Paul Ohme, Former Director of CEISMC,
Accepts Georgia Bio Community Award
By Andrew Kerr
February 11, 2009
Paul Ohme, former director of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC), accepted a Georgia Bio Community Award last month in recognition for his work bringing industry and education together during his years at Georgia Tech.
Georgia Bio is a private non-profit organization representing companies, institutes, hospitals, and research universities united by a desire to support and promote the life sciences industry in the state of Georgia. Speaking at the event, Phillip Moise, Vice President and General Counsel of Immucor and a Georgia Bio Board member, explained that the Community Awards were designed to recognize people “in the trenches who bring other people together to make the industry more than it would ever be if we worked separately.”
In his acceptance speech, Dr. Ohme deflected the praise and insisted that “the honor belongs to all of you here in the room.” He then extended an invitation to all Georgia Bio members to join in supporting Georgia education initiatives.
"Georgia Bio is playing a very important role in helping to educate our children,” Dr. Ohme said later. “Volunteers from several different Georgia Bio firms partnered with classroom teachers to co-develop lesson plans that illustrate basic science concepts in the school curriculum with examples from day-to-day work in the bio industry. In addition, several firms employ middle and high school teachers in their labs and offices during the summer."
Several Georgia Bio companies have partnered with CEISMC's Georgia Intern-Fellowships for Teachers (GIFT) program in recent years in order to offer summer teacher work placement opportunities. CIBA Vision introduced teachers to the myriad technologies used in creating contact lenses. RFS Pharma placed a teacher in a lab to study chemical reactions related to the treatment of infectious diseases (which included AIDS and hepatitis). Solvay placed teachers in their chemistry labs. Stiefel Laboratories introduced a teacher to the techniques of and associated technologies for effective business management.
Georgia Tech was well-represented at the event. H. Wayne Hodges, Vice Provost of Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute, was also recognized for building bridges between Georgia Tech and Georgia businesses.
Under its new director, Dr. Richard Millman, CEISMC looks forward to continuing to partner with Georgia Bio firms in advancing one of the consortium’s prime objectives: the enhancement of K-12 education in biotechnology-related subjects, with the goal of developing a strong, in-state workforce for tomorrow.