Undergraduate Admissions

The following Gannon University faculty and staff members have been making news of late:

Troy A. Skwor, Ph.D., assistant professor, Gannon biology department, recently presented his research, with his collaborators from the University of Pittsburgh, at a Chlamydia Basic Research Symposium in Little Rock, Ark. The research was performed at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, Calif., demonstrating a new human cell type that can be infected with Chlamydia trachomatis. The research findings identified a new cell type that could be infected in vitro (laboratory setting) and researchers are currently working on providing this in vivo (within humans). Overall, these findings suggest a new plausible method of how chlamydia can persist in chronic infections and avoid the immune response.

Melanie L. Hatch, Ph.D., dean of Gannon’s College of Engineering and Business, has been chosen to serve as a member of the 2009 volunteer Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. As a member of the Board of Examiners, Hatch will provide advice and guidance to the Baldrige Panel of Judges in selecting Baldrige Award recipients. Hatch’s duties will include completing an Independent and Consensus Review of an award application, and possibly participating in a site visit. The Baldrige National Quality Program is an education program based on the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. The Baldrige National Quality Program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a customer-focused, federal change agent that helps to enhance the competitiveness, quality, and productivity of domestic organizations.

Michael J. Messina, Ph.D., associate professor, marketing, and director of the Gannon University marketing program, recently delivered a peer-reviewed paper titled “Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Diversity, and Global Business Education,” along with his co-author, Dr. John F. Wellington, dean of Business at Indiana University, Kokomo. The presentation was made at the 2009 Marketing Management Association’s annual conference, held in Chicago. Messina also served as a program chair and currently serves on the Marketing Management Association’s Board of Directors.

A book by Anjali Sahay, Ph.D., assistant professor, political science, and director of the Gannon University international studies program, has been published and is now available at amazon.com, lexingtonbooks.com, and barnesandnoble.com. The 262-page book, Indian Diaspora in the United States, offers a new perspective on the topic of brain drain, to include discussions on “brain gain” and “brain circulation” using Indian migration to the United States as a case study. The term diaspora refers to the movement of any population sharing a common ethnicity who leave their homeland. Sahay’s book argues that while it cannot be denied that host countries have policies that encourage or provide the necessary conditions for brain drain to take place, it must be taken into account that many source countries now benefit from out-migration of their workers and students.

Berwyn Moore, associate professor, Gannon English department, recently was chosen for a second-place award in The Pinch’s national poetry contest. Her submission, “Pins and Needles,” uses the imagery of pins and needles to explore issues of identity, in particular an identity in the context of illness.
Moore completed the poem in December, 2008. Representatives from the journal called it an “absolute joy to read.” The Pinch is a nationally-recognized literary journal published by the University of Memphis. The journal’s name is derived from the historic Pinch District in Memphis.

Constantine Kliorys, Ph.D., professor, Gannon management program, was selected for a Fulbright Specialists project at Kaunas Technological University in Kaunas, Lithuania, according to the U.S. State Department and the William J. Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Kliorys lectured and led seminars at Kaunas in areas such as mathematical optimization methods used for solving business and industry problems. At the end of his lecture series, Kliorys was asked to join the editorial board of an international journal, Mathematics and Mathematical Modeling. The Fulbright Specialists Program, created in 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, provides short-term academic opportunities – two to six weeks – to accomplished faculty and professionals to support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post-secondary academic institutions around the world.

Elisa M. Konieczko, Ph.D., associate professor, biology; director, biotechnology program; and undergraduate research coordinator at Gannon University, along with several colleagues from Hamot Medical Center, recently had two peer-reviewed professional papers published. One paper, “Fate of Mu Receptors During Rat Skeletogenesis,” was published in Orthopedics Today. Lindsey K. Roach, an undergraduate student at Gannon University during the course of the research, co-authored the paper, along with Timothy E. Cooney and Dr. Bradley Poole, both of Hamot. The results of their research suggest that mu receptors play a role in skeletal development. A second paper, “Relaxin’s involvement in extracellular matrix homeostasis: two diverse lines of evidence,” recently was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Science. The paper focuses on two separate projects studying the peptide hormone relaxin. Relaxin is best known in relation to pregnancy, where it has a role in the establishment of the placenta and in the softening of the pubic symphysis and other cartilage. Konieczko’s research examined the localization of relaxin receptors in keratinocytes, one of the major cell types found in skin, and in fibroblasts, one of the major cell types found in ligaments. Cooney, Dr. Justine Schober, and Dr. John Lubahn, all of Hamot, co-authored the Relaxin paper.

Scott E. Miller, CPA, J.D., DBA, assistant professor, accounting; director of Graduate Programs; and associate director of Gannon University’s Dahlkemper School of Business Administration, recently had a paper accepted for publication in the Journal for Business and Economics Research. Miller’s paper, “Governance Mechanisms as Moderators of Agency Costs in a Pre-SOX Environment,” also won a best paper award at the 2009 Applied Business Research Conference in Waikiki, Hawaii earlier this year. Miller in 2008 earned a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) degree from the Falls School of Business at Anderson University, Anderson, Ind. He expanded upon his dissertation research to form the paper published in the Journal. The paper examines the effectiveness of governance mechanisms (board of directors, independent board members, audit quality, creditor influence, and ownership by executives) on agency costs of manufacturing firms listed on the NYSE.

Anne O’Neill-Klemensic, instructor, business administration, and director, Gannon University advertising communications and sports management and marketing programs, was invited by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to chair a sports management program review at Seton Hill University in Greensburg. O’Neill-Klemensic recently spent two days reviewing and making program recommendations to Seton Hill officials in the development of that university’s new program and approval by the PDE. Gannon University three years ago introduced a sports management and marketing program.

Constance O. Peterson-Miller, director, Gannon University International Student Office, recently was honored with Indiana University South Bend’s Student Excellence Award for the Master’s of Liberal Studies program. The award is granted in recognition of having completed with distinction a master’s degree in the Liberal Studies program at the school. Peterson-Miller’s thesis project, “Objects in Translation: A Museum Exhibition at the Intersection of Language and Culture,” featured a museum installation in her home, accompanied by a background and process paper.

Harry R. “Rick” Diz, Ph.D., PE, associate professor and chair, Gannon University department of environmental science and engineering, recently was issued a U.S. Patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the production of hydrogen gas-using microorganisms. The patent was issued for the design and operating conditions developed in laboratories at Gannon University, and based on the larger system installed for three years at Welch’s Foods plant in North East. The system used wastewater and waste juice that could not be bottled as food for a carefully-controlled culture of bacteria that converted the sugar in the juice into hydrogen gas. The system is still in the development stage and work in the Gannon laboratory continues to enhance its productivity.