Proposal Spring 19 Faculty Militello O'Donnell

Sponsored Research Newsletter Spring 2019

Collaborating Throughout the Years Leads to Grant Award

Biology Professors Robert (Bob) O’Donnell and Kevin Militello have informally collaborated since Militello joined the faculty in 2005 (O’Donnell joined in 1987). Their offices and labs were located on the same floor, they had frequent contact with each other, and they began to share resources such as equipment, reagents, and other resources. They attended conferences together, brought each other’s students to conferences they could not attend, and shared their expertise in different research techniques. Their collaborative activities have continued throughout the years.
Although their research areas are different—O’Donnell’s is immunology and oncology and Militello’s is molecular biology and parasitology—they realized that they share a deep commitment to helping students succeed. Over the years they attended professional development programs together, including a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Institute on Undergraduate Education in Biology in 2011 and a Council on Undergraduate Research Broadening Participation Workshop in 2017. Together they  have applied for several grants to improve biology learning.
In 2018 O’Donnell and Militello were awarded a two-year $220,000 SUNY Performance Improvement Fund (PIF) STEM Inclusion Program grant to redesign freshman biology laboratories and lectures for at-risk students and provide cultural competency training for Geneseo employees. To increase successful course completion and on-time graduation, their project includes an Integrated First-year Experience that begins with a Smart Start Laboratory course and discovery-based research experience that students take their first semester; flexible course scheduling; and lab and lectures with fewer students. The project also implements strategic advising and mentoring. To encourage the entire college community to support at-risk students, the researchers incorporated a cultural competency professional development certificate program into their project. Psychology Professor Monica Schneider coordinates the program and Chief Diversity Officer robbie routenberg and Teaching and Learning Center Director David Parfitt, are  developing it. In the future, the program will be open to all campus faculty, staff, and administrators.
In addition to the PIF grant, Militello was awarded a four-year $459,223 National Institutes of Health Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA, or R15) grant starting in 2017 for his work with T. brucei, the organism that causes Human African Trypanosomiasis, a disease also known as sleeping sickness that is transmitted to humans by tsetse fly bites. O’Donnell is currently the Chair of the Department of Biology and Militello is the Biochemistry Coordinator.