Welcome back, College of Science colleagues. I hope you have enjoyed time to rejuvenate. I wish you all the best of health and happiness as we welcome 2022.

As we shift our momentum to a new calendar year, I want to encourage each one of you to help chart the course for the College of Science’s next chapter. In November 2021, I charged a Strategic Planning Committee to launch our 2021-2022 strategic planning process. I invite all of you to share your perspectives in our upcoming strategic planning engagement sessions.

Your input is critical as we develop the major priorities and key goals that will shape our roadmap for the next four years. These sessions provide an opportunity for all in our community to reflect, engage and, ultimately, collaboratively create the College’s new strategic plan. Please register today for one or more of these opportunities on our internal strategic planning website.  

We also will be inviting you to a strategic planning Science Leadership Workshop featuring internationally recognized scientists in early March – as soon as we have a date, we will communicate this broadly.

Our strategic planning process will be data-informed, equity-minded, and community-engaged. The process is led by the College of Science’s strategic planning committee chaired by Vrushali Bokil, associate dean of research and graduate studies, and comprises faculty, student and staff representatives from across the College. Information about the College’s strategic planning process, a schedule of engagement sessions, summarized input from all sessions, and development of the plan in iterative stages will be available on the strategic planning website as the process unfolds.

The College’s 2015-2020 Strategic plan ended in December 2020. In 2020-2021, I established a diversity, equity, justice and inclusion working group that developed our college’s first strategic diversity action plan, Embedding Equity, Access and Inclusion. Informed by a collective vision of inclusive excellence and success, this diversity action plan, along with OSU’s SP4.0, will be vital inputs to the new strategic plan.

You can view the encouraging progress on the metrics on the last strategic plan’s website. The plan aimed to help the College build a diverse and inclusive science community focused on excellence; be a global leader in scientific research and scholarship for a better world; and excel in outreach, engagement, visibility and economic development.

I anticipate our new strategic plan will build on several goals of the previous plan while also strategically addressing how we will adapt to the rapidly changing educational landscape.

Thank you in advance for investing in the College of Science’s future. This is our plan, and every one of us has something to contribute. Your voice is important and critical to advancing our mission of research, education and inclusive excellence.

Roy Haggerty
Dean, College of Science

Research Highlights

Building on his earlier discoveries, chemist Kyriakos Stylianou has found that, when combined with propylene oxide, MOFs can catalyze the production of industrially useful cyclic carbonates while scrubbing CO2 from factory flue gases. “We’ve taken a big step toward solving a crucial challenge associated with the hoped-for circular carbon economy by developing an effective catalyst,” said Stylianou.

In a paper published in Historical Biology, biologist and Professor Emeritus George Poinar Jr. describes a pine cone, approximately 40 million years old, encased in amber in which embryonic stems are emerging. This is the first fossil evidence of a botanical condition known as precocious germination in which seeds sprout before leaving the fruit.

A study examining bacteria found in the ocean led by microbiologist Kimberly Halsey revealed that SAR11 bacteria consume acetone, adding evidence to suggest that aspects of the marine carbon cycle, which pulls atmospheric carbon into the sea, should be considered in the study of the cycle and its ability to buffer climate change.

Research Funding

Microbiologist Stephen Giovannoni received $260K from the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences Inc for a project entitled “BIOS-SCOPE II – A Collaborative Program for the Study of Microbial Oceanography in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre.”

Microbiologist Christopher Suffridge received $35K from the Research Foundation for SUNY for a project entitled “Do lake trout eggs and free embryos acquire thiamine during development in wild populations?”

Research Proposal Support

You can find funding opportunities on ECOS. To access a suite of tools and resources available to faculty, visit the College of Science Proposal Support webpage.

National Honors

Chemist Marilyn Mackiewicz received a 2021 National Science Foundation CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation. The $558K grant is for a project entitled “CAREER: Training Diverse Scientists to Design Bionanomaterials for Imaging and Labeling of Therapeutic Stem cells,” which aims to address fundamental questions essential to the advancement of nanomaterials as preclinical research tools. This CAREER award integrates Mackiewicz’s passion for research, education and mentoring and constitutes the basis for her long-term career goal to increase the representation of diverse people solving global health challenges with nanotechnology. Fantastic!

University and College Honors

Congratulations to Kimberly Halsey, associate professor of microbiology, who has been appointed as the inaugural Excellence in Microbiology Faculty Scholar. With this new endowed position, Halsey will advance excellence in her teaching and marine carbon cycle research and teaching at Oregon State through November 2026.

Superheavy elements like Tennessine (117) and Oganesson (118) are too short-lived for most chemical experimentation, but ACS Fellow Walt Loveland has gained insight into the stability of a proposed molecule by using relativistic computational calculations. He found that 586 electrons in the stable pentatomic molecule OgTs4 would be made if the periodic table’s heaviest two elements reacted with each other, a number that Chemical & Engineering (C&E) News deemed one of 2021’s “dramatic digits” – numbers that stood out to C&EN’s editors.YInMn Blue never fades! The blue hue discovered in Mas Subramanian’s lab was featured in three news sites recently: Gal Times, which covers news in Israel, Madras Musings from Subramanian’s hometown in India, and Tatter out of New York.

The College welcomes Jessica Siegel as its new associate dean for academic and student affairs effective Jan. 3 on a half-time basis, changing to full-time June 1. Siegel is a tenured associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She replaces Henri Jansen who will retire after a 36-year exemplary career at Oregon State.

Congratulations to Wei Kong, the new head of the Department of Chemistry, effective February 1. Kong has been with the College since 1995 and was promoted to full professor in 2005. as a chemistry expert for their EV battery development. Mike Lerner, current head, is retiring from OSU and moving to a position with Ford Motor Company.

Supported by donors, alumni and faculty, funded undergraduate research opportunities have had a positive and powerful effect on student learning and achievement. Oregon State funds more high-impact undergraduate research opportunities than any other institution in Oregon, and half of College of Science students engage in research projects.

Brent Wolf is pursuing his master’s degree in data analytics online while working full-time for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in order to make a bigger impact when translating data into decisions that impact animal species. “I really like being able to provide wildlife managers with study results that can help them make the best decisions possible,” said Wolf.

In December, 87 Learning Assistants gathered to present posters on research projects they completed as part of the two-credit pedagogy course that is part of the learning assistant program. The course focuses on learning theory, metacognition and teaching best practices.

The 2018-2020 College of Science annual report is out! Look for a copy in your department office this week or check out the virtual version. Please email Cari Longman if supplies run out.

New booster requirements

All faculty and staff are required to upload proof of vaccination and obtain COVID-19 booster shots as part of OSU’s vaccination program.

Now recruiting!

Be part of the action! Help the College of Science in its search for a permanent Director of Equity, Access and Inclusion. This fall saw the launch of the College’s Diversity Action Plan, and this position is key to embedding access, equity and inclusion in everything we do. Please share the posting with your networks. Additionally, the Equity Data Collection Committee and the Gender Equity Committee have both started prioritizing implementation actions with the help of the Equity, Access and Inclusion Leadership Council.

Science Pub featuring Heather Masson-Forsythe

Monday, January 10, 6 – 7:15 p.m.

Recent doctoral graduate Heather Masson-Forsythe is presenting her research on the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein. Throughout the research project, Heather used the social media app, TikTok, to document what it’s like to be a scientist trying to make research contributions to the ongoing global pandemic, and has accumulated over 50,000 followers and created many videos reaching hundreds of thousands of views. Registration required.

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40th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Keynote Session

Monday, January 17, 11 a.m. to noon
LaSells Stewart Center and virtual via Zoom

The 2022 keynote speaker is LaTosha Brown, cofounder of Black Voters Matter Fund, visionary thought leader and cultural activist. Her voice is the nexus between the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement and Black Lives Matter. The event is free and open to the public. Registration required by January 9.

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College of Science Awards Ceremony

Tuesday, February 22, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
MU Horizon Room and virtual via ZoomJoin us for a celebration to recognize exceptional research, administration, teaching and advising in the College of Science. Registration link to come!