Dr. Bryce Sullivan, dean of Belmont’s College of Arts and Sciences, represented Belmont University at “A Conversation with Governor Bill Haslam” hosted by The Council on Workforce Innovation on Sept. 30. Joyce Searcy, Belmont’s director of community relations also was at the meeting and is member of the planning committee for The Council of Workforce Innovation Board.

Dr. Steve Murphree, professor of biology, gave a presentation on Oct. 6 to a group of parents, children and staff at the Discovery Center at Murfree Spring in Murfreesboro, Tenn.   The Discovery Center, chartered in 1986, is a hands-on museum and nature center that inspires exploration, enhances learning, and builds confidence through diverse programs and exhibits.

Dr. Murphree’s presentation, entitled “Dragons and Damsels: The Lives of Odonates,” was part of the citizen’s Citizen Science programs that engage people of all backgrounds and abilities in scientific research, and helps to connect scientists with participants and allow them to be part of the research community. Citizen Science empowers children to feel like they can be scientists and that the data they collect makes a difference. After the talk, Murphree led them in a walk along the Murfree Spring boardwalk which winds around 20 acres of natural wetlands where you can explore the wonders of nature. The group looked for dragonflies, damselflies and other wildlife between rain showers.

Dr. Gary L. McDowell, assistant professor of English, recently won runner-up in Prairie Schooner’s Creative Nonfiction Contest for his braided-memoir essay, “There Are Manuals for Those.”  Poet and essayist Lia Purpura chose it out of over 500 submissions, and it will appear in a forthcoming issue of Prairie Schooner. He also has poems forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Cheat River Review, Tupelo Quarterly (where he will be the featured artist), CutBank, Fourteen Hills, Salt Hill, Bluestem and others.  He will read at the Southern Festival of Books on Oct. 11 as a featured presenter.

Dr. John Niedzwiecki, associate professor of biology, has co-authored a paper titled “Species Tree Reconstruction of a Poorly Resolved Clade of Salamanders (Ambystomatidae) Using Multiple Nuclear Loci.” The paper was published in the September issue of Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution (Volume 68 (2013): 671-682). This paper is the product of a collaboration with the Weisrock Lab at the University of Kentucky. Click here to read the paper.

Dr. Danny Biles, professor of mathematics, gave a presentation at the Fall Southeastern Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) held the at the University of Louisville on Oct. 5 and 6. Biles talk was titled “Existence of Positive Solutions for a Fourth Order Differential Inclusion” and was part of a special session on “Fixed Point Theorems and Applications to Integral, Difference and Differential Equations.” The AMS holds eight sectional meetings annually and this was the 1,092^nd Meeting of the AMS Southeastern Sectional. The AMS was founded in 1888 to further the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and to serve the national and international community through its publications, meetings, advocacy and other programs.

Dr. Duane Hatch, assistant professor of chemistry, was invited to give a research talk to the Department of Chemistry at Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville, Tenn. on Sept. 20. The research talk was titled “Tyrosine Oxidation-Derived Electrophiles.”