ECU researchers use sweeteners to preserve donated blood

We are a touch late to this news, but wanted to share this awesome and potentially life saving contribution to science from members of NCAS! A trio of East Carolina University researchers has discovered a novel way to improve the storage and preservation of blood. Jean-Luc Scemama, , Anthony Kennedy and Jitka Virag are using a sweetener most commonly found in Splenda to keep blood fresher for longer! Check it out on ECU’s official blog page.

Volunteer with NCAS at Astronomy Days at the Museum of Natural Sciences, Jan 25-26

NCAS needs volunteers to help with a booth at Astronomy Days, a festival held at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences on January 25th and 26th. You don’t need to be an NCAS member to volunteer, and it’s a great opportunity for high school and college students interested in science outreach. You can participate a little, or a lot, leaving lots of time to visit other booths and events. No prior training is needed. Interested? See contact information and more on this flyer.

The NCAS 2020 Annual Meeting Keynote Speaker Dr. David Hu

It was such a joy to talk to Dr. David Hu about how he became engaged in science and his passion for science communication (see the latest issue of our newsletter). During our conversation, Dr. Hu described how he manages his lab of 5 graduate students and 20 undergraduates. “I manage it a bit like a farm,” he said. He sees himself as the main farmer, and has trained his undergrads to build the fences that mainly contain his undergraduates and their projects, but otherwise lets the undergrads be creative, within the bounds of these fences. “Some of our most creative projects were started by undergrads,” said Dr. Hu. He believes that the relatively open structure in the lab leads to this creativity.

To learn more about the projects in Dr. Hu’s lab, check out the Hu Lab for Biolocomotion at Georgia Tech.

CANCAS Fall Workshop! Coming up on Saturday October 26

Learn about professional school admission, using social media in your profession, and professional ethics. Network with undergraduate students from other institutions. Develop a great resume! All in one event!

Follow this link for membership. Follow this link for registration (requires membership, but you may be a group member through your institution).

Questions? Contact Dr. Laura Reichenberg:
laura.reichenberg@pfeiffer.edu

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Congratulations to our 2019-2020 Yarbrough Award Winners!


Here’s a list of our grant winners for this year - all will receive funds to support their research, and we look forward to hearing about their progress at next year’s Annual Meeting!

 Jeremy Brown for the submission “Efficacy of combined ultrasonic/antibiotic treatment for removal of complex biofilms from medical implant plastics” with faculty advisor Melanie Lee-Brown at Guilford College. 

Austin Snide for the submission “Eggshell organizing factor 1 protein in Psorophora Ferox mosquitos” with faculty advisor Carmony Hartwig at Catawba College. 

Jeremy Walker for the submission “Development of pedagogical substitution laboratories for organic chemistry” with faculty advisor Sarah Goforth at Campbell University. 

Jasmine Wiitala for the submission “Investigating the antimicrobial properties of local versus non-local honey on human microbiota” with faculty advisor Steven Coggin at Catawba College. 

New NCAS Board Members

Welcome to our new board members!

President-Elect Position (2019-2020): Dr. Lei Zhang has served as a tenured Physics faculty member in the Department of Chemistry at Winston Salem State University since 2005.  He received his BS in Space Physics from the University of Science & Technology of China, the MS in Astrophysics from Florida International University, the MS in Math from Louisiana Tech University, and the Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of Texas at Arlington.  Research interests include the Electro-Optical properties of crystalline materials, Non-Linear Optics & Optical telecommunication, and Fiber-Optics & Devices.  He is a long-standing NCAS member who has served on the NCAS BOD as Bryden Grants Chair for the past 6 years.

 Treasurer Position (2019-2022 term): Dr. Edson Justiniano is an Associate Professor of Physics at East Carolina University, where he has been a faculty member for 33 years. He holds BS and MS degrees in physics from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a PhD degree in physics from Kansas State University. Dr. Justiniano’s research addresses atomic phenomena occurring in ion-atom and electron-ion collisions. He has 41 refereed publications, 34 papers in international conference proceedings, and numerous conference abstracts. Throughout his career Dr. Justiniano has been a staunch supporter of faculty leadership in matters of shared governance and served for more than a decade on the Faculty Governance Committee of East Carolina University’s Faculty Senate. Dr. Justiniano takes particular pride in having been able to contribute to the education of legions of students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

 Elected Board Member Position (2019-2022 term): Dr. Michael Stiff joined the LR faculty in 2015 as Assistant Professor of Biology. He holds a Ph.D. in Crop Science from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Microbiology from Ball State University. Michael served as a post-doctoral research scholar in the NC State Department of Crop Science. His research interests include the cell biology of cotton fiber shape and sustainable building practices. Michael has served on LR’s Teaching & Learning Committee for three years. Among Michael’s teaching duties, he enjoys teaching Freshman in first semester introductory Biology.

NCAS Board Changes Over

One last photo as the ‘18-’19 NCAS Board…

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First photo of the year for the new board…

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We couldn’t get everyone at the same time for the photo, but glad that we were able to get some of our new board members in the picture. Looking forward to a great year!

Next post: More about our new board members…

CANCAS '19-'20 Board

Welcome to the new officers on the CANCAS board:

President                         Trina Phan, N.C. State University                                         

Vice-President                 Daisy Fry-Brumit, N.C. State University

Secretary                         Sarah Leon, Lenoir-Rhyne University

Historian                          Osvaldo Rodriguez, Wake Technical Community College

Helpful Information for CANCAS Registrants!

As the CANCAS Co-Directors, Laura and I wanted to write and clarify how CANCAS students can register for the NCAS Annual Meeting in Wilmington!

First, if you are an advisor for a CANCAS group, please be sure that you sign up all members in your group using Joinit – the process for this outlined here! (This link also contains information for how individuals can join CANCAS.)

Once all individuals in your group have CANCAS membership, then they can each proceed to Eventbrite to register. Group members should register using the “Current Members Only” category. The price indicated for that is the price without discount. The discount will be applied if the student inputs the "Promotional Code” when they register. Each student must register individually. The way the group is now set up, each student's email is in the system and they will be recognized when they input their email as the Promotional Code and get the discount. The email address must match the address the advisor submitted and through which each student should have received a verification (i.e. if it did not go to spam). This will not work for the students if their advisor did not submit all of the students' email addresses. If that is the case, they need to contact Laura or I immediately.

Please reach out to either Laura (laura.reichenberg@pfeiffer.edu) or I (dstovall@ncwc.edu) if you have any questions as you register! Thank you for your patience as we work with this new system!

Best,

Dan & Laura

Finally ready to go! Registration is open.

Hurricane Florence may have caused delays in getting everything together for our Annual Meeting, but UNC-Wilmington is now ramped up and ready to put on a fabulous event! As you likely know, the NCAS Annual Meeting is just around the corner: March 22-23! You were likely wondering what happened that there had been no news since January, but now, the UNCW website is up and registration is open. The deadline for early registration and abstract submission is Friday March 15 and late online registration will continue until March 22 at 3pm. Check-in and onsite registration (for individuals only please) begins at 5pm on March 22. The venue is marvelous and we are so excited to see what Wilmington has in store. I hope you will join us!

Check out this event: Teaching Tomorrow’s Scientists: An ASCB Regional Meeting

Teaching Tomorrow’s Scientists: An ASCB Regional Meeting will be an exciting mix of science, education, and networking. This day-long meeting is designed for a teaching-intensive audience of life scientists and will be held on May 31, 2019, at the University of Georgia, Athens. 

The meeting will include science research and education research plenaries, a poster session, a networking lunch, afternoon workshops, and an end-of-day networking mixer. Abstracts are invited for 75-minute workshop sessions appropriate for undergraduate biology educators (deadline is March 4). Abstracts are also invited for posters presenting educational innovations, education research, and science research (deadline is April 20). There is no submission fee for either type of abstract. The deadline for meeting registration is May 24. The cost is $40 for ASCB members and $50 for nonmembers. 

For more details about the program, meeting location, discounted hotel rates, etc. visit https://www.ascb.org/ascb-meetings/teaching-tomorrows-scientists-ascb-regional-meeting/