People

Heavy lifting

Photo by Cathy Beuten

Freshman Gregory Flimey gets some help from University of Colorado Denver Chancellor Jerry Wartgow during move-in today at Campus Village.

Deputy director to take fundraising to new heights

Thorburn

Then again, how much would you pay to see him make the journey in a kilt?

Thorburn, along with other participants, is raising money for the Cancer League of Colorado. Money from the agency helps support work in his lab and provides funding for other scientists studying cancer. He promises that if he raises $2,000 or more, he'll wear a kilt for the big event Aug. 27 at One Lincoln Park.

Anyone who pledges $1,000 to the Cancer League will get the opportunity to rappel the skyscraper. Thorburn has passed the $1,000 mark and is looking for his next grand.

The nonprofit Cancer League of Colorado has no paid staff and no officers. All donations go directly to cancer research and cancer patient services, and since 1985, the league has donated more than $8 million in grants to those efforts.

Thorburn says money from events like Over the Edge have helped with start-up funding for new research ideas.

"Awhile back my lab was studying a drug we hoped would kill brain cancer cells," Thorburn said on the pledge website. "The drug did that, but along the way, we made an unexpected observation. To take our idea further, we needed seed money, and CLC provided $30,000 for additional experiments. If the ideas we're testing turn out to be correct, this might establish a new way to treat brain cancer, and this initial investment from Cancer League of Colorado – and really, from you – will have played a major role in making it happen."

To make a pledge, or learn more about the Aug. 27-28 Over the Edge event, click here.

Excellence in nursing care, education recognized

Erickson

Victoria Erickson, Ph.D., PNP-BC, associate professor and MS/DNP program director at the University of Colorado College of Nursing, was recently inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP).

"Dr. Erickson was recognized for her accomplishments in nursing care and education as well as for her state and national leadership in health care and policy," said Patricia Moritz, Ph.D., FAAN, dean of the College of Nursing. "Vicki is clearly known for her continued excellence in nursing, primary care and mentoring others."

The FAANP program was established in 2000 to recognize nurse practitioner leaders who have made outstanding contributions to health care through nurse practitioner clinical practice, research, education or policy. Priority initiatives of FAANP are the development of leadership and mentorship programs for nurse practitioners and nurse practitioner students.

Distinguished Professor Emeritus receives Harvard honor

Courtesy of Stephen Fischer-Galati

Fischer-Galati

Stephen Fischer-Galati, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is one of four Harvard alumni who recently received the Harvard Graduate School's highest award, the 2010 GSAS Centennial Medal for his "lifelong commitment to chronicling the history of East and Central Europe, tireless support of junior scholars in the field, and remarkable legacy as a scholarly publisher, whose works populate the world's great libraries."

Fischer-Galati is the founder, publisher and was principal editor for more than 40 years of the scholarly journal East European Quarterly. He also is founding editor of the scholarly series East European Monographs, which has put out nearly 800 scholarly books on East-Central Europe in collaboration with Columbia University Press.

Galati is one of the world's foremost specialists on East European history and civilization, exploring the evolution of East-West relations and the intersection of Western and Eastern political and cultural developments. He also has published extensively on Balkan issues and guerilla warfare in the region.

Born in Romania, Galati escaped the country as a teenager during the early stages of World War II, finishing his high-school studies in Massachusetts before going on to Harvard. His books include "Romania: A Historic Perspective;" "Eastern Europe and the Cold War: Perceptions and Perspectives;" and "Man, State and Society in East European History," and he has authored more than 250 articles. He holds several honorary degrees and major grants and fellowships from American and international scholarly foundations. He also is president of the International Commission of East European and Slavic Studies of the International Congress of Historical Studies.

"There are those people who spend all their lives doing their own writing and their own work, and there are others who share," says Roman Szporluk, Harvard's Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Emeritus. "Stephen is one who shares. He was an inspirer, and an organizer, and a mobilizer of others to produce work that would be of lasting significance."

Public safety pro earns quarterly employee kudos

Ryan

Claudia Ryan, public safety operations manager at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, recently was named employee of the quarter in recognition of her professional and personal skills.

In her letter nominating Ryan, Josephine Benavidez, director of the precollegiate development program, said Ryan "possesses exemplary interpersonal communication skills in a consistent and honest manner. Claudia approaches daily issues and problems in a refined manner, gracious and helpful at the same time."

Ryan's supervisor, Jim Spice, director of public safety and chief of police, praised her excellent organizational skills, people skills and dedication to the department and to UCCS.

Ryan supervises two student employees and two state classified employees. She is responsible for various department of public safety projects, including all department human resource paperwork, campuswide background checks, department finance and accounting control, maintenance issues, police records and campus crime report statistics.

But Ryan minimizes her individual contributions. "I'm like everybody else. I have good and bad days. Some days you shine, others, you trip up. But you keep going. You do your job and try to help people along the way."

"I'm grateful for the award," she added, "but the people in this department are dedicated, hard workers, and we're a team. So it's everybody's award, not just mine."

Shelter plan chosen for Haiti

University of Colorado Denver assistant professor of architecture Matthew Jelacic in the College of Architecture and Planning and his team have been selected to participate in the Building Back Better Communities competition hosted by the government of Haiti. His proposal is one of 20 selected from more than 365 entries from more than 30 countries. Working with a team from the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Countries in Boulder, OperationUSA and Fabio Matta of the University of South Carolina, Jelacic will design and build a prototype shelter on a site north of Port-au-Prince that will serve as a model for reconstruction.

The selection of this proposal by the Haitian Government will allow him to extend his current research on affordable transitional shelters for traumatically displaced people and the poor, and to continue constructive and collegial relationships with his multi-disciplinary team.

This competition announcement follows a second related award: Jelacic and Matta have been awarded a $50,000 National Science Foundation grant to document structural failures in confined concrete masonry structures caused by seismic activity in Haiti. Together, Jelacic and Matta will explore and test low-cost opportunities to repair and stabilize buildings damaged during the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Dropping names ...

Gutierrez-Hartmann

Jenkins

Poetry Daily, the pioneering syndication project that has been bridging the world of print journals and the Internet since 1997, recently featured University of Colorado Denver associate professor Jake Adam York's "Narcissus Incomparabilis" as its poem of the day. The poem is a preview of his new book, Persons Unknown, scheduled for release in October. ... Arthur Gutierrez-Hartmann, M.D., a professor of endocrinology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been awarded the inaugural Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award. The award honors an outstanding scientist who has shown strong commitment to encouraging and mentoring under-represented minorities. ... Peter Jenkins, mechanical engineering professor at the University of Colorado Denver,presented papers at two conferences this summer. Jenkins spoke during the ASME Turbo Expo 2010 conference June 14-18 in Glasgow, Scotland, and at the eighth Conference of the International Sports Engineering Association on July 12-16 in Vienna, Austria. ... University of Colorado Denver Civil engineering professor Anu Ramaswami, director of the new Center for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems, has been awarded $39,347 from the National Science Foundation to chair a joint U.S.-China workshop on "Pathways Toward Low Carbon Cities: Quantifying Baselines and Inventories." The workshop, set for December in Hong Kong, will be planned in conjunction with faculty from University of Wisconsin and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. ... Chris Colwell, M.D., has been named director of emergency medicine at Denver Health after a national search. Colwell is associate professor of emergency medicine and will be a vice chair of the new CU School of Medicine department of emergency medicine. ... John Sladek, University of Colorado Denver professor of pediatrics and neurology, has been given a special privilege by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Sladek is now allowed to submit grant applications at any time independent of due dates. For more than 35 years, Sladek has served on study sections for the NIH, which has continuously supported his research since 1974.

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