Meet Lake State's 18 new faculty members

NEWS RELEASE

LAKE SUPERIOR STATE UNIVERSITY

************************* New hires round out LSSU academcis for 2009

PHOTO CAPTION - New faculty who are joining Lake Superior State University this fall pause during an orientation session for a group photo on August 24 in the East Superior Room with the International Bridge as a backdrop. Front row, left to right: Muhammad Janjua, Sai Nudurupati, Jennifer Schmeisser, Julie Barbour, Sarah Ouimette, Pariwate Varnakovida, Kathleen Kalata and Kristina Watson. Pictured in the back row, left to right are: Paul Weber, Ralf Wilhelms, Jillena Rose, Kristen Arend, Ronald Jastrzebski, Amy Molenaar, Christopher Brunt, Ron DeLap, and Barbara Searight. Not pictured is Paula Jo Shingler. (LSSU photo by John Shibley)

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. – Eighteen new faces have signed on as faculty at Lake Superior State University for this fall.

Kristen Arend joins the biology department as an assistant professor.

Arend earned her doctorate from Cornell University by studying the role of environmental characteristics on fish community structure and food web interactions in Lake Ontario bays.

Her master's work through Ohio State looked at how water cloudiness, light intensity, and zooplankton size affect the foraging habits, growth and depth distribution of young shad, crappie and bluegill.

Her recent research, funded by the National Science Foundation, studied the biodiversity of freshwater bays and lagoons.

Arend holds a B.A. in biology from Oberlin College.

Jennifer Schmeisser joins the chemistry department as an assistant professor, coming from the University of Windsor, Ont.

Schmeisser holds a doctorate in chemistry from Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia.

Her thesis project examined proton transport through membranes in fuel cells.

Schmeisser also went through Simon Fraser's certificate program in university teaching and learning for graduate students.

During her tenure at Windsor, she revamped first-year chemistry labs to include a writing component and an on-line system that lets students complete personalized assignments.

While at Simon Fraser, Schmeisser also oversaw a $450,000 government grant for lab equipment.

She holds a bachelor of science, with honors, from the University of Waterloo in chemistry with a minor in computer science.

Christopher Brunt comes to LSSU as an assistant professor in economics from Wayne State University, where he taught courses in statistics, econometrics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, market power and economic welfare.

Brunt's doctoral research at Wayne State looked at how Medicare B balance billing restrictions and approved rates affected the quality of patient care.

Brunt holds an MS in economics from Wayne State, and a BS with dual majors in mathematics and economics from Eastern Michigan. Ronald Jastrzebski comes to Lake State as an assistant professor of accounting from Westchester, Ill., where he concurrently taught graduate and undergraduate courses as an adjunct for Marquette University, Loyola University, Northwestern University, Purdue University and the University of Maryland's on-line accounting program.

Jastrzebski's private-sector experience includes serving as controller for Little Lady Foods, and controller and human resources manager for Renaissance Mark, a company that provides specialty labels for the food, beverage, personal care and wine and spirits industry.

He holds an MBA and a bachelor's in business administration from Loyola University, and is a member of the Illinois and American Institute of CPAs. Ralf Wilhelms joins the business department as an assistant professor of international business.

Wilhelms holds a doctor of business administration in marketing from the Marshall Goldsmith School of management at Alliant International University in San Diego.

His master's in international business administration comes from United States International University.

For the past five years, Wilhelms has taught adjunct undergraduate and graduate courses in marketing, management and international business at Alliant International and the National University in San Diego.

He was also a business consultant at Game Time LCC.

His business ventures over the past two decades have taken him into the fields of emerging technologies, sports and leisure, media and sustainable energy. Paul Weber joins the department of engineering and technology as an assistant professor.

He comes from University of Minnesota-Duluth, where he lectured and taught labs in electronic, computer architecture, digital systems design, electrical circuit analysis and microcomputer systems design.

While he was at UMD, Weber created a new course that examined energy conservation in transportation.

Weber completed his doctorate, master of science and bachelor of science degrees in computer engineering at Michigan Tech.

His current research interests include renewable energy resources, energy efficiency and intelligent power grid management.

If Weber's last name looks familiar to LSSU friends and family, it is because Paul is following his father Chuck's footsteps in teaching engineering at LSSU. Ron DeLap joined the faculty this past winter as an assistant professor of electrical engineering.

He comes from a two-year stint as systems engineer with Delphi Automotive in Saginaw.

While working at Delphi, he was an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Saginaw Valley State University.

In his previous career as design engineer with the National Security Agency, he developed various classified data collection systems.

At the same time, he served as an instructor at UCLA and the Air Force Institute of Technology.

DeLap holds bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering from Michigan Tech and a PhD in electrical engineering systems from the University of Michigan.

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