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I maintain a healthy level of service to the university and community by serving on several important committees annually and providing my expertise as a scientist to local outreach efforts, such as local and regional scientific symposia. I also provide service to my discipline as an expert reviewer and guest editor to various journals.
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I maintain a healthy level of service to the university and community by serving on several important committees annually and providing my expertise as a scientist to local outreach efforts, such as local and regional scientific symposia. I also provide service to my discipline as an expert reviewer and guest editor to various journals.
Service to the department and university:
I aim to be an active, happy, helpful member of the
Chemistry department, which is where I perform most of my job description. I
teach my courses, supervise research students, and advise young chemists. I
organize the laboratories for the biochemistry series (CHEM400 and 402) and I
have ordered reagents and pre-run labs to ensure their success for my
colleagues since January 2012. Additionally, I serve on the Undergraduate
Research Committee, and this committee drafted an agreement with the Dean
regarding release time earned by faculty when supervising undergraduate
research. This agreement is very important to many faculty members who
supervise undergraduate student research projects on top of their normal
teaching load.
I care deeply about the Chemistry department, and I am excited
to build and grow as a department. Part of this process involves hiring new
faculty. I have served on the vast majority of search committees for the
department since I started working here. I have served as committee chair
several times, and my colleagues have commented that they appreciate my
organizational skills when leading search committees. I really enjoy meeting
all of the candidates, corresponding with them, answering their questions while
on-campus, and learning about them by performing reference checks. It is always
difficult to make final decisions, but I really enjoy how diplomatic the
department is when making any decision. I appreciate that decisions are made
based in a true democratic fashion and no ‘lobbyists’ or ‘special interest
groups’ are called in to influence voting. Since coming to WSU, I have served
on- or chaired the following search committees for my department:
- Chemical Education specialist, faculty search
- Biochemistry specialist 2013, faculty search*
- Inorganic chemistry specialist, faculty search*
- Biochemistry specialist 2014-2015, faculty search
In addition to my role in recruiting and hiring new faculty,
I have served as search chair for two search committees hiring in supervisory
or directorial capacities. In 2013, I served as the search chair for the
internal search for Director of the Professional Science Masters (PSM) program.
My involvement in the PSM also illustrates university service, and will be
highlighted later in this document. I also served as co-chair of the search to
fill the vacancy in the Dean’s office in our college. Chairing that search was
very difficult, but I felt I worked well with my co-chair, Assoc. Dean Peter
Miene (Liberal Arts), and endeavored to make all members of the committee feel
valued. During my time on that search committee, I received many compliments on
my data management style, which I attributed directly my scientific skills. I
am very interested in using data to demonstrate trends and make points, and my
dexterity with Microsoft Excel aided the data analysis during group
discussions. In both cases, the committees were able to recommend appropriate
personnel for the position, and the searches were successful.
I serve my department on other university-wide committees.
Specifically, I serve as an alternate to some of the most far-reaching
committees on campus: A2C2, Graduate Council, and TEA. I have attended A2C2
meetings approximately once per semester for the past three years, however, Myoung Lee is our primary representative and is excellent at her job. Additionally, I spent one
semester as the voting member of TEA, and have served as alternate for the
department since that time, and I currently attend Graduate Council as the
Chemistry liaison and PSM alternate. Due to the influx of Chemistry and PSM
curriculum through Graduate Council, I have attended Graduate Council meetings
more-often-than-not for two years. I have also served on a subcommittee for
exploring funding mechanisms for graduate student travel to meetings and
conferences during this time.
At the university level, I am involved in several
committees. I was a late addition to the WSU Academic Integrity committee, and
I continue to take interest in the development of a college and university-wide
mechanism for tracking and recording integrity breaches. I am a recent addition to the Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) Taskforce. I am interested in the university developing a reasonable policy for CPL. I had previously discussed CPL for students who take CHEM400 and CHEM401 via WSU-Rochester. I also donate a
considerable amount of time to the WSU Institutional Review Board (IRB). I
gained a seat on the IRB committee in order to educate myself on the mechanisms
of conducting human subjects research for a research project in 2013. Since
then, I have evaluated over 168 IRB protocols.
My largest service contribution to the university involved
my role on the PSM Implementation TaskForce. As one of the initial co-authors
of the grant that resulted in the development of a PSM program for the College
of Science and Engineering, I have spent many hours working with my colleagues
to develop the PSM program, build curriculum, involve industry partners, recruit
students and assess student admissions requirements, and advise students
involved in the program. I believe I am one of the most visible members of the
PSM committee, and colleagues in both Chemistry and other departments in the
college know they can approach me regarding questions and concerns about the
program. I have advocated for the program to the Dean, Provost, Faculty Senate,
and various curriculum committees. I have been involved in explorations of PSM
partnerships with International Studies and, more recently, Innovation Valley.
I continue to be involved in the program as a faculty mentor, advisor,
instructor, and advocate. I hope this program is able to grow in my time at
WSU.
My newest efforts involve the development of a research internship program with Winona Health. I was contacted by a doctor at Winona Health to initiate student internships and promote research opportunities at Winona Health. Over the summer of 2015, I met with two other WSU faculty (Erin White, Osvaldo Martinez) and several medical doctors at Winona Health to develop two internship tracks at Winona Health. One track is an unpaid research experience supervised by WH doctors. This track is open to all students, regardless of major, GPA, or experience level. The remaining track is a paid summer internship that is quite competitive; students must be Pre-Medicine and must be WSU or SMU students with a GPA over 3.5. The student was selected via committee vote in early January and will commence their internship in the summer of 2016. Now that the program is in place, I still serve during monthly meetings where I provide feedback on student placement and help select appropriate projects for our majors. Additionally, Winona Health also hopes to highlight both doctor and student research at a symposium that will be held April 8, 2016 at the clinic. Currently I am working on arranging for a speaker from the University of Nebraska Medical Center to serve as a keynote. I think this symposium will be very helpful for our pre-health students and may become a recruiting tool in the future.
Service to students
While I have outline my efforts to help WSU students grow
and develop in Criterions 1 and 4, I have also been involved in activities that
are more directly service oriented. I have already
extensively overviewed the development of a service learning activity that
involved my CHEM402 students and HERS205 students from the perspective of
student growth and development. I would just like to mention this
activity once again from the perspective of service to students; specifically,
over 350 students, faculty, staff, and community members attended the
exposition in which over 1000 juice samples were provided. This activity
facilitated discussion between experts and a naïve audience on the benefits of
fruit and vegetable consumption, and provided a fun environment to explore new
information. I am very proud of this activity and the students involved.
In my home department, I donate time each year to CHEM475, which is an oral intensive course. I carve out extra time for at least one evening session and one
Saturday session so that I can observe and provide meaningful feedback to the
students. I also try to ask one question per presenter. Outside of my
department, my service is more varied. Specifically, I served as faculty
advisor to Task Force Charlie, a student club that consisted of ROTC students.
This club required a faculty advisor in order to put together a constitution,
and I was able to help them perform this task. Additionally, each year I
volunteer with the regional science fair and donate my time as a judge for
middle and high school science projects. I am happy to provide the time and
feedback to the future scientists in grades 6-12. I was also drafted to help
with the production of the Minnesota Academy of Science/Winchell Undergraduate
Research Symposium in spring 2014. This symposium involved several months of
planning with an interdisciplinary group involving industry, philanthropic
society, and academic partners. I participated in the general planning, and I
worked with another faculty member to arrange the oral and poster presentation
times in appropriate sessions. On the day of the event, I served as a judge for
both chemistry and molecular biology projects. Most recently, I have been involved with the Recruitment, Retention, and Proselytizing Committee. Though I am not a member of this departmental committee, I was the sole OR100 instructor for my department this fall. I was invited to a committee meeting to help plan some freshmen outreach activities including a picnic, office trick-or-treating, and inviting them to the annual Thanksgiving feast. I also initiated a series of dog-therapy events for science majors with the help of Myoung Lee and Amy Runck (Biology). I have brought my dogs in for playtime around finals week for three semesters. It’s always a good experience for both the dogs and the students.
Service to my discipline
In 2015, I was elected chair-elect for the local section of the American Chemical Society (Winona-LaCrosse area). Our section had been chair-less for some time, and had fallen into a low-involvement situation. With the help of Nadia Carmosini (UW-L), I planned an educational fall “mini-meeting” in La Crosse. The focus of the mini-meeting was ‘Addressing and Overcoming Learning Deficiencies in Chemistry Students’. We hosted three talks that highlighted recent research and activities in chemistry student assessment within the section. This component of the meeting paralleled a student component titled ‘Chemistry Success Secrets’. The student component brought four alumni from three schools (WSU, UW-L, and Viterbo) to share secrets on getting through Chemistry and Biochemistry programs successfully and provide insight on how to compete on the job market and post-graduate educational applications. Overall, this mini-meeting was attended by members of all five schools in the Winona-LaCrosse ACS section and facilitated discussions on the state of undergraduate chemistry education in the region. We are planning to continue to expand our activities for this spring. Additionally, I will be attending the ACS Leadership Institute in Dallas, TX during January 2016. My hope is to gain some insight on how to involve more tenure-track faculty in the ACS leadership and activities within our section.
I am one of very few researchers working on isoprenoid products from bacterial source. I was approached by the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, in which I have previously published, to arrange a special topic issue of the journal. I was given the title Associated Guest Editor, and I am made various contacts within my subspecialty soliciting manuscripts. Unfortunately, low response rates prevented this from coming to fruition, but I was able to transition one journal entry to general publication in another issue of the journal and served as editor for this manuscript [1]. Additionally, I have served as an expert reviewer for four manuscripts from three different journals (International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology, and Pathogens and Disease).
I am one of very few researchers working on isoprenoid products from bacterial source. I was approached by the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, in which I have previously published, to arrange a special topic issue of the journal. I was given the title Associated Guest Editor, and I am made various contacts within my subspecialty soliciting manuscripts. Unfortunately, low response rates prevented this from coming to fruition, but I was able to transition one journal entry to general publication in another issue of the journal and served as editor for this manuscript [1]. Additionally, I have served as an expert reviewer for four manuscripts from three different journals (International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology, and Pathogens and Disease).
Service to the community
I am also active in the community as a non-scientist; I
volunteer with various clubs aimed at fostering healthy behaviors in children.
Specifically, I have volunteered at the local swim meet for the Winona Wizards
swim club for the past two summers, and I volunteer with the youth triathlon
hosted by Wisconsin-based Communities off n’ Funning. Finally, as mentioned in
Criterion 4, I designed and implemented a service learning activity that WSU
hosted during February 2014. As this is described in detail under Criterion 4,
I will simply mention that community members were invited via Charter cable and
Winona Radio advertisements. All of my non-science activities revolve around my
passion for healthy behaviors, which is a common thread in my teaching,
research, and personal life.
Continued service efforts
In recent years, I have become more involved in service at WSU. I aim to select causes that I am genuinely interested in, and I try to be a valuable member of those committees. As such, I will likely continue to serve on search committees, IRB, PSM, and Winona Health related committees in the future. After my term as chair of the local ACS section is up in 2016, I will try to remain involved in steering our section towards higher involvement. I will likely reapply for chair-elect at this time to stay involved in the executive committee. Finally, I am just beginning my role on the Credit-for-Prior Learning committee and will likely become a more vocal and involved member as we move WSU towards providing CPL opportunities and expanding our services for returning students.
[1] Wang, J.; Behr, M. Building a better bacillus: the emergence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Front. Micro. 2014, 5 (139).
Service At-A-Glance
Committees:
Departmental
committees
Undergraduate research committee (2013-current)
Faculty search committees
·
Chemical Education specialist 2012-2013
·
Biochemistry specialist 2013-2014*
·
Inorganic chemistry specialist 2014-2015*
·
Biochemistry specialist 2014-2015
College committees
Professional
Science Masters Implementation Taskforce (2012-present)
PSM Graduate student committees
MeLea Hetrick
Aaron Wood
PSM Graduate student committees
MeLea Hetrick
Aaron Wood
Search committees
·
Director of the Professional Science Masters
Program*
University committees
A2C2,
Chemistry alternate 2013-present
Academic Integrity Policy 2012
Graduate council, PSM-alternate,
Chemistry nonvoting observer 2012-present
Institutional Review Board,
2012-present
TEA, Chemistry alternate
2012-present
Credit for Prior Learning 2015-present
Credit for Prior Learning 2015-present
Search committees
· Dean of the College of Science and Engineering*
Student committees
Task Force Charlie, faculty
advisor
Other committees
Winchell/Tri-Beta Undergraduate
Research Symposium Planning Committee
Antioxidants: Just Juice It!
Planning committee, faculty advisor
Non-committee service to the university
·
Developed
demonstrations for new College of Science and Engineering promotional photography 2012
·
Spoke at
WSU Foundation kick-off event 2013
·
Developed
and implemented service learning activity “Antioxidants: Just Juice It!”
Service to the discipline:
·
Associate
Guest Editor, Frontiers in Microbiology 2013-present
·
Expert
reviewer
International Journal of Molecular
Sciences
Maejo International Journal
of Science and Technology
Pathogens and Disease
Service to the local scientific
community
·
ACS local
section chair-elect 2015
·
Regional
science fair judge 2012-present
·
Winchell/Tri-Beta
Undergraduate Research Symposium planning committee and judge 2014
Service to the community
·
Volunteer
with Winona Wizards swim club 2012, 2013
·
Volunteer
with Communities Off ‘N’ Funning 2014
