Photos by Nathan Robinson

Take a Daughter to Work Day

Cub reporters get the scoop on Ohio State life from a sampling of the University's administrative team

Planning this event takes several months

Ohio State invited almost 400 daughters to campus April 27 to experience working at a university.

This was the sixth year that Ohio State participated in Take a Daughter to Work Day. The girls could select from over 52 activities at more than 45 offices and departments, said Pam Park-Curry, a member of the Take a Daughter to Work Day committee. The activities included computer workshops, science, math, newspaper reporting, day care and work with animals.

The committee starts working on the Take A Daughter to Work Day activities in November. "There's nothing really hard about the work. It's all just fun,"Park-Curry said.

Blouch kept busy by transportation, parking

Wow, do you sometimes think you have a lot to do? If you talk with Sarah Blouch, you will think the opposite! Before Sarah moved to Columbus, where she lives now, she lived in Oklahoma City. Sarah was working in an office near the federal building that was bombed in 1995. A couple months later she moved to Columbus, Ohio.

Now she works at Ohio State as director of Transportation and Parking Services. Ask yourself this: Have you ever ridden a bus to the Schottenstein Center? Well if you have, thank Sarah for keeping the bus running. She runs around place to place keeping the buses going. Well, I shouldn't give thanks all to Sarah. You also should give thanks to her boss Helen and the staff at transportation.

They help keep the buses running, too. Sarah is very generous to frequently ride the buses instead of using her car all the time. She says that "if the students and people who come to OSU have to ride the buses, I should." How generous is that? If you ever go to West Campus Bevis Hall, say "hi!" because there are really nice people who work there!

Wexner staffer has landed her dream job

Karen Simonian, who now works in the Wexner Center, has fulfilled her dream job. She has always had a passion for performing art, films and working with the press. Now, she works with local, state, national and international press doing publicity for all programming at the Wexner Center.

She started working in November of 1998, about one and a half years ago. She is busy year-round, but really busy right before the season of fall begins.

She is the coordinator of public relations. Her job is to communicate with media by phone, mail and e-mails. She lets the media know about events so they can tell the public about the Wexner Center's programming, which then reflects well on the University.

Hackleman fosters student leadership

For my assessment I interviewed Tricia Hackleman, assistant director of Student Activities. She found this job at Ohio State University from an open listing and started this job in August 1999.

Tricia was interested in this job because it was a great opportunity and she would be able to work with really neat students and have the opportunity to interact with students, teach leadership, and teach the importance of scholarship.

During the day she usually is in meetings with people from campus and from around the country, and doing paperwork and programming. She is very busy all throughout the school year and mostly busy during the Women's Panhellenic Association Winter Formal Recruitment.

From my point of view, if you do not already know Tricia Hackleman, I would get to know her because she sounds like a pretty neat lady.

HR post includes advertising role

Alison Washburn's favorite part of working at OSU is being able to work with people who have various talents and interests.

Alison is the assistant director of human resources for the Office of Enrollment Services. She is responsible for advertising of hiring employees. She has worked at OSU for three years and started her recent job in October 1999.

She wanted this job because she wanted an opportunity to work with people and to work on projects. One of her projects that she worked on was Take a Daughter to Work Day.

She is most busy between Tuesday afternoon through Thursday morning. Alison's work is most visible in the University Personnel Postings. Her job shows support and value in the employees.

Karin Miller, one of six temporary onCampus correspondents, conducts a phone interview for her assignment during the "Be a Reporter for a Day" workshop at the onCampus offices on Kinnear Road. Karin was joined by five 10- and 11-year-olds for an introduction to the basics of news writing. Their stories, which highlight just a few examples of the range of careers available in a university setting, appear on this section.

Mom coordinates student scheduling

Linda Miller works at the Fisher College of Business. She is the scheduling services coordinator and she counsels students with course scheduling problems. She's responsible for helping to create a master schedule of classes taught each quarter in Schoenbaum Hall.

Her favorite part of her job is working with students and staff. She wanted her job because she thought it would be "exciting and challenging." Jay Yutzey is Miller's supervisor.

She thinks e-mail is an important part of her job. She says, "It is a great communication tool."Miller thinks Take a Daughter to Work Day is important. She says, "My daughter has been attending these sessions for four years and has had such great experiences."

Miller's most busy times are at the first weeks of each quarter, helping students register for classes. She began working at OSU 24 years ago.

Her job is important because she helps the business students with their course schedules and is there for them. Miller really enjoys her job.

Ohio State chemist wins presidential award

On the heels of a World Health Organization (WHO) announcement that drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis are growing around the world, Ohio State chemist Todd Lowary has received a prestigious award honoring him for his efforts to understand structural features of the bacteria that causes the disease.

President Clinton awarded Lowary the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers -- the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Neal Lane, assistant to the president for science and technology, presented the award to Lowary, assistant professor of chemistry at Ohio State, and 59 other promising young scientists in a ceremony on April 12.

WHO's recent announcement underscores the global need for basic research like Lowary's, which may eventually lead to new antibiotics to fight TB.

Todd Lowary

Eight federal departments and agencies join together annually to nominate researchers for PECASE awards. They choose those young scientists and engineers who will broadly advance the research that will be of the greatest benefit to fulfilling the agencies' missions.

The National Science Foundation sponsored Lowary for the PECASE award after giving him a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. Together, his PECASE and CAREER awards provide a total research grant of approximately $100,000 a year for five years.

"We are delighted that the National Science Foundation and President Clinton have chosen to recognize Todd for his exemplary research at the start of his career,"said Bruce Bursten, chair of the Department of Chemistry. "These recognitions are wonderful acknowledgments of Todd's commitment to excellence in research. The associated research grants will help him to build on his early successes and aid the efforts of the Department of Chemistry to use basic research to improve health worldwide."

Lowary is one of only four NSF-sponsored chemists ever to receive the award, and is the fourth Ohio State faculty member to do so.

Lowary and his research group are using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a technique that allows scientists to probe the shapes of molecules in order to understand the three-dimensional structure of the cell wall that surrounds the TB bacteria. The NMR studies are being carried out on molecules synthesized by Lowary's coworkers and these synthetic and spectroscopic investigations are further supported by computer modeling. A better understanding of this cell wall structure, which affords the bacterium great protection from its environment, may facilitate efforts to synthesize drugs that penetrate this protective coat.

According to Lowary, the TB cell wall is so tough that doctors must treat the disease with many antibiotics at once. Some of the drugs tear away at the cell wall and allow other drugs to penetrate. For a TB bacterium, the loss of protection resembles "the difference between wearing a wool coat and a windbreaker,"Lowary said.

The components of the cell wall in the bacterium weren't fully elucidated until about 10 years ago, he explained, when technologies such as NMR spectroscopy and mass spectrometry offered an up-close view of the molecules present.

The WHO has found that TB kills more than 2 million people worldwide each year, making it the world's most deadly bacterial disease. Drug-resistant strains are on the rise, as witnessed by the epidemic of drug-resistant TB in New York City in the early 1990s.

With the help of NMR spectroscopy, chemical synthesis and computer modeling, Lowary and his colleagues at Ohio State -- including Christopher Hadad, also an assistant professor of chemistry -- assemble small chemical models of the polymers that comprise the cell wall and study their three-dimensional structure. In other related studies, some of these small molecules are shipped off to biochemists at Colorado State University and The University of Newcastle in England for further testing as lead candidates for drugs active against TB.

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