Students in the Spotlight

  • Doctoral Student in Higher Education, Daniela Veliz, Leads National Network of Chilean Researchers

    Posted March 25, 2013

    Daniela Veliz, a doctoral candidate in Higher Education, is leading a new network of Chilean researchers. Working with colleague Dr. Paulina Perez Mejias, Veliz will be holding the first meeting of the Network of Chilean Education Researchers (RIECH) at the annual American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in San Francisco, California. AERA is the most prominent international professional association with the primary goal of advancing educational research and its practical application. RIECH was born from the initiative of scholars and graduate students -mainly in the United States- who share an interest in contributing to the advancement of knowledge about Chile’s education. The idea behind the network is to connect with other scholars doing research about Chile and to showcase their study results. Veliz says, “We think this network will serve also as a way to share resources and information among its members and to provide opportunities for collaboration.” So far the group has more than 50 members (including graduate students and professors from US and other universities) and every day more express interest in participating. More information about RIECH can be found here. El Mercurio, Chile’s leading newspaper, quoted Veliz in a March 4 story about Chileans forming networks abroad.

    Veliz, originally from Chile, is also a Research Assistant for the ADVANCE Rising Tide Center on campus, and is currently working on her dissertation regarding socialization of international women faculty working at research universities.
     

  • Rob Gee, Doctoral Student in the History Program, and Dr. Katherine O'Flaherty, Honors College Faculty, receive Digital Humanities Award

    Posted February 25, 2013

    UMaine History doctoral candidate Rob Gee and Honors College/Maine Studies Program faculty member Katherine O'Flaherty have received an award in recognition of their work in the digital humanities. The 2012 DH Awards recognize excellence in digital humanities in a number of categories. Nominations for DH Awards came from around the digital humanities community and were overseen by the nominations committee.

    Gee and Dr. O’Flaherty received their award in the category “Best Professional Resource for Learning About or Doing Digital Humanities Work” for their Digital Humanities Toolbox, which is available here. http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-humanities-tool-box They were also nominated for the “Best Digital Humanities Blog, Article, or Short Publication” for their post "Summer Project: Start a Digital History Toolbox", which can be seen here.  

    The Digital Humanities Awards are a new set of annual awards given in recognition of talent and expertise in the digital humanities community and are nominated and voted for entirely by the public. These awards are intended to help put interesting DH resources in the spotlight and engage DH users (and the general public) in the work of the community. Awards are not specific to geography, language, conference, organization or field of humanities that they benefit. The 2012 DH Awards website is available here. 
     

  • Master of Sciences in Oceanography Student, Thomas Leeuw, Receives Recogntion for Research and is Published in Scientific Journal

    Posted February 18, 2013

    Thomas Leeuw, Master of Science in Oceanography student, recently received honorable mention at two separate conferences for his research. Leeuw presented his work at the American Academy of Underwater Science symposium in Portland, Maine and at the Ocean Optics conference in Glasgow, Scotland. His paper based on the research, titled “Remote Identification of the Invasive Tunicate Didemnum vexillum Using Reflectance Spectroscopy”, has been accepted into the journal Applied Optics. Leeuw’s research uses reflectance and an algorithm he created to identify Didemnum vexillum, an invasive marine organism on Georges Bank, an area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, MA and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia. “Mapping of D. vexillum mats is critical in order to assess the impacts this invasive will have on the ecosystem and the fisheries of Georges Bank,” says Leeuw.
    Additionally Leeuw and his advisor Dr. Emmanual Boss are developing an iPhone app to provide people with a simple method to measure water quality. The app would assess pixels in images of water taken by the iPhone in order to get a rough estimate of light scattered back out of the water. Leeuw says, “This light contains information on what is in the water. We hope to get quantitative estimates of chlorophyll, amount of suspended material, and amount of dissolved organic material. This will be a tool not just for scientists, but for anyone who is interested in contributing to world wide database of water quality measurements. GPS coordinates along with any data collected by a ‘citizen scientist’ can then be instantly uploaded to the web and available for anyone to view.” To read the abstract of Leeuw's paper, please go here.

  • Matthew Jones, Master of Science in Ecology and Environemntal Science student, leads $50,000 Grant

    Posted February 11, 2013

    Master of Science in Ecology and Environmental Science student Matthew Jones is leading a $50,000 grant funded by the California Center for Produce Safety at the University of California. The grant is titled "Evaluation of the level of white-tailed deer fecal colonization by E. coli O157:H7 and the ecological role of dung beetles with the pathogen in produce farms.” Jones’ research is intended to evaluate the association between E. coli in wildlife feces and agricultural fields, whether there are native insects that can reduce the risk of human contamination via agricultural products, and if so, how those insects might be managed. His study will focus on the low-bush blueberry crop in Maine, but will have wider implications for agriculture beyond the state. Franics Drummond, Jones’ advisor and a Co- Investigator, called the grant, “a very unique project, one that was pioneered by Matt Jones. There isn't anyone else in the country that is trying to understand the field ecology of the human pathogen, E. coli O157:H7 (in this way).” For more information and the abstract of the grant, please go here.

more