Dr. Binks is currently a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, and the director of the Nutrition & Metabolic Health Initiative at Texas Tech University where he also leads the Binks Research Lab. Dr. Binks has been a highly-regarded metabolic disease scientist for more than 20 years and is an experienced administrative leader in healthcare, business, and clinical program development. He begins on August 1.

In addition to being the MHA Online Program Coordinator and Assistant Professor, Maria Uriyo uses STEM/robotics as a tool to teach middle and high school age students problem- solving skills

Scafide was unanimously endorsed by the members of the editorial board due to her exceptional research and scholarship in the field of forensic nursing.

While working on their master’s degrees in social work at George Mason University, College of Public Health alumni Kendall Barrett, Madeline Holden, and Harveen Pantleay took part in field research on ageism in health care and are now using those skills in their careers.

Many opportunities for Canvas training and support are available this summer. Wednesday brown bag lunches will be moderated by the Stearns Center and peer faculty and staff mentors. You can also schedule one-on-one meetings with peer mentors, including CPH mentors Lila Fleming and Terri Ann Guingab. See the full list of training and support opportunities at https://lms.gmu.edu/summer-training-support/.

IT Services and Microsoft now offer Copilot (https://copilot.microsoft.com) based on ChatGPT 4.0. Users may log into Copilot using their netid and DUO authentication. Copilot is secured, so it will not maintain a history of usage.

Review Suggestions: Copilot provides suggestions as you type. Take a moment to review them and choose the ones that align with your intentions.

Context Matters: Provide clear context in your comments or code. Copilot performs better when it understands the problem you’re trying to solve.

Accept, Modify, or Reject: Copilot’s suggestions are not always perfect. Feel free to accept, modify, or reject them based on your needs.

Learn from Edits: Copilot learns from your manual edits. If you make changes, it adapts and improves over time.

Use Shortcuts: Learn keyboard shortcuts to quickly accept or modify suggestions. This speeds up your workflow.

Pair Programming: Copilot can be a great pair programming partner. Collaborate with it to write code more efficiently.

Governor Youngkin released Executive Order 30 regarding the State Agency's use of AI. 

The M: drive will be retired at the end of June. Share administrators were contacted in mid-May to develop a migration plan to MS Teams or Sharepoint Document Library (SDL).

Sharepoint Document Library is similar to OneDrive with a key difference – Files are owned by the members of the SDL, not by a single individual. When an employee leaves George Mason, SDL files remain. Files shared from the departing employee’s OneDrive are eventually deleted and may not be recoverable.

ITS offers training on MS Teams and Sharepoint Document Libraries. Trainings are recorded. RSVP for an upcoming webinar. George Mason’s Collaboration Collective Team has a channel dedicated to the MESA migration. They hold office hours every Tuesday from 12-1, which are also recorded.  Join the Collaboration Collective. For additional assistance, contact Matt Hicks (mhicks21@gmu.edu).

You may have noticed that the Office of Research has been furiously working on faculty proposal submissions. 15 proposals are being submitted in May, and 14 are in the queue for June, so far. We are about to set a new FY record. Congratulations to all of the faculty, staff, and students, who help make these proposals possible. Pre-award, as we like to call it, is stressful for everyone involved. I want you to know how much you are appreciated! Moreover, when we apply, we win!  I'm am thrilled to announce 2 more upcoming awards for CPH faculty. Congratulations to these two CPH faculty teams on their awards from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth:

View the full list of VFHY intended award announcements here.

All faculty applying for federal funding, we have some important news for you! Effective May 20 for NSF and effective August 8 for other federal agencies, all universities must review any proposed key personnel before submission! That means GMU ORIA must review every person listed as proposed project personnel and certify that no one has a connection to a "Maligned Foreign Talent Recruitment Program" or MFTRP.  

What, why now, and where did this come from? Under the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, effective August 9, 2024, federal agencies are prohibited from providing funding for any proposal in which a “Covered Individual” (Key Personnel on your grant) is participating in a malign foreign talent recruitment program (MFTRP). Foreign talent recruitment programs (FTRPs) are efforts directly or indirectly organized, managed, or funded by a foreign government to legitimately recruit science and technology professionals or students in targeted fields. Many of these programs use legitimate means to attract talent, such as research fellowships and grants to incentivize researchers to physically relocate. However, several federal agencies have cited talent recruitment programs as a potential threat to the U.S. research community, for example, through the unauthorized transfer of intellectual property and proprietary information.  In practice, this means that any affiliations with or funding from FTRPs need to be reviewed by research administrators to ensure there are no prohibitions. See attached memo for more information.

What does this mean for your pre-award team in CPH? Your pre-award team in CPH will remind you to nail down your proposal budget ASAP. The MFTRP review  cannot occur until your budget is completed.  Your pre-award team will then send the budget and biosketch documents to ORIA for MFTRP review, while your other proposal documents are being completed. The review takes time and is an additional step that CPH cannot control. 

What does this mean for you? It is imperative that your budget, biosketches, and current and pending/other support be done as soon as possible and no less than (7-10 ) business days before your submission deadline. Subcontract personnel also must be reviewed.  

What this means for all of us? I regret to say that we have NO power to waive this requirement or ask for more time. This is a new step for all of us, we know it's painful, and it is, unfortunately, unavoidable. Please be patient while  Mason (and all other U.S. universities) work out new policies and procedures.  he Office of Research is here to help you. We need your help in return. Remember, budgets ASAP and no less than 7 - 10 business days before submission deadline.  

Funding call: A new call for proposals aims to advance RWJF’s childhood obesity prevention work by addressing the social, economic, and physical factors that contribute to childhood obesity. Learn more.

Thank you to all of you who have clicked our new CPH logo toolkit and are interested in using the new brand. The College’s Office of Marketing and Communications (Michelle Thompson and Mary Cunningham) encourages you to reach out to speak with them about how to use the new logo and visit brand.gmu.edu. As we have mentioned, unit logos (Department, Schools, and Centers) will come from the Office of University Branding. A few additional items related to the new brand that we would like you to know:

Reach out to Michelle if you have any question—all questions are good questions.

This call to action is for all Nursing, Social Work, CGH, HAP, and Nutrition luamni to come and be active in your CPH alumni group. By attending events and networking with Mason alum, getting to know (and assist) in the educational and research endeavors across CPH, and/or becoming active with the CPH Alumni Board!

There are opportunities for CPH alum, faculty, staff ,and students so let us know that you want to be part of this growing association!  

Board Elections are in June and it is so important to us to have someone from each of the five departments so we truly represent CPH. Your CPH Alumni Board is interested in exploring and expanding our CPH Alumni Body. Join us!

If you want to just know more about what is going on across CPH, have fun with Alumni, or be part of the Board team please complete the form new member application so we can begin to work together and build what YOU want to see in your 2024-2025 Alumni Board.

Annual Dean’s Address and Luncheon
August 21

Faculty and Staff Retreat
August 22

Details to follow later in the summer.

Deans Speakers Series: Denise Burnette, PhD
September 17
Dr. Burnette is the Samuel S. Wurtzel Professor of Social Work at VCU. Her research focuses on global topics, including health and psychosocial problems and related service needs of older populations in resource-constrained settings. 

National Public Health Week 2025: Conversation and Connections 
April 9, 2025  | 6-9 pm  Merten 1201

June 4 | 1-3 pm | PHC Multipurpose Room

The Staff Council hopes all Staff and A/P Faculty will join them for our inaugural CPH Staff Meeting. The first hour will be mingling and snacks, followed by the general staff meeting. The agenda will be emailed out soon, along with a Zoom link for the general staff meeting for those who cannot attend in person. Please RSVP by May 24, 2024. 

Please let us know if you can attend the in-person "happy hour" and consider bringing a fun snack to share. Drinks will be provided by the Staff Council members. Staff Council looks forward to a time to get to know each other better and have some fun!   

Abstracts due May 31

The Virginia Public Health Association's 2024 Annual Conference, "Elevating Partnerships to Advance Public Health in Virginia," will be held on September 19 and  20 at Reynolds Community College - Parham Road Campus in Richmond. Learn more and submit your abstract here.

The next newsletter will be sent on Monday, June 10.

View the newsletter archives here.