The Academic Minute for 2018.06.25-06.29 – UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI WEEK

Academic Minute from 6.25 – 6.29

Monday, June 25th
Steve Ball – University of Missouri
More Activity During Recess
Dr. Steve Ball has devoted his education and career to study the prevention and treatment of obesity. His “MyActivity Pyramid for Kids” program, which helps children develop exercise habits, is currently used in 46 states.

Ball also created a program called “Jump Into Action” that introduces fun ways of working physical activity into a regular school day. “The good news is that physical activity need not be strenuous to get health benefits,” says Ball. “Children need to accumulate a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate physical activity most days of the week. Activity does not all have to be done at one time; short 10-minute bursts will do.”

Ball has been teaching at MU since 2002, and his Introduction to Exercise and Fitness course enrolls nearly 750 students per year. In 2012, Ball was awarded a Kemper Fellowship recognizing outstanding teachers at Mizzou.

Tuesday, June 26th
Melissa Maras – University of Missouri
Mental Health Support for Students
Melissa Maras received her M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Miami University. She partners with schools and communities to promote effective mental health practices through participatory evaluation and research.

Wednesday, June 27th
Benton Kidd – University of Missouri
The Colorful Lives of the Phoenicians
Benton Kidd is with the University of Missouri, Columbia, and his areas of specialization are the cities of Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor, the Levant, and North Africa, particularly the architecture and its decoration from these areas; also the growth of the Hellenistic cosmopolis, the intermingling of Greek and non-Greek cultures, and the resultant impact on the succeeding Roman empire.

Thursday, June 28th
James Cook – University of Missouri
ACL Surgeries
James Cook, D.V.M., Ph.D., serves as the William and Kathryn Allen Distinguished Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Cook also is director of the Missouri Orthopaedic Institute’s Division of Research and the Mizzou BioJoint Center. Cook’s clinical interests include cartilage restoration, regenerative orthpaedics and sports medicine. His research interests include tissue engineering, as well as management, diagnosis and treatment of osteoarthritis. As senior author of the study, “Suspensory Versus Interference Screw Fixation for Arthroscopic Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction in a Translational Large-Animal Model,” his work recently was published in The Journal of Arthroscopic & Related Surgery.

Friday, June 29th
Scott Frey – University of Missouri
Hand Transplants
Scott H. Frey is currently the Miller Family Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Missouri. Frey received his Ed.M. from Harvard University in Human Development with Howard Gardner, and his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Cornell University with James Cutting. He subsequently re-specialized in cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College and Medical School with Michael Gazzaniga and Scott Grafton.

Frey currently directs the Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory, the purposes of which are to: 1) understand mechanisms underlying the organization and control of manual actions (reaching, grasping, tool and prosthetic use), and 2) use this knowledge to develop evidence-based rehabilitation strategies. A major focus of current work is on determining how mechanisms in the CNS are affected by damage to the PNS, and conversely the role of CNS plasticity in recovery of function. His approach is to seek convergent evidence using a variety of methods (functional and structural MRI, transcranial magnetic and direct current stimulation, electroencephalography, electromyography, and detailed psychophysical and kinematic assessments).