Employee notes for Jan. 15, 2009

ALMA ABDEL-MOTY of occupational therapy had her paper “Engagement in Web-Assisted Learning Activities: The Relationship between Participation and Academic Achievement” accepted for presentation at the 2009 American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference.

KATHY ANDERSON presented at the NIH Summit on Health Disparities in Washington, D.C., in December 2008 about the Minority Health International Research Training (MHIRT) Program.

ELISE BLOCHE of occupational therapy had her paper “Efficacy of Sensory-Integration Intervention to Enhance Social Skills in Children with Autism in a Group Setting” accepted for presentation at the 2009 American Occupational Therapy Asociation Annual Conference.

DERON BURKEPILE, an ecologist who focuses on how biotic and abiotic forces affect the community organization and ecosystem function of marine and terrestrial systems, has joined the marine sciences program. He received his doctorate at Georgia Tech and served recently as the Brown Post-doctoral Fellow at Yale University.

DIVINA GROSSMAN, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, was elected chairperson of the Florida Association of College of Nursing for a two-year term. The organization is comprised of deans and directors of some 50 baccalaureate and higher-degree nursing programs, public and private, in Florida.

ANAHID KULWICKI has joined FIU as director of the nursing graduate program and the nursing doctoral program. Kulwicki is a nationally recognized scholar and researcher in the areas of Arab-American health, community health and cultural competency. She earned her master’s and doctoral degrees in nursing sciences from Indiana University. She also holds a bachelor’s in nursing from American University in Lebanon.

ELAINE RAMOS presented a poster titled “Haitian-Creole and English Acquisition in Typical and Atypical Bilingual Learners” at the Annual American Speech-Language Hearing Association Convention in Chicago in November 2008.

REBECCA VEGA-THURBER has joined the marine sciences program. Vega-Thurber uses metagenomics and molecular biology to explore viral ecology of tropical reefs with a focus on how viruses may contribute to coral health. She received her doctorate at Stanford University and is currently a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow based at San Diego State University.