University Times

H. Richard Feller, associate professor of civil engineering technology, and Catherine Berret Kloss, associate professor of humanities, have been named recipients of the Johnstown campus's first President's Award for Teaching Excellence.

Feller joined the UPJ faculty in 1985. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from Pitt.

Kloss has been a Johnstown campus faculty member since 1969. She earned her B.A at Pitt and holds an M.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Feller and Kloss will each receive a $2,000 stipend. Another $1,000 will be added to their divisions' budgets for the coming year, for the winners to earmark for use for professional or curriculum development. A recommendation committee of five faculty members solicited nominations from the faculty at large and submitted five recommended candidates to President Albert L. Etheridge, who selected the winners.

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E. J. Borghetti has been promoted to director of media relations for the athletics department. He had served as assistant director for the past 10 months. Borghetti will oversee the daily operations of media relations and the promotion of Pitt's 19 intercollegiate sports teams, including publicity efforts for the football team.

Borghetti is a 1992 magna cum laude Pitt graduate.

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Michael B. Gorin, associate professor of ophthalmology in the School of Medicine, has been appointed interim chairperson of human genetics, a joint department of the medical school and the Graduate School of Public Health. A member of the department since 1991, Gorin specializes in the genetics of macular degeneration, an eye disease that leads to blindness, as well as other hereditary conditions that affect the eyes.

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Ron Cichowicz has been named assistant director of news and information, Office of Public Affairs. Cichowicz was director of development and public relations for Catholic Charities. Prior to that, he had held public relations positions at the Diocese of Pittsburgh, McKeesport Hospital and Carnegie Mellon. Donald Mattison, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health, has been appointed to the Infrastructure Task Force of the American Public Health Association. The task force will help shape the future of public health in the U.S. by developing strategic plans to restructure networks and partnerships formed by government agencies, academic institutions and community organizations that address public health problems.

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Mattison, author or co-author of more than 100 public health articles, is a member of the American College of Preventive Medicine and the American Association for Cancer Research. Recently, he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Clifton Callaway, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, received the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine's Young Investigator award for research designed to determine how to minimize brain damage during sudden cardiac arrest. Callaway is analyzing the neuroprotective effects of particular drugs derived from antibodies during resuscitation after cardiac arrest. The research is funded with a $175,000 three-year grant from the American Heart Association.

Callaway holds a bachelor's in psychology from Harvard and a combined M.D. and Ph.D. in medicine and neurosciences respectively from the University of California, San Diego.

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Poet Toi Derricotte, associate professor of English, was among 180 American poets invited to the White House in celebration of National Poetry Week. President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton each spoke on the value of poetry and read selections from their favorite American poets during the April 22 event. David Silk has been named director of budget and finance at the Graduate School of Public Health. For the past three years he served as grants and contracts manager at GSPH.

Prior to that, Silk worked as supervisor of audit control in research accounting, Office of the Controller, and as business manager in the Division of Cardiology, School of Medicine. He holds an associate's degree in accounting from the ICM School of Business.