3 Minute Pitch Program

Patricia Morreale/Dr. Dina Rosen
Computer Science & Technology, CSMT & School of Curriculum and Teaching, COE   

The goal of the proposed research is to develop K-5 CS teacher preparation instructional
materials that can be used by education faculty to prepare teachers to provide effective integrated
K-5 CS instruction. Outcomes of this work include:(1) a collection of lessons that can be used as instructional tools in preservice education and in-service professional development, (2) a rubric that can be used to analyze integrated unit lessons and (3) materials for use in Kean’s ID 3051, and possibly other courses.         

Keith Bostian, NJCSTM

A robust and comprehensive research infrastructure is a requirement of any research university to conduct leading edge inquiry into today’s scientific, medical and computing arenas as well as training the next generation of leaders. As Kean University strives to achieve Carnegie R2 classification, President Repollet's first actions was to invest approximately 3 million dollars in state-of-the-art major research equipment both to catalyze productivity of faculty research and to attract academic and industrial research collaborators with the goal of increasing grant and sponsored research funding to the University.

Derrick Swinton, NJCSTM

The research program focuses on the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling pathway, a cardinal regulator of animal development. Aberrant EGFR activations are associated with diverse types of cancers including lung, pancreatic, colon, breast, ovarian, and kidney and components in the EGFR pathway have been the focus of many laboratories. However, mechanisms underlying changes in EGFR activation levels remain unclear. The proposed research aims to identify nanoparticles that can antagonize, or protagonist EGFR signaling and quantify their potencies. Drosophila melanogaster oogenesis is an established model system to study how changes in EGFR activation levels modify structures on the eggshell. Specifically, during oogenesis, a single layer of follicle cells (FCs) overlying the developing oocyte is instructed by EGFR signaling to secrete and fold into the Drosophila eggshell. The eggshell protects the developing embryo from the environment, and at the same time enables gas exchange via tubular dorsal appendages (DAs). The DAs are highly sensitive to changes in EGFR signaling levels that can be manipulated with drugs through diet and thus Drosophila eggshell formation provides an excellent system to screen for how nanoparticles and their composition may affect EGFR signaling.