Staff Activities

Transitions

New Employee:

• Blake Holmes, Computer Equipment Operator, Computer Operations (part-time).

No longer working in the Computing and Information Technology Center:

• Mohammad Khan, Programmer/Analyst, PeopleSoft Application Infrastructure Management.

Awards, Recognition, Publications, etc.

• Dr. Maurice Leatherbury, Associate Vice President for Computing and Chief Technology Officer, was elected Secretary of the Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN)  in March. In April, he was elected to be Chair of the North Texas Gigapop Management Council. [Also reported in InHouse]
   
• Douglas Fuller, Computer Systems Manager, Academic Computing and User Services, gave a "Science Saturday Seminar" and officiated at the National Science Bowl April 27 - May 1, 2006. The National Science Bowl is a quiz show-style science competition for high school students who win regional competitions throughout the country. It is put on by the US Department of Energy. Fuller was a contestant when he was in high school.
  
  Fuller has also been named to a review committee for Supercomputing 2006, an annual conference put on by IEEE and ACM. This year's conference will be held November 11-17 in Tampa, Florida. For more information see: http://sc06.supercomputing.org The Technical Program Committees are listed here. [Also reported in InHouse]
   
• Dr. Becky Sue Parton, Student Records Data Systems Programmer (AIS), has completed her Ph.D. in Educational Computing here at UNT and will receive her diploma in August. Her dissertation is titled Levels of Technology Implementation: A Comparison Study Between Technology-Minded General Educators and Technology-Minded Deaf Educators.
  
  Parton has published 3 articles in peer-reviewed journals and given presentations at a dozen or so conferences (mostly on the national level) while working on her doctorate. Her research focus is on technology integration for deaf students - she is especially interested in multimedia, signing avatars, and educational software. A link to her vitae is here.  

• Andrew Binovi, Helpdesk consultant (part-time), received the E.C. Buell Award for Best Comparative Politics Student from the Political Science department.
   
• Stormy Shippy, Computer Support Specialist in Telecommunications, was in New York City recently to attend the opening of the new Apple Store there. The opening garnered national media attention and since he was the first in line, he was interviewed by all major news organizations and many not-so-major news organizations.
  
  Links to some of the articles about the opening that include Stormy's story are below. Believe it or not, he was also the first person in line at the London opening in November of 2004:
  
  Articles:
  http://www.wired.com/news/culture/mac/0,70950-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
  http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/5/18/4020
  http://ifostore.cachefly.net/fifth_avenue/index.html
  http://news.com.com/2300-1047_3-6074395-11.html

Videos:
http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6074532.html
http://ifostore.cachefly.net/fifth_avenue/opening.mov

And the winner is ...

• Don McClure, Remedy Developer in Academic Computing Services, won a T-shirt prize pack. Ronnie Seay, Production Control Specialist, won meal passes to the June 7 Faculty and Staff Picnic. (InHouse prize winners from the week of May 24).