Calling Facebook aficionados; UAA shares information via social media

The Office of Advancement at UAA has a Facebook profile, and sponsors the UAA Facebook page where news and information about campus activities and opportunities is shared. So if you're a Facebook user, consider becoming a friend of Uaa Advancement and a fan of UAA University of Alaska Anchorage.

On our Facebook page, please check out a new feature that highlights the work of our faculty, called "Meet the Professor." The post includes a short video featuring a faculty member discussing his or her work, and inviting questions that viewers can post in the comment section below the video. This is an idea surfacing around the country as universities work to share the expertise and talent at the university with the larger community. It also recognizes that lots of learning takes place outside the classroom.

Find UAA Professor Frank von Hippel's video, in which he describes the NIH RO1-funded research that he and Loren Buck of UAA, and Bill Cresko and John Postlethwait of the University of Oregon, are collaborating on. They are studying the environmental contaminant perchlorate and its effects on threespine stickleback fish. It basically disrupts the fish's endocrine system to the degree that female fish develop both sperm and ovaries, and male fish develop oversized testes. Because these fish have hormone systems similar to humans, the concern is that perchlorate, widespread in the U.S. and other industrialized nations, may be a contributing factor in human reproductive diseases. Take a look, pose a question. Professor von Hippel will answer any questions that get posted in the comment section of the Facebook video.

And one last word on social media. UAA is also on Twitter. Find us at www.twitter.com/uaanchorage, and at a special account featuring information especially relevant to college students, www.twitter.com/UAAfreefood.

Thank you, and hope to meet you online.