Professional Notes for Nov. 13, 2012

Catherine Hansen, Geography Department, College of Arts and Sciences, attended the 2012 GIS/LIS Consortium annual conference held Oct. 3-5 in St. Cloud, Minn. Hansen serves as the consortium board of directors secretary. Geography junior Fartun Dirie presented “Mental Maps: Gaining Insight Into the Diverse Somali Perceptions of Residential Desirability in the Twin Cities." Dirie was awarded the consortium’s undergraduate scholarship and first-place presentation award with cash prizes totaling $1,000. Geography senior Annie L’Heureux also presented her research, “Alternative Development: Using GIS to Determine the Correlation Between Urban Villages and Property Value Growth in the Twin Cities." Seniors Chia Lee and Joseph Muller attended the conference.

Dr. Peter Parilla

Dr. Peter Parilla, Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of a book chapter, “Cell Phone Use While Driving: Defining a Problem as Worthy of Action.” It is included in Making Sense of Social Problems: New Images, New Issues, edited by Joel Best and Scott Harris

Dr. Kris Wammer. Photo by Mark Brown.

Dr. Kris Wammer, Chemistry Department, College of Arts and Sciences, published "Direct Photochemistry of Three Fluoroquinolone Antibacterials: Norfloxacin, Ofloxacin, and Enrofloxacin" in the journal Water Research. Co-authors of the paper were Wammer's students Andrew Korte, Rachel Lundeen and Jacob Sundberg, as well as collaborators Kristopher McNeill and William Arnold.

Dr. Fritz Wenzel.

Fritz Wenzel, Management Department, Opus College of Business, received the University of Wisconsin – Steven's Point Lifetime Achievement Award for his career achievements in the health care management. He was honored with the award Oct. 20 during the university's homecoming festivities. Wenzel is a distinguished service professor in OCB's Management Department. He also is the former executive director of the Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, Wis., and has served top administrative posts and boards for several medical organizations and groups, including the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation and others in Colorado, Pennsylvania and Minnesota. Dr. Laura Nelson, M.D., '01 M.B.A., also was honored by UW-Steven's Point during Homecoming. She was named distinguished alumnus of the College of Professional Studies.

Dr. Scott Wright. Photo by Mike Ekern '02.

Dr. Scott Wright, History Department, College of Arts and Sciences, is the author of essays on professional boxer Art Aragon and political figures Dennis Chavez and Edward Roybal in the newly published Great Lives From History: Latinos (Salem Press, 2012).

Dr. Jennifer McGuire. Photo by Mike Ekern.

Seven undergraduate students and three faculty members presented results of their research at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Charlotte, N.C., which ran from Nov. 4-7. Students Emily Chatmas and Anna Kennedy-Harper presented a poster on their project, "Lower Pahranagat Lake as a Modern Analog for Ancient Lacustrine Microbiolate Facies of the Miocene Horse Spring Formation in Southern Nevada." Dr. Kevin Theissen and Dr. Tom Hickson were advisers and co-authors on the project. Student Nick Hermann presented a poster on his project, "The Good, the Bad and the Hypereutrophic: A Historical Sedimentary and Geometricaly Analysis of Two Connected Suburban Lakes in Scott County, MN.," with Theissen as co-author. Hickson and student Jane De Lambert presented their project, "Facies Architecture and Mineralogy of Miocene Microbally-Dominated Carbonate Lakes of the Horse Spring Formation, Southern Nevada." Dr. Jennifer McGuire and students Benjamin Ruhme, Ryan Streitz and Brady Ziegler presented a poster on their work, "Evaluating the Effect of Ethanol and Nitrate as Co-contaminants on the Biodegradation of Btex at an Aquifer- Wetland Interface Using Push-Pull Tests." McGuire and Ziegler were also co-authors on a presentation, "Reactive Transport Modeling of Push-Pull Test Data: Evaluating Controls on Bioremediation of Aromatic Hydocarbons at the Bemidji, Minnesota Site." Theissen gave a talk on his project, "A 200-Year Record of Regime Shifts, Land-use Change and Management From a Prairie Wetland." Biology Department faculty members Dr. Leah Domine and Dr. Kyle Zimmer were co-authors on this project.