A University of South Carolina Upstate professor has been awarded a research grant by the National Cancer Institute.

Bernard Omolo, Ph.D., assistant chair of the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science, has received a two-year grant totaling $269,336 to develop statistical methodology for colon cancer research being conducted in Spartanburg.

Omolo’s grant is a supplement to a research grant by Dr. Timothy Yeatman, director of the Gibbs Cancer Center and president of the Gibbs Research Institute. Yeatman’s research focuses on individualized colon cancer therapy using hybrid RNA and DNA molecular signature.

“I will be working with Dr. Yeatman to develop statistical models for predicting response to cetuximab in colon cancer patients,” Omolo said.

Omolo said that he will be analyzing data on patients who are undergoing treatment using cetuximab to treat metastatic colorectal cancer. He also will analyze RNA and DNA biomarkers that indicates the risk or progression of the disease, and the susceptibility given treatment.

Omolo said that he and Yeatman had been working on the supplemental grant since February 2013 and were finally accepted to begin work on September 1, 2014. Omolo said that there is still much to learn about the technology that produced the data and the research methodology.

“It will be a very busy two years for me,” Omolo said. “My work will be focused on research and I will be required to submit manuscripts arising from the data analysis and statistical methodology developed. There will be some travel involved as I meet with experts in the field to learn more about the data and the current reporting techniques.”

USC Upstate athletes are used to Scott Senger making the right call when it comes to designing and implementing a strength,  conditioning and/or speed program for them.

But there are others who hope he makes the right call..

Find out what Senger does when he’s away from campus!

Read Upstate magazine.

Jeff Smith, an instructor in the George Dean Johnson, Jr. College of Business and Economics, published an article in Forbes magazine on Sept. 4, 2014 titled, “Aligning Athletics Within Academic Missions in Division 1.”

 Read the article here.

When Melissa Pilgrim’s undergraduate students suit up for research, they don’t reach for white lab coats and safety glasses. Instead, they don waders, battery-powered headlamps and lots of bug spray before heading into damp woodlands after dusk.

Welcome to USC Upstate’s chapter of the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program — a citizen-scientist project that’s both demanding and rewarding.

Read more about what Pilgrim is doing in the “classroom.”

The University of South Carolina Upstate is pleased to announce the election of Dr. Judy Beck to the Association of Teacher Education’s Board of Directors.

Beck is the interim executive director of the University of South Carolina Upstate’s Greenville Campus, where she also is a professor and director of Teacher Education Programs. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University and both her Master’s and Doctorate from the University of Toledo.

Beck has served as president of the South Carolina ATE, a member of the Delegate Assembly, and co-chair of the 2012 Boston Summer Conference. She currently serves as a member of the Legislative and Niagara Falls Planning Committee, executive director for SCATE and president-elect for the SRATE.

Beck will join the board as a college-university voting representative and will attend all board meetings and the 2015 annual meeting.

Dr. Celena Kusch, associate professor of American Literature in the department of Languages, Literature, and Composition, has been named co-chair of the H.D. International Society, a society dedicated to the study of the writer H.D. (Hilda Doolittle).

Kusch’s co-chair is Dr. Rebecca Walsh, assistant professor of English at North Carolina State University.

H.D. was one of the pioneers in literature in the first half of the 20th century and she played an important role in bringing issues of gender to the forefront of the global literary, film, and artistic communities of the time.

The H.D. International Society works to assist scholars, students, artists, and the general public in sharing resources and information, establishing collaborations, and supporting the production of scholarly and creative responses to H.D. and members of her circle.

The H.D. International Society recently launched a new website.

Jim Charles, English Education, presented a paper titled “Things Change; Things Remain the Same: Johnny Depp, Tonto, and Disney’s The Lone Ranger,” at the 35^th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference held Feb. 22, 2014 in Albuquerque, NM.

Laura Jennings, an assistant professor of Sociology, has published a paper titled, “Visual Representation of Fatness and Health in High School Texts.”

The article was published in “Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society.”

Reference librarian Breanne Kirsch has published a new book.

Titled, “Games in Libraries: Essays on Using Play to Connect and Instruct,” the book is a collection essays discussing the importance of incorporating games in library services.

The book was published by McFarland and Company, Inc. in Jefferson, N.C.

Kirsch is the founder and current chair of the Game Making Interest Group within the Library and Information Technology Association of the American Library Association

English professor Thomas McConnell, College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded an artist residency at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska to continue work on a novel-in-progress titled “The Traveler’s Scroll.”

An excerpt from the manuscript won the Hackney National Short Story Competition earlier this year and appears in the Fall 2013 issue of the Birmingham Arts Journal.

Last month another work won second prize in the Porter Fleming Award for the Essay, an annual competition for Southeasterner writers.