Grad News Forum

This video highlights just a few of the academic achievements and social happenings from the fall term at Dartmouth Graduate Studies.

Special thanks to:

Ron Bucca, Idan Ginsburg, Sam Beal, Laura Levy, Gifford Wong, John Gartner, Julia Bradley-Cook, Lisa Jackson, Geneva Trotter, and Dean F. Jon Kull. Dartmouth Graduate Studies: Highlights of Fall Term

On Saturday 12^th January President Elect Philip Hanlon, ’77, met with graduate students over coffee and doughnuts. Hanlon comes to Dartmouth from the University of Michigan, where he serves as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. Michigan is one of the world’s top research universities, and his experiences bring great opportunities to Dartmouth Graduate Studies. Hanlon earned his Bachelor of Arts from Dartmouth, and has been connected to the college ever since. His commitment to the institution brings great promise to inspire, administer, and realize Dartmouth’s strategic plan for the 21^st century.

Dean Kull introduced the President-Elect to a large group of our community, noting that he was  “someone who really gets what a research university is like. The search committee found the perfect person. I am enthusiastically looking forward to working with President Hanlon.” The President Elect then addressed the graduate students assembled, saying he was “excited to be back in the Dartmouth community and to help develop graduate programs here.” Hanlon then spent the better part of an hour taking the time to introduce himself and meet with graduate students.

The meeting was particularly fruitful for members of the Graduate Student Council, who were able to chat to the president about the issues they feel are important to our community. Hanlon expressed his desire to work with the GSC and the graduate community to make the Dartmouth an even more impressive place for research and study.

Speaking on meeting the President-Elect, MALS GSC representative Laurie Laker noted:

“It was a thrill to meet President-Elect Hanlon this past weekend at the graduate student reception. As a relatively new member of the Dartmouth community, I was pleased to see the President-Elect making the time to meet with members of the graduate student community. Despite having done his undergraduate study here, it was clear to me from our conversation that President-Elect Hanlon intends to put energy and time into the graduate student body, and he made it clear to us that we’re a valuable and vital part of this college. I’m eager to see the changes and choices that he makes during his tenure as President of the College.”

We look forward to working with President-Elect Hanlon in the future, and we’re excited about the possibilities for his time as President.

The Graduate Student Council (GSC) is proud to provide funding bi-annually for graduate students travelling to conferences. These funds help members of our community get the most out of their studies by helping them get to present their research and meet other experts in their field. Here are the three students who were awarded a grant for Fall term.

Maggie Baber-M.S., Earth Sciences

The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting is the world’s largest earth sciences meeting and provides many opportunities for academic and professional engagement. This year AGU had 22,167 attendees from 94 countries, 12,000 posters, 6000 oral presentations. While at AGU, I presented, for the first time, the results of my Masters thesis research at Dartmouth at the conference’s cryosphere poster session. I had the opportunity to ask questions and receive feedback from experienced scientists in my field, a unique opportunity as I begin editing my thesis, which is due in February. Additionally, I was able to attend several networking meetings to meet with potential employers of industry, government agencies, and national labs.

Matthew Bigl-M.S., Earth Sciences

I started my AGU experience early Monday morning as I was scheduled to present my research at 8:00.Once I got my poster up and was able to peruse the other offerings within the gigantic poster hall before returning to my poster to field questions and discussion from those who stopped by. Following my presentation I spent the next three and a half days listening to talks ranging from citizen science to climate literacy as well as many great geomorphic and climate change related topics that intertwined with my own research. My project is based around a sedimentary feature known as varves which in my case are located in the Upper Valley of Vermont and New Hampshire and formed in a glacial environment recording summer and winter in one couplet. I had the opportunity to listen to another researcher’s varve project that was based out of Ghana and recorded precipitation and therefore could be used to track drought in the local region.

By now I am sure that you have heard about the appointment of Philip J. Hanlon as the 18th President of Dartmouth. This is what key figures in Graduate Arts and Sciences are saying:

Dean of Graduate Studies-F. Jon Kull

“I am very pleased about the appointment of Philip Hanlon as President of Dartmouth. He is an ideal choice and is sure to benefit graduate students and Dartmouth as a whole. As Provost of a major research university, he comes with an understanding of the critical importance of graduate programs and graduate students, and also the issues research faculty face. As a Dartmouth alum, he will also be able to recognize the importance of Dartmouth’s scholar-teacher model, and recognize places where graduate and undergraduate students can interact and strengthen each other.

I’m excited to bring him up to speed on the current state of our grad programs. I will also be discussing with him the strategic planning working group reports relating to graduate programs. I am confident that we can identify aspects of those reports that we can start moving on right away.”

Chair of the MALS program-Professor Don Pease

“Dartmouth is going through one of the most significant transitions in its 250 year history.Philip Hanlon has movingly attested to the life-altering effect of his Dartmouth undergraduate education on his life as a celebrated teacher and world-renowned scholar. Hanlon’s knowledge of the transformative power of Dartmouth’s past and the wisdom he has acquired as an administrator at one of the world’s top-ranked research universities have deepened his understanding of the inseparability of Dartmouth’s undergraduate and graduate programs. Hanlon appears uniquely positioned to inspire, administer, and realize Dartmouth strategic plan for the 21^st century.”

President of the Graduate Student Council-Julia Bradley-Cook

“By all accounts, Philip Hanlon brings a promising combination of leadership and scholarship to the Dartmouth presidency. Surely his experience at University of Michigan give him an understanding of the needs and opportunities for research at a special place like Dartmouth. I would like to echo the excitement across campus, and am looking forward to welcoming him upon his return to Dartmouth.”

What are your thoughts?

Members of the GSC Exec Board at the Summit

A couple of weeks ago we wrote you an article on our upcoming trip to the University of Pennsylvania for the 10^th annual Ivy Summit. Well, we went, we had a great time, and we thought we’d share some of our experiences. Each fall, a different Ivy School (plus MIT) hosts the Ivy Summit. These are conferences dedicated to sharing experiences of student governance, as well as focusing on advocacy issues — this year’s focus was on building mental health resources.

In 2011, MIT hosted and, this year, six members of the GSC headed down to Philadelphia to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn). We arrived on the 2^nd of November and were immediately welcomed by a UPenn student delegate. Then we met our colleagues from the other Universities and promptly bonded over Japanese food.

On Saturday morning, over a substantial breakfast spread, the State of the Nine addresses were delivered in a room overlooking the skyscrapers of Philadelphia. The State of the Nine is an annual feature of the Summit where each Student Council President delivers a fifteen-minute presentation designed give an overview of graduate life at their school. Topics covered include changes in student welfare, advocacy campaigns, and overviews of social life. Subsequently, the student delegates at Dartmouth were able to learn about the structures of other student governments, as well as what their counterparts at the other schools were doing. All of this will help the GSC facilitate the best possible student experience at Dartmouth.

Following the State of the Nine we split off into groups to discuss more specific topics related to student governance and mental health. Here each college led a tutorial to share expertise. Dartmouth presented on: “Enhancing Graduate Student Participation and Cultivating Agency around Student Initiatives and Activities.” Again, our president, Julia Bradley-Cook, took the lead for Dartmouth, during our tutorial. Here she focused on agency, engagement, and participation.

One of the ideas that surfaced in our discussion was having “student deputies”. These are people who stand on committees or take particular responsibilities advocating for an issue. The advantage of deputies is that it allows people to interact with student governance on their own terms, dedicating their time to what they feel is particularly important. We look forward to implementing these positions soon.

After the morning’s proceedings, we broke for lunch – again, we ate and socialized with other graduate students. Then we went back to tutorials where we continued to share experiences and knowledge with other schools. The other school’s tutorials were as follows:

• Yale: Methods for facilitating conversation/student feedback with administrators
• Columbia: Quality of Life Survey
• Cornell: Emphasizing the Importance of Graduate Student Programming and Space
• Penn: Building Institutional Memory
• Harvard: Tailoring Mental Health Services to Graduate Student Needs
• Princeton: Striving for Balance in an Unbalanced Life
• Brown: Mental Health as “Foreign” to International Students
• MIT: The Power of Student Advocates as Change Agents
• Penn: Self Care as a Means to Protect Mental Health

Speaking on the Summit, Vice President Justin Richardson said: “The Ivy Summit was an excellent opportunity to showcase the great events and programs the Graduate Student Council puts together. It was good to learn from the other schools, to see how they help their student bodies, and what problems they face. I am very thankful to University of Pennsylvania GAPSA for hosting the annual event and am currently in contact with many attendees of the summit.”

That evening, conference delegates proceeded to a Japanese Karaoke Bar. Here we dined and hung out with other students from the Summit. Your social chair, Gilbert Rahme, wowed everyone with his performance of the Backstreet Boy’s “Quit Playing Games with my Heart.” I doubt Philadelphia will ever forget us.”

On Sunday morning we reconvened for a breakfast (the most substantial French toast I have ever seen) and to recap the Summit. Bradley-Cook met with the other Student Body Presidents to give feedback and to strategize for future years. After a long productive couple of days we said our farewells. There was just time to pick up a Philly Cheesesteak before our long journey home.

by Dan Durcan

Photo by David Bendell

On November 2^nd members of the Graduate Student Council Executive Board are heading down to the University of Pennsylvania for the tenth annual Ivy Summit. There they will be interacting with student leaders from the Ivy League, hoping to learn and teach: to expand the skill sets of student governance at Dartmouth for the benefit of all.

The Ivy Summit is an annual event that brings together graduate and professional programs from the Ivy schools and MIT to discuss the issues of graduate life. This year the focus is on building mental health resources. During the summit, each Ivy school is required to lead a workshop to educate other schools on what they have learned from student government. We will therefore be able to share skill sets.

The workshops for the event are split into two groups, five will focus on the Pan-Ivy advocacy issue-Building Mental Health Resources- and five will focus on student government best practices. Dartmouth, under the leadership of GSC President Julia Bradley-Cook, is focusing on “Enhancing Graduate Student Participation and Cultivating Agency around Student Initiative and Activities”. With this we are presenting a workshop on graduate student participation and engagement around student initiatives contributing to the dialogue on best practice for governance. 

Speaking on the benefits of the conference Bradley-Cook said “In recent years, the GSC has learned a lot from this meeting, for instance it gave us ideas about how to diversify events in order to appeal to broader student group, and lead to the creation of the Academic Chair, which is responsible for awarding the conference travel grants.” Going to U-Penn will allow the Dartmouth graduate community to share information and learn from others, maximizing what we can all get out of our experiences here.

Reflecting on past experiences former GSC President Wesley Whitaker said: “I have been to two summits and returned from each with new perspectives on graduate education as well as new ideas for Dartmouth’s GSC… I think some of the ideas that the GSC implemented last year—for instance, small-scale social events focused on community building—came out of the Princeton Meeting.” Whitaker found that this experience really helped him with his position as President, giving him the knowledge necessary to carry out his duties effectively.

During our time at U-Penn we will also have the opportunity to spend a good amount of time with other graduate students, and will have the chance to talk at length about what they do to make their campuses more inviting for their communities. From past experiences of exec members we feel that we can learn a lot here.

This year the Graduate Studies Office will be giving you up-to-the-minute coverage of the event, letting you know what the GSC is doing and how we are helping improve grad studies at Dartmouth. Follow our twitter and facebook feeds for up to see how we’re doing. For more information about the Ivy Summit, please visit the official site. We hope you keep tuned in!

Regina Salvat (L) and Erin O’Flaherty (R) at a graduate event in 2012.

The Graduate Forum will be running a series of articles profiling the new Graduate Student Council. The GSC elections were held back on May 1^st. As the new board members get underway in their positions, we’d like to take an opportunity to congratulate them on their elections and to highlight their hopes for the year ahead. Featured this week – the North Park Activities Coordinator, Regina Salvat.

Regina grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then traveled east to pursue her studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She graduated from Cornell in 2008 with two degrees, a bachelors and a masters in biomedical engineering. In 2010, she made her way to Dartmouth, to set to work on getting a PhD in Engineering with a focus in biotechnology.

At Dartmouth, Regina is working in Professor Karl Griswold’s lab. The Griswold lab is studying enzyme therapeutics, a treatment method that could help to combat a wide range of health issues, like drug-resistant pathogens and complications from cystic fibrosis. Regina is figuring out how to “de-immunize” large molecules that could be used to carry parts of the treatment method, so long as the body’s immune system doesn’t attack and render them useless.

This past spring, Regina was selected to be the North Park Activities Coordinator for the second year in a row. As the NPAC, Regina’s responsibilities focus around the graduate housing at North Park, where she’ll host social events in an effort to build a welcoming, fun community.  As the fall term approaches, she’s gearing up for events designed to welcome the new graduate students, including a wine and cheese tasting during orientation, movie nights early in the term. She’s also hoping to work with Dan Durcan, the new Graduate Student Activities Coordinator, to plan weekly theme dinners for the larger grad community.

Regina also represents the North Park community to the Graduate Student Council. Through this forum, she can voice any concerns of the students who use Dartmouth’s housing resources. And, she rents out the vacuums to North Park residents!

The Graduate Forum welcomes Regina back to the NPAC position – we’re looking forward to her events this year!

Article by Zach Williams 

The Graduate Forum will be running a series of articles profiling the new Graduate Student Council. The GSC elections were held back on May 1^st. As the new board members get underway in their positions, we’d like to take an opportunity to congratulate them on their elections and to highlight their hopes for the year ahead. We’re delighted to introduce Gilbert Rahme as the new joint Social Chair of the Graduate Student Council alongside Lisa Jackson.

Gilbert is a third year PhD student studying genetics. Originally from Lebanon (he asked me to clarify – the country, not the town in the Upper Valley!), Gilbert was born in the town of Besharri, which was also the birthplace of famed poet and artist Khalil Gibran (perhaps most famous for his collection of prose published as “The Prophet”). Gilbert moved from there to Beirut, a city, he explained, that was ranked the party capital of the world. It appears that he has been adequately prepared for being the social chair of the GSC.

Gilbert came to the US after completing a master’s degree in Lebanon. He was attracted to Dartmouth because it presented more opportunities. When he looked into the college, he realized that he would have more research opportunities available to him than he would have had in Lebanon. This has enabled him to contribute the most to his field of study: Cancer research.

Cancer has personally affected Gilberts family, which enticed him to study the subject more. Now he’s focusing his research on brain tumours and their characteristics, such as how they spread across the organ. The data collection process is going well, he tells me, thoroughly enjoys working with his thesis advisor- Dr. Mark Israel.

Outside of his studies and organizing social events, Gilbert enjoys playing classic and electric guitar and tries to make the most of the outdoor opportunities that the New Hampshire and New England region has to offer. He’s heavily involved the Dartmouth Graduate Outing Club in which he is a hike leader and the secretary of the group. He is excited about further contributing to the experience of students at Dartmouth with his position as social chair. Good luck Gilbert!

Article and photo by Dan Durcan

The Graduate Forum will be running a series of articles profiling the new Graduate Student Council. The GSC elections were held back on May 1^st. As the new board members get underway in their positions, we’d like to take an opportunity to congratulate them on their elections and to highlight their hopes for the year ahead. We’re delighted to introduce Lisa Jackson as the new joint Social Chair of the Graduate Student Council alongside Gilbert Rahme.

Lisa is a second year student in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at The Dartmouth Institute (TDI). Lisa likes to think of herself as a nomadic adventurer, and has moved to five different states in the last five years.   After graduating college from Penn State in 2007, where she majored in English, she moved back to the west coast where she was an Aquatic Director for the YMCA in San Diego, California. Inspired by her sister Tina’s positive experiences in the public health program here at TDI, she too decided to apply.

At TDI, Lisa’s studies emphasize health policy and shared decision-making for the purpose of improving healthcare outcomes for patients.   Lisa also works in Palliative Care at DHMC under Dr. Marie Bakitas.  She has been recently promoted to Project Coordinator for an upcoming research study that investigates quality of life improvement for patients with heart failure.  She also lives in an assisted living facility for seniors directly across from campus.   She and two other grad students live on-site at the Outreach House helping residents with their daily tasks and developing cross-generational friendships.

Outside of her studies, work, and the GSC, Lisa enjoys relaxing by riding her beach cruiser, swimming, camping, visiting her sister in Maine, listening to live music, and people-watching. Her aim for the moment is to continue traveling (she just got back from a month in Britain this summer), and keeping an eye out for the next adventure. After that, her main goal is to one day live off the grid and to keep her future unwritten.   She is excited to be working with Gilbert to plan some of this year’s great social events where she hopes to see grad students from across campus getting to know one another and having fun together.

Article and Photo by Dan Durcan

The Graduate Forum will be running a series of articles profiling the new Graduate Student Council. The GSC elections were held back on May 1^st. As the new board members get underway in their positions, we’d like to take an opportunity to congratulate them on their elections and to highlight their hopes for the year ahead. Below, we’re introducing Yash Patankar, the new Secretary of the Graduate Student Council.

Yash is a rising third year PhD student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Dartmouth. He studied molecular biology and immunology as an undergraduate at Hampshire College, Massachusetts.

As a PhD student, Yash is studying the innate immune response to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common nosocomial pathogen, under the tutelage of Dr. Brent Berwin. Pseudomonas aeruginosa poses a challenge to immunocompromised patients in hospitals as well as those with cystic fibrosis. Recently, the lab published an article [YP1] that explains a new breakthrough in their research, a breakthrough that may have positive implications for the medical community (to learn more, check out this story on their work in Dartmouth Medicine Magazine).  It appears that the immune system detects the “swimming” motion of bacteria, whereas when the bacteria are not swimming, the bacteria may evade the immune response.

Yash is drawn to biomedicine and the impact it can have on healthcare. The work he’s doing now may help to devise therapies for populations susceptible to Pseudomonas and other pathogens.

Back in May, Yash was elected as Secretary. He’s making it a priority to work hard to keep the Council running smoothly – he sees his position as the central to keeping everyone together[YP2]  and informed. Yash has a specific interest in student life concerns such as dental insurance, Advance Transit schedules and strengthening the alumni network. He plans to work alongside of Ron Bucca, the Student Life Chair, to strive for these goals to be met.

“The presidential transition is an opportunity for us. Graduate studies can edge its way into a big role at Dartmouth during the turnover.” Yash’s role as secretary and his focus on keeping the council running efficiently will help the GSC to take advantage of the opportunity in front of it.

The Graduate Forum congratulates Yash, and all the council members, on their elections and wishes them the best of luck going forward with their initiatives.

Article by Zach Williams