1. The Science Scene
♦♦Cal State East Bay♦♦ ♦♦College of Science♦♦
The Newsletter of the College of Science Volume 10, Issue 2 March 2007
CSUEB Hosts Science Conference, Nobel Laureate in Attendance
On March 6th, Cal State East Bay played host to the Bay Area Worm Meeting (BAWM). Almost 150 graduate students, post doctoral researchers and professors from around the bay area flocked to the brand new presentation hall in the Valley Business and Technology Center for a daylong meeting of research talks and posters. BAWM (pronounced, “bomb”) was enjoyed by all.
What is a “Bay Area Worm Meeting”? It is a gathering of research scientists with a common bond: all value the non-parasitic, soil-dwelling roundworm, Caenorhabditis elegans, as a model
system for the study of gene func- tion (shown
is a photomicrograph of the C. elegans hermaph- rodite). This anatomically simple animal is well suited for this purpose as it is predicted to contain over 20,000 genes, 30% of which are conserved in humans! During a BAWM, the worm community (as we proudly call ourselves) typically comes to network with colleagues, present research-in- progress and learn about cool molecular and cellu- lar techniques. The BAWM held March 6th on the Hayward Campus was no exception. There were twelve 20-minute talks scheduled from 10:30 AM to 4:00 PM with two breaks: one for lunch, the other for afternoon tea. Following the oral presen- tations, many meeting participants stayed for a lively poster session held from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM.
The research presentations were remarkably diverse. One highlight: Kevin Drace, a graduate student from Creg Darby’s lab at UCSF, described his discovery of a C. elegans mutant that is resis-tant to biofilm formation and attachment by Yersinia pestis. Y. pestis is the same dreaded bac-teria that cause the bubonic plague. Without biofilm formation and attachment in the flea, Yersinia pestis cannot be transmitted to humans. By using C. elegans, a genetically tractable ani-
Bay Area scientists peruse research posters in the “Gallery” of the Valley Business and Technology Center.

2. Nursing Faculty Honored
their pioneering work in the field of RNA interference (RNAi). Of course we were thrilled for Andy and Craig and the attention paid to C. elegans research, but we also wor- ried that he would no longer be available to speak at such a small meeting as BAWM. Thankfully, he agreed and perhaps more im- portantly, he predicts C. elegans will remain a viable model system well into the future!
Finally, hosting BAWM at CSUEB was only possible through the hard work of many enthusiastic volunteers. My colleague and friend, Noelle L’etoile, assistant professor from UC Davis originally conceived the idea then helped me organize it from start to finish. Invitrogen Corporation provided financial support. Charlene Lebastchi and Andy Dob- bin from the College of Science office and student volunteers Shaily Aurora, George Sakaldasis and Boshika Tara lent a hand wherever needed. And finally, this meeting could not have been a success without an overwhelming number of participants who drove from as far away as UC Santa Cruz to the south and UC Davis to the north. I asked one Stanford professor why he took time out from his busy schedule to visit CSUEB for a C. elegans meeting. He reflected that he missed the small, intimate meetings that seem to come from a bygone era. Also overheard were positive comments about the presenta- tion hall, the campus and the abundant park- ing. I hope to lure everyone back in future years!
-- Maria Gallegos (Assistant Professor, Bio- logical Sciences)
One of the 12 talks at the BAWM in the presentation room at the Valley Business and Technology Center.
mal, the Darby lab aims to understand how biofilms form in general, with the hope that this research will inform our understanding of biofilm formation in fleas and other organ- isms such as ourselves. We also learned about genes that function in the process of innate immunity, plant-nematode interactions, meio- sis, asymmetric cell division and cell migra- tion. We even heard about a gene required specifically for swimming behavior (yes,
worms can swim).
Another high-
light of the meet-ing came right before lunch when Stanford University’s Dr. Andy Fire talked more broadly on the future of the worm field. When we origi- nally thought to invite Andy Fire to speak (early Fall, 2006) we had no idea that he and Dr. Craig Mello would
Nursing Faculty Honored
soon be Nobel Prize Winner, Andrew The Nu Xi at Large Chapter of Sigma
Nobel Prize in tion at the last minute. ety honored three CSUEB faculty at the bien-
medicine for (Continued on page 3)

3. Science Festival 2007 at Cal State East Bay
nial Hall of Fame Event held at Holy Names University in January Nursing Depart- ment Chairperson, Carolyn Fong, Ph.D., RN, received the Excellence in Nursing Leader- ship Award for her role in the development and funding of the BSN nursing program at the CSUEB Concord campus, as well as life- time achievement in nursing.
Teri Gorman, MS, RN, Associate Profes-sor, received an award for Excellence in Nurs-ing Education for 25 years as an outstanding teacher and mentor to undergraduate nursing students and role model for developing fac-ulty.
Former lecturer, Kathy Gray, MS, RN, currently a nurse educator at Kaiser Hospital in Oakland, also received an Excellence in Education award for her work in teaching new nurses the skills needed in specialized neona-tal care, as well as previous work in clinical education with student nurses.
On hand to congratulate the CSUEB awardees were former nursing department chairs, Martha Auvenshine, EdD, RN, and Brenda Bailey, DNSc, RN as well as College of Science Dean, Michael Leung.
Bachelor's Plus Early Pathway
For the past year, a team led by Jason Singley (Physics) and Catherine Reed (Teacher Education) have been developing a new pathway for students interested in a ca- reer in teaching. The Bachelor's Plus Early Pathway allows students to earn a single sub- ject credential and BA degree in four years, instead of the usual five. Students are able to work concurrently on their undergraduate de- gree coursework and their credential program. In order to complete this accelerated program, students must attend two summer quarters. The creation of this program was inspired by a CSU wide mandate to double the number of math and science credentials awarded each year. This program has the potential to make Cal State East Bay a center of excellence for training the next generation of California math and science high school teachers. Appli- cations are currently being accepted for the first cohort which will begin this summer. More information can be found at
Science Festival 2007 at Cal State East Bay
The College of Science will be buzzing with activity on Saturday, April 21st when we will host Science Festival All of our departments will be presenting hands-on activities, demonstra-tions, and exhibits. The biennial (every two years) event has been a tradition since We invite the local community to visit our campus, meet our professors and students, and see what we are up to at the College of Science. We will feature over 60 different activities and events in both Science Buildings, and at our new neighboring building, the Valley Business and Technol-ogy Center. We also will be hosting outside exhibitors: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Chabot Space and Science Center, the Eastbay Astronomical Society, the Stanford Solar Center, the Sulphur Creek Nature Center, the Computer History Museum, the Vintage Computer Festival, and PG&E.
At the last Science Festival we estimated the crowd at over 3,000 visitors and we are ex-pecting a similar or bigger crowd this time. For more information, call the College of Science or visit our webpage at 3

4. HEAT Screens Global Warming Film
On Tuesday January 30th, the Hayward Environmental Awareness Team (HEAT), led by senior undergraduate student Cynthia Patty (BS student in Environmental Science), with key organizational help from Susan Opp (Biological Sciences), held two screenings of “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore's Academy Award winning documentary about global warming. The first screening began at 4:30 PM and the second screening began at 7:30 PM
with a Question and Answer Session held in between the two showings.
HEAT arranged to have several CSUEB experts serve on the Q&A panel including Jeff Seitz (Earth and Environmental Sciences) and Erica Wildy (Biological Sciences), with Dan Miller, a renowned local green business-man and community leader, serving as the moderator. The event was held in the audito- rium of the new Valley Business and Technol- ogy Center and well over 100 people attended the event.
Super Sunday II
On Sunday, February 18, 2007, dozens of CSUEB faculty, staff and students participated in the second annual Super Sunday. The event was organized by Sonjia Redmond, Vice President of Stu- dent Affairs and her staff. As part of this event, volunteer CSUEB faculty, staff and students visited 14 churches in Hayward and Oakland.
The purpose of the visits was to talk with African American students and their families and friends about preparing for college. The volunteers provided information about the CSU system and
applying to CSUEB specifically.
Super Sunday is a CSU system-wide outreach ef-fort. Cal State East Bay President Mo Quayoumi, most CSU campus presidents, Chancellor Charles Reed and California Lieutenant Governor, John Garamendi, were some of dignitaries who spoke at the Super Sun-day events throughout the state.
On the local level, a number of individuals affili-ated with the College of Science also participated in this event, including, Maria Gallegos (Biological Sci-ences), Robert Norton (BS student in Biological Sci-ences), Susan Opp (Biological Sciences), Erica Wildy (Biological Sciences), Chul Kim (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Danika LeDuc (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Shirley Yap (Math and Computer Sci-ence), Jacqueline Willetts (Nursing and Health Sci-
ences), and Eric Suess (Statistics). Shirley Yap (right) promotes Cal State East Bay
4 at Super Sunday II

5. Hidden Treasures Faculty Accomplishments
Ban-Har Yeap (Nanyang Technological Uni- versity, Singapore). The chapter, “A Com- parative Study of Arithmetic Problems in Sin- gaporean and American Mathematics Text- books,” appears in the textbook, Mathematics Education in Different Cultural Traditions, A Comparative Study of East Asia and the West, The 13th International Commission on Mathe- matical Instruction Study, F.K.S. Leung, K.D. Graf, and F.J. Lopez-Real, (Editors), New York, NY: Springer (2006).
Mitchell Craig (Earth and Environmental Sciences) convened a session on Applied Geophysics at the Fall Meeting of the Ameri- can Geophysical Union in San Francisco in
Cynthia Barkley (Psychology) co-authored a paper with Lucia Jacobs (UC Berkeley), “Sex and Species Differences in Spatial Memory in Food-Storing Kangaroo Rats,” which ap-peared in the journal, Animal Behaviour, Vol-ume 23, pages (2007).
Jack Carter (Mathematics and Computer Science) co-authored a chapter of a textbook with Berinderjeet Kaur (National Institute of Education, Singapore), Beverly Ferrucci (Keene State College, New Hampshire), and
(Continued on page 6)
Hidden Treasures
Not known by many on our local campus, Cal State East Bay has a series of mobile labs and field facilities, situated both on land and water. Each of these externally funded facilities fosters formal collaboration with other environmental organizations and other local CSU campuses. This network of ecological reserves on creeks and bay shores includes our Cal State East Bay Campus Ecological
Preserve, Gazos Creek Field Station operated with Pescadero Alliance, Cleary Ecological Reserve near Lake Berryessa, and South San Francisco Bay Envi- ronmental Education Centers at the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Cal State East Bay also has students and collaborative programs at the CSU Moss Landing Marine Labs located on Mon- terey Bay.
--Chris Kitting (Biological Sciences)
If you are interested supporting these valuable re- sources, please contact the Cal State East Bay Sci- ence Leadership Fund, by telephone (510)
or visit
If you are interested in using these facilities, please
contact the Department of Biological Sciences at Cal State East Bay, (510) 5
Top: Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge near the Dumbarton Bridge in Newark, bottom left: Cleary Ecological Reserve near Lake Berryessa, bottom right: The view from the Cal State East Bay Ecological Preserve.

6. Derek Kimball (Physics), S. Pustelny
December 2006.
He conducted a ground-penetrating radar field exercise for a near-surface geophysics class at Stanford University in November 2006.
He gave a seminar, “Water Quality Monitoring and Sediment Analysis in South San Francisco Bay,” at the U.S. Geological Survey in Santa Cruz in March 2007.
Roberta Durham (Nursing and Health Sciences), Birgit Jentsch (National Centre for Migration Studies, Isle of Skye, United Kingdom), Vanora Hundley (University of Stirling, United King-dom) and Julia Hussein (University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom) co- authored a paper, “Creating Consumer Satisfaction in Maternity Care: the Neglected Needs of Migrants, Asylum Seekers and Refugees,” which appeared in the Interna-tional Journal of Consumer Studies 31 (2007)
Derek Kimball (Physics), S. Pustelny
(Jagiellonian University, Poland), S. M. Roches-ter (UC Berkeley), V. V. Yashchuk (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) and D. Budker, (UC Berkeley) co-authored an article, “Influence of Magnetic-Field Inhomogeneity on Nonlinear Magneto-Optical Resonances,” which appeared in the journal Physics Review A 74, (2006).
Dr. Kimball and the same group, along with W. Gawlik (Jagiellonian University, Poland) co-authored an article, “Nonlinear Magneto-Optical Rotation with Modulated Light in Tilted Mag-netic Fields,” which appeared in the journal Phys-ics Review A 74, (2006).
Danika LeDuc (Chemistry and Biochemistry) co-authored a paper, “Transgenic Indian Mustard Overexpressing Selenocysteine Lyase or Seleno- cysteine Methyltransferase Exhibit Enhanced Potential for Selenium Phytoremediation under Field Conditions,” published in Environmental Science & Technology, 2007; 41(2); DOI: /es061152i.
She also co-authored a paper, “Selenium Vola- 6 tiles as Proxy to the Metabolic Pathways of Sele- nium in Genetically Modified Brassica Juncea,”
in the same journal Environmental Science & Technology 2007; ASAP Article DOI: / es
Alan Monat (Associate Dean, College of Sci- ence), Richard S. Lazarus (late, Emeritus Profes- sor of Psychology, UC Berkeley), and Gretchen Reevy (Psychology) have co-edited a book, “The Praeger Handbook on Stress and Coping, 2 Vol- umes,” to be published by Praeger Press in April of this year. Dr. Reevy contributed a chapter enti- tled “Sex-related Differences in the Social Sup- port-Stress Relationship.” A number of psychol- ogy students contributed to the project by reading and commenting on potential chapters for the book. One student in particular, Yvette Malamud Ozer (MS student in Educational Psychology) made significant contributions. She co-wrote the glossary and index, provided helpful advice and feedback, and completed many administrative tasks.
Lois Ritter (Nursing and Health Sciences) co- authored a book, “Conducting Online Surveys,” published by Sage. The book was co-authored by Valerie Sue (Communications).
Dr. Ritter gave a presentation at the Global Health Education Consortium conference in Santo Domino, Dominican Republic in February Her presentation described the utilization of telemedicine to reach medically underserved re-gions and she also gave a poster presentation about urbanization and health.
Ward Rodriguez (Statistics) authored an article, “Box Plot, Covariance, Effect Size, Stem-and- Leaf Display,” published in the Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics, Volumes 1-3, Sage Publications. Pages: , , ,
Detlef Warnke (Earth and Environmental Sci- ences) co-chaired two separate sessions at the Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Un- ion in San Francisco, “Perspectives on Southern Ocean Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology,”
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7. Schering-Plough Award Recipients
along with Gabriel Filipelli of Indiana University/ Purdue University and Kelly Kryc of the Inte- grated Ocean Drilling Program. The second ses- sion, “Pliocene-Pleistocene Extreme Warm Events,” was co-chaired with Lloyd Burckle of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
Margaret Wright (Nursing and Health Sciences) gave a talk, “Building a Framework for Participa- tory Decision-making in a Refugee Context,” at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting and convention. Her talk was one of three in a session titled, “Vulnerability and Hu- man Rights.” At the same conference she gave a poster presentation, “Refugee Participation in Camp Public Health Programs,” presented in a session titled, “Commonalities and Differences in the Experiences of Diverse Immigrant Populations in the US, including those from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.” The conference took place in Boston in November Both presentations were research projects completed as part of her recently conferred Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
Shirley Yap (Mathematics and Computer Science) gave two talks, “Prescribing Curvature Forms” and “Polynomial Obstructions to the Solvability of the Curvature Equation,” at Simons Auditorium at MSRI (Mathematical Sciences Research Institute) in Berkeley in February 2007.
Schering-Plough Award Recipients
The Schering-Plough Foundation sponsored two research support programs for Cal State East Bay Science students for the year. The Schering-Plough Foundation is a non-profit membership corporation established in 1955, dedicated to working with individuals in the community to help them realize their full potential and enhance their quality of life. The CSUEB research support programs were awarded to the following students majoring in science.
Schering-Plough Foundation Student Labora- tory Assistantship Award Winners
Eric Escoto
MS student in Biological Sciences
Kennisha Jones
BS student in Biological Sciences
Lucy Ogbu
Paloma Sanchez
Cesar Torres
BS student in Physics
Jamila Wright
BS student in Health Sciences
Schering-Plough Foundation Student Research Fellowship Award Winners
Caroline Anyanwu
MS student in Biologi- cal Sciences
Janilee Benitez
Jabari Pulliam
BS student in Computer Science
Students in the News
James Roberts (MS student in Biological Sci- ences) under the direction of Beverly Dixon, re- ceived a Graduate Student Research Grant from Academic Programs and Graduate Studies.
The Earth and Environmental Science Depart- ment at CSUEB was well represented at the meeting of the American Geophysical Un- ion, held in San Francisco in December.
Carlin Dare (BS, Geology, 2005), Mitchell
(Continued on page 8) 7

8. Craig (Earth and Environmental Sciences), and Mi- chael Torresan (US Geological Survey) presented a poster, “Grain-Size Analysis of Sediments From San Francisco Bay: a Comparison of LISST and Sieve Analysis Methods.”
Gary Kupp (MS, Geology, 2006), Lora Teitler (MS student in Paleoclimatology) and Detlef Warnke (Earth and Environmental Sciences) pre-sented a poster, “A Long, Warm Interval (MIS 31-33) in the Southern Ocean.” At the same conference, Karel Detterman (MS Geology, 2006) Detlef Warnke and Carl Richter from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, presented a poster, “Petrographic Analyses of Lonestones from ODP Drill Sites, Leg 188, Prydz Bay, Antarctica.”
Thanh Nguyen (BS, Biochemistry, 2006) and Mi- chael Groziak (Chemistry and Biochemistry) co- authored a conference paper and poster, “Synthetic Approach to a Transglycosidically Tethered 5’- AMP,” presented at the 19th Annual CSU Biotech- nology Symposium, California State University Pro- gram for Education and Research in Biotechnology (CSUPERB) in Los Angeles in February 2007.
Dates to Remember
Friday, March 30
Cesar Chavez Holiday University Closed
Monday, April 2
Spring Quarter Begins
Saturday, May 19
Honors Convocation
Monday, May 28
Memorial Day University Closed
Monday, June Friday June 15
Final Exams
Saturday, June 16
College of Science Commencement
Visit the College of Science website for the electronic version of the Science Scene, as well as past issues.
The Science Scene is the tri-annual newsletter for the Cal State East Bay College of Science.
Publisher
Michael Leung, Dean
College of Science
Editor
Alan Monat, Associate Dean College of Science
Production Editor
Andy Dobbin
Contributing Editor
Charlene Lebastchi
Contributing Photographers
Michael Groziak, Chris Kitting
Thanh Nguyen presents her research.
Derek Kimball’s wife Anita Jackson gave birth to their baby girl, Paloma, on October 28, 2006. 8