John Hollis

Communication and collaboration fueled his Mason experience

Damian Cristodero — Wed, 18 Dec 2019 16:56:40 +0000

Communication and collaboration fueled his Mason experience Damian Cristodero Wed, 12/18/2019 - 11:56

December graduate Tristan Moon, a member of the Honors College, said communication across disciplinary boundaries helped drive his research. Photo by Lathan Goumas.

Tristan Moon said his experience in multidisciplinary communication and collaborating with others outside his own field of study was the cornerstone of his education at George Mason University.

Moon, who graduates Thursday, Dec. 19, with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a minor in Spanish, played a key role in research involving the creation of new nanomaterials using silica. Moon spent several semesters on the research, but said that it wasn’t until he began working with others from different disciplines that he began to maximize the impact of his research.

“The benefits I gained from these experiences were immediately clear when it came time to start speaking about my research,” said Moon, a 23-year-old Honors College student who gave oral and poster presentations to audiences that included nanoparticle experts, chemists and people without a scientific background.

“In each case, I was fully capable of explaining the significance of my research in such a way as to allow understanding,” he said.

The value of communication across disciplinary boundaries has long been a core value for the Honors College, and Richard T. Stafford, director of communications at the Honors College, said that Moon embodied that spirit.

“From when I first taught [Moon] during his first semester in Principles of Research and Inquiry, through several semester periods during which he joined Dean Zofia Burr and myself for the Honors College’s Multidisciplinary Research and Creative Projects seminar, he's demonstrated a commitment to engaging with other students with very different disciplinary and methodological perspectives than his own,” Stafford said. “He takes the work of others very seriously and sees the value of communicating across the disciplinary boundaries about the work he does.”

Moon also chose more direct methods to aid those coming behind him, helping to build the peer and near-peer support system for chemistry students while also playing a key role in putting teams of students in consulting relationships with local nonprofits. He also helped organize tutoring services for students in upper-level chemistry course.

Moon also made time to work with the Arc of Northern Virginia in Fall 2018 as part of the Honors College Connects series. The nonprofit organization works with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

“I was able to gain experience in conducting research in a team setting—working with both academic and professional entities—and resolving scheduling difficulties and conflicts,” he said, adding that he appreciated be treated as an equal member of the team.

Moon starts in VCU’s Nanoscience and Nanotechnology PhD program in January, but he said he’ll take with him all that he’s learned at Mason.

“The people here at Mason and the community it offers, both played a large role in how I arrived at my current place,” he said, “and have definitely played a role in developing my love for chemistry, collaboration, communication and discovery.”

Students pick up STEM, college skills at STEM Boot Camp

John Hollis — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 17:29:27 +0000

Students pick up STEM, college skills at STEM Boot Camp John Hollis Mon, 08/19/2019 - 13:29

When George Mason University geology professor Julia A. Nord, a STEM Accelerator faculty member, envisioned the university’s STEM Boot Camp, she saw a holistic approach that incorporated student passion for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) with a need to prepare for upcoming college life.

Hosted by Mason’s College of Science, the STEM Boot Camp, which ran August 11-16, accomplished both. The residential camp included lab experiences, exam preparation and lectures by Mason faculty.

Incoming Mason freshmen took exams similar to those they will see in their first semester of college and learned how to improve their study habits. They received added benefits of advising and career sessions, while working and living with other Mason freshmen in STEM-related majors.

“When school starts, I won’t be struggling as much,” said Jason Mercado, an incoming freshman from Springfield, Virginia who received a scholarship from the Honors College to attend the camp.

This year’s camp, which offered lab experiences in physics, chemistry, engineering and biology, included 23 men and 14 women, and featured a diverse student representation.

“I like STEM, and I also wanted to get ahead,” said incoming freshman Hilal Berhe from Springfield, Virginia.

“We are trying to keep students already interested in STEM at Mason and keep their passion for STEM and enabling them to succeed in core classes,” said Nord, who teaches in Mason’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences.

The annual STEM Boot Camp was open to all incoming freshmen and offered students two available tracks in biology/chemistry and math/physical sciences/engineering. The camp was originally founded a few years ago by former Mason professor Claudette Davis and overseen by Padhu Seshaiyer, a professor of mathematical science and associate dean of the College of Science.

Mason bioengineering grads invent device to improve brain and spinal surgery

Melanie Balog — Thu, 27 Jun 2019 09:00:32 +0000

Mason bioengineering grads invent device to improve brain and spinal surgery Melanie Balog Thu, 06/27/2019 - 05:00

The Spinamics with Volgenau School of Engineering Dean Ken Ball (far left) at the Undergraduate Research Celebration on April 16, where they were selected as keynote speakers. Team members (starting second from left) are Paige Epler, Andrew Ryan, Tyra Bookhart and Laura Carter. Photo provided.

Four recent George Mason University alumni have devised a mechanism that improves minimally invasive brain and spinal surgery, and they’re optimistic that it can eventually be a useful tool in the medical field.

The recent Volgenau School of Engineering graduates—bioengineering majors Paige Epler, Andrew Ryan, Tyra Bookhart and Laura Carter—created an automated tubular dilator for their senior capstone project that simplifies the surgical process for minimally invasive brain and spinal surgery, simultaneously reducing the steep learning curve for surgeons and minimizing the risk of complications. Still in its early stages, their computer-assisted surgical invention automatically dilates the incision site in a short amount of time, replacing numerous manual steps.

The team, which calls itself the Spinamics, was searching for a capstone project at the start of fall 2018 when they accepted a challenge from Inova neurosurgeon Mahesh Shenai to improve surgical precision for brain and spinal surgery.

Working from the bioengineering lab at the new Peterson Family Health Sciences Hall, they came up with the automated tubular dilator, a device that decreases the likelihood of human error, making surgery more accurate while reducing chances of complications. The current method of dilating incision sites is difficult and requires multiple steps. If not done correctly, the process could lead to sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s own reaction to infection causes injuries to its own tissues and organs, Epler said.

“[With our device], not only could we decrease the element of human error and hopefully lessen the risk of complications,” she said, “but we could also make it a much easier procedure for surgeons to learn.”

The students used different types of gelatin to simulate neural tissues during their tests while under the supervision of faculty advisors, Shenai, who is also an affiliated professor of bioengineering; Feitian Zhang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; and Qi Wei, an associate professor of bioengineering. They hope to test their device on cadavers and eventually move into clinical trials.

“The students took up the challenge of an open engineering problem,” Wei said. “They went from knowing little about the project to coming up with a functional prototype.”

For their efforts, the student quartet was the awarded the 2019 Volgenau School of Engineering Research Award in April. While all four graduated with bachelor’s degrees in May, Epler and Ryan plan to continue working on it even as they begin graduate school this fall.

“I would be very happy if this would be refined in the future for actual medical usage,” Epler said. “I think there’s a lot of potential to really improve brain and spine surgery if we continue working this device.”

“I feel like we’re making a difference with it,” Ryan said. “If we can get it to a point where we can get it to clinical trials and start seeing positive results, that’d be pretty humbling.”

Mason students pick from coveted scholarships to study abroad

Melanie Balog — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 20:53:30 +0000

Mason students pick from coveted scholarships to study abroad Melanie Balog Tue, 06/13/2017 - 16:53

Khue-Tu Nguyen, Beverly Harp, and Asha Athman landed prestigious scholarships that will carry them overseas to further study a language while serving as American cultural ambassadors. Photo by Ron Aira.

It’s noteworthy enough to land one prestigious scholarship that will send you overseas to master a foreign language while serving as an American cultural ambassador of sorts.

But George Mason University’s Khue-Tu (KT) Nguyen, Beverly Harp and Asha Athman received multiple such scholarship offers. All three were offered the national security-based Boren Scholarships, while two of the three scored offers from the coveted Fulbright and Critical Language Scholarships.

LaNitra Berger, the director of Office Fellowships for the Honors College, called the accomplishments of the three students “almost unheard of.”

Nguyen was the biggest winner of the group, drawing offers from the Fulbright Scholarship, the Boren Scholarship and the CLS. The 21-year-old Falls Church native and neuroscience major has decided to accept the Boren and CLS scholarships.

“The Fulbright right now doesn’t serve my immediate goal,” Nguyen, 21, said. “I really want to achieve professional fluency in Mandarin, so I think the Boren would best help me do that.”

Nguyen, who will head to China this summer before heading to Taiwan to study Mandarin, was well into work in her neuroscience major two years ago when she elected to immerse herself into learning a new language.

“I grew up watching Jackie Chan and all those movies,” Nguyen said. “I thought, ‘Wow, it would be so cool to understand them in their own context.’ ”

Like Nguyen, Athman has also accepted the Boren and CLS scholarships that will carry her to Morocco and then to Jordan starting this summer to continue her studies in Arabic. The 22-year-old global affairs major from Chantilly, Va., will continue her research on migration studies and migration policies in the hopes of someday helping to end the refugee problems currently in the Middle East and Africa.

Nguyen and Athman were able to accept both the Boren and CLS scholarships because of the starting date flexibility afforded by both programs. But because the scholarships are exclusively for full-time students, neither Nguyen nor Athman graduated May 20. They will remain classified as full-time students while studying abroad during the upcoming academic year and will instead graduate from Mason in spring 2018.

In exchange for a stipend up to $20,000, Boren Scholarship recipients must commit to working for the federal government for at least one year following graduation.

Harp was forced to choose, so she selected the Fulbright Scholarship offer over the Boren Scholarship. The 21-year-old Northern New Jersey native, who earned a BA in global affairs in May and was this year’s Senior of the Year, is on her way to India to begin her yearlong work on decentralizing climate finance. Harp, who is fluent in Hindi, said her goal is to help climate funds reach smaller organizations lacking in the infrastructure needed to get through a vast bureaucratic maze.

“People all across the world are trying to solve the problem of climate change,” she said. “To be a part of those conversations transnationally is really an exciting thing. It’s a huge challenge, but it’s also a challenge that can bring people together.”