United States Navy Commander and Astronaut Sunita Williams and Maseeh College graduate student Diana Laboy-Rush will be inducted into the Denice Dee Denton Women Engineers Hall of Fame

The American Public Health Association (APHA) is actively soliciting submissions for a special edition of their Student Assembly's newsletter, News & Views, and the deadline for submitting articles has recently been extended to June 6, 2008. Additional details about the opportunity appear below.

Anna Malsch, Regional Research Institute; Julie Rosenzweig and Eileen Brennan, Social Work faculty; and students John Conley and Lisa Stewart presented "Rewards and Concerns: Marital Role Quality and Child Mental Health Disorders" at the 88th Annual Convention of the Western Psychological Association in Irvine, Calif., April 12.

Carl Abbott, Urban Studies and Planning faculty, and doctoral student Joy Margheim have authored "Imagining Portland's Urban Growth Boundary: Planning Regulation as Cultural Icon" published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, 74 (Spring 2008).

Dilafruz Williams, Educational Policy, Foundations, and Administrative Studies faculty, presented "The Engagement Imperative: Academia, Students, and Communities in Partnership" at the Western Region Campus Compact Consortium conference in Portland, in April.

Hamid Moradkhani, Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty, co-organized a congress technical track titled "Stochastic and Probabilistic Approaches for Analyzing Complex Water Resources Systems" that included 12 technical sessions. He also presented three papers, "Uncertainty Assessment of Water Resources Systems using Data Assimilation and Ensemble Methods," "Toward Improved Hydrologic Prediction with Reduced Uncertainty using Sequential Multi-Model Combination," and "Lessons from Fish Passage Waterways in Oregon and Factors for Improving their Construction" at the World Environmental & Water Resources Congress 2008 in Honolulu, May 12-16. The last paper was co-authored with Sheryle Quinn and Trevor Smith from PSU. At the congress, Moradkhani was elected chair of technical committee on "Probabilistic Approaches in Water Resources Systems" through 2010.

Jennifer Dill, Urban Studies and Planning faculty, participated in a congressional briefing sponsored by the Congressional Bike Caucus and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on "Biking Your Way to a Healthier Community" in Washington, D.C., May 15.

L. Rudolph Barton and Jeffrey Schnabel, Architecture faculty, were design resource team members at the Mayors' Institute on City Design held in Portland May 7-9. The event was sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts with local cooperation from PSU, Metro, and University of Oregon. It brought together 10 mayors (five from the Portland region and five from other western states) for three intensive days of design education.

Matthew Carlson, Sociology faculty, is co-principal investigator on a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Office of Oregon Health Policy and Research. The grant will fund the PSU Center for Health and Social Inequality Research project "The Oregon Health Plan Lottery: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Medicaid Eligibility and Coverage."

Paul Collins, English faculty, authored "Seize the Daylight" published in New Scientist, May 17, 2008.

Sean Kohles, Mechanical and Materials Engineering faculty, gave two seminars/lectures to the School of Chemical, Biological, and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University, May 19. He presented "Cell Biomechanics Technique and Theory" for a Cell Engineering course as a guest lecturer as well as "Integration of Microfluidics and Optical Forces for Osteochondral Cellular Biomechanical Engineering" at the departmental seminar.

Mark Kaplan, PSU professor, appointed to national suicide expert panel.

The Center for Sustainable Processes and Practices and the Center for Design and Innovation for Business & Sustainability at the School of Business Administration in Portland State University is pleased to announce its second annual International Conference on Business & Sustainability. This year's conference will be held October 15-17, 2008 in Portland, Oregon, USA.

Dan Rogers, Business faculty, was elected vice president-program elect for the Eastern Finance Association.

Eileen Brennan and Julie Rosenzweig, Social Work faculty, presented "Parents of Children with Disabilities and Work-Life Challenges" at the Alfred P. Sloan Work and Family Research Network Panel Meeting at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass., May 6.

Jong Sung Kim, Mathematics and Statistics faculty, and student Solange Mongoue co-authored the article "New Statistical Software for the Proportional Hazards Model with Current Status Data" published in Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Vol. 52, 2008.

Pavel Smejtek, Physics faculty emeritus, co-authored "Toward a Class-Independent Quantitative Structure−Activity Relationship Model for Uncouplers of Oxidative Phosphorylation" published in Chemical Research in Toxicology, Vol. 21, 2008.

Swapna Mukhopadhyay, Curriculum and Instruction faculty, presented "Ethnomathematics: Legitimizing the Link Between Mathematics and Culture" at the Oregon National Association for Multicultural Education conference in Corvallis, May 6.

Robert D. Dryden, dean of the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science (MCECS) for the past 13 years, has announced that he will step down, effective June 30, 2008. Dick Knight, a 32-year veteran of the high tech industry, will be the interim dean during the search for Dryden's replacement.

Portland State University's Friends of English presents "How to Write a Novel in Your Spare Time," a workshop with New York Times-bestselling author Phillip Margolin.

Dan Rogers, Business faculty, co-authored the paper "Does Hedging Reduce Economic Exposure? Hurricanes, Jet Fuel Prices, and Airlines" presented at the Eastern Finance Association meeting in St. Pete Beach, Fla., April 9-12.

Franz Rad, Civil and Environmental Engineering faculty, presented the paper "Behavior of Grouted Conduit Connections Under Cyclic Loading" at the Annual Convention of the American Concrete Institute in Los Angeles, March 30-April 3. The paper was co-authored by student Mike Pyszka.

Gretta Siegel, Library faculty; and Rosalind Wang, Library emerita faculty, presented "Sharing More Than an Ocean: Chinese Libraries and Librarianship Today" at the Oregon and Washington Library Association Joint Meeting in Vancouver, Wash., April 17-18.

Heejun Chang, Geography faculty, and alumnus Mike Boeder co-authored the paper "Multi-Scale Analysis of Oxygen Demand Trends in an Urbanizing Oregon Watershed" published in the Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 87, 2008.

Karen Gibson, Urban Studies and Planning faculty, presented "Evaluation: A Tool for Community Sustainability" at the Western Regional HOPE VI Community & Supportive Services Sustainability Conference, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Seattle, April 8-9.

Jan Semenza, former PSU faculty member; Linda George, Environmental Sciences faculty; Dave Sailor, Mechanical and Materials Engineering faculty; and students Daniel Wilson and Jeremy Parra co-authored the article "Public Perception and Behavior Change in Relationship to Hot Weather and Air Pollution" published in Environmental Research, April 2008.

Matthew Hein, English faculty, was awarded second place in the Oregon State Poetry Association's New Poets contest for "Because a Train Isn't Coming." The award was presented in absentia in Salem, April 26.

Robin Paynter, Library faculty, presented "Commercial Serials Decision Support Databases" at the Oregon and Washington Library Association Joint Meeting in Vancouver, Wash., April 17-18.

Sue Taylor, Art faculty, authored "The Erotic Eye," a review of three new books on art and sexuality, published in Art in America, May 2008.

Talya Bauer, Business faculty, and Donald Truxillo, Psychology faculty, co-hosted with others the Applicant Reactions Cross-Cultural Organizational Surveys research incubator at the Interactive Research Agenda Session at the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology Annual Meeting in San Francisco in April. Bauer also served as a panelist on the topic of mentoring and participated in the symposium discussion on "Multi-level and Multi-Perspective Research in Leader-Member Exchange Leadership."

Charles Deemer, English adjunct, created "Changing Key," a hyperdrama video project published on the Web at http://www.ibiblio.org/cdeemer/ChangingKey.htm. The videos will be featured at the Hypertext 2008 Conference in Pittsburgh, June 19-21.

Over 350 Middle School and High School Students to Compete

Gil Latz, International Affairs faculty, was an invited speaker on the topic of international comparisons in education and implications for institutions in the West at the 2008 Northwest Academic Forum in Boise, April 4.

John Hall, Economics faculty, presented "Keynesian and Post Keynesian Approaches to Unemployment in Eastern Germany" at the Western Social Science Association conference held in Denver, April 24-26.

Katherine McDonald, Psychology faculty, was awarded the Steven-Shapiro Fellowship from the International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities. The fellowship is awarded to young researchers actively involved in the field of intellectual disabilities. McDonald will present her research at the upcoming World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.

Kevin Kecskes, Academic Excellence faculty, and Barry Messer, Urban Studies and Planning faculty, presented a peer-reviewed session, “The New ‘Hard Skills’: Connecting Social Sustainability and Partnerships to Update What Really ‘Counts’ in 21st Century Learning,” at the 2008 Continuums of Service Conference in Portland, April 18.

Mark Fishbein, Biology faculty, co-authored the paper "Resurrection of Asclepias Schaffneri (Apocynaceae, Asclepiadoideae), a Rare, Mexican Milkweed," published in Madroño, Vol. 55, 2008.

Mary Rechner, English adjunct, authored a review of the novel The Sorrows of an American, published in The Oregonian, April 27.

Matthew Hein, English faculty, presented "Boredom and the Dream Bird: Awesomification" at the annual Pacific Northwest Writing Centers Association meeting in Everett, Wash., April 26.

Michael Smith, Educational Policy, Foundations & Administrative Studies faculty, presented "Low SES African American Parents in College Choice: Opportunity for Service & Early Outreach for the Greater Good" at the 2008 Continuums of Service Conference in Portland, April 18.

Paula Stanovich, Special and Counselor Education faculty, presented "Removing Barriers to Learning: An Overview of Effective and Inclusive Instructional Practice" and co-presented "Unlocking the Power of Parent-Teacher Partnerships: Tools and Strategies for Shared Success" at All Born "In": A Cross Disability Inclusion Conference in Portland, April 26. Stanovich also provided closing remarks.

Richard Lycan, Population Research faculty, presented "Linking Tax-Lot and Student Record Data: Applications in School Planning" at the Population Association of America Meeting in New Orleans, April 17.

Sue Taylor, Art faculty, presented "Grant Wood's Self-Fashioning" at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga., April 23.

Testing assumptions. A Portland State academic's study adds to a debate that remains far from settled.