Sarah Elder, one of the first fellows to be funded by UB's Civic Engagement and Public Policy research initiative.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The University at Buffalo has named the first fellows to be funded by the university’s Civic Engagement and Public Policy (CEPP) research initiative, one of eight areas identified in the UB 2020 Strategic Plan as the embodiment of a particular tradition of excellence at the university. 

They will establish projects to address social justice issues linked to dramatic climate change in the town of Emmonak, Alaska; to urban agriculture and food security in Buffalo, N.Y.; and to schemes for publicly financing economic-development programs in Chester, Pa. 

The fellows are Sarah Elder, professor, Department of Media Study, and adjunct professor of anthropology; Christopher Mele, PhD, associate professor, Department of Sociology; and Sara Metcalf, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Geography. 

They will be given course relief to permit them to carry out their projects. 

Read more here.

Kate Foster says the Regional Institute's new offices in the UB Downtown Gateway will improve collaboration among the unit's employees, as well as its community.

UB continues to expand its presence in downtown Buffalo with last month’s move of the UB Regional Institute to the UB Downtown Gateway.

The institute, a unit of the UB Law School that conducts interdisciplinary research and policy studies, moved in mid-November from its former home in historic Beck Hall on the South Campus to newly renovated space on the third floor of the gateway, the former M. Wile Building at 77 Goodell St.

Beck Hall will become the new home to administrative offices, including the Dean’s Office, for the School of Nursing.

The institute plans to celebrate its new home at an open house from 4-6 p.m. Dec. 15.

Also housed in the UB Downtown Gateway are the administrative offices of UBMD, the practice plan for more than 450 faculty physicians, and staff in UB’s new Office of Economic Engagement, a part of the Division of External Affairs.

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James Fallavollita, professor of medicine and cardiologist, has performed echocardiograms on humans, mice, rats, hamsters, pigs, dogs, sheep and a cat. When the opportunity arose to work with a different species, he couldn’t pass it up.

“I’m not uncomfortable with taking the machine to an animal I have never seen before and doing a procedure,” says Fallavollita, who, with the assistance of local sonographer John Gon, conducted an “echo” at the Buffalo Zoo last week on Kwizera, a 200-plus-pound female gorilla receiving a physical examination before heading to the Memphis Zoo for breeding. “I was kind of intrigued by the idea of adding another animal to my repertoire.”

Last week’s echocardiogram actually was the sixth Fallavollita had completed on a gorilla. He performed one last year on Kwizera with the help of Thomas Cimato, a fellow medicine department faculty member and cardiologist, and did four more this summer on the zoo’s four other gorillas—three females and a male. The procedure, which involves using sound waves to produce moving images of the heart inside the chest, enables doctors to assess everything from the thickness of the heart muscle to the health of valves that regulate the flow of blood through the organ’s four chambers.

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In a groundbreaking new book, “The Neural Imagination” (2009, University of Texas Press), Irving Massey explores the relevance of neuroscience to the study of the arts.

Subtitled “Aesthetic and Neuroscientific Approaches to the Arts,” the book is concerned with the emergence and significance of neuroaesthetics, an alliance born of the recent and rapid convergence of art and technology.

“I undertook to write the book,” says Massey, professor emeritus of English and comparative literature, “to allay fears in artists and audiences alike that brain science, in its ability to cite parts of the brain excited by dissonance, for instance, or to describe novelty in terms of neural trauma, may ‘explain away’ the arts.”

Massey, also adjunct professor emeritus of French, is the author of 10 books and scores of articles and reviews in which he often has employed brain science to explore the work of specific artists.

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The Center for Disability Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, founded last April with the mission of encouraging the study, teaching and accurate representation of disability and of individuals with disabilities, is moving forward with the hiring of its inaugural visiting scholar.

Michael Rembis, a visiting scholar in the departments of History and American Studies at the University of Notre Dame, will be in residence at UB for the spring 2010 semester. A historian who specializes in the history of disability and the history of eugenics from 1859 to the present, Rembis describes his teaching and research interests as focusing on “the contested nature of socially constructed discourses of disablement and the material history of individuals perceived to be disabled.” He says his work “emphasizes and analyzes the intersections among gender, class, race, sexuality, citizenship and disability.”

While at UB, Rembis will teach a course in the history department on the history of eugenics from the mid-19th century to the present. Although the course focuses on the United States, he says there will be a strong comparative component, as well as a strong focus on the importance of changing notions of disability.

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New public spaces that will improve the quality of life and learning are taking shape, with projects ranging from outdoor rain gardens to hallway “study bars.”

Such upgrades represent progress toward fulfilling goals outlined in the Comprehensive Physical Plan, which calls for the university to build a “learning landscape” that creates opportunities for students, staff, faculty and guests to enjoy their time on campus and exchange ideas.

“We are exploring how to help people interact,” says Kevin Thompson, director of Facilities Planning & Design. “As you move from building to building, from place to place, you interact with the environment. Are there pockets of gathering places so you can have a sandwich, use your laptop and have an informal discussion? Many times, learning takes place in the informal setting.”

Over the summer, workers installed computer stations and furniture in public spaces in Knox Hall and the Natural Sciences Complex, both on the North Campus, and in Diefendorf Hall on the South Campus. These new, casual gathering spots are a hit with students, who used to sit on the floor between classes.

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A current UB student and two recent graduates have been awarded Fulbright student scholarships for the 2009-10 academic year and are abroad studying and contributing to the health and education systems of other countries.

Meghana Gadgil, Katherine Cumberland and Catherine Dunning are among the more than 1,500 U.S. citizens who are studying, teaching or conducting research abroad as Fulbright student scholars this academic year.

Gadgil, of Berkeley, Calif., is a student in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. She is conducting research on hand-washing interventions in rural and urban slum communities at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research in Bangladesh. The research will focus on hand-washing as a means to combat diarrhea and respiratory illnesses, the two leading causes of illness and death among children in Bangladesh and in many other low-income settings.

“Hand-washing has been shown to be an effective, affordable and acceptable method to reduce illness from infectious causes of diarrhea and respiratory diseases,” Gadgil says, noting that she also is working with the Street-Dwellers Healthcare project in urban Dhada. “I am interested in learning more about the health profiles and needs of women and children in this incredibly vulnerable and marginalized group,” she adds.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. — University at Buffalo Law School Dean Makau W. Mutua will be a guest of President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, at a ceremony in the White House on Nov. 23 for his role as one of five international and national human rights experts who selected the recipient of this year’s Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.

The award, presented by Ethel Kennedy, will be given to Magodonga Mahlangu and her organization, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). Mutua and the four other judges chose Mahlangu and WOZA for organizing more than 60,000 Zimbabweans in an ongoing campaign of non-violent action against injustice, exploitive social conditions and oppression of women’s rights.

Mutua — who was named dean of the UB Law School in 2008 — is recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities in human rights law. He is an internationally known scholar who works on human rights issues around the world and serves as chair of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

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Six UB scientists and engineers have won 2009 National Science Foundation CAREER awards, the foundation’s most prestigious award for junior investigators that recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars “who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century.”

Faculty who received the awards—members of the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences—join 16 UB faculty members who have active CAREER awards.

“This year’s round of CAREER award-winners demonstrates that UB’s junior professors are at the forefront of advancing innovative research and technologies that can improve the quality of life in the future,” says Jorge V. José, vice president for research. “From developing more efficient, wireless networks and superconducting nanostructures to more effective delivery of drugs and powerful machine vision systems, these CAREER award-winners demonstrate the power of the UB 2020 vision and its strategic strengths.”

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Esther S. Takeuchi, Greatbatch Professor in Power Sources Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, has been named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank in the SUNY system.

This is Takeuchi’s second major honor in as many months. She received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest honor awarded for technological achievement, from President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony held Oct. 7.

Takeuchi was one of eight SUNY faculty members appointed to the rank of Distinguished Professor by the SUNY Board of Trustees at its Nov. 17 meeting.

The rank is an order above full professorship and has three co-equal designations: distinguished professor, distinguished service professor and distinguished teaching professor.

Read more here.