NSU Fall 2012 Horizons Magazine

Thanks to Nova Southeastern University, Gale Allen, a NASA research administrator, has found her wings. In the 1960s, the space agency sought daring pilots to fly its missions. But today’s NASA heroes often must navigate the uncertain terrain of lean budgets and public-private partnerships. Allen (D.B.A., 2002) says the courses she studied at NSU’s H. Wayne Hui- zenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship gave her the marketing and communications acumen she needed. “The skills I learned at NSU were invaluable in those areas,” said Allen, who is the associate chief scientist for life and microgravity sciences at the space agency. Growing up on Virginia’s eastern shore, Allen always dreamed of being an astronaut. She applied to the astronaut pro- gram several times, but her skills did not match NASA’s needs. She received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Norfolk State University in 1981. She worked for a Portsmouth, Vir- ginia, paint company before heading back to school for a master’s degree in chemistry at Old Dominion University. Her thesis on thermal protection sys- tems (tiles) for the space shuttle helped her land a job working with the U.S. Navy in Yorktown, Virginia. Her next big business venture came when she moved to Georgia to set up a chemistry lab for the Navy’s new Ohio- class Trident ballistic missile submarine base. While in Georgia, she earned another master’s degree, this time in business administration, from Brenau University. Today, she is a trustee of that institution. By 1991, the adventurous Allen grew restless and again set her sights on NASA. This time, she decided she wouldn’t apply to be an astronaut, but to work as a scientist and administrator. “We call ourselves the space cadet wannabes,” she joked. “If you can’t be there flying, you find something to do that allows the others to fly.” For many years, NASA’s engineering environment was dominated by men, but gradually, it started to offer more opportunities for women. Allen began her NASA career at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. She worked as chief of the materials and chemistry branch, applying her knowledge of submarines to spacecrafts. She later took a position in the agency overseeing the development of technologies to support human space flight on missions to Mars and the moon. In that position, she helped develop a radiation detec- tion project that is part of the new Curiosity mission on Mars. As she moved up the ranks in NASA, she contemplated more graduate study. With master’s degrees in both chemistry and business, she weighed which direction to go. She decided to pur- sue a doctoral degree in business at NSU. “I started thinking about what I could best give back to NASA,” she said. “We have tremendous scientists and engineers, but the business side isn’t something that was a big focus at that time. Our financial side—our business side— really needed to be strengthened.” Allen says she was attracted by the quality of NSU’s program and the flexibility it offered to take courses on week- ends and online. “The courses I took and the support I got from the professors and instructors were not only in the theory, but the application that extended beyond the theory. I’m still using it to this day,” she said. She also credits NSU’s faculty members with encourag- ing her to stay with her studies when she felt overwhelmed balancing work and school. Art Weinstein, Ph.D., professor and chair of marketing at the Huizenga Business School, was on Allen’s dissertation committee and shared her inter- est in high-tech marketing. He says flexibility was important. “We would do a lot of work through email, phone calls, and whatever it takes to get the job done. We try to have that philosophy with all of the students, to give them a personal experience,” he added. Allen’s dissertation on high-tech partnerships turned out to be a fortuitous choice, as NASA began to collaborate with private companies such as SpaceX, which recently launched a successful mission to the space station. In 2011, Allen was detailed to provide support for the chief scientist in the area of life and physical sciences microgravity research, a position that became permanent in January 2012. Now living in Springfield, Virginia, she provides advice for research on the International Space Station and helps NASA prioritize its microgravity research projects. Recently, she oversaw the development of a strategy that pared a National Research Council wish list of 200 science projects down to about 22. She says her ability to strategize and work with competing groups is critical in today’s budget environment. During the Apollo program, NASA’s budget was 4 percent of federal spending; today its budget is just .5 percent, she notes. Keenly aware of the change, she works with members of Congress and the President’s Office in determining which NASA projects receive funding. Allen, who has a daughter and two grand- children, puts in long days at the space agency and travels frequently. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and genealogy research. But she says she still hasn’t given up on her dream of one day flying into space. And she believes, with the development of space tourism, her dream will come true. “I’m going to fly,” she said. “I’m going to get in there, one way or the other.” n 34 HORIZONS 35 HORIZONS alumni profile Alumna Finds a Place in Space NASA research administrator Gale Allen credits NSU courses with giving her the skills to soar in her career. by liz atwood More than 9,200 Broward County high school student-athletes have received education, screening, and post-injury services because of an initiative championed by NSU and com- munity leaders. Of those student-athletes, more than 5,100 have been tested since the Broward County School Board adopted, in March 2012, mandatory baseline (pre-injury) concussion testing for all student-athletes attending its high schools. The initiative was led by Stephen Russo, Ph.D., direc- tor of NSU’s Sports Medicine Clinic and assistant professor at the Center for Psychological Studies, and Andrew Kusienski, D.O., department chair of Sports Medicine at NSU’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. NSU partnered with the Broward County Athletic Association and School Board, which also included collaboration with Broward Health and the Memorial Healthcare System. The student athletes in a number of sports—including football, volleyball, and cross country—take the 20-minute neurocognitive test called ImPACT (Immediate Post– Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing). The computerized test uses words, shapes, colors, and patterns to measure an athlete’s symptoms, reaction times, and the speed at which he or she processes information. If a concussion is suspected, the test is given a second time to gauge if the athlete is ready to return to play. The screenings are performed at NSU in the Sports Medicine Clinic by the university’s professional staff. In addition, Russo and Kusienski are using funds made possible by an NSU President’s Faculty Research and Devel- opment Grant to document the physiological changes that occur in athletes as a result of brain injury. According to the Brain Injury Research Institute’s 2012 statistics, an estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million sports and recreation-related concussions are believed to occur annu- ally in the United States, with football being responsible for more than 250,000 head injuries. n Protecting the Brain: NSU Joins Community in Concussion Screening Initiative around NSU by felecia henderson