NSM Faculty/Staff Newsletter

From the Office of the Dean

Recognition & Honors

Ashley Askew Ashley Askew (NSM Director of Special Programs and Data Specialist) received the 2024 President’s Excellence Award in the Administrative and Professional Category. The award recognizes meritorious service, dedication, and contribution to the University beyond the requirements or expectations of the job. Ashley leads the TC Energy Summer Scholars Academy, an intensive nine-week program designed for students who have an outstanding high school academic record and are interested in majors in NSM or the Cullen College of Engineering. She also leads the assessment effort for the College.
     Askew also presented at the 2024 Professional Development Summer Institute sponsored by UH Institutional Research & Effectiveness on August 7. She hosted a workshop titled “Excel for Beginners/Intermediates” which focused on a variety of skills from entering and formatting data to pivot tables and using XLOOKUP. The session was well attended and provided guidance for novice and seasoned users of Excel.

Five NSM Staff Receive Cougar Cudos

Congratulations to the following NSM staff who were recognized with Cougar Cudos in September. Cougar Cudos, a recognition program of UH Staff Council, celebrates exceptional UH staff through peer nominations.

  • Ray Ali (NSM-IT)
  • Orlando Dona (NSM-IT)
  • KaDarrius James (teachHOUSTON/Mathematics)
  • Ashley Lucien (NSM Business Office)
  • Keah Walker (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences)

Paige Evans (teachHOUSTON/Mathematics) and postdoctoral fellow Karla Garza attended and presented at the Annual National Science Foundation Noyce Summit. Their presentations were related to the work for three NSF grant programs including Transforming STEM Professionals into Culturally Responsive STEM Teachers (STEM Pro), University of Houston: Advancing Cultural and Computational Engagement in STEM Scholars (UH-ACCESS), and University of Houston — Leadership through Equity and Advocacy Development (UH-LEAD). Also attending the conference were five students and graduates from the teachHOUSTON program.

Nouhad Rizk (Computer Science) received a $10,000 Teaching Innovation Proposal (TIP) grant for “Creating Generative AI-based Micromoment Activity to Enhance Student Engagement.” The award is for online instruction, and the project must eventually lead to the development or improvement of instruction in at least one online or hybrid course. All TIP awardees will present at the UH AI conference in February 2025.
     Rizk also received a 2024 UH Alternative Textbook Incentive Program Award. The program was created as part of UH’s initiative to mitigate the high cost of textbooks for students. Rizk was recognized in the Textbook Affordability category where faculty can adopt, adapt, or create open educational resources, or use a combination of freely available or library-licensed resources to replace required traditional textbook(s) and other high-cost learning materials in a future course. Rizk’s award is for COSC 4337: Data Science II.

Ny Riavo Voarintsoa, Shuhab Khan (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences), Ali Raza (Geology Ph.D. student, first author) and Muhammad Qasim (Geology Ph.D. student) developed a non-contact method to remotely characterize the mineral composition of a stalagmite. The findings published in Sedimentary Geology. The paper details the new technique used to categorize a stalagmite from Madagascar. Stalagmites are a variety of cave deposits, collectively known as speleothem, that grow upward from the cave floor. The team employed lab-based hyperspectral imaging techniques, a method that collects spectral signatures of the materials across a wide wavelength of electromagnetic spectrum between 400 and 2500 nanometers. This method allowed them to identify the carbonate mineralogy and organic content present in these deposits without physically destroying the sample. To ensure the accuracy and reliability of the method, the researchers checked the mineralogy using traditional techniques that include X-ray diffraction and petrographic microscopy.

Dan Wright (Biology & Biochemistry postdoctoral fellow) received an NSF Office of Polar Programs Postdoctoral Research Fellowship. The two-year fellowship includes an award of $167,800 of which $30,000 is for the research budget. His project addresses the “High latitude cod kidney as a model for understanding adaptation to polar environments.” The project aims to uncover the molecular basis for seasonal modification to kidney function in cods as an adaptation to polar environments. Research will focus on four ecologically and economically important species of cod. Wright will use histology to characterize kidney morphology under summer and winter conditions, then single-cell RNA sequencing and ATAC-seq to investigate how cod kidneys react to antifreeze production through an analysis of gene expression and cis-regulatory enhancers associated with kidney function.

Ming Zhong (Mathematics) received a 2025 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities Council of Sponsoring Institutions. He is one of 37 recipients, out of 174 applications. The one-year, $5,000 award supports his research on developing new mathematical models for explaining anti-social behaviors. UH is required to match the award with at least an additional $5,000.