Mike Best and Jon Camden, assistant professors in the Department of Chemistry, joined Arthur (Sandy) Echternacht, professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Ted Labotka, professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, to present a day-long professional development workshop to Knox County high school science teachers at West High School on Thursday, June 24. The workshop featured lectures and discussions in chemistry and earth and life sciences. Theresa Nixon, supervisor of science for Knox County Schools, invited Best, Camden, Echternacht and Labotka to speak to provide content enrichment in these sciences for the teachers who teach science in the 13 high schools in the Knox County School District.
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Hamparsum Bozdogan, Toby & Brenda McKenzie Professor in Business in the Department of Statistics, Operations, and Management Science, is part of a team from Information International Associates, Inc., of Oak Ridge that received a grant for $554,769 from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The title of the grant is “Exploiting the Use of Social Networking to Facilitate Collaboration in the Scientific Community.” One of the objectives of the grant is to create a system for scientific collaboration to be used across the Department of Energy research community.
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Donald Bruce, associate professor of economics and economist with the Center for Business and Economic Research, briefed the U.S. Congress this week. Bruce did research for proposed legislation by U.S. Rep. John Duncan, Jr. The legislation would establish a new Consumer Price Index (CPI) for seniors so that Social Security benefits reflect impact of inflation on seniors each year. Bruce presented his new study Wednesday to Congress and the news media regarding the CPI and its relationship to older Americans.