Faculty Senate-At-Large Candidate Profiles
Michael Mazourek
Michael Mazourek is the Calvin Noyes Keeney Associate Professor of Plant Breeding in the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics. His work focuses on the improvement of peppers, peas and cucurbits (squash, melon, pumpkin, watermelon and cucumber) for growers by increasing yield and production traits, consumers through enhancing flavor and convenience characteristics and the environment through pest and disease resistance that allow reduced pesticide usage. In addition to developing new cultivars with these traits, he trains students in plant genetics and plant breeding and shares these techniques with farmers interested in on-farm participatory breeding. These new seed are created though traditional cross-pollination techniques and aided by new approaches in genomics that allow insight into the underlying science, such as using expression profiling and genomic signatures of selection to identify important genes, the genetic architecture of disease resistance to changing pathogens, and the biosynthesis of nutritional compounds.
Robert Thorne
Robert Thorne is a Professor in the Department of Physics. His interests include synchrotron X-ray diffraction studies of protein structure and dynamics; the physics of water, ice, and aqueous glasses; biological cryopreservation; X-ray fluorescence imaging of ancient artifacts; charge-density-wave conductors; and physics education. Professor Thorne’s research areas include X-ray Crystallographic Studies of Protein Structure and Dynamics, Small Angle X-Ray Scattering of Biomolecules at Cryogenic Temperature, and X-ray Fluorescence Imaging of Ancient Artifacts.
Suman Seth
Professor Suman Seth works on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of science and medicine. His interests include the history of medicine, race, and colonialism, the physical sciences (particularly quantum theory), & gender and science. He is the author of Difference and Disease: Medicine, Race, and Locality in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press, and Crafting the Quantum: Arnold Sommerfeld and the Practice of Theory, 1890-1926 (MIT, 2010). He has served as the guest editor of a special issue of the journal Postcolonial Studies on “Science, Colonialism, Postcolonialism” (December, 2009) and of a ‘Focus’ Section of the Journal Isis on ‘Re-Locating Race.’ He is co-editor (with Prof. Patrick McCray) of the Journal Osiris.
Rosemary Avery
Professor and Chair, Department of Policy Analysis and Management in the College of Human Ecology, Dr. Avery been a member of the faculty since 1988. Her research, funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), focuses on product package warnings and commercial advertisements on prime-time television and other print media focusing on public health issues (graphic warning labels on cigarette packs; smoking cessation products, antidepressants, statins, and over-the-counter dietary products). Her research examines the impact of DDA/FTC warnings and commercial product claims on the health-related behavior of consumers (smoking cessation, diet, exercise, and Rx and OTC product consumptions). She has been the recipient of many distinguished teaching awards. She is a Weiss Presidential Fellow, a Carpenter Award winner, a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Panhellenic Council Outstanding Faculty Member Award, and she has been recognized fifteen times as a recipient of the Merrill Scholarship Teacher Recognition Award. Her university leadership experience includes: Faculty Senate, FACTA Committee, Educational Policy Committee, University Appeals Panel, West Campus Research Committee, Faculty Advisory Committee on Athletics and Physical Education, University Library Board, Fraternity and Sorority Advisory Council, and Faculty Fellow, (1993 - ongoing). She has been appointed Dean and House Professor, Rose House, starting in August 2018.