In order for UMKC to build and strengthen our research portfolio, we must build on our existing strengths. One of our greatest strengths at UMKC is having four health science schools (Medicine, Dental, Nursing, Pharmacy) on one campus--there are only 30 other universities in the nation that have this asset. Our urban setting is also a strategic asset; this setting gives us access to a large patient population.
Building upon our current research priorities is threefold:
1. A Translational/Clinical Research Center will serve our urban community, train graduate students and medical personnel, and further create collaboration with other hospital and research institutions in the area.
2. A Center for Technology Transfer is also necessary as a vehicle to move research out of the academic world and into the eyes of the public, move research from the “test tube to the patient”.
3. We need to further identify areas of expertise and excellence to form UMKC Centers of Excellence in order to enhance productivity and sources of funding in order to accelerate discovery, support graduate education, and the university as a whole.
-Lynda F. Bonewald, Interim Vice Chancellor for Research, Curator's Professor, Lee M and William Lefkowitz Professor, Director of the Bone Biology Research Program, and Director of the UMKC Center of Excellence in Mineralized Tissues
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A New Vision for Research
The Office of the Provost was pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Lynda Bonewald, Lee M. and William Lefkowitz Professor of Oral Biology and Director of UMKC’s Bone Biology Research Program, as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research on October 15, 2009 . In her new position, which is an outcome of the strategic planning process, she oversees UMKC’s Office of Research and the research and economic development initiatives. Dr. Bonewald agreed to introduce herself for this week’s blog post.
Little did I think that I would be the one to fill the position recommended by the Life Sciences Task Force in 2003 when I first read the report. The position was described as “An able
scientific leader…. given the authority and the responsibility to build life sciences at UMKC”. That is a tall order, but as Vice Chancellor for Research (Interim), a position created by the UMKC strategic planning process, I am creating objectives with the help of other leaders in our community to move life and health sciences at UMKC forward. These objectives include ‘achieving world-class programs’, obtaining the resources to do so, and ‘to work together with partners within the University and in the greater Kansas City area’.
With regards to my educational background, I received a BS in Biology from the University of Texas in 1973. I graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1984 with a PhD in Immunology/Microbiology. My postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Hospital in Charleston, SC in hematology was under the mentorship of Makio Ogawa, a world-renowned hematologist. I was recruited to the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas as an Assistant Professor in 1986 in the Endocrinology Division directed by Dr. Gregory Mundy, an internationally known Bone Biologist. In 2001, I was recruited to UMKC School of Dentistry Dept. of Oral Biology to establish a Mineralized Tissue Research Program. When I arrived, I was a full professor with two R01s and a program project. In 2005, I became a University of Missouri Curator’s Professor and in 2009, I established and became Director of the UMKC Center of Excellence in the Study of Dental and Musculoskeletal Tissues, a multi- and interdisciplinary center.
UMKC has considerable potential to become a leader in Life and Health Sciences. I am excited about growing and expanding this potential. I know many creative, productive scientists, strong, yet fair administrators, and many truly exceptional and dedicated support staff. Chancellor Morton and Executive Vice Chancellor Hackett provide committed, stable, and experienced leadership to UMKC. To become competitive with regards to funding and other types of awards, it is necessary for our Life and Health Sciences Schools to collaborate and work together. My goal is to create and provide a stimulating, supportive environment so that our dedicated, passionate scientists can be productive and successful by accomplishing their goals of discovery while training the next generation of dedicated scientists.
-Lynda F. Bonewald, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research Interim, Curator's Professor Lee M and William Lefkowitz Professor Director, Bone Biology Research Program Director, UMKC Center of Excellence in Mineralized Tissues, Univ. of Missouri at Kansas City School of Dentistry, Dept. of Oral Biology
Little did I think that I would be the one to fill the position recommended by the Life Sciences Task Force in 2003 when I first read the report. The position was described as “An able
scientific leader…. given the authority and the responsibility to build life sciences at UMKC”. That is a tall order, but as Vice Chancellor for Research (Interim), a position created by the UMKC strategic planning process, I am creating objectives with the help of other leaders in our community to move life and health sciences at UMKC forward. These objectives include ‘achieving world-class programs’, obtaining the resources to do so, and ‘to work together with partners within the University and in the greater Kansas City area’.With regards to my educational background, I received a BS in Biology from the University of Texas in 1973. I graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1984 with a PhD in Immunology/Microbiology. My postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Hospital in Charleston, SC in hematology was under the mentorship of Makio Ogawa, a world-renowned hematologist. I was recruited to the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas as an Assistant Professor in 1986 in the Endocrinology Division directed by Dr. Gregory Mundy, an internationally known Bone Biologist. In 2001, I was recruited to UMKC School of Dentistry Dept. of Oral Biology to establish a Mineralized Tissue Research Program. When I arrived, I was a full professor with two R01s and a program project. In 2005, I became a University of Missouri Curator’s Professor and in 2009, I established and became Director of the UMKC Center of Excellence in the Study of Dental and Musculoskeletal Tissues, a multi- and interdisciplinary center.
UMKC has considerable potential to become a leader in Life and Health Sciences. I am excited about growing and expanding this potential. I know many creative, productive scientists, strong, yet fair administrators, and many truly exceptional and dedicated support staff. Chancellor Morton and Executive Vice Chancellor Hackett provide committed, stable, and experienced leadership to UMKC. To become competitive with regards to funding and other types of awards, it is necessary for our Life and Health Sciences Schools to collaborate and work together. My goal is to create and provide a stimulating, supportive environment so that our dedicated, passionate scientists can be productive and successful by accomplishing their goals of discovery while training the next generation of dedicated scientists.
-Lynda F. Bonewald, PhD, Vice Chancellor for Research Interim, Curator's Professor Lee M and William Lefkowitz Professor Director, Bone Biology Research Program Director, UMKC Center of Excellence in Mineralized Tissues, Univ. of Missouri at Kansas City School of Dentistry, Dept. of Oral Biology
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Kansas City Area Educational Research Consortium: Collaborative Research for Educational Improvement
Researchers from UMKC, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Kansas, the Kansas State University and Washington University in St. Louis are partnering with Kansas City area school districts to form a Kansas City Area Educational Research Consortium (KC-AERC). Modeled after a similar consortium in Chicago (http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/index.php), KC-AERC's aim is to bring additional research capacity to area public schools, using data to answer research questions that the districts have identified as important for school improvement. A kickoff event for key stakeholders will be held on September 25th and will feature John Easton, current head of the Institute for Educational Sciences (IES) and former research director of the Chicago Consortium. Invitees include representatives from the State Departments of Education, Superintendents and Research Directors from K-12 districts, teacher’s union representatives and interested faculty and administrators from the partnering universities.
The consortium has received one year startup funds of approximately $850,000 from the Ewing Kauffman foundation to build infrastructure and complete three demonstration research projects on topics that KC area school districts have identified as important: alignment of curriculum and assessment in mathematics education; predictors of successful transition to higher education, and trends in teacher workforce retention and mobility. Current faculty researchers come from departments housed within Arts and Science, Schools of Education and Schools of Business. Faculty from any disciplinary background with an interest in K-12 education may participate. If any faculty on UMKC’s campus think they may be interested in being involved with the consortium, please contact Tamera Murdock murdocktb@umkc.edu in the Department of Psychology or Carolyn Barber barberce@umkc.edu in the the School of Education for more information. Further details about the consortium and the kick-off event can be found on the KC-AERC website: http://www.kcaerc.org/.
-Written by Tamera Murdock, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology
The consortium has received one year startup funds of approximately $850,000 from the Ewing Kauffman foundation to build infrastructure and complete three demonstration research projects on topics that KC area school districts have identified as important: alignment of curriculum and assessment in mathematics education; predictors of successful transition to higher education, and trends in teacher workforce retention and mobility. Current faculty researchers come from departments housed within Arts and Science, Schools of Education and Schools of Business. Faculty from any disciplinary background with an interest in K-12 education may participate. If any faculty on UMKC’s campus think they may be interested in being involved with the consortium, please contact Tamera Murdock murdocktb@umkc.edu in the Department of Psychology or Carolyn Barber barberce@umkc.edu in the the School of Education for more information. Further details about the consortium and the kick-off event can be found on the KC-AERC website: http://www.kcaerc.org/.
-Written by Tamera Murdock, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Pervious Concrete Pavement, It Rains, It Pours, and Runs Right Through
Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. Drive past Brush Creek during a rainstorm and notice one minute it is dry and the next full of raging dirty water. Water probably dirtier than you would like to because the rainfall often overwhelms the sewer system causing a discharge of extra stuff into aptly nicknamed Flush Creek. The extra water comes from our 
urban environment where impervious roofs, parking lots, and roads prevent moisture from infiltrating in the ground and is rapidly conveyed to our storm sewer system. Well everything would be much better if that water just went through the pavement, right? Luckily that technology has reached Kansas City and is called pervious concrete pavement.
Pervious concrete has the same basic ingredients as your standard sidewalk with the exception of a single-sized coarse aggregate to create pores for the water to flow, imagine a harder less-tasty rice krispy treat. Typical permeability values for pervious concrete range from 500 in./hr to over 2,000 in./hr, values that well exceed any possible storm. The stormwater runs through the pavement and is stored in an aggregate layer beneath until it soaks into the ground or evaporates. Even sites with low permeability clay around Kansas City can experience significant infiltration. Other benefits of pervious concrete include cleaning stormwater through filtration.
The most common concerns for the public are freeze-thaw durability, clogging, and excessive cost. Much of the research in the last couple years has focused on freeze-thaw durability. We now have pervious concrete mixtures more durable than traditional concrete. Although it turns out that no pervious pavement has ever experienced freeze-thaw deterioration. Pervious concrete is a filter and can become clogged if not maintained. Normal routine street sweeping keeps the pores open and if clogging occurs (usually from nearby open soil), permeability can easily be restored by pressure washing and vacuuming. While the pervious concrete itself costs more from additional chemicals in the mixture, overall project can save money by reducing the size of detention ponds and the amount of stormwater pipes required.
On-going research at UMKC's Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering is investigating the mitigation of the urban heat island effect (heat
build-up around cities from dark and impervious surfaces) with pervious concrete and improved winter safety from reduced potential for black ice.
The largest pervious concrete installation in the Kansas City area can be seen at Oregon Trail Park in Olathe, KS. For more information on pervious concrete in Kansas City download a podcast discussing pervious concrete here.
-Written by John T. Kevern, Ph.D., LEED AP, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, UMKC
urban environment where impervious roofs, parking lots, and roads prevent moisture from infiltrating in the ground and is rapidly conveyed to our storm sewer system. Well everything would be much better if that water just went through the pavement, right? Luckily that technology has reached Kansas City and is called pervious concrete pavement.Pervious concrete has the same basic ingredients as your standard sidewalk with the exception of a single-sized coarse aggregate to create pores for the water to flow, imagine a harder less-tasty rice krispy treat. Typical permeability values for pervious concrete range from 500 in./hr to over 2,000 in./hr, values that well exceed any possible storm. The stormwater runs through the pavement and is stored in an aggregate layer beneath until it soaks into the ground or evaporates. Even sites with low permeability clay around Kansas City can experience significant infiltration. Other benefits of pervious concrete include cleaning stormwater through filtration.
The most common concerns for the public are freeze-thaw durability, clogging, and excessive cost. Much of the research in the last couple years has focused on freeze-thaw durability. We now have pervious concrete mixtures more durable than traditional concrete. Although it turns out that no pervious pavement has ever experienced freeze-thaw deterioration. Pervious concrete is a filter and can become clogged if not maintained. Normal routine street sweeping keeps the pores open and if clogging occurs (usually from nearby open soil), permeability can easily be restored by pressure washing and vacuuming. While the pervious concrete itself costs more from additional chemicals in the mixture, overall project can save money by reducing the size of detention ponds and the amount of stormwater pipes required.
On-going research at UMKC's Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering is investigating the mitigation of the urban heat island effect (heat
build-up around cities from dark and impervious surfaces) with pervious concrete and improved winter safety from reduced potential for black ice.The largest pervious concrete installation in the Kansas City area can be seen at Oregon Trail Park in Olathe, KS. For more information on pervious concrete in Kansas City download a podcast discussing pervious concrete here.
-Written by John T. Kevern, Ph.D., LEED AP, Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, UMKC
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
UMKC Leads Research Efforts in the Internet of the Future
Are we ready for the future? More specifically, are we ready for what lies ahead in the future in networking technology? Our society has come a long way in communication technology in the past two hundred years; first it was telegraphy, invented in the first half of 19th century, then the telephony, invented in the second half of 19th century, and then the Internet, almost a hundred years later, in the second half of the 20th century. Each technology has pushed the boundary on the mode and what we can communication over a long distance. So, are we ready for the future?
As great as the Internet is in changing how we communicate, the fundamental technology is now about forty years old. It was developed as an experimental concept, which originally connected only academic institutions. The early applications on the Internet were file transfer, remote terminal login service, and email. With the introduction of the Web in the early 1990s, the entire picture of the Internet changed as its popularity grew almost overnight.
There are many fundamental issues that were not part of the original design of the Internet. For example, consider security -- this is only an afterthought as problems arose. Secondly, can we continue to send information efficiently and quickly if the number of connected devices grows exponentially, and so on. While we're tempted to make incremental improvement to the Internet's initial basic concept, it is also important to re-think everything from ground-up if we were to design a network of the future.
National Science Foundation has recognized the need for such a new and fresh thinking so that it is time to envision and put the fundamental concepts together on how the network of the future is going to be. Among its new initiatives includes the GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations) program . As a part of this effort, UMKC is one of the first set of institutions nation-wide funded by the GENI Phase-One project that was announced in the summer of 2008. Noteworthy is that UMKC is the only public university in the state of Missouri that was funded in the GENI Phase one funding. UMKC's project "GpENI" (Great Plains Environment for Network Innovation) is a partnership among four institutions: University of Kansas, UMKC, Kansas State University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
So, what is GpENI? GpENI is a three-year project that aims to create a new experimental networking testbed connecting these four institutions that will provide a dedicated environment for networking scientists to try out new concepts for networks of the future. It may be noted that GpENI is one of the only two experimental tesbeds funded in the first phase of GENI funding. The basic part of GpENI experimental testbed is recently connected and now the excitement begins. In particular, UMKC's effort in this project is to lead and explore programmable router functionalities so that routing mechanisms in the core of the network of the future can be thought
through in a number of new and innovative ways. UMKC's researchers involved in this project are Deep Medhi (Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department, who heads the Networking & Telecommunications Research Lab at UMKC) as principal investigator and Baek-Young Choi (Assistant Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department) as co-investigator. UMKC maintains a project page for its GpENI effort: http://NeTReL.umkc.edu/gpeni-umkc.html. It is also worth noting that Deep Medhi was one of the leads in organizing a US-Japan Future Networks Workshop held last fall in California that was supported by the National Science Foundation; he'll also serve as the scientific program co-chair of an International Workshop on FutureNet to be held in Hawaii in December 2009.
UMKC's GpENI effort has a far reaching goal. It plans to connect international institutions to its testbed in the near future as well as many US institutions. Stay tuned!
-Written by Deep Medhi, Ph.D., Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department
In picture UMKC team members: (front) Ramkumar Cherukuri, Baek-Young Choi, Xuan Liu; (back) Deep Medhi and Haiyang Qian [not in picture - Can Kanli & Jim Schonemann]
As great as the Internet is in changing how we communicate, the fundamental technology is now about forty years old. It was developed as an experimental concept, which originally connected only academic institutions. The early applications on the Internet were file transfer, remote terminal login service, and email. With the introduction of the Web in the early 1990s, the entire picture of the Internet changed as its popularity grew almost overnight.
There are many fundamental issues that were not part of the original design of the Internet. For example, consider security -- this is only an afterthought as problems arose. Secondly, can we continue to send information efficiently and quickly if the number of connected devices grows exponentially, and so on. While we're tempted to make incremental improvement to the Internet's initial basic concept, it is also important to re-think everything from ground-up if we were to design a network of the future.
National Science Foundation has recognized the need for such a new and fresh thinking so that it is time to envision and put the fundamental concepts together on how the network of the future is going to be. Among its new initiatives includes the GENI (Global Environment for Network Innovations) program . As a part of this effort, UMKC is one of the first set of institutions nation-wide funded by the GENI Phase-One project that was announced in the summer of 2008. Noteworthy is that UMKC is the only public university in the state of Missouri that was funded in the GENI Phase one funding. UMKC's project "GpENI" (Great Plains Environment for Network Innovation) is a partnership among four institutions: University of Kansas, UMKC, Kansas State University, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
So, what is GpENI? GpENI is a three-year project that aims to create a new experimental networking testbed connecting these four institutions that will provide a dedicated environment for networking scientists to try out new concepts for networks of the future. It may be noted that GpENI is one of the only two experimental tesbeds funded in the first phase of GENI funding. The basic part of GpENI experimental testbed is recently connected and now the excitement begins. In particular, UMKC's effort in this project is to lead and explore programmable router functionalities so that routing mechanisms in the core of the network of the future can be thought
through in a number of new and innovative ways. UMKC's researchers involved in this project are Deep Medhi (Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department, who heads the Networking & Telecommunications Research Lab at UMKC) as principal investigator and Baek-Young Choi (Assistant Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department) as co-investigator. UMKC maintains a project page for its GpENI effort: http://NeTReL.umkc.edu/gpeni-umkc.html. It is also worth noting that Deep Medhi was one of the leads in organizing a US-Japan Future Networks Workshop held last fall in California that was supported by the National Science Foundation; he'll also serve as the scientific program co-chair of an International Workshop on FutureNet to be held in Hawaii in December 2009.UMKC's GpENI effort has a far reaching goal. It plans to connect international institutions to its testbed in the near future as well as many US institutions. Stay tuned!
-Written by Deep Medhi, Ph.D., Professor, Computer Science & Electrical Engineering Department
In picture UMKC team members: (front) Ramkumar Cherukuri, Baek-Young Choi, Xuan Liu; (back) Deep Medhi and Haiyang Qian [not in picture - Can Kanli & Jim Schonemann]
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Impressive Activities and Intellectual Resources
One of the most interesting and rewarding features of my new position as Interim Vice Provost for Research is the many opportunities for me to meet and interact with the UMKC community.
Some interactions are new, as my current duties take me to places and people on campus that, even after almost 20 years at UMKC, I had never been exposed to. One example is the Innovation Center and its Director, Maria Meyers. This Center at 4747 Troost operates with the Bloch School of Business and Public Administration to aid entrepreneurial and technological transfer activities in the community. Maria is chair of the Economic Development Strategic Planning Committee and is using her expertise to help derive plans to enhance the economic well being of the entire Kansas City area using the intellectual resources of the UMKC community. Another of Maria's activities is KCSourceLink which helps small businesses connect to the technical, educational, financial and marketing resources they need. This initiative has spread to the entire state of Missouri as MOSourceLink, which launched last September with 221 Resource Partners and is being extended nationally as the U.S.SourceLink network.
Some interactions are old, such as my renewed acquaintance with Dr. Betty Drees, Dean of the UMKC School of Medicine. Betty has been remarkably successful in enhancing the research stature of the School. An impressive group of faculty has been recruited, including the recent additions of Dr. William Lafferty, the Hicklin Missouri Endowed Chair , and Dr. Peter Koulen, the Sabates Missouri Endowed Chair. Both are tremendous assets for UMKC and for the Kansas City community. Dr. Lafferty stated in his University of Washington Website: "I believe that there are enormous opportunities to improve health. Most are based on ameliorating social problems such as poverty, racism, and violence. The greatest value from medical practice will come when all people have equal access to high quality primary care.” And Dean Drees said of Dr. Koulen “Dr. Koulen is an outstanding scientist, and his research leadership will allow the Vision Research Center to pursue its mission of understanding and preventing diseases that cause blindness. This is the type of research that translates new discoveries into improved health and well being in our community.”
These are only a few examples of the impressive activities and intellectual resources which UMKC brings to the community as part of its Mission as Kansas City's University.
-Written by William T. Morgan, Ph.D. , Interim Vice Provost for Research
If you would like to read more from Bill see our December 31, 2008 post.
Some interactions are new, as my current duties take me to places and people on campus that, even after almost 20 years at UMKC, I had never been exposed to. One example is the Innovation Center and its Director, Maria Meyers. This Center at 4747 Troost operates with the Bloch School of Business and Public Administration to aid entrepreneurial and technological transfer activities in the community. Maria is chair of the Economic Development Strategic Planning Committee and is using her expertise to help derive plans to enhance the economic well being of the entire Kansas City area using the intellectual resources of the UMKC community. Another of Maria's activities is KCSourceLink which helps small businesses connect to the technical, educational, financial and marketing resources they need. This initiative has spread to the entire state of Missouri as MOSourceLink, which launched last September with 221 Resource Partners and is being extended nationally as the U.S.SourceLink network.
Some interactions are old, such as my renewed acquaintance with Dr. Betty Drees, Dean of the UMKC School of Medicine. Betty has been remarkably successful in enhancing the research stature of the School. An impressive group of faculty has been recruited, including the recent additions of Dr. William Lafferty, the Hicklin Missouri Endowed Chair , and Dr. Peter Koulen, the Sabates Missouri Endowed Chair. Both are tremendous assets for UMKC and for the Kansas City community. Dr. Lafferty stated in his University of Washington Website: "I believe that there are enormous opportunities to improve health. Most are based on ameliorating social problems such as poverty, racism, and violence. The greatest value from medical practice will come when all people have equal access to high quality primary care.” And Dean Drees said of Dr. Koulen “Dr. Koulen is an outstanding scientist, and his research leadership will allow the Vision Research Center to pursue its mission of understanding and preventing diseases that cause blindness. This is the type of research that translates new discoveries into improved health and well being in our community.”
These are only a few examples of the impressive activities and intellectual resources which UMKC brings to the community as part of its Mission as Kansas City's University.
-Written by William T. Morgan, Ph.D. , Interim Vice Provost for Research
If you would like to read more from Bill see our December 31, 2008 post.
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