Solutions for Health & Community Service
From diagnosing disease to managing autism to helping communities prepare for emergencies, the University of North Texas is tackling societal challenges through faculty-led research. The University’s faculty and students are making discoveries, generating new schools of thought and finding solutions that have the power to change lives.
Responding to Emergencies
UNT’s emergency administration and planning program — which offered the first bachelor’s degree program of its kind in the U.S. — continues to be a leader in the field. UNT’s Emergency Operations Center lab opened in fall 2008, giving students hands-on experience in tracking and responding to large-scale emergency and disaster situations through simulations. Jack Rozdilsky, assistant professor of emergency administration and planning, is documenting the rebuilding of Greensburg, Kan., as a “green” town in the wake of a 2007 tornado. James Kendra, associate professor of emergency administration and planning, and Simon Andrew, assistant professor of public administration, worked with graduate students to create a behavioral health response plan for the state of Texas’ emergency operations plan. UNT also has stepped up to help in disaster situations. This fall, the campus community worked with the American Red Cross to open shelters on campus for evacuees from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
Ernest J. Moore Jr., professor and chair of speech and hearing sciences, is one of 10 million Americans suffering from tinnitus, a persistent ringing in the ears. The noted researcher is investigating multiple drug treatments and organizing a clinic for those who have tinnitus. This branch of the UNT Speech and Hearing Clinic is anticipated to open in spring 2009.
Predicting Health Disasters
How would an infectious disease spread? Thanks to UNT’s federally funded Center for Computational Epidemiology and Response Analysis, public health officials can have answers before an infectious disease outbreak. The center is creating epidemiological models to explore outbreak scenarios, building on work by a team from the areas of geography, computer science and biology at UNT and biostatistics, epidemiology and environmental and occupational health at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth. The center will train public health officials and students on how to use the models. The team already has developed working models to estimate the pattern of transmission of diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza.
Tackling Challenges
Pamela Padilla, associate professor of biological sciences, studies how nematodes respond to oxygen deprivation.
UNT researchers are creating tools to overcome challenges and improve lives as they develop training and resources for families, educators and others coping with autism, which affects about 1 percent of children in the United States. UNT’s autism research is multi-disciplinary and based in one-of-a-kind initiatives like the North Texas Autism Project, a service learning project for children with autism and their families, and Project DART (Distributed Education for Autism Personnel in Rural Texas), which allows professionals in rural Texas to earn a master’s degree online in special education with an emphasis in autism. These initiatives enhance ongoing efforts in the area of autism that support UNT’s Autism Spectrum Disorders research cluster.
Pursuing Innovation
Groundbreaking work in UNT labs is leading to advances in medicine. Pamela Padilla’s studies of how nematodes respond to oxygen deprivation could lead to a better understanding of human health conditions. Padilla, associate professor of biological sciences, and her colleagues were the first to prove that certain proteins activated during cell development protect against oxygen loss. Her work earned her the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award. And researchers in computer science and engineering — Xiaohui Yuan, Bill P. Buckles and JungHwan Oh — are working to improve the diagnostic accuracy of a tool used to detect disease in the small intestine. Yuan and Bibhudutta “Bibhu” Rout, assistant professor of physics, received 2008 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards aimed at enriching the research of young faculty.