uab arts & sciences magazine, spring 2014

S P R I N G 2 0 1 4

ARTS SCIENCES &

Robert E. PalazzoMEET the DEAN

This issue of our magazine displays the comprehensive nature of the College of Arts and Sciences at UAB: the people, the programs, and the platforms that are enabling and accelerating achievement. In addition to my own arrival as Dean, over the past year or so the College has recruited more than 41 new faculty. Appointments include four new department Chairs, a new Director for our African American Studies Program, and three new distinguished professors. In additon, we have added Randall Ledkins, our new Senior Development Director, Julie Keith, our new Communications Director, and many other carefully

seleted members to the College team. We have stretched our arms from the arts to the sciences with the launch of the Abroms//Engel Institute of the Visual Arts and a state-of-the-art Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility, all the while mapping the future landscape of our campus via a facilities-needs study to better support our students and faculty. These platforms provide opportunities for new program development for our faculty, research and experiential opportunities for our students, and will help UAB draw the best intellectual talent the world has to offer. Through your continued support we have awarded 125 scholarships totaling around $75,000 and more than doubled our annual gifts. Clearly the College is ascending at a rapid rate. There are simply too many stories to tell in a single magazine issue, so please stay in touch as we share our accomplishments and hopes for the College. As a member of the College family, you are a critical part of the engine that is driving positive change at an incredible rate. Thank you, and enjoy this issue of the magazine.

ROBERT E . PAL A ZZO, PH.D., DE AN OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES

is published by the university of alabama at birmingham college of arts and sciences in cooperation with the office of public

relations and marketing.

executive editor | erin tapp managing editor | charles buchanan

contributing editor | jo lynn orr

art director | laura hannah executive art director | ron gamble photography director | steve wood

communications director | julie keith

writers | nicholas patterson, cynthia ryan, dale short, gail allyn short, marie sutton,

shnnon thomason, matt windsor

photographers | steve wood

production manager | traci bratton

digital media director | rosie o’bierne

editorial board | kelly dean allison, douglas barrett, jennifer morthland, cynthia ryan, robert

wesley thacker

please direct questions, comments, and suggestions to:

julie keith, director of communications

phone | 205-934-6386fax | 205-996-7708

e-mail | [email protected]

visit our web site at { www.uab.edu/cas }

ARTS SCIENCES&

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V O L . 11 , N O . 2 ,

S P R I N G 2 0 1 4

{ D E PA R T M E N T S }

02News from CASStories of success

24So What?By Cynthia Ryan6

{ F E AT U R E S }

10 Illumination2014 Ireland Award Winner

Dr. Leon Botstein

12 Diamond in the RoughUAB/CAS develops NSF-funded faux

diamond technology.

14 Sharper ImageNuclear Magnetic Resonance images.

16The Art of StorytellingDigital Media breaks new ground.

18Seeds of SuccessCAS Alumni Entrepreneurs

{ C O V E R S T O R Y }

Meet the DeanRobert E. Palazzo provides leadership and

direction to the UAB College of Arts and Sciences

©2014 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama System for the University of Alabama at BirminghamUAB provides equal opportunities in education and employment.

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You won’t find the “Fas pathway” on any hiking map, but thousands of researchers around the world are avidly studying the cellular receptor for clues that could have historic impact not only on disease but on science’s understanding of life and death.

One of those scientists is UAB senior Bliss Chang, with a double major in chemistry and biology and concentrations in biochemistry and molecular biology. In a nutshell, Fas is a chemical receptor on the surface of a cell that plays a role in a process known as “cell apoptosis,” a sort of pre-programmed death, as the body’s cells continuously die off to make room for new ones. If that Fas “switch” determines whether cells live or die, is it possible to turn it on and off in the lab? Could a new generation of oncology drugs kill off cancer cells internally by activating their apoptosis process?

“Research is a voyage into uncharted waters,” Chang says. ‘I’ve truly enjoyed the intellectual challenge posed by the various steps of a project. One of the key elements of a qualified researcher is the ability to troubleshoot a problem--and those problems don’t always come with a straightforward troubleshooting guide. They require thinking critically regarding an experiment, and analyzing

in minute detail what might be causing a deviation from the desired result. The desire to succeed and obtain tangible results is what always motivates me forward.” Chang plans to enroll in a joint M.D./Ph.D. program and eventually to teach medicine at a leading medical research university.

Roxanne Lockhart knows first-hand how spinal cord injury can affect a family. So it’s no surprise that she’s gravitated toward molecular biology, a field that could hold the answer to therapies for brain and spinal cord traumas.

Lockhart was a senior in the Math and Science Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts when she was assigned a senior research project. For her subject matter, she chose the work of UAB’s Candace Floyd, Ph.D.

“I was able to spend my senior year of high school working with Dr. Floyd, and I immediately loved conducting research,” says Lockhart. “And when she found out I was going to attend UAB, she said I could keep working in her lab.”

Now a senior biology major at UAB, Lockhart is studying the effect of a drug known as thiamet-G, that may have the effect of reducing the process of inflammation, a major factor in cells damaged by traumatic brain injury (TBI). Her studies are concentrated in molecular biology, with mentoring by Farah Lubin, Ph.D., in the Department of Neurobiology.

Her plans after graduation are to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. degree, and continue clinically relevant research in her field. She was recently honored by a Beckman Scholars award, an honor aimed at helping “exceptional students in the biological, chemical, and biomedical sciences learn how to conduct independent research in a nurturing environment.”

“When I graduate from UAB,” she says, “I plan to receive an M.D./Ph.D. degree and continue clinically relevant research.”

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From a satellite, the nation of Fiji looks like two medium-sized islands, due east of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean. But looks can be deceiving.

There are actually 223 small islands (in geology-speak, an “archipelago”), and UAB Honors Program student Yoonhee Ryder recently spent six weeks getting to know one of them, named Vanua Levu, personally.

The Huntsville, Alabama, native was part of a group of students conducting an archaeological excavation in the area.

“It was an absolutely amazing experience,” Ryder says of the project. “I learned more in the six weeks than I ever have,

including how to dig, do lab work, camp, cook over a campfire, take ‘ocean baths,’ and more.”

Her international interests also extend to the Middle East. She’s pursuing a double major in biology and anthropology, with minors in Middle Eastern studies and chemistry. She plans to spend time abroad doing humanitarian work, en route to her eventual goal of becoming a physician.

Ryder is one of 10 students chosen from the U.S. by the Clinton Presidential Foundation to “expand their educational and cultural horizons by studying in the Arab world.”

Bliss Chang (above) and Roxanne Lockhart

Dedicated Undergraduate Researchers Motivated to Succeed

Clinton Scholars Study in the Middle East

Yoonhee Ryder

The Votes are in, and “stunning,” “sparkling,” and “dynamic” are the terms most used by the news media to describe UAB’s new Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts with its “soaring, glassed-in atrium.”

The Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts is located across from the Alys Stephens Center on 10th Avenue South. The art and art education facility houses three galleries, faculty offices, art and design studios, a sculpture garden, and state-of-

the-art classrooms with Apple computers and projection capabilities—as

well as a new home for UAB’s own art collection, which includes Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Picasso, and Warhol as well as student works. A series of rotating exhibits from the permanent collection will change every few months.

“One of the really nice things that Randall [Stout, the building’s architect] has done is to supply visual continuity to Birmingham and the rest of the campus,” says Robert Palazzo,

dean of UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences. “The new institute shows just how vast the attention to art is, in this community, in terms of personal treasures and stewardship of art. There’s a culture of people who are really serious about art, and I haven’t seen that in a lot of other cities.”

The third gallery features selections from the UAB Permanent Art Collection. Both shows will be on exhibition January 16 to March 6. The AEIVA, located at 1221 10th Ave. South, is open to the public 10

a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 12 to 6 p.m. Saturday. The institute is closed Sundays and holidays.

Visit the AEIVA online at www.uab.edu/cas/aeiva or call 205-975-6436. A complete schedule of events presented by the UAB Department of Art and Art History at the AEIVA in 2014 is available.

arts & sciences magazine • 3

AEIVA OPENSThe UAB Col lege of Ar t s and Sc iences opened i t s

new Abroms -Engel Ins t i tute for the V isua l Ar t s to the publ ic Januar y 16.

UAB’s Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts houses classrooms

with computers and features three art

galleries.

UAB was one of only five research universities chosen by the National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) as expansion sites for their UTeach secondary science, technology, engineering and math teacher preparation programs. Beginning in the Fall 2014 Semester, the UABTeach program, as it will be known, will be made available to students at UAB with the goal of training more qualified math and science teachers to keep the nation globally competitive. UABTeach is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Education, and the School of Engineering, and allows undergraduate students majoring in math,science, or computer science to receive both their subject-matter degree and full teaching certification in four years at no extra time or cost. The first program of its kind in Alabama, UABTeach is designed to address some very specific problems facing the state. Alabama faces a critical time in science and mathematics teacher preparation. The ranks of veteran teachers continue to shrink while many undergraduates majoring in STEM fields find the traditional pathways to becoming a teacher unattractive. But many sectors of Alabama’s growing economy will soon demand a whole new influx of STEM workers to be successful. The state has a significant need for more talented middle and high school math and science teachers, including those knowledgeable about

computer science and engineering, to teach and guide those future workers.

“We are excited to be a part of the UTeach effort that has proven to be effective in advancing K-12 STEM education,” says CAS Dean Robert Palazzo. “Through this relationship, the UAB College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education will partner to transform science education in the State of Alabama. The positive long-term impact of this effort will benefit Alabama children for generations to come.”

UABTeach is modeled on the very successful UTeach model first developed in 1997 at The University of Texas at Austin. It will be funded by a $1.45 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) that will support implementation costs of the program over the five-year grant period.

To learn more about UABTeach, visit uab.edu/uabteach

BEYOND SOUNDStudents of music technology have a new

guide to college and careers in the industry, thanks to a new book by Scott Phillips, Ph.D., assistant professor of music at UAB.

Beyond Sound, The College and Career Guide in Music Technology, was published last year by Oxford University Press.

Phillips is co-director of the UAB Music Technology program and has spent his career researching and documenting the development of college music technology programs across the United States.

Beyond Sound offers an in-depth consideration of music technology education.

Phillips provides detailed comparison of more than 200 schools that offer music technology, recording, industry and business programs. He offers clear explanations of different types of degrees and provides practical guidance on career preparation, including how to get a great internship, land a first job, make connections and move up in a variety of businesses, from recording to television and film to video games. The book is available through Oxford University Press, Amazon.com, UAB’s Barnes and Noble Bookstore and booksellers nationwide. Go to www.beyondsoundbook.com to learn more. Phillips at [email protected].

A STRONG STEM UAB College of Arts and Sciences Launches Prestigious UTeach Program

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NEW BOOKSBEGINNING PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS This new textbook from Peter O’Neil, professor emeritus in the Mathematics department, focuses on methods of writing and determining properties of solutions of partial differential equations, concentrating on those that describe diffusion processes and wave phenomena.

As O’Neil explains, a simple diffusion problem might involve determining changes in temperature along the length of an object. Wave motion is seen in vibrations of guitar strings, drums, support beams on bridges, and the like. At a more sophisticated level, partial differential equations are used in economics, the physical and life sciences, studies of global weather and ocean current patterns, and many other areas of interest and importance.

O’Neil’s textbook guides students through the process of mapping these and other equations. O’Neil is at [email protected].

Peter V. O’NeiL

Beginning Partial Differential

EquationsT H I R D E D I T I o n

Pure and Applied Mathematics: A Wiley Series of Texts, Monographs, and Tracts


In a stunning achievement, four College faculty members were awarded CAREER Awards by the National Science Foundation. The recipients are Dr. Eugenia Kharlampieva, Chemistry; Dr. Karolina Mukhtar, Biology; Dr. Thamar Solorio and Dr. Ragib Hasaan, Computer and Information Sciences. The total value of the four prizes is $2,500,000.

The NSF’s The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program offers the Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

The College of Arts and Sciences last had a faculty member recognized in 2011, when Dr. David Hilton (Physics) was awarded $600,000 over five years

for his work in coherent manipulation in quantum systems. UAB has never had four faculty honored in a single year.

Dr. Yogesh K. Vohra, professor and Associate Dean, notes that the number and value of this year’s awards is directly related to the College’s investment in faculty development and mentoring, since three of the four winners received grant money and coaching from senior College faculty before they embarked on the NSF CAREER grant process. “These things don’t happen in a vacuum,” says Dr. Vohra. “For Dr. Kharlampieva and Dr. Hasan, we funded a CAS Interdisciplinary Team Award for $30,000 each. Dr. Solorio received a Graduate Entrepreneurship Award for $10,000. So for spending $70,000 we have received more than $2.5 million in federal money in return. I would say that is a wise investment.”

Winners CircleFour CAS faculty members win prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Awards.

Research Grants and Monetary Awards

Dr. Eugenia KharlampievaTitle: Shape Responses of Ultrathin Hydrogel Microcapsules.Award amount: $525,000 Dr. Karolina MukhtarRegulatory Mechanisms of Pathogen-Mediated Cellular Stress Signaling in Arabidopsis: Taking Plant Molecular Biology to the Urban GardenAmount: $1.1 million Dr. Thamar SolorioTitle: Authorship Analysis in Cross Domain SettingsAward amount: $500,000

Dr. Ragib HasanTitle: Secure and Trustworthy Provenance for Accountable CloudsAward amount: $485,000

From left: Dr. Euginia Kharlampieva, Dr. Karolina Mukhtar, Dr. Thamar Solorio and Dr. Ragib Hasan

P R O V I D I N G L E A D E R S H I P A N D D I R E C T I O N T O T H E C A S

B Y D A L E S H O R T

Robert Palazzo

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MEET the DEAN


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It’s often said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

But Dean Robert Palazzo’s 1,099-mile journey from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, to UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences actually started with a surf clam.

His journey to the surf clam began while studying cell biology, when he became intrigued by a cell component known as the centrosome. Not to be confused with its more famous neighbor the nucleus, the centrosome acts as sort of primary organizing center for cell division and had been described and named by German biologist Theodor Boveri in 1888. “Boveri pretty much formulated the chromosomal theory of inheritance,” Palazzo says. “He predicted that chromatic bodies observed by early cytologists were the carriers of genetic information and traits. Then a hundred years passed, which saw the discovery of DNA and a revolution in molecular biology. Yet, when it came to one of the most important organelles in a cell, scientists still had a basic lack of understanding.”

Palazzo, then a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, set out to help fill that void in knowledge about centrosomes. As it turns out, the eggs of marine organisms are excellent specimens for observing cell division—and the clam maybe best of all. Clam eggs divide rapidly, and their contents show up well under a microscope. Fortunately, the shore near Palazzo’s lab was teeming with excellent clams, so picking up a few bushels of clams a day for scientific use was no problem.

Research Insights and RewardsFast-forward to the February 1992 issue of the journal Science,

which featured Palazzo’s work as its cover story in, Palazzo R.E., E. Viasberg, R.W. Cole, and C.L. Rieder (1992) Centriole duplication in cell-free lysates of Spisula solidissima. Science. 256: 219-221. The scientific world took notice, and in the ensuing years, a series of international conferences brought together some of the leading minds in related fields to exchange ideas on progress in centrosome research.

One of the leading minds in the field was a cell biologist named William Brinkley, Ph.D., a president of the American Society for Cell Biology, the Federation of Societies for Experimental Biology, and a professor and former chair at UAB School of Medicine. Brinkley connected Palazzo to UAB early in Palazzo’s career.

Having been recruited as interim dean of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences in October 2012, Palazzo was named dean last

June. Although his office, desk, and chair are the same, he says the mindset of dean-versus-interim is very different. “When you’re an interim, you want to do as much as you can,” he says, “but you have to be careful that your decisions don’t have long-term ramifications, because another person will follow you and develop a new relationship with the faculty and others they represent. When the commitment’s made to become dean, you can be more long-term in your thinking and helping to guide things.”

Birmingham by Way of ItalyPalazzo’s perspective on that process is shaped by a somewhat

unusual upbringing, which he encapsulates as “born in Italy, grew up in the shadow of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, and went on to bask in the light of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia, and along the way somehow became a scientist.” His parents moved to the United States when he was in first grade. From there, he worked his way through Wayne State University in Detroit as the first person in his family to attend college.

His views were especially shaped by his years at Wayne State, he says, with its “strong liberal arts program, strong sciences, and a terrific art museum on campus. It was a big commuter school. In a lot of ways, it was like UAB, except that we’re more residential here—which is good, because it gives a greater sense of the college experience.

“At the beginning I thought I might want to teach,” Palazzo says. “I did well in the sciences, and my advisor said that with my good

A favorite part of Dean Robert Palazzo’s job as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences is interacting with students.

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grades in chemistry, I should think about medical school. I started following a science curriculum and had the chance to study with a distinguished biologist and a famous chemist. They suggested I do lab research, and when the projects worked out well, I had the opportunity to stay and work for my Ph.D. with support from their grants.”

Branches of the Same TreeAlthough his major was in the sciences, Palazzo says, the university’s

arts offerings had a lasting impact on his life. “As a child I loved the books by Hendrik Willem van Loon, who wrote a series of histories for young people in the 1930s—everything from biographies to geography to the arts. And I developed a love for the great books, and for mythology, including Sir James George Frazer’s classic, The Golden Bough. Another big influence was historian Daniel J. Boorstin, who wrote the series of books titled The Americans, The Discoverers, The Creators, and The Seekers.”

Another formative college experience for Palazzo was the university’s filmmaker series, which screened works by major international directors in chronological order. And the museum’s visual arts galleries had significant Asian and Impressionist collections.

“I feel blessed to have been exposed to such a wealth of material,” he says. “And the most important aspect is that when you look at that vast panorama of intellectual and artistic talent—at the whole ‘long waterfront,’ as I call it—of the arts and sciences, you see that it’s not segmented at all, but simply describes various ways of viewing the world, various approaches in search of fundamental truths about ourselves and our universe. Frankly, my interaction with the faculty at UAB in those different fields has been the most refreshing part of my time here.”

After earning his Ph.D. at Wayne State in biological sciences, Palazzo served at the University of Kansas as chair of the


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Department of Physiology and Cell Biology and professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences. He also completed a three-year postdoctorate with the biology department at the University of Virginia.

He was recruited to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2002 to chair its biology department and help create a new center for biotechnology and interdisciplinary studies. Palazzo says he accepted the position in part because of the institute’s reputation. “Rensselaer is actually the oldest science and technology university in the English-speaking world,” Palazzo says. “It was founded in 1824, which preceded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by some 60 years. Its impact in terms of entrepreneurship and innovation is enormous.”

Palazzo says he doesn’t buy the conventional idea that the arts and the sciences are by nature competing factions in education. “I think the tension developed in the post-war world, in part a result of heavy funding that was pouring into the sciences, with little investment in the humanities and the arts. This imbalance led to C.P. Snow’s famous book The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, in which he criticized that rift, which to his mind was artificial.

“I was taught that the Ph.D. is a philosophy degree,” Palazzo continues, “which means you’re a philosopher in biology, in the sciences, in mathematics. So I’ve always felt well aligned and enjoyed the setting of a college of arts and sciences.”

As for the narrative of the clam and the centrosome, Palazzo has gradually relinquished his research duties in recent years as his administrative responsibilities have increased. But he believes there’s still much work to be done in the area he began pursuing at Woods Hole decades ago.

“Even today, you can’t open a scientific journal without seeing a paper or write-up on centrosomes,” Palazzo says. “On the applied side, the question is, is the centrosome involved in root causes of diseases? And it is. I’ve always thought that if tubulin is a target for therapeutics like Taxol and some other treatments, then it’s possible that the centrosome, which serves to organize tubulin, could be an alternative target. I have no doubt that compounds selective for centrosome function would be useful.”

One Goal, Two PathsUAB’s College of Arts and Sciences was created on January 1,

2010, with the merging of the Schools of Arts and Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics—areas of learning representing more than half of UAB’s academic resources, including 22 schools and departments, 300 faculty members, more than 6,500 undergraduates and 500 graduate students from as many as 50 countries, and some 40 different degree options, ranging from baccalaureate to doctoral. An outline of the college’s strategic plan describes it as “a kaleidoscope of intellectual opportunities for learning and the advancement of knowledge.”

The strategic plan also describes the college as “an immersive educational experience.” The beauty of a university, according to

“. . . I want to see the college—as well as UAB as a whole and the city of Birmingham—take a step forward in showing that it can compete

in the international arena.”

R O B E R T P A L A Z Z O

Palazzo, is that it represents “a platform for the collision of ideas.“When you arrive at the essence of ‘what is creativity?’ and

consider the origins of ideas, new ideas originate at the interface between disciplines,” Palazzo explains. “People are brought together with different perspectives, different experiences, and different views, all honed in their own disciplines, and then those ideas collide. And it’s at those collision points where you fine inspiration and novel perspectives. That’s how we advance knowledge. We can’t do it alone, especially now in the 21st century, with the explosion of information all around us. We’re part of what I call ‘a community of wise and trusted scholars’ who are all active in this pursuit of knowledge—a pursuit that’s as old as mankind, and modern universities are a perpetuation of that quest.”

When it comes to educating UAB’s students, regardless of their field of study, Palazzo says a top priority should be multiculturalism: “We used to call it ‘cultural tolerance,’ but I much prefer ‘cultural competence.’ As we recognize in our current strategic plan, new students will have to become competent culturally in order to succeed in the academic setting and in the marketplace. That’s true more than ever in the Information Age, and I believe it’s one more reason why a solid grounding in the liberal arts and sciences is critical in the character development and intellectual formation of the next generation of leaders who will be responsible for managing the problems of the world, which certainly aren’t decreasing.”

Moving forward as dean, Palazzo says he has three main personal goals: “First, I want to see the college—as well as UAB as a whole and the city of Birmingham—take a step forward in showing that it can compete in the international arena. Given the slope of its ascension, this fact hasn’t yet been sufficiently recognized, and I hope I can contribute to achieving that. Second, there are many students here who are, like myself, the first in their families to attend college. I’d like to help solidify that path for them and instill within those students the confidence that they can go out into the world and become national and international thought leaders.

“Finally, if I can assure an appropriate structure of policies, best practices, and financial management that will sustain the organization long into the future to achieve goals one and two, then my time here will have been worthwhile.”

Ireland Prize winner Leon Botstein exposes a black hole of musical history to the bright lights of lecture and performance.

ILLUMINATION


ILLUMINATIONf e a t u r e s t o r y

In 1984, Charles W. Ireland and his wife Caroline P. Ireland gave a personal gift of $250,000 to establish the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Endowment for Scholarly Distinction. Today,

the fund awards two annual Ireland Prizes, one of which is the Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholars Award, which brings to the campus outstanding scholars who are generally recognized as figures of distinction in the arts and sciences. During their time on campus, these prizewinners give a public lecture and share their knowledge through informal meetings with students and members of the faculty. The annual Ireland Visiting Scholar prize is

$10,000 and an engraved award.

UAB faculty nominate candidates for consideration each year, evaluating individuals who have achieved international excellence in his or her field of study and who can share his or her enthu-

siasm and knowledge with the university community.

About the Ireland Prize

Leon Botstein has a passion for education. As the president of Bard College in Annandale, New York since 1975, he has argued for the value of learning for its own sake, not merely as the first training step in a vocational or academic career.

He also has a passion for music. As the musical director and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992, he has transformed the concert experience for audiences worldwide. As a musical historian and musicologist, his contributions have helped reset thinking about composition, theory and performance.

All of which makes Botstein a significant American cultural figure. But what makes Botstein remarkable, and what led to his selection as the winner of the 2014 Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Prize, is his ability to synergize these two disciplines into a one-of-a-kind performance that brings context and meaning to the musical score.

“I’m interested in the relationship between the way we understand and write about music history, and what is available to us in the concert repertory,” Botstein explains. “There is a divide between the academic study of music history and the practice of concert giving. As a music historian and a performer, I’ve discovered that concert programming distorts the history of music and indeed what music is all about. A stultifying routine has grown in concert repertory that disguises the vast and endless works of music that are actually available. I am seeking to alleviate that sense of routine and, if I may say so, boredom on the part of contemporary audiences by reintroducing unjustly neglected works and bringing music history back to life in all its variety.”

While at UAB to accept the prize, Botstein conducted a

special performance of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra at the Alys Stephens Center on March 13th. He says that his interest in refreshing the audience’s experience in listening to live music is what catalyzed his plans for the Birmingham concert. “That [was] the inspiration for the program for this occasion,” Botstein says. “I [wanted] to explore the era in the history of the symphony between the death of Schumann and the premiere of the first symphony of Brahms. For most audiences this is an historical black hole. And yet there is so much wonderful music to be heard from that period. The concert program that we [performed offered] two examples of accessible, captivating symphonies that you rarely … hear in live performance.”

Botstein says the recognition from UAB has been meaningful to him. “I was very thrilled to receive the Ireland Prize from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and to conduct the Alabama Symphony. This has been an unexpected pleasure and honor.”

“There is a divide between the academic study of music history and

the practice of concert giving.”L E O N B O T S T E I N


DIAMONDIN THE ROUGHNSF Funds Partnership for Innovation

B Y N I C H O L A S P A T T E R S O N

Yogesh Vohra, Ph.D., professor of physics and associate dean of the UAB College of Arts and Sciences, has been conducting research on manmade diamonds for many years. Recently he was awarded lead investigator status on a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study potential applications for diamonds.

The highly competitive $600,000 NSF Partnership for Innovation grant will fund applications using diamonds in knee implants, lasers, and sensors, says Vohra, who’s also director of UAB’s Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration and UAB Campus Director for the NASA Alabama Space Grant Consortium. The grant also recognizes the partnership between the university’s new Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Birmingham Business Alliance.

“I think the main goal of this grant is to provide funds for conducting translational research on a scientific discovery in order to take it to the next level, which is commercial viability,” Vohra says. “So the two-year funding will finance research to overcome the barriers for using the materials in real-world applications.”

The NSF grant also funds the work of a graduate and a post-doctoral student and will help build and outfit a diamond

micro-fabrication lab, Vohra says. UAB undergraduate students also will be engaged in the project.

Times ThreeAll aspects of the three-pronged project

involve diamonds, but they each have distinctive characteristics and individual business applications.

“We have three very clear application areas,” Vohra says. “These include diamond-based sensors, diamond-coated knee joints, and diamond-coated media for high powered lasers. The goal is to move these ideas from the laboratory across the hurdles separating them from commercial use.”

“For example, in the diamond-coated knee prosthesis application, we have to overcome the limitations of how to actually deposit nanostructured diamonds over a large area of the knee,” H That will involve answering what are the fundamental process innovations that you have to achieve so that you get a uniform coating over a large area?”

The potential is great for patients who need artificial knees or other articulating joints, which Vohra pointed out in a recent paper: “UAB researchers have demonstrated and patented a process for depositing ultra-hard nanostructured diamond coatings on metals that are very resistant to mechanical

wear for applications in articulating joints like hip, knee, and dental implants. These coatings are mirror-finish, do not require any post-growth polishing and can be applied on large surfaces. The hardness and wear resistance of these coatings is two to three times better than the standard surfaces in hip and knee prosthesis.”

Real-World Viability The NSF grant will allow the knee

prosthesis, coated with nanostructured diamonds, to be tested in a UAB knee simulator to prove its durability and marketability, Vohra says. That testing would “establish its longevity in clinical settings and establish its competitive advantage over the standard knee prosthesis on the market.”

A second area the grant will facilitate involves installing multiple sensors on a single diamond crystal. Overcoming the barriers to manufacturing a multisensor diamond could have significant impact in situations where conditions are extreme. “These diamond-based sensors would work in applications where conventional sensors would fail because of extreme temperatures, stress, chemicals, or high radiation levels,” Vohra wrote.

“That is where we still have to answer some fundamental questions about

Industrial diamonds may be less flashy than their multifaceted, organic

cousins, but their durability offers great potential for scientific use.

f e a t u r e s t o r y

whether we can put multiple sensors into one diamond device,” Vohra says. “Because to be commercially viable you would like a multisensor capability. That would involve putting an electrical sensor, a magnetic sensor, and a stress sensor on the device. We have done single stage in which we encapsulated a single sensor. But we really need to do multiple sensors in one device. So that’s why I think the grant is pushing research into new directions, with the goal of developing a viable commercial product.

“Already we use a single sensor in the laboratory for extreme conditions where material is under high pressure high temperature conditions. A question we really want to explore, once we develop these vertically integrated sensors, can we extend the application to oil drilling where you put this multisensor device into a hostile chemical environment? From that point of view, I think this research is really important.”

Movie Magic Made RealThe third project is in collaboration with

Onxy Optics, a Dublin, California-based company, to develop a device that figured into the 1971 James Bond movie titled Diamonds are Forever–a high-powered, diamond-based laser.

Of course, in the movie, the satellite-based

laser was being used for evil purposes-—to destroy nuclear weapons from space. But Onxy Optics, which bills itself as “the world leader in the manufacture of finished composite crystal and glass components for solid-state lasers,” builds its devices for far less nefarious clients.

In fact, Vohra says, the reason for using diamonds as heat sinks and bonding agents in lasers is that they are the best thermal conductors and the diamond surface is chemically inert. Diamonds “can carry the heat away very efficiently. Right now, the best thermal conductor in commercial use is copper and is used extensively for that purpose. Diamond is four to five times better than copper so it can carry away heat very efficiently. So the idea was that if we provide a diamond layer on the laser crystal, there will be a potential application in high-powered lasers.”

Currently high-powered laser crystals are limited by thermal run away problems leading to failure. “It’s the same technology in your Pentium chip,” Vohra says. “The chip

generates a lot of heat. If you turn off your cooling fan, your chip will fail. So diamond is being considered as a very efficient heat conductor in those devices. It can conduct the heat away from any source.

“This is a new area for us. We had not done research into diamond coating of laser crystals before. So we’re going to look at this opportunity with our commercial partners to see if we can overcome the technological barriers.”

UAB has more than one connection with Onyx, and that points to potential advantages for what Vohra calls UAB’s primary product. “Our main products are students. Onyx had hired a physics PhD student trained in Vohra’s lab in the past. This research really provides excellent training and networking opportunities for graduate students, undergrads, and post-docs. Hopefully some of the personnel would be involved in opening up new companies.” Those new companies could be located in Birmingham, he notes.


“Right now, the best thermal conductor is copper, and it conducts heat. Diamond is four to five times more efficient than copper in carrying away heat.”

Y O G E S H V O H R A

Physics professor Yogesh Vohra is lead investigtor on a $600,000 National Science Foundation study.

UAB’s new NMR facility is the largest and most advanced in the state. Its centerpiece is a Bruker BioSpin Avance III HD 850 MHz NMR spectrometer, equipped with a cryoprobe, a coil that’s cooled with a stream of very cold Helium gas to increase the probe’s sensitivity and reduce the level of thermal noise generated by the device’s components.

“This puts UAB in the category of leading institutions that have this level of technology,” says N. Rama Krishna, Ph.D., professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and director of the NMR facility. “This facility is a unique platform that merges both basic science and translational research--from structural biology of proteins to drug discovery, and NMR-metabolic profiling of biofluids to assess toxicity and physiological changes induced by drugs.”

Using technology that sprang from World War II radar designs, NMR devices use powerful magnets that target the hydrogen nuclei of proteins. The nuclei respond by producing signals that can be

encoded by the machine and converted into data points of an image.

Big Lab On Campus“The new facility has been intricately

designed with power, HVAC, security, and vibration dampening capabilities,” Krishna says, “that make it one of the best designed NMR facilities in the U.S. The consolidation of the 19th Street and 14th Street NMR Cores into a central facility will allow for more efficient maintenance, scheduling and upkeep of the NMR systems, more economical usage of the cryogens involved, and the availability in one location of a critical mass of NMR scientists with expertise in mutually complementary areas to support the research projects of Cancer Center faculty members.”

And the facility redesign brings an aesthetic bonus as well, says Dr. David Graves, chair of the Department of Chemistry. “There’s a big ‘wow’ factor with this facility and its view of the beautiful Campus Green,” he says. “We included as many windows as possible, to show off

the facility and illustrate our commitment to research excellence. We can do a lot more collaboratively than we can do separately, and this partnership among the Department of Chemistry, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, the School of Medicine, and the College of Arts and Sciences clearly reflects this synergy.”

“Drs. Rama Krishna and David Graves have built a world-class NMR facility at UAB,” says Tim Townes, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. “The 850 MHz NMR spectrometer with cryoprobe is a state-of-the-art spectrometer that can define the structure and dynamic movements of proteins at the atomic level.

While the facility will be helping researchers solve puzzles of proteins for years to come, bringing the pieces together in their interdisciplinary framework was a major puzzle of logistics in itself.

Early in 2009, when Krishna’s High End Instrumentation grant for a 800 MHz NMR system with a cryoprobe was funded by the National Institutes



B Y D A L E S H O R T

Seeing brighter and sharper images of inside the human

body has long been a goal of researchers and physicians. X-rays were a

major breakthrough, but more recently the science of Nuclear Magnetic

Resonance (NMR) was so revolutionaly that it won two Nobel prizes for two

different teams of scientists.

UAB’S HIGH- NUCLEARMAGNETIC RESONANCE FACILITY

Sharper Image



of Health-National Center for Research Resources, the size of the magnet outshone the size of the loading dock’s corridor at the 19th Street facility known as CH19. Installing the machine there would require major construction and renovation, with a price tag to match. Krishna and chemistry chair David Graves, Ph.D. conferred about the option of relocating the 19th street facility instruments and combining them with the Department of Chemistry’s NMR systems operating at 700 MHz, 400 MHz and 300 MHz.

This Plan B would have required upgrading the magnet to a “compact shielded” version, as well as renovating parts of the Chemistry building. The plan was proposed to UAB leadership. What happened next was, as Krishna puts it, “serendipity.” Twice.

First, the manufacturer of the Bruker-Biospin machine announced a new compact shielded version of their Ascend 850, which is small enough to fit in a single story lab such as the Chemistry Building. Not long afterward, the National Cancer Institute announced a new competition for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) supplements to Cancer Center Support (CCSG) Grants, of the type that help support the Comprehensive Cancer Center, which would be aimed at consolidating Cancer Center Cores.

Krishna and Graves wrote and submitted an application for consolidating the NMR instruments to a Chemistry Building location. The grant was funded, work began on renovating the space, and the new facility was set to house all four NMR instruments.

The largest device will mainly support structural biology studies on high molecular weight proteins and their complexes, Krishna says, and the 700 model will continue to support structural biology in addition to cancer drug discovery projects. The 600 system is dedicated to studies of metabolomics--chemical processes involving metabolites, which have been described as “the chemical fingerprints that specific cellular processes leave behind”--in addition to work on peptides, smaller proteins, complex carbohydrates, and nucleic acids. The 500 system will assist in heteronuclear observation, and the 400 and 300 systems will be used chiefly for synthetic chemistry research.

Collaboration“One aspect of the new installation that will multiply its impact

is its collaborative nature,” says Edward Partridge, M.D., director of UAB’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. “This new facility is going to

The new NMR facility grand opening was held in November. It has been intricately designed with power, HVAC, security, and vibration dampening capabilities.

“. . . the facility proides state-of-the-art sensitivity and resolution for biomedical

research and drug discovery . . .” N . R A M A K R I S H N A , P H . D .

take biomedical research to the next level--not only with its state-of-the-art instrumentation, but most importantly, with the collaborative expertise of our researchers, who will better our understanding of disease and disease progression. UAB as a whole has long been recognized for its efforts in drug discovery and development. When it comes to cancer, this facility is going to play a pivotal role in creating therapeutic agents in the laboratory, helping us nurture it through the ‘research pipeline’ of tests, animal studies, and clinical trials before it’s ultimately brought to our patients.”

The installation’s name is as substantial as its equipment list: The Central Alabama High-Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility, which was derived from the title of Krishna’s successful High End Instrumentation grant funded by the NCRR. At 1,600 square feet and $3.5 million, the facility was created as a multidisciplinary partnership of the NIH-NCRR, UAB Health Services Foundation, National Cancer Institute, the offices of the vice president for Research and Economic Development and the deans of the School of Medicine and the College of Arts and Sciences.

According to director Krishna, the facility “provides state-of-the-art sensitivity and resolution for biomedical research and drug discovery” for a wide-ranging list of diseases including cancer, hypertension, diabetes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, HIV-1, Parkinson’s disease, and others. It combines the new machines with existing instrumentation from the university’s chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular genetics departments.

“These precise measurements are essential to gain insights into the proteins that cause disorders as diverse as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and cardiovascular disease. Equally important, the state-of-the-art NMR facility further strengthens the Structural Biology Program at UAB and helps us attract outstanding students into our Graduate Biomedical Sciences Program.”



Introducing UAB Digital Media’s first-class of Media FellowsB Y : K A R L A K H O D A N I A N ,

U A B D I G I T A L M E D I A F E L L O W

THE DREAMMost creative leaders in this world got

to where they are today because they are problem-solvers: they find a need and fill it. In fact, it was this determined mindset that led Rosie O’Beirne and Anna Lloyd to establish the program of their dreams: the UAB Digital Media Fellows.

THE FOUNDERSIn the spring of 2011, Anna Lloyd, then a

senior at UAB, was starting her job search. After landing a position in Web

Development in the UAB Provost’s Office, she saw how great the need was for digital media services on campus. At the same time, media studies professor Rosie O’Beirne had noticed the same need from non-profit organizations all over the city. “[Anna] saw the UAB demand, I saw the community demand, and we both saw the same model of students servicing that,” says O’Beirne. “I was looking around to

see what tools were being used on campus and how I could incorporate them into the classroom from early on.”

It was that common realization that began the building of UAB Digital Media that O’Beirne now directs, which includes the Media Commons production space, managed by Chris Humphries, and the Media Fellows program, led by Lloyd.

THE PROGRAM“We decided early on that media fellows

needed to be the cream of the crop in digital storytelling on campus,” says Lloyd. “And we believe that if you’re that good at what you do, you deserve to be paid.”

Media Fellows work 20 hours a week at $12 an hour. This wage was set to show students that they have just as much to offer as professionals do. And every dollar made by student projects with external clients goes right back into the program.

“We wanted to have some sort of extra

cherry on top,” says Lloyd so in addition to the regular pay, Media Fellows also receive a technology stipend of $1000. Students can use this money to purchase new equipment such as lenses and laptops or even apply the money towards attending a conference.

Becoming a Media Fellow is more than just simply submitting a resume. O’Beirne and Lloyd made it clear that the application process was more about telling your story rather than boasting your experiences. “We wanted to attract students who were digital-savvy, of course,” says Lloyd “but we wanted to find students who are eager about learning and sharing knowledge with others, students who can work on a team, energize other people and be a leader.”

She goes on to say “We wanted students who show a deeper understanding of what’s being communicated and know how to use the technology to do that. The technology is the medium, but you have to know how to tell a story first.”

A NEW KIND OF STORYTELLER

as well as created the site for the new AEIVA building. She also won a Silver Addy award for the Department of Art and Art History’s new logo design. Following graduation, Betsy will begin a full-time post-bac position with the Digital Media team.

The youngest student of the bunch, junior Business Management major Matt Drummond’s steady-hand has made him a powerful asset to the videography team. Ask any question about lenses, cameras or any other fancy videography equipment and he’s got your answer. Serving as the lead videographer for the TEDxBirmingham video project, Drummond’s skilled editing expertise and patience proved his place as one of the strongest storytellers.

A seasoned tech blogger with articles featured on Gizmodo, senior Political Science major Brent Caswell serves as the team’s guru for all things web-related. His passion lies in creating functional user interfaces and has devoted this passion in creating UAB Digital Media’s ‘Knowledge Jam,’ a website filled with articles, videos and digital advice created by students working in the Media Commons.

And I suppose it’s at this point where I should introduce myself, your trusted author, as a Media Fellow as well. I’m the team’s social media addict whose face is usually burried in my iPhone composing what I believe to be the next great tweet. As a senior Public Relations major, I knew my love would lie in the communications side of all of our initiatives, but perhaps my greatest

discovery as a Media Fellow is my love for producing. Through the TEDxBirmingham promo video project, I realized the passion I have for telling stories through as many digital tools as possible.

CONCLUSION“In the future we want to expand Media

Fellows program and offer students even more opportunities,” concludes O’Beirne. “Ultimately we are here to teach students that your knowledge has value and when you can, you should share it.”

Though it’s great to have a dollar value attached to my work, it’s even greater to have advocates like O’Beirne and Lloyd by my side championing my value as a creative professional. The experiences I have gained and the connections I have made in my time as a Media Fellow will be unrivaled.

The most important lesson I’ve learned is that collaboration is key to a successful project. Without a good team motivating each other along the way, success would be far-fetched. Considering we won a Gold Addy award from the American Advertising Federation for our collaboration on the TEDxBirmingham promo video, I’d say we’ve nailed process down just right.

The UAB Digital Media staff has started recruiting for next year’s crop of Media Fellows. For more information on the program visit www.uab.edu/digitalmedia.



THE FELLOWSSo at this point you’re probably wondering

who might these up-and-coming student storytellers be? Well there’s seven of them, and each one is as unique as the digital skill they bring into the lab.

Every team needs a great comedian to keep its morale up, and that’s where Daniel Twieg comes into play. He is a skilled animator, talented videographer, Addy award winning designer and friend to all. This year he has contributed to multiple video projects and is currently lead on a video project with local non-profit Bama Covered. Twieg is a senior finishing up an individually-designed major in the digital arts.

Professional composer by day and electric rockstar by night, music major Kevin Peek serves as the team’s resident audio engineer. Rather than paying money for stock music, UAB Digital Media utilizes Peek to create the powerful beats you hear in the background of every video project they produce. Peek’s talents were utilized beyond the lab earlier this school year when he was contracted to compose the pieces for the university’s syndicated commercials.

No digital collaboration is complete without the opinion of the in-house artist. Ryan Meyer, a senior in the BFA program, has the detailed eye and the skillful hand needed of a graphic designer. Meyer has been with UAB Digital Media since the lab opened, so his resume has grown with the program. He hopes to take creativity into the advertising world with him once graduating.

As the technology grows, the need for web designers grow with it. Betsy Cates, a senior Art Studio major, started as a Media Fellow with a knack for graphic design, but soon found a love for development. Betsy spearheaded the redesign of UAB’s Department of Art and Art History’s website

Digital Media Fellows collaborate to tell the stories of The College using different technologies.



CAS Alumni Entrepreneurs are rooted in their UAB educationB Y G A I L A L L Y N S H O R T

S E E DS O F SU CC E SS

You want to think about solutions to problems. What’s a

better way to do something?L A R R Y D E L U C A S , O . D . P H . D .

S E E DS O F SU CC E SS



Stephen Brossette, M.D., Ph.D. At UAB, New Orleans native Stephen Brossette found just what

he was looking for—an opportunity to participate in the Medical Scientist Training Program, a combined M.D./Ph.D. program that prepares students for careers as physician researchers. For his doctorate, he opted to enroll in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS). He completed his CIS studies in 1998 and finished medical school at UAB in 1999.

While working on one research project, Brossette decided to gather data on hospital infection rates and soon realized that mining databases to analyze hospital records was a more accurate way to track the spread of infections and antibiotic resistance in hospitals and communities.

It wasn’t long before Brossette’s data-mining research caught the attention of a company that wanted to commercialize it. But he saw the offer as confirmation that he could go into business for himself.

So in 2000, he co-founded MedMined Inc. with Patrick Hymel and G. T. LaBoede. The company used patented data-mining techniques to efficiently identify and report infection outbreaks to the public and provide opportunities for hospitals to change their processes to prevent future infections.

“The growth was hard won,” he says “A lot of people look at the story of MedMined and think, wow, this company was an overnight success, but it wasn’t. There was nothing about it that

felt like an overnight success. There were three of us that started the company, and we worked for years before we turned the corner to really become a successful business.”

In 2006, when Cardinal Health bought MedMined, Brossette stayed on as vice president for three years. But during that period, he and his original business partners began brainstorming ideas for a new business. They discussed misidentification of medications, the difficulties some patients have in keeping track of all of them and how technology could help.

They came up with an app that could capture the images of several pills at one time and match them against images in a database of more than 4,000 medications. The app, Brossette says, would give doctors, nurses, and pharmacists a way to identify a patient’s different medications within seconds. Moving forward with their idea, the team founded MedSnap LLC in 2009.

MedSnap is now marketing the technology, MedScan ID, to hospitals and insurers. Earlier this year, Brossette and his team introduced the MedScan ID to a group of UAB physician assistant students in the School of Health Professions so they could try it out.

Brossette, who is the chief science officer for MedSnap, says he and his business partners are now in the process of designing an app that will let patients and caregivers snap a picture of medications that need identification from home.


David Graves, Ph.D. David Graves, Ph.D., is both an alumnus and the chair of the

Department of Chemistry. The Gardendale, Alabama, native entered UAB as an undergraduate student in 1970. Influenced by his physical chemistry professor, Dr. Charles Watkins, Graves found himself well prepared by his mentor. “I’ve been doing physical biochemistry for about 30 years as a professor, so that course put me on the track that I have made a career out of in terms of my research.”

While in school, Graves worked part-time in the UAB Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology reproductive endocrinology laboratory, which he says helped influence his decision to earn a doctorate degree in biochemistry.

After earning his Ph.D., Graves completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Rochester. He accepted a job as a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Mississippi in 1984, where he taught chemistry for 20 years, eventually reaching the role of Distinguised Faculty Fellow in 2002.

His plan was to retire at the University of Mississippi, Graves says, but he started getting inquiries from individuals at UAB about returning to his alma mater to become chair of the chemistry department—stepping in for Larry Krannich, Ph.D., who was retiring.

After accepting the chairmanship in 2003, one of his major areas of focus was exploring ways to enhance chemistry faculty collaborations with researchers across campus on projects involving drug discovery, biophysical chemistry, and structural biology, and to conduct basic science investigations that could dovetail into translational research—taking basic science research to the clinical setting—that was taking place at UAB.

Graves became a senior scientist with the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center and eventually teamed with two center researchers, Katri Selander, M.D., Ph.D., and Kevin Harris, M.D., to develop a blood test that could tell doctors within hours whether a particular chemotherapy treatment was working. The test had the potential to save cancer patients from undergoing repeated rounds of chemotherapy before a clinical determination could be made on whether the patient’s tumor was shrinking.

The group consulted with the UAB Research Foundation in applying for a patent on the extracellular telomere assay. In 2011, they launched Blondin Biosciences to further develop the assay.

Operating in the business world required a new set of skills, and Graves and his partners took advantage of classes offered through the Birmingham Business Alliance and Innovation Depot, UAB’s business incubator. There they learned the fundamentals of developing a business plan, ways to pitch their product to potential investors, and how to convey the science behind the blood test in layman’s terms.

A year later, Blondin Biosciences was a finalist in the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama’s Alabama Launchpad

Larry DeLucas, O.D., Ph.D.Former astronaut and UAB professor of optometry Larry DeLucas,

O.D., Ph.D., earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from UAB in 1972 and 1974 respectively.

“The reason I ended up majoring in chemistry was due to the faculty I interacted with in the chemistry department,” DeLucas says. “In particular, I worked during the summer for Dr. Thomas St. Pierre who was a polymer chemist on the chemistry department faculty. He really gave me the confidence to believe that I could be successful as a scientist.”

A native of Syracuse, DeLucas continued his education at UAB with a second bachelor’s degree in physiological optics in 1979, followed by an optometry degree in 1981 and a doctorate in biochemistry in 1982. He later taught optometry courses at UAB and conducted studies on x-ray protein crystallography, a technology used to examine the structure of proteins, which is important for developing new drugs. By 1985, DeLucas was director of the purification and crystallization laboratory and associate director of the UAB Center for Macromolecular Crystallography.

Then in 1992, DeLucas became the first optometrist to go into space when he orbited the earth for 13 days aboard the space shuttle Columbia as a NASA payload specialist. The idea to start a business came, DeLucas says, while he was trying to build technologies to NASA’s specifications so he could send experiments on future space shuttles. He hired a staff of engineers to help him build protein crystallization hardware that would meet NASA’s flight hardware standards.

“Having engineers around me who could design and fabricate prototype hardware using the UAB research machine shop helped me develop new biotechnologies. [That] led me to consider forming a company to commercialize the technologies,” says DeLucas, who also directs the UAB Center for Biophysical Sciences and Engineering (CBSE). DeLucas, who became CBSE director in 1994, launched Diversified Scientific Inc., in 1997. The company licensed some of his technologies for protein crystallization through UAB’s Research Foundation (UABRF).

Diversified spawned other spin-off companies such as the 2007 biotech venture Vivo Biosciences Inc., that uses a proprietary human-based media to culture cells, grow three-dimensional tissue and perform biological assays. DeLucas’ newest company, Soluble Therapeutics Inc, was established in 2009. It licensed from the UABRF a protein solubility technology developed by DeLucas, members of the CBSE, and Dr. William Wilson, a colleague from Mississippi State University. The technology has applications in fundamental protein research and protein therapeutics such as vaccine development. So far, DeLucas has registered more than 30 patents.

“I think that in science it’s really important that you work hard, but you want to also be innovative,” he says. “You want to always be thinking of solutions to problems. What’s a better way to do something?’”

22 • arts & sciences magazine arts & sciences magazine • 23

From left: Theresa Harper Bruno, Stephen Brossette, Larry DeLucas, David Graves, David Brasfield.

I’m a creator by heart, It’s just sort of in the genes. It’s a creative bent and a drive

to really run hard in business.

T H E R E S A H A R P E R B R U N O , M . A .

competition, providing a real-world, working example of UAB’s brand: ”Knowledge that will change your world.” The group is now working to refine proof-of-concept and refine the diagnostic test while at the same time securing funding for their business.

Theresa Harper Bruno, M.A.When Orlando, Florida, native Theresa Harper Bruno chose

to study history at UAB, she was at a career crossroads. She previously had studied at the Juilliard School of Music with dreams of becoming a concert pianist, but she was forced to consider other options when the arduous, 10-hour-a-day practices injured her hand.

Bruno set out to find an occupation where she could still be both creative and practical. She returned to Birmingham, where she had strong family ties, chose advertising and marketing, and later became the advertising director for Regions Bank. She then spent 10 years as a creative director and partner at the Birmingham-based marketing and public relations firm Perry, Harper & Perry, which opened in 1989. Meanwhile she had enrolled at UAB to pursue a master’s degree in history, she says.

“I felt that I was under-educated outside of the arts,” she says, “and I was also considering going to law school at the time. I liked the Women’s Studies program and the personal attention by the professors.”

Bruno received her master of arts degree from UAB in 1990. She continued working in advertising. Then in 2005, Bruno opened her own firm, Theresa Harper Bruno Inc., a holding company offering services such as strategic planning and consulting and film production.

Bruno says that she had always dabbled in design over the years, and soon she began creating her own line of jewelry using pearls and other precious stones.

In 2010, she launched Jordan Alexander Jewelry, and the success of the line was almost immediate. Not long after the launch, her pieces were featured in The New York Times. Then she got a call from the White House saying that First Lady Michelle Obama planned to wear some of her jewelry to a state dinner. Today her

jewelry is sold in 40 luxury stores around the country, and now she is introducing a line of furniture, she says.

“I’m a creator by heart,” she says. “It’s just sort of in the genes. It’s a creative bent and a drive to really run hard in business.”

These days, when she is not traveling to promote her furniture and jewelry, she is active in supporting and promoting UAB’s Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center. She is chair of the ASC Corporate Board, and says getting to meet some of the artists who have come to perform at the ASC has been a joy. “It’s like I got the best gift in the world,” she says.

Bruno has now taken on a new role as co-chair of UAB’s recently announced comprehensive, philanthropic campaign to raise $1 billion by the end of 2018, which will be the largest fundraising campaign in UAB’s history.

“Raising these funds is going to make a huge difference not only for UAB, but for all of Alabama,” she says. “I’m truly and honestly so humbled to have been asked to do this work.”

David Brasfield, B.S.When David Brasfield was a freshman at UAB, he thought

medicine was his destiny. But he soon concluded that pre-med was not for him and turned his attention to the emerging field of computer science.

“Computer science wasn’t a big thing back in the 1980s, when desktop computers were in their infancy,” he says. “So the degree was fairly new, but I hopped in and liked the curriculum so much that I decided to change my major to computer science. I didn’t possess a crystal ball back then and didn’t foresee the explosion of computing technology that would produce PCs, iPads, cell phones, and mobile devices. But I did see that a computer could take lots of data and give us results very quickly.

“UAB was a great school because it had some of the newer technologies, and at that time, the program was just starting. It wasn’t like computer science had been out there for years like it is today,” he says.

Brasfield gained work experience at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, and after graduating from UAB with a bachelor’s degree in computer science in 1984, he took a computer-programming job with NCR Corp. Then, in 1989, Brasfield decided to start his own software business, SBS Corp., to service financial institutions.

“It was both exciting and scary,” Brasfield says. “When you have a good job that you like doing, it’s hard to leave it and strike out on your own. But I felt I could go do that myself, and the timing was good.”

About a year later, Brasfield moved the company into UAB’s former business incubator, the Office for the Advancement of Developing Industries (OADI), and took advantage of the classes and resources that were offered to new entrepreneurs.

“It was a great opportunity for a small businessperson to have full access to a variety of well-known experts in these different fields,” Brasfield says.

He launched his second company, Brasfield Technology, in 2001, after selling SBS Corp. Just four years later, in 2005, he sold Brasfield Technologies to the Metavante Corp. He opened his third firm, TriNovus, in 2009. Through TriNovus, Brasfield offered financial institutions the resources needed to help them comply with new federal rules. Last year, he soldTriNovus to a Swiss company.

His advice for students interested in starting their own businesses? “The hardest part is just doing it,” he says. “But know that if it doesn’t work out, you always have another direction you can follow, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you can do it.”


Kairos. The ancient Greeks coined the term to describe the opportune time and place for action. The savviest folks in the courtroom or at the agora, a common meeting place back in the day for deliberating with fellow citizens, were those who knew not only how to craft a stellar argument, but also when and how to deliver it to achieve the desired result. While we’re a long way from ancient Greece in 2014 Birmingham, we in the College of Arts and Sciences know a thing or two about embracing ideas when the time is right, the iron is hot, the planets align . . . you get the idea.

As the stories in this issue reveal, students and faculty across CAS are engaged in the kinds of cutting-edge research and energizing collaborations that will make this a year to remember. Our new dean, Robert Palazzo, set the stage when he described the college as “a platform for the collision of ideas.” Over time, we’ve come to value what happens when you gather lots of folks, not of the same mind, to tackle issues that affect multiple disciplines and stakeholders. The result can be pure magic.

Several of the alumni entrepreneurs profiled in the magazine illustrate the point. For instance, Stephen Brossette, M.D., Ph.D., launched the company MedMined after recognizing that data he was gathering for one purpose could be used to solve another problem of significant import: tracking infection rates in hospitals and among specific populations to assist in predicting and responding to disease. Surrounding himself with engineers, UAB professor of optometry Larry DeLucas, O.D., Ph.D., saw that the exciting ideas and products they were co-developing could be shared with a much wider audience—a decision that’s taken both him and his discoveries into outer space.

The brand of storytelling that comes to life in UAB’s Digital Media Lab also reflects kairos at its best. As director of the center Rosie O’Beirne notes, a new media landscape requires that students

from many orientations come together to do what they do best in collaboration to create the kinds of multimodal projects that define how we know what we know in the 21st century. Writers. Graphic designers. Musicians. Videographers. By working in tandem at this pivotal time in CAS, these student-experts are dabbling in the innovative methods for creating texts that will carry them forth into meaningful, ever-evolving contexts that we can only imagine at this historical moment.

Kairos brings us together with those outside UAB, too. An excellent example is the growing partnership between the National Science Foundation, UAB’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the Birmingham Business Alliance—work that will lead to applications using diamonds for a variety of purposes, among them knee implants, lasers, and sensors. As Yogesh Vohra, Ph.D., professor of physics and associate dean in The College explains, the synergy between scientists, entrepreneurs, and innovative centers in the area is anticipated to help all involved “move ideas from the laboratory across the hurdles separating them from commercial use.”

All of these instances reveal people embracing opportunities to put thoughts into action when and where they will be of value.

And let’s not forget the tasty sea urchins growing in the aquaculture lab of Stephen Watts, Ph.D. While Watts’ research makes for entertaining television, it more importantly addresses a vital need: a sudden drop in the population of the species due to overfishing and an accompanying loss of jobs. It’s an endeavor whose time has come.

The ancient Greeks would be proud.

Cynthia Ryan, Ph.D., is an associate professor of English specializing in composition and rhetoric.

So

What?B Y C Y N T H I A R Y A N

The importance of The College to the community


The College of Arts & Sciences gratefully recognizes those listed below for their significant support of the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts.

Judy and Hal ABROMS // Ruth and Marvin ENGEL

Gail and Jeffery BAYER

Ronne and Donald HESS Foundation

Carol and Jack ODESS

The ANDY WARHOL Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

The BROOKE Family Foundation

The COMMUNITY FOUNDATION of GREATER BIRMINGHAM

DAY FAMILY Foundation and JEMISON Investment Co, Inc.

Ellen and Fred ELSAS

Mr. Leo KAYSER, Jr.

Mrs and Mrs. Charles D. PERRY, Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. Joel B. PIASSICK

B Y C Y N T H I A R Y A N

Upcoming Events at The CollegeMarch 10-15UAB Theatre11th Annual Festival of Ten-Minute PlaysOdess Theatre, Alys Stephens Center7:30 p.m.

March 12UAB EnglishWriter’s Series Lecture: Margaret WrinkleHulsey Recital Hall6:00 p.m.

March 13Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Prizewinner Dr. Leon BotsteinConducting the Alabama Symphony OrchestraJemison Concert Hall, Alys Stephens Center 8:00 p.m.

March 16UAB MusicAround the World in 80 Minutes: A Musical ExtravaganzaJemison Concert Hall, Alys Stephens Center4:00 p.m.

March 19-April 18UAB Art/Art History38th Annual Juried Student Exhibition and George Ferrandi: “The Prosthetics of Joy” Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts

March 20UAB Art/Art HistoryLive performance, George Ferrandi“The Prosthetics of Joy”Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts 6:30 p.m.

April 1UAB EnglishBook Talk“The Round House” by Louise ErdreichHenley Room, Mervyn H. Sterne Library6:00 p.m.

April 17Faculty Book PartyAbroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts4:00 p.m.

April 30-May 22UAB Art/Art HistoryBachelor of Fine Arts ShowAbroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts

uab arts & sciences magazine, spring 2014

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