Category: Faculty Highlights


  • Seeking Ways to Reverse Nerve Damage at the Microscopic Level

    Derron Bishop, associate professor of medical education and assistant director of the Center for Medical Education, played an important role in research that landed him and a team of international scientists the April 2011 cover story on Nature Medicine, which addressed reversible nerve damage at the cellular level. Bishop and his colleagues sought to pinpoint and […]

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  • Researcher of the Year: Todd Trappe

    Distinguished investigator. Respected colleague. Prestigious grant recipient. These are some of the descriptions that might come to mind when considering qualifications of Ball State University’s Researcher of the Year. The 2011 award winner, Todd Trappe, possesses them all. Professor of exercise science in the Human Performance Lab (HPL), Trappe first became interested in exercise physiology during his undergraduate study […]

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  • For Teachers in the Trenches

    As soon as Ball State became an I-STEM Resource Network regional coordinating center in 2006, the state began tapping into the teacher education expertise on Ball State’s campus. I-STEM’s goal is to ensure that teachers already in the field receive the most current training in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education. The enterprise is a research […]

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  • Toolkit for Future Pros

    When urban planning students work on a project, they’re using real data from real places—and they have the latest technology at their fingertips, thanks to an award of $4.2 million worth of engineering and geospatial software from Intergraph Corp. “The value of this award for our students is just as good as money in the […]

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  • A Boost for Aspiring Scientists

    “I’ve been given opportunities that undergraduates at other schools don’t get,” says Huicong Xie, biochemistry and pre-med, ‘11. That chance is due to the National Science Foundation’s Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program at Ball State. “The probability of using the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machine at a big university for undergraduates is very small,” […]

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  • Seasoned Experts, Fresh Vision

    Jessica Hoffman is changing the way students look at science. “I know not all students are interested in science,” says Jessica Hoffman, MA ’11, secondary education 2011. “I hope to use their other interests in order for them to have success in my biology classroom. If students are interested in art, I will have assignments that focus […]

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  • The Atmosphere as Laboratory

    Armed with a weather balloon, cameras, and weeks of preparation in scientific theory, atmospheric thermodynamics students literally explored the atmosphere. Using a weather balloon gives students in Jill Coleman’s classes a distinct opportunity for research and exploration. “Students can grow accustomed to relying on computers to calculate data for them. When they get out into […]

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  • Sociology in the Spotlight

    MELLISA HOLTZMAN , ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY The research on definitions of family Holtzman began as a graduate student at the University of Iowa and has grown into a lifelong interest. She studies how societal and legal definitions of family conflict, interact, and change over time. Holtzman earned a National Science Foundation grant to help fund her continuing research […]

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  • Jennifer Blackmer—Creative Endeavor Awardee

    Jennifer Blackmer, assistant professor of theatre, might have been a physicist or an astronomer by now. In some ways, perhaps she is. When her post-high school choice between a major in drama or physics turned out in favor of a collegiate theatre program, Blackmer was launched toward a career in the arts that would come to encompass her […]

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  • Thomas Lauer—Researcher of the Year

    Thomas Lauer, professor of biology, seems to embrace the “fish guy” label bestowed on him by friends and colleagues. After all, the Researcher of the Year is the director of the Aquatic Biology and Fisheries Center within the Department of Biology and for about 30 years has done valuable research on the yellow perch population and habitat in southern Lake Michigan. Since […]

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