Two former Pitt faculty members earn History Makers Award
The Heinz History Center recognized one current and one former University of Pittsburgh faculty member at its annual History Makers Award Dinner on June 8. The ceremony, now in its 30th year, honors individuals in Western Pennsylvania who have profoundly contributed to the region’s innovative history and collective heritage.
James Adovasio, who chaired Pitt’s Department of Anthropology from 1973 to 1990, will receive an award for his advancements in archaeology. His 1973 excavation of Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Avella, Pennsylvania, uncovered evidence that the site was the oldest site of human habitation in North America. Adovasio is now director of archaeology for the Meadowcroft Rockshelter and Historic Village.
Loren Roth, distinguished professor emeritus in Pitt’s Department of Psychiatry, will be recognized for contributions to the field of health care. During Roth’s 44-year career in the School of Medicine, his research focused on informed consent, patient dangerousness, confidentiality and ethics in research. He was also the sole psychiatrist to participate in the first human rights discussion between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Eight faculty win Pitt’s 2023 Innovation in Education Awards
The Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence honored nine Pitt faculty members with 2023 Innovation in Education Awards.
The awards recognize full-time and part-time faculty for projects that enhance teaching at the University and foster new instructional techniques to advance student learning. This year’s call for proposal asked for ideas that focused on technology-enhanced learning as well as experiential or active learning to support equity and inclusion.
The 2023 winners are:
- Mai Abdelhakim, electrical and computer engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, "Tailored experiential learning modules combining Artificial Intelligence and Resilient Engineering Systems: Toward meeting future cybersecurity challenges"
- Dmitriy Babichenko, informatics and networked systems in the School of Computing and Information, "Interactive Python assignment designer and autograder"
- Gretchen Bender, history of art and architecture in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, "How to talk with a work of art: An Open Educational Resource"
- Peter Brusilovsky, informatics and networked systems in the School of Computing and Information, "An interactive electronic textbook for Python programming and data science courses"
- Erika Fanselow, neuroscience in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and Burhan Gharaibeh, biological sciences in the Dietrich School, "Developing interactive digital resources using HTML5 Package (H5P) educational technology to enhance instruction in undergraduate general anatomy and neuroanatomy laboratories"
- Kirill Kiselyov, biological sciences in the Dietrich School, "Scaling the storytelling approach: An online teaching and learning paradigm for modern undergraduate classrooms"
- In Hee Lee, electrical and computer engineering in the Swanson School, "New experiential, discipline-based, and technology-enhanced lab activities for semiconductor chip design courses"
Aditi Gurkar awarded $375,000 to research healthy aging
Aditi Gurkar, assistant professor in Pitt’s School of Medicine and Aging Institute, is a recipient of an inaugural New Investigator Award in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research from Hevolution and the American Federation for Aging Research.
Gurkar is one of 18 scientists from around the world who will receive $375,000 over three years to support research that addresses the biology of aging and age-related disease to promote healthy aging. Her project, “A Nanoscale Detection Tool for Senescence,” will develop new approaches to identify and map senescent cells, a type of dysfunctional cell that accumulates with age and drives inflammation and disease, to better understand the mechanisms of aging and develop new strategies to improve health span.
As a faculty member of Pitt’s Division of Geriatric Medicine, Gurkar’s research on identifying signal mechanisms that drive aging has been twice funded by the National Institute of Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.
American Educational Research Association recognizes Pitt Education researchers, reviewers
Four Pitt Education faculty and one alumna earned honors at the 2023 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting.
An AERA special interest group on graduate education awarded the 2023 Publication of the Year Award to Linda DeAngelo, associate professor of higher education; Max Schuster, assistant professor of practice; and alumna Qiana Lachaud (EDUC ’20G). Their article, “The Faculty Role in Grooming and Gatekeeping Students' of Color Potential Along the Professoriate Pipeline," was published in The Review of Higher Education.
The article examines how assumptions about student success, such as the ways faculty understand the utility of and use grades and tests scores as measures of student potential, limit access to mentoring for students of color.
Pitt’s Eleanor Anderson, assistant professor of research-practice partnerships, and Emily Rainy, assistant professor of language, literacy and culture, were named 2022 Outstanding Reviewers. The annual award recognizes peer reviewers for providing exemplary, thorough and timely reviews of manuscripts received at their journals.
This is the second year Anderson, a reviewer for the journal Educational Researcher, has received the honor from AERA. Rainey earned the award for her work with AERA Open, an open-access journal that emphasizes rapid review and dissemination to advance timely knowledge related to education.
Vanessa Love Pitt’s new director for civil rights and Title IX
Vanessa Love was recently named the new director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Civil Rights and Title IX.
A native of Pittsburgh’s South Hills, Love is coming from the city’s Point Park University, where she helped create and served as inaugural assistant vice president to the school’s Office of Compliance and Integrity.
She is a three-time alumna of the University with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, a master’s degree in international affairs from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and a Juris Doctor from the Pitt School of Law. A member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association since 2013, Love also has worked as an attorney in private practice, specializing in family law.
“Vanessa Love brings to us a proven track record of successfully guiding strategy and advancing an agenda to prioritize civil rights and Title IX response and education,” said Clyde W. Pickett, Pitt’s vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion and chief diversity officer. “We heard resoundingly from the search committee that her education and experience made her the most qualified candidate for this role. I am personally looking forward to her joining our team and bringing a fresh review and assessment of our work in the Office of Civil Rights & Title IX. I believe our community will benefit from her leadership, and that she will be a positive agent for change in our community.”
Love credited Pitt for launching and guiding her career.
“I always knew I wanted to come back to Pitt, because Pitt was always home for me,” she said. “When I arrived at Pitt, it was the first time people showed me everything that was possible for me. There was a real community of professors there who showed me they cared about me, and I want to be that kind of a person for other people in the community.”
A former Title IX investigator at Howard University and civil rights investigator at Community College of Allegheny County, Love began work at Point Park in 2019 as director of what was then a one-person office. During her tenure, Love built up staff and programming to deliver a full range of services related to equity, inclusion and accessibility.
At Pitt, Love will oversee education, professional development and outreach aimed at the prevention of discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual assault. She will also lead and support personnel who respond to complaints related to alleged misconduct. “The field itself is challenging, because you’re dealing sometimes with students, staff and faculty who have encountered horrible situations,” Love said. “They’re feeling frustrated and angry. We need to make sure that people who have experienced some kind of trauma are leaving us with a good experience.
“On top of that, the rules are ever-changing, so we have to make sure we stay in line with regulations from the federal government,” she said.
Love will report to Katie Pope, associate vice chancellor for strategic operations and planning in Pitt’s Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (OEDI).
Pope thanked Zach Davis, manager of OEDI’s gender discrimination and Title IX response program, for serving as acting director during the transition. “His experience within the office has been an asset during this transition and I want to thank him for giving his time and effort,” Pope said. Davis will remain in the acting role through the end of April to assist with the transition period, she said.
Love is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves who served for four years in an engineering battalion based in West Virginia. She resides in Pittsburgh’s South Hills with her daughter, who will attend Duquesne University in the fall to study biochemistry.
Gretchen Carlson Natter Pitt’s new assistant dean of students for community and inclusion
Gretchen Carlson Natter has been named assistant dean of students for community and inclusion within Pitt’s Division of Student Affairs, effective June 1.
As assistant dean, Natter will lead the Community and Inclusion Team, providing leadership for advancing the division’s strategic focus on improving students’ social and academic development through community. She will supervise the Office of Inclusion and Belonging, Fraternity and Sorority Life, PittServes and student media outlets The Pitt News and WPTS. By advancing forward-thinking and innovative ideas, Natter will keep the Division of Student Affairs at the forefront of trends and best practices to serve students.
Natter comes to Pitt from Gettysburg College, a nationally ranked liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, where she currently serves as assistant dean of college life and as executive director of the school’s Center for Public Service. In this role, she has partnered with academic colleagues to implement faculty fellowships for community-based learning and research, co-created a program to reinterpret community-level data in new ways, provided cross-institutional leadership to facilitate collective change and helped develop fellowship opportunities for students, among other accomplishments.
Natter earned her Master of Arts in Community Change and Civic Leadership at Antioch University Midwest and her bachelor’s degree in education at Baldwin-Wallace College. She believes in and advocates for “the transformative potential of higher education, as well as the power of people to collectively create change when acting on a common vision.”
Two Pitt Pharmacy professors earn AACP awards
Two professors in the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy earned annual awards from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
Neal J. Benedict, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics, earned a Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award for outstanding contributions to supporting scholarly teaching. Pitt Pharmacy Dean Amy Seybert earned the same award in 2021.
Sandra Kane-Gill, professor in Pitt’s Department of Critical Care Medicine, was awarded the Paul R. Dawson Award for Excellence in Patient Care Research. This annual award recognizes an active scientist who is a leader in health services delivery research that directly affects patient care outcomes.
Pitt-Bradford faculty, staff earn President’s Awards
Two people were honored with a President’s Award for Excellence at Pitt-Bradford’s Honors Convocation.
Matt Kropf, associate professor of engineering technology, received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Scholarship and Service.
In addition to his teaching duties, Kropf is director of the American Refining Group/Harry R. Halloran Jr. Energy Institute and president of the faculty senate. He is the architect of two new four-year engineering technology programs that began enrolling students last fall.
The professor consulted with architects designing the programs’ new home — the George B. Duke Engineering and Information Technologies Building — served on hiring committees for the required faculty and staff, wrote the specifications for the needed equipment and agreed to serve as director for both new engineering programs.
“Dr. Kropf is not only committed to helping his students succeed but also to ensuring the viability of Pitt-Bradford and this region,” Pitt-Bradford President Richard Esch said when presenting the award.
Kropf regularly works with students on their research and was able to incorporate lessons from the real-life engineering going on at the Duke building into his teaching. He served as a faculty mentor for the 2021 Appalachian Teaching Project at Pitt-Bradford, helping students map out trails on the University’s new Quintuple Mountain property.
During the 2019-20 academic year, Kropf saw one of his patents become a manufacturing reality with the creation of AE Resources Inc., a Mount Jewett company that creates biodiesel fuel in a small refinery on the property of the Bradford Regional Airport. Their process — Kropf’s patent — uses microwaves instead of hazardous catalysts.
In addition to his development of new programs and scholarship, Kropf’s services to Pitt include chairing the campus sustainability committee, writing a successful grant that funded the installation of solar panels atop the Duke building, and serving on the committee that developed the University of Pittsburgh Sustainability Plan.
Joelle Warner, director of donor relations and stewardship, earned the President’s Award for Excellence in Overall Performance.
“I am very happy to present this award to Joelle, who approaches her work with an exceptionally high level of professionalism,” President Esch said. “She also cares deeply about our students, our faculty and staff, and our generous supporters.”
Christine Tyler, director of development and major gifts, nominated Warner for the award.
Tyler noted that Warner’s consistent professionalism, organization and diligence were of immense benefit to the university as she planned an annual luncheon for scholarship donors to meet their recipients and the dedication of the George B. Duke Engineering and Information Technologies Building.
“Joelle has made a tremendous impact on Pitt-Bradford’s ability to raise philanthropic funds and to acquire, cultivate and steward donors,” Tyler wrote. “She has assisted countless donors to establish scholarships at Pitt-Bradford [and] worked with corporate donors on in-kind donations. … The standard of excellence that our donors have come to expect from Pitt-Bradford’s advancement program can, in large part, be traced directly back to Joelle’s efforts.”
FDA commissioner acknowledges Pitt professors’ work on access to hearing aids
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf and Debara Tucci, director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, recognized University of Pittsburgh professors for their work on increasing access to hearing aids through community pharmacies.
Califf and Tucci penned an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on the FDA’s new category for over-the-counter hearing aids, which they said will ease market entry for new hearing technology.
In response, Luke Berenbrok, associate professor of pharmacy and therapeutics in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy and Elaine Mormer, director of audiology clinical education in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, also took to JAMA to explain the importance of community pharmacists in ensuring the safe and effective use of OTC hearing aids.
Accessibility and proximity — nearly 90 percent of people in the U.S. live within a 5-mile driving distance of a pharmacy — make them “ideal locations to provide patient-centered, clinical services that are important to public health,” Berenbrok and Mormer wrote.
Califf and Tucci, in a final JAMA reply, recognized the community pharmacy care-delivery model researchers at Pitt are promoting. "We agree with Berenbrok and Mormer that this represents a promising approach," they wrote.
Pitt-Johnstown educators teaching and learning in Bolivia
Bethany McConnell, assistant professor in Pitt-Johnstown’s Department of Educational Studies, developed a workshop for educators in Cochabamba, Bolivia, who have for years hosted student-teachers from Pitt’s regional campuses.
Pitt’s Global Experiences Office partners each year with Alexis Wieczorek (UPJ ’10), director of Connect2Bolivia and former Vira I. Heinz scholar, to facilitate student-teaching placements at the Bolivian school. The study abroad opportunity is open to education majors at Pitt’s Johnstown and Greensburg campuses.
Two Pitt-Johnstown education majors completing the seven-week teaching experience assisted with leading the two-day workshop on differentiated instruction, which tailors teaching to the learning needs of each student. More than 50 local educators attended.
Learn how you can study abroad at Pitt.
Pittsburgh Business Times recognizes two Pitt leaders as 'Women of Influence'
Tracey Conti and Geovette Washington were among 26 local leaders recognized as Women of Influence by the Pittsburgh Business Times.
Conti, chair of Pitt’s Department of Family Medicine, is an advocate for improving patient outcomes through education and strong patient-physician partnerships. Her research has focused on women’s health as well as addressing health disparities and delivering health care to underserved communities.
Other achievements for the McKeesport physician include being named a Pittsburgh Top Doctor, a Pittsburgh Top Black Doctor and the 2019 Gateway Medical Society Physician of the Year.
Pitt’s Senior Vice Chancellor and Chief Legal Officer Geovette Washington is the senior-most executive for legal and public policy matters at the University. The former White House advisor and member of the Biden-Harris transition team also leads the Office of University Counsel, the Office of Policy Development and Management, and the Office of Compliance, Investigations, and Ethics.
Washington serves as the board of trustees chair of the Carnegie Museums and secretary of the International Women’s Forum of Pittsburgh. She sits on the advisory board for the Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts and is a senior fellow of the Administrative Conference of the United States.
The winners were honored at an event on May 23 at Acrisure Stadium.
Christine McClure named among Pittsburgh Ladies Who Lead
Christine McClure, a senior research scientist in Pitt’s School of Public Health, will be recognized at the 2023 Ladies Who Lead event. The Pittsburgh-based organization Professional Women’s Network will spotlight four women who mentor and sponsor other professionals. McClure’s (GSPIA ’06G, EDUC ’18G) research seeks to understand the intersectional experiences of women of color in higher education contexts to inform the creation of more equitable spaces for minoritized groups. The longtime University leader serves as board chair for When She Thrives, an organization dedicated to equipping single mothers through advocacy, education and personal and professional development. McClure is also an adjunct professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Miami, where she works with EdD candidates.
Jamie Ducar named to Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership Advisory Team
Jamie Ducar, executive director of the engaged campus within Pitt’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs, was recently elected to the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership (GPNP) Advisory Team for the 2023-25 cohort. She is one of four new members to the team.
The GPNP, which is part of the Forbes Funds, is a growing coalition of more than 500 member organizations across 10 counties working together to unify the nonprofit sector, build capacity and leverage collective resources.
The GPNP Advisory Team represents the diverse membership of the coalition — in mission, size and leadership demographics — and its members are able to speak cogently on the challenges and opportunities facing the nonprofit sector in real-time.
“The nonprofit sector is a big part of my professional journey here in Pittsburgh,” Ducar said. “I’ve had the opportunity to volunteer at the GPNP Summit to build my professional network as an emergent practitioner, joined GPNP as a member as former President of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Pittsburgh and now get to reinforce my work within the engaged campus by being part of the advisory team.
“I’m thrilled that GPNP membership considered me a good fit, and I am eager to support the initiatives and convenings that Emily Francis, program manager for the GPNP, and the entire Forbes Funds team are building to increase capacity across the sector.”
Simone Brixius-Anderko gets research award from American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy
Simone Brixius-Anderko, assistant professor in Pitt’s School of Pharmacy, earned a 2023 New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP).
The award will fund Brixius-Anderko’s development of an independent research program on fatty acid metabolism’s contribution to cancer progression, expanding on her lab’s research at Pitt. The seed funding supports early-career faculty in generating preliminary data and setting a foundation for extramural funding success.
A wide breadth of research areas are funded by the long-running AACP program, including basic understanding of disease states and drug discovery, medication adherence and improving student learning experiences. Nearly 500 principal investigators across more than 100 colleges and schools of pharmacy have received the award.
Meta Platforms awards Pitt researchers with Foundational Integrity Research award
Pitt researchers studying how conspiratorial content spreads online received a Foundational Integrity Research award from Meta Platforms.
The project, which will use population-level sampling to trace and measure the influence of online conspiratorial content, is led by Yu-Ru Lin, associate professor in Pitt’s School of Computing and Information. It will build on the work Lin does as principal investigator of the Pitt Computational Social Dynamics (PISCO) Lab, analyzing patterns of change within complex social systems.
The team of researchers — which includes co-investigator Amin Rahimian, assistant professor of industrial engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering — hopes to identify communities that are particularly vulnerable to conspiratorial content.
Meta received more than 500 proposals from 349 universities and institutions around the world for the research award, and Lin’s project on the spread of conspiratorial content was one of 11 winners. The winning research projects focus on domains such as misinformation, violence and incitement, hate speech and coordinated harm.
Salah Al-Zaiti receives Fulbright Scholar Award
Salah Al-Zaiti, vice chair of research in Pitt’s School of Nursing, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award to conduct research in Jordan.
Al-Zaiti’s research interests lie at the intersection of cardiovascular disease, biomedical informatics and machine learning. He has received nearly $8 million in funding through the National Institutes of Health.
Along with nearly 100 scholarly publications in peer-reviewed journals and 50 scientific presentations, Al-Zaiti helped develop the 2020 American Heart Association guidelines for preventing and mitigating the risk of exercise-related adverse cardiac events. The associate professor also earned a 2023 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award from the University.
The Fulbright Program, founded in 1946, is the world’s largest and most diverse international educational exchange program. Fulbright alums have gone on to become heads of state, judges, ambassadors, cabinet ministers, CEOs and university presidents. They include 62 Nobel Laureates, 89 Pulitzer Prize winners, 78 MacArthur Fellows and world-renowned experts in many fields across the private, public and nonprofit sectors.
David Waldeck gets $7.5 million grant from U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research
David Waldeck, a professor in Pitt’s Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, earned a $7.5 million Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The award will fund a five-year project.
MURI funds teams from across universities investigating high priority topics and opportunities that intersect more than one traditional technical discipline. Waldeck will lead researchers from seven universities, including Pitt, Duke University and the University of Southern California, to develop the understanding of the interaction between electron spin and chiral matter.
In 1999, Waldeck — along with Ron Naaman and others at the Weizmann Institute of Science — first reported a strong spin-filtering of electrons by chiral molecules, called Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS). The MURI researchers aim to develop a fundamental quantum mechanical description for CISS and to explore and demonstrate its use for communicating spin information over long distances, its application for affecting chemical reactions and its manifestations in redox biology.
Gauvin named SHRS associate dean of diversity and inclusion
The School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences has named Assistant Professor Nancy Gauvin as its new associate dean of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement.
Gauvin joined Pitt in 2021 as a member of the initial cohort of scholars from the university’s “Race and Social Determinants of Equity, Health and Well-Being Cluster Hire and Retention Initiative.” She is a speech-language pathologist and tenure-stream faculty in the school’s Department of Communication Science and Disorders and has experience leading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives throughout her clinical and academic career.
“Nancy has the expertise to address the challenges we face in recruiting and retaining faculty, staff and students of diverse backgrounds,” Dean Anthony Delitto said in a news release. “She also has the academic, clinical and research knowledge to drive change and create actionable plans to foster more equitable and inclusive learning and working environments spanning from the classroom to the lab, in the clinic and our communities.”
Gauvin directs the Communication Science and Disorders Department's new Communication and Health Equity Outcomes Research Initiative.
Read more on the SHRS website.
Law school alumnus Ted Black named Point Park University’s SVP of institutional advancement and strategy
Ted Black (LAW ’90) is the new senior vice president of institutional advancement and strategy for Point Park University.
Black will lead alumni affairs, enrollment and university marketing, external relations and strategic partnerships for the school, located in downtown Pittsburgh. He is currently president and CEO of the Whitaker Center for Science and the Arts in Harrisburg.
The Pitt School of Law alumnus was a former general counsel for the Pittsburgh Penguins and served as president of the Buffalo Sabres NHL franchise. Through roles in entertainment, sports and media — including as general manager of Fox Sports Network Pittsburgh — Black has managed more than $1 billion in assets throughout his career.
D. Michael Elnicki named editor-in-chief of Journal of General Internal Medicine
D. Michael Elnicki, professor in Pitt’s School of Medicine, was named as one of three upcoming editors-in-chief for The Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM).
Elnicki will help lead the official journal of the Society of General Internal Medicine, whose topics include clinical medicine, epidemiology, prevention, health care delivery and curriculum development.
The director of international education in Pitt’s School of Medicine has worked with medical schools in Kazakhstan, Spain, Vietnam and Uzbekistan. Elnicki also directs the section of general internal medicine at UPMC Shadyside and the Combined Ambulatory Medicine and Pediatrics Clerkship program. ambulatory Clerkship Director, and chair of the Academy of Master Educators.
Elnicki will begin his five-year term as JGIM editor-in-chief on July 1.