002 in the college/university single image category.

Two MFA students in art, Brenda Quinn and Keith Renner, were prize winners in a recent ceramics competition sponsored by A.R.T., a clay and kiln equipment company.

Jayson Meyer, a master's student in public administration, received the James M. Banovetz Fellowship in 2002 from the Illinois City/County Management Association.

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry awarded a $30,000 global fellowship for doctoral research in environmental science to Lance Schuler, a graduate student in zoology. The society also gave the $2,000 Jeff Black Award to Kimberly Parks, a master's student in zoology. Both are studying the effects of toxins on water-dwelling species.

Sandy Fontana, an MFA student in English, won the Academy of American Poets Prize 2002 for SIUC.

Three graduate students in computer science—Chet Langin, Jonathan Koren, and Wenfeng Li—won first prize in the MechMania VIII programming contest conducted during the Association for Computing Machinery Midwest Conference at the University of Illinois in October 2002.

Mary Stepp, an MFA candidate in creative writing, won the 2002 Writing Award from Peralta Press (Alameda, CA). The honor includes publication of her prize-winning poem and a cash award.

Ben Percy, another MFA student in creative writing, was named a semi-finalist in the Chicago Tribune's 2002 Nelson Algren Fiction Writing Contest.

A film by James Saldana, a master's student in interactive multimedia, was a finalist in the documentary category in the 2002 Angelus Awards, a national student film competition. The film, "Our Road to Kosovo," showed the plight of Kosovar Albanian refugees in 1999-2001.

Gianetta "Ginny" Adams, a doctoral student in zoology, received a 2002 Association for Women in Science Educational Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship to support her research on cave fish.

Beth Lingren, a doctoral student in educational administration and higher education, and assistant director of New Student Programs at SIUC, won a $1,000 Outstanding Research Award from the National Orientation Directors Association.

Southern Illinois Healthcare awarded a grant to Theresa Senn, doctoral student in psychology, to support her dissertation, "Evaluation of the Lactation Persuasion Program."

Eric Pals, an MFA student in theater, won the regional 10-minute play competition sponsored by the American College Theater Festival in January 2003. Pals's play, "Vanishing Acts," has advanced to the national competition.

Another MFA theater student, Harrison Scott Key, had his script "Up On Mount Nebo" selected for a full production at the regional American College Theatre Festival in 2002.

Ivan Albreht, an MFA student in art, participated in an international invitational exhibition, featuring 18 artists, in Kiel, Germany, in fall 2002.

James Wall, a master's student in media management, won awards for four papers accepted at the meeting of the Broadcast Education Association, including first place in the Communication Technology division.

Work by MFA art students Brenda Quinn and Nathan Blank was exhibited in "Crafts National 36," a juried national competition in State College, Pennsylvania.

Chris Walker, an MFA candidate in photography, won the grand prize in the Artist's Hand Competition at the Museum of Anthropology at California State University, Chico. He also won first place in the Black and White Flora category from the Outdoor Writers Association of America. His photographs were exhibited in "Current Works 2002," a major international exhibition by the Society for Contemporary Photography.

Hilla Medalia, a master's student in professional media practice, won second place at the Broadcast Education Association as producer on a project.

Carla Cioffi, an MFA student in photography, has been selected to participate in the International Photography Institute. Only 20 candidates from top MFA programs are accepted.

Sarah Helmers, a doctoral student in workforce education and development, received the 2003 Donald M. Elkins Excellence in Education Award in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

A review by Sarah Daub, an MFA student in art, was published in January 2003 by the St. Louis Riverfront Times. Daub reviewed an exhibit of paintings by Carolyn Plochmann at the Southern Illinois Art Gallery in Rend Lake.

Philip Jensik, physiology, won the SIU Alumni Association's 2002 Outstanding Thesis award with basic research on receptor protein channels in cell membranes that regulate ion flux in the body. A type of channel called the P2X receptor is important in controlling the flow of potassium and sodium ions into cells. Jensik discovered and characterized an unusual, closely related receptor found in the skin of frog tadpoles. His findings, published in the American Journal of Physiology, are helping other scientists better understand the function of these crucial body regulators.

John Foster, associate professor of political science, was named Outstanding Teacher for 2002. Foster uses technology and "real-world" experiences as the "social science equivalent of the weekly science lab" in his highly rated classes. For the past five years he also has directed SIUC's Fulbright Summer Institute, which makes a unique contribution to the teaching of American government and politics worldwide through seminars for foreign scholars on the U.S. political system. Teachers from 62 countries have participated during his tenure.

The 2002 Outstanding Scholar award went to philosophy professor Larry Hickman, Director of the Center for Dewey Studies. Hickman is an internationally known expert on American philosopher John Dewey, pragmatism, and the philosophy of technology. His book John Dewey's Pragmatic Technology (1990) has been hailed as a classic. His other publications include Philosophical Tools for Technological Culture (2001) and several anthologies. In 2002, a film that he wrote and narrated about Dewey won a CINE Golden Eagle award.

Anthropologist Keith Prufer won the 2002 Outstanding Dissertation award for illuminating the importance of caves to the religious practices of pre-Hispanic Maya who lived in the rugged mountains of what is now southern Belize. Prufer focused on 53 caves in the Ek Xux Valley and Muklebal Tzul region, many of which he was the first to map and explore. By documenting ritual materials and their placement in the caves, he shed much light on the roles and activities of Maya shamans of the time. Prufer has published a book and several articles. He now teaches at Auburn University.

Three students won $15,000 Morris Fellowships in 2002 for doctoral study at SIUC.

Ruth Chananie (sociology) has research interests in gender and sexuality, deviant behavior, and the sociology of sport and popular culture. She plans to pursue research on women athletes with an emphasis on the pressures they experience to conform to feminine standards of appearance and behavior on and off the field.

Janet Mayher (anthropology) has interests in physical anthropology, dental anthropology, and statistical modeling. She hopes to combine research on Neanderthals with research on early dental problems such as crooked teeth and gum disease.

Becky Schwab (zoology) is interested in aquatic toxicology, particularly in how contaminated sediments affect aquatic ecosystems as a whole and bottom-dwelling species in particular. She wants to improve her use of techniques for analyzing chemicals in the field and in the lab to study contaminants and conduct ecological risk assessments.