VCU news

Melanie Dempsey, program director and assistant professor, Department of Radiation Sciences, School of Allied Health Professions

Dempsey has been named a fellow of the American Association of Medical Dosimetrists in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the AAMD and the medical dosimetry profession.

The medical dosimetrist is a member of the radiation oncology team who has knowledge of the overall characteristics and clinical relevance of radiation oncology treatment machines and equipment, is cognizant of procedures commonly used in brachytherapy, and has the education and expertise necessary to generate radiation dose distributions and dose calculations in collaboration with the medical physicist and radiation oncologist. The fellow honor was developed to recognize AAMD members who are dedicated to the organization and whose contributions to the profession have been meritorious.

Frank Bosco, Ph.D., assistant professor of management, School of Business

Bosco and 269 co-authors investigating the reproducibility of psychological science published their findings in Science Magazine. Launched nearly four years ago, the Reproducibility Project: Psychology has produced the most comprehensive investigation ever done about the rate and predictors of reproducibility in a field of science. The project conducted replications of 100 published findings of three prominent psychology journals. They found that regardless of the analytic method or criteria used, fewer than half of their replications produced the same findings as the original study.

Science is unique from other ways of gaining knowledge by relying on reproducibility to gain confidence in ideas and evidence.  Reproducibility means that the results recur when the same data are analyzed again, or when new data are collected using the same methods. The team emphasized that a failure to reproduce does not necessarily mean the original report was incorrect. 

Yet a problem for psychology and other fields is that incentives for scientists are not consistently aligned with reproducibility. Research with new, surprising findings is more likely to be published than research examining when, why, or how existing findings can be reproduced.  As a consequence, it is in many scientists’ career interests to pursue innovative research, even at the cost of reproducibility of the findings. 

Bosco’s research spans the areas of human resource management, organizational behavior and organizational research methods. He is especially interested in employee staffing, cognitive ability testing, meta-analysis, big data, open science and approaches for summarizing entire scientific literatures. His research appears in outlets such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Organizational Research Methods, and Personnel Psychology.

Jean Giddens, Ph.D., dean, School of Nursing

Virginia Commonwealth University President Michael Rao, Ph.D., awarded the VCU Medallion for Endowed Chair honors to Giddens at the School of Nursing's annual convocation for faculty and staff in August.

Giddens was recognized for her appointment as the Doris B. Yingling Endowed Chair. An endowed chair is an honor to the named holder of the appointment and also an enduring tribute to the donor who established it.

A nationally recognized expert in nursing education, curricula and evaluation, Giddens joined the School of Nursing in July 2013. A Robert Woods Johnson Foundation Nurse Executive Fellow alumna, she is the author of numerous journal articles, nursing textbooks and electronic media in nursing education. Giddens is widely recognized for creating innovative teaching and learning models in nursing sciences, including The Neighborhood, a Web-based virtual community used to enhance integrative approaches in nursing education.

Richard Marconi, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, School of Medicine

Marconi was selected to receive a grant of nearly $575,000 from the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation to support ongoing research in the development of a novel multipathogen-based vaccine that will protect people from Lyme disease. Marconi’s lab has already developed a canine Lyme disease vaccine that has been patented and licensed and is now undergoing U.S. Department of Agriculture field safety trials. Lyme disease infects an estimated 300,000 people a year according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with most cases occurring in the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.

Daniel Riddle, Ph.D., assistant chair and department coordinator, School of Allied Health Professions

Riddle, a VCU alumnus, was selected to serve as a member of the Neurological, Aging and Musculoskeletal Epidemiology Study Section of the Center for Scientific Review from July 2015 to June 2019.

The Center for Scientific Review serves as the central receipt point for all research and training grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health. The center’s key mission is to see that NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert and timely reviews — free from inappropriate influences — so NIH can fund the most promising research.

Members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by the quality of research accomplishments, publications in scientific journals, and other scientific activities, achievements and honors. “Service on a study section also requires mature judgement and objectivity as well as the ability to work effectively in a group, qualities we believe Dr. Riddle will bring to this important task,” said Richard Nakamura, Ph.D., director of the Center for Scientific Review.