Faculty Research and Accomplishments

Marshall McCue, Ph.D.

Dr. M.D. McCue was invited to be a visiting research professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University, located in Torun Poland. This appointment will enable him to spend much of the summer of 2012 conducting research on endangered bats. Daubenton's bats, (Myotis daubentonii) are species of bat whose adults have the same weight as a US quarter. He will employ a technique that he recently developed that uses stable isotope tracers to investigate animal metabolism and bioenergetics. One goal of this research is to explore how these 'warm-blooded' animals are able to reduce their body temperature to levels that would be immediately lethal to humans. This project will be conducted in collaboration with Prof. Michal S. Wojciechowski. While in Poland, Dr. McCue will also present seminars on stable isotope biochemistry and animal nutrition.

Wenbin Luo, Ph.D.

Wenbin Luo, "Network Security, Threats, Authentication, Authorization, and Securing Devices," Digital Processes, Networks and Software (Vol. 3, Ed. 4), to appear in 2010. Dr. Luo is a Senior Level Linux Professional (LPIC-3), Novell Certified Linux Administrator (Novell CLA), and a Ubuntu Certified Professional (UCP). He received the Best Paper Award at the 24th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications in 2009. He has been the associate editor of International Journal on Computers and Electrical Engineering since 2006. He was named the Publication Chair of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on System of Systems Engineering (SoSE) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Robert Laird, Ph.D.

Dr. Laird received a subcontract for the Research Imaging Institute's BrainMap NIH R01 grant renewal. The subcontract will support summer salary, a research associate and four summer research assistants.

Thomas Macrini, Ph.D.

Dr. Macrini recently published "Description of a digital cranial endocast of Bathygenys reevesi (Merycoidodontidae; Oreodonta) and implications for apomorphy-based diagnosis of isolated, natural endocasts" in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Also in progress is an article in the Journal of Anatomy on the inner ear of a notoungulate placental mammal: Anatomical description and examination of potentially phylogenetically-informative characters. Dr. Macrini became a research associate in the Department of Genetics at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in September (2009) and is conducting research on osteoarthrosis of the knee joint in baboons with Dr. Lorena Havill of SFBR and two undergraduate biological sciences majors at St. Mary's (Daniel Araujo and Tanya Lerma).

Timothy Raabe, Ph.D.

Dr. Raabe is was named the first Benjamin F. Biaggini Endowed Chair of Biological Sciences at St. Mary s University. The Endowed Chair was established by Biaggini s former colleagues and personal friends with a $1 million gift. The Chair is a lasting legacy to his ideals of supporting academic excellence and scholarly research in the biological sciences. In addition to the chair, the endowed research program will provide faculty members with release time to further their research, help purchase equipment, and create the Biaggini Scholars program, providing scholarships and giving students the opportunities to work on research projects with faculty members.

Carol Redfield, Ph.D.

Dr. Redfield co-authored an article on tutoring and mentoring in Educause Quartlery. She also wrote a book chapter in the Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education called "COTS Computer Game Effectiveness." Recently, Dr. Redfield returned from the Innovations 2010 (a conference about e-learning) produced by the League for Innovation, where she co-presented in 3 sessions: