Dear OSU community,   At Oregon State University, we are embracing the ethical and thoughtful use of artificial intelligence to drive innovation and enhance our operations. We are excited to announce Zoom AI Companion, a powerful new tool designed to enhance your meeting experience and boost efficiency, will be available starting December 16.What is Zoom AI Companion? 
The Zoom AI Companion is an AI-powered assistant that helps summarize meetings, create action items, and update users who join meetings late.

Key Features: 
Meeting Summaries: Automatically generate concise summaries of your meetings, ensuring everyone stays informed, even if they join late. 
Action Items: Create and assign action items directly from your meeting discussions, helping to keep your projects on track. 
Host Control: As the meeting host, you have complete control over the use of Zoom AI Companion, ensuring you can manage and customize its functionalities according to your needs. 

How to Get Started:  Zoom AI Companion will be available in your Zoom settings, where you can enable, disable, and modify options. Resources are available to learn more about using Zoom AI Companion and specific options.
If you have any questions or need assistance, please contact the Service Desk at beav.es/help or by calling 541-737-8787.

Sam Williams, Executive Director, Business Architecture Oregon State University | University Information and Technology   
 Oregon State University University Information and Technology uit.oregonstate.edu 

THURSDAY, DEC. 5 | 9-11 A.M.

President’s Winter Celebration
Memorial Union Lounge
Hosted by President Jayathi Y. Murthy

OSU faculty, staff and students are invited to gather for this annual university tradition to celebrate the close of Fall term and the incoming winter season.

Put on your favorite winter sweater and join President Murthy for conversation and connection with colleagues and students before winter break.

Attendees are welcome to bring non-perishable food items or monetary donations to benefit OSU’s Food Pantry at the Basic Needs Center. For more information about the items that are most helpful at the Food Pantry, please see their wish list.

Your contributions are important and appreciated!


Accommodation requests may be made by calling 541-737-4717 or emailing events@oregonstate.edu.

See attached for the Western Sun Grant Regional Center Initiatives RFA. This competitive grant program provides funding to be used to support OSU graduate students and provides up to $59,000 for 6 months of graduate work that is relevant to the Sun Grant Program objectives. We anticipate being able to provide at least two awards.  Work must be completed by June 30 , 2025.

Instructions for applying are included in the attached RFA.

The deadline for applications is December 2, 2024.

The Family Resource Center Kids Gift Closet helps OSU families provide gifts for their children during holidays and celebrations. Thanks to our generous sponsors, each year’s gift closet is a huge success and we have many grateful families. You can give in a variety of ways: Amazon registry that ships directly to FRC; the Toy Factory in downtown Corvallis (you can leave the gift in our donation box), or you can bring in any new and unwrapped gifts to Our Little Village in the lower level of Milne. We will be collecting gifts until Dec. 13. If you have any questions or would like to learn more about this program, please contact familyresources@oregonstate.edu.

Dear OSU Community Members,

Advancing safe working, learning, and living environments is at the heart of all that we do within the university. We recognize that inclement weather, hazardous conditions, extreme heat, and unhealthy air quality are environmental situations that can affect your wellness and safety, and the successful operations of the university.

There are circumstances in which the president, or designated OSU leaders, might determine it necessary to delay the opening or close the university’s operations while maintaining ongoing essential residential and research functions. Recognizing that fall, winter, spring, and summer terms each come with unique weather events and potential for conditions that may be hazardous, this communication is focused on inclement weather (snow, ice, heavy rain) and conditions (flooding, icy roads, fallen trees) which may occur during fall and winter terms.

Announcements of Closure or Curtailments of Operations

To inform OSU community members and to contribute to continuity of services, the university will make every effort to announce campus or university closures or curtailment decisions as soon as possible. The information will be distributed or posted no later than 6 a.m. and, when possible, earlier. An announcement of closure or curtailment of operations will be distributed as follows:

Corvallis campus: Posted on the OSU Home Page with a headline linking to the Campus Alert website. Additionally, OSU’s Department of Public Safety will maintain a recorded phone message reporting the operating status of the Corvallis campus and providing information related to an emergency, delayed opening, or closure situation. This information is accessible 24/7 by dialing 541-737-8000.

OSU-Cascades: Posted in an alert bar on the OSU-Cascades Home Page and Emergency Status web page. Additionally, see OSU-Cascades’ Weather Delays and Closures web page for complete list of delay or closure notifications. OSU-Cascades’ phone line will include recorded information updating closure or delayed opening details. That number is 541-322-3100.

Hatfield Marine Science Center: Noted on the HMSC website by 6:30 a.m.

OSU Portland Center: Sent to employees by email by local leadership.

Experiment Stations and Extension programs:  Sent to employees by email by local leadership.

General Closure and Curtailment information:

·        The university will provide information on closures, delayed openings, and curtailment of operations to local media. A detailed listing can be found at Closures or Curtailment of Operations.  Employees are encouraged to monitor local media to stay informed of university conditions.

·        If an OSU campus or facilities are closed or operations curtailed, supervisors should confirm with affected employees who are assigned to on-site work whether the employee can perform their work duties remotely. Employees who are already working remotely may continue to do so as normal.

·        Employees whose position description designates them as performing essential work are required to work on-site at their regularly scheduled time during a closure or curtailment unless otherwise specified by their supervisor. An employee may temporarily be designated to perform essential work by their supervisor due to an urgent or critical need.

·        For additional information and resources, see the Closures or Curtailment of Operations policy, which includes links to a quick reference guide and information on how to report time during for inclement weather closures or curtailment of operations

During inclement weather or hazardous conditions, I encourage all students, faculty, and staff to utilize this information and always carefully consider their personal safety and local conditions when making decisions about their commute to work or campus, and travel across an OSU campus or center.

The ORBC will be holding a Pre-Proposal Research Meeting on Nov 22nd at 9am via Zoom only.  

This meeting will be a chance to review the ORBC research priorities for this RFP cycle.

  Researchers who are considering submitting proposals are encouraged to participate in order to review project ideas with the ORBC Research Committee.

ZOOM MEETING – 
Topic: ORBC  Pre-Proposal Research Meeting
Time: Nov 22nd, 9am – 10:30am 

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/92261456894?pwd=dE1uNlFqa2xBcG9mcmRaWEhwRUlaUT09

Meeting ID: 922 6145 6894
Passcode: 659895


Darcy Kochis

Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission Administrator & Marketing Director

PO BOX 56587 | Portland, OR 97238

darcy@oregon-berries.com | 503-208-5589

Welch Award in Chemistry
The purpose of The Welch Award in Chemistry is to foster and encourage basic chemical research and to recognize, in a substantial manner, the value of chemical research contributions for the benefit of humankind. In accordance with these principles, the award committee will consider any person who has made important chemical research contributions that have had a significant, positive influence on humankind. We intend that the award recognizes the contributions of an individual who has not previously been recognized in a similar manner.

Nominations due 1/31/25

https://welch1.org/awards/welch-award-in-chemistry

Today, the NSF posted guidelines for 25-508 Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF), with an application deadline of February 4, 2025. Awards are expected to range from $1,500,000 – $2,000,000 and have duration of four years.

As this is a limited submission (maximum of five applications per lead institution), we have created an InfoReady Limited Submission form with an internal deadline of Wednesday, November 27, 2024.

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NSF DMREF Overview: DMREF will support interdisciplinary teams of researchers, working synergistically in a “closed loop” fashion, to build the fundamental knowledge base needed to advance the design, development, and “manufacturability” (i.e., properties relevant to manufacturing, process-property relationships, property-performance metrics, potential pathways for scale-up, economic feasibility, supply-chain considerations, or life-cycle issues) of materials. DMREF will drive the integration of experiment, theory, computation, data analytics, and artificial intelligence, as well as the development of new tools, processing approaches, and infrastructure to achieve its objective. The program highlights three sets of goals: 

  1.  Unify the Materials Innovation Infrastructure (MII), a framework of integrating advanced modeling, computational and experimental tools, and quantitative data; 
  1.  Harness the power of materials data;
  1.  and Educate, train, and connect the materials research and development workforce.

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Please feel free to share this opportunity with any interested applicants. Thank you very much!