Academic Minute from 12.14 – 12.18
Monday, December 14
Amy Nuttall – Michigan State University
Children as Caregivers
Guided by a developmental psychopathology perspective, Nuttall’s program of research broadly focuses on processes of resilience and risk in the context of family stress with the broader goal of translating research into effective interventions. Nuttall is particularly interested in family relationships and roles (e.g., generational boundary dissolution), parenting practices, and child development under a variety of contexts of family stress (e.g., sibling with a disability, childhood bereavement, interparental conflict). Nuttall’s research utilizes a multi-method, multiple levels of analysis approach to study child development.
Tuesday, December 15
Andrew Stokes – Boston University
Obesity Paradox
Research and Teaching Interests include: Global health, demography, medical sociology, epidemiology, health disparities, obesity, chronic disease, program evaluation, environmental health and quantitative methods
Wednesday, December 16
Pia Steensland – Karolinska Institutet
Alcohol Dependence Treatment
Pia Steensland, BPharm, PhD, Associate Professor at Karolinska Institutet, is a leading expert on behavioral psychopharmacology. The overall goal of Dr Steensland’s research is to increase the understanding of the pathophysiology of alcohol use disorder (AUD) with the ultimate goal to identify potential novel effective medications by using validated preclinical models of long-term voluntary alcohol consumption. Dr Steensland gained her PhD at Uppsala University in Sweden 2002, and after a longer maternity leave she was a successful postdoc scholar at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center (Gallo), University of California San Francisco, USA (2006-2008). At Gallo she identified the smoking cessation agent varenicline as a novel potential treatment of AUD using validated animal models (Steensland et al, PNAS 2007). Her findings led to the initiation of several clinical studies confirming the efficacy of varenicline in decreasing alcohol consumption in AUD patients. Dr Steensland was recruited to Karolinska Institutet in 2008, and based on her wide methodological background within behavioral psychopharmacology, she established an Experimental Addiction Research Platform at the department of Clinical Neuroscience. Dr Steensland was awarded a junior research position through the Swedish Research Council in 2010 and an Associate Professors degree in neuropharmacology at Karolinska Institutet in 2011. Dr Steensland’s current research focuses on the dopamine stabilizer (-)-OSU6162 (developed by Nobel Laureate Arvid Carlsson) and its potential as a novel treatment of AUD. Through a successful series of preclinical studies she has shown that (-)-OSU6162 possess several desirable characteristics of a medication for AUD (Steensland et al 2012, Biological Psychiatry). Recently, using a translational platform in collaboration with Professor Johan Franck and Assistant Professor Nitya Jayaram-Lindström, Dr Steensland conducted a proof-of-concept human laboratory study showing that (-)-OSU6162 attenuates priming-induced alcohol craving in alcohol dependent patients (Khemiri et al 2015). The successful preclinical and clinical evaluation of (-)-OSU6162, highlights the potential of Dr Steensland’s research to accelerate the development of novel AUD medications.
Thursday, December 17
Tom Stace – University of Queensland
New Standards of Measurements
Dr Stace completed his PhD at the Cavendish Lab, University of Cambridge in the UK on quantum computing, followed by postdoctoral research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, also at Cambridge. During this time he was a fellow at Queens’ College, known for its eclectic mix of medieval, tudor and victorian architecture. He has been a researcher at the University of Queensland since 2006, firstly on an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, then on an ARC Research Fellowship, and was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 2014.
His research has largely focused on applying methods from quantum optics to solid state devices for use in quantum information applications, and more recently on error correction protocols. He also works on high precision measurement in collaboration with experimental colleagues at UWA, in a project whose ultimate aim is to contribute to the international definition of Boltzmann’s constant, and some biophysics.
Dr Stace also consults for UniQuest, UQ’s commercial arm, on scientific and technical matters.
Friday, December 18
Rocky Newman – Miami University
Tesla and Henry Ford
Rocky Newman (Ph.D. The University of Iowa, MBA & BS-BA Bowling Green State University) has been a professor of supply chain and operations management at Miami University since 1987. Newman teaches in the areas of operations management, supply chain management, and manufacturing strategy. His research interests include manufacturing strategy, organizational issues in supply chain management as well as supply chain management strategy. His work has been published in many journals including: International Journal of Production Research, The Journal of Production and Inventory Management, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, American Journal of Business, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, The Journal of Manufacturing Systems, The International Journal of Flexible Manufacturing Systems, Mid American Journal of Business, The International Journal of Operations and Production Management, The International Journal of Production Economics, The International Journal of Forecasting, Integrated Manufacturing Systems, The International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management, The Journal of Supply Chain Management, and others.
