04/09/2009
The 13th annual Scholars' Day, a series of presentations highlighting faculty, staff and student scholarship and research at SUNY Cortland, will take place in Old Main on Friday, April 17.
This year, the all-day event encompasses 120 different presentations and poster sessions offered by hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students and more than 80 faculty and staff members. The subject matter covers a wide array of academic disciplines at SUNY Cortland.
All Scholars' Day presentations take place in Old Main starting at 8:30 a.m. The event is free and open to the public. SUNY Cortland President Erik J. Bitterbaum has suspended daytime classes to allow the SUNY Cortland community to fully benefit from the lectures and demonstrations. Area high school juniors and seniors and their instructors were again formally invited to attend this year's event.
"Year after year, we continue to see participation in Scholars' Day from virtually every department on campus," said Bruce Mattingly, interim dean of arts and sciences and Scholars' Day Committee chair. "While the presentations are wide ranging in their content, many of them involve students and faculty applying classroom knowledge and methods of inquiry to solve real world problems. This research and scholarly activity is not separate from our teaching, but in fact is at the very heart of our educational mission."
Among the many topics this year are: the benefits of geographic information systems in the exploration and exploitation of oil and natural gas resources; the Professional Development School's Math Partnership Project; a rhetorical analysis of the Barbie doll as beauty icon and lusty consumer; presentations by SUNY Cortland writing contest winners; beavers and trail establishment at the Lime Hollow Center for Environment and Culture; converting the SUNY Cortland buses to use biodiesel fuel; reporting efficient bike pedaling cadence; obesity trends in Cortland County; the New York State Inclusive Recreation Resource Center at SUNY Cortland; and the future of Venezuela in terms of power, Chavez and the socialist state.
Edward Zambraski '71, division chief of the Military Performance Division of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine since 2003, will deliver the keynote address on "A Career in Research: A Rocky Road or a Smooth Pathway?" at 11:30 a.m. in Old Main Brown Auditorium. For this presentation, he will apply his 27 years of experience as a professor to the issues and questions students must address when considering a career as a research scientist, whether in the area of the humanities, basic sciences or the medical field.
The Scholars' Day events will conclude with a musical presentation, "The Blue Roots of American Popular Music," at 4:30 p.m. in Brown Auditorium. The event will feature students and faculty from the SUNY Cortland Rock and Blues Ensemble and Beginning Blues Guitar classes as well as Africana Studies Hip Hop Emcees with the SUNY Cortland Hip Hop Dance Team.
The Scholars' Day Committee also includes: Cynthia Benton, professor of childhood/early childhood education; Phil Buckenmeyer, associate professor and chair of kinesiology; Chris Cirmo, professor and chair of geology; Daniel Harms, coordinator of instruction at Memorial Library; David Miller, distinguished teaching professor of geography; Lisa Mostert, media operations associate; Gigi Peterson, assistant professor of history; and Kevin Pristash, associate director of College Union and conferences.
Scholars' Day is supported by the President's Office, the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs' Office, The Cortland Fund, the Cortland College Foundation and the Auxiliary Services Corporation.
For more information, including the complete schedule of events, visit the Scholars' Day Web page at www.cortland.edu/scholarsday or contact Mattingly at (607) 753-4312.
Physiology Scientist to Discuss Careers in Research
Zambraski '71, the SUNY Cortland Distinguished Young Alumnus Award winner in 1981, directs the activities of approximately 55 civilian and military personnel conducting research in the areas of performance physiology, injury epidemiology, biomechanics and cognitive performance at the Military Performance Division of the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick, Mass.
With extensive research experience using both animal and human models, he has studied the changes in renal function in hypertension and cirrhosis and evaluating the effects of exercise on kidney function.
Zambraski serves on several editorial boards and has been a member of the National Institutes of Health's study sections and on various national research review panels. He also holds several leadership roles within the American Physiological Society and the American College of Sports Medicine.
He is an emeritus professor of physiology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, having served the institution from 1976-2003.
A physical education major with a minor in biology while at SUNY Cortland, Zambraski earned his doctorate from the University of Iowa, where he initiated studies on the urinary profiles and dehydration in wrestlers.