Jean Dreyfus Boissevain Lectureship for Undergraduate Institutions
Deadline for letters of intent to the Research Office: Monday, March 17, 2014
The Jean Dreyfus Boissevain Lectureship awards provide an $18,500 grant to bring a leading researcher to a primarily undergraduate institution to give a series of lectures in the chemical sciences and to support two undergraduates in summer research. The lecturer is expected to substantially interact with undergraduate students and faculty over the period of the visit. The undergraduates are expected to engage with mentors in contemporary research.
The Research Office, Office for Research Development is requesting letters for intent for the NSF – High Performance Computing System Acquisition (HPCSA): Continuing the Building of a More Inclusive Computing Environment for Science and Engineering program.
Deadline to submit letters of intent to the Research Office: Monday, March 17, 2014
The current solicitation is intended to complement previous NSF investments in advanced computational infrastructure by exploring new and creative approaches to delivering computational resources to the scientific community. Consistent with theAdvanced Computing Infrastructure: Vision and Strategic Plan (February 2012), the current solicitation is focused on expanding the use of high-end resources to a much larger and more diverse community. To quote from that strategic plan, the goal is to “… position and support the entire spectrum of NSF-funded communities … and to promote a more comprehensive and balanced portfolio …. to support multidisciplinary computational and data-enabled science and engineering that in turn supports the entire scientific, engineering and educational community.” Thus, while continuing to provide essential and needed resources to the more traditional users of HPC, this solicitation expands the horizon to include research communities that are not users of traditional HPC systems, but who would benefit from advanced computational capabilities at the national level. Building, testing, and deploying these resources within the collaborative ecosystem that encompasses national, regional and campus resources continues to remain a high priority for NSF and one of increasing importance to the science and engineering community.
Your livelier laptops, smarter smartphones and quicker tablets all improve, fundamentally, because the computer circuitry inside is always shrinking. Every two years or so, smaller features enable chipmakers to pack more transistors onto a chip – thereby improving performance.
So two of the world’s biggest chipmakers, and the industry’s biggest equipment manufacturer – are investing $7.3 million in a Corvallis startup called Inpria Corp. The 12-person company, which spun out of Oregon State University in 2007, has new chemical technology designed to improve chip lithography and enable EUV. Read more…
The Office for Research Development is requesting letters of intent for the NSF – SRN competition 2014 Focus: Urban Sustainability. The program seeks to bring together multidisciplinary teams of researchers, educators, managers, policymakers and other stakeholders to conduct collaborative research that addresses fundamental challenges in sustainability. Guidelines: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/nsf-srn. Information: Mary Phillips mary.phillips@oregonstate.edu. Deadline: Feb. 28
The OSU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi is now accepting nominations for the Emerging Scholar Award. The award honors tenure-track faculty members in any academic unit who are in the early stages of their professional careers in recognition of outstanding research or creative activity in their field of study. Applications must be submitted by March 31 toDavid.Hackleman@oregonstate.edu. Visit http://phikappaphi.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/Emerging_Scholar_Flier.pdf for requirements and nomination packet details.
Please send nominations to the Awards Committee for review.
The American Chemical Society’s Division of Organic Chemistry is pleased to sponsor a new award program called the Undergraduate Award in Organic Chemistry, that is intended to recognize senior students who display a significant aptitude for organic chemistry and to encourage further interest in the field.
The award: Consists of a letter of recognition from the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry and an award certificate signed by the division chair. Awardees who are members of the American Chemical Society will also receive membership to the Division of Organic Chemistry; those who are not will receive Affiliate status. Division Affiliates have all of the benefits of membership in the division with the exception of voting and serving on committees. For a full description of the benefits of membership in the division, please go to http://organicdivision.org/ .
Nominations: Chemistry departments are invited to select a top graduating senior student majoring in either chemistry or biochemistry who has demonstrated excellence in organic chemistry based on a combination of research experience, coursework and a desire to pursue a career in chemistry. The student should also be enrolled at your institution for the 2013-2014 academic year. To nominate a student, the Department Chair or the Chair of the Department Awards Committee (or similar), should complete the online form available at: http://organicdivision.org/uga by March 15th.* Please note that only one student per U.S. institution can be nominated per academic year. While we plan to send you the official award items by April 30th, once the form is submitted, you are welcome to immediately recognize the student as you deem appropriate.
*The deadline was purposely chosen to be prior to graduation so that information could be sent to the department before the student recipients had left campus.
Goal: To provide an intensive training environment for constructing a successful grant proposal. Eligibility: Tenure-stream, untenured faculty (Assistant and Associate Professor only) with a FTE appointment within the College of Science and/or College of Pharmacy. Expectations of Participant: Individuals selected to participate in this program are expected be actively engaged in the process – including specific writing and reading assignments.
Application Process: Eligible faculty members are asked to submit a 5-page mini-proposal as a PDF file to grant.mentorship@oregonstate.edu (1 inch margins, font size 12 in Times New Roman or larger, line spacing of 14 pt or larger). The title of the email should be “COS/COP Untenured Faculty Grant Mentoring Program.” The first page of the proposal is intended to be a one page summary of the specific aims / project goals for the proposal. Pages 2-5 should include an introduction, scientific approach, significance, innovation, deliverables and broader impacts (science-based and/or NSF-specific types). A timeline for
accomplishing the work would be advisable. The audience for the pre-proposal should be technical in nature for the specialized area; however, it should provide sufficient descriptive text in the introduction and specific aims sections to be accessible by a PhD level scientist in a related area.
Application Deadline for Program: March 24, 2014 at 9 am (PST)
Program Format:
The mentorship program will be structured in four phases.
Phase 1. Funding 101 (Thursdays from noon-1 pm, lunch provided)
• Roundtable Discussion (April 3). Participants share what they would like to get out of the program. Be prepared to share your own stories about grant writing and fund raising.
• The Mechanics of Writing (April 10). Sara Jameson will provide an overview of the mechanics of writing.
• Panel Discussion for Federal Agencies (April 17). Highly successful faculty at OSU will answer questions about their strategies for targeting NSF, NIH etc. Current panel members include: Sastry Pantula (NSF),
Joe Beckman (NIH), Staci Simonich (NIH / Superfund), May Nyman (DOE), Andy Karplus (NIH) Colleges of Science & Pharmacy Oregon State University
• How to Talk to a Program Officer (NOTE Special Date: Tuesday, April 22). Rick Spinrad will provide guidance on how to maximize your interactions with program officers.
• Mini-proposal.v2. (Due April 21, 2014 at 9 am PST) Based on what you have learned from Phase 1, a revised version of your proposal must be submitted to grant.mentorship@oregonstate.edu. Completion of the revised pre-proposal is a requirement to proceed to Phase 2.
Phase 2. Structuring a Proposal with Donn Forbes (May 5-9)
• The Mechanics to Structuring a Winning Proposal. Donn will go over key traits to how to write and structure a proposal.
• Real Time Rewriting of Proposal. Donn will select a subset of the proposals to go over with the group and show how he would recommend modifying.
• Small Group Discussions on Proposal Writing. Small groups will get together to peer review each other’s proposals.
• Mini-proposal.v3. (Due May 26, 2014 at 9 am PST) Based on what you have learned from Phases 1 and 2, a revised version of your proposal must be submitted to grant.mentorship@oregonstate.edu. Completion of
the revised pre-proposal is a requirement to proceed to Phase 3.
Phase 3. Red Team Peer Review by Senior Faculty (June 2014)
• Peer review of Mini-Proposal. Each proposal will receive peer review from two to three senior faculty with written feedback. The reviewers will be expected to provide “real world” (not-sugar coated) feedback to help
the participants hone the scientific aspects and grantsmanship of the proposal.
• Personal Consultation with Reviewer(s). At least one of the reviewers will personally meet with the participant to answer questions and go over how to interpret the feedback.
• Roundtable Discussion (Late June). Participants will get together to discuss what they have learned from this process and provide feedback on additional aspects to further improve future Grant Mentoring Programs. An anonymous survey will be conducted to gather additional feedback.
Phase 4. Participant Follow-up.
• The participant is asked to provided a one page summary by December 31, 2014 and June 30, 2015 to grant.mentorship@oregonstate.edu on grant writing efforts, successes and learning experiences.
The red rose remains the most popular flower to give on Valentine’s Day. Carotenoids produce the yellow colors, anthocyanins the reds, and a mixture of the two the modern oranges. The huge variety of roses has been descended from wild roses by selection, mutation, and hybridization [1]. Read More…
Ken Hedberg, a professor in the department of chemistry, moved into his office in the basement of Gilbert Hall in the early 1960s. (Photo by: Justin Quinn – Daily Barometer)
Originally printed in The Daily Barometer, Wednesday, February 5, 2014 (used with permission)
By: Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova
Professor Ken Hedberg makes waves in his field after nearly 30 years in retirement.
He tells everyone to “just call me Ken.”
Professor Ken Hedberg is an Oregon State University alumnus and the longest emeritus faculty researcher to continue researching after retirement for nearly 30 years.
Hedberg was born in Portland on Feb. 2, 1920. His father only completed eighth grade, and his mother didn’t continue her education after high school.
“Both of my parents were incredibly smart,” Hedberg said.
When the Great Depression hit, Hedberg’s father lost his job, which put the family in financial straits.
Hedberg recalls the lights being shut off in his home for periods of time; food rationing became a reality.
This experience left a strong imprint on Hedberg.
“My father said to me in my early teens that with every dollar I made, he would match for my college education,” Hedberg said, “but then how the depression hit us and with my father being out of work for such a long time — I knew that this promise would not come to be.”
Readjusting through a series of moves across the state, Hedberg, his mother and his sister moved to Corvallis with the goal in mind for the Hedberg children to attend OSU, while Hedberg’s father took a job working on the coast.
“I was so impressed by how my mother and my father came together to see what options they had in order to do the best for our family,” Hedberg said.
In order to meet this goal, Hedberg’s mother ran a boarding house within their home.
“It was a lot of work for my mother — the cooking the cleaning,” Hedberg said. “Almost 75 years later, I wouldn’t be seated here nor carrying out my research if my mother didn’t work as hard as she did.”
Graduating OSU in the 1940s, Hedberg attended graduate school at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., where he first met Dr. Linus Pauling, a fellow OSU graduate and head of the department of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.
For the young graduate student, Pauling took note of Hedberg’s talents and intelligence and pushed Hedberg to pursue research that he was interested in. Pauling supported Hedberg by cultivating channels of opportunities and became a close, lifelong mentor and friend.
Hedberg enjoyed exploring and seeing all the sites that the Norwegian culture offered him.
One warm summer evening in Oslo, Hedberg, a lover of chamber music, booked a ticket to attend an outdoor performance.
While waiting in line to pick up his ticket, Hedberg looked over to see a young woman, a woman researcher who worked with him in his new lab. She too was picking up her ticket for the show.
They entered together.
“Following, we went to a famous restaurant called Blom,” Hedberg said. “We had some snacks and munchies and walked our separate ways home.”
That was the first evening of the rest of their lives.
The couple married. Sixty years later, Lise and Ken Hedberg have two children — who respectively graduated from Stanford University and Harvard University — and four grandchildren.
In the early years, Hedberg worked at Caltech. Yearning to leave the Southern California smog, Hedberg decided to return with his family to beautiful Oregon to carry out his research and teach chemistry at his alma mater in the 1960s.
Hedberg retired from OSU in 1986.
Monday through Friday, Hedberg still arrives in the mornings to work on his research.
Hedberg is considered a sort of phenomena in the chemistry department.
He is an internationally recognized scientist and is one of the world’s pioneers in the development of electron diffraction and the study of molecular structures and intramolecular dynamics.
Moreover, Hedberg is the only researcher in OSU history to remain continuously funded, while being retired.
“Ken’s been retired — but not retired — for almost as long as I’ve been here,” said Phillip Watson, professor of chemistry at OSU.
Working for free, Hedberg continues to conduct his research at OSU and make scientific advancements within his field.
