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Four Fisher College Faculty Receive 2018 Board of Regents Awards

March 22, 2018 — Pamela Lottero-Perdue (physics, astronomy, & geosciences) won the 2018 USM Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching. Clare Muhoro (chemistry) won the 2018 USM Regents Award for Excellence in Public Service. Vera Smolyaninova (physics, astronomy and geosciences) won the 2018 USM Regents Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Research or Creative Activity. And Sidd Kaza (computer & information sciences) won the 2018 USM Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching.

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dean david vanko and vice chancellor eyitope ogunbodede

Dean Vanko and Professors Kaza, Muhoro and Song Collaborate with Obafemi Awolowo University to Open Doors to STEM in Nigeria

February 6, 2018 — “A strong partnership with Obafemi Awolowo University is a win-win scenario for both institutions.  For Towson University, this specific partnership will play a role in opening opportunities to contribute to the STEM capacity-building ventures of Nigeria and expand TU’s presence to the largest country on the African continent,” TU’s Assistant Vice President Saleha Suleman said.  “I’m excited about this new two-way partnership that can include student and faculty exchanges and joint research,” Vanko said. “These mesh very nicely with the Fisher College’s strategic objectives in cybersecurity research and education, diversity and inclusion, and internationalization.”

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Physics Major Max Coplan Shares Why He Thinks TU is Among the Best in Physics Research Institutions

February 6, 2018 — “This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”  Coplan was invited to the headquarters of Wolfram Inc. in Champaign, Illinois, for their 2017 Technology Conference. Wolfram is the maker of Mathematica—the world's leading software for solving mathematical equations symbolically—that is distributed to all TU faculty and students. He gave a half-hour talk to the Wolfram experts on how he has been able to use Mathematica to "go where no one has gone before" and explore the inside of rotating black holes mathematically.

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Chemistry Faculty Member named Emerging Investigator by the Royal Chemistry Society

January 31, 2018 — John Sivey, assistant professor of chemistry, was named a Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Investigator in Environmental Sciences.    Read more for the full interview with Dr. Sivey.  Read John’s Emerging Investigators paper “Comparing the inherent reactivity of often-overlooked aqueous chlorinating and brominating agents toward salicylic acid” and find out more about him in the interview.

Read Full Interview with Dr. Sivey
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Two Mathematics Faculty Awarded a Grant from the National Science Foundation to Support Seminar On Numbers

January 9, 2018 —  Angel Kumchev, professor of mathematics, and Nathan McNew, assistant professor of mathematics, received a grant that provides funding for the Mid-Atlantic Seminar On Numbers (MASON) for three years.  MASON is a nascent regional conference in number theory whose main goal is to promote and sustain communication and collaboration among number theorists from the Mid-Atlantic region.  The need for a regular meeting like MASON is especially acute among students (both graduate and advanced undergraduates) and researchers at the many comprehensive and primarily undergraduate institutions in the region.

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Geology Professor Part of NASA's Search For Transfats And Other Fatty Acids On Mars

December 29, 2017 — NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover and its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument have found chlorobenzene (an organic ring molecule) in Gale Crater’s Sheepbed Mudstone.  But, to date, no one has ever had a positive detection of a fatty acid on Mars.  Amy Williams, an assistant professor of geology at Towson University, is a member of the SAM instrument science team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center involved in this research.

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Chairperson of Biological Sciences Receives Nearly $600,000 in Funding from National Science Foundation

November 16, 2017 — Some people look forward to summer vacation, planning sun-drenched getaways that feature plenty of beach time.  Towson University biology professor and chairperson Laura Gough and master’s student Matt Suchocki prefer the Arctic.  Dr. Gough is the co-principal investigator on two National Science Foundation (NSF) grants totaling over $570,000 — the Arctic Long-Term Ecological Research Project (LTER) and Collaborative Research: Adding animals to the equation, affectionately known as Team Vole.   She has been doing summer research in Alaska for over 20 years, and recently took over as the lead principal investigator for the terrestrial portion of the Arctic LTER, based at Toolik Field Station, 350 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

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Computer & Information Sciences Faculty Receive $3.9 Million Grant

October 9, 2017 — Members of Towson University’s Department of Computer and Information Sciences in the Jess & Mildred Fisher College of Science and Mathematics recently received a $3.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation called Scholarship for Service (SFS).  The grant, which extends over five years, will help CIS faculty Josh Dehlinger, Shiva Azadegan,  Sidd Kaza, Blair Taylor, Michael O’Leary, and Nam Nguyen to expand TU’s current CyberCorps program.  “Cybersecurity is a critical national need. Towson faculty have always been at the forefront of cybersecurity education and research,” said Sidd Kaza, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at TU. “This grant and others speak to our excellent research, teaching, and cutting-edge degree programs.”

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Mathematics Faculty Member Co-Authors Award Wining Resource for Elementary School Teachers

October 6, 2017 — Edward C. Nolan, a master teacher of mathematics with the Towson UTeach program, is one of five authors of the sourcebook for elementary school teachers entitled “Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching Grades 3–5.” This book won the Learning® Magazine 2018 Teachers’ Choice℠ Award for Professional Development.  The book is designed to help educators increase their knowledge of the mathematics they teach and improve intermediate-grade mathematics instruction.  This book is part of the Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching series which also includes three other titles on which Edward Nolan is also a co-author: “Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching Grades K–2”, “Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching Grades 6–8”, and “Making Sense of Mathematics for Teaching High School.”

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FCSM Associate Dean Receives $150,000 Grant from USDA

September 22, 2017 — Dr. Vonnie Shields, associate dean of the Fisher College and professor of biological sciences, has received $150,000 from United States Department of Agriculture to identify volatile and “green” pesticides to manage stink bug populations. Dr. Shields and her team—research associate Nicholas Larson, Ph.D., and research chemist Aijun Zhang, Ph.D., USDA, Beltsville, Maryland — aim to identify volatile and “green” pesticides to manage brown marmorated stink bug populations.

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Department of Chemistry is One of Five Nationally to Receive Dreyfus Foundation Grant

August 8, 2017 — The Department of Chemistry was one of five departments across the United States to receive a 2017 Jean Dreyfus Lectureship for Undergraduate institutions award, from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation.  The Jean Dreyfus Lectureship awards provide an $18,500 grant to bring a leading researcher to a primarily undergraduate institution to give public and technical lectures in the chemical sciences and to support two undergraduates in summer research.  The primary investigator at TU for this grant was Mary Sajini Devadas, Ph.D., and her co-PI was Keith Reber, Ph.D..  Both Reber (2016-19) and Sajini Devadas (2017-2020) are current Fisher endowed chairs.

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Rachael Huxford '18 and Hamna Ali '18 Are Poised To Make an Impact in the Field of Physics

August 7, 2017 — If you Google “famous physicists,” 50 images pop up at the top of the browser window.  Two are women.  But Fisher College physics majors Rachael Huxford ’18 and Hamna Ali ’18 are poised to make an impact in the field.  “They are truly curious about nature and its secrets. Such a simple thing, yet so few students have it,” said James Overduin, a TU physics professor who has co-supervised both women in research projects with colleague Thomas Krause. “I don't mean fleeting excitement about the latest news, but a deep and searching determination to understand. We're lucky to have them.”  “Hamna and Rachael both have strong mathematical ability, which is necessary to succeed in physics. But it isn't as rare as you might think. More rare, and more important, is perseverance, which both women have as well. But even that isn't the most important thing. The rarest and most important trait for success in physics is genuine passion for the subject, and that is where Hamna and Rachael stand out. It will carry them as far as they want to go.”

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MB3 Director, Nadim Alkharouf, Receives $40,000 Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

June 23, 2017 — Professor of computer science and bioinformatics Nadim Alkharouf looks to help stop millions of dollars in U.S. agriculture losses.  Alkharouf’s team is studying the sugar beet maggot, a destructive pathogen that causes millions of dollars in losses to US agriculture. They use computers and bioinformatics tools, like sequence alignment tools, to pinpoint genes within sugar beets that can be turned on or off to make them more resistant to the maggots or, alternatively, kill the pest before it invades the plant.  TU students Shaina Furman and Cherokee Lake are working at the USDA research campus in Beltsville, Maryland. Lake, a bioinformatics major, is designing a database to store the gene sequencing data. Furman is more involved in lab work, taking on tasks like PCR and maintenance of cultures.

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Fisher College’s Christopher Cornwell is Towson University’s Third Project NExT Fellow

June 15, 2017 — Assistant professor of mathematics Christopher Cornwell received a 2017 Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) fellowship from the Mathematics Association of America (MAA).  As a fellow of the yearlong cohort, he will participate in a Project NExT workshop; Mathfest, the summer meetings of the MAA; and other workshops and sessions throughout the year that will explore and discuss issues that are relevant to beginning faculty.  Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) is a professional development program for new or recent Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences. It addresses all aspects of an academic career: improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, engaging in research and scholarship, finding exciting and interesting service opportunities, and participating in professional activities.

See Project NeXT website
matthew hemm and students in laboratory

Biological Science Professors Receive a National $1 Million Grant for Minority Student Success in STEM

June 7, 2017 — Fisher College of Science and Mathematics faculty members Laura Gough, Matthew Hemm and their team will receive $1 million over five years from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) as part of their inaugural Inclusive Excellence initiative.  The TU proposal was one of over 500 pre-proposals submitted, one of 90 invited full proposals and one of just 24 grants awarded.  “Research shows that undergraduates engaged in authentic research are more likely to persist in science and math classes, to graduate, and to pursue STEM careers,” said David Vanko, dean of the college. “The Howard Hughes Inclusive Excellence grant provides us with an opportunity to truly transform how we encourage and engage students in undergraduate research.”  The Fisher College of Science and Mathematics has seen an 84 percent increase in minority student majors since 2012.

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Computer & Information Sciences Professor Receives USM Regents’ Awards

May 3, 2017 — Dr. Jonathan Lazar, professor of computer & information sciences won the 2017 University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship, Research or Creative Activity.  Dr. Lazar has removed a number of barriers that make user interfaces inaccessible to Blind users. One such contribution is the development of accessible web security features known as CAPTCHAs; his research has resulted in two US patents and two licensing agreements between TU and outside organizations.

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