The Academic Minute for 2016.08.15-08.19

Academic Minute from 8.15 – 8.19

Monday, August 15th
Thomas Brown – McGill University
Risky Drivers
Thomas G. Brown, Ph.D. and his team of students and collaborators are developing psychosocial interventions to combat substance abuse. They also aim to identify individual characteristics of vulnerability in order to optimally provide the most suitable intervention.

In addition, Thomas G. Brown works on the prevention of alcohol and drug-related risk taking and injury. Since 2009, he has directed the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Transdisciplinary Team into Driving While Impaired: onset, persistence, treatment and prevention. This international team of multidisciplinary researchers, traffic authorities, licensing program administrators and graduate trainees is conducting studies into the human factors responsible for road traffic crashes. To address this complex global public health problem, multiple levels of analyses are deployed, included virtual reality simulation, engineering, neurobiology, psychology, policy and the law.

A licensed clinical psychologist, Thomas G. Brown is also the head of research of Foster Addiction Rehabilitation Centre, a large public treatment facility serving the Anglophone community of Quebec.

Tuesday, August 16th
Robert Brinkmann – Hofstra University
Caves
Dr. Robert Brinkmann is Hofstra University’s director Sustainable Studies and Vice Provost for Scholarship and Engagement. He serves as Chair of the Board of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute.

Dr. Brinkmann came to Hofstra in the fall of 2011 as the director of the Sustainability Studies Program and a professor in Hofstra University’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences’ Department of Geology, Environment and Sustainability. He is also the director of sustainability research in the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, which enables him to expose students to real-world sustainability issues. He includes students in Center-based research projects, events and meetings that address sustainability concerns in suburban landscapes.

During his time in Florida, Dr. Brinkmann focused his geological research on karst topography, which is the basis for sinkholes. Karst topography is a landscape created when groundwater dissolves sedimentary rock such as limestone, which is very porous; sinkholes form when limestone dissolves bedrock and the overlying land surface collapses. Florida is the only U.S. territory comprising a landscape that is entirely karst.

“As a geologist and non-native resident of Florida, I was interested in the state’s topography and found very little information out there, so I conducted my own investigations,” explained Dr. Brinkmann. He is among only a few investigators in the country who examine karst topography.

In his comprehensive book, Florida Sinkholes: Science and Policy, Dr. Brinkmann explains how sinkholes form and what to do about them. He examines case studies of notable sinkholes and reviews practical concerns like structural damage, repairs and insurance problems related to sinkholes.

Dr. Brinkmann is eager to engage students in sustainability issues outside the classroom, particularly energy, pollution and food. He’s spearheaded several research programs on Long Island examining soil and sediment pollution. And he is a key player in the Long Island Food Conference, hosted by Hofstra, which affords students the opportunity to interact with top researchers and speakers on issues related to food and sustainability.

When he is not teaching or doing research, Dr. Brinkmann spends much of his time writing to try to educate the general population on issues of sustainability. He is one of the associate editors of the Journal of Cave and Karst Studies and the editor of the Suburban Sustainability journal. In addition to his book on Florida sinkholes, he is also the author of Urban Sediment Removal: The Science, Policy, and Management of Street Sweeping and has published numerous journal articles.

Wednesday, August 17th
Kim Burchiel – Oregon Health & Science University
Deep Brain Stimulation
Dr. Burchiel is the John Raaf Professor in the OHSU Department of Neurological Surgery. Dr. Burchiel served as department chair for 27 years from 1988-2015.

His interests include functional and stereotactic neurosurgery, pain surgery, and epilepsy surgery. Dr. Burchiel’s research interests are concerned with the physiology of nociception and neuropathic pains, including trigeminal neuralgia, the neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders, and image-guided neurosurgery. The Functional and Stereotactic Neurosurgery program encompasses a broad spectrum of surgical and nonsurgical treatments to manage and restore neurological function. Special programs include surgical management of movement disorders, surgical pain management, epilepsy surgery, peripheral nerve surgery, radiosurgery and stereotactic computer assisted neurosurgery. The Surgical Pain Management program is a national leader in the treatment of orofacial pains, including trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureaux).Visit the Department of Neurological Surgery’s website for information about academics, conferences, residency and fellowships.

Thursday, August 18th
Simon Darroch – Vanderbilt University
Cambrian Explosion

Education

Ph.D. Yale University, 2014

M.S. University of Tokyo, Japan, 2008

B.S. Durham University, UK, 2005

Specializations

Paleoecology of mass extinctions and major events in Earth History

Geobiology of the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary

Friday, August 19th
Arik Kershenbaum – University of Cambridge
Animal Communication
Arik Kershenbaum (Ph.D. Biology, Univ. of Haifa, 2012) analyzes dolphin and whale vocalizations to identify significant syntactic trends to relate them to behavioral and environmental cues. Upon completing his fellowship at NIMBioS, Dr. Kershenbaum accepted a position as Herchel Smith Research Fellow in the department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge.