Tag: Halmos College of Arts and Sciences

There’s no easy way to say it – the world’s coral reefs are in danger. Researchers from around the world, including world-renowned experts at Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, have been studying corals to determine not only what is killing them but what can be done to protect and save them.

To that end, from 1-5 p.m. Monday, November 18, NSU is hosting a series of talks and a panel discussion titled, “Coral Crisis: Issues and Response.” This event will be held at NSU’s Ocean Campus, 8000 N. Ocean Dr., (in NSU’s Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center building) within the Mizell-Johnson State Park (at the entry to Port Everglades.) It will also be livestreamed as a webinar, where external participants can submit their question to the panel.

The world-renowned speakers include:

Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., U.S. Navy (ret) is Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere/Deputy Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He was previously a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, Oceanographer of the Navy, and Commander of the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command. He has experience in weather and ocean forecasting, hydrographic surveying, policy and planning on fisheries, national security impacts of climate change, and developing the Navy’s information technology, cyber security and intelligence. NOAA is the lead federal agency for coral reefs.

Terry Hughes, Ph.D, has provided leadership in responding to global coral bleaching events caused by climate change and developed practical solutions that improve the management and governance of marine environments. The international science journal, Nature, has dubbed him “Reef Sentinel” for the global role he plays in applying multi-disciplinary science to securing reef sustainability. Hughes is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

Bernhard Riegl, Ph.D., professor and Chair of NSU’s Halmos College Department of Marine and Environmental Science, is a global expert on effects to the changing state of coral reefs. He will speak about the state of reefs worldwide from our academic perspective and with focus on local and regional situations.

Stephen O’Brien, Ph.D., is a world leading molecular biologist, population geneticist, genetic epidemiologist and dedicated conservationist who uses molecular genetics and bioinformatics tools to help protect endangered species and to resolve genetic determinants of devastating complex diseases such as HIV-AIDS and cancers. O’Brien is professor and research director at NSU where he applies his experience to genome bioinformatics of marine vertebrate and invertebrate species in relation to ocean conservation with respect to reefs. He is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Science.

Jennifer Koss is director of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, which is involved with providing knowledge, information, and management activities. She manages day-to-day operations, coral conservation policy development, program implementation, budget development, and personnel, as well as domestic and international partnership building and program development. She will speak on specific NOAA U.S. coral reef initiatives.

Joanna Walczak is the Southeast Regional Administrator of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). She oversees multiple programs in the department’s Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection’s Southeast Region – Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves, Coupon Bight Aquatic Preserve, Florida’s Coral Reef Conservation Program, Lignumvitae Aquatic Preserve, and is the state co-manager of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. She is the point of contact for the State of Florida on the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force and U.S. All Islands Coral Reef Committee. She will speak on Florida-specific coral reef initiatives.

For people who cannot go to the Oceanographic Campus, or cannot stream it, Halmos College is hosting a viewing event on the Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus in DeSantis Room: 1133. Questions maybe emailed to ocadmissions@nova.edu.

Streaming link: https://sharkmedia.nova.edu/media/NSU+Live+Events/1_w0dvjqjp/35886881

The health of the oceans depends directly on the health of the coral reefs – as does the health of many countries economies. For more information:cnso.nova.edu/coralcrisis

On Thursday, November 7, at 12:25 p.m. Dragan Radulovic, Ph.D. will present his lecture entitled, “How good are standard copulas anyway?” in Parker Building Room 338. Dr. Radulovic is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.

His lecture will raise a question: How good are standard copulas in capturing the dependency structure? To this end we will offer a series of simulated/numerical examples demonstrating that, more often than not, standard model copulas do not capture the underlying dependency structure. We believe that copula models, unlike other statistical tools, are too readily accepted by practitioners. Rigorous, goodness-of-fit tests are commonly replaced by off-hand statements like: “it works well”. To this end, the second part of the talk offers a theoretical result, an umbrella type theorem tailored for creating numerous Goodness of Fit tests for copulas.

Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography department of mathematics hosts the mathematics colloquium series in Parker Building, Room 338. For more information about the math colloquium series, please contact mathematics faculty member Jing Chen, Ph.D. (jchen1@nova.edu) or Evan Haskell, Ph.D. (haskell@nova.edu).

On Friday, November 1st from 3-4 p.m., Andrew Gallup, Ph.D. presented his lecture, “The Surprising Science of Yawning” in Mailman Auditorium, Mailman-Hollywood Building.

Dr. Gallup presented on his brain-cooling hypothesis of yawning along with supporting research on humans and other animals.  Dr. Gallup is an evolutionary cognitive neuroscientist. His research spans a variety of topics, including contagious behavior and comparative neuroanatomy, brain thermoregulation and vigilance, collective behavior and social cognition, aggression and sexual conflict, the evolution of cooperation, winner and loser effects, biomarkers of Darwinian fitness, and the effects of neuromodulation on adaptive responses.

Dr. Gallup received his bachelor’s in Psychology from The State University of New York at Albany. He received his PhD in Biological Sciences from Binghamton University under the mentorship of Dr. David Sloan Wilson. He went on to complete a postdoc at Princeton University in the collective behavior lab lead by Iain Couzin (now Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Department of Collective Behaviour). Dr. Gallup is currently a professor of Psychology at The State University of New York Polytechnic Institute. He also serves as the director of the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) Lab at SUNY Poly. Dr. Gallup is a Fellow of The Psychonomic Society, and affiliated faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences at Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Gallup is a rising star having already published over 75 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His research has been of broad general interest, covered by large media outlets including National Geographic, Scientific American, and The New York Times.