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Photo by ambre alexander 7/12/12 8:10 AM IN THIS ISSUE Volume 20 • Number 2 • August 2012

featured stories On the cover On press 4 In the modern world of online newspapers and graphic-design software, the Department of Art’s letterpress studio is a step back in time, with wooden and lead type and manual printing presses that students learn to use for a wide variety of projects that enhance and showcase their creativity.

The play’s (still) the thing 20 For those who love reading Shakespeare—and those who want to love it if only someone would help them better understand the language and the context—a new mobile application brings a cadre of experts to the reader’s fingertips. One of those Shakespearean scholars sharing her knowledge through this project is Kristen Poole, professor of English.

Football, food and fun 30 Nearly a century ago, the University began reaching out to alumni and friends through Game Day at Delaware Stadium in the fall means a publication called the Alumni News. From more than just great football to the many fans its first issue in 1915, the News was published who socialize over a meal or snacks before kickoff. only occasionally and under different titles Debbie Ellingsworth, a UD alumna who now until a more regular schedule and name, teaches culinary classes on campus, offers some the University News, took effect in 1935. tips and recipes for hosting a successful tailgate. That publication later became the Blue Hen Messenger and, in the 1991-92 academic A Marvelous career 36 year, the UD Messenger. This latest version When Tom Brevoort was an undergraduate in the of the magazine has changed size and University’s illustration program, he got what seemed circulation in the past two decades, but it like a dream internship for someone who had loved is now celebrating its 20th volume year. On comic books since age 6—working at Marvel Comics. the cover of this issue are covers from each Today, Brevoort is a senior vice president and executive of those years; to see more past covers, visit editor there, overseeing plots, suggesting stories www.udel.edu/udmessenger. and consulting on such films as The Avengers.

D epartments On The Green News from the campus �� 6

Research �� 20 Please recycle this magazine. Athletics �� 32 Alumni �� 36 Class notes �� 64

Contents&Letters.indd 1 7/16/12 8:45 AM WEB EXTRAS LETTERS To access web pages and videos, scan the codes below with your phone’s camera using a barcode FROM OUR PRESIDENT reader application. http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/may/commencement-052612.html?utm_source=messenger&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=vol20_no2 esearch is vitally important at the University of RDelaware, and it’s a fast-growing enterprise here. Every year, UD attracts millions of dollars to conduct research that touches every aspect of our lives—our health, our happiness, our security, our understanding of the past and our ambitions for the future. These sponsored research expenditures have climbed 41 percent in just five years, To see a video of reaching a record-breaking $134.4 million in 2011. Solédad O’Brien Little by little, our acts of discovery and invention http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2012/may/ocean-plastic-050112.html?utm_source=messenger&utm_medium=print&utm_campaign=vol20_no2speaking at UD’s are transforming our world, and the way we interact with it. Geologist Holly Commencement Michael (page 25) is studying water flow and salt transport to protect coastal ecosystems from groundwater salinization. Shakespearean scholar Kristen Poole (page 20) is working on an iPad app that explains and augments passages from the Bard’s works, a companion guide that might just put Shakespeare on a lot more people’s e-readers. Marketing professor Ji Kyung Park (page 28) is exploring how self-esteem affects consumer behavior and our tendency toward materialism. But if you think work this important is the undertaking of faculty alone, you might be surprised at the number of students—undergraduates—advancing To view a video about our research agenda. Senior Michelle Francis has been investigating how http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/adaptations-of-marine-worms-in-antarctica/journalsplastics in the ocean. viper venom stops melanoma from metastasizing, while senior Matthew Saponaro (both on page 29) has created a computer model that may eventually predict colon cancer. Summer is high time for undergraduate research at UD. Summer scholars and fellows don’t get much time poolside, but they do get a lot of one-on-one time with faculty, seeking answers to some of the most important and confounding questions in their disciplines— doing what Michelle calls the “behind-the-scenes detective work.” And, of course, our alums sustain this same passion for work that’s got something in common with the gumshoe’s. Abigail uandt (page 38), senior To read Mike conservator of rare books and manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum in League’s blog Baltimore, spent 12 long years unearthing 10th century copies of Archimedes’ about his trip to mathematical treatises from what had become a 13th century prayer book— Antarctica work she describes as most like an archaeological dig. Mike League (page 42) spent two months at Antarctica’s McMurdo Station researching biological adaptation, diving under the polar ice to collect marine worm specimens and document what he saw. Now he shares those underwater photos and video footage with the eighth-graders he teaches at Millsboro Middle School. With UD increasingly competitive for research funding, with research driving the University’s dynamic culture of innovation, we’re To connect with other UD alumni excited for what comes next. And you can be assured that our Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus (page 11) will be an awfully big part of the next leg of our research journey. 1Sincerely, Patrick T. Harker For additional information on President, University of Delaware athletics at UD

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Contents&Letters.indd 2 7/14/12 8:46 AM To our editors From our alumni Association

Editor: hank you to the more than 3,000 of you who came As a parent of a player on the Tback for Alumni Weekend. Even the threatening University of Delaware men’s ice weather couldn’t ruffle any Blue Hen feathers. hockey team, I was very disappointed For those of you who have yet to reignite your that there was no mention in the April relationship, I offer—and respond to—the top issue of the Messenger of the team 10 reasons (with apologies to David Letterman) winning the American Collegiate alumni give for not getting involved with their alma Hockey Association [ACHA] mater. For those of you who are already engaged, Division I national championship. the list can help enhance your involvement. So, The boys played their hearts out all without waiting for late-night TV, here’s the Top Ten Hen List. season, defeating colleges from many 10. I don’t need to be involved. You don’t need to—but why wouldn’t states. They fought hard throughout you want to be associated with a place that counts as notable the playoffs in Ohio, defeating four alumni: the U.S. vice president, the Ravens’ starting quarterback, teams to win the championship in a Nobel Prize winner, a Tony Award-winning choreographer March. This was the only team from and three signers of the Declaration of Independence? UD to bring home the No. 1 spot. 9. I forget the words to the alma mater. There’s always an outstanding We are really trying to get the word music student who sings at the football games so you won’t have to. out about ice hockey to support the team 8. I have no idea what I can do to help. We’ve got a lot of ideas. Just email and allow the program to continue. us at [email protected] or find ideas at UDconnection.com. Also, the coach, M.F. Schurman, 7. I’ll have to give money if I get involved. Not really. But we think you’ll be was named ACHA coach of the year. so proud once you get involved that the money will fly out of your wallet. 6. I’m too busy. The expression is to ask a busy person to help you Ann Tasker if you want it done right. We want it done right, so help us. 5. I’m not local. So join one of our many regional alumni clubs around the Editor’s note: The men’s ice hockey country, and as a bonus, you may learn to cook, visit the White House team certainly deserves recognition or cheer for your local sports team with a flock of fellow Blue Hens. for a successful season in which it 4. I’ve been away too long. If I can get involved after 25 years and end captured the national title for the first up serving as UDAA president, anyone can come back to the nest. time in school history. Because the 3. I don’t know anyone anymore. I didn’t either when I first got involved, UD Messenger is published every four but now, I know Hens from different states, occupations and graduating months, it’s difficult to provide timely classes—great people I would never have met without my UD connection. news about a particular sport’s season. 2. It costs money to join the Alumni Association. What part To follow varsity sports throughout of “dues-free” have you been missing? On top of that, there are a season, please visit www.bluehens. many benefits and services available to alumni (see No. 8). com regularly. To read more about the And the top reason you say you can’t get involved with your alma mater is… men’s ice hockey season, see page 35. No one asked me. Allow me to be the first. Send me an email and I’ll ask (see No. 8). And if nothing else, I hope you’ll feel guilty the next Submit a letter, either by mail to time you watch David Letterman’s Top 10. UD Messenger, 105 East Main St., Cordially, Newark, DE 19716, or by email to [email protected]. Please Darelle Lake Riabov, EH ’73 include your full name, gradua- President, UD Alumni Association tion year and contact information. Letters may be edited for length, clarity and style.

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Photography by Kathy F. Atkinson

odern printed materials, from simple ﬂ iers to elaborately designed magazines, are almost always created via computer. In fact, says Bill Deering, assistant professor of art, today’s visual communications students may not ever have seen a traditional printing press or thought about typography beyond clicking a mouse to electronically choose a particular font. That all changes when students step into UD’s letterpress studio, home of Raven Press. The room is ﬁ lled with boxes of letters—all shapes and sizes, thousands made of wood and hundreds of cases holding lead type—as well as a variety of inks and several hand-operated presses, all available for students to use as they experiment with traditional ways of communicating in print. The program began in 2003, the brainchild of Ray Nichols (since retired) and Deering, who now co-directs it with Ashley Pigford, AS96, also an assistant professor of art. The letterpress studio is an unusual resource that attracts and intrigues students, they say. “I’m passionate about the letterpress,” says senior Lindsay Schmittle. “To me, art is all physical and hands-on, and working here is just an awesome experience.”

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ravenpress.indd 4 7/14/12 8:52 AM Bill Deering and Ashley Pigford in the letterpress studio, where students have access to wooden and lead type and numerous printing presses.

Lindsay Schmittle (from left) sets type, rolls ink onto her wood cut, then prints a postcard on “plantable” paper containing seeds.

Student Kim Winder operates a press in the studio. At right, a symbol of Raven Press.

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Newest graduates celebrate with family and friends EVAN KRAPE s the weather changed from a cloudy canopy to brilliant Asunshine, some 22,000 families, friends and graduates Soledad O’Brien gathered May 26 at Delaware Stadium to salute the Class of 2012 at the University’s 163rd Commencement. As Commencement began, UD President Patrick Harker Keynote speaker Soledad O’Brien, special correspondent welcomed the audience and congratulated the Class of 2012. and anchor for the CNN morning show Starting Point, He urged graduates to leave a personal legacy of hard work, urged the newest Blue Hens to seek out and listen to the kindness, honesty and friendship. stories of others, as a means of understanding and “Your path didn’t start at UD, and it won’t end here,” he appreciating how sharing individual differences makes said. “Your life is a continuum, with plenty of chances to be America great as a nation. the person you want to be and—fortunately for all of us— She drew on her family history as she told the audience plenty of second chances, too.” that her immigrant parents spent their lives ignoring Gil Sparks, chairman of the University Board of Trustees, misguided advice, especially as a mixed-race couple at a time presented four honorary degrees at the ceremony, noting that when interracial dating was not only frowned upon but the award is UD’s highest honor. Recipients and their degrees illegal in Maryland, where they lived. were: Simmie Knox, AS67, a renowned artist who painted “When they went into a restaurant, my father, who was President Bill Clinton’s official portrait, doctor of fine arts; Australian, was told he could come in, but not my mother, O’Brien, doctor of humane letters; Donald J. Puglisi, who was a black woman from Cuba, and most certainly, they philanthropist and MBNA American Professor Emeritus of could not come in together,” she said. Business at UD, doctor of humanities; and Angelica Zander Her parents married anyway, in Washington D.C., and Rudenstine, internationally known advocate for museums returned to Maryland, where they lived “illegally” as a couple, and art conservation, doctor of humanities. ignoring the advice of friends who warned them not to have A sampling of other Commencement highlights included: children “because interracial kids would never find a place in Degrees, from the Associate in Arts to the doctorate, were this world,” she said. conferred on more than 4,250 graduates, who came from 38 “I’m number five of six children. My parents were terrible states (most commonly Delaware, with 1,376 graduates) and listeners every step of the way,” O’Brien said. “They knew 18 other countries (topped by China, with 24). they were on the right side of history.” The new graduates included 41 receiving the honors It was out of this history that, after graduating from Harvard degree with distinction and 187 receiving the honors degree. University, she decided to pursue a career as a journalist and try Their achievements were celebrated the previous day at the to understand other people’s lives and perspectives. annual Honors Program breakfast. She urged the graduates also to find out about others and At a doctoral hooding ceremony, held this year under a to celebrate their differences. tent on The Green the day before Commencement, degrees “We better understand that we are just part of a bigger were awarded to 126 new graduates present for the whole and not divided by political labels or gender or race, celebration. They represented only a portion of the more but are stronger as a nation because of what binds us,” than 300 doctoral awardees this spring, many of whom had O’Brien said. “Those differences are our heritage. Identities already gone on to new careers around the globe. ❚ do matter and we can all be proud that we are here, together.” —Jerry Rhodes, AS04

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Students distinguish themselves with service

early 12,000 UD students put their education into Naction helping area communities last year, from teaching opera to middle school students, to developing computer databases for the Food Bank of Delaware. Such worthy works have not gone unnoticed. The University has been named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction—its fifth consecutive year to be named to the honor roll and its third year to receive the more elite honor “with distinction.” The Corporation for National and Community Service named 513 universities, colleges and schools to the honor roll, and 110 received the recognition with distinction. UD was the only higher education institution in Delaware to receive the federal recognition for improving the life of off-campus communities, particularly low-income residents. In addition to thriving collaborations with the QUIGLEY DANIELLE Food Bank of Delaware and with the Early Learning Centers in Newark and Wilmington, the University was recognized for novel community service partnerships in business and the arts, according to the Office of Service Learning’s Sue Students (above) in UD’s Garden for the Serra, who coordinates the annual application. Community pack boxes for the Delaware Last spring, JPMorgan Chase and Co.’s Food Bank, while others (left) assist with a Technology for Social Good program involved a housing project during spring break. student team in management information systems from UD’s Alfred Lerner College of and math, pollution and transportation concepts. And art Business and Economics in the design of a teen-focused conservation students collaborated with a local African American website for the National Eating Disorders Association. community in Newark, Del., to create a smartphone-based JPMorgan Chase had such a positive experience with the community walking tour in which residents narrate the past. team that the program wanted to leverage the students’ skills on other projects, including working on technology solutions Alternative Spring Break associated with the digitization of the Martin Luther King Jr. In yet another example of community service, University archives, according to Anand Setupathy, who works with of Delaware Alternative Breaks (UDaB) ran five trips Technology for Social Good. during this year’s spring break, with groups traveling to “We are proud to be working with the UD students on New Orleans, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia projects that impact the global community,” said Guy and Washington, D.C. Chiarello, chief information officer for Chase. “Connecting UDaB piloted its first program last year, when about 95 UD students with a passion for technology with nonprofits students completed more than 3,000 hours of community with a need creates a win for all involved.” service. This year, some 130 students gave more than 3,900 Students and faculty also developed a wide range of hours of their time through UDaB, in addition to other community service projects in the arts, including spring break programs such as a Presbyterian Campus ProjectMUSIC, which involved more than 350 elementary Ministry trip to Honduras, an Honors Program trip to the school students in music presentations on campus, with UD Dominican Republic, a Hillel trip to New Orleans and a students teaching 250 fourth- and fifth-graders a children’s Wesley Foundation Campus Ministry trip to South Carolina. opera that was performed for more than 800 people. Participants in the various trips helped repair flood- In another project, ArtsBridge Scholars created arts lessons for damaged homes and led educational activities in a preschool schools, integrating dance with Colonial history, mapping skills for homeless children, among numerous other projects. ❚

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Top award for sociologist who debunks conventional wisdom oel Best, a professor of “I like to think that what I’m doing is useful, that it’s not Jsociology and criminal ideas in an ivory tower,” he says. justice who is widely His two most recent books, The Stupidity Epidemic and regarded as a leading Everyone’s a Winner, have respectively examined warnings scholar in understanding about education and school quality and the proliferation of the social construction of awards and honors in contemporary America. social problems, has been Best, who joined the UD faculty in 1999, is the author of selected to receive the 20 books (three of which are in their second edition and six 2012 Francis Alison of which have been translated into Chinese, German, Faculty Award, the Japanese, Korean or Spanish), 80-plus articles and more than University’s highest 100 shorter pieces that have been cited nearly 4,000 times. In AMBRE ALEXANDER faculty honor. addition to his prolific scholarship, he has a strong history of Best’s research, which mentorship, including the supervision of doctoral students, includes 20 books, several of whom have written award-winning dissertations. ❚ examines “how and why Joel Best —Artika Rangan Casini, AS05 society becomes concerned with particular issues at particular moments in time.” For example, he asks: Why do people worry about road rage one year and identity theft the next? “Prof. Best is a well-rounded, highly prolific and Two cited for accomplished scholar, and a most worthy addition to this undergraduate teaching eminent body of scholars,” then Provost Tom Apple said in announcing the award. “He has made a remarkable impact on wo UD faculty members the field, on his students and on society as a whole.” Tare listed among the George Watson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, country’s best undergraduate says Best “models the rich and varied contributions that we teachers in a new book, The encourage all faculty members to achieve—a world-class Best 300 Professors, published scholar, a devoted but demanding teacher, a committed by the Princeton Review. mentor and an engaged member of the community.” Listed in the book are In nominating Best for the award, a colleague said: the late Patrick J. White, “Whether it is his analysis of why people fall for fads and AS88M, 93PhD, assistant fashion, spotting dubious statistics or trends, or challenging professor of English, and the ‘stupidity epidemic,’ Joel’s work debunks and demystifies Christopher B. Wolfe, the conventional wisdom to show both trained sociologists AS78, an instructor in and the public that things are not as they seem with a simple, business law in the Alfred Lerner College but elegant, brilliance.” of Business and Economics and at the University’s Kirk Williams, professor and chair of the Department of English Language Institute. Sociology and Criminal Justice, echoes those sentiments. Dr. White died Jan. 29, 2012, after the book “Few scholars have successfully blended social scientific was in production. acumen and the ability to transcend scientific jargon to For the book, the Princeton Review teamed inform the public,” Williams says. “It is a true and rare skill, with RateMyProfessors.com, the highest rated resulting in an illuminating discourse of remarkable research.” college professor ratings site in the country. The For Best, that’s the goal. book covers faculty members in more than 60 After publishing a series of books beginning with Damned fields, from accounting to neuroscience to sport Lies and Statistics, which challenged numerous statistical management, representing 122 colleges and claims and taught readers how to become critical consumers universities across the nation. ❚ of quantitative information, he frequently received emails and requests from the media, parents, doctors, judges—and even Minnesota legislators.

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otg.indd 9 7/16/12 11:52 AM otg.indd 10 7/12/12 8:16 AM Health sciences, partnerships to shine Development is under way for a as STAR Campus takes shape health and life sciences building onstruction is under way for a health sciences building at (top), while Bloom Energy plans to Cthe University’s Science, Technology and Advanced produce its fuel cells Research (STAR) Campus—just the first phase of a long- (left) on the site. term development plan for the site of the former Chrysler KRAPE EVAN auto assembly plant. Ernest Delle Donne, president of Delle Donne and UD, which purchased the 272-acre site in south Newark, Associates, will be developing the former administration Del., in late 2009 after Chrysler ceased manufacturing there, building, which accounts for about 15 acres. “We are held a town hall meeting in May to highlight milestones and here to guide the University—ensuring that we bring in plans for the STAR Campus. Announced at the meeting was the right tenants that fit into their plans and enhance the a strategic partnership with Delle Donne and Associates and experience and opportunities for collaboration on the Bancroft Construction Co., as well as UD’s “3+1” strategy STAR Campus,” he said. for developing the site into a campus where academics, While the STAR Campus has been a construction site for innovation, research and partnerships will thrive. the last two years, Scott Douglass, UD’s executive vice The strategy focuses on energy and the environment, president and treasurer, explained that the University has national security and defense, as well as health and life already hosted numerous events on the campus and forged sciences plus enabling transportation infrastructure. partnerships that will have a permanent home there. “We want to align our strategic priorities with “Last fall, we announced eV2g—a joint venture with opportunities,” said Mark Barteau, senior vice provost for NRG to build electric cars—and in April we broke research and strategic initiatives. As a Category 1 research ground with Bloom Energy as it will be constructing its institution that has brought in multiple multimillion-dollar first East Coast manufacturing facility on the STAR research awards, Barteau said, the University will use this Campus,” Douglass said. “3+1” strategy to leverage its strength with location and Bloom’s Energy Servers convert natural gas, biogas or transportation as well as academics, research and partnerships. liquid biofuels such as ethanol to electricity through an With the first phase of the STAR Campus development electro-chemical reaction, rather than combustion. Bloom’s focusing on the former Chrysler administration building, fuel cells are significantly more efficient, carbon emissions which will be utilized for health and life sciences, Kathy Matt, and water use are drastically reduced, and harmful air dean of the College of Health Sciences, said she envisions this pollutants are virtually eliminated. campus as a health community for a healthy community. Development of the STAR Campus will start along South “In phase one, our vision is to create an innovative and College Avenue and continue to move inward on the site, comprehensive signature campus that advances how we build according to Andy Lubin, UD’s director of real estate. The a strong health care workforce and create healthy timeline for phase one anticipates opening the former communities to meet the growing state, regional and national administration building in January 2014. demand for health care professionals,” Matt said. “It will be While the health sciences complex will be constructed first, an opportunity to provide health care to the community in David Singleton, vice president of facilities and auxiliary services, tandem with student learning.” said it could take decades for the site to be fully developed. ❚

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Half a century of leadership in public policy and scholarship

he School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA), a Tnational pioneer in the study of urban affairs, celebrated its 50-year anniversary during the 2011-12 academic year. Established in 1961 with funding from the Ford Foundation, SPPA was one of the first interdisciplinary university programs in the nation to focus on the challenges of urban America. It has since undergone changes in its name and college and has expanded its breadth of academic programs to include new graduate and undergraduate degrees. “A half-century later, we have emerged as a globally recognized, comprehensive school of public affairs, with nationally ranked academic programs and research and public service programs that impact the public and nonprofit sectors at all levels,” says Maria Aristigueta, director of the school. To celebrate its 50-year milestone, SPPA convened a AMBRE ALEXANDER series of distinguished lectures that culminated in a day of celebration March 19. That event included a conference for students and young alumni on careers in public and community service and a reception in honor of the school’s Maria Aristigueta local, national and global partners. packed room of students, faculty and alumni. “Don’t miss your The conference brought together notable leaders and opportunity to do something with it.” alumni from government, public policy and the nonprofit and At the reception following the conference, attended by private sectors. All delivered a similar message—that careers in more than 300 alumni and friends, members of Delaware’s public and community service are challenging, rewarding and congressional delegation and other state leaders applauded available to UD graduates who prepare for them. the school’s legacy and commended its vision for the future. Open to the full campus community, the conference “There are a number of young men and women, aimed to highlight the diverse array of public service careers undergraduate and graduate, who have come to work for me right while arming students with strategies to gain a competitive out of the public policy program, and they’ve gone on to do even edge in their employment search. better things with their life,” U.S. Sen. Tom Carper said. “How In his keynote address, Tony Allen, AS93, proud I am of them and how grateful I am to 01PhD, a member of the University’s Board the University of Delaware and to this of Trustees who earned his doctorate in urban program for providing them not just for me, affairs and public policy, described his career or our state, but as it turns out, our nation.” trajectory—from “apathetic political science Leading up to the celebration was the major with a dean’s list mentality for school’s 11th annual speaker series, which mischief,” to founding head of Public Allies brings an esteemed cadre of legislators and Delaware and the Metropolitan Urban experts to campus to address pressing League of Wilmington, to speechwriter for issues and trends in public policy. now-Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to his This year’s series focused on current position as communications executive “Leadership, Service and Policy” and for Bank of America. KATHY F. ATKINSON kicked off with a lecture by Delaware “Everyone in this room is connected to Congressman John Carney, a 1984 the greatest academic training ground for alumnus with a master’s degree in public service in our country,” he said to a Tom Carper public administration. ❚

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New professorship rewards young faculty talent

homas H. Epps, III, has been named the Thomas and TKipp Gutshall Chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the University’s first “career development” chair specifically for young faculty members. The endowed position is funded through a gift from Thomas Gutshall, EG60, and his wife, Kipp, and is meant to reward exceptional young faculty talent. Unlike senior endowed chairs, the designation may rotate among faculty members periodically, depending upon need. The professorship is intended for a teacher/scholar at the assistant or associate professor level. Epps recently was promoted to associate professor with tenure. Epps conducts innovative research focused on designing, building and characterizing new polymers. His multifaceted research program generates nanoscale structures in soft (plastic) materials, work crucial to creating conducting membranes for energy generation and storage devices. The work also is useful in developing Kathy F. nanoscale capsules for drug delivery and self-cleaning and A

templating applications. t k i n

“We are especially delighted with the selection of Dr. so Thomas Epps, as he has already proven himself to be an n outstanding researcher and academician,” Thomas Lloyd Ferguson Young Scientist Award from the National Gutshall says. “His future contributions to the field of Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black chemical engineering will be exemplary.” Chemists and Chemical Engineers. In 2010, Epps received a Presidential Early Career In 2011, he received UD’s Gerard J. Mangone Award for Scientists and Engineers, an elite distinction Young Scholars Award. bestowed by President Obama. He is also a recipient of Thomas Gutshall is co-founder and chairman of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Cepheid, a leading molecular diagnostics company, and Development Award, the DuPont Young Professor with his wife has remained active with the University Award, an Air Force Young Investigator Award and the over many years. z

been taken seriously and that they are important as human International Relations; and Inci Ruzybayev, a doctoral beings and students at UD.” candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Poorani notes that students have needs beyond academic At a ceremony held the day before Commencement, advisement, “such as professional and leadership the award for outstanding advising and mentoring of development, industry networking, connection to social doctoral students was announced. The recipient was the late groups and emotional support.” No one can address all those Lawrence H. Cohen, professor of clinical psychology, who needs, he says, but a faculty mentor can “encourage, empower died this past April. and engage students to fulfill those needs.” Dr. Cohen advised 26 doctoral students to degree This year’s recipients of the graduate student Excellence in completion during his 32 years at UD and was admired for Teaching Awards were Luke Ayers, who is pursuing a setting high standards coupled with “exceptional caring.” doctorate in behavioral neuroscience; Brett Remkus, a His “incredible mentorship” was described as “his gift and doctoral student in the Department of Political Science and his calling” by a former student. z

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Awards honor exceptional teachers, advisers, mentors

even faculty members have been recognized for Soutstanding work in teaching and advising, and three graduate teaching assistants have received awards for excellence in teaching. This year’s Excellence in Teaching Awards were presented

to James Atlas, assistant professor of computer and KATHY F. ATKINSON information sciences; Steven Mortenson, associate professor of communication; and Matthew Weinert, associate professor

of political science and international relations and director of Matthew Weinert, Steven Mortenson, James Atlas graduate studies in the department. The awards are based primarily on nominations from current and former students. Atlas says he uses a hybrid approach to teaching, mixing traditional lectures with more active learning techniques such as problem-based learning. “Because students respond differently to various teaching styles, I use several of these techniques in the same course through the semester to broaden participation in class,” he says. Mortenson’s goal is to help students become empowered through knowledge. “The more people understand how

communication produces the social reality we live in, AMBRE ALEXANDER the more empowered people become in defining their own reality,” he says. For Weinert, teaching is a way of taking responsibility for Ali Poorani, Lindsay Hoffman, América Martínez, Vicki Cassman the future by preparing students to improve the world. He says he asks himself, “How best do I assume responsibility for conveying information, teaching skills, inculcating an ethic of responsibility and instigating a love of learning?” Honored with the Excellence in Advising and Mentoring Award, also based on student nominations, were Vicki Cassman, assistant professor of art conservation and director of undergraduate studies in the department; Lindsay Hoffman, assistant professor of communication and of political science and international relations; América Martínez, assistant professor of foreign languages and literatures; and Ali Poorani, associate professor of hotel, restaurant and institutional management. EVAN KRAPE Cassman, who calls personal interactions with students “vital,” says she often continues to advise art conservators for Luke Ayers, Brett Remkus, Inci Ruzybayev years after graduation. “I have an open door policy, and “A commitment to open dialogue produces not only present and past students regularly pop in for advising or a a one-time learning experience, but potentially quick question,” she says. groundbreaking research.” Hoffman’s advising focuses on mentoring students For Martínez, the goal of advising students is to ensure through the process of conducting research. “It’s easy for that they all get the answer they need, even if it isn’t scholars to become entrenched in a specific discipline’s necessarily the one they hoped to get. She says she wants discourse, and undergraduates can often open our eyes to them to know “that they have been listened to and that new ways of examining both old and new issues,” she says. they have been treated with respect, that their concerns have

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New professorship rewards young faculty talent

templating applications. t k i n

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Center encourages “If you are interested in kids to get a move on fashion, service learning, dance, urban design, electrical The Early Learning Center engineering, crew, finance, at UD has been recognized by marketing, entrepreneurship or Michele Obama’s “Let’s Move!” making the world a better place, initiative as a top early education then at least one of the UDSeed program to improve children’s projects is likely to be of interest activity levels and address the to you,” Freeman says. z problem of childhood obesity. Serving some 300 children Top graduate from birth through age 5 in

Alex A programs earn m

Newark and Wilmington, Del., bre the center was cited for its national recognition a

creative strategies in engaging n

d The Department of Physical er families, overcoming challenges Therapy is ranked second in the to get children moving and Although the E-Studies students to connect with them nation in U.S. News and World encouraging healthy eating in the Program is housed in the Alfred on LinkedIn, giving advice Report’s 2013 edition of Best early care and education setting. Lerner College of Business and through LinkedIn group Graduate Schools, published in a The center has initiated a Economics, this pilot project spans discussions, posting a comment print guidebook in April. number of multidisciplinary the campus with students from or making a gift to support a The new guide analyzed programs from across the four colleges, eight academic units, student venture. more than 1,200 programs. Also University to develop one registered student organization “The benefits for students listed were these UD graduate healthy habits. and one club sport involved. extend well beyond financial programs and their numerical These include “MyPlate” Student biographical and support for their projects,” says rankings: School of Education activities for preschool children, project information is viewable on Dan Freeman, associate (30); School of Public Policy in which community nursing the new portal, which also features professor of business and Administration (37, with students provide learning informational videos. administration and faculty specialty rankings for city experiences about healthy Visitors to the site have the director of the E-Studies management and urban policy eating, which are then opportunity to engage with a Program. “Students can make [12], nonprofit management reinforced during family-style project through “liking” or professional connections with [25] and public management breakfasts and lunches. Also, sharing the project on Facebook, alumni and other community administration [26]); faculty from the College of sending invitations to individual members that enhance their Department of Psychology/ Agriculture and Natural career opportunities, or clinical psychology (47); Resources work with teachers they could make College of Engineering (56, and children to create vegetable connections that help with a specialty ranking for gardens, and exercise science and them to change the chemical engineering [10]); and physical therapy students create world in meaningful Department of Art (114). lessons designed to increase ways.” “It’s gratifying to see this physical activity. z Projects include the newest recognition,” Charles Urban Fresh team, Riordan, vice provost for graduate Website sows which is attempting to and professional education, says. seeds for future figure out how to “Serving more than 3,500 entrepreneurs provide access to graduate students, the University healthy options in of Delaware has an array of The Entrepreneurial Studies “food desert” census excellent master’s and doctoral Program has launched UDSeed, tracts, or populations degree programs.” at http://useed.udel.edu, an with limited or no The Department of Physical innovative web platform that access to healthy foods. Therapy won additional enables alumni, faculty, staff and That’s just one of 25 recognition recently when it was community members to initial projects covering chosen in a national nomination participate in students’ work. a range of subjects. process as one of four exemplar

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sites to participate in a national members of colleges and study of physical therapist universities nationwide. Award honors painter Peter Williams education. The sites were selected Bayles, a University Honors for innovation and excellence, the Program student, conducts American Physical Therapy research involving the stability Association said. ❚ of partially crystalline particles within different emulsion systems. She says the scholarship will “open up new opportunities” and help her “qualify for top graduate programs and fellowships.” She plans to pursue her KATHY F. ATKINSON doctorate in chemical AMBRE ALEXANDER engineering concentrating on transport phenomena, Peter Williams potentially with a focus in Alexandra Bayles fluid mechanics or rheology. eter Williams, a professor of fine arts and visual Ultimately, Bayles says, Pcommunication whose own work has been widely Engineering she hopes to teach at a exhibited, recently was recognized with a Wynn Newhouse student selected as university and conduct Award, an honor granted to fine artists of professional Goldwater Scholar renewable energy research. ❚ standing who have a disability. During the early part of his college career at the University Alexandra Bayles, a senior New dean to lead of New Mexico at Albuquerque, Williams was involved in a chemical and biomolecular agriculture college severe automobile accident that left him without one of his legs engineering major, has earned a and spent seven months recovering in the hospital. scholarship from the Barry M. Mark Rieger, a horticultural He describes his artwork as biographical, usually Goldwater Scholarship and scientist and most recently an containing human figures that represent himself, and says the Excellence in Education associate dean at the University accident altered the way he portrayed these figures. Foundation. of Florida, has been named dean “Instead of drawing the figure in complete form, without The scholarship of UD’s College of realizing it I started disassembling it,” Williams says. program, which Agriculture and He says his paintings also make cultural statements, honors the late U.S. Natural Resources exploring race, class and gender, and that he executes his work senator, aims to (CANR) after a without a subject in mind, and instead works in a stream of inspire outstanding nationwide search. consciousness style, painting what he sees and feels. students to pursue Rieger, who took “I am trying to make paintings about what it is like to be careers in science, office Aug. 1, me at this point in time,” Williams says. ❚ technology, succeeds Robin engineering and Morgan, who served mathematics. It Mark Rieger as CANR dean for a state of Delaware, plays key education, statewide degree is the premier undergraduate decade and announced last year roles in addressing such issues completion programs, the award of its kind, providing that she planned to step down as environmental protection, honors program and awardees up to $7,500 per year and return to the faculty. renewable energy, human international education. toward tuition, fees, books and UD President Patrick Harker health, food sustainability Before joining the University room and board costs. says Rieger “brings with him the and global responsibility. of Florida faculty, he was a According to the kind of clear vision and Rieger has served as associate professor in the University foundation, the 282 Goldwater commitment to innovation that dean of the University of of Georgia’s Department of Scholars were selected on the CANR has enjoyed this last Florida’s College of Agricultural Horticulture. He earned his basis of academic merit from a decade under Robin Morgan.” and Life Sciences since 2006, doctorate in horticultural field of 1,123 students who He notes that agriculture, in with major responsibilities in sciences in 1987 from the were nominated by faculty addition to its importance to the graduate programs, distance University of Florida. ❚

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Lynn Snyder-Mackler, Alumni Distinguished Professor of William Browning, professor of theatre, has been named a Physical Therapy, who has spent the past two decades fellow of the U.S. Institute of Theatre Technology, a lifetime developing evidence-based approaches to the rehabilitation achievement honor awarded to just 2.5 percent of the of knee injuries, has received a prestigious MERIT (Method institute’s members. to Extend Research in Time) Award from the National Institutes of Health, which will provide her with up to Rob Palkovitz, professor of human development and family 10 years of funding for her research. studies and a Salzburg Global Fellow, attended a six-day summit in Salzburg, Austria, in April, designed to improve Carrie Parry, a student in the graduate certificate program in health care around the world by addressing the critical gap fashion and apparel studies, recently won the Green Fashion between knowledge of interventions that improve population Competition at Amsterdam International Fashion Week, health and the care actually provided. where she was selected from hundreds of designers around the world based on the designs and business strategy in her Christopher Meehan, assistant professor of civil and fashion line, which she launched last year using information environmental engineering, has received a 2012-13 Fulbright she learned in her UD courses. Scholarship to conduct research on geothermal energy in Finland, where there is a significant national focus on Frank B. Murray, H. Rodney Sharp Professor of Education renewable energy technologies. and the founding president of the national Teacher Education Accreditation Council, was recognized by the David M. Stone, professor of art history, has been elected to organization with a Festschrift, a book honoring an a three-year renewable term on the board of trustees of the academic’s lifelong achievements. American Academy in Rome, a leading American overseas center for independent studies and advanced research in the Darrin Pochan, professor of materials science and fine arts and humanities. engineering, whose expertise is in developing new nanostructures and functional materials through the Margaret L. Andersen, associate provost and Edward F. and assembly of soft materials like polymers and proteins, has Elizabeth Goodman Rosenberg Professor of Sociology, has been named a fellow of the American Physical Society. been presented the Eastern Sociological Society’s Merit Award, a career award given to just one person each year, in Matthew J. Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography, recognition of her significant scholarship and influence. whose research combines remote sensing with on-the-ground field research to understand complex ocean dynamics, has Four faculty members have received 2012 Delaware Division received a Sloan Research Fellowship, given to early-career of the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship grant awards, which scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential recognize artists for the high quality of their work in the identify them among the next generation of scientific leaders. visual arts, literature, music, jazz composition and crafts. Xiang Gao, internationally acclaimed violinist and professor Charles (Buz) Swanik, associate professor of kinesiology and of music, received the top honor, the master’s fellowship, for applied physiology who is known for his research on the “the outstanding quality of his work, his commitment to neuro-mechanical relationship between brain function and Delawareans and students, and his international impact”; joint stability, has been named a fellow of the National David Brinley, assistant professor of art, and Marianne Athletic Trainers Association in recognition of his Gythfeldt, associate professor of music and faculty professional achievements. clarinetist, each received established professional fellowships; and Mahasveta Barua, adjunct faculty in the Department of Chin-Pao Huang, Donald C. Phillips Professor of Civil and English, received an emerging professional fellowship. Environmental Engineering and an internationally recognized leader in environmental physical chemistry, Cathy Matson, professor of history, has been appointed to received the 2012 Gordon Maskew Fair Award from the the executive council of the McNeil Center for Early American Academy of Environmental Engineers in American Studies in Philadelphia, where she also is a member recognition of contributions to environmental engineering. of the editorial board of Early American Studies. z

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RESEARCH

inson

A Kathy F. F. Kathy

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eaders who which might discuss the appreciate plot, character RShakespeare but development, historical sometimes find background or any themselves puzzled by number of other aspects— the language or tangled appears on the screen next in a plot twist might to the play itself. wish they had an expert “There are so many sitting next to them ways to approach who could instantly Shakespeare, and I’ve clarify any confusion. learned from my years of Now, there’s an teaching that different app for that. students are interested in “I’m not a techie by different things,” says any means, but I’ve Poole, who drew on her become a true convert classroom experience as to the iPad,” says Kristen she wrote her essays. Poole, professor of “Some are interested in English at UD and a Shakespearean scholar who is working the historical context of the time, some in the way the play was on a new project to put his plays in multimedia, interactive produced at the Globe Theatre, some in Shakespeare’s form on the mobile device. language. This project lets them explore whatever they want “I approached the project thinking about the way and ignore what they’re less interested in.” people—including myself—read nowadays, 20 minutes here Readers can click on words or lines of the play and and there while waiting to pick up their children from a music immediately be shown footnote-type definitions and lesson or sitting in the dentist’s office. Not many people have clarifications. They also can use an audio function that lets four hours to sit down and do nothing but read Shakespeare.” them hear the play performed—with each line highlighted in Poole worked on The Tempest, the first Shakespeare play to the text as it is spoken—by Actors from the London Stage, an be completed as a launch of the new iPad application, writing internationally known touring Shakespeare theatre company. a series of brief, explanatory essays that readers can access by a In selected passages that might have a variety of interpretations, touch of the screen as they make their way through the the user can choose to hear different readings that demonstrate drama. One of the next plays in the project will be Romeo alternate ways of understanding the scene or character. and Juliet, for which Poole will be the content director. Those involved in the app say the many features are The new app, sold through iTunes or Apple, was designed to appeal to all levels of readers, from serious developed by Profs. Katherine Rowe of Bryn Mawr students to casual fans. College and Elliott Visconsi of Notre Dame University, “This app is not just for the classroom,” Visconsi says. “It’s with seed money provided by Notre Dame. Visconsi designed for anyone who loves Shakespeare, or anyone who asked noted Shakespeare scholars, including Poole, to wants to love Shakespeare but needs some help to do so.” contribute the essays that explain various parts of The And just because the new platform may make the plays Te mpest in what is called a “lecture stream.” more accessible to a wider range of readers, Poole says, that Using these streams, a reader who is using the iPad doesn’t make it a less serious way of experiencing the Bard. to delve into an e-book version of The Tempest and “I think that sometimes people imagine that these kinds comes across a passage he either doesn’t fully of projects are a substitute for real scholarship,” she says. “But understand or just would like to consider in more everyone involved in this is a scholar at the top of his or her depth can choose a topic and access a short essay field. It’s a way of actively translating scholarship to the relating to that passage. The text of the essay— public, and that makes it very valuable.” z

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Deeper look reveals more plastic debris in oceans ecades of research into how much their buoyancy, and after some time, Proskurowski gathered data during Dplastic litters the sea may have only you would expect all plastic pieces to a 2010 North Atlantic expedition skimmed the surface. A new study surface,” Kukulka says. “In a wind- where he and his team collected reveals that wind drives confetti-sized driven turbulent ocean, however, this samples at the surface and at depths pieces of plastic debris deeper buoyant upward movement is balanced down to 100 feet. underwater than previously believed, by a downward transport because “Almost every tow we did contained more than doubling earlier estimates of plastic particles ‘catch a ride’ with the plastic regardless of the depth,” he says. the pollutant’s presence in oceans. turbulent motion. Thus, these buoyant By combining the data with wind “In windy conditions the traditional particles can be found not just at the measurements, the researchers developed approach to measuring plastic marine surface but also at greater depths.” a simplified mathematical model that debris captures only a small fraction of Descriptions of the so-called great could potentially be used to match plastic pieces,” says Tobias Kukulka, Pacific garbage patch in widespread historical weather data, collected by assistant professor of physical ocean news reports may have led many people satellite, with previous surface sampling science and engineering in the College to imagine a giant, dense island of to more accurately estimate the amount of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. garbage, while in fact the patch is made of plastic in the oceans. The team plans to “Our study helps to better understand up of widely dispersed, millimeter-size publish a “recipe” that simplifies the how much plastic there is and where, as pieces of debris. This waste is a concern model so that a wide range of groups well as the complexity of the ocean because of the impact it might have investigating ocean plastics, including dynamics at work.” on the environment. those who aren’t oceanographers, Reporting in Geophysical Research For instance, when fish ingest can easily use the model. Letters last spring, Kukulka and co-lead plastic, it may degrade their liver Next, Kukulka and his team are author Giora Proskurowski of the functions. The particles also make nice working on simulating plastic particle University of Washington say that data homes for bacteria and motion based on fully three- collected from just the surface algae, which are then dimensional ocean turbulence. commonly underestimates the total transported along with the “One challenge is that we amount of plastic in the water by particles into different need to better understand the an average factor of 2.5. In high regions of the ocean where physical properties of the winds, the volume of plastic could they may become invasive plastic pieces that influence the be underestimated by as much as and cause problems. rise speeds,” he says. “We are a factor of 27. The paper details a new model that researchers and environmental “ Our study helps to better understand how much plastic groups can use to collect more there is and where, as well as the complexity of the ocean accurate data in the future. “The basic idea is that if the water is dynamics at work.” —Tobias Kukulka still, plastic pieces drift upward due to

Tiny particles of plastic litter also working on getting the effects of the ocean. surface gravity waves right, which enhance upper ocean turbulence.” Other co-authors of the paper are Kara Lavendar Law and Skye Morét- Ferguson of Sea Education Association and Dylan Meyer, an undergraduate from Eckerd College. Support for the project came from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and UD’s School of Marine Science and Policy. ❚ — Teresa Messmore, with material adapted from the University of Washington

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From cells Mary Watson to seawater, scientists

Holly Michael earn national acclaim PHOTOS TOP ROW BY EVAN KRAPE, BOTTOM ROW BY KATHY F. ATKINSON

Sandeep Patel Joshua Zide

hree assistant professors recently received Faculty Early role as teacher-scholars and is given to those scientists and Career Development Awards from the National Science engineers considered most likely to become the academic TFoundation (NSF), while a fourth was recognized with leaders of the 21st century. a similar award from the federal Department of Energy. Joshua Zide, in the Department of Materials Science and Holly Michael of UD’s Department of Geological Sciences Engineering, received an energy department Early Career and Sandeep Patel and Mary Watson, both of the Department Research grant. Those awards are designed to strengthen the of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received the NSF award. The nation’s scientific workforce by supporting a small number of highly competitive award recognizes junior faculty for their exceptional researchers during their early career years.

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Holly Michael Mary Watson The most widespread contaminant of groundwater is not Watson’s award will support her research on the a microbe, industrial chemical or harmful element such as development of new methods to construct organic molecules arsenic, Michael says. It’s seawater. and her education program to make chemistry more exciting “Salt is everywhere along the coast,” she says. “With sea-level and accessible to potential young scientists. rise, groundwater salinization could become more of an issue.” “Synthetic organic molecules have enormous positive Michael will use her NSF award to study large-scale impact on our daily lives, improving everything from our movement of water between land and sea with the goal of health (medicines) to our entertainment (organic light- eventually integrating these processes over the full range of spatial emitting diodes, or OLEDs). Future advances rely on increased and temporal scales. At the small scale, researchers quantify that and more efficient access to complex molecules from simple groundwater-seawater exchange in relation to waves and and readily available building blocks,” Watson says. sediment ripples. At increasingly larger scales, the perspective “The overarching goal of my research program is to expands to tides, seasons, glacial cycles and continental shelves. discover new ways to make important molecules using “It’s important to understand all the scales because they catalysts that enable currently impossible transformations and nest within each other,” Michael says. exert exquisite control over which enantiomer, or geometrical She will use a mathematical approach to study coastal isomer, of product is formed.” dynamics, comparing two very different places: Bangladesh Enantiomers are pairs of chemical compounds, each with a and Hawaii. The geology of the Bengal Basin consists of molecular structure that’s the mirror image of the other interwoven layers of sands and clays, while the structure of compound in the pair. Controlling which enantiomer is the Hawaiian Islands is more continuous, with lava flows formed is important, Watson says, because they can exhibit having formed structures that can extend out to the ocean. different properties and effects, particularly in biological Michael aims to better understand coastal water flow and applications such as medicines. salt transport. The research has implications for water In announcing the award, the NSF also noted Watson’s resource management, from protecting coastal ecosystems to efforts “to inspire Delaware high school students with the informing where to install offshore wind farms. power of chemistry using a video she produced about [former UD Prof.] Richard Heck’s Nobel Prize-winning achievements.” Sandeep Patel Patel’s award will support his research using novel computer Joshua Zide modeling methods to study the biophysics of model cell Zide has spent nearly a decade engineering nanomaterials membranes, with particular focus on cell-penetrating peptides. using a technique called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The award also will support the purchase of a computer He makes a class of materials called nanocomposites that cluster for Newark (Del.) High School and the development consist of metallic nanoparticles within a semiconductor. of a new computational chemistry course to be offered These nanocomposites can be used in electronic devices such there and team-taught by Patel and two veteran high as transistors or in energy conversion devices such as solar school science teachers. cells or thermoelectrics. Typically, these devices are made of “All of our bodies are composed of cells, and between the semiconductors like silicon or gallium arsenide. inside and outside of a cell is what one can loosely consider a While MBE produces nanoscale materials with exquisite barrier, the cell membrane,” Patel says in explaining the control, the technique is slow and expensive. It also doesn’t foundation of his research. “Certain types of molecules— scale well for industrial applications, and it isn’t flexible in hydrophilic, or ‘water-loving,’ small molecules and highly allowing the addition of new materials. charged peptides—can be observed in the membrane, moving Using the Early Career Research grant, Zide will attempt very quickly through it, even though it’s a very unfavorable to grow nanoscale materials in a new way, exploring the use of environment for them.” liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) to make nanocomposites for In seeking to understand this phenomenon, his group is thermoelectrics, which are devices for generating electrical using computer modeling to obtain atomic-level energy from heat. The work shows potential for transitioning insights. Longer-term applications, Patel says, might be to use these promising materials from the laboratory to the factory, cell-penetrating peptides as a way to deliver drugs to the cells. allowing production of innovative electronic, opto-electronic The NSF grant also will fund Patel’s proposal to engage and energy conversion devices. high school students in science and show them the “Instead of growing nanomaterials at one micron per importance and usefulness of learning about a variety of hour, which is much slower than grass grows, LPE will enable disciplines even before they arrive on a university campus. us to grow them at one micron per minute,” Zide says. ❚

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research.indd 25 7/12/12 9:25 AM “If we can reduce perchlorate … we can reduce many other contaminants such as nitrate, organic compounds and heavy metals as well.”

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New technique removes toxin from drinking water e’ve all gazed, transfixed, as fireworks rained down The process enables researchers to collect the perchlorate on the Fourth of July, seemingly right above us. But in high concentrations in the reaction chamber, while other Whave you ever wondered about the ash heaped major anions remain on the other side of the membrane beneath the spent firework launch tube? partition. The accumulated perchlorate is then reduced The white, powdery material is perchlorate residue, a to non-toxic chloride with a second low-voltage chemical byproduct found in common fireworks, fertilizer, electrochemical current. hazard flares and matches, as well as rocket fuel, munitions Among the membrane’s advantages is its ability to rapidly and propellants used in the defense industry. detect perchlorate’s presence in water. Huang’s goal is to see Valued in laboratory experiments because it does not react with the technology implemented on the household level to many other chemical species in water, perchlorate is an emerging improve the water quality for general consumers or small- contaminant that is known to interfere with the metabolism of the scale operations, such as hospitals, schools and offices. thyroid gland in humans. Toxic even at low levels, on the order of “If we can reduce perchlorate … we can reduce many other four parts per billion, perchlorate has affected 15 million people in contaminants such as nitrate, organic compounds and heavy the United States via contaminated drinking water, according to metals as well,” he says. estimates by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. In the meantime, Huang plans to add valuable data to his Now, an innovative membrane, synthesized in the study by collecting air samples at Taiwan’s annual Beehive laboratory of Prof. C.P. Huang, offers a breakthrough festival, held in Tainan City, where millions of fireworks are development in clean technology to remove perchlorate from lit, setting the stage for potentially widespread perchlorate water. It is the first attempt to quickly and easily reduce low exposure over a short amount of time. levels of perchlorate to non-toxic chloride by combining “Off-ground fireworks, like those popularly used in Asian electrodialysis and an electrochemical reaction in one system. culture, are particularly susceptible to dispersing perchlorate,” “Conventional electrochemical reduction of perchlorate to Huang says. “We estimate that the exposure is five times chloride is very slow, and requires a low pH, high perchlorate higher than normal for event participants.” concentration and high temperature,” says Huang, Donald C. He hopes to document the increased levels of perchlorate Phillips Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to which festival goers are exposed during the event in order whose work is funded through a $365,000 grant from the to calculate the potential risk to participants. z National Science Foundation. —Karen B. Roberts, AS90

“If we can reduce perchlorate … we can reduce many other contaminants such as nitrate, organic compounds and heavy metals as well.”

“Our method enables the first concentration of perchlorate at low levels—on the order of a few parts per million (ppm) to a few thousand ppm—to be collected and reduced under ambient conditions, specifically a neutral pH, room temperature and pressure.” S. Ismat Shah, a professor with joint appointments in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is co-principal investigator on the three-year grant. Huang and doctoral student Poyen (Kevin) Wang have synthesized the membrane, which is r

made from inexpensive plastic, to isolate perchlorate K an

from other major anions such as bicarbonate, nitrate Ev APE and sulfate, in water. In Prof. C.P. Huang’s lab are, from left, high school student Nagwa “Most anionic electrolytes are negatively charged. When Nukuna, undergraduate Lorraine Salamanca, Huang and graduate placed under the influence of electricity, they naturally student Poyen Wang. migrate toward the positively charged side of the membrane, but only perchlorate is able to pass through,” Huang says. Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 27

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Self-esteem differences than those with low explicit STEC poses a serious determining the kinds of linked to materialism self-esteem,” she says. threat to the food supply, microbial communities where “However, if an individual resulting in more than it is most likely to occur. Ji Kyung with high explicit self-esteem 265,000 infections in the “It is difficult to detect Park, had low implicit self-esteem, United States each year. STEC when it is at the assistant I predict that individual The coast-to-coast study non-poisonous levels, but it is professor of would be more materialistic includes a team of 48 still there and so my work may marketing, than someone with low investigators from multiple show that there are other has been explicit self-esteem and low universities and government microbes that just happen to recognized implicit self-esteem.” agencies, with the University occur alongside STEC but are for her research on consumer As a result, according to of Nebraska and Kansas a whole lot easier to find,” he behavior and the her work, there is more than State University as the says. “Knowing and psychological factors that meets the eye when it comes lead institutions. understanding more about the play into materialism. to understanding materialism. As a microbial ecologist, biology and the ecology of the She received the C.W. “The inconsistencies Wommack says he is organism will ultimately help Park Young Contributor between explicit and implicit “interested in all the us to control its incidence in Award for 2012 from the attitudes we hold about microbes that make up the food supply.” ❚ Journal of Consumer ourselves point to why communities of microbes.” and the Society Psychology material goods are a salient He equates this to an Soy really does lessen for Consumer Psychology. part of consumer culture,” environmental ecologist, only menopause hot flashes The annual award recognizes Park says. ❚ instead of looking at “all the the scholar with the best plant species within the In the most comprehensive first-authored publication in make-up of the forest or the study to date to examine the the journal among those who Nationwide study effects of to protect food supply grassland, I look at all the have not yet passed their microbes that comprise a soy on second year of professorship K. Eric Wommack, microbial community.” menopause, in the marketing discipline. professor of plant and soil For this study, Wommack researchers Park’s paper, “More than sciences, is part of a five-year, will examine the microbial have found Meets the Eye: The Influence $25 million U.S. Department communities that form that two of Implicit versus Explicit of Agriculture study aimed at around STEC to see if daily Self-Esteem on Materialism,” preventing potentially fatal scientists can pinpoint a servings of soy can reduce began with past research illnesses linked to Shiga pattern. This would allow the the frequency and severity suggesting that people with toxin-producing E. coli researchers to trace non-toxic of hot flashes by up to low self-esteem and bacteria (STEC). levels of STEC by 26 percent, compared insecurity are more likely to with a placebo. have materialistic tendencies. The findings, published Her paper more closely in Menopause: The Journal of examined two forms of the North American self-esteem—implicit Menopause Association, (unconscious evaluations of reviewed 19 previous studies the self ) and explicit that examined more than (conscious evaluations of the 1,200 women. self )—and explored how Although the discrepancies between the effectiveness of soy in two drive materialism. alleviating hot flashes has To reduce self-esteem been inconclusive, with discrepancies, Park says, some studies suggesting it to consumers try to improve be beneficial and others themselves through suggesting otherwise, much material possessions. KATHY F. ATKINSON of the discrepancy is due to “Individuals with high small sample sizes and explicit self-esteem are inconsistent methodology, viewed as less materialistic Eric Wommack according to the authors.

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Francis plans to work as a medical technologist and then either continue on to graduate school in pharmacology or attend medical school. “I’d like to work for a year first,” she says. ”It’s behind-the-scenes detective work—I really like it.” Francis was one of about 90 undergraduates who presented KATHY F. ATKINSON posters on their research projects this spring. Such hands-on research opportunities propel Shy’Ann Jie and Sharad Gupta. students on paths to future careers and sometimes even to “When you combine them that suggests Students find research Chemistry new fields of science. all, we’ve found the overall protein misfolding may a rewarding activity Matthew Saponaro, a effect is still positive,” says occur early in the You could hear the senior majoring in computer co-author Melissa Melby, an development of Huntington’s excitement in Michelle and information sciences, had assistant professor of medical disease. The researchers Francis’ voice as the UD been encouraged to attend anthropology at UD. developed a novel senior described her research medical school but says he The interest in soy and technology to detect the to crosslink snake venom can’t stand the sight of blood. menopause stems from misfolded protein, protein to melanoma cells. Instead, he combined his observational evidence in huntingtin, in laboratory The viper venom has been knowledge and skills in Japan, where researchers have mice at 11 weeks of age, shown to halt cells of physics, biology and statistical found that the low frequency more sensitively than melanoma, a particularly analysis to develop computer of hot flashes in Japanese traditional histology aggressive skin cancer, from simulations of colon cancer women might be attributed methods, which don’t reveal metastasizing, or spreading. and couple those simulations to the high soy consumption large inclusions until much Peptides called disintegrins in with probability theory. that often begins in utero later, at about 78 weeks. the venom appear to block “By simulating a and continues throughout Huntington’s disease is cancer cell migration, and cancerous colon, we may their lifespan. one of several neurological Francis is working to find out eventually be able to predict “Soy is probably more diseases, such as Alzheimer’s how that happens, as a member and prevent colon cancer,” he effective in these women,” disease or prion disease, of the research team of Mary says. “I think this kind of Melby says. “But if you’re 50 associated with proteins that Ann McLane, professor of software development is and you’ve never touched fold into abnormal structures. medical technology. really awesome.” ❚ soy, it’s not too late. We’ve “Testing of experimental found that it still helps.” ❚ therapies is slow and expensive, given the time it Test may speed takes for a misfolded protein KRAPE EVAN disease detection to appear in a form A research team led by detectable by traditional David W. Colby, assistant methods,” Colby says. “We professor of chemical and believe that the [new biomolecular engineering, has technique] can speed up this developed a novel technology initial testing process and that could allow for early push promising therapies to testing of such neurological clinical trial faster.” diseases as Huntington’s Co-authors of the and Alzheimer’s. research study include Colby is co-author of a postdoctoral fellow Sharad paper published recently in Gupta and research specialist the Journal of Biological Shy’Ann Jie, both of UD. ❚ Michelle Francis

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 29

research.indd 29 7/14/12 9:06 AM About the chef Debbie Ellingsworth, AS77, graduated from UD with a degree in psychology and later followed a new path to culinary school and a career as a chef. She now works at her alma mater, as an instructor in the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, where she teaches the culinary laboratories at the department’s Vita Nova restaurant on campus. Ellingsworth teaches elsewhere as well, leading an annual summer cooking camp for children and teens and offering demonstrations to groups including alumni clubs.

30 University of Delaware Messenger

tailgate.indd 30 7/12/12 11:58 AM Football, food and fun

ere are a few of Debbie Ellingsworth’s Remember that food-borne illnesses can occur when, Hsuggestions for a successful tailgate: for example, a knife or plate is used for raw meat and Always be aware of food safety. Keep cold items cold then for items such as cheese or tomato slices. Bring and hot items hot while in transit to the game enough utensils, plates and foil to avoid reusing. and while setting up your tailgate. Let the cook enjoy the party, too. Do as much Pick some “outside-the-box” items. Instead preparation at home as possible so that many dishes of regular burgers or wings, try vegetarian are ready to eat—or at least assemble—on arrival. chili or grilled flatbread with an assortment of Keep cleanup simple by using some disposable items homemade spreads (See note, below). and bringing along a container of hot water with a bit Football tailgating spans at least two seasons, so of bleach in it for items such as platters and knives. keep the weather in mind when planning a menu. When temperatures drop, gourmet hot chocolate To see Ellingsworth’s recipes for grilled flatbread, might be more popular than cold sodas. made from scratch, and three homemade spreads—white bean puree with roasted garlic, tomato tapenade and blue cheese-walnut spread—visit www.udel.edu/udmessenger.

Beef Fajitas (Marinate the day before; grill and assemble at the tailgate)

Marinade: Accompaniments: 4 garlic cloves, fi nely chopped 1 fl uid ounce vegetable oil 1/4 cup fresh lime juice 3 bell peppers, any color 1 tsp. salt 2 red or yellow onions, peeled 1-1/2 tsps. ground cumin 3 garlic cloves, fi nely minced 1/4 cup canola or other vegetable oil (not olive) Flour tortillas 1 piece of fl ank steak, trimmed of excess fat

Directions: 1. Tenderize the steak with a mallet and slice it against the grain, on the bias, with each slice no more than 1/4 inch thick. 1967 AUSTIN HEALEY COURTESY OF NICK BIASOTTO, AS69 PHOTO BY KATHY F. ATKINSON 2. Whisk the other marinade ingredients together in a bowl and place in a pan (or plastic freezer bag) with the steak strips, stirring (or shaking the bag) to make sure all the meat is covered. Cover the pan with plastic wrap or place bag in a bowl. 3. Refrigerate at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. 4. At the tailgate, use tongs to place the meat onto a grill, turning once, and continue grilling until done. Place the cooked meat on a clean platter or pan, and discard remaining marinade. 5. Cut onions into thick slices, and cut peppers in half, removing seeds. 6. Mix the oil and garlic, and carefully turn the vegetables in the mixture. 7. Grill the vegetables, then slice them. 8. Wrap the tortillas in foil, and place on grill using indirect heat until they are warm. 9. Assemble the fajitas, and serve with choice of toppings: salsa, hot peppers, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, etc.

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 31

tailgate.indd 31 7/16/12 8:47 AM SPORTS PAGES

Football season All-American Joe Flacco, who has led the team to five NFL playoff promises victories during his four seasons. A two-time first team All-CAA excitement on selection and a 2011 team co- ﬁ eld or TV captain, Gradkowski was the Hens’ top offensive lineman in 2010 when elaware football kicks off its 2012 Delaware went 12-3 and advanced to Dseason Aug. 30, and fans this the national championship game. year who can’t attend every game in Also earning a shot in the NFL person will have a few other options. this season is Shea Allard, a three-year UD will be highlighted on national starting offensive tackle for the Blue television three times this season when Hens, who was signed to a free agent

the Blue Hens appear on the NBC MARK CAMPBELL contract by the Green Bay Packers. Sports Network for home games Allard, who won All-American against Delaware State and Towson honors this past season in leading Gino Gradkowski and in a road game at Old Dominion. Delaware to a 7-4 record, was one The Colonial Athletic Association and narrowly missed out on a second of five free agents signed by the has announced that six CAA football straight trip to the NCAA tournament. 2011 Super Bowl champion Packers games—three involving UD—will be The Hens will open the season following a rookie orientation camp. televised nationally during the 2012 Aug. 30, taking on West Chester at In late June, the New York Jets season as part of the conference’s 7:30 p.m. at Delaware Stadium. signed Matt Hardison, a two-year new five-year broadcast agreement. standout defensive tackle for UD. The TV schedule begins Saturday, Former players move on to pros Allard, Gradkowski and Hardison Sept. 8, when Delaware hosts The Baltimore Ravens selected were expected to be among nine former Delaware State in the annual “Route former Blue Hen offensive lineman Blue Hen players in NFL camps this 1 Rivalry” at 3:30 p.m. at Delaware Gino Gradkowski, who earned a summer, joining quarterbacks Flacco Stadium. The Hens will also play in spot on virtually every All-American (Baltimore) and Pat Devlin (Miami), nationally televised games on Oct. team last season, in the fourth defensive backs Mike Adams (Denver) 27 at Old Dominion and Nov. 3 at round of the NFL draft in April. and Anthony Walters (Chicago), home vs. defending CAA champion He will join Ravens starting defensive end Ronald Talley (Arizona), Towson. Both games begin at noon. quarterback and former Blue Hen and tight end Josh Baker (Jets). ❚ The remainder of the CAA/NBC schedule will feature Towson hosting 2012 football schedule William & Mary on Sept. 15 at noon, James Madison hosting Towson on Aug. 30 vs. West Chester 7:30 p.m. Oct. 6 at 1 p.m., and Old Dominion Sept. 8 vs. Delaware State (Route 1 Rivalry) 3:30 p.m. taking on JMU on Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. Sept. 15 vs. Bucknell (Band Day) 3:30 p.m. Delaware and Towson are the only Sept. 22 at William & Mary time TBA schools that will appear three times. Sept. 29 at New Hampshire noon CAA football will also have 13 games televised regionally Oct. 6 vs. Maine (Parents & Family Weekend) 3:30 p.m. this fall through its partnership Oct. 20 vs. Rhode Island (Homecoming) 3:30 p.m. with Comcast SportsNet. Oct. 27 at Old Dominion noon Delaware, led by 11th-year head Nov. 3 vs. Towson (Hall of Fame Day) noon coach K.C. Keeler, will return 13 Nov. 10 at Richmond time TBA starters and six all-conference players Nov. 17 vs. Villanova (Battle of the Blue) 3:30 p.m. from last year’s team that went 7-4

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Top senior athletes honored at spring banquet en’s soccer All-American Woman of the Year Award. MEvans Frimpong and two-time The Blue Hen men’s soccer team conference javelin thrower champion enjoyed its finest season in school Jillian Seamon were honored as the history during the 2011 campaign, UD Alumni Association Outstanding and no one played a bigger part in Male and Female Athletes of the Year. that success than Frimpong, a senior MARK CAMPBELL A four-year standout, Seamon forward who was among the most

earned the title as one of the top feared offensive threats in the CAA. Jillian Seamon javelin throwers in Colonial Athletic He finished the year among Association history, winning the the league leaders with 12 goals CAA javelin title in 2010 and 2011. and five assists and was named the A four-year ECAC qualifier in the team’s Most Valuable Player. javelin, she captured 12 individual Frimpong earned a host of awards

meet titles during her career and broke and became the first UD player ever MARK CAMPBELL a school record that had stood for 30 drafted in Major League Soccer. years. She also competed in the shot put, He now plays professionally in the weight throw, long jump and hurdles North American Soccer League. Evans Frimpong during her career with the Blue Hens. In addition to the Outstanding Award to lacrosse standout Carter Seamon has been an Academic Senior awards, the Mary Ann Hitchens Bloor. Numerous other athletes All-American nominee and a Award was presented to rower Lauren also were honored; for a complete candidate for the prestigious NCAA Kanaskie and the Edgar Johnson list, visit www.bluehens.com. ❚

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Student-athletes show academic success The 2011-12 UD athletics season was a successful one on the playing fields for Blue Hen student-athletes, but more importantly, it was a banner year in the classroom as well. Led by the volleyball team, student-athletes enjoyed one of the highest combined grade point averages in recent history as the 21 teams posted a cumulative index of 2.873 on a 4.0 scale. Mark Ca

The volleyball m pbell squad, which captured the Colonial Athletic 12 academic year, led by “I am pleased to represent The association also believes Association title for women’s tennis, cross country, my colleagues and fellow in presidential leadership the fifth straight year field hockey, outdoor track CAA schools as well as the as the guiding force in and advanced to the and field, rowing, indoor interests of FCS [Football operating athletics programs. NCAA Tournament track and field, men’s Championship Subdivision] “I know Dr. Harker for the fourth time in swimming, women’s soccer institutions on the NCAA will lend another strong the last five seasons last and softball. Six other teams Board of Directors.” voice for the best interests fall, posted a combined had a GPA of 2.8 or better. z Eighteen members—all of higher education, grade point average of chief executive officers— intercollegiate athletics 3.387 to lead all teams. and, most importantly, the “I am very proud of Harker appointed make up the board, with student-athlete experience.” our student-athletes for to NCAA board all 11 Football Bowl says Bernard M. Muir, their success in their University President Subdivision conferences academic achievements,” Patrick Harker has been having a permanent seat. UD’s director of athletics z says volleyball head coach appointed to a four-year Seven FCS and Division I and recreation services. Bonnie Kenny, whose term on the National conferences rotate seats. team had its highest GPA Collegiate Athletics The NCAA espouses a Hall of Fame honors in her 10-year tenure with Association (NCAA) collegiate model of athletics veteran track coach the Blue Hens. “Their Board of Directors. in which student-athletes Women’s cross country continued efforts for The announcement was participate in varsity sports head coach Jim Fischer, excellence on and off the made as part of the Colonial as an avocation, balancing who has devoted more than court are remarkable.” Athletic Association their academic, social and 30 years of service to the Of the 13 volleyball Council of Presidents athletics experiences. The track and field community team members, 11 posted annual conference NCAA is committed to the at UD and statewide, a 3.0 or higher GPA for meetings in June. Harker highest levels of integrity was inducted into the the entire academic year. will serve on the board and sportsmanship, diversity Delaware Sports Museum Nine other Blue Hen until August 2016. and inclusion, amateurism, and Hall of Fame in May. teams posted a combined 3.0 “This is a critical time competitive equity and Fischer, who served or better GPA for the 2011- for college athletics,” he says. excellence in the classroom. as head coach of the Blue

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Hen men’s cross country Hockey team skates Rowers cheered on day’s racing, including the and track and field teams to first national by family, friends, varsity lightweight eight from 1982 until 2011 and championship alumni at regatta and freshmen/novice recently completed his The University of The UD alumni tent at lightweight eight, which fourth year at the helm Delaware men’s ice the 74th Aberdeen Dad Vail garnered silver and gold of the UD women’s cross hockey club team won Regatta was at full capacity medals, respectively. The country squad, was one the American Collegiate along Philadelphia’s Kelly women’s team advanced of five inductees with Hockey Association Drive on May 12, as two crews into the finals, ties to the University. Division I national fans gathered to support with the freshmen/novice Also inducted as part championship in March, UD’s rowing teams. eight finishing fourth in of the Class of 2012 were the first such title for The classic regatta, the grand final and the Jack Baly, who played a Blue Hen team. which features more than varsity eight finishing basketball for UD in 1958- Delaware defeated 3,000 athletes from 130 sixth in the second final. 61; Terri Dendy, a track Oakland University 5-1 in colleges and universities Alumni gathered from standout who competed a game played at Hoover each year, also attracts across the country to in the 1988 Olympics Arena in Cleveland and was thousands of rowing fans to support UD. “It’s always a and began her coaching awarded the Murdoch Cup. the banks of the Schuylkill great experience to come career as a volunteer UD had the first River for the two-day event. back to the regatta and see assistant at Delaware under four goals of the game— More than 170 UD the success of the programs,” Fischer; Lori Van Sickle, with scores by Michael alumni, parents and friends said Dan Fitzpatrick, BE07, a trailblazing local golf Piet, Christian Tasker, of the men’s and women’s who traveled from New professional who played Christopher Volonnino crew programs stopped Haven, Conn. “The Dad softball for two seasons at and Connor Moore—to by the tent to support the Vail Regatta is a great way UD; and John Walsh, a build an insurmountable Fightin’ Blue Hens’ boats. to reunite with classmates, three-year standout in Blue lead. Junior goalkeeper Fans lined the banks of and it’s such an awesome Hen football in 1955-57. S.J. Broadt was named the Schuylkill cheering venue for rowing.” For Fischer, it was his the tournament’s most UD’s crews to victory. The alumni tent was third major award of the valuable player. The men’s team supported by the UD z year. He was recognized by In winning the title, advanced three crews into Alumni Association. Special Olympics Delaware Delaware defeated the grand finals of the first in October for his 20 years three of the last four of volunteer service and ACHA champions in in March received the Oakland, Lindenwood Delaware Sportswriters and and Davenport. Broadcasters Association The Blue Hens reached Herm Reitzes Award for the national championship community service. game by defeating Since arriving at Lindenwood University Delaware in 1982, Fischer 6-3 in the semifinals. In has been a fixture at the that game, Mark Zeszut University and in the state and Nick Lepore scored running community. As two goals each for UD, an assistant professor of while Ryan McDonald and physical education, he has Vinny Pontrello added instructed many of the the other two and Broadt

state’s track coaches. z z pbell recorded 29 saves. m

Mark Ca Mark

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 35

sports.indd 35 7/14/12 9:10 AM alumni.indd 36 7/12/12 1:50 PM uring his first week in the UD “Find something situations that reflect themes Dillustration program, Tom that you like that you in the real world. At their Brevoort learned that all art students bases, he said, they’re very would be required to do an would maybe do anyway relatable, understandable characters. internship in their if they didn’t pay you Which is his favorite? senior year. “I think The Thing,” Brevoort says. Among the for it. Then make that the “He’s a quintessentially great Marvel examples of places backbone of your life character in that at his core he’s the where previous students had sort of the reverse of the typical.” interned was Marvel Comics. and your existence.” Unlike many superheroes “So I thought, ‘OK, that’s what I enhanced by their special will do in three years,’” Brevoort says. powers, The Thing got hit by Not only did he go on to land an cosmic rays and turned into a big, internship at Marvel, he made a career monstrously hulking lump, he explains. there. He’s steadily moved up the Everything he once took for granted, ranks over the past 23 years to his he couldn’t do anymore, like dialing current role as senior vice president and the phone or opening a door. The executive editor, publishing comic books The company had only one computer Thing has a certain amount of about Iron Man, Captain America, the in 1989, and despite being a college tragedy, Brevoort says, yet he still X-Men and other time-honored favorites. intern, he knew how to use it as well as does good with his powers and From Marvel’s offices in New York anyone there. While his internship masks his pain through humor. City, Brevoort is responsible for hiring involved all sorts of small tasks like Perhaps it’s the characters’ creative teams, overseeing plotlines, making photocopies, looking up sympathetic sides that in particular suggesting stories and even changing references and sending rejection letters relate to youth. Brevoort says he characters’ costumes. While his focus is for cold submissions, he would typeset regularly hears anecdotes not on publishing, he consults on using the computer when needed. only about kids who became Hollywood adaptations such as this “It wasn’t that big a part of our enthusiastic about reading through summer’s blockbuster The Avengers. business at the time—but just knowing comic books, but also about those Brevoort’s interest in comic books how to use our big old Apple II was a who found inspiration for their own started when he was about 6, when he valuable skill that few others had,” he says. struggles. A mother stopped him at a remembers going to a convenience How times have changed. Nearly conference, for example, to share how store with his father and eyeing the everything is done differently now motivating comics were to her son comic rack. His dad asked him if he than 20 years ago, Brevoort says. with Asperger syndrome. wanted one, and he answered yes. Artists may still draw by hand, but they “People of all sorts tend to find “I started buying them more regularly are more likely to use an electronic something in the Marvel books that after that—and more and more and stylus and tablet than a mechanical speaks to them in a very direct and more as the years went by,” he says. pencil and paper. Comics are offered personal way,” he says. His early favorites were not Marvel in online versions, and Marvel recently As for students trying to find their characters at all, but rather DC Comics’ launched an “Infinite Comics” format ways through college, Brevoort’s advice Superman and The Flash. In those days, for iPads that provides graphic is to look beyond financial success and he found Marvel characters to be above transitions between panels under find the things that they really like to his age level and did not start reading the control of the reader, while still do. His summer internship at Marvel about the Fantastic Four, Spiderman keeping true to comics’ text-and- was unpaid, after all, and he worked at and Daredevil until he was older. pictures appeal. a fast food restaurant on the weekends By the time he was a teenager, “This is going to have a big impact to help cover expenses. Brevoort moved from New York to on the way we tell stories,” Brevoort “Find something that you like that Delaware with his family and attended says. “We expect it to be a big part of genuinely interests you, that makes you Glasgow High School. Having always our lives in the future as we transition want to get up in the morning, and do enjoyed drawing, he became an more and more to a digital model.” stuff that you would maybe do anyway illustration major at UD and also dabbled Yet no matter what the medium, if they didn’t pay you for it,” he says. in computer science. Brevoort says it’s the stories and “Then make that the backbone of your His familiarity with computers characters that have resonated with the life and your existence.” z served him well once he got to Marvel. public for decades with conflicts and —Teresa Messmore

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 37

alumni.indd 37 7/16/12 8:10 AM ALUMNI NEWS

Paper trail Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson Conservator’s painstaking detective work reveals ancient texts

hen Abigail Quandt, AS83M, first saw the ancient book whose fragile parchment pages contained some of Archimedes’ most important W mathematical thinking, she could be forgiven if her heart sank. The priceless historical document was in dire condition. Over the centuries, its pages had been written on, erased and written over numerous times, portions of it overlaid with paint in an effort to pass it off as an illuminated prayer book. It had been badly damaged by water, attacked by mold, eaten away by bacteria and spotted with wax that had dripped from candles in medieval monasteries. Its leaves had been glued, taken apart and glued again—occasionally with pages out of order or even missing and with adhesive covering some of the original writing—before its 1998 sale to a private collector who brought it to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore to repair and save.

38 University of Delaware Messenger

alumni.indd 38 7/16/12 8:11 AM ALUMNI NEWS

Quandt, the museum’s and most challenging senior conservator of rare project I’ve ever worked books and manuscripts on,” Quandt says. “I’d and a graduate of the specialized in manuscripts Winterthur/University of and in parchment Delaware Program in Art preservation, but I’d never Conservation, says she worked on a palimpsest knew the project would be before. In fact, not many the most challenging of people have; there are only her career. But she also says she was hopeful about about 1,000 palimpsests in collections around the world, and the eventual outcome. very few of those have been taken apart.” “With such a complicated process, it’s very important to be an Still, she says, she solicited and received help from experts optimist, to know that somehow, with the help of your colleagues, around the world, including those at Winterthur, at each step you’ll figure out answers to the problems,” Quandt says. of the process. By 2006, technology had advanced to the Still, she says, the conservation of the book turned out to be point that a specialized kind of X-ray imaging could be used “like an archaeological dig,” requiring the most painstaking to scan through the paint on some pages of the palimpsest efforts to uncover the layers of writing that had been placed on and pick up the iron in the underlying ink. Quandt made the parchment. It took four years of work just to take apart the three visits to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation lab, where folios of the book without causing any additional damage. the new technology using extremely bright X-rays was in use, The manuscript is known as a palimpsest, a word derived and watched as the pages were successfully scanned. from the Greek meaning “scraped again.” By the time it arrived “They did this as a kind of scientific experiment to see if it at the Walters, it was a Byzantine prayer book that had been would work,” she says. “There were people next to us in the completed in 1229. But scribes had copied the prayer book lab who were scanning moon rocks. It was very cool.” onto old parchment, an ancient form of recycling in which the Midway through the process, it was found that the original writing was scraped off so that the scarce material original parchment had contained more than the seven could be reused for a new manuscript. Most of the book was treatises of Archimedes. Other texts had also been scraped written on parchment that originally contained seven of and reused, including third-century commentaries on Archimedes’ treatises, copied by scribes in the 10th century. Aristotle and two speeches by the fourth-century orator “These were the oldest known treatises of Archimedes; Hyperides. Until then, scholars had assumed that Hyperides’ since he lived in the third century B.C., it was a copy of a works didn’t survive the Middle Ages. copy of a copy,” Quandt says. “There are so few of these “It just blows your mind,” Quandt says. “It’s a voice from copies in existence because so few people understood his the past that doesn’t survive anywhere else.” Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson theories [which form the basis for such fields of mathematics When the project was completed, the Walters exhibited the as combinatorics and integral calculus]. There was palimpsest early this year, along with detailed descriptions of the tremendous excitement about this manuscript.” meticulous conservation process, before returning it to its owner. After separating the book into its folios, repair work “When we began this project, we knew it would take began. Quandt and her team reinforced all the mold- awhile, but we never imagined it would take 12 years,” says damaged leafs, mended rips in the parchment, replaced Quandt, describing herself as both relieved and “wistful” at fragments that had torn off, removed the drops of wax that the completion of the work. had trapped dirt and dust over the years, located pieces of the “It’s been an amazing journey,” she says. “I’ve learned so book that were out of place and returned them to their much from working on this palimpsest.” original location and, —Ann Manser, AS73 t eventually, stabilized d an qu each leaf on a special type

ail Abigail Quandt, facing g i

of Japanese tissue paper b a

f page, holds a leaf from the

and preserved each in a o y palimpsest that has been es t

two-way glass frame, so r u repaired and mounted

that both front and back co e

g for display. Above, she a p of the pages can be is separates a folio and, th

viewed on display. s left, mends a tear in the “There’s no doubt

Photo parchment. that this was the biggest

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 39

alumni.indd 39 7/12/12 1:50 PM ALUMNI NEWS

Eight exceptional alumni join Wall of Fame

ight alumni were honored for their Eaccomplishments in an Alumni Wall of Fame induction ceremony held during Alumni Weekend festivities in June. The ceremony honored William C. Carpenter Jr., BE73; John R. Collins, BE80; Margaret Loew Craft, AS77M; Scott K. Goodell, AS76; David R. Helwig, EG73; Evelyn Maurmeyer, EO74M, 78PhD; Gordon A. Pfeiffer, BE56; and Janet A. Smith, EH95EdD. “When I consider our eight Wall of Fame honorees, I see the University of our aspirations,” UD President Patrick EVAN KRAPE Harker said at the ceremony. “I see the Seated, from left, UDAA President Darelle Riabov, UD President Patrick Harker and Wall of Fame inductees William Carpenter, John Collins and Margaret Loew Craft, and standing, from left, Scott Goodell, David Helwig, Evelyn Maurmeyer, extraordinary talent and achievement— Gordon Pfeiffer and Janet Smith. the dedication to excellence—that will attract more of the same.” practice and served as an associate geology from UD. After serving on the The Alumni Wall of Fame was curator at Winterthur Museum and faculty at Franklin and Marshall established by the University and the adjunct professor in the joint program. College, she formed an environmental UD Alumni Association in 1984. Since In 2000, she became senior objects consulting firm, Coastal Estuarine then, 239 alumni have been inducted. conservator at the Walters Art Research, in Lewes, Del., specializing Carpenter was U.S. attorney for Museum in Baltimore. in coastal processes investigations, Delaware from 1985-93, when he was Goodell, an original benefactor of beach erosion analysis, wetland appointed a judge in the Superior the James R. Soles Citizens projects and environmental permitting. Court of Delaware, where he continues Endowment, served as a law clerk for Pfeiffer had a 40-year career in to serve. He recently became the first the presiding judge of the Appellate banking, from which he retired as Delaware judge to chair the National Division of the New Jersey Superior senior vice president of Mellon Bank. Conference of State Trial Judges. He Court and then joined a New Jersey law Throughout the book, library and also is an adjunct professor at Widener firm. In 2010, he accepted the position collecting world, Pfeiffer is known as a University School of Law. of president and chief executive officer collector of book cover designers and Collins spent more than 22 years of Energy Insurance Mutual, an energy the book arts, as well as Delaware with Constellation Energy Group and industry mutual insurer. ephemera. In 1977, he was a founder of Baltimore Gas and Electric, where he Helwig, a mechanical engineer, has the Delaware Bibliophiles. retired as senior vice president of nearly 40 years of leadership experience Smith joined the UD faulty in 1979 integration. Since August 2011, he has in energy related companies, including and served as a tenured faculty served as the chief financial officer of engineering, construction, operations member, academic administrator and Enduring Hydro, a company that and corporate roles. He is president of coach. As head coach of UD’s women’s provides strategic advice on and Helwig Consulting Services, executive lacrosse team from 1980-89, she investments in hydroelectric and other chairman of GTL Energy, chairman of achieved unprecedented and clean energy generation. Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives unduplicated national success, Craft, who received her master’s and a member of the College of including three consecutive national degree from the Winterthur/ Engineering’s advisory board. championships. She has been inducted University of Delaware Program in Art Maurmeyer is the first woman to into numerous halls of fame at local, Conservation, spent 18 years in private receive master’s and doctoral degrees in regional and national levels. ❚

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juvenile probation, and more than 40 of them have gone on to work in Delaware state offices. For the 15 or so undergraduates who intern with the two each year, it’s a fast-paced transition from the academic world of books and theory to the real-world application of criminal justice in teens just a few years younger than themselves. The students spend their first few weeks observing Craig and Sue, accompanying them on home visits and court hearings, slowly taking on a greater role as their knowledge and comfort levels increase. Their work benefits the probationers, of course, but the EVAN KRAPE interns say that they gain far more from this experience than they give. With former UD interns are (front, from left) Associate Prof. Eric Rise and Sue and Craig Fromme. Craig and Sue show the informal aspects of the job. For instance: How do you go into a school and ask to Caring pays off for speak to a student? Where do you go? Whom do you ask? probationers, students “I learned more from them than a classroom or orientation could have he boy who was on probation second-highest GED score in Delaware ever taught me,” says Hailey Tfor a theft charge when they first history. And the freshman football Cockerham, AS11, who now works as met a year ago had just enrolled in player with a D average and petty a family service specialist. his first college course. criminal record. After probation, he Indeed, the Frommes do everything “His mother called us later that never missed an honor roll and to ensure their interns enjoy success, day and told us how he walked back attended college on a joint athletic- from practicing mock interviews to to her car with tears in his eyes,” academic scholarship. introducing the young college students Craig Fromme, AS75, remembers. The success stories go on. Craig and to judges after court hearings. “This “For some workers, that’s an unusual Susan call it “positive persistence,” is an internship that leads to a story. We get them all the time.” caring about their young offenders, career,” Craig says. There’s no bravado in his voice— providing them with positive, realistic Aaron Fichtelberg, associate just 30-plus years of life as a juvenile alternatives and never giving up. professor of criminal justice and the probation officer, working alongside Tapping his fist on the office desk internship program director, calls the his wife, Susan, AS76, to ensure that to create a resounding boom boom Frommes “incredible mentors, both to court orders get carried out, sentence boom, Craig gives his clients—kids their clients and to our interns.” recommendations made and troubled with criminal records, not yet old If the internship is a job-training, youngsters counseled in the process. enough to vote—a piece of advice: résumé-building opportunity for The Double Dels have been “This,” he tells them, “is an students, the Frommes see it as a way to to funerals. But they’ve been to opportunity knocking.” repay their alma mater. far more graduations. Standing before a packed lecture “We’ve put something together There was the young man who hall on the UD campus, he offers the right here in Newark, not as CEOs or spent his entire 17th year in mental same advice to his would-be interns. company presidents,” Craig says. health facilities before the Frommes Since 1996, Craig and Susan Fromme “We’re just workers. But through this, took him to the county learning center. have given hundreds of University we’ve been able to give back.” ❚ Within two months, he earned the students a “free look” into the world of —Artika Rangan Casini, AS05

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 41

alumni.indd 41 7/12/12 1:51 PM ALUMNI NEWS One League

under LEAGUE MIKE OF COURTESY PHOTO the sea

Mike League

PHOTO BY STEVE RUPP

ighth-graders in the state League kept a journal during his stay in Eof Delaware all study the same the world’s harshest environment, and his themes in their science classes—energy, experiences not only with his own students entries not only share research images and weather, astronomy and ecosystems. But in Millsboro but also with students, teachers information but also provide a window only the 100 eighth-graders in Mike and other groups across the country. into life at McMurdo. League’s classes at Millsboro Middle School The photos and videos from Antarctica “The station is basically like a small city,” are lucky enough to learn about these show, in vivid color, the rich and abundant he says, “with a very diverse population. topics from a teacher who has done life under the ice in the world’s coldest I met people there from all types of research in the frigid sea off Antarctica. waters, from brilliant pink sea stars and sea backgrounds and experiences and from all League, AS03, who earned his bachelor’s urchins to 4-foot-long worms, cockroaches parts of the U.S. There are jobs at McMurdo degree in biology and education, spent as big as a human hand and sea sponges as for people from all walks of life—not only eight weeks last year living at Antarctica’s tall as League himself. scientists but also janitors, plumbers, McMurdo Station through the National Having made the trip during the South electricians, cooks, heavy equipment Science Foundation’s PolarTREC (Teachers Pole’s early spring, from August to October, operators and others.” and Researchers Exploring and the teacher also witnessed dramatic seasonal League’s journal provides details about Collaborating) Program. changes, with wide swings in temperature “suiting up” and the role of each diving During that time, he was an active and noticeable changes in the amount of gear layer, the types of vehicles required to member of a research team investigating daylight as the season progressed. He shared get around in extreme conditions and what biological adaptation. Led by Adam Marsh, these phenomena with his students through the scientists do for fun when they’re not associate professor of marine biosciences at time-lapse photography. diving or in the lab. Every entry is loaded UD, the researchers are comparing two “Kids today are used to rich, multimedia with photos, so the reader can see the species of marine worms to assess how a experiences, and that’s the best way to dining hall, the living accommodations polar environment shapes responses to engage them,” League says. “Through my and the landscape. environmental stress. An experienced diver, experiences in Antarctica, I’m able to League also provides valuable insights League collected specimens from under the provide my students and others with a into how research is conducted. In one Antarctic ice and helped to capture multimedia experience of an extreme entry, for example, he describes the dive hundreds of underwater photos and hours environment. For kids this age, it doesn’t get hut as an operations platform for the of underwater video footage. any better than seeing things like an scientists to gain entry to the world PolarTREC, which provides K-12 teachers anemone eating a jellyfish or watching a beneath the ice. In another, he gives a with hands-on field research experience in Ford F350 with modified wheels traversing short lesson on what happens to polar regions, enabled League to share his the snow like a tank.” specimens back in the lab after a dive.

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Mike League displays some diving gear in his classroom and also shares photos of himself and other Antarctic researchers PHOTO COURTESY OF MIKE LEAGUE MIKE OF COURTESY PHOTO with his His students learn about biological students. classification and organism adaptation

without knowing what hit them. They also BAKER DOUG learn that getting to Antarctica from Delaware is no small feat—it took League “a car, four airplanes and a lot of patience” to make the 9,525-mile trek. The journals, videos and photos, along with webinars and conference calls, enabled League to share information far beyond his own classroom in Delaware during his stay at McMurdo. But he emphasizes that PolarTREC is about much more than a two-month experience.

“The goal of the program is to continue LEAGUE MIKE OF COURTESY PHOTO the dialogue,” he says. “Adam has been incredibly generous with his time, his knowledge and his photos—I couldn’t ask for a better mentor. The bonus is that we’re geographically very close, which makes continued collaboration even easier.” League also points out that all the video and photos taken during this trip and Marsh’s other expeditions are available for the students to explore in their lessons. “Even with me back in the classroom,” he says, “our middle-school students can continue to use these materials in the same ways the UD researchers do—for example, to count the number of organisms in a sample.” Originally from Massachusetts, League came to UD because he was attracted by the opportunity to complete a bachelor’s degree in biology while also earning secondary education certification and doing undergraduate research, The team collected all within four years. numerous marine worms to study their “All of the connections I made at UD adaptations. opened a lot of doors for me, and I try to share that concept with my students by PHOTO BY ANNAMARIE PASQUALONE telling them that a higher education can do the same thing for them,” he says. ❚

—Diane Kukich AS73, 84M

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alumni.indd 43 7/12/12 1:51 PM Relief coordinator fights AIDS epidemic in Zambia

ristie Fitzwater Mikus, AS02M, has a gentle voice and Ka communication style so genuine and personable that it’s easy to imagine her making friends and getting along with almost everyone. It seems fitting for someone who considers her job “largely personality-driven.” Reading people, anticipating problems, working well with those in all sectors of government—those soft skills prove invaluable when managing the efforts to implement AIDS relief in a country where nearly one in seven adults lives with the disease and one-tenth of the population consists of AIDS-orphaned children. “It’s not without tears,” she admits. “It’s hard, emotional work. But it’s important.” Mikus is the country coordinator in Zambia for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The largest health initiative in history, PEPFAR directly supports life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 3.9 million men, women and children worldwide. In Zambia, one of the resource-limited recipient countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates, Mikus oversees a $306 million annual budget and leads the ongoing negotiations and collaborations to set joint United States government and government of the Republic of Zambia priorities for the country’s national response to the disease. It’s a job that involves meeting with the partner country government, civil society, other donors and stakeholders and coordinating the efforts of five U.S. agencies tasked with slowing the spread of the epidemic. Most recently, Mikus served as the lead for George W. Bush’s trip to Zambia in early December, organizing his and Laura Bush’s visit and discussing her role over lunch with the former president. “We were speaking the same language,” she says. “He had the vision for PEPFAR in 2003, and I was privileged to be one of many people who turned that vision into a reality.” Later in December, she traveled to Dallas, where she made a presentation before the George W. Bush Institute and several key private-sector partners on how to use the PEPFAR platform to combat breast and cervical cancer in women in Zambia. Mikus is quick to note that her reality—living in Zambia, managing a program that has saved millions of lives—has roots in Newark, Del. Or as she puts it, “I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for UD.”

From Graham Hall to Ghana A 2002 Master of Public Administration graduate of the School of Public Policy and Administration (then the School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy), Mikus credits her faculty PHOTO BY AMBRE ALEXANDER AMBRE BY PHOTO Kristie Fitzwater Mikus mentors and her experience as an intern in Ghana—her first ever visit to Africa—as her “entrée into this kind of work.”

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“I knew I wanted to work Kristie Mikus (left) shows former internationally, and the UD President George W. Bush some of the faculty helped make that relief work in Zambia. Below,she visits happen,” she says. children orphaned by AIDS. Her professors and mentors—Arno Loessner, James Flynn and Jerome Lewis— helped her secure a paid summer internship in Ghana, where she managed a democratic decentralization program that taught newly elected mayors best practices in public policy. As a graduate student, Mikus worked on the program from Loessner’s office. Away on medical leave at the time, he advised her by phone on how to implement the program, step by step. It was “discovery learning” at its best. “Here I was, this young, white woman, thinking that newly elected mayors would want to know about managing budgets for their districts,” she remembers, “and they were asking about waste disposal.” Nearly a decade later, the numbers alone tell the success When she returned to campus, Flynn suggested she apply for of the program, with millions of lives saved and death rates the Presidential Management Fellowship, a highly competitive, significantly reduced. fast-track career program in the federal government. Making a difference abroad Making a difference in Washington For Mikus, there are other measures of success. And of need. Mikus was awarded the fellowship, and in 2002, she began Since assuming the role of PEPFAR country coordinator working at the Department of Commerce on international in Zambia in 2008, she has toured prisons, in which trade, particularly in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology incarcerated women often share their cells with their young sector. It was a time when antiretroviral drugs were very children, and hospitals, where it’s not unusual to find two or expensive, and “big pharma was getting clobbered for not three people sharing the same bed. offering discounts,” she says. A married mother of two, Mikus thinks most often of the So when the Office of the United States Global AIDS women and children. Coordinator was established in 2004, her boss at the A few years back, she visited a province in western Zambia to Commerce Department immediately pulled her on board, tour a U.S.-supported program. To receive funding, organizations saying, “You’ve got to go to the State Department to work were required to have an income-generating component for on this initiative.” sustainability purposes. In this instance, women who cared for Mikus was in awe. “OK,” she said. “When?” orphaned babies chose to plant soy and raise chickens. “Monday morning.” Their money went into agriculture; their surplus bought As one of only eight people in the newly created office at formula. And when they couldn’t afford the milk, the babies the State Department, Mikus says she “did a little bit of were fed cooking oil. everything.” She wrote speeches and congressional reports, “You see something like this, and you take off your U.S. served as the Global Fund representative and private-sector government hat,” says Mikus. “You’re just a woman, a mother, liaison and led the country programming of four of the wondering how to help.” original 15 focus nations. And that, she says, is what keeps her going. “Everyone was there for the common good,” she says. “People “I’d like to stay overseas for as long as I can,” she adds. “It’s were dying, and our only concern was, ‘What could we do today making me a better person.” ❚ to make this better?’ There was a real sense of urgency.” —Artika Rangan Casini, AS05

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alumni.indd 45 7/16/12 8:48 AM ALUMNI NEWS Denver Bronco helps youngsters tackle life’s problems hen Mike (Pops) Adams, EH04, died of cancer the day before through the NFL, and he started the Wstepped onto the UD campus as Commencement—while his football Rising Stars foundation with his a freshman in 1999, he knew things career provided challenges as well. He childhood friend Gerald Hayes, would be different. Adams had grown sustained a hip injury his senior year that linebacker for the Arizona Cardinals. up in Paterson, N.J., one of seven his doctor said was career-ending. Not “Rising Stars supports the kids back children in a three-bedroom ready to give up that easily, he managed home in Paterson,” Adams said. “We want apartment. Drug dealers were to fight back, only to break his leg the to help them overcome the negativity in everywhere, and the likelihood of following year, as a redshirt senior. the streets. We help them build self-esteem going to jail or being shot was high. He was able to recover once again through football camps and mentoring, This April, Adams, a National and was on UD’s NCAA Division we provide backpacks full of school Football League veteran of nine years I-AA national championship team in supplies and offer scholarships for and a leader on the Blue Hens’ 2003 2003. It was also the year he made the post-secondary education.” national championship team, returned to Dean’s List. That spring, he graduated His ultimate goal is to start a the University to speak about his with a degree in human services, charter school—“not tomorrow … not experiences as a student and about the education and public policy. soon, but someday. That’s my plan.” ❚ foundation he’s established to help other “Not only was I the first person in —Alison Burris, BE85 youngsters from tough backgrounds. my family to graduate college, I was “I didn’t expect the culture shock to be only the second to graduate high so extreme,” he recalled of his first days at school,” Adams said, “and I couldn’t UD. “But honestly, the only white people have done it without all the support I we ever saw in my neighborhood were received at UD.” landlords or people coming to buy drugs.” After graduation, Adams was signed During his talk, titled “Reaching by the San Francisco 49ers, where he Back, While Moving Forward,” Adams played for three years. He then went to explained how he has been able to the Cleveland Browns for five years parlay his skills on the football field and became a safety for the Denver into a better life. Broncos in March. “Going to college had never been a Through it all, Adams never consideration,” he said. “Fortunately, I forgot where he came from. He earned a football scholarship and continues to dedicate time and decided to come to UD. Once I got money to support charities here, I knew I wanted to graduate.” But it wasn’t easy, he admitted. He struggled with paralyzing doubt: Did he really belong? How could he fit in? What should he major in? In his sophomore year, an adviser encouraged him to take classes in human development and family studies. He found they really clicked for him, and he became a human services major. “My friends and family back home were doing drugs, going to jail, getting pregnant at 13,” he said. “It was bad. I knew I wanted to help. I wanted to have an impact. This major gave me a sense of purpose.” Adams faced obstacles in academics and in his personal life—his mother AMBRE ALEXANDER AMBRE

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alumni.indd 46 7/12/12 1:52 PM alumni.indd 47 7/12/12 1:52 PM elaware is facing double geologic Dtrouble, as the state’s land area sinks while its sea levels rise. In less than 100 years, the First State could see southern coastal towns and parts of northern cities drowned beneath the rising tides, says Susan Love, AG97, AS12M, who is on the front lines of the battle to help Delawareans become informed and prepared for such changes. “Sea levels rise because when water gets warm, it expands, so as the oceans warm, they actually take up more space,” says Love, a planner for the Delaware Coastal Programs in the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. “In addition, as a result of global climate change, land-based glaciers and ice sheets are melting, which adds water to the oceans.” Love is working with a committee of 25 agencies representing a diverse range of interest groups that has been meeting regularly since 2010 to assess Delaware’s vulnerability to sea level rise pe and to make recommendations that will prepare the state for its effects. She points to another problem

Photo by Evan Kra Evan by Photo facing the state as well: “Delaware is

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In Delaware it’s real

actually sinking as a result of the last “The problem is not that the sea dikes, you build structures, and you ice age. It’s called tectonic rebound, is rising,” Love says. “It’s that we’ve do beach replenishment projects. or isostatic rebound. Basically, the established our society in the way.” You do everything you can to keep weight of a glacier that reached to Three scenarios have been created the water out and stay in place.” Pennsylvania pushed downward on for planning purposes—with sea In Delaware, Love says, all these the land surface beneath it, and that levels rising by 0.5, 1 and 1.5 meters options will have to be considered, land that was pushed down 20,000 by the end of this century. The with different areas having different years ago is now rebounding.” scenarios were developed by a priorities. Officials might invest in Like pushing on an exercise ball technical committee using protection for the Port of Wilmington, and then letting go, Love says, when information from national and for example, because of its economic one section rises back up it causes international studies of sea level rise, importance, while some agricultural another part to be pushed down. as well as data from federally areas might be best served by letting The part now being pushed operated tide gauges in Delaware, at nature take its course. downward includes Delaware. Lewes and Reedy Point. The Lewes Whatever happens, Love wants Right now, Love says, Delaware is Tide Station has operated since the to make sure that every Delawarean sinking at about the same rate as its 1920s, providing valuable historical is aware of sea level rise and the sea levels are climbing. Global sea tide data, Love says. challenges it presents. In her levels are rising 1.7 millimeters a Possible preparations take three outreach efforts, she’s encountered year, while Delaware’s are rising forms, she says. The first is retreating and people who don’t believe climate about 3.3 millimeters, she says, with letting nature take its course, hoping change is occurring and others who the 1.6-millimeter difference that nature will rebuild the land, which are very concerned about it and attributed to the geological sinking. won’t always happen. The second, supportive of her work. Love’s goal is to increase called “accommodation,” involves raising “We talked to all of them, and we awareness among state and local or modifying buildings in order to stay put the information out and made decision-makers and citizens about in the structures, changing personal sure that there are resources the threats of sea level rise in behavior and avoiding building new available to help agencies and Delaware, ranging from increased structures in areas that are at risk. The individuals make informed decisions flooding of homes and businesses third option is protection. about responding to flooding of to problems affecting sewage “It’s what I call stay and fight,” Love property, communities and systems to a loss of wetlands and says. “The Dutch are very good at infrastructure,” she says. z wildlife habitat. this. You build sea walls, you build —Adam Thomas

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 49

alumni.indd 49 7/12/12 1:53 PM ALUMNI NEWS KEVIN QUINLAN KEVIN

Descendants of Marguerite West McCabe (shown in 1922 snapshot) gather in the same spot at Alumni Weekend.

Family tree has deep roots at alma mater

hen Ken Boyle, EG78, discovered for modern cars, there still remains a Wan old photograph of his nostalgic feeling for him and his family. grandmother, Marguerite West “I had the idea of getting the family McCabe, taken around 1922 on the together at the exact same spot on UD campus, an idea sparked in his mind: Main Street,” says Boyle, who joined to gather Marguerite’s descendants— the UD Alumni Association Board of all of them Blue Hens—and pay homage Directors in July. “My mother enjoyed to her by snapping another photo in her time on Main Street in the ’40s, the same location. and my grandmother attended UD in And what better time to do it than the ’20s to get her teaching during Alumni Weekend? certification. It is a lot of fun to have Of the 20 living members of the this common thread in our family.” McCabe clan who are UD alumni or Lauren Simione, BE95, assistant “UD was an obvious place for me to go current students, a dozen gathered during director of alumni relations, says there to college, and it was a natural the weekend festivities on June 2, in the is a strong tradition of children of selection for two of my sons, Kyle and same spot next to Harter Hall where their alumni attending the University. “Each Brad,” says Kokjohn, whose father’s matriarch had posed nearly a century ago. year, more than 1,000 admitted name now adorns the University’s Marguerite attended teaching classes students in the incoming freshman Thurman G. Adams Agriculture at the University one summer in the class are legacy students,” she says. Research Farm in Georgetown, Del. 1920s. Now her daughter, Pauline (Polly) A notable branch of the McCabe Melissa Boyle, EH07, Ken and McCabe Higgins, EH48, is the oldest family tree is that of the late Delaware Lynn’s niece, says she was honored to living UD alumna of the McCabe family. Sen. Thurman Adams Jr., AG50, who be a part of her family’s reunion photo. “I feel so proud to be the oldest married Marguerite’s daughter, the late “I feel so lucky to stand in the same graduate,” she says. “We had such a good Hilda McCabe Adams, EH53, after the spot that my great-grandmother did time [at Alumni Weekend]. I was so glad two met as UD students. Their almost a century ago,” she says. “I know I was able to be there for the photo.” daughter, Lynn Adams Kokjohn, BE78, she would be so proud to know that so Boyle says that even though Main says their alma mater remained a big many of us have graduated from the Street has changed significantly over part of her parents’ lives and the lives of University of Delaware.” ❚ the years, trading horse-drawn buggies their children and grandchildren. —Melissa G. Cox, AS05

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Alumni clubs benefit from UDAA support Richmond Homecoming watch party, a AMiami Marlins baseball game, a day at a Philadelphia museum, a picnic for new students in Washington, D.C., and a networking event in New York City all have at least one thing in common. The UD Alumni Association (UDAA) has provided funding for all these alumni events and dozens more through its Satellite Assistance Program (SAP). Alumni clubs across the country and affinity groups such as the Black Alumni Organization and Men’s Crew Alumni Association can apply for SAP funds to help defray the costs of their events and make it more affordable for alumni and their families to attend. The program is funded through a variety of A recent club gathering at a Miami Marlins game was supported by SAP. channels, particularly the partnerships the UDAA has with such organizations as Liberty feat,” says Allie Williams, AS10, special events co-chair of Mutual, Bank of America and Lazybones Laundry and the Philadelphia Alumni Club. “Thanks to the SAP Storage, among others. When an alumnus signs up for funding, we’ve been able to appeal to a wide audience, discounted auto insurance through Liberty Mutual, for hold a variety of events and host an event at a Phillies example, a portion of those funds is donated back to the game every spring.” UDAA to fund SAP and other programs. Carle Foster, BE86, the association’s outreach chair, “Coming up with events to appeal to the thousands of says SAP funding is an integral part of its strategic Blue Hen alumni in the Philadelphia region is no easy initiatives to encourage attendance at alumni events. ❚

Legacy students continue a tradition ighteen years ago, Bethany Comegys psychology class at UD’s Wilmington Deb and Sam, from Massachusetts, Eand Samuel Harry were just toddlers campus. Now, their children, just five feel good knowing that Bethany and on a play date with their moms, Blue months apart in age, will carry on the her family will be nearby. Hen buddies Letha Comegys, AS92, Blue Hen legacy as members of the “We can call each other anytime, and Deborah Harry, EH88. This fall, Class of 2016. day or night,” Letha says. “Sam is Bethany and Sam will reunite on “I was born and raised to be a Fightin’ welcome to come for dinner or to do campus as UD legacy students. Blue Hen,” says Bethany, who plans to laundry at our house.” Legacy students are those whose major in visual communications. “I Anne Giacoma Barretta, AS83, a parent(s) or step-parent(s) are alumni can’t wait to experience the things my UDAA Outreach Committee member, of the University. Nearly 100 parents experienced.” spoke at the legacy reception the Harry prospective legacy families, including Sam, who will study civil and Comegys families attended. the Comegys and Harry families, engineering, says that in addition to the “As a legacy myself, I have always attended receptions in April hosted by fact that his mom attended UD, a felt a tremendous amount of pride the UD Alumni Association (UDAA) campus with a vibrant, active downtown in recognizing and celebrating to congratulate the students on their was important to him. “I looked at a lot UD traditions,” Barretta says. acceptance to the University. of schools, and honestly UD was just my “The UDAA works to preserve and Letha and Deb’s friendship began in favorite,” he says. “I liked the school promote these traditions.” ❚ the late ’70s when they met in a spirit, and Main Street is great.” —Melissa G. Cox, AS05

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 51

alumni.indd 51 7/12/12 1:53 PM Hens come home for fun, friendship

lthough it began amid ominous weather warnings, visiting alumni and friends on issues ranging from faculty Alumni Weekend 2012 followed the tradition hiring, major campus construction projects, diversity goals Aestablished by the annual event that began three and the nearly 4,000 future Blue Hens slated to arrive this years ago. As always, it proved to be a great time for more fall to begin their UD careers. than 3,000 Blue Hens of all ages to catch up with former The Class of 2016 is composed of 3,855 students from 34 classmates and sample the wide variety of activities states, winnowed down from a record 26,707 applications, he on the Newark campus. said, noting that the class includes 287 Hispanic students, up While the Dela-bration Mug Night was postponed from 12 percent over 2011, and 242 African American Friday, June 1, to Saturday due to the threat of severe students, a 54 percent rise over the previous year. thunderstorms and a tornado warning on opening night, Harker said that diversity efforts also the weekend was full of fun events that included a 5K race, continue in the hiring of new faculty, the Blue Hen Picnic, President Patrick Harker’s “State of including the 42 faculty members the University” address and the Alumni Wall of Fame and five department chairs ceremony (see article on page 40). hired this year. “Things went beautifully, in spite of the weather,” Cindy Campanella, EH84, director of alumni relations, says. “We had more than 2,500 attendees for Mug Night, including 300-plus walk-ins. Other outdoor events planned for Friday were transferred inside, and everyone had a good time.” Friday evening activities included alumni receptions held by all seven colleges. The College of Arts and Sciences’ gathering was co-hosted by the Institute of Global Studies and drew numerous former participants in study abroad programs. The fourth annual Blue Hen 5K, held Saturday morning, drew some 339 entrants, and a series of informative presentations throughout the day focused on subjects ranging from beekeeping to the coming presidential election to developments in physical therapy. A reception and luncheon on Saturday recognized members of UD’s Gold Guard—alumni who graduated 50 or more years ago. In addition to the 50-year Class of 1962, reunions also were celebrated by classes marking their fifth, 10th, “Thirty-four of those recruitments—nearly three-quarters 15th, 20th and 25th milestones. Gifts from those classes —are tenured or tenure-track positions,” he said. “Of these, 14 totaled $2,036,140, helping UD to continue a strong are women (41 percent), and nine are non-white (26 percent). tradition of academic excellence. That’s an encouraging improvement on our overall minority Especially popular throughout the weekend were tours of faculty share of 19 percent.” the Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Diversity goals also are emphasized in the growing Campus at the former Chrysler assembly plant property now number of interdisciplinary programs at UD, including owned by UD, as well as visits to the UDairy Creamery and a biomedical engineering and health care theatre, a first-ever private tour of Longwood Gardens. collaboration between the College of Health Sciences and During his annual “State of the University” address on the Department of Theatre within the College of Arts and Saturday afternoon, Harker briefed an audience of about 300 Sciences, Harker said.

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alumni.indd 52 7/12/12 1:53 PM M a i n p h o t o b y E va n K r a p e

To support such collaborative programs, he said, the University has undertaken a major program of capital projects, including the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory under construction at Academy Street and

Lovett Avenue. A K Ev a n

Complementing r p these new research e and classroom facilities are a 45,000-square-foot addition to the Carpenter Sports Building and a pair of new East Campus residence halls. z A m br e Al e x ande r Plan now for Alumni Weekend 2013

Reunion planning committees are forming for the classes of 1963, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008, which will celebrate their reunions during Alumni Weekend 2013, May 31- June 2. Anyone interested in Do u

getting involved can contact the Alumni Relations g B Office at [email protected] or (302) 831-2341. aker In addition to reunion classes, affinity groups of all kinds are planning fun events for next year’s weekend. Anyone who was involved as a student with a group such as a club sport, religious organization or a fraternity or sorority can contact Tricia Fitzgerald Reilly, AS04, at [email protected] or (302) 831-2341 for help in planning and promoting an Alumni Weekend get-together. Ev a n K r a p e

Volume 20, Number 2 • 2012 53

alumni.indd 53 7/12/12 1:53 PM Where’s YoUDee?

YoUDee sure has a lot of frequent flier miles. The proud mascot of the University has been everywhere—from the frigid tundra of Antarctica, where he traveled on a study-abroad program with Prof. Ralph Begleiter, to the Sydney Aquarium in Australia, and from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco to the racetrack in Newton, Mass.

Where will this Fightin’ Blue Hen show up next? That’s up to you! With more than 155,000 living alumni, the University of Delaware has graduates living all over the world. Show off your Blue Hen spirit in your neck of the woods by cutting out YoUDee from the opposite page and snapping a photo wherever you may be. Feel free to pose YoUDee at a famous landmark you visit while traveling or right in your own backyard.

Here’s what to do PLACE PICTURE Pick a spot in your corner of the globe. It can be Snap a few high-resolution photos of YoUDee (and 1 anywhere, with anyone, of anything. It could be at a 3 yourself if you like). Be creative and have fun with it. historic site or a natural wonder, with a celebrity or with your family and friends. POST Share the fun with fellow alumni. Email your photos POSE 4 to [email protected], along with your name and Cut out YoUDee on the adjacent page, and pose him class year, and post your pictures on the UD Alumni Relations 2 proudly in your location of choice. Facebook page at www.facebook.com/UDAlumni.

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alumni.indd 54 7/12/12 1:54 PM Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Democratic Republic of Congo Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador East Timor Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Where’s YoUDee? Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea North Korea South Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal The Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian State Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru The Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda St. Kitts & Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent & The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome & Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad & Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Congo Democratic Republic of Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador East Timor Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea North Korea South Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands MauritaniaMauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal The Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian State Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru The Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda St. Kitts & Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent & The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome & Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad & Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Democratic Republic of Congo Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador East Timor Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea North Korea South Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal The Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian State Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru The Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda St. Kitts & Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent & The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome & Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad & Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia & Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Democratic Republic of Congo Costa Rica Cote d’Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador East Timor Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea North Korea South Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar (Burma) Namibia Nauru Nepal The Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestinian State Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru The Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda St. Kitts & Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent & The Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome & Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia

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A crowning e p

achievement for a Kr n ‘Hunger Games’ a o h in

designer a M p Ev by to

ina Scarnati and her assistants were assistants and working 16-hour days, Gblaring Queen from their iPod and she created all of the headpieces for the enjoying a rare, brief moment of down movie in just under six weeks. time when Woody Harrelson walked In addition to the opulent hats into their massive room of hats. worn in scenes in “the Capitol,” “This is incredible! Are you making Scarnati spent countless hours creating theatre] in this room,” she says, while these?” he asked. “How many do you hats for the tributes to wear during the sitting in the crafts room of UD’s have to do? Can I keep looking around?” famed “girl on fire” chariot parade. Hartshorn Hall. Indeed, they were—nearly 200 “I wanted the hats to evoke the In fact, the former Dean’s Scholar, headpieces, in total. And by all means, districts” from which the characters came, who created her own major in theatre please do, Woody. she explains. And so the tributes from production and costume design, says It was one of many exciting District 7, the lumber district, wore theatre remains her true love and passion. moments on The Hunger Games set, origami hats, 4 feet wide from end to “Film,” she says, “supports my where Scarnati, AS00, a theatre end. The young character Rue wore a hat theatre habit.” production major at UD, worked as composed of 96 pieces of thermoplastic, And it’s clearly a symbiotic the movie’s milliner, an old industry wired together and painted silver to evoke relationship. Scarnati—who has term for hat maker. a Demeter-inspired crown of wheat, worked with every professional theatre From the showgirl-style, big feather symbolic of the agricultural District 11. company in Delaware as well as on the hat worn by District 1’s “career tribute” As for Effie, although she forgoes design sets of independent films, Glimmer, to the gaudy magenta flower hats for flowers in the movie, Elizabeth Hollywood movies and television in Effie Trinket’s hair as she first takes Banks, who plays the pink-haired, prim shows like True Blood—notes that her the stage to wish that the odds be ever and proper character, could be seen on theatre background has been one of her in District 12’s favor, each of the 192 the cover of Entertainment Weekly greatest assets in film. headpieces in the blockbuster film was wearing Scarnati’s original creation. It “Film is so different, but in Los created by Scarnati. was a testament to the quality of her Angeles, most people have high esteem “If it’s worn on the head, I did it,” work and, Scarnati is quick to point for theatre arts,” she says. “The attitude she says. “Even the simplicity of a out, to her training and education. is, ‘Oh, you come from theatre? Then flower needs to be clustered, sewn and “I learned how to make hats from you can do everything.’” z put on a base.” Leading a small team of Andrea Barrier [associate professor of —Artika Rangan Casini, AS05

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alumni.indd 57 7/26/12 1:32 PM ALUMNI NEWS A resource for civil Beads designed for rights studies alumni, friends, fans During a special Black Some alumni and friends Alumni Organization of the University who are (BAO) reception at Alumni well-known in the Delaware Weekend, Michael Collier, jewelry business have created AS95, and his family UD-themed beads that can donated a signed copy of be used in necklaces, bracelets Martin Luther King Jr.’s or to decorate such objects as Stride Toward Freedom to watches and key chains. the UD Library. The Commencement Collier’s father, Merrick style was popular in May, Collier, had been active in while at this time of year, KATHY F. ATKINSON the civil rights movement more purchasers are and frequently attended interested in the football- sermons, rallies and other themed bead, featuring the events led by Dr. King. Michael Collier and Susan Brynteson UD and Blue Hen logos When Merrick Collier died, decided that the best home Director of Libraries, and football “stitching.” A his son became owner of the for the book was the accepted the donation and third style commemorates autographed book that tells University Library and that said that once the book is the University’s founding in the story of the he would donate it on behalf officially cataloged at the 1743. The beads have a Montgomery, Ala., bus of the BAO and UD’s library, it will be made sterling silver coating and boycott of the mid-1950s. Center for Black Culture. available as a resource to are hand enameled. After consulting with his Susan Brynteson, vice students, faculty and the The idea for the beads family, Michael Collier provost and May Morris public for years to come. ❚ came from Tom Del Genio,

As songwriter or journalist, storytelling is key The Beatles attracted many including piano, guitar and young, adoring female fans during mandolin. their time at the top of music charts. Cannon calls the overall genre of For Bob Cannon, AS77, watching the the album “country music with a band perform o n The Ed Sullivan college degree.” He prefers this style, Show inspired a future music career. he says, because the lyrics tend to “I saw the girls screaming and tell stories, and he wants his music thought, ‘That is a great job,’” to be a means of communicating Cannon says. with people. After writing songs and Another song on the album, “One performing across the country for More Thrill,” chronicles the journey of years, Cannon released his first an aging minor league baseball album, Unbreakable Heart, in early player. Cannon says he related to that 2012. He describes the songs on the album as an story, since he was finally producing his album eclectic combination of new pieces and after many years of performing. “cannibalized old songs” that have gone through His writing skills also brought him into many revisions over the years. journalism, and he previously worked for One of the songs, “Delaware Rain,” was Entertainment Weekly before moving to his written while Cannon was a student at the current job with a Manhattan marketing firm. University. He wrote it while on break at his home in Cannon self-produced the album and has been selling it Wilmington, thinking about his then girlfriend who lived at concerts and through websites such as CD Baby. He in Maine. says he believes he has better stories to tell now that he is During his time at UD, Cannon received a degree in older and doesn’t expect that his age is going to hold him music theory and composition and performed regularly back from continuing as a singer and songwriter. at concerts in Bacchus Theatre. Even then he performed “There is no age limit on making music,” he says. ❚ original songs and played a variety of instruments —Lauren Pitruzzello, AS13

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Philanthropic Commitment, which recognizes a donor or donor family whose scholarship support has had a UD Bead significant impact on AS99, marketing director the University and its for Michael Gallagher undergraduates. Jewelers in Bear, Del., The annual award was working with his wife, presented by President Teresa Del Genio, AS89, Patrick Harker at a and mother-in-law, Kathy Celebration of Scholarship Gallagher, who owns the reception, held in May to store with her husband, commemorate the Michael. The family- generosity of those owned store has been in individuals who support business for more than students through 60 years. The Gallaghers undergraduate scholarships. are UD supporters, and Burt Chase, BE62, and three of their children Jenny Haas Chase, BE60, are alumni. immediately began to give The beads are sold at back to the University the jewelry store and the through the Charles Lanier MELISSA COX UD Bookstore. ❚ Scholarship Fund, named for a UD professor who Opus One Couple honored greatly influenced Burt “We were surprised, and Broadway-style pieces. for commitment Chase, and the Gilbert E. appreciative and very After graduation, Pryslak to philanthropy Chase Family Scholarship, honored to receive this decided to keep the group named in honor of Chase’s award,” Burt Chase says. going under a new name, Alumni Burt and Jenny father, the fund’s creator “We have been to all four Opus One. “I was looking Chase, who met in 1958 and a 1933 UD alumnus. Celebration of Scholarship for something that didn’t while students at UD, The Chases also have been events. The scholars are all have a niche in Delaware received this year’s ardent supporters of the very impressive and friendly. already,” he says of the President’s Award for UD Athletic Fund. We are already looking ensemble’s style. forward to next Since its founding, Opus year’s event.” ❚ One has grown from eight members to 17—some of Ensemble them fellow alumni—and specializes in all has performed throughout that jazz Delaware, often at churches and also at gatherings such As a student, Ryan as the Newark Film and Pryslak, AS05, performed Music Festival. Pryslak’s in UD Opera Theatre and favorite event has been the sang in the UD Chorale, group’s annual Christmas but his most lasting musical concert at historic Bellevue endeavor was the vocal jazz Hall near Wilmington. ensemble he formed as His advice to other something to do with a music students? “As long as few friends. you have that love of your KATHY F. ATKINSON He called it DelaForte art and you take what you then, and the group learn at UD, you can do performed a variety of whatever your heart desires,” Jenny and Burt Chase songs, including a capella he says. ❚

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Education at UD leads to think tank in South Africa ibusiso Vil-Nkomo “continuously searching for Srecently returned from new knowledge and his native South Africa to solutions to development Delaware to pay a visit to challenges.” his alma mater, where he In 1992, Vil-Nkomo received a master’s degree in returned to South Africa to urban affairs in 1983 and a teach at several universities doctorate in 1985. and later became professor Today, he is executive and dean of the faculty of director of the University of economic and management Pretoria and a founding sciences at the University of member and chairman of a Pretoria. In 1994, after the newly established think tank, first democratic elections in the Mapungubwe Institute South Africa, President for Strategic Reflection. Nelson Mandela appointed Vil-Nkomo calls the him public service formation of the institute commissioner. “an example of what I On his one-day trip to learned from seminars and Delaware in the spring, brown-bag discussions Vil-Nkomo met with UD involving professors, President Patrick Harker, students and individuals Institute for Global Studies from the private and public Director Matthew sectors at the University of Robinson and a number of Delaware.” He says he is former colleagues. ❚ Sibusiso Vil-Nkomo, left, with Patrick Harker on campus.

Chemist encourages undergraduate researchers Joshua Figueroa, AS00, who conducted research in chemistry while an undergraduate at UD and now is an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California San Diego, was the keynote speaker on campus at this year’s Senior Thesis Symposium in May. The annual event, hosted by the Undergraduate Research Program, features presentations by more than 60 graduating seniors whose research and senior thesis earns them a Degree with Distinction or Honors Degree with Distinction. At UD, Figueroa conducted research with Arnold L. Rheingold, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. After graduation, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a doctorate in inorganic chemistry in 2005, and then was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University until KATHY F. ATKINSON 2007. His current research centers on the synthesis of new transition-metal containing compounds and the discovery of new chemical transformations relevant to organic synthesis, industry and alternative energy. ❚

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alumni.indd 61 7/12/12 1:55 PM Nominate deserving students or alumni If you know a Blue Hen who for the Milton Draper Student- should be recognized or who is a strong Alumni Award, which provides leader, the UD Alumni Association scholarships to a sophomore or (UDAA) is accepting nominations for junior for outstanding work in awards and for its board. fostering student-alumni interaction. Nominations are being accepted The UDAA is seeking new for the UDAA Alumni Wall of directors for its board. Three men and Fame, which recognizes outstanding three women will be selected to serve professional and public service four-year terms beginning July 1, 2013. achievements by graduates, and for More details and nomination the Warner and Taylor Awards, forms are available at www. which honor an outstanding woman UDconnection.com or by calling the and man of the senior class. Office of Alumni Relations at Nominations also are being accepted (302) 831-2341. z As Hens leave the nest, UDAA can help ease their transition Graduating seniors face many through Bank of America; competitive insurance, thanks to Mom and Dad,” decisions as they look to their health, life, travel and dental insurance; he says, “but now that I’m going to futures, from where to work and live and many other benefits. be an adult, I’m going to have to to what health and auto insurance to There are perks for the figure those things out.” buy. Thanks to the UD Alumni University, too: When alumni sign The UDAA also helps alumni Association (UDAA), new alumni up for these benefits and services, a connect for social and professional can take advantage of a variety of portion of funds is donated back to networking through its sponsorship benefits and services to make their the UDAA to subsidize of the online community at transition a bit easier. scholarships, regional alumni clubs, www.UDconnection.com, a free Upon graduation, all alumni are events, awards and more. service exclusive to UD alumni. automatically inducted into the Michael Brophy, AS12, is a new Through the community, UD association, which offers discounts on graduate who says he is interested in graduates can network, post their auto and property insurance through the UDAA offerings. “I haven’t really résumés and learn more about Liberty Mutual; an exclusive program had to worry too much about alumni events in their cities. z Regional clubs: Welcome new grads, help others or just have fun Aug. 23—“Welcome to the Sept. 22—UD Day of Service, Oct. 20—Boston Club, Head of the Neighborhood, Class of 2012,” various locations; visit www. Charles Regatta various locations; visit www. UDconnection.com for details. UDconnection.com for details. Oct. 20—Northern New Jersey, The Sept. 29—Friends of Art History, Hunt at Far Hills Race Meeting Day at The Cloisters, New York City Sept. 8—Tampa Bay Blue Hens, Rays v. Texas Rangers, Tropicana Sept. 30—Kent & Sussex Counties Nov. 11—Richmond Club, Delaware Field, Tampa Club, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series at University of Richmond, football Race, Dover game and tailgate Sept. 15—Washington, D.C., Club, D.C. United soccer game Oct. 13—Central Florida Blue Hens, Nov. 11—South Florida Club, 39th Annual Winter Park Autumn Dolphins v. Titans, football game and Sept. 21—Central Florida Blue Art Festival, Winter Park tailgate, Sun Life Stadium z Hens, happy hour and interest meeting, Florida Mall Miller’s Ale Oct. 13—Reading (Pa.) Club, wine Visit UDconnection.com House, Orlando tasting, Breinigsville, Pa. to view more events

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Association honors exceptional new graduates 2012 The UD Alumni Association has selected Robert Pagels and Gealina Dun as recipients of the Alexander J. Taylor Sr. and Emalea Pusey Warner awards, respectively, as the outstanding man and woman of the 2012 graduating class. The awards are given annually to recognize leadership, academic success and community service. Pagels graduated with an honors Ambre Alex degree in chemical engineering and was one of a select group of students a in the Class of 2012 to be awarded a nder Eugene du Pont Memorial Distinguished Scholarship. His Dun earned an honors degree in volunteered with A.I. duPont numerous community service neuroscience and will attend medical Hospital for Children and worked as projects included work in an school this fall. She was a Writing an intern with Nemours Health and orphanage in India. Fellow and Blue Hen Ambassador, Prevention Services. z

www.udel.edu/homecoming

A week full of Homecoming fun: Oct. 15-20 Save the date for this year’s accomplished alumni of the last 20 years. kickoff event on campus—and Homecoming, Oct. 15-20, which On Saturday afternoon, Oct. 20, Alumni Relations is coordinating promises to be a week filled with alumni and fans will cheer on the Blue events for alumni. events for all Blue Hens to celebrate Hens as they take on Rhode Island at If you would like to plan an event their UD spirit. Delaware Stadium. The President’s for your group (for example, a sport, In addition to receptions and affinity Homecoming Luncheon precedes the student organization, fraternity or group gatherings that are scheduled football game. sorority), contact Alumni Relations throughout the week, activities will The Homecoming Student Associate Director Christine Scheirer, include such special events as Blue Hens Committee, under the guidance of AS09, at [email protected] and the Office on Main—a Homecoming kickoff on the Office of Alumni Relations, has of Alumni Relations will help. Main Street—and the Presidential been meeting throughout the summer Visit www.udel.edu/homecoming Citation for Outstanding Achievement to plan Homecoming activities for for all the details, including football awards ceremony, which honors students—beginning with an Oct. 15 ticket and tailgating information. z

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