Focus on Folks, 10/26/2006

Presentations & Accomplishments

Bart Ballard and graduate assistant Elizabeth Bates (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) presented a paper at the American Ornithological Society meeting in Vera Cruz, Mexico, Oct. 1-7 and participated in the Reddish Egret Workshop.

Ralph L. Bingham (mathematics/Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) presented a poster at The Wildlife Society annual national meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, Sept. 22-28. Also at the meeting, William P. Kuvlesky Jr. (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) co-authored three presentations and Aaron D. Tjelmeland (graduate research assistant-Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) gave a presentation.

Mario E. Carranza (political science) presented the paper “From Non-Proliferation to Post-Proliferation: Explaining the About-Face in U.S. Policy toward South Asia from Clinton to Bush,” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA), held in Tucson, Ariz., Oct. 26-28.  In addition, his article, “Can the NPT Survive? The Theory and Practice of U.S. Nuclear Non-proliferation Policy after September 11,” will appear in the December 2006 issue of Contemporary Security Policy, a refereed journal.  A second article, “Clinging Together: Mercosur’s Ambitious External Agenda, Its Internal Crisis, and the Future of Regional Economic Integration in South America,” will appear in the December 2006 issue of Review of International Political Economy, also a refereed journal. 

John L. Chisholm (chemical & natural gas engineering) gave presentations entitled “Ethics” and “Fundamentals of Gas Laws” at the American School of Gas Measurement Technology in Houston Sept. 18-21.

George G. Gresham (management/marketing) presented a paper on Oct. 5 entitled, "Organizational Climate Antecedents to Market Orientation" in Memphis, Tenn., at the 14th Annual Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management Conference. In September, Gresham toured several maquiladora manufacturing sites in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, as guest of the Oradel Industry Center and Codein Corp. He also attended the 13th annual Industry in Motion Symposium at the Western Hemispheric Trade Center Sept. 21 at Texas A&M International University.

Richard Hartwig (political science) had his article, "Las Contradicciones en la Educación Superior Mexicana" (The Contradictions in Mexican Higher Education) posted in the Autumn 2006 edition of the e-journal Urbana, Vol. VIII (www.tamuk.edu/geo/urbana).

Kim Jones and graduate student Sergio Santos (environmental engineering) attended the 2005 USC-TRG Conference on Biofiltration for Air Pollution Control in Long Beach, Calif. Oct. 18-21 and presented the paper, “Treatment of Wet Process Hardboard Plant Emissions by a Pilot Scale Biological System.”

Patrick Mills (Frank H. Dotterweich College of Engineering) presented the paper “Integrated Microreactor system for Gas-Phase Catalyzed Reactions” at a seminar held at the Chevron Research Center in Richmond, Calif. Sept. 29-Oct. 2.

Maria Morales (bilingual education) presented the paper, “The Exciting Period of the Spanish Era in the Coastal Bend:  History for the Bilingual Education Program” at the National Social Science Association (NSSA) Fall Professional Development Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., Oct. 15-17. She also planned for future conferences, as a member of the NSSA board.

Reza Nekovei (electrical engineering and computer science) presented the paper “HyperSuperComputering: High Performance Distributed Computering on FPGA Cluster” at the Oklahoma Supercomputing Symposium, Oct. 3-4 in Norman, Okla.

Anthony Nikias (accounting and CIS) and James Wollscheid (economics and finance) attended the Economic Science Association 2006 North American Regional Meeting Sept. 29-Oct. 1. Wollscheid presented their joint paper “The Effects of Aggregation on Fairness and Honesty in a Capital Budgeting Setting.”

Joon-Yeoul Oh (accounting and CIS) and Jaehyung Yu (physics and geosciences), along with Eunjin Lee of New Mexico State University, co-authored the paper “Decision Making Tools in Cellular Telecommunication Network Design: GIS and NLP.” Oh presented the paper at the International Business and Economics Research Conference, held from Oct. 2-6 at Las Vegas.

Gilda Baeza Ortego (Jernigan Library) was an invited speaker at the American Library Association's First Joint Conference of Librarians of Color held in Dallas on October 12-15.

Jennifer Ren (environmental engineering) presented the paper “Particle Dynamics and Contaminant Transport in River Systems:  Fundamentals and Implications” at a seminar sponsored by the department of earth and environmental science at the University of Texas at San Antonio Sept. 29.

Greg Sanders (music) had his latest work, Voices of the Wind for solo percussion, audio and images, premiered by percussionist Marc Wooldridge at the Composer in the Community New Music Festival, jointly hosted by the Iowa Composer Forum and Northwestern College, Sept. 30.

Jack Shorter (accounting & CIS) presented two papers at the International Association for Computer Information Systems annual conference in Reno, Nev. Oct. 5-7; they were  “Enterprise Resource Planning Today,” co-authored with MPA student J. Sunshine Vanover, and “Data Security – Identity Theft:  Banks and Financial Institutions are on the Lookout,” co-authored with Rick Aukerman (accounting & CIS) and MBA student Eric Kieschnick.

David Garcia Solorzano (Ph.D. student-Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) participated in an oral presentation at the National Wildlife Symposium in Zacatecas, Mexico Oct. 10-15.

Randy L. Stanko (animal & wildlife sciences) participated in the Livestock Judging Contest of the Tulsa State Fair Oct. 1.

Michael E. Verderber (graduate student-language and literature) presented his original play Night By the River at the Southwest Writers and Artists Festival, held in College Station Oct. 26-27.  His essay Native American Drama also was accepted, but was not presented due to conflict with the play.

Grants

John V. daGraca (Citrus Center) was awarded $39,465 from the Texas Citrus Producers Board for “The Texas Citrus Budwood Certification Project 2006-2007.” In addition, daGraca, J. Victor French, Eliezer Louzada and Mamoudou Setamou (Citrus Center) were awarded $5,000 from the Texas Citrus Producers Board for the proposal “Identification and Biological Control of Citrus False Spider Mite Species in Texas, and Determination of Presence/Absence of Leprosis.” Additionally, French and Setamou were awarded $7,000 through a memorandum of agreement with Syngenta Crop Protection for the proposal “Assessment of the Efficacy of Newly Formulated Chemicals in the Control of Citrus Leafminer and Asian Citrus Psyllid.”
 
Mike Daniel (education) was awarded $48,000 through an intrasystem agreement with Texas A&M University-Texarkana for special education recruitment and retention.

Charles A. DeYoung Jr. (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) was awarded a 10-year grant in the amount of $398,177 from the Friedkin Conservation Fund for the proposal “Can Culling Bucks Lead to Genetics Change in WT Deer Populations on Large Acreages?”

Randall DeYoung (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) was awarded $25,000 through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services/National Wildlife Research Center for the proposal “Uptake of Gonacon-B-Oral in Feral Hogs.”

Tim Fulbright (animal & wildlife sciences) and Paula Maywald (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) were awarded $750,000 through a project agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation for the continuation of a five-year grant for the “South Texas Native Plant Restoration Project.” In another project, Fulbright, Jose Ortega-Santos (Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute) and Allen Rasmussen (agriculture, natural resources & human sciences) were awarded a three-year grant in the amount of $90,780 for a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for the proposal "Promoting the Re-establishment of Herbaceous Native Plant on Mixed Brush Plant Communities with Roller Chopping." The three were awarded an additional three-year grant in the amount of $98,345 for a second cooperative agreement with the USDA/NRCS for the proposal "A Systems Approach to Manage Mixed Brush with Grazing Mechanical and Herbicide Treatments and Prescribed Fire."

Mary L. Gonzalez (Special Programs) has received funding for year two of four in the amount of $89,528 from the U.S. Department of Education for the Center for Young Children & Parent Training at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. In addition, Gonzalez was awarded a four-year grant in the amount of $1,107,288 from the U.S. Department of Education for Student Support Services.

Scott Henke (animal & wildlife sciences) was awarded $12,944 through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture/Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services/National Wildlife Research Center for the proposal “Movements, Interactions and Selected Diseases of Feral Hogs in Texas.”

Kim Jones (environmental engineering) was awarded a two-year grant in the amount of $149,971 from the U.S. Department of Energy for the proposal “Biological Air Emissions Control for the Energy Efficient Forest Products Industry of the Future.” In addition, Jones was awarded a four-year grant in the amount of $95,000 from the Texas Department of Transportation for the proposal “Synthesis and Study of the Establishment and Management of Roadside Vegetation.”

Eliezer Louzada (Citrus Center) was awarded $10,000 from the Texas Citrus Producers Board for the proposal “Towards a Broad Spectrum Disease Resistance in Citrus.” In addition, he was awarded $25,000 from the Texas Citrus Producers Board for the proposal “Development and Selection of New Citrus Scions and Rootstock Varieties for Texas.”

Enrique Massa (biology) has received funding in the amount of $64,407 for year three of a three-year grant awarded through an agreement with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston for the proposal, “Bridging Master’s Students to the Ph.D.”

Thomas L. McGehee (physics and geosciences) was awarded $19,467 by the Army Corp of Engineers for the proposal “Conceptual Model Development at Texas A&M University-Kingsville.”

Randy L. Powell (biology) was awarded $15,000 from the University of Texas at Austin-Texas Medical and Dental Schools Application Service for the proposal “Joint Admission Medical Program 2006-2007,”

Melody Yarbrough (health & kinesiology) was awarded $30,000 as part of an intrasystem cooperation contract with the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center for the “Asthma Education Program.”

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