New Britain resident earns pharmacy degree
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08024
STORRS, CT — It’s not surprising that Lola Odesina would be drawn to the University of Connecticut’s School of Pharmacy: she and her sister were diagnosed with a chronic blood disorder when they were children.
“I’ve been immersed in health care settings for as long as I can remember,” says Odesina, of NEW BRITAIN. “My sister and I have sickle cell anemia, my mother is a nurse, and we’ve always been around nurses, doctors, and drugs. It’s something I find familiar and interesting.”
Odesina is graduating with a Pharm.D. degree, earned in a six-year program.
She says the program was “a great learning experience. You’re exposed to so much information about the field. The professors are passionate about the subject, want you to learn, are entertaining, and are there for you if you need help.”
During their last year of study, pharmacy students are required to do nine one-month rotations in the field.
“The rotations gave me a taste of what it would be like to be a pharmacist in different settings,” she says. “My first was in ambulatory care at St. Raphael’s Hospital in New Haven. I did another in critical care at Yale, and one in hospice care at the Connecticut Hospice in Branford. I worked with doctors, nurses, and patients.”
Odesina says she has enjoyed the “endless opportunities” offered to pharmacy students at UConn.
“Whatever area of pharmacy you’re interested in, there’s an organization you can join,” she says. “It’s great for networking and making new friends.”
Odesina was a member of Pharmacy Student Government, the Pharmacy Leadership Society (Phi Lambda Sigma), and UConn’s chapter of the American Pharmaceutical Association Academy of Student Pharmacists.
She says she enjoyed the job fairs, where pharmacists specializing in different areas come to the University. “They let you know about the opportunities in the field,” she says. “Doors are constantly being opened for you.”
Odesina, who has worked at a pharmacy in New Britain since May 2006, will be doing a one-year residency at St. Raphael’s Hospital.
Alton, IL resident earns
Doctorate in economics
Cindy Weiss, CLAS Publicity and Marketing Manager
860-486-4958
Release # 08025
STORRS-Philip Shaw of ALTON, IL, who will receive his Doctorate from the University of Connecticut in economics on May 11th, had an unusually strong outcome to his job search for an academic position.
Shaw had 18 interviews, 11 offers of trips to campuses, and six offers of tenure-track faculty positions at colleges ranging from Kenyon College – a small, private liberal arts college in Ohio – to Kansas State University, a public university with more than 23,000 students.
In the fall, he will begin teaching economics at Fairfield University, the offer he accepted in order to be close to his girlfriend and other friends in the Northeast.
Shaw said his thesis topic, educational corruption, was particularly interesting to potential employers.
He began working on it as an undergraduate economics major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, graduating in 2004. As an undergraduate, he won a Summer Undergraduate Research Fund award. He went to the Ukraine, where he found that 56 percent of students bribed their way to acceptable scores on college entrance exams.
He developed an economic model to examine what this does to economic growth and to educational institutions.
Shaw’s undergraduate and graduate adviser Christian Zimmermann, associate professor of economics, says that Shaw gathering his own data firsthand was rather unusual. “He got a research grant, and he just did it. That’s how he is,” he says.
That firsthand experience with data, and Shaw’s extensive teaching experience as a graduate student, helped him in the academic job market, Zimmermann says.
Shaw says he chose an academic career because he really enjoys teaching: “It’s something I need in my life.”
Several other Ph.D. students in economics graduating this spring have academic job offers, too: Nicholas Shunda received an offer from the University of Redlands in California, and Rasha Ahmed from Trinity College in Hartford.
The economics Ph.D. market is well organized, says Zimmermann, with centralized advertising through the American Economics Association and a national meeting where students and employers schedule interviews.
And, he adds, “Everybody is interested in the best students.”
Watertown woman ready for medical school
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Curran Kennedy
860-486-3488 (office)
Release # 08026
STORRS- Nikita Lakdawala of WATERTOWN, has combined experience with academics at the University of Connecticut through a double major in molecular and cell biology and an individualized major that she created, health care and social inequality.
A graduate of Watertown High School, at UConn she has studied abroad in London; volunteered to serve the homeless and hungry in Boston, New York, and Willimantic; and worked with the underprivileged in soup kitchens and farm fields.
“Even though it’s such a large school, I’ve been able to get involved in community service programs,” says Lakdawala, who will graduated May 11th.
Lakdawala’s community involvement has given her a new perspective, she says: “It’s not the same thing to read about something in a textbook as it is to see it firsthand.”
That’s why Lakdawala decided to organize her senior thesis around her volunteer work in Willimantic, where she has observed acute care and given health talks to the underprivileged.
“Barriers to health care access and discrepancies between the poor and rich are big issues that need to be tackled,” she says.
Ambition to reform U.S. health care led Lakdawala to London for a semester, where she visited hospitals and interviewed doctors.
“I think medicine now involves both medical and social aspects and it’s more important now than ever to understand how these work together,” she says.
“Studying abroad allowed me to compare two different health care systems and see how they operate,” she adds.
“With med school on the horizon, this understanding is important for me.”
Next fall, she will begin studying for a medical degree at the UConn School of Medicine in Farmington.
Higganum resident earns civil and environmental engineering degree
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08027
STORRS, CT- When Nathaniel “Nate” Bergan, of Higganum, took his first engineering course at the University of Connecticut, he was hooked.
“The class was about the basic mechanics of engineering,” he says, “and it really made me say, ‘wow!’”
Bergan will graduate May 11 with a bachelor’s degree in civil and environmental engineering. He says engineering is a good fit. “I’ve always had a strong interest in construction and buildings,” he says.
“My father is a land surveyor, so I’ve been around construction sites, bulldozers, and dirt all my life. What I find interesting is learning the mechanics of everything and applying all the mathematics I’ve learned, and seeing how it works in design and construction.”
Bergan got to put some of his school work into practice during Thanksgiving break last year, when he and two other UConn engineering students traveled to Nicaragua as part of the UConn chapter of Engineers Without Borders, a non-profit humanitarian organization that partners with people in developing communities to improve their quality of life.
The trip was to assess how to stabilize a key access road near Granada that is rendered impassable during the country’s rainy season.
He and his team came up with a project application outlining all the details; it was just sent to the Engineers Without Borders headquarters for assessment.
A member of Chi Epsilon, the civil engineering honor society, Bergan is also secretary of the UConn chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
This summer, he will work on a UConn environmental engineering research project in Ethiopia, where he will collect rainfall data and investigate possible dam sites on the Blue Nile River.
After graduation, Bergan will head to Columbia University to earn a master’s degree in civil engineering.
“After that, I want to do structural design and be involved in projects that will affect a lot of people,” he says. “Civil engineering affects the world. It’s about what we use every day.”
Thompson, Connecticut student in love with art
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08031
STORRS, Conn. - Her first drawing class at UConn clinched May Babcock’s decision to major in art.
“It was my first studio class, and I really loved it,” says Babcock, of THOMPSON, who will graduate in May with a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking.
“The professor was exciting; the students were excited. We were all into it, and doing well.”
So she put her plans aside to major in art history, opting instead to take that as a minor.
“Right now, I’m taking 18th-century European art, and I’m really enjoying it,” she says.
Babcock says that landscapes and figures are the subjects of her paintings and prints. “I work a lot from observation,” she says. She is creating monotypes and lithographs.
Her studio classes are time-consuming, but that hasn’t prevented her from earning a 3.9 grade point average (on a 4.0 scale), she says: “I try to do my best in each class I take.”
She says the studio classes take a lot of extra energy, “but I love the end product.”
Babcock has enjoyed, and been inspired by, students and professors in the art department’s print shop. “Everybody there works really hard and makes great work,” she says.
She notes that the art program offers opportunities to explore different areas in the field: “There is a lot of intermingling among the concentrations, like design, illustration, and photography. You don’t have to stick strictly to one. You also get to know other students and see each other’s work.”
Babcock says her professors were “very encouraging, but sometimes very hard on you. A month later, you realize that their criticism made you work even harder to do the best you can do.”
Babcock, who plans to attend graduate school at Louisiana State University, says her focus in both painting and printmaking gave her an edge when applying to grad schools. “They saw me as well rounded,” she says.
Her future plans include teaching at the college level and continuing to exhibit her work.
UConn student works to improve pre-school education
Cindy Weiss, CLAS Publicity and Marketing Manager
860-486-4958
Release # 08032
STORRS, Conn. - The debate on how to improve education for the nation’s poor has been going on for decades, but Colleen Deasy, of NORTH FALMOUTH, MA, is forging ahead with a new campaign, determined to produce results.
Deasy, a human development and family studies and English double major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, brought Jumpstart, a national organization that pairs college students with preschool children, to the University of Connecticut.
She organized 45 other student volunteers to work with pre-school youngsters from low-income families in Connecticut, helping to prepare the children for elementary school.
“Preschoolers are at a really interesting age and there’s a lot of potential to do something beneficial,” Deasy says.
“Studies have shown the importance of early intervention, so we work on language, literacy, problem solving, and social skills. We work with children whose families are living below the poverty line, because studies have shown that these children typically start school behind their more affluent peers in all of those areas.”
After graduating in May, Deasy will continue her education at Boston College Law School, where she plans to get a JD and a joint master’s degree in education.
“I’ve always liked children and what I’m doing is trying to instill my love of reading and writing in these young kids,” she says.
“I’d like to represent families with special needs and make changes to the school system so it’s more family-friendly and serves children with special needs better.”
Deasy says UConn’s Office of Community Outreach has been very supportive: “Service is very important to me and I owe a lot of my personal and professional growth to Community Outreach. The staff there inspired me to bring Jumpstart to campus, and through that I’ve learned a lot of valuable skills that have taught me the value of service.”
Michael Dessalines helps bring better nutrition to Haiti
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08033
STORRS, Conn. -Michael Dessalines, of WATERBURY, says getting an education and helping others has always been his dream.
“And thanks to UConn, my dream came true,” says Dessalines, who is graduating in May with a master’s degree in nutritional sciences. Dessalines grew up in Haiti.
“At UConn, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a department that is doing cutting-edge research,” he says. “I’m lucky to have Professor Rafael Perez-Escamilla as my major advisor and mentor. A student couldn’t ask for anyone better to work with.”
Dessalines’ research focus is on vitamin A, found in sweet potatoes, which make up an important part of the daily diet of poor Haitian families.
“Vitamin A deficiency is a real problem in Haiti,” he says.
He hopes that the International Potato Center will introduce new varieties of sweet potatoes, developed in Peru, to Haiti.
“These sweet potatoes, called orange-fleshed, have much more vitamin A than the white fleshed sweet potatoes that are grown locally,” Dessalines says.
“If they were grown in Haiti, they could help enormously in alleviating vitamin A deficiency and also help farmers develop sustainable agriculture, where they won’t have to worry about vitamin A supplements.”
He is working through a project funded by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
Dessalines went to Haiti and conducted four studies assessing the importance of sweet potatoes in the diet and nutrition of the community and the severity of food insecurity.
The surveys included information on demographics and social and economic status.
“My partial report to the international potato center in Peru revealed that there is definitely a need for these orange-fleshed sweet potatoes,” he says. They will soon be grown and propagated there.
Dessalines says he values his experiences at UConn and would recommend the institution to others “in a heartbeat.”
His future plans include pursuing a Ph.D. in public health and continuing to help alleviate food insecurity in his native country.
Alaskan student earns UConn degree
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08034
STORRS, Conn. - Zachary “Zak” Penwell, of FAIRBANKS, AK, investigated more than 200 colleges until UConn “blew me out of the water,” he says.
Penwell, who will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in exercise science, had been searching for a program that would prepare him for a career as a strength and conditioning coach.
“UConn had it all,” he says.
Penwell, who is married and has two children, came to UConn after serving more than six years in the Air Force, including deployments to Kuwait, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Before that, he studied for two years at Western Washington University.
“I knew that at some point I wanted to finish and get my degree,” he says. “When I started looking at schools, three criteria had to be met: I wanted to work with high caliber athletes, become involved in research, and work with professors who are well known in the field. Nowhere else came close to what I found here at UConn.”
Penwell says he is learning from “the best in the field,” specifically mentioning William Kramer, professor of kinesiology, and Gerard Martin, the head strength and conditioning coach in the Division of Athletics.
“The resources are incredible, on both the research side and the applied side,” says Penwell, who has worked on research projects including one about resistance training and its effect on bone mineral density. He also works with the UConn strength and conditioning staff training the baseball team, and assists with men’s and women’s track and field, ice hockey, and swimming and diving.
“I’ve had great hands-on experience,” he says.
Penwell has decided to pursue a master’s degree in kinesiology at UConn, where he has a graduate assistantship. “I’ll have a couple of teams that I’m directly responsible for,” he says.
His future goal is to work overseas. “I’d like to get a job with a Third World country’s Olympic team,” he says.
“My wife is a midwife, and we’ve both done medical missions overseas. We want to go someplace where there’s a real need. I would have my job, and we would also set up a free maternity health care clinic.”
Social work graduate wants to give back
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08036
STORRS - Daniel Melchor, of WEST HARTFORD grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Mexico City.
“My dad passed away when I was four years old, and my mother raised six children by herself,” he says.
“It wasn’t easy for us, but we were helped by a variety of government programs.”
That’s why Melchor, who will graduate May 10th with a master’s degree from the University of Connecticut’s school of social work, decided to enter the field.
“I wanted to provide service to others in the same ways that my family was helped,” he says. “Social work was the natural place for doing this.” His area of focus is administration.
Melchor, who holds a bachelor’s degree from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, took courses through the Staff Training and Education for the Profession (STEP) program for two years before matriculating in the social work master’s program. STEP offers credit courses and non-credit continuing professional education programs.
Before moving to the United States in 2003, he worked for the Mexican Association for Rural and Urban Transformation as program coordinator for a micro-credit program for people with low income.
He is currently a case manager for the Supportive Housing for Families Program at The Connection Inc., where he works with homeless people and families at risk of homelessness. In addition to his full-time job, Melchor is completing a 15-hour a week internship at the school’s Center for International Social Work Studies, and he chairs the Latin American Student Organization.
“Latin Americans in the U.S. face many issues regarding immigration, poverty, language, income, and jobs,” he says. “In the School of Social Work, there’s a big population of Latin American students who are very active.”
He says his experience as the School of Social Work has been wonderful.
“The STEP program really helped me get started and learn about graduate school in the United States,” he says. “I didn’t speak English very well, so it was hard to communicate, but the teachers and students were supportive and encouraged me to participate. And when I became a full-time student, the professors were very helpful and allowed me to go at my own speed.”
Melchor’s future plans include pursuing a doctorate related to public policy or international development.
Business student hits all the right keys
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08037
STORRS - When Marshall Dougherty, of BARKHAMSTED, took his first course in the University of Connecticut’s School of Business, he was hooked.
A management information systems major, Dougherty received this year’s Outstanding Senior Award in the Department of Operations and Information Management, and he was recently inducted into the School of Business’ 2008 Student Hall of Fame. He will graduate Sunday morning.
For his honors thesis, he designed a university information system from the student perspective.
“I looked at HuskyMail (an email system) and PeopleSoft (student records) and brainstormed ideas for how to streamline different processes like course selection,” he says. “I also suggested ways to make user interfaces more intuitive.”
Dougherty, whose GPA is 3.86, says he found his professors “very approachable. In my department, the class sizes, in general, were very small. I got to know almost all my professors on a first-name basis. They were willing to take time out of their schedule to address whatever concerns I might have.”
He adds, “Not everyone in my major came in with a lot of IT skills. The professors allowed you to learn the basics, but if you wanted to take something to the next level, they encouraged you to do that.”
Dougherty has been actively involved in campus and community activities: He has been a community assistant in North Campus for three semesters, is a member of the Business Student Leadership Council and a member of the UConn Men’s Project through the Women’s Center. He also is co-president and webmaster for the Information Management Association.
He was also a campus “big buddy” with the Office of Community Outreach, and a health education department peer educator volunteer. He belonged to the Karate and Jujutsu clubs.
“I learned as much from the extracurriculars as from my classes,” he says. “They were a vital part of my development. What makes UConn such a great place is the combination of great classroom instruction and abundant extracurricular opportunities.”
After graduation, he will join Deloitte & Touché in Hartford as a consultant in the data quality and integrity department.
Massachusetts graduate is baby booster
Sherry Fisher, Media Communications
(860) 486-0871
Release # 08038
STORRS, CT -Lynn O’Connor, of HANSON, MA., has loved being around babies for as long as she can remember. As a student at the University of Connecticut, she was able to do just that – at the UConn Health Center’s Newborn Intensive Care Nurseries (formerly known as the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or NICU).
O’Connor, who will graduate Sunday afternoon with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, helped develop an evaluation plan to assess a family support program at the Health Center.
She will graduate as an Honors Scholar.
O’Connor and two other nursing students worked on an evaluation plan to assess a part of the newborn program that offers support to parents whose babies are born prematurely. The work was done in collaboration with the March of Dimes.
Preemies in the Health Center’s NICN are there for months at a time, says O’Connor. And, while group support is offered to their parents, the new program offers parent-to-parent support, with volunteers who previously had premature babies in the NICN. The volunteers walk around the unit, and offer to talk to parents at their baby’s bedside, O’Connor says.
Her team developed an evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the parent-to-parent support program. It included questions about whether the program helped ease anxiety, fears, and stress.
“We’re still collecting data”, O’Connor says, “but so far the program is working. I think it works because it’s more personal than a group setting. Parents can be intimidated in a larger setting, and don’t want to speak up. Also, they can be right at their baby’s bedside talking to people who have experienced the same thing.”
O’Connor says the nursing program has prepared her well for the profession.
“Nursing students get a lot of experience that prepares us for the real world,” she says. “Being hands-on is the best way to learn.”
O’Connor has already landed a job working at the Health Center’s NICN as a registered nurse starting in July. She also hopes to return to UConn in the future to pursue a master’s degree with a focus on neonatal nursing.
North Haven student moves towards career in photojournalism
Karen Grava, Media Communications
(860) 486-3530
Release # 08039
STORRS - Phillis Kwentoh, of NORTH HAVEN, is intent on making her mark on the world, and she plans to do it through her photos.
Kwentoh, a journalism major with a double minor in human rights and African-American studies, will graduate this Sunday, May 11. She hopes to pursue a career in photojournalism after college, and to that end, has landed a paid internship this summer at Essence Magazine. Kwentoh came to UConn from North Haven High School.
In October 2007, Kwentoh’s work was featured in a juried art exhibit in Brooklyn, New York. Celebrity photographer Kareem Black was the exhibit’s curator. Kwentoh says the exhibit was a perfect opportunity to display her talent.
“Showcasing my photography in New York City reassured me that I do have a talent that will take me far,” she says.
Kwentoh also discovered confidence while on vacation with her family in Nigeria, her parents’ native country.
Her mother and grandmother participated in the ceremony of initiation into a women’s organization known as Otu Odu (Ivory Society). Kwentoh captured the event on camera.
She is especially proud of a photo that was taken on the second day of the ceremony.
“It’s a picture is of a group of kids watching the ceremony take place,” she says.
Kwentoh later titled this picture Nwa Ifele, which in the Igbo language spoken by her family means “shy child.” It was also the photo that Black chose for the exhibit.
“The ability to tell a story without saying a single word is what attracted me to photography,” she says.
Now she hopes to take her interests a step further.
“I want to be a human rights advocate and use my photography to show people what’s really going on in the world,” Kwentoh adds. “I want to capture powerful moments. I want people to look at my photos and say, ‘I understand what you’re saying.’”
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