Words from the Dean
July 2022
Dear colleagues,
As my time here at OSU moves toward sunset, I want to express my gratitude to all of you and to OSU. You have been wonderful partners in science, and I step away optimistic about your ongoing success in solving the greatest challenges. I also have every confidence that Vrushali Bokil, associate dean for research and graduate studies, will do an outstanding job serving as interim dean.
Thank you for allowing me to lead the College these past five years, and to be a faculty member for more than 26 years. While many kind things have been said about me over the past few weeks, the truth is that not one of those would have happened without your hard work and dedication to knowledge, to students, and to each other. I am grateful.
I would like to end with two quotes, one from Tom McCall and one from me when I was an assistant professor.
Oregon Governor Tom McCall, in an interview with Studs Terkel in the early 1970s, said something that is both deep and, in my opinion, accurate: “Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say, ‘This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better.’” I am no hero, but Governor McCall’s words have guided me in my desire to make the College of Science and OSU even better than I found it in the fall of 1996.
It was the sentiment of Governor McCall’s words I was thinking of when I wrote, in my personal statement for my dossier for promotion from assistant to associate professor, the following words. I still believe what I wrote 21 years ago, and it seems fitting to close with the same statement.
“The occupation of a university professor is a calling that requires a careful balance – on one side society grants us a measure of privilege, and on the other, we must match it with an equal measure of responsibility. It is the call of a professor to have a reason for their service that goes beyond the work week and the salary; indeed, they require a vision that motivates them to serve their students, their discipline, their colleagues and fellow citizens in ways that sometimes go uncompensated. Privilege is measured out in units of flexibility and freedom not offered to other professionals. Professors are given a large degree of flexibility in how they pursue their vision; few rigid demands are set on the daily routine, and the professor is granted the freedom (through a salary, grants, and other opportunities) to define many of their own goals and follow their own ambitions for research and education. Responsibility balances these freedoms in that the professor’s labors must be employed for the greater good of others. Professors are charged with exploring the limits of knowledge, with breaking new intellectual ground, and with dissemination of the fruit of this labor through writing, presentation and publication of their research results, through teaching of students and the general public, and through service.
These three tenets – that university service is a calling, a privilege, and a responsibility – have guided my choices as a professor at Oregon State University. I have striven for excellence in research, and have tried to balance that striving with a dedication to teaching (and more generally, to students) and an eagerness to serve my academic, professional, and personal communities. While I have sometimes held the scale with unsteady hands and have imperfectly balanced my opportunities and efforts, I believe I have made a worthwhile contribution.”
Thank you, all.
Roy Haggerty
Dean, College of Science
All the news that’s fit to print.
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Research updates
Sarah Henkel and Matt Vaughan teach students in Newport High School’s English language learners program how to conduct research aboard the Pacific Storm. Trip organized by Oregon Sea Grant. Photo by Trav Williams.
Research Highlights
Microbiologist Julie Alexander is part of an interdisciplinary team that has begun a three-and-a-half-year partnership with the Yurok Tribe to study what the connections between river quality, water use and the aquatic food web will look like after four Klamath River dams are dismantled. The joint project with the Yurok Tribe is the first attempt to represent tribal knowledge in decision processes in the Klamath Basin.
Kirsten Grorud-Colvert and research associate Jenna Sullivan-Stack published a paper in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science that examined the nation’s 50 largest marine protected areas, or MPAs, using a guide they produced last year. Among the study’s conclusions: The U.S. needs to create more, and more effective, MPAs – and fast.
Research from microbiologists Theo Dreher and Ryan Mueller shed new light on the hazards associated with harmful algal blooms, such as one four years ago that fouled drinking water in Oregon’s capital city of Salem. The findings were published in the July edition of Harmful Algae.
A study from biologist Jamie Cornelius published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that songbirds signal changes in food supplies and consequently change their physiology and behavior. These findings suggest that birds can use social information about food shortages to affect an adaptive advantage for survival.
Research Funding
Biologist Molly Burke received an NIH Maximizing Investigators Research Award (MIRA), which will provide $1.25M to fund her research program over five years. Burke’s lab studies the processes behind evolution.
Chemist David Ji received a $398K grant from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled “Mechanistic investigation of metal sulfide electrodes for high-energy non-aqueous anion batteries.”
Microbiologist Rebecca Vega-Thurber received $143K from the State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection for a project entitled “Meta-transcriptomics to determine if and how viruses are involved in SCTLD infection status and/or disease susceptibility.”
Physicist Elizabeth Gire received $25K from the University of Minnesota for a project entitled “Raising physics to the surface.”
Statistician Lan Xue received $65K from Indiana University for a project entitled “Measurement error correction approaches to wearable device-based measures of physical activity and self-reported measures of dietary intake in obesity and type 2 diabetes research.”
Biologist Bob Mason received $20K from the USDA Forest Service for a project entitled “Ecological resilience and threats of the forest-associated Sharp-tailed Snake.”
Physicist Matt Graham received a three-year, $600K DEPSCoR grant from the Department of Defense Air Force Research Laboratory for a project entitled “Emergent Magneto-Optoelectronics in 2D, 1D and 0D Twisted Layer Graphene Systems.”
Marine ecologists Sarah Henkel and Francis Chan are among five scientists at Oregon State to receive $1.15M from Oregon Sea Grant.
Congratulations
Global Honors
University Distinguished Professor Jane Lubchenco was one of nine people to receive an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. Lubchenco is one of the world’s leading and most highly cited ecologists.
National Honors
Microbiologist Jerri Bartholomew is one of a record nine OSU faculty to receive Fulbright U.S. Scholars Awards in 2022, earning OSU a distinction as a “top producing” university. Bartholomew will conduct fish parasitology research in Spain.
Two College of Science first-year Ph.D. students, Elena Conser in integrative biology and Andrew Clifford in chemistry, have been selected for the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) in 2022. Two alumni, Tamara Jane Layden (Zoology ’17) and Rachel Sousa (’20) also received the 2022 award.
Stan Cates (Zoology ’20) is one of two College of Science students and alumni to receive the 2022-2023 Fulbright U.S. Student Award. The award will take him to northern Norway to study Arctic and Marine Biology at the University of Tromsø. As a non-traditional student, Cates worked full-time while completing his degree at OSU.
Physics doctoral candidate Izak McGieson is one of 80 honorees nationwide and the only student at Oregon State to be selected for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research program. McGieson will work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with phase change materials, which have applications in digital memory.
Visibility
From its source, Upper Klamath Lake, the Klamath River flows 263 miles southwest to the Pacific Ocean, cutting through the Cascade and Klamath mountain ranges on its way to reaching the sea at Requa, California, on the Yurok Reservation.
Microbiologist Julie Alexander’s Klamath River research effort in partnership with the Yurok Tribe was featured on KTVZ News.
Emeritus professor of microbiology Theo Dreher was recently featured in OPB after identifying the toxic algae that made Salem’s drinking water hazardous in 2018.
Marine biology Ph.D. student Kris Bauer was featured in an OPB story about his time on the NOAA research vessel doing a survey of copepods.
NEws
After 26 years, Roy Haggerty is leaving OSU to become executive vice president and provost at Louisiana State University. Learn more about Roy’s tenure as dean of the College of Science. Vrushali Bokil is stepping into the role of interim dean effective August 1.
Alumna Judy Faucett has established the first scholarship in the College of Science specifically for LGBTQ+ students experiencing homelessness or other extreme circumstances.
The College of Science awarded 620 baccalaureate degrees and 120 graduate degrees in 2022! Learn more about this extraordinary class in our “by the numbers” post or through our graduates’ self-created profiles.
Also, here are just some of their stories we shared in Impact magazine:
- College of Science peer mentor and microbiology major Bruno Salas Garcia is looking forward to a career as a dentist to help serve rural communities like the one he is from.
- For biochemistry senior Elizaveta Zhivaya, making the decision to pursue science meant stepping into ownership of her own life. She is heading to the University of Washington next year to start a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
- It was while shadowing a surgeon as part of his pre-PA option that biohealth sciences graduate Cody Fretwell discovered the world of medical device sales.
- Honors physics major Abbie Glickman served as vice president for the Physicists for Inclusion in Science student club while at OSU and loved the welcoming and accepting community it provided.
- Ecampus zoology senior Zoey Vagner hopes to use her education from Oregon State University to help raise public awareness about science to preserve the world we live in.
- Karlie Weise entered OSU dreading the chemistry requirement for her desired career path. But once she took her first class, she discovered her passion for the topic. Now, she’s ready to start her Ph.D. in chemistry at OSU.
- Mathematics and psychology double major Saki Nakai is finishing her baccalaureate degree studying abroad in France before heading to the University of Luxembourg as a Fulbright Scholar where she will study cultural psychology.
- Biochemistry and molecular biology senior Rowan Nelson is heading to the University of Washington for a one-year NIH-funded research program, where she will dive deeper into computational biology while studying the gut-brain axis.
- Biology senior Abigail LaVerdure only considered a career in healthcare after the pandemic. Now, she is looking forward to a future in occupational therapy.