This article is from the archives of the UB Reporter.
News

Briefs

Published: June 16, 2011

  • Tomaszewski named chair of pathology

    John E. Tomaszewski, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and interim chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has been named chair of the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

    Tomaszewski will join UB on Oct. 1 when Reid Heffner steps down as chair of pathology and anatomical sciences, a post he has held for four years.

    The announcement was made earlier this week by Michael E. Cain, dean of the medical school.

    “Dr. Tomaszewski is optimally qualified to transform the department and bring 21st-century molecular diagnostics to our Academic Health Center,” Cain said.

    The hiring of Tomaszewski brings to five the number of new chairs and high-level physicians that Cain has hired in the past three years, an effort that he says is a critical piece of his strategic vision for the medical school.

    “With these new hires, the UB medical school is expanding and enriching its expertise both in the basic sciences and in clinical care, which will greatly benefit UB medical students and faculty, and, most importantly, the Western New York community,” he says.

    Under Tomaszewski, the department will enhance its graduate medical education and mentored research training programs, and work with Great Lakes Health, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the Western New York community to further develop a comprehensive clinical program.

    Tomaszewski’s long-term research interests lie in the fields of genitourinary malignancies and immunopathology, with a particular focus on renal transplantation and advanced tissue image analysis. His internationally recognized work has moved these fields forward and favorably affected the treatments of patients with bladder and prostate cancers, and those with kidney transplants.

    Tomaszewski has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support his research programs, and he holds four patents in novel systems and methods for detecting cancer. A prolific scholar, he has published more than 250 peer-reviewed manuscripts and more than 40 reviews, book chapters, editorials and books.

    In recent years, his research interest has focused on the application of quantitative image analysis, computer vision and machine learning to diagnostic problems in prostate and other cancers. He sees the field of “integrated diagnostics” with the fusion of large, quantitative, high-resolution imaging and molecular datasets as the paradigm for the new 21st-century diagnostics.

    The current president of the American Society for Clinical Pathology, Tomaszewski won numerous awards and lectured nationally and internationally. He also serves on peer-review study sections of the NIH, editorial boards of leading medical and scientific journals in his field, and leadership positions in several professional societies.

    A native of Philadelphia, Tomaszewski received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After completing his residency in pathology and a fellowship in surgical pathology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he had additional training in renal pathology at Columbia University in New York City.

    He joined the Penn faculty in 1983 as an assistant professor of pathology and laboratory Medicine. During his 28-year tenure at Penn, he served in numerous leadership positions, including director of electron microscopy, director of surgical pathology and vice chair of anatomic pathology-hospital services.

  • Construction impacts architecture school

    Upcoming renovations to Hayes and Crosby halls on UB’s South Campus have forced the School of Architecture and Planning to temporarily relocate to other buildings on the South Campus.

    The project is divided into two phases, with Hayes occurring first and lasting two years, according to Bruce R. Majkowski, the school’s associate dean. Work in Crosby Hall will take approximately 18 months to complete. There will be a half-year period between the two projects when the surge spaces in Hayes A, B and C will be prepared for the occupants of Crosby.

    The Hayes rehab is scheduled to begin Sept. 1. As a result, its inhabitants are being distributed among seven buildings. Two computer labs—the school’s print lab and the Visual Resources Center—will be relocated to Crosby. Three studios are being assigned to Hayes B.

    The majority of the first floor of Diefendorf Hall will house the dean’s office, the departments of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning, various administrative functions and two classrooms.

    Hayes A will house the IDEA Research Center and the Digital Media Group, the school’s IT operation. Most of the architecture faculty will be in Hayes B, as will several studios and seminar spaces.

    Hayes C will accommodate most of the planning faculty, another computing lab, the Center for Urban Studies, the Center for Architecture and Situated Technologies, the Urban Design Project and student support spaces.

    Portions of Diefendorf Annex will be used for storage needs currently handled in the basement of Hayes.

    In addition, the Architecture and Planning Library will be located temporarily on the third floor of the Health Sciences Library in Abbott Hall.

    The library and administrative moves already have been completed, Majkowski says, while the moves into Hayes A, B and C are scheduled for July. The move into Diefendorf Annex should occur in August.

    After the renovations, the school will return to a refurbished Hayes Hall, while relinquishing its space in Diefendorf Hall and Diefendorf Annex. The studios and labs in Crosby then will be relocated to Hayes A, B and C until renovations are complete in Crosby.

    The $50 million restoration and renovation project for the architecture school will preserve the exteriors of Hayes and Crosby—two of the most historic and iconic buildings at UB—while creating academic spaces befitting a 21st century school of architecture and planning.

  • UB student wins NSF fellowship

    Claire Lochner, who graduated from UB this spring with a degree in electrical engineering and mathematics, has received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

    Lochner, who will be attending the University of California-Berkeley in the fall, will receive a three-year, $30,000 annual stipend, a $10,500 cost-of-education allowance, access to the TeraGrid supercomputer network and international research and professional development opportunities, including exchange programs in Norway, Finland, Denmark or Sweden.

    While at UB, Lochner researched micro-wind power and organic photovoltaic devices. She also has studied at the University of California-Los Angeles and at ENSEA, an engineering school near Paris. She completed a summer internship with Moog Inc., which designs and manufactures control systems for aerospace, defense, industrial and medical device markets.

    She served as vice president of UB’s chapter of Tau Beta Pi, the foremost national engineering honor society, and is a member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Engineers for a Sustainable World.

    She is a recipient of a 2011 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence and a 2009 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.

    Two other UB students received honorable mention for the NSF fellowship: Daniel Mufaletto, an electrical engineering graduate student researching energy-storage and power-management systems, and Erin Jacklin, who graduated this spring with a degree in electrical engineering and mathematics.

  • Flags at half-mast Tuesday

    Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has directed that flags on state government buildings—including those at UB—be flown at half-mast on June 21 in honor of Marine Corps Sgt. Mark A. Bradley, a Cuba, N.Y., resident who died in Afghanistan on June 16.

    Bradley died while conducting combat operations in Helmand province. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division of the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

    Cuomo has ordered that flags on all state buildings be lowered to half-mast in honor of and tribute to New York service members who are killed in action or die in a combat zone.