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Graduate School Dean Bradley Bond with Professor Abu Bah, NIU's 2015 Outstanding International Educator.

Graduate School Dean Bradley Bond congratulates Professor Abu Bah,
NIU’s 2015 Outstanding International Educator.

Abu Bah, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, has been selected as the recipient of NIU’s 2015 Outstanding International Educator Award.

The announcement was made during the annual International Recognition Reception, one of many events on campus marking International Education Week. International Education Week is sponsored by the Division of International Affairs.

The theme for this year was “Achieving Access for All.”

International Affairs also tapped NIU’s Department of English as the 2015 Outstanding International Department.

Jiaqi Li was selected for this year’s Outstanding Contribution to International Education by an International Student. Li is a graduate student from China, who is pursuing his master’s degree in the School of Music.

Shanay Murdock was selected for this year’s Outstanding Contribution to International Education by a domestic student. Murdock is an undergraduate student studying anthropology.

Date posted: December 7, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Abu Bah receives Outstanding International Educator Award

Categories: Awards Global Students

Elizabeth Kahn and Thomas McCann

Elizabeth Kahn and Thomas McCann

With help from NIU students, Thomas McCann and Elizabeth Kahn, both NIU English professors specializing in teacher certification, say they have zeroed in on key strategies to improve high school student performance on writing assignments.

Previous research shows, McCann says, that students perform better on writing assignments when given several opportunities to prepare for that task through classroom discussion.

McCann and Kahn began investigating this topic when they were high school English teachers.

In 2006, they published their research with co-authors Larry R. Johannessen and Joseph M. Flanagan in a book titled, “Talking in Class: Using Discussion to Enhance Teaching and Learning,” which highlights the role of critical thinking and “authentic discussion” in improving reading and writing performance.

Authentic discussion encourages students to move beyond recounting facts to making meaningful contributions through supported arguments and counter-arguments – skills required in effective writing, too.

To set up their current study, McCann and Kahn surveyed local high school students to determine culturally relevant and newsworthy topics for case studies that interested them, such as whether schools should replace human teachers with robots or whether the doctor who contracted Ebola and recovered should return to work in Africa.

Using these responses, NIU students in teacher licensure developed classroom activities that required high school students to investigate and defend different perspectives about an issue in conversation and writing.

Photo of red pens on a stack of paperLocal high school teachers then tried out the activities. McCann and Kahn observed the conversations, analyzed student writing samples and reported results to their NIU students. This sequence gave NIU students first-hand experience with professional educational research.

High school “students were immersed in the discussion and facilitating it themselves, which suggests they are deeply invested in what they are talking about,” says McCann, who is one of this year’s recipients of NIU’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards.

The research by Kahn and McCann will help teachers to interpret the steps students use during conversation to prepare for writing and enable teachers to implement similar activities in the future.

Kahn is a former teacher and department chair at Conant High School in Hoffman Estates. After 36 years of teaching, she sought a position where she could train aspiring English teachers. As a visiting assistant professor, she teaches research and methods courses in English Language Arts for undergraduate and graduate students at NIU.

McCann has taught at several local school districts and colleges over the past 25 years but most recently served as the assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction for Elmhurst Community Unit School District 205. His long-time interest in teaching English and mentoring new teachers directed his career path toward becoming a professor of teacher certification. As a professor at NIU, McCann teaches undergraduate and graduate composition and methods courses in the teacher licensure program.

by Lindsey Crane

Date posted: November 16, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on How to improve student writing

Categories: Campus Highlights Faculty & Staff Humanities Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Students

Clymer bookNIU professor Kenton Clymer has authored a newly published book on the history of U.S. diplomatic relations with Myanmar, and it couldn’t be timelier in light of the historic elections unfolding this month in the country.

Clymer is a Distinguished Research Professor in the NIU Department of History and a leading scholar in the history of American relations with South and Southeast Asia.

Clymer will deliver a public talk on the new book, titled “A Delicate Relationship: The United States and Burma/Myanmar since 1945,” at 2:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, in the Thurgood Marshall Gallery of Swen Parson Hall.

The book will be officially launched a day earlier during an event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Clymer spent an academic year in residence at the Wilson Center while writing the book.

His intense interest in Burma was kindled in 1987 while he was in India, where he struck up a friendship with two young scholars, Michael Aris and his wife, Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Burma’s independence hero, Aung San.

Aung San Suu Kyi has since become famous the world over for her courage and leading role in Myanmar’s pro-democratic movement.

Kenton Clymer in 2013 with a pedicab driver in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar

Kenton Clymer in 2013 with a pedicab driver
in Sittwe, Rakhine State, Myanmar

In 1989, she was placed under house arrest, and she spent 15 of the next 21 years in custody despite being awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1991. She was released from house arrest in 2011, and her party appears to have won a landslide victory in the latest national elections, held Nov. 8.

Clymer, who taught a course at Yangon University in Myanmar in 2013, resolved to write his new book while Aung San Suu Kyi was still on house arrest. It is the first comprehensive history of American relations with Burma/Myanmar since World War II.

The book addresses that country’s struggle for independence from Britain, armed communist and ethnic rebellions during the Cold War and U.S. efforts to suppress rebellion and drug exports to troops in Vietnam and to the mainland United States.

The book also examines the U.S. response to recent oppressive military regimes in Burma/Myanmar, the rise of dissident leaders within the country who struggled against these developments and the restoration of full diplomatic relations during the Obama administration.

Related:

Date posted: November 16, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Clymer book examines history of U.S. diplomatic relations with Myanmar

Categories: Communiversity Events Faculty & Staff Global Humanities Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research

An early 20th century map of the Chicago business district.When we think of maps, we often think of the transportation variety, but maps can tell us much more than how to travel from one destination to the next.

Maps hold incredible amounts of informational power and are often used in a wide variety of ways to conduct research.

Today maps help identify humanitarian needs, show trends in popular culture, guide urban planning, predict the weather and forecast the spread of disease.

To coincide with Geography Awareness Week, the NIU Department of Geography will hold a public symposium titled, “Explore! The Power of Maps”,” from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, in the auditorium at Cole Hall.

“Maps can be both thought-provoking and entertaining, while providing a large amount of data and information about the world simultaneously,” says geography professor Jim Wilson, who is organizing the symposium.

“The purpose of the symposium is to showcase how maps can be used to explore and help solve scientific and societal questions and at the same time stretch the imagination as an aesthetic form of visual communication,” Wilson adds.

Mars Global Topography

Mars Global Topography

Symposium speakers and their topics:

  • Geography professor Thomas Pingel: Helping Disaster Relief Efforts from Home: An Introduction to the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
  • Geography Ph.D. student Stephen Strader: Mapping Hazards and Their Impacts
  • Geography professor Wei Luo: Maps of Martian Valley Networks and the Northern Hypothesis
  • Rob Ridinger, faculty member, Founders Memorial Library: Colors of the World: the NIU Maps Collection
  • Geography professor Ryan James: Mapping and Planning Support Systems
  • Jenny Benisch and Clare Connelly with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey: The Johnson Collection: An Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Projectile Point Types in Northern Illinois
  • Cartographer Amanda Carew with the NIU Geovisual Mapping Laboratory: Recreational Mapping: Examples of Bicycle and Running Maps for Personal and Public Use
  • Visiting assistant geography professor Shannon McCarragher: Maps and Popular Culture
  • Wilson: Disease and Death in Space and Time

Parking for the symposium will be available in the Visitors Lot and Parking Deck (both free after 6:30 p.m. that evening). For more information on the event, contact Wilson at jwilson41@niu.edu or Dawn Sibley at dsibley@niu.edu.

Date posted: November 12, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on November 19 symposium to focus on ‘power of maps’

Categories: Communiversity Events Faculty & Staff Liberal Arts and Sciences On Campus Science and Technology What's Going On

Dara Little

Dara Little

The Society of Research Administrators International (SRAI) has recognized NIU’s Dara Little with its Distinguished Faculty designation.

Little serves as NIU’s assistant vice president for research and sponsored programs. She was honored with the award earlier this month at the 2015 SRA International Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. Little was the only U.S. research administrator to receive the designation this year.

The designation is based on a competitive peer review process that assesses an individual’s original contributions to the field of research administration.

Distinguished Faculty members serve the society as expert consultants or speakers to present professional workshops, educational courses and professional development programs.

“NIU is very fortunate to have Dara on staff,” says Gerald Blazey, interim vice president of NIU’s Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships. “She brings a great deal of professionalism and progressiveness to the Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships.”

Little is an accomplished research administrator with more than 15 years of progressive research administration experience in higher education. Her areas of responsibility include NIU Sponsored Programs Administration operations, policy guidance and development, as well as being an authorized institutional official.

Society of Research Administrators International logo“Dara has a proven record of accomplishment with supporting sponsored funding priorities by balancing compliance and administrative requirements with faculty research needs,” according to the awards story in the SRA International online newsletter.

SRA International is the premier global research management society providing education, professional development and the latest comprehensive information about research management to 4,500 members from more than 40 countries. The organization acknowledges individuals who inspire others and serve as a model for the profession of research administration.

Date posted: October 22, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU’s Dara Little recognized for research administration excellence

Categories: Awards Campus Highlights Did You Know? Faculty & Staff

James Naremore

James Naremore

The NIU English Department will host film scholar James Naremore, Emeritus Chancellor’s Professor at Indiana University, who will deliver a graduate colloquium lecture titled “Orson Welles at 100.”

Naremore will offer a retrospective on the career of Orson Welles, who is among Hollywood’s most famous actors, writers, directors and producers. Welles co-wrote, directed and starred in his most critically acclaimed movie, “Citizen Kane” (1941), often ranked at or near the top of compilations of the greatest films of all time.

Naremore’s talk, which will include discussion of Welles’ time spent outside of the United States and his contributions to media other than film, will be held from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, in Cole Hall 100, with a reception and refreshments in the foyer beginning at 5 p.m.

In honor of Naremore’s presentation, DeKalb’s Egyptian Theatre will host a screening of Welles’ last major film project, “F for Fake (1973), a documentary on art forgery, authorship and authenticity. The film will be screened at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, with doors opening 30 minutes in advance.

Both events are sponsored by the NIU Graduate School and Graduate Colloquium and the departments of English, Communication and History, as well as the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Society.

For more information, email the English Graduate Student Association at egsa.niu@gmail.com.

by Kelsey Williams

Date posted: October 22, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Renowned film scholar James Naremore to talk on Orson Welles

Categories: Arts Communiversity Digital Signage Events Faculty & Staff Liberal Arts and Sciences On Campus Students

Laxman Thoutam

Laxman Thoutam

An NIU Ph.D. student in physics is the first author of recently published research in the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters.

The research, by Laxman Thoutam with co-authors from NIU and Argonne National Laboratory, might move scientists closer to understanding the properties of an unusual material known as tungsten-ditelluride’s (WTe2), which could play a critical role in future electronics.

“This is definitely a good start to Mr. Thoutam’s scientific career,” says NIU’s Zhili Xiao, a Board of Trustees Professor of physics who holds a joint appointment with Argonne, serves as Thoutam’s adviser and is a co-author on the research. “Being first author means he was the most significant contributor to the work reported in the article.”

Interest in WTe2 was sparked in 2014, when an article in the journal Nature reported on the material’s extremely large magnetoresistance. “Such a material is highly desirable in recording media, magnetic field sensors, computer hard-drives and other devices,” Xiao said.

Thoutam worked with colleagues to reveal the mechanism for the extremely large magnetoresistance, and their discoveries were reported in the July 22 issue of Physical Review Letters. The findings are further discussed by Kamran Behnia, director of quantum matter research at Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, in an opinion piece published in the journal Physics, which provides news and commentary on select papers from American Physical Society journals.

“Exploring physics at the nanoscale gives us unique and fascinating results that could do wonders in real-life applications,” Thoutam said. “I focus on bringing to light the many possibilities of using nanoscience for practical purposes. There is much to be discovered at this small scale.”

Zhili Xiao

Zhili Xiao

Thoutam came to DeKalb from India in 2009 to pursue master’s degree in electrical engineering at NIU’s College of Engineering and Engineering Technology (CEET). After earning that degree in 2011, he joined NIU’s physics Ph.D. program.

“I thought it could be extremely challenging for an engineering student to pursue a physics Ph.D.,” Xiao said. “However, Mr. Thoutam proved my concerns unnecessary, earning stellar grades. With the support of NIU’s Nanoscience Fellowship, he started his dissertation research in my group two years ago. He has been working on two-dimensional materials such as graphene – a monolayer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb lattice – aiming to discover new phenomena and novel applications.”

In addition to Thoutam and Xiao, the research paper’s co-authors included Y.L. Wang and W.K. Kwok of the Argonne Materials Science Division (MSD); S. Das, A. Luican-Mayer and R. Divan of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials; and G.W. Crabtree of Argonne MSD and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

Date posted: October 20, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU Ph.D. student publishes discoveries in top physics journal

Categories: Engineering and Engineering Technology Faculty & Staff Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Science and Technology Students

Judy Santacaterina and Yanelly Villegas

Judy Santacaterina and Yanelly Villegas

Two members of the NIU community were recognized for their achievements at the annual convention of the Illinois Communication and Theatre Association, held in late September in Bloomington.

Judy Santacaterina, an NIU Forensics coach and longtime champion of the program, presented NIU student Yanelly Villegas with the 2015 Norton Graduate Student Award. The award recognizes a graduate student who has made outstanding contributions to the fields of communication and/or theater.

Villegas earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from NIU.

Her contributions include her outstanding work as an assistant debate coach with NIU Forensics, her collaboration with NIU’s College of Business to bring argumentation skills to graduate students in accountancy, and her work with the Argument Centered Education (ACE) program, which provides debate experiences to Chicago’s underserved high school students. Villegas is presently an instructor in the Department of Communication.

Santacaterina herself was awarded the W. P. Sandford Award, the longest-standing award presented by ICTA. It recognizes exceptional service to the association over an extended period and significant contributions to the field of speech and theater. The award was presented to Santacaterina by her former student, Professor Jeff Przybylo from Harper College.

Santacaterina has served as the director of Individual Events at NIU since 1982, gaining national recognition for her contributions as a coach, teacher and mentor. She has coached numerous state and national champion speakers, including 15 interstate orators. She also served as secretary of ICTA in 1984 and president in 2013.

“It was an honor to have been mentored and taught by so many distinguished members of this organization, and it is a privilege to continue that tradition of learning from a new generation of communication educators,” Santacaterina said. “There is something so very special about the cycle of education and the beautiful reciprocity between student and teacher.”

NIU has rich tradition with the Illinois Communication and Theatre Association and with the Sanford Award. Five of the previous award winners were NIU Department of Communication faculty members, including Santacaterina’s mentor, Phil Gray, who was presented the award by Santacaterina in 1995.

Date posted: October 12, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Illinois Communication and Theatre Association honors NIU duo

Categories: Awards Business Campus Highlights Faculty & Staff Liberal Arts and Sciences Students

Biswa Nath Datta

Biswa Nath Datta

Biswa Nath Datta, a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at NIU, begins one of the Fulbright Scholar Program’s most distinguished appointments this month.

Datta received the 2015 Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Chair Award to teach graduate students at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur (IIT-KGP), India.

Additionally, during the four-month appointment, he will travel to prominent higher education institutions throughout the country to give guest lectures and take part in symposia and conferences.

Run by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Program awards about 8,000 grants each year to graduate students, university faculty and researchers worldwide. But the program gives out only about 40 Distinguished Chair Awards to eminent scholars with significant publication and teaching records.

Datta’s research seeks out solutions to real-life, control-and-vibration engineering design and analysis. His mathematical and computational techniques aim to improve performance and design safety in autos, aircraft, bridges, buildings and highways.

In India, Datta’s Fulbright award will be administered by United States-India Educational Foundation (USIEF), which will coordinate lectures on his current interdisciplinary research, “Computational and Optimization Methods for Inverse Quadratic Eigenvalue Problems in Active Vibration Control and Finite Element Model Updating.”

Locations for his lectures will include IIT-Delhi, IIT-Madras, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Gujarat, IIT- Guwahati, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata.

Professor Datta had previously received two Senior Fulbright Specialists Awards to visit and deliver lectures on his research at National University of Mongolia and several universities in Egypt.

Date posted: October 1, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on NIU’s Biswa Nath Datta selected for Fulbright Distinguished Chair Award

Categories: Awards Faculty & Staff Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Science and Technology

Clyde Kimball

Clyde Kimball

For five decades, physicist Clyde Kimball – a man of big ideas, immutable passion and abundant kindness – was a fixture on the Northern Illinois University campus.

An NIU distinguished research professor, he is credited with cementing the university’s collaborative ties with Argonne National Laboratory, attracting tens of millions of dollars in funding for research at NIU and co-founding the university’s Institute for Nano Science, Engineering, and Technology (InSET), serving as its first director.

In recent decades – with his wire-rimmed eyeglasses and Telly Savalas-like dome – he cut the striking figure of a scientist.

“Even after retiring from teaching, Clyde continued to conduct research and was more active than most people in the prime of life,” says Chris McCord, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Kimball, 87, died unexpectedly June 3, in Corvallis, Ore., where he had moved with his wife, Joan Truckenbrod.

His life and scientific contributions will be celebrated in a symposium honoring his legacy from 3 to 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 2, in the Altgeld Auditorium. Titled “Clyde Kimball: A Life of Science,” the event is open to the public, but an RSVP would be appreciated to ellena@niu.edu.

The keynote speakers will be NIU adjunct professor Stanislaw Kolesnik and associate physics professor Dennis Brown, who will both talk about Kimball’s scholarship; professor Laurence Lurio, chair of physics, who will discuss Kimball’s contributions to NIU; and Ercan Alp, a visiting professor at NIU and senior scientist at Argonne who worked closely with Kimball and will speak about the national impact and future direction of Kimball’s research.

Laurence Lurio

Laurence Lurio

A reception will follow the talks. Information on parking and a guest book for those unable to attend can be found on the event website, where a video of the talks will be posted the following week. Additionally, a scholarship in Kimball’s name has been established to be awarded to NIU physics students.

“Clyde was not only an exceptional scientist, he was an extraordinary person,” said friend and former colleague Cara Carlson, now a business administrative associate with Northern Illinois University Press. “His goal was to make NIU a leading scientific institution – he truly loved working at the university and cherished the friends he made while on his journey.”

Always upbeat, Kimball encouraged colleagues and students to strive for greatness, often giving out inspirational gifts or informational books. Carlson recalls once going out for coffee with him, when a student graciously offered his seat to the professor. Kimball later went up to the counter, purchased a $20 gift certificate and handed it to the student, saying, “People like you will change the world,” Carlson recalled.

She was recipient of his generosity as well.

“It was Clyde who inspired me to get my master’s degree,” Carlson says. “He said, ‘Cara, you have so much more talent than you realize. You are going places.’ ”

Logo of Argonne National LaboratoryA native of Laurium, Mich., Kimball graduated from Michigan Technological University with a B.S. and an M.S. in engineering physics. He earned his Ph.D. in physics from St. Louis University in 1959, having performed his dissertation research at Argonne National Laboratory. He served as a radiation officer in the U.S. Army at Dugway Proving Ground attached to the 101st Airborne Division, as a staff scientist for Ford Motor Company and North American Aviation and in many research consulting posts at Argonne.

He joined the NIU Department of Physics in the fall of 1964, while continuing professional linkages with the federal laboratory.

Over the years, he taught almost all departmental undergraduate and graduate courses, formally supervising more than 30 research students. He supported hundreds more from his research grants. He was named among the university’s inaugural group of Presidential Research Professors in 1982 and elevated to Distinguished Research Professor in 1986.

Pat Burnett, head of the Engineering Department at Edmonds Community College near Seattle, came to NIU in the late 1990s to pursue a master’s degree in physics. He enrolled in an advanced course taught by Kimball and later co-taught a class with his professor.

“When we would prepare for the class, we would sit in his office and talk about movies, music, science, poetry and, every now and again, physics,” Burnett recalls. “Clyde never lectured to me; he only asked me questions, shared a few stories and listened to my stories. I realized that I was not only exploring the physics textbooks and the demonstrations of Newton and Galileo, I was exploring who I was and how I fit into this world.”

Kimball was well known for mentoring junior faculty as well.

Susan Mini

Susan Mini

Former NIU physics chair Susan Mini, now vice provost for resource planning, met Kimball while she was a graduate student at Argonne. Later, he lobbied on her behalf when she applied to join the NIU faculty.

“It was a tough time for physicists after the Cold War had ended, and Clyde was instrumental in supporting me,” Mini says. “He also helped get my research career started.”

Mini says Kimball was adept at brainstorming and putting the people in place to bring concepts to reality. “He would have these great wonderful big-picture ideas,” Mini says.

During his NIU career, Kimball developed inter- and intra-college collaborations and conceived numerous initiatives and partnerships with Argonne, including the creation of jointly appointed Distinguished Graduate Fellowships in nanoscience and engineering. He was instrumental in having NIU partner with other institutions in the Consortium for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS) and for a number of years served as chair of the consortium’s Board of Governors. He also served on the Executive Committee for the Basic Energy Sciences Synchrotron Research Center.

Additionally, Kimball published nearly 300 scholarly research articles, served as science adviser to the president of NIU and worked twice as a program director at the National Science Foundation, providing vital guidance at the national level while building important recognition for NIU.

“The NSF experience gave Clyde a broad understanding of the funding agencies and really helped the university in many ways,” says physicist Gerald Blazey, interim vice president of NIU’s Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships. “He showed a lot of initiative and brought some big ideas to NIU.”

Despite retiring from teaching in 2000, Kimball remained active on campus. In recent years, he worked with computer science chair Nicholas Karonis to spearhead NIU’s high-performance computing initiative.

“Working with Clyde was exhilarating,” Karonis says. “He embodied an extraordinary balance between vision and pragmatism. And he inspired us to set our sights beyond our imaginations by reminding us how much we can achieve when we work together.”

Clyde Kimball and Nicholas Karonis with NIU’s computer cluster in 2012.

Clyde Kimball and Nicholas Karonis with NIU’s computer cluster in 2012.

Date posted: September 22, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Clyde Kimball: A Life of Science

Categories: Communiversity Events Faculty & Staff Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences Research Science and Technology

Max Essex

Max Essex

Harvard University’s Max Essex, one of the world’s leading researchers on HIV/AIDS, will visit NIU on Thursday, Oct. 1, to deliver the 12th annual installment of the W. Bruce Lincoln Endowed Lecture Series.

Essex’s talk, titled “The Pandemic of HIV/AIDS: Fear and Denial Followed by Progress in Health and Human Rights,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Altgeld Auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public.

“We are delighted to be welcoming world-renowned researcher Max Essex as our Lincoln Lecturer this fall,” said Kenton Clymer, an NIU Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of History. “For decades, he has been at the forefront of research into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and he has made extraordinary discoveries to the great benefit of humankind.”

Essex is chair of the Harvard AIDS Initiative (HAI), the Mary Woodard Lasker Professor of Health Sciences and chair of the Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership.

In 1982, Essex hypothesized, with Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier, that a retrovirus was the cause of AIDS, according to his biography on the HAI website. For this work, the three shared the 1986 Lasker Award, the highest honor given for medical research in the United States. Essex and his collaborators also first identified the HIV-2 virus in West Africa.

With doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows, Essex also identified the envelope proteins of HIV that are routinely used for diagnosis of the disease and for blood screening. Since 1990, most of his research has focused on HIV in developing countries, especially Thailand, Senegal, Tanzania and Botswana.

Essex and his team have conducted several breakthrough studies on the prevention of mother-to-infant transmission of HIV. The studies resulted in guideline recommendations used by the World Health Organization to reduce maternal transmission of HIV in developing countries.

Book cover of “Saturday Is For Funerals”Essex has published more than 580 research papers, with more than 40 appearing in the top scientific journals, Science and Nature.

He has edited 10 books, including “AIDS in Africa and Emerging Infections in Asia.” His most recent book, “Saturday Is for Funerals,” published in 2010 and co-authored with AIDS activist and former Botswana Supreme Court Justice Unity Dow, is written for a general audience and will be available for purchase at the lecture.

Sponsored by the NIU history department and the W. Bruce Lincoln Endowment, the Lincoln Lecture Series brings distinguished scholars to campus to speak on topics of interest to the academic community and general public.

The lectures engage key issues and are often interdisciplinary, in the spirit of Professor Lincoln’s research, writing and teaching.

Lincoln taught Russian history at NIU from 1967 to 1999, while earning recognition as one of America’s leading experts on Russia. The recipient of many national grants and awards, he published 12 widely acclaimed books on Russia, several of them skillfully crafted for general readers.

For more information, call (815) 753-0131 or email history@niu.edu.

Date posted: September 17, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on World-renowned HIV/AIDS researcher Max Essex to give NIU Lincoln Lecture

Categories: Communiversity Digital Signage Events Faculty & Staff Global Latest News Liberal Arts and Sciences On Campus Research Science and Technology

Cherilyn Murer

Cherilyn G. Murer

Past Chair and present Trustee of the Northern Illinois University Board, Cherilyn G. Murer has authored her seventh book examining a new business framework aimed at better coordinating efforts by hospitals and physicians to reduce cost, increase quality and improve patient satisfaction.

Published this month by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, the book, “Clinical Co-Management: A Bridge to Clinical Integration and Pathway to Bundled Payments,” provides a comprehensive view of the Clinical Co-Management Agreement (CCMA) framework.

“I am very excited about this book which identifies a methodology serving as the framework for hospital/physician bundled payments; the future of American health care reimbursement,” said Murer, an NIU Law alumna and founder, president and CEO of Mokena-based Murer Consultants, Inc.

Detailing why CCMAs present a viable alternative to conventional hospital-physician alignment models – such as medical directorships, committee chairs and physician employment – the book presents an insider’s view of the working models for clinical co-management programs. It also provides physicians, hospital executives, health care attorneys and industry experts with a trustworthy reference they can refer to prior to and during CCMA negotiations, implementation and oversight.

This book is available on Amazon or directly from the publisher with a 20 percent CRC Press discount using code hwp36.

Date posted: September 16, 2015 | Author: | Comments Off on Trustee Cherilyn G. Murer authors new book

Categories: Alumni Law