The Pulse

NewFaculty Stephen Nkansah-Amankra, Ph.D. Public Health Program, assistant professor Stephen Nkansah-Amankra has extensive international public health practice experiences in program planning, implementation and evaluation of maternal and child health program outcomes, adolescent reproductive health, and HIV/ AIDS programs. His research interests include evaluating eff ects of social contexts on health, particularly on low birth weight and preterm birth outcomes, prospective assessments of psychosocial factors on suicidal behaviors on young people entering adulthood, and other aspects of maternal psychiatric epidemiology. He graduated from the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia. Nkansah-Amankra has previously served as the Reproductive Health Advisor of Ghana: Save the Children (UK) programs to enhance capacity-building eff orts of three nationally based NGO's and 22 community- based organizations to implement reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programs at the community level. Prior to joining the CMU faculty, he taught graduate-level epidemiology and environmental public health at the University of Northern, Colorado. He has completed two masters degrees in public health and demography (as a United Nations fellow) from the University of Ghana, Legion Ghana. Jeff rey Edwards, Ph.D. Exercise Science, associate professor Jeff rey Edwards' research work has addressed the measurement of energy expenditure of physical activities using respiratory calorimetry as well as stable isotopic methods of measuring energy metabolism. For the last several years, Edwards' research has focused on the neuromuscular area and investigations have ranged from arthrogenic muscle inhibition to measurement of neuromuscular excitability changes during training. Edwards received his master's degree in exercise physiology from Ball State University and was hired as a research assistant at the Ball State Human Performance Laboratory. From there, Edwards was recruited to help in the startup of the Physiology Laboratories at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass. Edwards attended Indiana University where he received his Ph.D. in human performance with emphasis in the areas of physiology and human performance. Edwards was instrumental in starting the research laboratories and was the research director at the National Institute for Fitness and Sport in Indianapolis. In 1995, Edwards joined the faculty at Indiana State University where he later served as chairman and then administrator. He has consulted for a number of universities, national sports governing bodies and professional athletic teams and is a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Midwest American College of Sports Medicine, as well as its past president. Shannon Bressoud Palmer, Ph.D. Department of Communication Disorders, assistant professor Shannon Palmer's main areas of research center around electrophysiologic testing, central auditory processing disorders and cochlear implants. She teaches graduate and undergraduate classes, as well as working in CMU's Audiology Clinic. Palmer attended the University of Connecticut and received her Au.D. degree in 2009 and a Ph.D. in 2011 where she focused on diagnostic testing, electrophysiology and central auditory processing disorders. Her clinical experience included working at an Ear, Nose and Throat practice in New Haven, Conn., where she did diagnostic testing, vestibular evaluations and worked with cochlear implant patients. • Pulse • Summer 2012 23

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