Old and new – Exec Board ’12-’13 and ’13-’14

On Tuesday May 8^th, the GSC held it’s annual elections for the Executive Board. Eight positions were open for election. They were: President, Vice President, Finance Chair, Student Life Chair, Academic Chair, Secretary and two Social Chairs. The Executive Board is responsible for the leadership of the GSC. Each member has their own portfolio and collectively they run action teams and organize social events. They also represent the GSC and Dartmouth, meeting the president of the College, the trustees, and grad leaders at other Ivy Schools.

While all graduate students are welcome to run in Executive Board elections, votes are cast by Departmental Representatives who have fulfilled both the attendance and volunteer requirements outlined in the GSC constitution: to vote, Departmental Representatives must attend all council meetings (two absences allowed) and volunteer at two GSC events.

The GSC’s role is to nurture and enhance a sense of graduate student community across Dartmouth’s graduate departments, schools, and programs. The GSC consists of elected Departmental Representatives from all Graduate Arts and Sciences programs, including TDI and Thayer, and non-voting representatives from the Tuck School of Business and the Geisel School of Medicine.

The winners of this year’s elections are:

President: Lisa Jackson

Vice President: Anne Xu
Finance Chair: Adrienne Perkins
Student Life Chair: Meg Menon
Academic Chair: Laurie Laker
Secretary: Drew Wong
Social Chairs: Haofeng Li and Erin O’Malley

For more information about the GSC, please visit the home page and don’t be afraid to reach out to your new Exec Board.

Elections for Departmental Representatives are held in the fall term.

The Exec Board in their own words:

Lisa Jackson, TDI, President: I feel so honored to have been elected President of the GSC for the upcoming school year! Building off the work initiated by this year’s GSC executive board and council as a whole, I hope that next year’s GSC will continue to foster communication and collaboration between the other grad student governments, between grad students and undergraduate students, and between grads and the college administration and broader Upper Valley community. By working together, we can continue to enhance the Dartmouth experience for everyone! Congratulations to my fellow executive board members elected on Tuesday as well; I can’t wait to work with you all.

Ani Xu, MALS, Vice President: For a long while, I’ve struggled with the concept of community at Dartmouth, or the lack thereof. Lately and thankfully, I’ve been proven dead wrong. I am absolutely overwhelmed by the strength of character of the students here. This community has given me so much and I sincerely hope that by serving as Vice President of the Graduate Student Council, I will have the opportunity to contribute back to the absolute best of my abilities. I am beyond excited to work with this excellent group of people in the coming year.

Adrienne Perkins, Biology, Finance Chair: I’m happy to have the opportunity to continue serving and working with the GSC as Finance Chair.

Drew Wong, Thayer, Secretary: I am excited to build on the framework established by the former GSC committees and to pave the way for the future councils.

Meg Menon, MALS: I look forward to working with the Graduate Student Council, as we support your interests and strive toward fostering our deep sense of community through tangible and sincere efforts. I promise to do my best in this position and  I encourage you to think of me as an advocate for your well-being and an agent for change that you would like to affect. Thank you.

Laurie Laker, MALS, Academic Chair: I’m honored and excited to have been elected to the GSC Executive Board. We’re all here at Dartmouth to better ourselves academically, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to serve our graduate student community towards that betterment. As a current MALS rep on the GSC, I’m excited to take the reigns of Academic Chair from Rich Lopez – who has done a tremendous job this past year. I can’t wait to get started.

Haofeng Li, Social Chair: Excited about this great opportunity! Hopefully our efforts will make this coming year awesome:)

Erin O’Malley, Social Chair: I am very excited to have been elected as the GSC Social Chair for 2013.  I look forward to being able to bring many diverse groups together and provide the very important social interactions that can all too often get missed in our hectic lives as graduate students.  Also, I look at this as an opportunity to use leadership skills to plan events that everyone can enjoy and to make this another successful year.

In a crammed Alumni Hall, graduate students congregated to share their knowledge and learn from their colleagues. Along with students, faculty, and members of the local community was President Carol Folt and the Dean of Graduate Studies F. Jon Kull.

Sadik Antwi-Boampong from the Chemistry Department explains his poster.

In total, four Poster Awards were given out.  A carefully chosen panel from different backgrounds and disciplines was selected to pick award winners. The judges’ criteria were wide-ranging: from how clear the posters were to the practical implications of the research. Students had just a few minutes to explain their work to the panel members. Speaking about selecting the winners, Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies Gary Hutchins noted: “It’s always tough because the quality of competitors is so high.” Hutchins continued, “This year we chose Marianna Kleyman because we were particularly impressed by how clearly she communicated her research.”

The Poster Award winners were:  Sadik Antwi-Boampong for his poster on the “Detection of Formaldehyde Vapor Using Conductive Polymer Films.” Antwi-Boampong is from the Department of Chemistry and advised by Joseph Belbruno. From the Department of Earth Sciences was John Gartner, advised by Carl Renshaw. His poster was on “Irene Landslides and Sedimentation in Vermont Rivers: Importance of Gradients in Transport Capacity.” Marianna Kleyman, from the Department of Biochemistry also won. She is advised by Duane Compton, and her poster was titled “STAG2 Regulates Kinetochore-Microtubule Attachments in Human Cells.” Alexander Schlegel, from the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences was the final winner. He is advised by Peter Tse and won for his poster “A Neural Network Supporting Mental Operations on Visual Imagery.”

Ron Bucca and Marie Onakomaiya won the Graduate Community Award jointly. Bucca, a second year Master of Arts in Liberal Studies student, received his award for work as the Student Life Chair of the Graduate Student Council and as the Chair of the Dartmouth Graduate Veterans Association. Onakomaiya is a fourth year PhD student in the Department of Physiology and Neurobiology in the Program of Experimental and Molecular Medicine. She received her award for, amongst other endeavors, her work with the Graduate Relief Team.

Professor Kathryn Cottingham and Professor Robert Hawley were this year’s recipients of the Graduate Faculty Mentoring Award. This award is given by the Graduate Student Council for exceptional service to graduate students. The award is guided by graduate student nominations and reflects the hard work that both students and faculty put into graduate research at Dartmouth.

The combination of different awards adds to the poster session in that it illustrates the holistic nature of the Dartmouth graduate experience. World-class research goes hand in hand with graduate students’ relationship with the community and faculty.

Speaking on the event, Dean Kull remarked: “The poster session was really a fascinating event. It shows the diversity of disciplines of our graduate students as well as the hard work that goes into PhD and Master’s programs.”

The poster session provides the opportunity for graduate students to proudly demonstrate their research to a wide-ranging audience. It is a key date on the graduate students’ calendar.

“It really brings the graduate experience together,” says Kull.

by Dan Durcan

Like the rest of the world, Matthew Sturdevant, MALS ’08, was shocked and horrified when he first learned of the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., on December 14, 2012. But then he had to go to work and cover the unfolding tragedy for the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest daily newspaper.

A Courant staff writer since 2009 and a reporter for nearly 15 years, Sturdevant says, “Nothing could have prepared me for the mass murder of children. Many people feel the pain is still very raw. It’s harrowing and haunting, and yet it’s also uplifting to have seen a global outpouring of kindness in response to the tragedy.”

On April 15, Sturdevant was one of a team of Courant staffers recognized by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Runners-up to the Denver Post in the category of breaking news reporting, the Hartford Courant staff was cited “for its complete and sensitive coverage of the shooting massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 children and 6 adults, using digital tools as well as traditional reporting to tell the story quickly while portraying the stunned community’s grief.”

Sturdevant credits the Masters of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) faculty with helping him “expand my writing abilities,” and thus enabling him to convey such difficult news in an insightful way. He cites Professors Thomas Powers (a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist), Barbara S. Kreiger, and Sydney Lea as “hugely influential,” and says he chose a MALS nonfiction creative writing concentration over a journalism master’s program because he “wanted to broaden my learning and steep in the two years of a liberal arts education that Dartmouth provides.”

For the full article go to Dartmouth Now.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Sturdevant

Graduate students work hard.  Each one knows late nights and early mornings. However, all being said, you will have to look hard to find the graduate student who does not think this is all worthwhile. Graduate students’ dedication to their research and to the education of undergraduates is an invaluable contribution to Dartmouth. The research undertaken in both our PhD and Master’s programs, in both arts and sciences, reinforces Dartmouth as a world-class educational institution. TA-ships see graduate students burning the midnight oil, grading papers and then taking time away from their own work to spend time with students. Those who have done it know how much students benefit from the support of a TA, as a mentor and a role model. Despite the heavy workload and stressful life, graduate student’s community outreach and volunteer work is award-renowned, both in the local community and abroad.

Preparations for the poster session in Alumni Hall on Wednesday 10th April, 5pm-7:30pm.

So every year by the time it gets to spring term, some appreciation is due.

The idea for Graduate Appreciation Week came from the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS). In 1993, NAGPS established Graduate-Professional Student Appreciation Week (GPSAW) as a mechanism to support and appreciate graduate and professional students. Dartmouth proudly sponsors this decade-long tradition.

F. Jon Kull, dean of Graduate Studies, commented on Graduate Appreciation Week:

“I really think it is crucial for the work of graduate students at Dartmouth to be highlighted and appreciated. Being a graduate student is a fantastic thing; it shows a true dedication to learning and advancing in a field or discipline. Dartmouth as an institution is fortunate to have so many enthusiastic and talented graduate students. Their contribution is felt everyday.”

The full range of events can be found here. Keep an eye out for the Graduate Poster Session. The Poster Session displays the best of graduate student talent. There you will see the range of research undertaken and all the hard work paying off. President Carol L. Folt will announce the winners of the Graduate Faculty Mentoring Award at the session. In short, the poster session really brings together many aspects of the graduate student experience.

“Graduate Appreciation Week gives the wider community the opportunity to take stock of their valuable contributions,” says Kull, “The schedule of events shows students they are valued, and the poster session allows their work to be displayed. The poster session is a great opportunity to learn more about Dartmouth Graduate Studies and some of the fantastic things achieved here.”

After the poster session is Pub Night at Molly’s Restaurant and Bar—we all need a break once in a while.

For more information about some of the achievements of Dartmouth’s graduate students, keep posted to the Grad News Forum and our Facebook and Twitter streams.

by Dan Durcan

Read the full story at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice news.

See the Dartmouth Now coverage.

The mountains outside of Petit Drouin.

Back in October of 2012, Ron Bucca, a Dartmouth Graduate student and Army veteran, traveled to Haiti with a desire to listen and learn. A month later, Bucca came back with a simple conclusion about international aid efforts in the tiny country.

“We just need to listen. So many good resources go to waste because plans are made too far from the communities they’re intended to help.”

It might seem simplistic, but for a country facing so many challenges, simplicity can be a boon. Haiti has received an incredible amount of international aid money – over three billion dollars have poured in since the earthquake in 2010  – and yet it remains the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  For opponents of international relief, these statistics act as validation for pessimistic ideas like “over-dependence.” For Bucca, they suggest something else.

“It seems like the mainstream model for aid is really top-down. Theories are hatched in major institutions, researched in far-away med schools and labs, and polished in high-level meetings. Then they’re packaged for export to a place that doesn’t remotely resemble the places they were born in. Without input or feedback from the population that will use the items, things such as maintenance, practicality, or cultural nuances are ignored and make the aid ineffective.”

So, Bucca used $1,000 in personal and research funding to travel to the island nation this fall with a simple question.

“I just wanted to ask – ‘What do you need help with?’ and ‘How can we help?’”

Bucca worked with the Children’s Nutrition Program (CNP), a small non-profit based in Léogâne. Much of CNP’s staff is Haitian, and the group is committed to finding solutions with a “from Haitians, for Haitians” model.  CNP helped Bucca find a translator and locate two rural villages – areas that have been particularly passed over by relief efforts – where he might be able to find answers for his questions.

A villager in Petit Drouin poses with the cell phone amplifier.

Bucca and his translator hiked into the mountains to Petit Drouin and Guiran. For most of the population in theses villages, Bucca was the first foreigner, or “blan,” they’d ever met. He gathered demographic information and tried to assess local feelings on relief efforts. He wanted to create a picture of the Haitian perception of international relief, so as to alert would-be change agents to some cultural obstacles they might face. He also wanted to see how rural Haitians were interacting with the modern world.

“I was amazed. This far out, almost 85% percent of families owned or had direct access to a cellphone. But they had to walk hours to get any service.”

So, Bucca purchased and installed a portable cell phone amplifier in the village, at the home of the monitrice – a community health worker. As a result, the villagers will have increased access to medical information, and can get immediate answers to their medical questions. In addition, the reduction in travel time for the monitrice, will allow her to administer preventive medicine and monitor additional patients.  For a remote village hours away from the nearest hospital, this kind of instantaneous access may make a major difference in overall health and wellbeing.

After completing work in the first two villages, Bucca left the mountains and headed to Petit Harpon, a slightly less remote village closer to the center of Léogâne. Again, Bucca sat with villagers to see what they thought would help them break out of cyclical poverty and limited opportunity. He realized they had access to the Internet, but lacked the hardware or computer skills to utilize it.

“They recognized that they didn’t have the chance to learn any modern skills. They felt left out – the children would be stuck subsistence farming, because they lacked these skills and the resources required to obtain them.”

So, Bucca found a computer teacher who could commute to the village school to teach the young people in Petit Harpon the computer skills that could get them a higher-paying job in the city. Computer fluency, Bucca notes, also carries with it a compounding potentiality. Social media sites may well allow a previously voiceless population to speak up and be heard – and to interact with relief agents and communicate their needs without an intermediary.

“A lot of people have reservations about relief. They don’t trust their government and they are wary of outsiders. Letting them in on the conversation might be a good way to change that.”

Bucca presents a poster at “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium.

Now Bucca is back in Hanover, advocating for an aid model that pays close attention to the needs and wants of the effected populations. He presented his work at a poster session organized for the “Haiti and Dartmouth at the Crossroads” symposium last week.

The computer teacher is still traveling to Petit Harpon twice a week, instructing students in how to use Microsoft Office, how to conduct research on the Internet, and how to make use of various social media tools. Bucca is soliciting donations of computing equipment – computers, printers, batteries, software (especially copies of Microsoft Office), and webcams – from any person or department who might have equipment that’s no longer in use. Bucca can be reached through his Dartmouth email address – Ronald.L.Bucca.GR@dartmouth.edu.

“Every little bit helps,” he reminds us. “And it’s nice that we’re rendering a service that was asked for. This is what the people in Petit Harpon think will help them. I think that’s a good place to start.”

by Zach Williams 

Tower grew up in Maryland Heights, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. She graduated from Truman State University (Kirksville, Missouri) in 2005 with a BS in exercise science. There she also captained the women’s golf team. Most recently, Tower earned her Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM) degree from the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine (Chicago, Illinois) in 2009 and completed her residency at the Northern Colorado Podiatric Medicine and Surgery Program (Greeley, Colorado) this past June 2012. During her podiatry studies, she also earned an additional BS in biomedical sciences and an MS in healthcare administration and management.

Tower always knew she wanted to pursue a career in medicine. When asked why podiatry, she explained that she felt as though it was the most direct route to hands-on patient care. While podiatry school is just as long as medical school, its residency requirements are typically shorter than other surgical specialties.

Tower running in the Hero Half Marathon

Asked what in her studies has been the most eye‐opening thus far, Tower said it has been learning more about the patient perspective, something TDI emphasizes. “Understanding healthcare from a societal perspective has really opened my eyes to how people receive healthcare in general. I now know that understanding and acknowledging the social determinants of health will only make me a more empathetic clinician.” She said understanding how our healthcare system has sometimes let patients down helps to expose areas of opportunity for making it better in the future. Tower’s own final capstone (the final deliverable to receive her MPH) will focus on healthcare accessibility. She will assess patient wait times at the podiatry clinic where she used to work and identify ways access to this type of specialty service can be improved.

In between studying, Tower still finds the time to enjoy hobbies such as crocheting, scuba diving (she recently went diving off the coast of Honduras over winter break), and running. Tower’s husband, Adam, is a PhD candidate at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado; he flew out to run with her in the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth Hero Half Marathon this past fall. She has several other races and half marathons planned this spring and summer as well. Tower also serves as a departmental representative to both the Graduate Student Council and the Geisel School of Medicine Student Government and is a live-in volunteer at the Outreach House, an assisted living facility located across from the Dartmouth campus.

Tower has been a joy to learn from, and her dedication to podiatry and healthcare are very inspiring. She has certainly set the bar high for future APMA Public Health Fellows that will follow her. We wish her the best as she finishes up this spring’s coursework at TDI and moves on to other grand adventures after graduation!

by Lisa Jackson

Graduate Studies wants to congratulate Ernest Heimsath on his new position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Ernest recently defended his dissertation in biochemistry in December, under the guidance of Professor Henry Higgs. He will be moving down to Bethesda, Maryland, in March to work as a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Bechara Kachar in the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), focusing on the functioning of auditory cells.

Ernest grew up in both Texas and Virginia and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), where he was supported by the NIGMS-funded Minority Biomedical Research Support (MBRS) program. While a junior at UTSA, he participated in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program—now the Academic Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (ASURE) program—at Dartmouth. He enjoyed working in the Department of Biological Sciences that summer and appreciated the friendly, open-door policy of Dartmouth faculty. Ernest notes that he chose Dartmouth for graduate school partly as a result of this positive experience, as well as out of a desire to get to know a new area of the country.

While at Dartmouth, Ernest’s research has focused on polymerization of the protein, actin, which is the basis for many cellular structures. In particular, actin helps form filopodia, which are protrusions some cells use to sense their environment and help them migrate throughout the body. In a recent article published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Volume 287, Issue 5, Ernest examined a particular type of formin, which are proteins that regulate actin polymerization. He discovered that one formin in particular, called FMNL3, has unique effects on actin dynamics, which help to explain its role in assembling filopodia.

Ernest met Dr. Kachar in 2011 at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting, after being inspired by his work on sensory neurons in the inner ear, which was recently featured in Cell Picture Show. Ernest’s work at the NIDCD will relate to his previous research in that these neurons contain structures called stereocilia, which share much of the same actin-based architecture as filopodia, although they can be orders of magnitude larger and also more stable. Once formed during development, stereocilia last throughout your entire life and do not regenerate. As stereocilia are directly responsible for hearing, and dysfunctions in many of the components within them are attributed to hearing disorders, Ernest is excited about the clinical relevancy of the work he will be doing.

Ernest observes that his experience in Professor Higgs’ lab has prepared him well for this next career move. He says that he will miss the sense of community in the lab, as well as the unique Dartmouth environment. Dartmouth professors, explains Ernest, are “approachable,” and “faculty really care about developing grad students.” They are “down-to-earth” and open to being corrected, which is conducive to productive learning and research. Overall, Ernest is very satisfied with his graduate experience and looking forward to getting to know another new area of the country as a postdoc.

We wish him the best in his new position!

by Elizabeth Molina-Markham

Publishing fiction serially is not a new idea. Charles Dickens released all his novels in installments, often in weekly or monthly magazines. Munsterer studied Dickens and other Victorian era writers as an English major at Colby College, where she focused on creative writing. After earning her certification to teach high school English at Colby, Munsterer wanted to continue her education as well as work on her writing. She sought a curriculum broader in scope than what is normally available in traditional Master of Fine Arts programs and chose MALS at Dartmouth.

About her experience in the MALS program, Munsterer says she especially enjoyed the small workshop-style classes and an opportunity to experiment with a variety of genres: journalism, creative non-fiction, and screenwriting. For her thesis, she wrote five thirty-minute screenplays, comprising On Campus: Creative Non-Fictitious Television for the College Bound Audience.

“Learning to write well also makes you a better reader,” she observes, “and the critical reading skills I developed in the program have been particularly useful in my work in the Admissions Office.” Hired part-time to read applications while still a MALS student, Munsterer is senior associate director of the Office of Admissions at Dartmouth, reading an average of one hundred and sixty undergraduate applications a week in the busy season. During other parts of the year she recruits prospective students in New Jersey, Florida, and abroad.

After completing the MALS program, Munsterer wanted to experiment with composing fiction online and searched the web to see who was working in this domain. “There were blogs to follow and some people who were posting via email, but I didn’t find anyone who was writing serially online.” She believed in the idea enough to put up her own money to create a logo and website, and subsequently launched Novel Nibble, with a goal “to promote literacy and entertainment—one page at a time.”

Initially, she thought an important element of her experiment would be interactivity that would allow readers to provide feedback and ideas—to “take a nibble.” She quickly found that readers just wanted an escape and were not necessarily interested in getting actively involved in helping to develop the story. She also discovered that readers were really interested in her and the writing process. “They want to know how I discipline myself to write every day, how I motivate myself, things like that. I quickly learned that there are a lot of people out there who want to write a book.”

After exactly one year, The Stonehouse Caper will end with the final installment coming on March 23. Noting some of the limitations of her publishing style, Munsterer says, “I don’t think the format is exactly what my readers want.” But what began as an experiment has been a huge success, with more than 15,000 visits to the website since it was launched and a host of loyal followers. The best thing that has happened is that it has led to a book deal.

In April 2012, Munsterer attended a media panel at the Greener Ventures Entrepreneurship Conference at the Tuck School of Business, at which she met Carey Albertine, co-founder of In This Together Media. Albertine began to follow Munsterer’s online novel and, subsequently, hired her to write a book. “They wanted a book about Christmas with strong female characters,” Munsterer says—so she wrote Mrs. Claus and The School of Christmas Spirit. Published in November 2012, the book sold well and for one week was the number one children’s holiday book.

About the future, Munsterer says the online experiment will continue as A Nibble a Day in which she will publish her stories, poems, and reflections in daily installments of less than five hundred words. But the big news is that the Christmas book was so successful that In This Together Media has asked Munsterer to write a second holiday book. Stay tuned!

by Michael Beahan

The experience and insight gained from my externship with Dr. Linkletter was invaluable to my career development. Dr. Linkletter is an accomplished scientist and environmental consultant in Irvine, California, who credits his scientific success to his time at Dartmouth College. We began chatting in his office, which had a wonderful view of Orange County and a framed picture of Dartmouth Hall above his computer. As he told wonderful tales of faculty and life in Hanover, I was proud to be at Dartmouth College in the very department where he had studied.

Dr. Linkletter then offered a unique view of research outside of academia; he has worked both as a research scientist and as an environmental consultant. Dr. Linkletter described his research experience and work with consulting firms, all of which showed the applicability of skills learned in graduate school. Afterwards, Dr. Linkletter introduced me to some of ENVIRON’s past and current projects on soil and groundwater contamination. I noted that a consultant approaches a problem very differently from a research scientist. During the two conferences I attended, it was fascinating how their work moved between science, law, and business. Not only do they deal with scientific questions, but they are also held to legal timelines and financial guidelines.

Later in the afternoon, I met with two research scientists and discussed how they navigated from graduate school to a fulfilling profession. A theme emerged in these conversations: if academia does not suit you, do not feel compelled to pursue an academic career. The two scientists currently work on challenging scientific questions. However, they have greater control over where they live and the hours they work compared to when they worked in academia. A consultant’s work is more challenging and stressful than work in academia. The health and finances of residents facing contamination issues rests directly on their ability to properly conduct a study, correctly interpret the results, and act based on those results. However, Dr. Linkletter emphasized that the size and function of environmental consulting firms differ; some are small, personable firms, while others are large institutions with many employees.

As the workday came to a close, I was happy to know that working in consulting can be so captivating and rewarding.

by Justin Richardson