Professional Notes: June 2024
06/24/2024
Professional Notes is a round-up of awards, presentations, papers, and other professional achievements of SLU faculty, staff members, and students.
Faculty and Staff
Allison Brewer (DICE), Luella Loseille (DICE), and Knieba Jones-Johnson (University Counseling Center) traveled to Honolulu, Hawai'i, to present on the intersections of race and disability through their session on "Embedding Equity through Universal Design" at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NCORE). This session demonstrated the rich history of the relationship between disability and racial justice movements, urging the academy to innovate using universal design as a tactic and strategy to dismantle oppressive structures while building environments where all can thrive.
Anthony Breitbach, Ph.D. (Doisy College of Health Sciences), Chair of the Association of Schools Advancing Health Professions (ASAHP) Interprofessional Committee, coordinated and presented at the 5th Annual ASAHP Regional Summit on May 23, 2024, engaging academic and healthcare industry professionals in collaborative dialogue to inform system improvement. ASAHP member institutions hosted in-person hubs in Birmingham, AL; Galveston, TX; Nutley, NJ, Orlando, FL; Sioux Falls, SD and Salt Lake City, UT, culminating in a national virtual harvest session online. This year’s summit theme was “Collaboration in Action - Engaging to Build Readiness for Interprofessional Clinical Practice,” using the ASAHP Stakeholder Engagement Model to discuss clinical implementation of the newly updated Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Core Competencies.
Breitbach also presented "Assessing IPE Learners" for participants at the Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC) Institute "Building a Framework for Interprofessional Collaboration" on May 22, 2024.
Additionally, Breitbach gave the keynote presentation "Collaborating with an Updated Interprofessional Education CompetencyFramework – What’s Next?" for the Arkansas Interprofessional Education (IPE) Consortium’s REACH Conference at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, AR, on April 19, 2024.
Supported by staff at the SLU Academic Technology Commons in the Recording Studio at Pius Library, Breitbach, and visiting faculty Alison Power, RM, from the University of Northampton (UK) conducted a Global Panel with health professionals from Canada, South Africa, England, the Philippines and the Netherlands on April 24, 2024, in IPE 2100: Interprofessional Collaboration and Healthcare in a Global Context.
Elizabeth Rhyne made a poster presentation at St. Louis Children’s Hospital Perspectives in Pediatrics: Text Messages Utilized to promote overall graduate student wellness on April 25, 2024.
Lauren Landfried, Ph.D. (Nutrition and Dietetics) presented about the therapeutic benefits of gardening for people aging with developmental disabilities at the Annual Aging with Developmental Disabilities (AADD) Conference on May 20, 2024. In addition to the benefits of therapeutic gardening, Lauren demonstrated how to use the adaptive gardening tools and discussed ways to create inclusive gardening spaces.
Avery Levinger (Curricular Affairs) presented two sessions ("The Value of Failure: How I Learned to Stop Worrying When It All Goes Wrong" and "Busting Open the Cornucopia of AI Policy") at the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Information Technology in Academic Medicine Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 30-31, 2024.
Michael Miller Jr. (Public Health and Social Justice) presented a poster at the 18th annual International Conference on Clinical Ethics and Consultation (ICCEC) in Montréal, Canada (29-31 May 2024). His poster, "Screening for Social Drivers of Health: Clinical and Organizational Ethics Implications," encouraged attendees to anticipate and sustainably address ethical concerns resulting from hospital SDOH screenings for both internal and external stakeholders.
Madeline Stenersen, Ph.D. (Psychology) will receive the 2024 Outstanding Early Career Psychologist Award by the International Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association. The award will be presented at the American Psychological Association's annual convention in August 2024.
Elizabeth Rhyne received an Award for Excellence in Faculty Scholarship for poster presentation: Text Messages Utilized to promote overall graduate student wellness on April 25, 2024.
Ashley Walter, Ph.D. (Communication) published, “How America Gets the News: A History of U.S. Journalism,” with Penn State Professor Ford Risley. The Rowman & Littlefield book serves as a concise yet comprehensive history of U.S. journalism, encompassing the evolution of newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the transformative impact of digital media. Risley and Walter delve into pivotal historical trends such as advocacy journalism, yellow journalism, investigative journalism, and the more recent phenomena of conservative and digital news.
The authors examine noteworthy news organizations, from the New York Times and Life to CBS and Fox News. Sections of the book discuss the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and its creator, Joseph Pulitzer.
Members of the Transgender Health Collaborative at SLU published an article in the journal, Perspectives in Health Information Management. The article was titled "Availability of Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation Data: An Electronic Medical Record Review of a Catholic Healthcare System from 2012-2023."
The SLU PRiME Center published a policy brief, "Missouri School Discipline Trends: Analyzing Inequities in Out-Of-School Suspensions," by Pallavi Chhabra & Taylor Wilson. This brief discusses the increase in out-of-school suspensions post-pandemic and breaks down the disparities in suspensions according to race, socioeconomic status, and school locality. Additionally, drug-related incidents were at their highest in the past 15 years as of the 2022--23 school year.
Nori Katagiri, Ph.D. (Political Science) published a book on cybersecurity titled "How Liberal Democracies Defend Their Cyber Networks from Hackers." In the book, he explores how liberal democracies like the United States confront cybersecurity threats from nondemocratic regimes and offers a range of policy ideas for democracies, including "active defense" strategy, to strengthen defense against digital threats.
Martha Blaess, Ph.D. (Nutrition and Dietetics and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences) had an article published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, "A Framework for RDN and SLP Collaboration: a Missing Piece in Autism Spectrum Disorder Treatment." The article explores the intersection of nutrition & dietetics and speech-language pathology in the treatment of selective eating in individuals with autism.
Farzana Hoque, M.D. (Internal Medicine), received the Food and Justice Action Collaborative (FJAC) Grant Award. This grant funding will be used to ensure health education and resources to eliminate food insecurity after the discharge of patients at Bordley Tower, where Hoque serves as the inaugural Medical Director.
Yi-Fang Chiu, Ph.D. (Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences), in collaboration with Jason Longhurst, Ph.D. (Physical Therapy and Athletic Training) was awarded a two-year $100,000 grant from the St. Louis Community Foundation's Parkinson’s Disease Research and Support Fund. The grant, "Multidimensional Rehabilitation Approaches to Enhance Physical and Social Wellbeing in Parkinson’s Disease," aims to improve rehabilitation outcomes for individuals with Parkinson’s disease through cueing strategies, multitasking paradigm, and community programming. Other members of the team include Andrea Vaughan in Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, and Annie Zinselmeier in Physical Therapy.
Richard Dipaolo, Ph.D. (Molecular Microbiology and Immunology) has been named the new permanent chair of Saint Louis University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology. Dipaolo has served as professor and interim chair of the department since April 2021. He joined SLU as an assistant professor in 2007 and became a full professor in 2017. Over the last three years, he has been responsible for the strategic leadership and management of education, research and administrative functions in the department.
Whitney Linsenmeyer, Ph.D. (Nutrition and Dietetics) was renewed for a third term as a National Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Patrick Rafferty (Visual and Performing Arts) was scheduled to perform in the "Sachs Museum Performance Series: “The Sacred Crop” featuring poet Waleska Font and guitarist Patrick Rafferty." The event, an immersive artistic experience that celebrates the tradition and mysticism around corn in pre-Columbian Latin-America, was scheduled for Satruday, June 29, at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Students
Rebecca Oberkrom, Katie Reddy and David Shengelia brought home the 2024 National Challenge Bowl championship title at the American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA) conference on May 20. SLU was also represented by assistant professor Amanda McCormick (Physician Assistant) at the conference. SLU beat 95 teams to win the title.