Mulvey Wins 3rd Place at Computational Chemistry Conference

Devin Mulvey, senior chemistry major, won 3rd place for his poster presentation, "New Metrics for the Reactivity and Stability of Antioxidant Fullerenols," at the 24th Annual Conference on Current Trends in Computational Chemistry.  The conference was held in Jackson, MS.  Devin attended the conference with his research mentor, Dr. Kristen Lewis. He competed against both undergraduate and graduate students in the College Division of the conference's poster presentations. In addition to a certificate, Devin received a copy of Practical Applications of Computational Chemistry II and a monetary award of $100. The department is very proud of Devin and Dr. Lewis for this noteworthy accomplishment and are excited to see more from them in the future!

BU students participate in GrrCon

This October students from the Bloomsburg Digital Forensic Club attended the GrrCON computer security conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the third consecutive year. Student participation was up this year with 34 students and one alum joining Phil Polstra, associate professor of digital forensics. The first and second year the club participated in this event 22 and 30 students attended. This was Dr. Polstra’s fifth consecutive year as a speaker at this event.

GrrCON is held in Grand Rapids, Michigan each fall and attracts speakers from around the world. It features numerous speaking tracks, workshops, villages, and competitions. This year some new villages appeared including an open hacking village, car hacking village, and Internet of Things (IoT) hacking village. As in years past, BU students spent many hours in these villages learning about new areas in security and forensics. Some of the students brought that knowledge back and shared it with rest of the club by performing a car hacking demonstration. They were able to do this thanks to having won some of the required hardware as a prize in the largest competition at GrrCON.

The most popular contest at GrrCON this year, by a large margin, was the Open Source INTelligence (OSINT) Capture the Flag (CTF) competition. Seventy six teams competed for thousands of dollars in prizes in this competition which was introduced last year. One of the BU teams ended up in third place when the dust settled on the final day of the conference. At one point this team was only a few points behind the first place team and over a thousand points ahead of the next team below them. Students competed in this competition last year placing second out of forty four teams. BU students have competed and placed in competitions all three years they have attended GrrCON.

 In addition to all of the learning occurring in villages, talks, workshops, and competitions, there was a lot of networking going on. Approximately fifty organizations sponsored GrrCON and our students took full advantage of the chance to speak with many of these sponsors about internships and full time jobs for those close to graduation.

Welcome College of Science and Technology Student Ambassadors

Hi, my name is Corey Conville! I am a Bloomsburg University graduate student from Pottsville, PA. I have a Bachelor's of Science degree in Health Sciences, and I am in the process of getting my Master’s degree in Biology. Outside of school I enjoy running marathons, snowboarding competitively, and fly fishing. My favorite movie is A River Runs Through It, and my favorite book is Old Man in the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway. The Wonder Years is my favorite band and I have seen them 11 times in concert. In five years, I hope to have my Ph.D. in Fish Biology and be a trophy husband. If I had to give any advice to incoming Freshman, it would be to get to know your professors.
 “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” ~Steve Prefontaine


Hi, my name is Blaire Barnhart! I am a Bloomsburg University undergraduate student from Pittsburgh, PA. I am currently studying Speech Pathology and Audiology and plan to attend graduate school for Audiology after graduating in the spring. Outside of school I enjoy running, blogging, and online shopping. My favorite movies are The Notebook and The Purge. My favorite band is the Backstreet Boys. In five years, I will be graduating from Audiology school and hopefully moving to the South. If I had to give any advice to incoming Freshman, it would be to take in every minute and stop to look around you because these are the years you will never get back.
 “Everything happens for a reason.” ~Anonymous

Interventions of Music in Nursing

Brianna (Bri) Fox, RN, BSN (pictured left with Dr. Miller) and Abigail (Abbey) Brown, RN, BSN (picture below with Dr. Miller) share a common interest in music therapy with Mindi Miller, RN, PhD. In December 2012, Bri presented her Honors work at the COST Research Day, and Abbey presented her poster at the COST Research Day in December 2014. Abbey also presented her poster at the National Collegiate Honors Council in November 2015. These now BU alumni with Dr. Miller published their article “Interventions of Music: Reviewing Evidence for Better Practice” in the 2016 International Archives of Nursing and Health Care (IANHC), 2:045. Bri’s research centered on therapeutic music for adolescents receiving chemotherapy while Abbey’s study focused on musical interventions to promote behavioral change in troubled youth.

Dr. Miller, a Certified Rehabilitation Registered Nurse (CRRN) studies the benefits of music to facilitate healing. She states, “We recognize that higher education begins with General Education that builds toward lifelong interests and skill sets, including hobbies like music or scholarship activities - or a combination of both! The work that Abbey, Bri, and I did over four years depicts the resources that BU offers. For instance, the Honors Program and the COST Research Days assisted students and faculty in sharing their collaborative work and excelling beyond their BU experiences, as our publication exemplifies.”

The recent article in IANHC resulted from teamwork by undergraduates (now alumni) and nursing faculty who gathered best practice standards in music theory and then provided additional evidence-based recommendations. Best practice was compared between different groups and the published literature in order to suggest “better” practices for using therapeutic music in healthcare. When implementing musical interventions, individual differences like sensory deprivation in some patients, sensory overload in others, and unique preferences and neuro-pathology must be taken into account, in order that each nursing care plan related to music fits the targeted outcomes for individual patients.


Dr. Vandivere, Honors Program Director commented that, “We are so proud of Bri Fox and Abbey Brown. They have helped us understand the ways that we can use Honors to create research projects that will actively help nursing students. Bri and Abbey have taken their fine intellects, their drive, and their commitments to nursing and figured out a way to advance their education to higher levels of creative and original research. They each developed a sustained and original project that helps them understand their own abilities, empowers them as individuals, and makes them highly marketable in whatever they choose to do. More, they have given us a model of how to make Honors work for nursing students.”