Archives for November 8, 2022

College of Engineering Expands to Meet Demand

November 8, 2022 by Katie Squier

Lance C. Pérez, Ph.D., became the dean of the University of Nebraska College of Engineering in 2018, following two years as interim dean. During his tenure, engineering facilities on City Campus have undergone a $190 million transformation.

Dean Pérez Aims to Grow Workforce Pipeline and Spur Economic Development
By Connie White

Ask Dean Lance C. Pérez why he wants to create “a bigger, better College of Engineering” at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and he’s ready with a Nebraska-centric answer.

By constructing buildings, hiring new faculty, recruiting more students and expanding research, the state’s only engineering college can spur economic development in Nebraska, Pérez said.

Engineers are in huge demand across the state and are essential to its biggest industries. Nebraska’s banking and insurance companies, for example, require software engineers to support their online infrastructure. Modern agriculture, “which is obviously very important in Nebraska,” needs equipment for automation and data analytics to manage water resources, fertilizer, seed distribution and productivity, he said.

Growing Nebraska’s pipeline of engineers, computing and construction professionals is critical to filling those and other open jobs in the state and region and to creating new jobs, Pérez said. With a bigger College of Engineering, the university will be able to support the growth of existing companies as well as the creation of new companies in Nebraska.

“Engineering plays a role in more and more sectors of both the Nebraska economy and the U.S. and global economy,” Pérez said. “We have to produce the engineers who can fill those roles.”

The kindness of Nebraskans

Pérez grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia and a Master of Science and a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame.

He had never visited Nebraska before coming to Lincoln in 1996 to interview for a faculty position. Nebraska’s appeal was partly personal; his dad was born in Trenton, Nebraska. He liked what he saw and took the job, with encouragement from his wife, Julie.

Twenty-six years later, Pérez is proud to call Nebraska home because of what he describes as the kindness and integrity of Nebraskans who will “help strangers without questioning it.” He said he sees those qualities reflected in UNL’s mission.

Pérez was named dean of the College of Engineering in May 2018, following two years as interim dean. During his tenure, he has overseen unprecedented growth in the college, with philanthropic giving playing a pivotal role.

“Philanthropy is just so important to enabling us to accomplish our goals and to deliver on our mission,” said Pérez, who is also the Omar H. Heins Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

A historic $190 million project

The college’s transformation, the result of both public and private funding, is apparent to anyone who visits campus and sees a towering construction crane dominating the skyline. The $190 million investment represents the largest academic facilities project in UNL’s 153-year history.

The Engineering Research Center, an 87,000-square-foot building that replaced the Link, recently opened to support the college’s research efforts. The Scott Engineering Center is being renovated to provide research and lab space, and Kiewit Hall is slated to open for classes in spring 2024 with a mission of educating and supporting undergraduate students.

Pérez noted the $115 million Kiewit Hall is entirely funded by donors, with a $25 million naming gift provided by Kiewit Corp. “Without philanthropy, that building simply wouldn’t be,” he said.

Pérez said Kiewit Hall is critical to the college’s goal of growing undergraduate enrollment from 3,000 to 5,000 students.

“The quality of your facilities plays a really important role in recruitment. Students want to come to a place and a facility that show you’re taking their education seriously,” he said.

Pérez has high praise for the college’s “amazing, world-class faculty,” who he says are doing research to address the fundamental problems facing the United States and the world.

“From climate change, to disease, to better construction methods, to new approaches on computing, we have faculty doing work in all those areas,” Pérez said.

The College of Engineering, which also offers programs on the Scott Campus at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, has added 70 faculty members over the past five years as its research enterprise ramps up.

“A lot of economic growth occurs from the intellectual property and startup companies that come from having a really vibrant research enterprise,” Pérez said.

Philanthropy matters

Philanthropic support is critical to retaining those faculty, he said, while keeping a top-notch Big Ten engineering education within reach for all students through scholarships and other funding.

Pérez, himself a first-generation college graduate, has a personal understanding of the importance of scholarships.

“I had scholarships. My parents couldn’t afford to send me to school, so I’ve lived that,” he said. “So, when I see students who are able to come to the University of Nebraska to study engineering because of our scholarship programs, it’s really just an amazing feeling.”

Turning the Tide on Diabetes

November 8, 2022 by Katie Squier

Diabetes On Track Aims to Turn the Tide on High Diabetes Rates, Especially in Rural Communities

By Connie White

Go anywhere in rural America, and you’re likely to find someone struggling with diabetes. Someone’s friend. Someone’s wife. Someone’s grandpa.

Nebraska is no exception. An estimated 10% of Nebraskans are living with diabetes, and 35% have prediabetes, with much of those numbers concentrated in rural areas. Thanks to a generous private gift, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine recently launched Diabetes On Track.

The initiative seeks to improve diabetes care and prevention by piloting a new approach in two rural Nebraska communities. Launched this fall, the idea is for communities to tailor their own solutions through collaboration among health departments, health clinics, hospitals and community groups.

The program was made possible by a $7 million gift from the Diabetes Care Foundation of Nebraska.

“We are very excited to be involved in the development of such a critical program,” said Cyrus Desouza, MBBS, an endocrinologist and chief of the UNMC Department of Internal Medicine Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism. “The prevalence of diabetes tends to run higher in rural communities along with worse outcomes.”

A model for rural areas

The hope, Desouza said, is to create a rural model for use across the country.

Diabetes is a chronic medical condition that affects how the body metabolizes food and utilizes glucose. When someone has diabetes, the pancreas either doesn’t make enough insulin to push the glucose from the blood vessels into the cells, or the body doesn’t respond as it should to insulin.

The risk of developing Type 2 diabetes increases with age and if a person has a family history of the disease. There is no cure, but a healthy lifestyle can help delay or prevent it.

Desouza is a principal researcher along with David Dzewaltowski, Ph.D. Desouza is also a medical doctor who treats diabetes patients. Dzewaltowski is a public health expert in the UNMC College of Public Health focused on communities and social determinants of nutrition, physical activity and obesity.

Desouza said patients can’t control their diabetes by just taking a pill. They need an understanding of factors affecting glucose and insulin, including exercise, food, stress and illness. Eighty percent of the control is in the patient’s hands. Uncontrolled diabetes can have severe consequences, including heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, amputations and death.

“It has to be managed every day,” he said. “The more the patient knows about this, the easier it is.”

Community-driven solutions

Dzewaltowski said that, from a public health perspective, addressing the problem begins with understanding that community characteristics, such as access to healthy food, physical activity and health care, contribute to differences in local prediabetes and diabetes rates.

If those community characteristics are not dealt with through a “whole of community change,” the root causes will never be addressed, he said.

Community solutions involve partnering with local organizations to understand the services available for diabetes prevention, screening and care management. A local coalition can then form to investigate what’s working and design solutions.

Wayne, with nearly 6,000 people in northeast Nebraska, and Hastings, with 25,000 people in central Nebraska, were selected for the two-year pilot project. The initiative will focus on adults in the communities with prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes means a person has a higher-than-normal blood sugar level.

Tools to get on a healthy track

The initiative’s name, Diabetes On Track, reflects the goal: to create communities that help people with diabetes get on a healthy track through food, physical activity, technology and education.

Tools can include wearable home glucose monitors that can be read via a cell phone or watch, certified diabetes educators to meet with patients, and telehealth services. The initiative also is focused on ensuring that all residents, especially those at risk for diabetes, stay on track to make healthful lifestyle choices and prevent diabetes.

Desouza said the hope is to expand the program to other communities, as additional public and private funding is secured.

The gift provides $5 million for the initial phases and $2 million to create a permanent endowment, the Dr. Timothy Wahl Presidential Chair in Diabetes Education, Care and Research Fund. Tim Wahl, M.D., is a longtime practicing endocrinologist in Omaha who serves on the Diabetes Care Foundation Board of Directors. He also is a University of Nebraska Foundation trustee.

Dzewaltowski said he feels optimistic the initiative will lead to positive health outcomes by bringing local people together to create solutions that work for their Nebraska communities.

“We are really taking this as a community-driven approach, rather than a top-down approach,” he said. “This effort will keep people out of the hospital and lead to a better quality of life.”

Gut Check

November 8, 2022 by Katie Squier

Nebraska Researchers Study the Connections Between Food Production and Human Health

By Geitner Simmons, IANR Media

This story has been adapted from the original for this publication.

We live in a microbial world. From door handles to escalator handrails and even fermented foods, we come into contact with a wide range of bacteria, viruses and fungi on a daily basis. Our bodies are also home to trillions of microbes, particularly in the colon where the numbers of microbes outnumber cells in our bodies by at least a factor of 10.

And their impact is vast. The gut microbiome — a term that encompasses the collection of microbes and their functions in an ecosystem, such as the gut— is primarily impacted by what we eat and affects everything from our digestive health to cardiovascular health, immune health and maybe even our moods. These microbes are so impactful, in fact, that some researchers consider them to be a separate organ, which shapes our metabolism, our susceptibility to allergic and inflammatory diseases and even our responses to medical treatments.

At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, scientists are conducting extensive research of the microbiome to find the links from agriculture and food production to human wellness and the prevention of disease.

Located at the Nebraska Innovation Campus, the multidisciplinary Nebraska Food for Health Center brings together strengths in agriculture and medicine from throughout the University of Nebraska System.

The center helps develop hybrid crops and foods to improve the quality of life of those affected by feeding the gut microbes as well as the human host. The approach is aimed at reducing susceptibility to critical diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.

Recently, UNL researchers identified specific traits in sorghum that contribute to a healthy gut microbiome. This groundbreaking discovery paves the way for identifying additional traits in sorghum and other food crops that have the potential to improve human health, as well as for the emergence of new crop varieties developed with health of the microbiome and the human host in mind.

The researchers’ findings were published in the journal Nature Communications, a significant milestone for the Nebraska Food for Health Center. The lead investigator was Qinnan Yang, a postdoctoral researcher from NFHC and the UNL Department of Food Science and Technology. Other Husker scientists contributing to the project were Andrew K. Benson, the paper’s corresponding author, and co-authors Mallory Van Haute, Nate Korth, Scott E. Sattler, John Toy, Devin J. Rose and James C. Schnable.

Among their findings, the researchers identified segments on nine sorghum chromosomes where genetic variation produces significant effects on the microbiome’s fermentation activity. On two of the chromosomes, scientists ultimately found an important connection between sorghum genes for seed color, tannin presence in sorghum seed and effects of the tannins on desirable organisms in the microbiome.

Identifying seed traits that encourage growth of desirable bacteria is medically significant because these species of microbes are associated with major health benefits, including reduced susceptibility to inflammatory bowel disease and certain metabolic diseases.

“Now that we’ve shown plant genes can control changes in the human gut microbiome, we can use our approach to screen hundreds or thousands of samples of different crops,” Yang said. “That makes it possible for plant breeding programs to harness natural genetic variation in crops to breed new crop varieties that improve human health by promoting beneficial bacteria in the human gut.”

For this project, Nebraska Food for Health Center scientists used techniques that duplicated the human body’s digestive and gastrointestinal activity and screened nearly 300 different sorghum lines using a miniaturized, automated methodology called automated in vitro microbiome screening (AiMS). At present, Nebraska’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources is the only academic institution in the world using the innovative AiMS technology for seed-trait/microbiome analysis.

The concept for the AiMS methodology “was nothing more than a pipe dream six years ago. Now, it’s turned into reality,” said Benson, director of the Nebraska Food for Health Center and the Nebraska Food for Health Presidential Chair in the Department of Food Science and Technology.

The AiMS methodology stands out for its versatility. Researchers can study the microbiome activity of healthy human participants and those with health challenges. They can study the gut metabolism of humans and animals, and the seed trait studies can analyze the microbiome effects from any food crop.

“It’s really a powerful technology,” Benson said. “The sky’s the limit on this.”

These steps forward are a fulfillment of the vision that has powered the Nebraska Food for Health Center from its beginning, starting with a set of white papers Benson and Robert Hutkins, a fellow professor of food science and technology, drew up in 2006 and 2007. A new DNA sequencing technology was commercialized in 2006, they wrote, and the university needed to think strategically about how it could use those new sequencing tools to achieve major research contributions.

In subsequent years, IANR faculty and administrators followed up on that vision through strategic discussions, investments in infrastructure and new faculty hires. This ultimately led to launch of the Nebraska Food for Health Center in 2016 and development of AiMS facilities for food trait and microbiome research at Nebraska Innovation Campus. NFHC was fueled by key philanthropic and Husker investments, which expanded ongoing transdisciplinary collaboration.

The Nature Communications paper is the start of a new stage of discovery at the Nebraska Food for Health Center.

The paper “is sort of at the front end,” Benson said. “The joy now is to see how what we discover translates to the rest of the center … and the great thing is that we have the collaborative researchers who are there to do it.”

“They’re just waiting,” Benson said, to carry on important follow-up projects and analysis.

All these developments, he said, “resonate back to 2006 and 2007, when we said, ‘Gee, what if …’ Now, here we are, actually trying to do it.”

Serenity on Campus

November 8, 2022 by Katie Squier

Nationally Relevant Research Positions UNO to Meet Surging Demand for Health Counseling

By Robyn Murray

Abby Bjornsen-Ramig, Ph.D., runs her hand along the shiny surface of a laminate reception desk. Her fingers land on a cream-colored ceramic container filled with mints. Those are for clients — and like everything in this softly lit space, they were carefully chosen. The comfortable couches, the culturally inclusive artwork on the walls, HGTV playing softly in the waiting area and the faint aroma of cinnamon coffee in the air have all been designed to create a serene, inviting setting where clients feel relaxed and welcome.

Bjornsen-Ramig, associate professor and clinical training director in the counseling department at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is giving a tour of the newly renovated Community Counseling Clinic on the first floor of Roskens Hall. The thoughtfully decorated space represents how far the program has come. Students and community members can visit the office and receive counseling services from advanced graduate students in one of the comfortably furnished private therapy rooms, which are fully equipped with subtle audio and video recording equipment for supervisory purposes.

Some of the people who have made this progress possible are part of the tour Bjornsen-Ramig is leading: Marti Rosen-Atherton and John Atherton, two counseling icons in Omaha; and Jack and Stephanie Koraleski, UNO alumni and longtime friends and colleagues of the Athertons.

“When we were here, we had to hold counseling sessions in big classrooms, working off those rickety wooden desks,” Rosen-Atherton said. “This is so much better.”

A living legacy of service

The Athertons dedicated much of their careers to counseling at UNO. They taught in the counseling department for nearly three decades after receiving their degrees at the university; and Rosen-Atherton served as director of what is now UNO Counseling and Psychological Services from 2003 to 2012. Stephanie Koraleski studied under Rosen-Atherton as a graduate assistant at UNO before serving the community as a licensed psychologist.

First founded in 1977, UNO’s Community Counseling Clinic has evolved tremendously since those early days. But in recent years, the clinic and overall department have progressed even more rapidly. The growth is partly due to an accelerating demand for counseling services brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and an easing of the stigma around mental health. But it is also due to the department’s rising-star faculty and the national attention they’ve garnered from their research. The rise has been so pronounced that UNO is currently able to admit only 60% of the applicants qualified to study in the counseling department.

“I’ve seen it go in a really great direction in terms of student interest, program rigor, clinic expansion, community partnerships, faculty research and applications for external and internal funding,” said Bjornsen-Ramig, who began her faculty career at UNO in 2012. She received the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award in 2021, has published numerous articles and book chapters and presents her research annually at local, regional and national professional conferences.

“I think we are more on the map of the college and of the university than we were previously, so it’s been a really exciting time to be part of this team,” she said.

Elevating the department through research that matters

Abby Bjornsen-Ramig, Ph.D., (center) joined by Jack and Stephanie Koraleski (left), who provided a lead gift to establish the Marti & John Atherton Clinical Mental Health Counseling Professorship, and Marti Rosen-Atherton and John Atherton (right). “It was incredible affirmation of everything that we have done,” Rosen-Atherton said. “What this means to me and to all of the students and colleagues and this place that held me up and gave me opportunities — and to have it made possible by the dearest friends we could ever have is the frosting on the cake.”

Bjornsen-Ramig says elevating the reputation — and ultimately the footprint — of the counseling department is aided tremendously by faculty who conduct nationally relevant research. Bjornsen-Ramig’s research focuses on career development and the impact of work on personal and professional wellness. During the pandemic, as the traditional workplace was upended, Bjornsen-Ramig became a regular feature in local media.

“I am passionate about that area of study because of its centrality in everyone’s life,” Bjornsen-Ramig said. “Everybody either works or they’re looking for work. They don’t like their job, they’re underemployed or unemployed, they’re being bullied at work. I think it’s a really important area of study, and it intersects beautifully with wellness and counseling.”

While Bjornsen-Ramig represents the future of UNO counseling, her professorship was made possible by the living legacies of the past.

Bjornsen-Ramig holds the Marti & John Atherton Clinical Mental Health Counseling Professorship, which was provided in honor of the Athertons through generous gifts from the Koraleskis as well as numerous friends and colleagues who were impacted by the Athertons’ work in counseling. The gift represents a line of investment and continuity from community stakeholders who care deeply about counseling at UNO, the people it helps — and the future it must rise to meet.

“I really want to do them proud and to be able to make great strides in their honor,” Bjornsen-Ramig said. “We’re in a really good place now as a faculty to kind of explode out of the gates.”

Finding a New Home in Kearney

November 8, 2022 by Katie Squier

Marisa Macy, Ph.D., was recruited to UNK from the University of Central Florida after a 25-year career in early childhood education and special education.

After Traveling the Country, Early Childhood Specialist Comes to UNK for Her Dream Job

By Robyn Murray

Marisa Macy bubbles with excitement when she talks about living in Kearney.

“We love it here so much,” Macy said. “We have a 10-year-old daughter; she’s in fifth grade here in town, and Kearney is so perfect for us. UNK is so perfect for us. We just love it here.”

Macy, who grew up in Seattle, Washington, and has lived all over the country, accepted her job at the University of Nebraska at Kearney last fall — sight unseen. She interviewed during a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, so the process was conducted virtually. She knew nearly nothing about Nebraska, but the job was so perfect, she jumped at the opportunity.

“When I learned about this position, I was so excited,” she said. “Everything about it on paper looked amazing to me, and I just was so excited. I told my husband I really want to apply for this job. It’s not just a job. It’s my dream job.”

The position is twofold: Macy is the Cille and Ron Williams Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education at UNK as well as the Community Chair in Early Childhood Education at the Buffett Early Childhood Institute. The chair at UNK was established through a gift from University of Nebraska alumnus Ron Williams of Denver and his wife, Cille, in 2014.

The outreach embedded in the role is what excited Macy.

“This position is mainly focused on being a servant leader, where you’re providing leadership in the community and serving the needs of the people in our community,” she said.

Macy comes to the role from a 25-year career that began in special education. After four years teaching in a middle school in Buckley, Washington, Macy began working with families of special needs kids. Later she went into academia — researching and teaching on the subject as she traveled to follow her husband’s career, from Oregon to Pennsylvania, Texas to Florida. She earned her doctorate in special education from the University of Oregon and is considered not only a perfect fit for the role at UNK but an exemplary recruit.

Throughout her career, Macy has been motivated by a passion that she’d nurtured for as long as she can remember. And she has a photo to prove it: 3-year-old Marisa with her dolls, all lined up and facing her like students in a classroom. When she wasn’t playing teacher, Macy was watching “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and wishing she could be like the gentle, cardigan-clad man who helped kids learn.

“I’m just so grateful for ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ because that’s how I learned how to speak English,” said Macy, whose mother spoke only Italian at home. “He spoke really slow; I could understand him. He was always so kind.”

Macy spent the first year in her new position traveling across Nebraska, learning about the early childhood education needs in the state’s communities and making connections. She’s already formed several that are likely to pay dividends. One is a collaboration with the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Munroe-Meyer Institute to develop strategies to help prevent burnout among early childhood educators. Another is with the Nebraska Academy for Early Childhood Research at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where she’s researching ways to ensure the quality of early childhood programs.

“I’ve never been anywhere that has had [collaboration] like this,” she said.

"It’s a very special place for our family"

Macy’s arrival in the state comes at a pivotal time. Not only is the University of Nebraska System finding innovative solutions to address the urgent statewide teacher shortage, but UNK is celebrating the three-year anniversary of the transformative Lavonne Kopecky Plambeck Early Childhood Education Center, a $7.8 million building that has already become a model as one of the best early childhood education centers in the nation.

The morning after Macy arrived, she realized she and her family are living right next door to it.

“I thought, oh, my gosh, this is so meant to be,” she said. “We get to see that every day.”

And she does. Macy picks up her daughter after school, and they hang out with the toddlers and kids who visit the Plambeck Center, while her husband, Robert Macy, finishes up his day in his new position as director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Rural Development at the College of Business and Technology. Everything feels just right, like she’s finally where she’s meant to be.

“It’s a very special place for our family, for so many reasons, here at UNK,” Macy said.