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Dasgupta receives excellence in teaching international students award

Director and Professor of Data Analytics Narianjana (Jan) Dasgupta has been awarded the 2023 Yang Liu Award for Excellence in Teaching International Students.

Dasgupta is the Boeing Distinguished Professor of Science and Mathematics and professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. She also directs the Data Analytics program.

Nominator Zhiyuan (Freeman) Chen wrote, “Professor Jan is an exceptional teacher who goes above and beyond to support and engage international students in their learning.

Jan Dasgupta

“As a volunteer in four data camps led by Professor Nairanjana Dasgupta, I witnessed her deep understanding of the importance of diversity and inclusivity in teaching. …Through these camps, Professor Jan demonstrated a solid commitment to creating a welcoming environment that encourages students from diverse backgrounds to participate and engage.”

In receiving the honor, Dasgupta said, “I was an international student myself and I can relate to how strange it can be to learn, even the basics, in a different cultural environment. When I came here years ago, I remember I was bewildered, confused, and everything seemed different. I received a lot of “kindness from strangers” and my professors as I settled in. My aim is to pay that forward with my international students. My everyday life mantra is what I call “K4,” i.e. “candor, kindness and confidence and candy.” I am very open and candid with my students and strive to instill confidence in them. I try to always be kind, and if all fails, my students know I always have candy with me.”

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WSU Insider

Global Campus grad remotely attends commencement after birth of daughter

Little did Washington State University Global Campus student Chris Jose know that he would be celebrating commencement on May 6 with another milestone that very same morning: the birth of his first child.

“She wasn’t due for a couple more weeks, but she decided to come early,” said Jose, who received his Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences at the hybrid ceremony. “I guess she wanted to celebrate with us.”

Due to complications, Chris and his wife Kim checked into Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington on May 2, days before he was set to graduate. Over the course of the next four days, Kim would go through a long process of induced labor.

Finally, at 3:35 a.m. on the morning of commencement, Aaliyah-Iris Tabaquin Jose entered the world weighing seven pounds three ounces.

“We joked afterwards that she was waiting because she wanted to make a grand entrance on the day of graduation,” Chris said.

Only a few hours after the birth, Chris’ joy would be immortalized forever as he appeared live on screen at the Global Campus commencement ceremony to raucous applause. He was standing in a hospital room, proudly holding Aaliyah-Iris in his arms with a huge smile on his face. Kim, lying in the hospital bed next to him, held his diploma cover.

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WSU Insider

American Physiological Society Announces 2023 Award Recipients

The American Physiological Society (APS) is pleased to announce the recipients of the Society’s most prestigious and highly competitive awards. Awardees will be recognized for their achievements at the American Physiology Summit, APS’ flagship annual meeting, to be held April 20–23, 2023, in Long Beach, California.

Wesley Dowd.
Dowd

William Wesley Dowd, PhD, associate professor of biological sciences at Washington State University, received the John F. Perkins Jr. Research Career Enhancement Award, which allows an early-career researcher to obtain special training or an established researcher to develop new skills or retrain in areas of developing interest.

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NewsWise

Butterfly researcher Cheryl Schultz to present Distinguished Faculty Address

Cheryl Schulz.
Schulz

Cheryl Schultz helped put the Fender’s blue butterfly on the road to recovery, from a low of about 1,000 butterflies in its Oregon habitat to 20,000 to 30,000 butterflies today. It’s a rare success story of an insect that has been downlisted from endangered to threatened, made possible, she said, by science, partnerships, and time.

Schultz, a professor of conservation biology in Washington State University’s School of Biological Sciences in Vancouver, is adopting the same approach to recover migrating monarch butterflies across the western United States. In recognition of her successes, she was chosen to present WSU’s Distinguished Faculty Address on March 29, during the university’s weeklong celebration of academic achievement, Showcase.

“We need to understand the biology in the context of lands that are used for a lot of purposes,” she said. “We also need to work with people, because we’re not just protecting a species, we’re trying to balance it with the needs of people. If we’re going to recover endangered species, we’re going to have to do it with the people who are there now.”

When Schultz began studying biodiversity, the Pacific Northwest was convulsed by what people now call the spotted owl wars. Efforts to protect that threatened species were characterized as pitting timber jobs against conservation.

“Environmental issues were painted as very black and white, good or evil,” said Schultz. “Figuring out how to do something about it is not black or white, but the gray area in between.”

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Two WSU physicists named Girl Scouts Women of Distinction

Two assistant professors in the Washington State University Department of Physics and Astronomy have been named Women of Distinction by the Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho.

Vivienne Baldassare.
Baldassare

The award was presented to Vivienne Baldassare and Anya Guy for their work contributing to the region through their professional endeavors, commitment to their community, and willingness to lead. The Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho spans 29 counties covering 65,000 square miles, serving over 3,000 girls.

Before joining WSU faculty in 2020, Baldassare was a NASA Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Astronomy at Yale University, where she led the discovery of what was then the smallest known super black hole.

Anya Guy.Guy implements research-based instructional practices in undergraduate physics at WSU. She completed resident studies at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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