Highlanders in the News: Week of Sept. 12, 2025

Our Highlanders are using their education to do extraordinary things. In this column, we highlight some notable mentions from local, regional, national and international news media. Whether our students, alumni, faculty and staff are featured as subject matter experts in high-profile stories or simply helping make the world a better place, we'll feature their stories.

Pathways to protection, education

As technology expands at its current pace, so too does the need for advanced precaution.

A recent piece on WDBJ News spotlit Radford University's cybersecurity curriculum and examined an attractive new option for professionals hoping to gain knowledge and experience in that field.

The story looks at Radford's Professional Accelerated Cyber Education (PACE) program, which is facilitated by the university's Vinod Chachra IMPACT Lab. A new $60,000 grant from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) allows students to gain certification through free online courses.

WDBJ spoke with Tim Shelton, a Roanoke County employee who's also a PACE participant.

"There's going to be lots of stuff with network-based vulnerabilities and attacks and how to prevent those," Shelton explained. "It's really great to not have to worry about the cost" of taking classes.

Tom Bennett, the senior director of business operations and planning for the Economic Development and Corporate Education division., said ongoing advances in artificial intelligence raise the stakes for online security, and PACE offers solutions that have additional benefits locally.

"Allowing us to be able to address that need through competency-based education training for our participants allows them to be able to do that here in this region, stay in this region and be able to support that needed growth area," Bennett said.

With its present CCI funding, PACE prepares its participants for such industry-recognized credentials as CompTIA Security+, Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and SANS GIAC GPEN.

You can read more about that recent grant and the program itself here.

Shoring up knowledge

Each year, William & Mary's Batten School of Coastal and Marine Sciences and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science's (VIMS) Eastern Shore Lab (ESL) select a handful of high school and college students for its summer internships.

The program takes place in the seaside town of Wachapreague, Virginia, and is supported by the Bonnie Sue Scholarship Fund.

Through hands-on activities, interns focus on general marine ecology and monitoring, tackling subjects such as aquaculture of clams, scallops, and oysters as well as water quality and fish habitats.

This year, one of just five scholars chosen was Will Justice, a Radford University senior, whose summer project involved algae photophysiology - essentially the study of how algae respond to light and use it for photosynthesis.

"It's fantastic that there are donors who care so much about education and the environment that they would give their own money to fund the ESL and this local internship," Justice said in a Sept. 3 report on the VIMS website.

The article said Justice worked under the mentorship of ESL Assistant Director Stacy Krueger-Hadfield.

"It's about giving back to the community here," Krueger-Hadfield said. "We provide interns with training they can use in local jobs, if they so desire.

"They're not just watching us; the interns are full participants."

Flight risks

The number one cause of bird fatalities in the United States is a likely suspect: The feral feline.

But not so fast, cats; the second largest threat is even more transparent: Windows.

In a recent episode of the radio program "With Good Reason," Radford University biology Professor Karen Powers discusses avian window strikes and notes that, across the U.S., more than 1 billion birds perish each year from collisions with windows and glass.

"A lot of the birds that are dying are young-of-the-year birds," born during the summer, Powers said, adding that many of them are migratory and aren't always familiar with the terrain they're flying through.

During her roughly 15-minute interview, Powers talks about which windows pose the biggest risks and the types of films, tints and decals that can deter such accidents, and she elaborates on the student-suggested "game cameras" and surveys they're using to help track the circumstances of such accidents in our region.

Powers, whose courses include zoology, ecology and conservation biology, also notes the country's unsettling loss of bird populations, roughly 3 billion since 1970.

"That turns out to be about a 29% loss on the landscape from abundance estimates just 50 years ago," she explained. "Eventually, that's going to catch up to us, unfortunately."

"With Good Reason," which also airs on WVTF.org, explores topics including science, the arts, politics, history, religion and business. It is produced by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities for the Virginia Higher Education Broadcasting Consortium.