By (October 28, 2008)
New Faculty Highlighted
New UAlbany assistant professor of psychology Ewan McNay, holding a kestrel, has studied falconry in addition to his neurosciences research. (Photo courtesy Ewan McNay) |
Jamie Fader, who has joined UAlbany's School of Criminal Justice, studies youth incarceration, prisoners re-entering society, and the collateral consequences of mass imprisonment. She is concluding a study of young, black men returning to Philadelphia from a juvenile correctional facility designed to address �criminal thinking errors.� Her project has documented the lives of the men for more than three years as they navigated the dual transition from confinement to community and adolescence into young adulthood.
"Imprisonment among poor black men has become so widespread that it has become a standard stage of the transition to adulthood, even more common than completing high school and getting married," said Fader. "Although we are quick to lock offenders up, we must realize that most will return to their communities someday. Incarceration diminishes their opportunities to become productive citizens by weakening their ties to family members and making it even more difficult to find steady employment."
Ewan McNay joined the Department of Psychology this fall as a new faculty member in Behavioral Neuroscience. His lab is housed in the new Life Sciences Research Building. McNay brings with him a $1.4 million NIH grant studying diabetes and memory. The grant runs through 2012, and funds McNay's investigation into how insulin affects the brain. In particular, he is focusing on a role for insulin in modulation of cognitive processes within the hippocampus, a key brain region for learning and memory. His research will also contribute to society's understanding of why patients who have Type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
"Our work has shown that insulin � long known to be a key regulator of whole-body glucose metabolism � also plays a vital role in regulation of cognitive processes within the brain," said McNay. "Moreover, patients with Type 2 diabetes, which has roughly 200 million patients worldwide right now, a number that's increasing � may also have lowered cognitive ability because of impaired insulin signaling in the brain. Still worse, this also leads directly to the development of Alzheimer's disease." McNay was assistant professor in Neuroendocrinology at Yale before joining UAlbany.
Sheila Curran Bernard holds a joint appointment as associate director of the Documentary Studies Program, where she is based in the Department of History, and director of media programs at the New York State Writers Institute (NYSWI). Bernard is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and consultant, and the author of two popular texts, Documentary Storytelling and Archival Storytelling (with Kenn Rabin), both for Focal Press/Elsevier. She specializes in nonfiction media storytelling -- from museum installations to Imax films and multi-part PBS series -- and has created and/or overseen the production of media projects for a range of clients.
Sheila Curran Bernard, an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and consultant, has joined the University at Albany. |
Spring 2008:
� Rosemary Armao, Assistant Professor, Communication/Journalism Center for Investigative Reporting
� Kristie Asaro, Visiting Assistant Professor, Educational & Counseling Psychology, University at Albany
� Michael Bloom, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Center for Health and Preventive Medicine
� Pinka Chatterji, Assistant Professor, Economics, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard
� John Elter, Professor, Nanoscale Science & Engineering, Plug Power, Inc.
� Samantha Friedman, Associate Professor, Sociology, Northeastern University
� Makoto Hirayama, Research Professor, Nanoscale Science & Engineering, Tokyo Electron
� Norma Tavakoli, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, New York State Department of Health
� Martin Tenniswood, Empire Innovation Professor, Biomedical Sciences, University of Notre Dame
� Mathias Vuille, Assistant Professor, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
� Wei Wang, Assistant Professor, Nanoscale Science & Engineering, Indiana University-Purdue University
� Jo Ellen Welsh, Empire Innovation Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, University of Notre Dame
� Mark Wolfe, Senior Assistant Librarian, Libraries, Digital Collections, Albany Medical College
� Recai Yucel, Assistant Professor Epidemiology & Biostatistics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst