Tag Archives: delaware

Student Success

UD conference highlights diversity and student retention

Freeman Hrabowski and Vincent Tinto both believe that creating a culture of trust and support is a key ingredient in retaining students from underrepresented groups while achieving genuine campuswide diversity.

Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), and Tinto, Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at Syracuse University, shared their expertise on diversity and student retention during the Student Success and Retention Conference, held Wednesday, Oct. 3, in the Trabant University Center on the University of Delaware campus in Newark. (more…)

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Technology in the Classroom

A professor uses clickers and UD Capture to make a large class feel smaller

Susan McGeary, associate professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Delaware, incorporated clickers and UD Capture for the first time in spring 2012 to see if she could increase student participation. What McGeary did not expect was the level of engagement in her Geological Hazards course, which is a 250-300 person class.

“Clickers seemed to remove the barrier between me and the students; they approached me more, asked more questions, were more involved during the class — it was exciting,” McGeary said. (more…)

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What’s that Noise?

Paper describes new method to understand sources of noise in gene-expression

Abhyudai Singh, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Delaware, describes a new method to understand sources of “noise” in gene-expression that create variability in protein levels in a paper published in Molecular Systems Biology, a publication of Nature, on Aug. 28.

This noise is expressed as variability in the levels of proteins/mRNAs in a cell. (more…)

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Technology in the Classroom

UD faculty member teaches sociology and statistics with technology

Victor Perez, an assistant professor in the University of Delaware’s Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, has found multiple ways to reach students using diverse technological approaches. Perez makes his classroom presentations highly interactive by combining a tablet with an engaging PowerPoint presentation.

Using the Wacom Bamboo tablet and its accompanying app, Perez creates illustrations of statistical formulas and distributions in class. “Bamboo Dock is something that I’ll use pretty frequently in the statistics course, and it looks literally like a journal. What’s great about this is that you can write any statistical formula, and it’s what students will see directly on the screen,” Perez said. (more…)

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Wind Power’s Potential

UD-Stanford team calculates maximum global energy potential from wind

Wind turbines could power half the world’s future energy demands with minimal environmental impact, according to new research published by University of Delaware and Stanford University scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers arrived at the determination by calculating the maximum theoretical potential of wind power worldwide, taking into account the effects that numerous wind turbines would have on surface temperatures, water vapor, atmospheric circulations and other climatic considerations.

“Wind power is very safe from the climate point of view,” said Cristina Archer, associate professor of geography and physical ocean science and engineering at UD. (more…)

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Face to Face

Research finds infants classify faces by gender, race

Long before babies can talk — even before they can sit up on their own — they are mentally forming categories for objects and animals in a way that, for example, sets apart squares from triangles and cats from dogs, psychologists say.

Now, research conducted by the University of Delaware’s Paul Quinn, professor of psychology, and others indicates that babies as young as 3 months are also classifying faces by race and gender, showing a visual preference for the category they see most often in their daily lives, and that by 9 months they have difficulty recognizing the faces of people from less-familiar races. (more…)

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On The Front Lines

UD scientist sees Arctic ice loss firsthand

The extent of sea ice in the Arctic has reached a record low, according to data released Aug. 26 by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

A University of Delaware marine scientist can confirm some of that ice loss firsthand. In a short video he produced, Andreas Muenchow, aboard the Canadian icebreaker Henry Larsen, shows the ice-free sea off Petermann Fjord that he and his colleagues were sailing in — an area that for ages had been covered by floating ice shelves. (more…)

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Finding Faults

Delaware Geological Survey discovers evidence of past earthquakes

Delaware Geological Survey (DGS) scientists have uncovered hard proof of faults in northern Delaware, indicating the occurrence of earthquakes millions of years ago.

The geologic evidence turned up in sediment samples removed during a well-drilling project this summer from depths ranging 137 to 251 feet down in Smyrna and the Woodland Beach Wildlife Area.

“People have postulated that there are faults in this area,” DGS Senior Scientist Scott Andres said. “Now we have evidence of it.” (more…)

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