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University of Delaware secures $13.1M grant to transform Alzheimer’s research and prevention
A new five-year $13.1 million grant will greatly expand the ability of University of Delaware researchers to pursue ways to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease. The gift from the Delaware Community Foundation (DCF) is one of the largest in state history for Alzheimer’s research. UD's Christopher Martens called the grant "transformational," as it will support the expansion of a statewide prevention study, enable the purchase of a state-of-the-art MRI machine and drive discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments. “It will also help grow the number of researchers in Delaware focused on Alzheimer’s disease, promoting an interdisciplinary approach." said Martens, director of UD's Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research (DECCAR) and professor of kinesiology and applied physiology in the College of Health Sciences. Bringing together researchers from multiple fields to collaborate on a critical challenge like Alzheimer’s disease is a key strength of the University of Delaware, said Interim President Laura Carlson. “Every one of us has a family member or friend who has been deeply affected by Alzheimer’s. I’m proud that UD is working better to understand this terrible disease and partnering with others throughout the state to work on its prevention, diagnosis and treatment,” Carlson said. “We are grateful to the Delaware Community Foundation for their support, which allows us to escalate our research and expand our community outreach.” “No one has to look very far afield to witness and understand the tragedy of Alzheimer’s, and the research supported by this grant will help UD researchers come ever-closer to uncovering life-improving and life-saving solutions,” said Stuart Comstock-Gay, President and CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation (DCF). “The grant was provided through the generosity of late Paul H. Boerger, who made a substantial legacy gift to the fund he had established at the DCF in his lifetime, and his foresight will help so many.” The gift is aimed at achieving the following goals: • Tracking Alzheimer’s risk over time – Expanding Delaware’s largest study of brain aging from 100 to 500 participants to uncover who develops dementia and why. • A simple blood test for early detection – Developing a first-of-its-kind test that could diagnose Alzheimer’s years earlier than current methods. • Cutting-edge brain imaging – Installing a $3.2 million MRI machine on UD’s STAR Campus to reveal hidden brain changes linked to memory loss. • Spotting the earliest warning signs – Exploring how subtle shifts in language and menopause-related hormone changes may predict Alzheimer’s risk. • Fueling prevention and cures – Creating powerful data and tools that will accelerate new treatments and bring researchers closer to stopping Alzheimer’s. To reach Martens for an interview, visit his profile and click on the "contact" button. Interviews with DCF officials can be arranged by emailing MediaRelations@udel.edu.
#Expert Research: Incentives Speed Up Operating Room Turnover Procedures
The operating room (OR) is the economic hub of most healthcare systems in the United States today, generating up to 70% of hospital revenue. Ensuring these financial powerhouses run efficiently is a major priority for healthcare providers. But there’s a challenge. Turnovers—cleaning, preparing, and setting up the OR between surgeries—are necessary and unavoidable processes. OR turnovers can incur significant costs in staff time and resources, but at the same time, do not generate revenue. For surgeons, the lag between wheels out and wheels in is idle time. For incoming patients, who may have spent hours fasting in preparation for a procedure, it is also a potential source of frustration and anxiety. Reducing OR turnover time is a priority for many US healthcare providers, but it’s far from simple. For one thing, cutting corners in pursuit of efficiency risks patient safety. Then there’s the makeup of OR teams themselves. As a rule, well-established or stable teams work fastest and best, their efficiency fueled by familiarity and well-oiled interpersonal dynamics. But in hospital settings, staff work in shifts and according to different schedules, which creates a certain fluidity in the way turnover teams amalgamate. These team members may not know each other or have any prior experience working together. For hospital administrators this represents a quandary. How do you cut OR turnover time without compromising patient care or hiring in more staff to build more stable teams? To put that another way: how do you motivate OR workers to maintain standards and drive efficiency—irrespective of the team they work with at any given time? One novel approach instituted by Georgia’s Phoebe Putney Health System is the focus of new research by Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole PhD. Under the stewardship of perioperative medical director and anesthesiologist, Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA, and with support from Sedatole and co-authors, Ewelina Forker 23PhD of the University of Wisconsin and Harvard Business School’s Susanna Gallini PhD, staff at Phoebe ran a field experiment incentivizing individual OR workers to ramp up their own performance in turnover processes. What they have found is a simple and cost-effective intervention that reduces the lag between procedures by an average of 6.4 percent. Homing in on the Individual Williams and his team at Phoebe kicked off efforts to reduce OR turnover times by first establishing a benchmark to calculate how long it should take to prepare for different types of procedure or surgery. This can vary significantly, says Williams: while a gallbladder removal should take less than 30 minutes, open-heart surgery might take an hour or longer to prepare. “There’s a lot of variation in predicting how long it should take to get things set up for different procedures. We got there by analyzing three years of data to create a baseline, and from there, having really homed in on that data, we were able to create a set of predictions and then compare those with what we were seeing in our operating rooms—and track discrepancies, over-, and underachievement.” Williams, a Goizueta MBA graduate who also completed his anesthesiology residency at Emory University’s School of Medicine, then enlisted the support of Sedatole and her colleagues to put together a data analysis system that would capture the impact of two distinct mechanisms, both designed to incentivize individual staff members to work faster during turnovers. The first was a set of electronic dashboards programmed to record and display the average OR turnover performance for teams on a weekly basis, and segment these into averages unique to individuals working in each of the core roles within any given OR turnover team. The dashboard displayed weekly scores and ranked them from best to worst on large TV monitors with interactive capabilities—users could filter the data for types of surgery and other dimensions. Broadcasting metrics this way afforded Williams and his team a means of identifying and then publicly recognizing top-performing staff, but that’s not all. The dashboards also provided a mechanism with which to filter out team dynamics, and home in on individual efforts. “If you are put in a room with one team, and they are slower than others, then you are going to be penalized. Your efforts will not shine. Now, say you are put in with a bigger or faster team, your day’s numbers are going to be much higher. So, we had to find a way to accommodate and allow for the team effect, to observe individual effort. The dashboards meant we could do this. Over the period of a week or a month, the effect of other people in the team is washed out. You begin to see the key individuals pop up again and again over time, and you can see those who are far above their peers versus those who, for whatever reason, are not so efficient.” Sharing “relative performance” information has been shown to be highly motivating in many settings. The hope was that it would here, too. Three core roles: Who’s who in the Operating Room turnover team? OR turnover teams consist of three roles: circulating nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist. While other surgery staff might be present during a turnover, depending on the needs of consecutive procedures, these are the three core roles in the team, and they are not interchangeable in any way: each individual assumes the same responsibilities in every team they join. Typically, turnover tasks will include removing instruments and equipment from the previous surgery and setting up for the next: restocking supplies and restoring the sterile environment. Turnover tasks and activities will vary according to the type of procedure coming next, but these tasks are always performed by the same three roles: nurse, scrub tech, and anesthetist, working within their own area of expertise and specialty. OR turnover teams are assembled based on staff schedules and availability, making them highly fluid. Different nurses will work with different scrub techs and different anesthetists depending on who is free and available at any given time. With dashboards on display across the hospital’s surgery department, Williams decided to trial a second motivational mechanism; this time something more tangible. “We decided to offer a simple $40 Dollar Store gift card to each week’s top performing anesthetist, nurse, or scrub technician to see if it would incentivize people even more. And to keep things interesting, and sustain motivation, we made sure that anyone who’d won the contest two weeks in a row would be ineligible to win the gift card the following week,” says Williams. “It was a bit of a shot in the dark, and we didn’t know if it would work.” Altogether, the dashboards remained in situ over a period of about 33 months while the gift card promotion ran for 73 weeks. It was important to stress the foundational importance of safety and then allow individuals to come up with their own ways to tighten procedures. This was a bottom-up, grassroots experience where the people doing the work came up with their own ways to make their times better, without cutting corners, without cutting quality, and without cutting any safety measures. Jason Williams MD 02MR 20MBA Incentives: Make it Something Special and Unique Crunching all of this data, Sedatole and her colleagues could isolate the effect of each mechanism on performance and turnover times at Phoebe. While the dashboards had “negligible” effect on productivity, the addition of the store gift cards had immediate, significant, and sustained impact on individuals’ efforts. Differences in the effectiveness of the two incentives—the relative performance dashboard and the gift cards—are attributable to team fluidity, says Sedatole. “It’s all down to familiarity. Dashboards are effective if you care about your reputation and your standing with peers. And in fluid team settings, where people don’t really know each other, reputation seems to matter less because these individuals may never work together again. They simply care less about rankings because they are effectively strangers.” Tangible rewards, on the other hand, have what Sedatole calls a “hedonic” value: they can feel more special and unique to the recipient, even if they carry relatively little monetary value. Something like a $40 gift card to Target can be more motivating to individuals even than the same amount in cash. There’s something hedonic about a prize that differentiates it from cash—after all, you will just end up spending that $40 on the electricity bill. Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole “A tangible reward is something special because of its hedonic nature and the way that human beings do mental accounting,” says Sedatole. “It occupies a different place in the brain, so we treat it differently.” In fact, analyzing the results, Sedatole and her colleagues find that the introduction of gift cards at Phoebe equates to an average incremental improvement of 6.4% in OR turnover performance; a finding that does not vary over the 73-week timeframe, she adds. To get the same result by employing more staff to build more stable teams, Sedatole calculates that the hospital would have to increase peer familiarity to the 98th percentile: a very significant financial outlay and a lot of excess capacity if those additional team members are not working 100% of the time. These are key findings for healthcare systems and for administrators and decision-makers in any setting or sector where fluid teams are the norm, says Sedatole: from consultancy to software development to airline ground crews. Wherever diverse professionals come together briefly or sporadically to perform tasks and then disperse, individual motivation can be optimized by simple mechanisms—cost-effective tangible rewards—that give team members a fresh opportunity to earn the incentive in different settings on different occasions—a recurring chance to succeed that keeps the incentive systems engaging and effective over time. For healthcare in particular, this is a win-win-win, says Williams. “In the United States we are faced with lower reimbursements and higher costs, so we have to look for areas where we can gain efficiencies and minimize costs. In the healthcare value model, time and costs are denominators, and quality and service are numerators. Any way we can save on costs and improve efficiencies allows us to take care of more patients, and to be able to do that effectively. “We made some incredible improvements here. We went from just average to best in class, right to the frontier of operative efficiency. And there is so much more opportunity out there to pull more levers and reach new levels, which is truly encouraging.” Looking to know more or connect with Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, Karen Sedatole? Simply click on her icon now to arrange an interview or time to talk today.
Georgia Southern biology professor named 2025-26 Fulbright U.S. Scholar to Vietnam
Stephen Greiman, Ph.D., associate professor of biology in Georgia Southern University’s College of Science and Mathematics, has been awarded a 2025-26 Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to Vietnam where he will lead a teaching and research project focused on parasite diversity in bats. “Dr. Greiman is further proof that Georgia Southern faculty are among the best in their fields,” said Avinandan (Avi) Mukherjee, Ph.D., provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “We are incredibly proud of this achievement and all the hard work that goes into such a celebrated milestone paying off.” Greiman’s Fulbright work will build on more than a decade of collaboration with Vietnamese scientists. During graduate school, he began working with parasitologists in Vietnam and participated in field expeditions in 2013 and 2014. That early partnership has since blossomed into multiple co-authored publications and enduring collegial friendships. Vietnam, Greiman explained, is a natural fit for this project. “Its exceptional biodiversity and the significant burden of parasitic infections across humans, domestic animals and wildlife make it a particularly relevant and meaningful host country for my research,” he said. “Our shared goal is to advance awareness and understanding of parasite diversity among students and the public.” During his grant period, Greiman will teach a parasitology course at Hai Duong Medical Technical University. He will also conduct field and laboratory research in partnership with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology’s Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources and the Department of Parasitology. His research will involve sampling and analyzing the parasites and microbiomes of Vietnamese bats—a project designed to engage both undergraduate and graduate students in hands-on scientific inquiry. “International collaborations often yield more impactful research than national projects alone,” Greiman noted. “This award not only strengthens our scientific goals but offers my family a chance to immerse ourselves in a new culture. It’s an experience we’re incredibly grateful for.” Beyond fieldwork, Greiman hopes the Fulbright project will open doors for new exchange programs between Georgia Southern and Vietnamese institutions. He envisions Georgia Southern students spending semesters abroad and returning with global perspectives that enrich their academic and personal growth. “The data and experiences I bring back will directly inform my courses, including parasitology and biology of microorganisms,” Greiman said. “I’ll also use our findings to support undergraduate and graduate research projects, pursue new grant opportunities and publish in high-impact journals.” He credits the Fulbright program with not only enabling his research abroad but also cultivating cultural exchange, particularly by allowing families to travel with awardees. His wife, who has a background in the arts, is excited to explore Vietnam’s artistic traditions, while their two young children will experience a culture far different from their own. “Vietnam is rich in natural and cultural history,” he said. “We’re looking forward to embracing it fully, both in the field and in everyday life.” Greiman’s selection is both a professional milestone and a personal journey—one shaped by long-standing collaborations, a deep commitment to global science, and the mentorship of Georgia Southern Vice President for Research and Economic Development David Weindorf, Ph.D. “Although I was initially hesitant to apply due to the program’s competitiveness, I was inspired by Dr. Weindorf’s own transformative experiences as a Fulbright Scholar and Specialist,” Greiman said. “His guidance and support helped me see the incredible potential of this opportunity—not just for my research, but for my family and our students.” That encouragement reflects a strong professional relationship rooted in mutual respect and a shared commitment to international collaboration. “I am so proud of Dr. Greiman’s selection as a Fulbright Scholar,” said Weindorf. “The benefits of the exchange will truly be lifelong, with new friends, colleagues and connections formed and cultivated. We look forward to celebrating the lives Dr. Greiman touches, both through his teaching and research, as a meritorious ambassador of Georgia Southern University.” For Greiman, the Fulbright award marks just the beginning of a broader vision. “This experience will generate foundational data for future National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health proposals and deepen our international partnerships,” he said. “Being selected as a Fulbright Scholar is an extraordinary honor and a chance to contribute meaningfully to a global legacy of scholarship, cultural exchange and scientific discovery.” He encourages fellow faculty members considering the program to apply. “Go for it,” he said. “Your chances are zero if you don’t try. The Fulbright is one of the few opportunities that blends extended research, cultural immersion and family inclusion. It’s life-changing—and absolutely worth it.” If you're interested in knowing more about Stephen Greiman's work or more about his Fullbright award - simply contact Georgia Southern's Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.
The Sky’s the Limit: Researching surface impacts to improve the durability of aircraft
Associate professor Ibrahim Guven, Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering is conducting a research project funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) that explores building aircraft for military purposes and civilian transportation that can travel more than five times the speed of sound. Guven’s role in this project is to consider the durability of aircraft surfaces against elements such as rain, ice, and debris. His research group is composed of Ph.D. students who assist with the study and has collaborated with other institutions, including the University of Minnesota, Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland. Why did you get involved with this research project? The intersection of need and our interests decides what we research. I’m interested in physics and have been working on methods to strengthen aircraft exteriors against the elements for 12 years. We started with looking at sand particle impact damage, and then we graduated from that to studying raindrop impact because that’s a more challenging problem. Sand impact is not as challenging in terms of physics. A liquid and a solid behave differently under impact conditions. The shape of the raindrop changes prior to the impact due to the shock layer ahead of the aircraft. Researching this impact requires simulating the raindrop-shock layer interaction that gives us the shape of the droplet at the time of contact with the aircraft surface. Unlike with sand, analyzing raindrop impact starts at that point, which requires accurate modeling of the pressure being applied. As the aerospace community achieves faster speeds, there’s a need to understand what will affect a flight’s safety and the aircraft’s structural integrity. That need is what I’m helping to fulfill. Were there any challenges you and your research group faced while working on this study? How did you overcome them? Finding data was hard. I’m a computational scientist, meaning I implement mathematical differential equations that govern physics to write computer code that predicts how something will behave. My experiments are virtual, so to ensure that my models work well, I need experimental data for validation. However, conducting experiments on this problem is extremely challenging. That’s the roadblock. Currently, we refer to data from the seventies and eighties. Beyond that, this kind of information is not available. We are working to generate data that my computational methods need for their validation. An example is the nylon bead impact experiment. Some researchers found that if you shoot a nylon bead at a target, it leads to damage similar to that from a raindrop of the same size. It is much easier and cheaper to shoot nylon beads compared to the experiments involving raindrops. However, this similarity vanishes as we go into higher velocities. How do you typically gather data for a project of this nature? We are working with a laboratory under the U.S. Navy. They can accelerate specimens to relevant speeds, meaning they can shoot them into the air at the desired velocity. A colleague at Stevens Institute of Technology also came up with a droplet levitator. He uses acoustic waves emitted by tiny speakers to play a certain sound at a certain frequency to create enough air pressure to suspend droplets midair. To an untrained eye, it looks like magic. They levitate droplets and use a railgun to shoot our samples at the droplets. Our samples hitting the droplets are stand-ins for the aircraft surface material. Once this is done successfully, they shoot a sample with high-speed cameras that can take ten million frames per second. As a result, we get a good, high-fidelity picture of this impact event. That is the type of data I’m seeking, and this is how I get it from my collaborators. What was your overall experience working with the students in your research group? I like to think it was positive. I try to be a nice advisor and give them space to explore, fail, and bring their own ideas. Even if I feel like we’re at a dead-end, I step back and let them figure it out. My role is to help them grow. Teach them, train them and help them along the way. That’s the experience. Did you notice any personal changes in your students during this project? Yeah, I have. When they’re just out of their undergraduate programs, confidence is lacking sometimes. You see them become more sure of themselves as they learn more and more. Often, regardless of whether English is their native language or not, writing is a big issue for every student. How one presents ideas in written form is a persistent problem in engineering. I see the most growth in that area. Again, an advisor has to be a guide and also have patience. Eventually, after working on multiple paper drafts, I can see tremendous improvement. You must allow them to see their shortcomings. It’s important to work with students to refine how they frame a problem, explain it to a wide audience in concise terms, and use neutral language without leading them to certain conclusions. Why do you think that this research is important? Somebody has to do it, right? I believe that I’m the right person because of my background. Personally, I think if this research makes for safer travel conditions, and if I have something to offer, then why not? If we can accurately simulate what happens in these conditions, we can use our methods to test out designs for damage mitigation. For example, we can perform simulations with different surface materials for the aircraft to see if using a different material or layered coating system leads to less damage. In a bigger picture, we’re working on a very narrow problem in our field, but we don’t know how useful that’s going to be in 10, 15 or 30 years from now. Whatever we study and put out there in terms of publications, it may help some other researcher in a different context many years later. This could be space research, modeling an atmosphere on a different planet, or something that is related to our bodies. There are parts of physics in this problem that do not necessarily only apply to high-speed flight. It could be many different things. One has to understand that what is studied may seem obscure today, but because the universe is more or less governed by the same physics, everything should be put in a theoretical framework, done right and shared with the community. People may learn things that could become relevant in the future. It’s not uncommon. What is another subject that you plan to study? The next natural step is coming up with strategies to mitigate damage in these scenarios. If avoiding a risk is not an option, can we actually come up with a solution? We have to determine how to modify an aircraft’s design to prevent a catastrophe. Another extension of my research would be to examine the landing of spacecraft on dusty planetary bodies. During landing on Earth, aircraft approach and reach the ground very smoothly. On the other hand, a spacecraft comes down slowly and needs a lot of reverse propulsion for a soft landing. As it does, it kicks up a large amount of dust, which blows back and hits the spacecraft. Taking into account the damage that occurs due to particle impact is a direct connection to my work. This again is an open area, and because we have ambitions to have a permanent presence on dusty places like the moon and Mars, we have to nail down the concept of landing safely. That is where my research could help.
Viqtory Media recognizes Georgia Southern University as a top military-friendly college
Georgia Southern University continues to be a leading institution in providing military-connected students with exceptional opportunities, earning the 2025-2026 Top Ten Military Friendly® distinction by Viqtory Media. The University achieved gold recognition for its support of military students, veterans and families as they pursue their academic and career goals. “At Georgia Southern, we are deeply committed to honoring the service and sacrifice of our military-connected students by providing them with a student-centered experience rooted in flexibility, support and excellence,” said Alejandra Sosa Pieroni, Ed. D., Executive Vice President for the Division of Enrollment, Marketing and Student Success. “This continued recognition as a Military Friendly School reflects the intentional work of our faculty and staff to ensure that service members, veterans, and their families have the resources they need to succeed in the classroom, in their careers, and in life.” Georgia Southern is used to being named a Military Friendly School, having earned this distinction for 13 consecutive years. Military-connected students at Georgia Southern have access to a variety of services and flexible academic programs both on campus and online. Select graduate programs, including the MBA, are conveniently offered at the Army Education Centers on Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield. In addition, all three campuses and offices located at the Fort Stewart and Hunter Airfield Education Centers feature resource centers to assist military students, veterans and families. “Georgia Southern University is dedicated to providing the best service to our service members, Veterans and their families,” said William Gammon, director of Military and Veteran Services. “We consider it a privilege to serve this special student population. The continued recognition as a Military Friendly School is a testament to our dedication to our military services and their families.” The annual Military Friendly School list is compiled by Viqtory, a service-disabled, veteran-owned company, with input from the Military Friendly Advisory Council, a group of independent experts in higher education and military recruitment. The list is published in the May and October issues of G.I. Jobs magazine and can be found at www.militaryfriendly.com. Visit Georgia Southern’s website to learn more information about the Military and Veterans program: Looking to know more about Georgia Southern University and it's programming and support for military-connected students — simply contact Georgia Southern's Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.
University of Delaware, in close collaboration with Delaware State Police, the Delaware Association of Chiefs of Police, the Office of Highway Safety, and the Delaware DMV, has co-developed the Blue Envelope Program – now launched statewide as of Aug. 26, 2025. The program offers no-questions-asked, no-ID-required, free envelopes that drivers with disabilities (including communication differences, sensory needs, mobility limitations, or other differences) can keep in their vehicle. The envelope includes space for emergency contact or medical notes, instructions for law enforcement and tips to ensure safe, respectful, clear exchanges during traffic stops. The University of Delaware Center for Disabilities Studies helped review and approve the content and design to ensure inclusivity and accessibility. UD experts – including Sarah Mallory (Associate Director of the Center for Disabilities Studies) and Alisha Fletcher (Director, Delaware Network for Excellence in Autism) – are available to speak about how the program supports an underserved and underrepresented group and improves outcomes in law enforcement encounters. Why This Matters: Traffic stops can be stressful for drivers with disabilities and can lead to misinterpretations or heightened risk. The Blue Envelope helps reduce misunderstandings while preserving dignity and safety. Delaware joins around 10 other states (including Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont) in adopting a traffic-stop communication aid for drivers with disabilities This is a practical, no-barrier solution that promotes equity, accessibility, and respectful law enforcement practices. To speak with either Mallory or Fletcher to learn more about the program's development, impact and what’s next, email mediarelations@udel.edu.
Apanaskevichiella: Georgia Southern’s tick detective honored with genus classification
Dmitry Apanaskevich, Ph.D., doesn’t look like a traditional detective. He won’t be found chasing down clues in back alleys or interrogating shady characters in a dimly lit room. But he does have that inquisitive, investigative passion that fuels his unique work — serving as the assistant curator at the U.S. National Tick Collection, housed in Georgia Southern University’s Math/Physics Building on the Statesboro Campus. “I’ve been fascinated by animals my entire life,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to be a biologist.” That fascination gave birth to a decades-long career studying ticks, part of the Arachnida class, leading to a lifetime full of discovery and distinction. He was recently awarded one of the highest honors a biologist can receive: a newly recognized genus of soft ticks named Apanaskevichiella. The genus was discovered through advanced genomic work by world-renowned tick phylogeneticist Stephen Barker, Ph.D., of the University of Queensland. Barker is a long-time collaborator, and the naming of the newly discovered genus is his way of honoring Apanaskevich. “It has turned out to be a very pleasant surprise,” said Apanaskevich. “To have a genus named after me is already more than I ever expected. It means my work has made a lasting mark — and that’s a rare and humbling gift.” But his love for ticks came about accidentally. Apanaskevich received his education in Russia, earning a bachelor’s and a master’s at St. Petersburg State University. He went on to obtain his Ph.D. at the Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. It was during this period of his life when his professors ignited what would become a decades-long fascination with the tiny arthropods. “In my early days as an undergrad, my professors had a major influence on me,” he explained. “The professor who offered the most interesting topic would win.” One day, a professor handed him a jar filled with mayflies, tasking him with describing each species. It was a request that would change his life forever. “He completely won me over with that,” said Apanskevich. “Discovering new species became my dream.” He became obsessed, spending hours glued to the microscope, developing a huge passion for tiny parasites. “Parasites like ticks might look like they’re small, but they’re quite large,” he explained. “That being said, you need to use a microscope when examining them, especially if you’re trying to find and identify those more minute details.” Finding and analyzing those small details is as much of an art as it is a science, he said. “You have to be able to see things that others can’t,” explained Apanaskevich. “You can provide objective data like measurements and comparisons all day, but the artistic, subjective part of this research is how the biologist can analyze and find connections between the thousands, even millions of specimens.” Ambition and curiosity have fueled his journey through the scientific world. But now, he has something else that makes him tick. “My kids are proud of it,” he said, a grin spreading across his face. “They’re pretty proud of me. And really, that’s enough for me.” If you're interested in knowing more about the work Dmitry Apanaskevich is doing at Georgia Southern University or looking to speak with him — simply contact Georgia Southern's Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.
Ashley Panichelli, M.D., has been appointed vice chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at ChristianaCare. In this role, Panichelli will support the department’s clinical and academic missions. She will help guide quality and safety initiatives and promote a culture of accountability, learning and psychological safety. She will advance education and professional development across faculty and residency programs, assist with strategic planning, mentorship and peer review, and strengthen collaboration across department leadership, faculty and staff. A Delaware native, Panichelli earned her medical degree from Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and completed her residency and chief residency in Family Medicine at ChristianaCare in 2018. She joined the residency program’s core faculty that same year and has since held several leadership roles, including clinical lead and associate program director. In 2022, she was named clinical director of Academic and Complex Primary Care, a role she continues to support. Panichelli is a clinical assistant professor at Sidney Kimmel Medical College and has been recognized with several honors, including the Delaware Academy of Family Physicians’ Teacher of the Year award and the Department’s Rising Star award. She completed ChristianaCare’s ACT course, the LEED-R elective, and the Harvard Medical Director Leadership Institute. She was an Emerging Leaders Institute scholar with the American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation. She reports to Erin Kavanaugh, M.D., FAAFP, chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Twenty years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the southeastern coast of the United States, devastating cities and towns across Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and beyond. The storm caused nearly 1,400 fatalities, displaced more than 1 million people and generated over $125 billion in damages. Rob Traver, PhD, P.E., D. WRE, F.EWRI, F.ASCE, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Villanova University, assisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE) investigation of the failure of the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System during Hurricane Katrina, and earned an Outstanding Civilian Service Medal from the Commanding General of USACE for his efforts. Dr. Traver reflected on his experience working in the aftermath of Katrina, and how the findings from the investigation have impacted U.S. hurricane responses in the past 20 years. Q: What was your role in the investigation of the failure of the New Orleans Hurricane Protection System? Dr. Traver: Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, USACE wanted to assess what went wrong with flood protections that had failed during the storm in New Orleans, but they needed qualified researchers on their team who could oversee their investigation. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), an organization I have been a part of for many years, was hired for this purpose. Our job was to make sure that USACE was asking the right questions during the investigation that would lead to concrete answers about the causes of the failure of the hurricane protection system. My team was focused on analyzing the risk and reliability of the water resource system in New Orleans, and we worked alongside the USACE team, starting with revising the investigation questions in order to get answers about why these water systems failed during the storm. Q: What was your experience like in New Orleans in the aftermath of the hurricane? DT: My team went down to New Orleans a few weeks after the hurricane, visited all the sites we were reviewing and met with infrastructure experts along the way as progress was being made on the investigation. As we were flying overhead and looking at the devastated areas, seeing all the homes that were washed away, it was hard to believe that this level of destruction could happen in a city in the United States. As we started to realize the errors that were made and the things that went wrong leading up to the storm, it was heartbreaking to think about how lives could have been saved if the infrastructure in place had been treated as one system and undergone a critical review. Q: What were the findings of the ASCE and USACE investigation team? DT: USACE focused on New Orleans because they wanted to figure out why the city’s levee system—a human-made barrier that protects land from flooding by holding back water—failed during the hurricane. The city manages pump stations that are designed to remove water after a rainfall event, but they were not well connected to the levee system and not built to handle major storms. So, one of the main reasons for the levee system failure was that the pump stations and levees were not treated as one system, which was one of the causes of the mass flooding we saw in New Orleans. Another issue we found was that the designers of the levee system never factored in a failsafe for what would happen if a bigger storm occurred and the levee overflowed. They had the right idea by building flood protection systems, but they didn’t think that a larger storm the size of Katrina could occur and never updated the design to bring in new meteorological knowledge on size of potential storms. Since then, the city has completely rebuilt the levees using these lessons learned. Q: What did researchers, scientists and the general population learn from Katrina? DT: In areas that have had major hurricanes over the past 20 years, it’s easy to find what went wrong and fix it for the future, so we don’t necessarily worry as much about having a hurricane in the same place as we’ve had one before. What I worry about is if a hurricane hits a new town or city that has not experienced one and we have no idea what the potential frailties of the prevention systems there could be. Scientists and researchers also need to make high-risk areas for hurricane activity in the United States known for those who live there. People need to know what their risk is if they are in areas where there is increased risk of storms and flooding, and what they should do when a storm hits, especially now with the changes we are seeing in storm size.
Professor Sangeeta Khorana made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
Professor Sangeeta Khorana, professor of international trade policy at Aston University, has been made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Fellows are elected for their contributions to social science, including in economic development, human rights and welfare reform The 2025 cohort of 63 Fellows will join a 1,700-strong Fellowship with members from academia, the public, private and third sectors. Professor Sangeeta Khorana, professor of international trade policy at Aston University, has been made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences as part of the Autumn 2025 cohort. The 63 new Fellows have been elected from 39 UK organisations, comprising 29 higher education institutions, as well as think tanks, non-profits, business, and from countries beyond the UK including Australia and China. The Academy of Social Science’s Fellowship comprises 1,700 leading social scientists from academia, the public, private and third sectors. Selection is through an independent peer review which recognises their excellence and impact. Professor Khorana has more than 25 years of academic, government and management consulting experience in international trade. She has worked for the Indian government as a civil servant and on secondment to the UK Department for Business and Trade. Her expertise includes free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations and World Trade Organization (WTO) issues. As well as sitting on various expert committees, Professor Khorana is an advisor on gender and trade to the Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network in London and serves on Foreign Investment Committee of the PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry, India. The Autumn 2025 cohort of Fellows have expertise in a range of areas including educational inequalities, place-based economic development, human rights protection, the regulation of new technologies, and welfare reform, highlighting the importance, breadth and relevance of the social sciences to tackling the varied challenges facing society today. As well as excellence in research and professional applications of social science, the new Fellows have also made significant contributions beyond the academy, including to industry, policy and higher education. Professor Khorana said: “I am deeply honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. This recognition underscores not only the importance of international trade policy as a driver of inclusive and sustainable growth, but also the role of social sciences in shaping fairer and more resilient societies. At Aston University, my research seeks to bridge academia, government and industry to inform evidence-based trade policy for global cooperation. I am proud to contribute to the Academy’s mission of demonstrating how social science knowledge and practice can address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.” President of the Academy, Will Hutton FAcSS, said: “It’s a pleasure to welcome these 63 leading social scientists to the Academy’s Fellowship. Their research and practical applications have made substantial contributions to social science and wider society in a range of areas from international trade policy and inclusive planning systems through to innovative entrepreneurship and governing digital technologies. We look forward to working with them to promote further the vital role the social sciences play in all areas of our lives.”
