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Quattrin named pediatrics chair
Teresa Quattrin, professor of pediatrics and an expert in childhood diabetes and obesity, has been appointed chair of the Department of Pediatrics after a comprehensive national search. Her appointment was effective Feb. 1.
She had been serving as interim chair of the department, which is based in Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo.
“Dr. Quattrin emerged clearly as our top candidate,” Michael E. Cain, dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, said in announcing the appointment. “She possesses the administrative, scientific, clinical, leadership and visionary skills needed to move the department forward.
“With her knowledge and experience,” he continued, “she will expand the department’s basic and clinical research programs to fulfill UB 2020’s strategic goals, and develop and align clinical programs with Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo through our affiliation with Kaleida Health.”
In addition to her chairmanship, Quattrin will serve as Kaleida Health’s pediatrician-in-chief, chief of the department’s Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and director of the WCHOB Diabetes Center.
Quattrin and colleagues currently are testing a novel family-based, weight-control intervention in preschool children in urban and suburban pediatric practices in Western New York. The intervention, called Buffalo Healthy Tots, is the first of its kind in the U.S. The project is funded by a $2.58 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
She also is principal investigator on Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, a study conducted nationally and internationally to prevent diabetes and halt its progression. Blood samples are collected in relatives of persons with type 1 diabetes to establish the risk for the disease and to enroll them in protocols to prevent it. In conjunction, therapies are being tested to explore the possibility of halting the progression of type 1 diabetes in children who were newly diagnosed.
Closer to home, Quattrin has received one of five Type 2 Diabetes Center of Excellence grants from the New York State Department of Health to screen youth at increased risk of developing the disease. The $500,000 award is in its fourth year.
Atwood up next in speakers series
Canadian author, poet, critic and social campaigner Margaret Atwood will speak at UB on March 3 as part of the Distinguished Speakers Series.
The lecture will take place at 8 p.m. in the Mainstage Theater in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
Atwood is the author of more than 35 volumes of poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include “The Edible Woman,” “The Handmaid's Tale,” “The Robber Bride” and “The Blind Assassin,” which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood’s most recent novel is “The Year of the Flood.”
Acclaimed for her talent for portraying both personal problems and those of universal concern, Atwood has been said to have an uncanny knack for writing books that anticipate the preoccupations of the public.
Tickets for the lecture are available at the Center for the Arts ticket office and at all Ticketmaster outlets, including Ticketmaster.com.
For more information, call 645-3662.
Muller to speak in seminar series
Dalia Muller, assistant professor of history, will be the first speaker of the spring semester in the Humanities Institute’s New Faculty Seminar Series.
Muller will deliver her lecture, “From Exile to Odyssey: A Cuban Insurgent’s Journey Home in the Circum-Caribbean,” at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday in 830 Clemens Hall, North Campus.
Associate director of the Caribbean Studies Program, Muller specializes in the North and South Atlantic world and is revising her PhD dissertation for publication. “Cuban Émigrés, Mexican Politics and the Cuban Question, 1895-1899" examines how Spanish immigrants, Mexican citizens and Cuban émigrés used the "Cuban question" to refocus imperialist, nationalist and anti-colonial projects during the 1890s.
Her talk, like all seminars in the series, is free and open to the public; light refreshments will be served.
Now in its third year, the New Faculty Seminar Series features the work of four new colleagues in the humanities—two each semester. By bringing together scholars from a variety of fields, the series is designed to initiate and encourage interdisciplinary conversations.
For more information, contact the Humanities Institute at 645-2591 or ub-humanities-institute@buffalo.edu.
Poverty Research Workshop to be held
Sociologists, urban planners, geographers and other researchers from area colleges and universities will come together next week with community groups to hear about recent research related to the region’s poverty crisis, discuss how community groups and scholars can collaborate and brainstorm about new research projects to address poverty.
The Buffalo Poverty Research Workshop will be held from 1-4 p.m. Feb. 26 in the Merriweather Library, 1324 Jefferson Ave., Buffalo.
The workshop is free and open to the public. A reception will follow from 5 to 6 p.m.
Speakers will include poverty and food security experts Diane Picard, executive director of the Massachusetts Avenue Project, and Samina Raja, associate professor of planning, UB School of Architecture and Planning; Henry Louis Taylor, professor of planning and director of the UB Center for Urban Studies at UB; Wende Mix, a geographer at Buffalo State College; Erin Robinson, a sociologist at Canisius College; and Kathryn Foster, director of the UB Regional Institute.
The workshop is sponsored by the Homeless Alliance of Western New York, the Partnership for the Public Good, the UB Civic Engagement and Public Policy research initiative and the Western New York Service Learning Coalition.
To register, email Kristin Cipollone at cipollone@wnyhomeless.org by Feb. 21. Click here for program details.
Increase in student fees proposed
The comprehensive student fee would increase by $20.50 a semester for full-time undergraduates—rising to $947.25, beginning in the fall 2010 semester—under a proposal by Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs, and Satish K. Tripathi, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
The fee would increase by $16 a semester for full-time graduate and professional students, bring it to $719.25 for the semester.
Black and Tripathi noted that the total proposed increase of 2 percent is in accordance with the Higher Education Price Index (HEPI). The increase is necessary so that UB—in the current state, SUNY and university budget climate —can continue to offer programs and services that students need and expect.
The proposed per-semester increases include:
• A campus life increase of $3.50 to support a portion of state-mandated negotiated salary-and-benefit increases not provided for in the university’s base budget and other contractual obligations.
• A health services increase of $2.50 to support a portion of state-mandated negotiated salary-and-benefit increases not provided for in the university’s base budget for personnel funded through the health fee.
• An intercollegiate athletics increase of $4.50 (undergraduates only) to support required operating contractual increases. Increases in the cost of attendance has increased grant-in-aid costs for both men’s and women’s sports. Funds also will address transportation increases due to rapidly rising costs for team travel, as well as compliance with federal Title IX requirements.
• A technology increase of $7 to address some of the increased costs to insure the continuity of the existing collection of electronic materials in the University Libraries, as well
as inflation for information technology contractual increases for campus-wide software and hardware licenses.
• A transportation increase of $3 to support state-mandated negotiated salary and benefits not provided for in the university’s base budget and a portion of increased costs to the current bus and shuttle contract obligations.
Final fee recommendations for 2010-11 will be made after student consultation, sometime before the end of the semester, Black and Tripathi said.
More information on UB’s student comprehensive fee, proposed increases, and the waiver process, is available at the comprehensive fee Web site.
Several opportunities for student comment also have been established. Comments may be sent via email to src@buffalo.edu through Feb. 26, and representatives from the areas supported by student fees will be answering questions through the comprehensive fee Web site and through a listserv to be held through Feb. 26. Details can be found on the comprehensive fee Web site In addition, an assessment of student fee concerns is being conducted via the My Opinion survey that can be accessed through MyUB. The results will be shared via the comprehensive fee Web site.
Fee adjustments, if adopted, would be reflected in student account statements distributed to all returning and new students in mid-July.
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