William E. McHenry, Executive Director Mississippi e-Center, Jackson State University

William E. McHenry, Executive Director Mississippi e-Center, Jackson State University

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with William McHenry  on LA Talk Radio, September 30, 2013: PLAY or DOWNLOAD

William talks about the Mississippi State Delegation visit to Brazil led by Governor Phil Bryant. Joning in the converstion will be Dean Richard Alo and Assistant Dean for International Affairs Patricia Ann Jernigan.

William E. McHenry, Executive Director of the Mississippi e-Center at Jackson State University and Professor of Organic Chemistry, was born in Camden, Arkansas and attended Southern Arkansas University (B.S., Chemistry 1972) and Mississippi State University (Ph.D. Synthetic Heterocyclic Organic Chemistry 1977).  Dr. McHenry serves on numerous committees include the University of Kentucky’s “Systemic Thinking for Sustainability” to Harvard Universities’ Converge Center Advisory Board of Directors.

Before his current appointment, Dr. McHenry served in the Executive Office of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education as Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs with responsibilities that included state-based student financial aid (for two years – 2004 and 2005) and Oklahoma’s Endowed Chair program. 

He served as Assistant Commissioner for Academic and Student Affairs for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Education 1997 to 2004, and as National Science Foundation (NSF) Program Officer (1990-1996) where he implemented the NSF’s “crown jewel” broadening participation program – the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program.

He came to NSF from Mississippi State University where he served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School (1988 – 1990) and Associate Professor of Chemistry (1977-1990). Dr. McHenry has authored chapters in books on topics that range from ketenimines to mentoring.

Dr. McHenry is married to Ms. Barbara Phillips and they have two grown children – Melanie N. McHenry who recently earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from Jackson State University and William E. McHenry, II who is entering his 3 rd year in law school at Tulane University.  His wife is an educator in the Jackson Public Schools.

Richard A. Aló is the Dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology and Professor of Computer and Mathematical Sciences at Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi. 

 Prior to joining JSU he was a Program Director in Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation.  Before attending graduate school, he was a Retrofit Systems Test Engineer for the Command, Control and Interoperability tasks of the US Air Force’s Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) System at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories. 

He earned his MA and Ph.D in Mathematics with minor in Computer Science from the Pennsylvania State University, followed by one year Lecturer position.  He was a member of the mathematics faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University for 11 years followed by six years as Department Head of Mathematics and Computer Science at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. 

He was selected as the 2002 Educator of the Year by the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement and Awards Conference (HENAAC). He has published over 150 research papers. His primary research and educational interests are computational science applications, fuzzy logic, grid computing, cyber infrastructure tools, automated reasoning and decision making. 

He is currently a Co-PI for the DHS Center of Excellence for Visual Analytics for Command, Control and Interoperability Network Environments (VACCINE) and also serves as its Assoc. Director for MSI outreach.  Prior to his detail at NSF, he was PI on the NSF CI-TEAM Implementation award:  Minority Serving Institutions – CyberInfrastructure Empowerment Coalition (MSI-CIEC); co PI, NSF Cyber Infrastructure Net Science; and is co PI on the NSF Broadening Participation award, Computing Alliance for Hispanics and co PI on NSF BPC: Advancing Women to the Professoriate.

Patricia Ann Jernigan, Assistant Dean for International Affairs at Jackson State University recently visited Brazil as part of the White House initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Luiza Pessoa Guazzelli, Honor Student, Long Branch High School, New Jersey

Luiza Pessoa Guazzelli, Honor Student, Long Branch High School, New Jersey

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Luiza Guazzelli on LA Talk Radio, Channel 1, September 9, 2013: PLAY or DOWNLOAD

Luiza Pessoa Guazzelli is Brazilian and moved to the United States almost five years ago at the age of twelve. She is now a senior at Long Branch High School in New Jersey and will be applying to college this fall.

She recently visited the University of California, Berkeley and plans a visit toPrinceton and MIT as well as other colleges for evaluation.

Luiza is a member of the volleyball team, a part of the National Honor Society and the school’s Science Team.

Luiza Guazzelli is number one in her class at Long Branch and plans to major in Civil Engineering. At Long Branch High School she is involved with an after-school volunteering group called PACES “Participating Around the Community to create an Environment of Success”

She was able to take advantage of the opportunities offered to her in a foreign country . One of the most recent opportunities allows her to take part in a civil engineering project that is ongoing in her town through her high school engineering class.

Her experience with moving and studying in another country and the difficulties and benefits she found can help other students when deciding to study abroad.

Dominick Domasky, author, Don’t Double Bread the Fish, Piitsburgh, PA.

Dominick Domasky, author, Don’t Double Bread the Fish, Piitsburgh, PA.

Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch with Dominick Domasky on LA Talk Radio, Channel 1, September 2, 2013 

Dominick Domasky , author of Don’t Double Bread the Fish, Dominick’s 1st inspirational book was not written from a pedestal, but from the trenches of digging ditches, picking up cigarette butts and overcoming countless failures. Don’t Double Bread The Fish is not about Dominick, but thirty nine chapters of the modern day lessons he learned along the way. Dominick will never pretend to be an Olympic gold medalist or business titan, he’ll be the first to admit he’s just a guy who has failed, been benched, suffered setbacks, lawsuits, punches to the face, and got up and brushed himself off. Dominick has no ill will of the past, but looks back and finds humor and strength. As the old saying goes, “That which does not kill us only makes us stronger!”

Dominick Domasky is a loving father of two beautiful children and a devoted husband from a small town named Greensburg, right outside of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Dominick is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh in business management, a supporter of JDRF, an inspirational author, a motivational speaker, and a successful cold calling, door knocking commercial insurance salesman. The loves of his life are his family, business, telling stories and basketball.

Mr. Domasky arrived at inspirational story writing and motivational speaking with a unique background. As a boy Dominick learned the value of hard work pulling weeds and doing odd jobs in the fields of his father’s landscape company. He took that knowledge, placed it into his passions, and carried it throughout everything in his life from basketball to business.  The only problem was he failed, over and over.

In 2002 Dominick quit his job to fulfill his lifelong dream of owning a restaurant. Three years later he was nearly a half a million dollars in debt, jobless and wanted by the law (business related of course). His wife was pregnant with their first child, that his family had struggled to have for years, and he couldn’t afford to feed them. 

Dominick rebounded from this setback. With ever present persistence and no sales experience he was able to find a job in sales. Lack of experience meant nothing because Dominick believed in himself all along. Dominick found joy in meeting and helping new people in turn his numbers were great and he had soon found himself a career he loved.

The sales company he worked for was big on writing your goals and in a tiny spiral notebook he began to put his pen to the pad. Soon goals became sentences, and sentences became paragraphs. Before long Don’t Double Bread The Fish was born.

Dominick can be seen every day on Twitter @motivationchamp sharing messages of inspiration.