FACULTY INDUCTED

ECU becomes charter member of national society

Published May 15, 2012 by
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East Carolina University has been named a charter member of the National Academy of Inventors.

The academy, founded at the University of South Florida in 2010, recognizes investigators at universities and non-profit institutes who translate their research findings into inventions that may benefit society.

ECU Inductees

  • William E. Allen, Department of Chemistry;
  • Martin Bier, Department of Physics;
  • Yan-Hua Chen, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology;
  • David Collier, Department of Pediatrics;
  • Orville W. Day Jr., Department of Physics;
  • Ronald W. Dudek, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology;
  • Paul Gemperline, Department of Chemistry;
  • Gregg Givens, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders;
  • Paul W. Hager, Department of Biology;
  • Glenn D. Harris, Department of Pediatrics;
  • Joseph S. Kalinowski, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders;
  • Yong-Qing Li, Department of Physics;
  • Qun Lu, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology;
  • Everett C. Pesci, Department of Microbiology and Immunology;
  • David William Pravica, Department of Mathematics;
  • Michael P. Rastatter, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders;
  • George Sigounas, Department of Internal Medicine Hematology/Oncology;
  • Andrew M. Stuart, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders;
  • David M. Terrian, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology; and
  • Michael Van Scott, Department of Physiology.

The group aims to “push forward this idea of invention and innovation and translating our research to new products and new ideas for our communities,” said Paul Sanberg, president of the academy and senior associate vice president for research and innovation at USF.

A ceremony honoring ECU’s induction and its faculty inventors was held April 25, when the university celebrated its 105th anniversary and Founder’s Day.

Twenty ECU faculty members were inducted including Dr. Gregg Givens, chairman of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the College of Allied Health Sciences and a clinical audiologist. Givens has received three patents relating to remote hearing assessment, and two more patents are pending.

“Hearing health care or the lack of is a global need for millions of people,” said Givens, who began working on the project in the early ’90s. “The system developed at ECU is internet based to allow for the testing of hearing, which will hopefully provide unserved individuals the care they need.”

With Givens’ creation, clinicians can remotely test patients through local or area networks and the web. Assessments can be performed using smart phones or tablet PCs. The first commercial version of the diagnostic system debuted in March under the name RemotEar by Otovation, a leading provider of audiometer products for hearing professionals and care providers.

“For East Carolina University, entwining research strengths with the vision to drive economic prosperity and improve the health and well-being of eastern North Carolina has clearly produced a class of individuals who are willing to endure the rigors of the patent process to call themselves inventors,” said Dr. Deirdre Mageean, ECU’s outgoing vice chancellor of research and graduate studies.

ECU’s ceremony featured keynote speaker John J. Kopchick, Goll-Ohio Eminent Scholar and professor of molecular biology at Ohio University, who spoke about growth hormone therapy.

The national academy has grown to more than 1,000 individual members and 33 institutions, Sanberg said.

Eligible individuals must be a faculty or staff member, student, graduate or affiliate of a member institution and named as an inventor on at least one issued U.S. patent.

For more information, visit http://academyofinventors.org or contact Marti Van Scott, director of the ECU Office of Technology Transfer, at 252-328-9549.