Dr. Terrence Sweeney, Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Scranton, has been awarded the 2012 American Physiological Society's Macknight Progressive Educator Award. The second ever award recipient, Dr. Sweeney felt a strong connection to the end goals of the Macknight award. In his own words:
"I'm honored to have been chosen as this year's APS Macknight Progressive Educator awardee for the development and use of our cardiovascular model. The fact that APS physiologists with a special focus on education have endorsed the value of the mechanical model in facilitating the teaching of cardiovascular concepts is particularly rewarding and encouraging. I've been a user of PowerLab since the early 80s, when the technology was introduced as MacLab. The power, capabilities and ease of use of the PowerLab system have continually increased since then. Consequently, it was an obvious choice to turn to PowerLab when we were looking for an interface to drive the cardiovascular model and acquire and analyze the data it generated.
Dr. Terrence Sweeney
The Progressive Educator Award will accelerate our progress with the model. For example, to move beyond our current undergraduate applications, we will be incorporating the PowerLab system that accompanies the award into a mobile version of the model that will be targeted at our educational outreach efforts.
One outreach project that we're excited about will involve my undergraduate research students in a collaboration with a local high school AP Biology teacher. The goal of this to endeavor is to improve the mastery of cardiovascular concepts among high school students through their interactive use of our cardiovascular model."
We wish Dr. Sweeney the best of luck in his planned endeavors with his new PowerLab system.