Kevin Archer

Dr. Kevin Archer teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in human geography with an emphasis on urban development issues including impacts on the natural environment. He also teaches courses on Latin America and Social Science perspectives in the Honors College. He has published research in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Economic Geography, the Journal of Geography, the Florida Geographer, The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (University of Southern Mississippi Press), Geography and Autobiography: History, Method, Analysis (Syracuse University Press), Local Economic Development in Europe and the Americas (Mansell Press), and other edited volumes.

Roger Ariew

Ph.D. Illinois, 1976. Joined the Philosophy Department faculty at USF in 2004 after many years at Virginia Tech. His principal interests concern the relations between philosophy, science, and society in the early modern period. Ariew is the author of Descartes and the Last Scholastics (Cornell University Press, 1999), coauthor of Historical Dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy (Scarecrow Press, 2003), editor and translator such works as Descartes, Philosophical Essays (Hackett, 2000) and Pascal, Pensées (Hackett, 2005), and editor of the quarterly journal Perspectives on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social (MIT Press). He is currently working on a variety of topics, including the reception of Descartes' philosophy and science in late seventeenth-century France, a handbook of Leibniz's philosophy and science, a chapter on Modernity for the Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, and the entry on Pierre Duhem for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy .

Alan Balfour

Dr. Alan Balfour is Chair of the Department of Management and Organization, College of Business and Director of the Master of Science in Management: Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness program. His areas of expertise are leadership and organizational justice. He was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts with a double major in History and Economics from Albion College, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School, a Master’s of Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in Social Science from Michigan State. He has been at USF since 1980.

Dr. Balfour is married to Dr. Susan Zucker. He likes cats, country music, and cars. He plays racquetball and was a member of the national champion age group slowpitch softball team in 2006.

Nagwa Dajani

Assistant professor of pediatrics, and of medical microbiology and immunology.  She earned her medical degree from Cairo University with honors, and then completed her Ph.D. from the University of South Florida, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology with distinction.  She was trained with the world-renowned immunology pioneer, Dr. Robert A. Good as a graduate student then as a postdoctoral fellow. Her research in the field of bone marrow transplantation was supported by fellowship and grants from the American Heart Association. Her publications and current research interests are in the fields of stem cell biology and therapy for autoimmune diseases. 

Dell DeChant

Dell deChant is an Instructor and director of the undergraduate program in Religious Studies at the University of South Florida. He also serves as the Associate Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.

deChant has received two undergraduate teaching awards and two undergraduate advising awards.  During his service as director of the undergraduate program in Religious Studies, the number of majors in the department as grown from about 30 to nearly 200 -- making it one of the larger religious studies programs at public universities.

He has developed courses on Introduction to World Religions, Religion and Popular Culture, Religion and American Holidays, and Religion and Contemporary American Sports.

He has published more than 30 articles in professional journals and encyclopedias, and contributed chapters to eight books.  He has also presented over 30 papers or responses at professional conferences.  

DeChant is the author of The Sacred Santa: Religious Dimensions of Consumer Culture (Pilgrim Press, 2002), Religion and Culture In The West: A Primer(Kendal/Hunt, 2008), and co-author (with Darrell Fasching, also of USF) of Comparative Religious Ethics: A Narrative Approach (Backwell, 2000).

Emanuel Donchin

Emanuel Donchin received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965. Between 1965 and 1968 he was a research associate at Stanford's Department of Neurology and at the Neurobiology Branch at NASA-Ames Research Center. In 1968 he joined the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign as an Associate Professor. He remained at the UIUC till 2001, serving as head of the department between 1980 and 1994. He is currently a Professor Emeritus at the UIUC and a professor and Department Chair in the University of South Florida Department of Psychology. His field of professional interest is cognitive psychophysiology.

Michael Dow

Michael Dow is a Professor in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University. He also has a graduate minor in research design and statistics. Dr. Dow is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and was previously Associate Editor of Behavior Therapy.

Dr. Dow is interested in applied clinical research including outcome evaluation. He is also interested in social service programs designed to help low income people become self-sufficient, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI). He was the Principal Investigator of the Florida mental health and substance abuse state outcomes project and is involved in several projects with Hillsborough County Dept. of Health and Social Services. Other current work includes developing procedures for risk-adjusting outcomes data and a follow-up study on evaluating procedures for SSI determination. Dr. Dow is a Florida licensed psychologist.

Johnny El-Rady

Johnny El-Rady is an instructor in the Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology (CMMB) at the University of South Florida. He received his bachelor's degree in biology in 1988 from the American University of Beirut and his doctorate in molecular biology in 1996 from the University of Southern Mississippi. He teaches the following courses for CMMB: The Biology of Humans (BSC 1020); General Microbiology (MCB 3020C); General Genetics (PCB 3063); Public Health and Pathogenic Microbiology (MCB 5206); and Medical Mycology (MCB 5815). He also teaches the Major Works/Major Issues (IDH 4000) seminar course in the Honors College. He is proud of his multiple year nominations in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. He is prouder still of being voted one of the best five undergraduate teachers at USF in a 2004 survey of 1200 seniors, and of being nominated for the 2007 and 2008 US Professor of The Year award. He speaks fluent French and Arabic, and enjoys chess (a former Florida State Champion), soccer (a former All-District in Lebanon), and trivia (many appearances on quiz shows in Lebanon). He is married to Rosalie Reyes El-Rady, a nurse practitioner at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa. They have two boys—Tony (8 years) and Ziad (5 years)—who are the reasons he is the most proud.

Maria Esformes

Dr. Maria Esformes received her M.A. degree from the University of Washington (Seattle) and a Ph.D. from University of Colorado (Boulder). Before coming to USF, Dr. Esformes was a faculty member in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and a Mellon Fellow at Harvard University. While at Harvard she taught in the Department of Folklore and Mythology. Most recently she was a Visiting Scholar at Oxford University (England) where she did research and lectured in the Oxford University Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Dr. Esformes is the recipient of two Senior Fulbright Lecturer and Scholar awards. As a Fulbright scholar she has taught and done research at the University of Athens (Greece) and at the University of Granada (Spain). She also taught in Florence, Italy and has received various teaching awards while at USF. She received two Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards and two TIP awards (Teaching Incentive Program Award for Excellence in Teaching.)

Dr. Esformes has published extensively on various aspects of Sephardic Studies with an emphasis on the history, literature and folklore of the Greek Sephardim. She speaks fluent Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), Spanish, and Modern Greek. Her most recent publications include detailed studies of contemporary Judeo-Spanish poetry, the literature of Albert Cohen, the autobiography of Elias Canetti, Sephardi folktales, and various other topics on the history and culture of the Sephardim. She has received various research grants from the University of South Florida, the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Philosophical Society, and Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

John Evans

As manager of business services for a multi-specialty group practice, he worked daily with physicians and surgeons from 18 clinical departments. His experience also includes work with single specialty practices as well as hospital and satellite based physicians.
As chief executive officer for a large eye center, he served in a medical practice with several million in sales, an Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC), and a tax-exempt research foundation.
Mr. Evans has also worked in a consulting capacity with a regional Certified Public Accounting firm.
Complementing his professional career is a master of business administration (M.B.A.) earned from Vanderbilt University and a bachelor of science (B.S.) in business administration, organizational behavior earned from the University of Illinois.

Peter Fabri

Peter J. Fabri MD,PhD is Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, Professor of Surgery and Professor of Industrial engineering at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Loyola University School of Medicine and holds an appointment as Adjunct Professor of Surgery at Northwestern. He trained in General Surgery and Surgical Oncology at the Ohio State University and did a fellowship in gastroenterology at the University of Florida. He is currently the Director of the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at the James A. Haley VA Hospital and the Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and the Designated Institutional Official to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education at USF. He has authored over 150 peer reviewed articles as well as book chapters and abstracts. Dr. Fabri has been actively involved in the areas of biostatistics, medical informatics, competency based education, and adult learning principles and the emerging field of Health system engineering.

Silvia Fiore

Education: Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh; Post-doctoral work, Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy; Fulbright Research Fellow, University of Rome.

Research and Publications: Professor Fiore has published four books, numerous refereed articles and book chapters in English and Italian, and has presented over 200 papers at scholarly conferences worldwide. She has received several grants and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Humanities award for $65,000 for her work on Niccolo Machiavelli. Currently she is writing on the education of women in the Italian Courts, Machiavelli's use of imagination, the humanities in contemporary society, and the concept of genius in the early modern period.

Teaching: Professor Fiore specializes in classical, medieval, and early modern comparative and interdisciplinary literary studies. She has received several teaching awards from the State of Florida and USF as well as the Professorial Excellence Program Award in recognition for her accomplishments.

Sondra J. Fogel

My research interests include identifying and evaluating interventions to eradicate issues related to poverty and homelessness that occur over the life-span, community-building strategies in low-income areas, housing policy, and mitigation evidence and its influence in capital punishment decisions. Prior to my academic career, I worked with the Department of Defense overseas in Germany. During this period, I worked as a social worker and program manager helping military families who were at-risk or involved in domestic violence and/or child abuse. I later directed the base Army Community Service department and oversaw the operations of 11 service programs while continuing to provide social work services to military families. In the Honors College, I teach courses on Homelessness and Poverty. I also work with students on their Honor Thesis Projects.

C. David Frankel

C. David Frankel serves as the assistant director for the theatre program at the University of South Florida. Prior to coming to USF, he taught and directed for ten years at Saint Leo College (now University) in Pasco County. His directing credits at these institutions include (among others) St. Nicholas, "Women and Wallace", Boys' Life, Closer Than Ever, The Miser, The House of Blue Leaves, Jesus Christ Superstar, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Our Town, ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, and, most recently, The Glass Menagerie. He has also directed professionally in the Tampa Bay area, including productions of “Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You,” Aunt Dan and Lemon, No Exit, The Foreigner, Look Back in Anger and The Underpants. He directed Jeff Whipple’s The Meat Bush for the Florida Playwrights’ Process and Pellingham Bridge and Elvis’s UFO Diet as staged readings at the Gorilla Theatre. He also directed “Pier Pressure,” “The Cross and the Lamp,” and “Decension” for the Young Dramatists Project at the Gorilla Theatre. During the last year, he has performed in Bach at Leipzig, An Oak Tree, and Six Degrees of Separation, as well as the one-man play about Yogi Berra, Nobody Don’t Like Yogi. He has delivered papers or participated in panels on A Doll House, Dark Ride, The Misanthrope, Fantasio, performance ethnography, theatre pedagogy, technology in theatre studies, and theatre and interdisciplinarity. David earned an MFA in Directing from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Charles Guignon

Charles Guignon did his graduate work at the University of Heidelberg(under Hans-Georg Gadamer) and at the University of California, Berkeley (under Hubert Dreyfus), where he received his Ph.D.  He taught at The University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University and the University of Vermont before becoming professor of philosophy at the University of South Florida in 2001.  He is the author of Heidegger and the Problem of Knowledge and On Being Authentic and co-author of Re-envisioning Psychology.  In addition, he edited The Cambridge Companion to Heidegger, The Good Life, The Existentialists, and Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor”, and he co-edited Existentialism: Basic Writings, and Richard Rorty for the Cambridge University Press “Philosophy in Focus” series.  His primary area of interest is hermeneutics: drawing on the hermeneutic tradition.

Amal Hakki

Dr. Hakki has an M.D. background, specializing in OB/GYN and earned a masters in clinical pathology with a major in Immunology. This background shaped up a career as a researcher in various medical disciplines. Added to that, post experience training in advanced immunology, sports medicine, pain management, homeopathy and herbal medicine helped in exploring on multi levels conduct that involved, but not limited to, vast number of novel research projects.

Rick Oches

My research and teaching interests center on the reconstruction of past climates and the human and environmental response to climate changes in different regions of the world. I focus mainly on land-based records of the Quaternary Period, which extends from about 2 million years ago to the present. This period of recent Earth history includes the climate oscillations associated with repeated glacial-interglacial cycles and is marked by the evolution of modern humans and complex societies, as well as our ability to alter Earth’s environments at rates that are unprecedented in Earth history.

As part of my integrated research-teaching effort, I co-direct (with Peter Harries) an NSF-funded REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) site at USF, where students conduct field and laboratory investigations reconstructing marine environments and sea-level history of the last several million years using Florida’s rich sedimentary and paleontological record.

In the Honors College, I teach a section of IDH 3350 – Honors Natural Science. In that class we explore the geologic record of natural climate variability, study indicators of changing climate over the last century and examine the role of humans as an agent of climate change, and examine predictions for regional and global climate shifts under various global warming scenarios.

John Omlor

John Omlor was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He played in his high school marching band and in a New Jersey drum and bugle corps before he went off to college in Florida. He attended the University of Tampa as an undergraduate in the late 1970’s, where he majored in English and philosophy and minored in drama and creative writing. Afterwards, he did graduate work in both philosophy and literature and finally received his Ph.D. from USF in 1991 in English, specializing in 19th and 20th century literature, critical theory, and film. He teaches Acquisition of Knowledge and Arts and humanities courses for Honor, in addition to Honors freshman English. He tries never to teach the same course the same way twice. Honors has been a source of great pride and honest joy for him.

Susan Pross

The research in which I am currently involved emphasizes the development of the immune response. Various parameters of immunity are compared using very young, adult and aged mice. The specific area within developmental immunity that is being focused on is the effect of a drug of abuse, marijuana, on the aging animal. In this regard, THC is given in vitro to cells of mice of differing ages in order to characterize the immunomodulation effect of this drug on immune systems which vary greatly according to age.

William Rowe

Doctor Rowe is Professor and Director of the School Social Work at The University of South Florida. He holds appointments in the College of Public Health, the Aids Education and Training Center, and the Moffitt Cancer Center. He is formerly Director of the Center for Applied Family Studies and Director and Professor of the Schools of Social Work at McGill University and Memorial University and originally tenured at the University of Western Ontario.

Dr. Rowe has worked extensively in the fields of social work education, child welfare, corrections, Health and HIV. He has provided training and lectures at agencies and universities throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.

During his 30 years as a social work educator Dr. Rowe has edited and authored more than 130 scholarly and professional books, articles, monographs, and research papers on a variety of topics. He serves on the editorial board of a number of academic and professional journals including the Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work and is co-editor of Best Practices in Mental Health: an International Journal.

Jeffrey Ryan

JEFFREY G. RYAN
Professor
Assistant Chair,
Geology Department
B.S. Western Carolina University, 1983
Ph.D. Columbia University, 1989
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
Geochemistry and Petrology of Subduction Zones, Modern and Ancient
Geochemical Evolution of the Earth's Mantle
Petrogenesis of Ultramafic Rocks
Appalachian Geology and Tectonics
Meteoritic/Planetary Geochemistry
Geoscience Education

David Schenck

David P. Schenck received his BA from Ripon College (1964) in biology, his MA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1968) in French, and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University (1971) in medieval French epic poetry. He has been at USF since 1974, first as a professor of French. But in 1980 his interests began to turn to the field of biomedical ethics. He has received training in that field from the University of Virginia (1986) and from Georgetown University's Kennedy Institute of Ethics and Center For Clinical Bioethics (1993-2002). He is today Professor of English where his interests continue to be of an eclectic nature. He currently teaches half-time in world literature and half-time in biomedical ethics. His teaching in biomedical ethics includes courses in 'Spirituality and Medicine' in the Department of Religious Studies and an Honors seminar in 'Biomedical Ethics' in the Honors College. Dr. Schenck provides service to the medical community, serving on the ethics committees of both St. Joseph's Hospital and the James A. Haley Veterans' Administration Hospital. He also has a joint appointment in the USF Department of Otolaryngology's Head and Neck Surgery Program where he serves as that department's ethicist. His research interests in bioethics include communication issues between head and neck surgeons and their terminal patients as well as health disparities in the field of oral cancer. In 2005 he was the Principal Investigator on a study of oral cancer in migrant farm workers in eastern Hillsborough County, along with Tapan A. Padhya, M.D. of the Department of Otolaryngology's Head and Neck Surgery Program. They will continue their work in this challenging field in an effort to develop an intervention program designed to reduce risky behaviors that may cause oral cancers in this disadvantaged population.

Michael Scionti

Sworn as a State Prosecutor for the State of Florida in 1996, Representative Michael Scionti spent the next several years “fighting for those who could not fight for themselves”. He began his prosecutorial career serving as an Assistant Attorney General He later became a staunch advocate for victims in criminal courtrooms across Florida, where he served both as an Assistant State Attorney and Assistant Statewide Prosecutor successfully prosecuting violent felony offenders and drug traffickers, as well as white-collar corruption and organized crime.

Commissioned as an Officer in United States Army Reserve in 2000, Representative Scionti graduated from the Army’s Military Justice and Military Intelligence Academies. As an Army Judge Advocate and Intelligence Officer, he served two combat tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, respectively, and returned home a decorated war veteran receiving the Bronze Star Medal for his proven leadership during ground combat operations. He presided over military commissioned war tribunals and internment hearings as a Military Magistrate on Iraq’s Combined Joint Task Force, assisted in the reconstitution of the Ministry of Justice as a Foreign Legal Advisor on Iraq’s Judicial Assessment Task Force, and disseminated tactical and operational intelligence to National and Foreign National Intelligence Agencies as a Foreign Disclosure Officer on Afghanistan’s International Security Assistance and Global Counter-Terrorism Task Forces.

Elected as the State Representative for Legislative District 58 to the Florida House of Representatives in 2006 and re-elected to a second term in 2008, Representative Scionti successfully advocates on behalf of his constituents and, in bipartisan fashion, works closely with his colleagues to advance sound economic policy and development, promote economic growth and opportunity, and protect public safety and security. He currently serves on Florida’s Commission on Capital Cases and on various House Councils and Committees to include the Criminal and Civil Justice Policy Council, Government Finance and Tax Policy Council, Government Policy Council, Strategic and Economic Planning Policy Council, Joint Legislative Sunset Review Policy Committee, Economic Development Policy Committee, and as the Ranking Member on the Judiciary and Courts Policy Committee, while previously serving on Florida’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Policy Council, Government Efficiency and Accountability Policy Council, Government Infrastructure Policy Committee, Joint Legislative Government Tax Relief and Reform Policy Committee, and as the Ranking Member on the Military and Veterans’ Affairs Policy Committee

Steven Specter

Dr. Specter received his BA in Biology (1969) and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology (1975) from Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.  He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Albert Einstein Medical Center, Philadelphia, in Experimental Immunology and then served as Director of Clinical Virology at the same institution.  Dr. Specter joined the faculty of the University of South Florida College of Medicine in 1979 as Assistant Professor of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.  He became a Professor in 1991.  Dr. Specter was appointed Co-Director of Curriculum and Medical Education in July, 1997, then Associate Dean for Pre-Clinical Education in 1998, he was appointed Associate Dean for Student Affairs in May, 2001 and for Admissions in 2002.  He established the Annual Clinical Virology Symposium in 1985 and continues to Chair this internationally renowned conference.  He has served as Chair of the Clinical Immunology Division of the American Society for Microbiology, was Editor-in-Chief of the Cumitech series for the American Society for Microbiology, was President of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology, and is President of the Florida Branch of the American Society for Microbiology.  His research spanned the fields of retrovirus induced immune deficiency and effects of abused drugs on the immune system.  He is the author of more than 175 original scientific publications, review articles and book chapters and has edited a dozen books.  Dr. Specter’s awards include 2 outstanding teaching awards (1991, 1996), the Theodore and Vanette Askonas-Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award by the University of South Florida in 1997,, a Professorial Excellence Program award in 1998, and the PASCV Diagnostic Virology Award (2004).    Dr. Specter received an Award from CDC as Principal Investigator for a project on Capacity Building Assistance for Global HIV/AIDS Microbiology Laboratory Program Development in September 2005.

Joel Strom

Biosketch: Joel A. Strom, M.D. received his B.S. (1965) and M.Eng. (1966) in Engineering Physics from Cornell University and his M.D. degree from S.U.N.Y Upstate Medical Center (1970). He trained in Internal Medicine at the State University Hospital, Syracuse, N.Y., and in Cardiovascular Diseases at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In between his fellowship training, he was a Research Medical Officer at the School of Aerospace Medicine, Brooks AFB, TX. He then joined the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he was Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Radiology and Director of the Cardiac Noninvasive Laboratory of the Jack D. Weiler Hospital Division of the Montefiore Medical Center. In 1998, he was appointed Chief of Cardiology at the Brookdale Hospital and Medical Center and Professor of Medicine at the Health Science Center, Brooklyn. In 2000, he was appointed Professor of Medicine and Radiology and Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease, its fellowship program, and its clinical trials unit at the University of South Florida. He also initiated the program in cardiovascular engineering at USF, and he is currently Professor of Medicine, Chemical Engineering, and Honors College at USF and Visiting Professor of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He directs over $3.3M in extramural funding.  He also serves as co-chair of the committee overseeing the regionalization of STEMI care in Hillsborough County and he is also a member of the Florida AHA STEMI Task Force. Dr. Strom is an internationally recognized expert in echocardiography, valvular heart disease, and cardiovascular engineering and is author or coauthor of over 290 journal articles and published abstracts.

Wade Weast

Bringing a wide range of experience in various areas of the music industry, Dr. Wade Weast became the Director of the School of Music at the University of South Florida in July 2003. He holds a doctorate from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a master of music from the Manhattan School of Music, with additional study at the Tanglewood Institute and Columbia University. While living in New York City, he performed regularly with the New Haven Symphony, New York City Opera, American Symphony Orchestra, and on Broadway. Upon accepting the professor of trumpet position at the State University of New York at Fredonia, where he taught for ten years, he performed regularly with the Chautauqua Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Buffalo Philharmonic Brass Quintet. A champion of new music, Dr. Weast has performed and recorded with the National Orchestral Association New Music Project, New Jersey Composers Guild, June in Buffalo, and as a soloist has received praise for his performance of Ralph Shapey’s Concertante for Trumpet and Ten Players by the New York Times. As a collaborative musician, he has performed with a diverse group of artists including the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, New York City Ballet, Natalie Cole, and the rock group YES. As a soloist, Dr. Weast has performed throughout the United States and in Europe with his trumpet-organ duo ensemble, Baroque Consort, and received praise for his performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #2 at the Bach and Beyond Festival. Having grown up with the tradition of the wind band, he was a member of the cornet section of the Goldman Memorial Band in New York City, and remains active with Keith Brion’s New Sousa Band, a group committed to the period performances of early band works.

Inge Wefes

In the USA alone more than 4.5 million people are suffering from Alzheimer's disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that occurs primarily in older people. Since Alois Alzheimer described the pathological hallmarks of the disease for the first time in 1906, research has provided many insights into causes and mechanisms that might lead to the severe memory loss that represents the primary clinical symptom of Alzheimer's disease. However, a prevention and cure of Alzheimer's disease have still not been found yet. Dr. Wefes' research involves the identification of neuroprotective agents and mechanisms and the analysis of inhibitors of neurotoxicity to combat the disease.

Specifically, Dr. Wefes is overseeing projects to determine the role of cholesterol and the LDL receptor, inflammation, and amyloid promoting proteins in the development of pathology in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. In addition, she is developing means to intervene in the pathology and cognitive decline in AD mice by introducing new preventive drugs directly into the brains.

Dr. Wefes is also involved in teaching and graduate program development. In this function, she has designed the Ph.D-PLUS Program and initiated and spearheaded the development of three new Master's Programs in the USF College of Medicine, i.e. the Master's programs in Bioethics & Medical Humanities, in Bioinformatics & Computational Biology, and in Biotechnology. She now serves as director of the Biotechnology Master's Program.

Dr. Sheila C. Woodward is Visiting Professor at the Honors College of the University of South Florida, teaching distance learning classes, one on South Africa and another on global issues in racism. She is Chair of Music Education at the University of Southern California. She is a native of South Africa and earned her Ph. D. in music education from the University of Cape Town in 1993 and a Performer’s Licentiate in Organ from the London Royal School of Music. Dr. Woodward served two terms on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) from 2004 - 2008. She served on the ISME Early Childhood Music Education Commission from 1996 – 1998, four of those years as the chair, and on numerous other professional boards in both the USA and South Africa. Dr. Woodward’s research focus is Music and Wellbeing. She explores this from before birth to adulthood, with studies on the fetus and neonate, the premature infant, the young child, at risk youth, the juvenile offender and the adult musician. She has published numerous articles, in addition to chapters in Elliott’s Praxial Music Education: Reflections and Dialogues (Oxford, 2005) and in Malloch and Trevarthen’s Communicative musicality: Narratives of expressive gesture and being human (Oxford, 2009). She has won grants to bring numerous South African musicians to the USA to work alongside American students and faculty.