REDE 2020 Annual Report
The 2020 academic year tested resiliency of higher education like nothing else in history, but we can’t allow COVID-19 to detract from the significant milestones and accomplishments of East Carolina University’s faculty and staff this year. Performers moved from the stage to living rooms. Authors wrote on laptops instead of desk tops, and investigators analyzed those data sets they had been meaning to get to but hadn’t because new investigations took priority. ECU faculty, staff and students continued their research and scholarship, and this report contains highlights and links to dozens of their stories.
The university recorded the second highest amount of sponsored programs funding in its 113-year history — $57 million dollars — second only to the $74 million recorded in 2019. Part of the funding was from National Science Foundation in support of a two-day interdisciplinary conference that brought together researchers and community stakeholders from across the nation to our campus to discuss research into hurricanes and their impacts on populated coastlines. Another $1.49 million was awarded by the National Institutes of Health Small Business Technology Transfer to an ECU startup medical device company, RFPi, for continued development of technology for noninvasive blood flow measurements in patients during surgery. Additionally, a team in the College of Education was awarded $9.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education to network school leaders across the country for identifying and implementing best practices.
Our Pirates are also leading the way in transforming our region through entrepreneurship programs and initiatives. An award from the Golden LEAF Foundation funded RISE29, a student entrepreneurship program focused on strengthening regional businesses. The program received the Excellence in Co-Curricular Innovation Award from the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and in so doing received top honors in a very competitive field that included the country’s top-ranked entrepreneurship program by U.S. News & World Report.
Not all significant achievements garner extramural funding. Harley, a wayward hunting dog who refused to run rabbits, was retrained by a former ECU staff member to search out Clostridioides difficile spores in clinical facilities. And, students in a modern technique dance class compiled 15-30 second video clips of performances in living rooms, bedrooms, carports and backyards into a sort of dance riff off for a semester finale during the pandemic.
These stories and more are chronicled below. Behind each one is a team of dedicated ECU faculty, students and staff that have overcome the challenges of COVID-19 to succeed. I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as we have enjoyed watching them unfold.
Michael Van Scott
Interim Vice Chancellor
ECU Division of Research, Economic Development and Engagement
Table of Contents
Getting to Know ECU
Resilient Research
Lasting Impacts of Hurricane Florence
Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina on Sept. 14, 2018 as a Category 1 storm. The storm caused $24 billion in damages, including an estimated $13-18 billion in uninsured property damage, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Immediately after Florence, ECU volunteers recorded thousands of hours of recovery support, collecting more than 80,000 pounds of nonperishable foods and goods and $370,131 in financial and in-kind donations. The university assisted 65 small businesses during the recovery process in nine eastern North Carolina counties, totaling 150 hours of service. Months later, ECU researchers remain focused on Florence, studying mental health, coastal erosion and farmland impacts in the hardest hit areas.
Coping With COVID
ECU’s mission to serve the public was on full display as the country came to grips with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic this spring. Students, faculty, staff and alumni sprang into action across the state. Whether it came to sourcing hand sanitizer for a homeless shelter, turning a personalized gift company into a face shield manufacturer, or bringing the gift of music to thousands on social media, our Pirates used their resources to help their communities in a time of need.
Farm Stress
While most families are preparing for their holiday meals and festivities, many farm families will have their holiday cheer dictated by the harvest of their crops and Mother Nature. For U.S. farmers, the stress of the holiday season accents year-round stressors, such as increased competition from foreign trade, the damaging recent international agricultural tariffs, a surge of “nuisance” lawsuits and domestic input costs that have risen dramatically over the last two decades while the price that farmers receive for their products continues to shrink.
Expanding Broadband Opportunities
COVID-19 uncovered the realities of the rural digital divide. While almost all Americans living in urban and suburban areas have access to high speed internet, only about 63% of people living in rural communities have adopted broadband services. Due to a lack of access, families are forced to move from parking lot to parking lot in search of internet hot spots for children to sign into Zoom classes, and industry – from farming to manufacturing – are stifled by the lack of fast connections that will allow them to expand their business and reach global marketplaces.
Health Sciences
Caring During COVID-19
In times of crisis, the ECU community does not simply wait for the storm to subside. It pools its collective talents and resources before charging into the storm to serve those in need. Despite the significant operational challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, ECU Physicians – the medical practice of ECU’s Brody School of Medicine – took steps to increase access to health care for community members. The university’s healthcare leaders opened up their services to all those seeking care for COVID-19 related symptoms through its telehealth program, including those who may not have a regular primary care physician or whose primary care provider does not have telehealth capabilities.
Treating Brain Tumors
Doctors at ECU’s School of Medicine and Vidant Medical Center were the first in North Carolina to perform a new radiation therapy procedure that is giving hope to patients with recurrent brain tumors. The team’s GammaTile Therapy is a surgically targeted radiation therapy in which a 3D-collagen tile, embedded with radioactive Cesium-131 rods, is placed in the tumor cavity at the time of surgery.
Super Sponge
John Cavanagh was sitting in a collaborator’s office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration location in 2002 when a picture came onto a computer screen that changed his life – and potentially the lives people around the world. The photograph was of a sea sponge that grows about 50 feet deep in the waters of the Caribbean Sea. Eighteen years later, Cavanagh’s lab is researching a molecule emitted from the sponge that overcomes all of the ways bacteria resist antibiotics – thus making antibiotics more effective.
Congressional Testimony
A researcher at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine testified before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee about the negative health effects of chemical compounds that are estimated to be in the drinking water systems of 19 million Americans. Jamie DeWitt, an associate professor in Brody’s Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, discussed the human health risks of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in front of the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change.
Addressing Nursing Shortages
An ECU faculty member who helps Doctor of Nursing Practice students conceptualize and strategize their four-semester projects is now on the other side, working on her own project to improve population health across North Carolina. Jan Tillman, a clinical associate professor at the College of Nursing and board-certified family nurse practitioner, has been coordinating a collaboration between the ECU College of Nursing and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) as a volunteer, pairing health care providers across the state with the long-term care facilities that need them urgently.
Healthier Babies
Newborn babies whose mothers exercised during their pregnancy have improved motor skills, heart function and body composition, ECU have found. A study led by associate professor Linda May is the first to study how a mother’s exercise routine affects their child’s heart function, neuromotor skills and body composition.
Sounds of Research
The click-clack-tap of a keyboard’s plastic keys fills the room in ECU’s Auditory Prosthesis Lab. While the average person takes a keyboard’s sound for granted, Ning Zhou, an associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, helps those suffering from hearing loss rediscover the harmonious melody of the world around them. Zhou, who joined the College of Allied Health Sciences in 2013, was named the university’s Five-Year Achievement for Research & Creative Activity Award winner for her work with patients suffering from hearing loss
Research Breakthrough
Neurodegenerative diseases – such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS – are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among older adults. The risk of these diseases is reduced by intake of the omega-3 fatty acid, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is mainly in fish and fish oils. However, not much is known about exactly how DHA gets to the brain in order to be effective. A recent research breakthrough by an ECU researcher discovered that a specific enzyme – Acyl-CoA synthetase 6 (Acsl6) – is critical for enriching DHA in the brain.
Inventor Honored
An ECU faculty member whose work has allowed thousands the ability to communicate normally was recently elected to the inaugural class of the National Academy of Inventors Senior Members. Andrew Stuart, a professor in the College of Allied Health Sciences’ Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders (CSDI), is one of 66 members of the NAI’s first Senior Member class, joining fellow faculty members, scientists and administrators from NAI member institutions across the United States.
Researching Muscle Function
ECU researchers – in collaboration with researchers from Florida State University and the University of Hannover, Germany – discovered that a small region in the cardiac protein, troponin T, is critical for the regulation of cardiac muscle contraction. Joseph Michael Chalovich, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Brody School of Medicine, said this work raises the potential for developing new targets for drug development to manage heart disease and possibly skeletal muscle disorders.
Biological and Life Sciences
Growing Brains
ECU researcher Karen Litwa has an interesting response when she’s asked what she does for a living. “I say that I’m a brain builder,” she says through a smile. Litwa, an assistant professor of anatomy and cell biology at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine, studies the mechanisms by which the brain cells form connections with one another to share information with each other. But, to do that, her team has a special job – grow mini brains.
What’s the Password?
The life of a parasite can be difficult. At best they’re exploitative; at worst they turn their host into a zombie. Now try facing all those challenges without help from mom and dad. Despite these disadvantages, one parasitic bird species is helping ECU researchers build a link between how innate behaviors guide the learning process.
Preventing Blood Spoilage
Every two seconds someone in the United States needs blood and, despite nearly 6.8 million domestic blood donors each year, blood banks face a serious problem. To solve this issue, a trio of ECU researchers has discovered a novel way to improve the storage and preservation of blood using sugars to preserve cells at subzero temperatures.
Pitch Perfect
The arm motion of a baseball pitcher is one of the most taxing movements in sports. As a fan of baseball, ECU doctoral candidate Christopher Curran wants to help pitchers “throw hard” and “strike out a lot of guys.” Curran is conducting research at ECU that may one day reduce injuries and improve the performance of pitchers using the collection of three-dimensional motion capture data of a pitcher’s full body motion.
Social Sciences and Humanities
Collaboration in Opioid Care
A unique grant celebrates ECU’s commitment to using interprofessional collaboration to address emerging and challenging trends in health care, including opioid use and substance abuse prevention and treatment. An interdisciplinary team of researchers were awarded an $890,000 Graduate Psychology Education Program Grant from the Health Resource and Services Administration to support training for doctoral-level psychologists to provide integrated, interdisciplinary behavioral health as well as prevention and treatment services for opioid use disorder and other substance use disorders.
Building Healthy Farmworkers Heat-related illnesses, pesticide exposure and other occupational hazards face migrant and seasonal farmworkers each day. But a new three-year, $427,551 health disparities grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine will help ECU and its collaborators address those challenges by getting much-needed information into farmworkers’ hands.
Manufacturing Mariculture Tourism
In stuffing, soup or simply steamed, oysters are a part of many holiday food traditions. And making it easier for consumers to find oysters in other months – not just Thanksgiving or Christmas – is one of the long-term goals of a multi-institutional grant involving an ECU assistant professor.
Dating in the Digital Age
Butterflies in your stomach, a knock on the door, an awkward moment meeting your parents or roommate and then one of the most terrifying and exciting moments of dating – the first date. According to associate professor Damon Rappleyea, these moments still happen. But, the way young adults find one another in 2020 and the process of dating is very different than their parents’ generation.
Art, Communication and Culture
Making Oprah’s List
What happened to the 20th century poet Elizabeth Bishop during three life-changing weeks she spent in Paris amid the imminent threat of World War II? The answer to this question is what Liza Wieland, distinguished professor of English at ECU, visualizes in her newest novel “Paris, 7 A.M.” The book was named to Oprah’s reading list as One of the Best Books by Women of Summer 2019. Published by Simon & Schuster, Wieland’s book has enjoyed wide acclaim and gained recognition from Publishers Weekly, LitHub, The Millions, Kirkus Reviews, the News & Observer and internationally by the BBC.
Dancing Alone Together
While the threat of the coronavirus left many in-person classes with few opportunities to continue their normal way of learning, ECU School of Theatre and Dance Director Jayme Host found a way to keep her dance students engaged miles apart. Host assigned her intermediate modern technique class of 15 students to video themselves dancing for 15-30 seconds. Living rooms, bedrooms, carports and backyards became stages for students in sort of a dance riff off, culminating in a moving semester finale.
Program Turns Science Into Art
When you think of art and music, computer science may be the furthest thing from your mind. ECU’s College of Education’s iCS4All project aims to change that. The project allowed middle school students to combine art and music classes with computational thinking where students express problems and solutions in ways a computer could analyze and execute.
Helping Others ‘See’
When the Apple TV+ fantasy series “See” needed a television consultant and producer, it reached out to ECU School of Communication alumnus Joe Strechay. “See” is set 600 years in the future where everyone — except newborns — is sightless due to a pandemic virus. Forty-one-year-old Strechay, who lost most of his eyesight to a congenital condition during his freshman year at ECU, is the show’s associate producer, blindness consultant and sometimes actor.
Engineering and Technology
Pregnancy, Pressure and Hurricanes
As the Atlantic Coast prepares for its annual hurricane season, an old wives’ tale passed down through generations warns that when major storms make landfall, it’s not just the storm surge you should worry about — but a surge in births. ECU associate professor Michelle Oyen and undergraduate researcher Mackenzie Wheeler’s research in Frontiers in Physiology’s special issue on the role of fetal membranes in pregnancy and birth, explores this phenomenon. The pair used a model previously created by Oyen to develop a new mechanism that explains the potential correlation of premature births during weather-related events with large drops in barometric pressure.
Giving a Hand Up
When you see ECU student Nicholas Hill’s experimental prosthetic hand for the first time, it’s just too easy to crack a joke about the upcoming “Terminator: Dark Fate.” It looks that much like a Skynet prototype. But it isn’t. Instead, it’s a functional 3D-printed hand Hill made at home, articulated by tiny motors and fishing line and controlled by brain waves via an Ultracortex Mark IV headset. It’s intended to be a more affordable alternative for people with a transradial amputation – the partial loss of the arm below the elbow.
Improving Aircraft Safety
On a frigid November day in 2004, Chinese Eastern Airlines Flight 5210 dropped out of the sky shortly after takeoff from the Baotou Eriban Airport, exploding on the ground and then sliding into a lake. That crash stayed with assistant professor Yang Liu, and so when he went to college, he majored in aerospace engineering. Today, Liu is working to prevent similar crashes from ever happening again through research on aircraft anti-icing and deicing methods.
Paving New Paths
Saving lives and saving money are the main goals of six N.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) grants totaling more than $862,000 received by faculty in ECU’s College of Engineering and Technology. The grants vary in scope, from how pedestrians and bicyclists are counted to how bridges are built.
Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Simply the Best
ECU’s student entrepreneurship program, RISE29, was honored for its co-curricular innovation by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) at its annual conference in New Orleans. RISE29 received the association’s Excellence in Co-Curricular Innovation Award, presented annually to the college or university whose entrepreneurship program encourages creativity, quality and sustainability, and produces an impact on the communities it serves. In its first year, RISE29 earned top honors over a field that included the country’s No. 1 ranked entrepreneurship program by U.S. News & World Report.
Company Supported by STTR Grant
For the first time, a company started by ECU faculty members has received a Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant from the National Institutes of Health. RFPi, a Greenville medical device company, was awarded $1.49 million for continued development of technology that will be used to evaluate patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), a subset of vascular disease that affects blood flow to the lower extremities.
Exhemplary Innovation
ECU is planting its roots in North Carolina’s emerging hemp industry. While the industry remains regulated – growers must apply for a license and are held to strict standards for plant THC content – hemp could find a home in agriculture-rich eastern North Carolina. Innovators and entrepreneurs at ECU are using university resources to explore the hemp industry and its potential future in the region.
Building Entrepreneurs
ECU’s College of Business is offering a new undergraduate degree in entrepreneurship through the Miller School of Entrepreneurship beginning in fall 2019. The Bachelor of Science in Entrepreneurship program allows students to take courses in topic areas such as entrepreneurial finance, sales and marketing, and strategy, as well as opportunity assessment, business planning, small and family business management, and new venture launch.
Education
Supporting Team Science
ECU’s undergraduate research and student training opportunities will receive a boost thanks to a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Undergraduate research opportunities have traditionally focused on an individual’s acquisition of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)-related skills. Often, nurturing team building and collaboration proficiencies are secondary. The project’s interdisciplinary saw an opportunity to change that way of thinking.
Homegrown Talent
ECU celebrated decades of partnerships and a program rebrand in December, officially unveiling its program Partnership Teach. The College of Education’s online degree completion model allows students to take courses at a North Carolina community college and then transfer to ECU to complete a teaching degree. The program was highlighted by the APLU for its innovative nature.
Providing Rural Mental Health
One devastating and often forgotten side effect of disasters is the impact to mental health. This is especially true in rural communities that experience a shortage of health care and economic resources. To help combat this, the College of Education’s counselor education program is collaborating with the ECU Rural Education Institute on a project to address disaster mental health preparation and response.
Empowering Principals
A group of ECU researchers studying the effects of school leadership has secured a five-year, $9.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. “Innovate, Inquire, Iterate and Impact: Igniting the Power of Network Improvement Communities to Enhance Professional Learning for Educational Leaders” focuses on the development of K-12 principals to observe, analyze and communicate improvements to classroom instruction.
Dental Medicine
Granting Smiles
ECU’s School of Dental Medicine has received a $3.1 million grant to enhance resident training in the care of patients with special needs across the state. The award from the Health Resources and Services Administration, one of the largest in the dental school’s history, will focus on improving dental care for pediatric and elderly patients as well as those with mobility issues and other complex health problems and those with mental, emotional and behavioral challenges. The five-year project address three specific goals—assessing and treating the needs of vulnerable populations, expanding pediatric dentistry training to a rural location and developing tools and training for population health management.
Funding Disadvantaged Students
A $3.2 million grant to continue the School of Dental Medicine’s Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students (SDS) program will fund scholarships for economically disadvantaged students over the next five years. The grant provides opportunities for the school to increase the recruitment, retention and graduation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including under-represented minority students, who will eventually practice as primary care dentists in underserved areas of North Carolina.
Smiles for Veterans
Faculty, students and residents from the dental school joined forces with local organizations to provide free dental care to veterans during its annual Smiles. Throughout the day, 41 veterans received care ranging from extractions and restorations to simple cleanings and other procedures meant to improve their overall health and their smiles. The program has served more than 100 veterans since 2018.
School Cleanings
North Carolina’s Bertie County, located in the state’s northeast quadrant, has only one or two licensed dentists for a population of over 21,000 people. Now, a $400,000 grant from the Duke Endowment is making it possible for the School of Dental Medicine to go a step further in delivering oral health care to children in region through the Bertie County School Based Oral Prevention Program.
Coastal Research
Coastal Focus
ECU has renewed its commitment to coastal science by creating a new academic unit called Integrated Coastal Programs, which encompasses the Department of Coastal Studies and the Coastal Studies Institute, located at ECU’s Outer Banks Campus on Roanoke Island. Dr. Reide Corbett, dean of Integrated Coastal Programs, will oversee the unit, which is the product of several years of strategic thinking about how ECU might grow and improve its coastal research and teaching programs. The university is working to maximize the utilization of its Outer Banks Campus, which is home to the multi-institutional Coastal Studies Institute.
Desalination Development
The University of North Carolina System announced that a team from ECU has been awarded a grant through UNC’s Research Opportunities Initiative (UNC ROI). The $1.4 million grant will go toward the development of a no-waste, sustainable water desalination system. It is the first time that an ECU-led team has received an ROI grant since the program began in 2014-15.
Pacific Traveler
Most oceanographers would rather find themselves studying sardines instead of being packed like one, but ECU assistant professor Rebecca Asch squeezed into the research vessel Kilo Moana for a training cruise off the coast of Hawaii with nearly two dozen researchers. Asch traveled the Pacific as part of the National Science Foundation and University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System’s chief scientist training cruise. The training opportunity is designed to teach early-career scientists how to plan and write effective research cruise proposals, while also familiarizing them with the ship’s equipment and crew.
Intentional Shipwreck?
It has long been speculated by historians that the notorious pirate Blackbeard may have intentionally run his ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge (QAR), aground off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. New research from ECU’s Jeremy Borrelli supports this theory and suggests that Blackbeard may have indeed landed on the sand bar near Beaufort intentionally because the vessel was beyond repair.
Community Engagement
On the Road Again
For the third consecutive year, ECU’s Purple and Gold Bus Tour rolled through eastern North Carolina, traveling more than 380 miles to 13 locations across eight counties. The annual tour, hosted by the Division of Research, Economic Development and Engagement and funded by a grant from the College of Nursing, carried nearly 50 ECU faculty, students and staff members across the state. The event introduces researchers to the culture, geography, heritage, economy and assets of eastern North Carolina while encouraging partnerships that create long-term benefits for regional communities.
Rising Tide of Research
A nearly $300,000 grant will allow a team of researchers from ECU to look at sea level rise and its impact on coastal communities. The two-year grant comes from the National Science Foundation and includes an interdisciplinary approach involving ECU’s Department of Engineering and Department of Anthropology as well as the Coastal Studies Institute.
Mentoring Minority Faculty
Seven underrepresented minority in medicine junior faculty members from family medicine departments across the nation spent several days this week at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine for mentorship in scholarship and manuscript writing. The writing skills workshop for underrepresented minorities in medicine was part of a yearlong faculty development program and was funded with a grant from the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Foundation (STFM) with support from Brody and the University of Utah Health Sciences Campus.
Service Through Internships
ECU students made their impact felt across eastern North Carolina as part of the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union Public Fellows Internship program. The program places undergraduate students throughout the region as part of internship projects that address community-identified priorities. The program provides opportunities for students to develop leadership, analytical, problem solving, communication and project management skills, as well as allowing them to network in professional settings.
Global Impact
Success in the Arctic
Changes seen in the Arctic climate have a direct impact on the frequency and intensity of hurricanes experienced in eastern North Carolina. That’s why Dan Dickerson, an ECU science education professor and STEM CoRE coordinator, recently traveled to Utqiagvik – the northernmost city in Alaska – to help researchers collect data and test the Smart Stick, a snow sensor prototype developed by engineering students at ECU. Dickerson and his team braved temperatures as low as -15 degrees Fahrenheit to deploy multiple types of data collection sensors that are used to measure everything from melting snow to the conditions in the atmosphere in an effort to better understand the changing climate.
Back to Saipan
More than 24 hours of air travel, the International Date Line and thousands of miles of open ocean separate Greenville from Saipan, but a pair of ECU researchers will call the island home thanks to a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. “Saipan’s Land and Sea: Battle Scars and Sites of Resilience” is directed by College of Education Associate Professor Anne Ticknor, with Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor Jennifer McKinnon serving as co-primary investigator.
Eye in the Sky
What does West Africa’s coastline have in common with eastern North Carolina’s Outer Banks? A lot more than you might think, says ECU assistant professor David Lagomasino. The 2007 ECU graduate uses satellite images and remote airborne sensors to study coastal ecosystems around the world, including the Outer Banks and tropical coastlines like those in West Africa and India.
Mysteries of the Deep
Maybe more than most, students and faculty in the ECU Program for Maritime Studies live a Pirate’s life, diving deep into the robust maritime history of coastal North Carolina and uncovering mysteries throughout the world. They’ve traveled everywhere from the muddy waters of Pamlico Sound to the clear blue of the South Pacific, researching everything from artifacts of the infamous pirate Blackbeard’s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge to World War II aircraft wreckage 30 feet below the surface of the sea.
Awards and Recognition
National Appointment
An ECU associate professor will have the chance to shape science funding at the national level during a two-year period. Chris Balakrishnan, a faculty member in the Department of Biology in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, has been appointed to a temporary program director position with the National Science Foundation’s Evolutionary Processes Cluster. The position allows Balakrishnan to make recommendations about which NSF research proposals to fund. He’ll also influence new directions in the fields of science, engineering and education, while supporting cutting-edge research and mentoring junior researchers.
International Connection
An ECU associate professor traveled to Zambia to assist in water quality testing of the African nation’s groundwater system. Alex Manda, a hydrogeologist in the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award in March. Manda – a native of Zambia – spent eight months in the country studying the potential contamination of groundwater in the suburbs around the capital of Lusaka.
CAREER Achievement
An ECU assistant professor turned in her bass guitar for a soil probe to rock out with microbes. The unconventional move from rocker to scientist paid off for microbial ecologist Ariane Peralta who was awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Environmental Biology Ecosystem Science Cluster.
Second Time’s the Charm
Andrea Kitta, associate professor of English at ECU, has won the 2020 Brian McConnell Book Award for her recent book, “The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination and Folklore,” which sheds light on how information and misinformation spread during an outbreak like COVID-19. Given by the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR), the award recognizes and inspires standards of excellence in contemporary legend publications and encourages scholarship in the field.
Alumni Success
Winning Combination
Thanks to skills acquired as an ECU computer science graduate, access to resources that encourage innovation, and mentorship and business planning from the Miller School of Entrepreneurship, alumnus Magus Pereira is one step closer to being a true social innovator. Pereira, along with his team which included four innovators from across the United States, won the first IBM global Call for Code Challenge for their solution to keeping people connected during a natural disaster named Project OWL, “Organization, Whereabouts and Logistics.”
Sniffing Out Sickness
A beagle trained by an ECU alumnus and former Department of Surgery staffer is hunting a new type of prey. Harley, a wayward hunting dog who refused to run rabbits, is sniffing out Clostridioides difficile spores throughout medical centers, keeping patients healthier and happier during their stays.
Brushing Better
In 2016, Lindsay McCormick started an experiment in sustainability, resolving to make an alternative toothpaste that didn’t involve throwing away little plastic tubes every month. McCormick, who graduated from ECU in 2007 with a degree in communication, was unsettled about the amount of travel-sized toothpastes she went through, especially when she learned that more than one billion toothpaste tubes end up in landfills every year.
All About Exposure
Alumnus and award-winning lighting designer Howell Binkley returned to ECU’s School of Theatre and Dance on to visit with students and attend a scholarship fundraising gala. The two-time Tony Award winner, whose worked on shows included “Hamilton” and “Jersey Boys,” shared his keys to success with the future Pirate graduates.
Future of Research
Topping Out
Construction of the ECU Life Sciences and Biotechnology Building reached a milestone with a “topping out” ceremony at the site on the corner of 10th and Evans streets in Greenville. The building is the first structure to be built on the ECU Millennial Campus and will serve as a gateway for eastern North Carolina to ECU, providing a dynamic environment where industry and community partners can engage with university faculty and students, and access university resources to address problems, develop innovative solutions and make strategic decisions for future growth and development.
Millennial Campus Moves Forward
ECU’s Millennial Campus project received a boost of support with the approval of two projects that will help develop downtown Greenville. The university’s Board of Trustees gave the go ahead for two deals that will bring a hotel to Uptown Greenville and public-private partnership development opportunities to the city’s warehouse district.
New Cyber Space
It’s not just what you see in the new cybersecurity lab in the Science and Technology Building at ECU. It’s also what you don’t see. There are no wires, cables or power cords hanging from the ceiling. Cameras, microphones and speakers that allow for online learning blend into the walls. The lab supports about 150 graduate and undergraduate students seeking degrees in information and computer technology with concentrations in cybersecurity, a program that has been certified as a National Security Agency National Center of Academic Excellence.
Virtual Simulation
As ECU’s Brody School of Medicine prepares future medical professionals, it relies on the Office of Clinical Simulation to provide lifelike patient scenarios for students. However, with coronavirus guidelines in place, students have been unable to physically use the Clinical Simulation Center to learn and practice clinical skills required to treat patients. That’s changing. The center has implemented telesimulation, a simulation-based experience at a distance using video conferencing platforms to provide education, training and performance assessment to learners at off-site locations.
