Dear colleagues,

I am amazed at how fast the year is going. It is already week three of spring term and I hope things are going well for all of you. The term looks to be a busy and productive one.

I am excited to share the campaign planning we are doing to prepare for the university’s next capital fundraising campaign. I have asked the College’s Leadership Team and the Dean’s Advisory Council to work together to develop messaging and to identify aspirations for the College of Science. Currently, we are planning our overall goals, message and strategy to achieve the goals.

Recently, I convened six subgroups comprised of the two groups listed above, each with a focal area that reflects our strategic plan goals. I have also discussed these with our external Board of Advisors, who were enthusiastic about these areas. Now I would like to ask faculty, staff and student volunteers to join working groups to hone these areas further.  If you would be interested in joining one of these working groups, please send me a note and indicate which interests you.

Our proposed philanthropic priorities include:

1. Materials Science Building – This will provide a physical space to innovate new materials to solve problems in energy and electronics through collaborative research and shared equipment. It emphasizes entrepreneurship and innovation through industry partnerships with new faculty working with undergraduate and graduate students.
2. Science Discovery Center – This facility will showcase OSU science at work in integrated outreach, learning, teaching and research. It will focus on life and marine sciences and include a display of our collections. Some labs would have glass walls so that visitors could see instrumentation and scientists at work. It would feature marine science to attract OSU students and visitors to Hatfield and the coast as well as display corals. If OSU were to have a planetarium, this could include the space for it.
3. Inclusive Excellence in Education – This initiative would enable us to provide some of the best science education in the world, with access for disadvantaged and underrepresented students through endowed scholarships for graduate and undergraduate students, academic and teaching support, experiential learning and endowed support for a college-wide Learning Assistants program.
4. Biohealth Sciences – This initiative would generate endowed support for our faculty, graduate students and labs working on topics such bioactive compounds to defeat superbugs by developing next-generation antibiotics. This would accelerate our efforts to cure ALS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases through research on unnatural proteins and genetic code expansion.
5. Data Science – This initiative would position the College to be the preferred partner on data science and enhance efforts to use big, complex data to solve real-world problems across all fields in the Pacific Northwest. It would make new faculty and computational resources available to students. This effort includes launching a competitive undergraduate program in Data Science and Security.

The OSU administration and OSU Foundation will evaluate our ideas and weigh them against likely donor interest and OSU’s overall priorities. I hope you share my excitement as we look to the future of a stronger College of Science at Oregon State.

There is much other news, discoveries, events and awards to share. Please take a minute to read through this newsletter to learn some of what is happening with your colleagues and our students.Roy Haggerty
Dean, College of Science

Research Highlights

Read more of the most recent research happening in our College online.

Biophysicist Weihong Qiu and a plant biologist from the University of California, Davis have discovered a novel motor protein that significantly expands current understanding of the evolution and design principle of motor proteins.

Microbiologist Bruce Geller and his team have made a key advance in the fight against drug resistance, crafting a compound that genetically neutralizes a widespread bacterial pathogen’s ability to thwart antibiotics.

Biophysicist Bo Sun and collaborators have discovered that human cells have tremendous power to mechanically change their surroundings, opening the door to new insights on a variety of physiological processes including how cancer spreads.

Biologist George Poinar is a lead author on a study published recently in Historical Biology connecting several mid-Cretaceous plant and animal remains preserved in Burmese amber from 100 million years ago to lineages alive today in Southern hemisphere locations.

Mathematician Patrick De Leenheer and collaborators, including Edward Waymire, have developed a mathematical framework to understand how population-reducing events of varying frequency and intensity, like fires, floods, storms and droughts, can affect a species’ longtime survival ability.

Research Funding

Physicist Matt Graham won a $181K grant from Apple, Inc. for the project “Photoconductive Optical Characterization of Amorphous IGZO.”

Andy Karplus, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, won a $104K award from Wake Forest University for the project “Mechanistic Studies of Peroxiredoxin Enzymes and Their Pathways.”

Biologist David Lytle won a $100K U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grant for the project “Flow-population models for tracking non-stationary changes in riparian and aquatic exosystems.”

Physicist Davide Lazzati won a $90K NASA grant for the project “Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Burst in the Multi-Messenger Era.”

Chemist Douglas Keszler won a $73K grant from Applied Materials, Inc. for the project “AMAT Imprint Materials.”

Mathematician David Koslicki received $68K for his part of a $363K NIH grant on which he was a co-PI along with OSU engineer Stephen Ramsey for the project “Implementation of a knowledge graph-based biomedical Reasoning Tool.”

Proposal Support

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

YInMn blue continues to reap global recognition for OSU. A store in Tokyo is now selling the pigment to artists, mentioning how the pigment was discovered at OSU in the display write-up. Bloomberg News visited Mas Subramanian’s lab recently and will be publishing both a story and video on the pigment in the coming months.

Francis Chan was featured in an OSU Terra magazine story, “The Oregon Ocean Acid Test,” for his ongoing leadership in monitoring PH levels off the Oregon coast over the last two years.

Enrique Thomann will be stepping down as Head of the Mathematics Department where he has served since October 2014. Under his leaderhsip, Enrique has overseen the growth of the undergraduate program, the decrease in time to graduation for graduate students, the initiation and work with the APLU grant that improved student success, and the promotion of many, many instructors and faculty in the department. The Dean’s office will assemble a search committee and conduct an internal search for a new Head during spring term, with an expected transition in the summer.

Two biochemistry and biophysics students, senior Trisha Chau and recent Ph.D. Nicole Hams, traveled with microbiologist Kate Field to San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, over spring break as part of an OSU service learning trip funded by the Multicultural Scholars Program and the College of Science. Working in tandem with the land-grant University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez, the students developed learning plans and other assets to directly benefit those living under difficult post-hurricane conditions.

A new and improved OSU Event Calendar offers expanded functionality and easier use. You can add photos, stylize text, link to FB event pages and more. The user experience is vastly improved. Check it out!

The College of Science Student Advisory Board is seeking new members. Full-time science students who are interested in the future of COS, willing to provide feedback on their experiences and concerns, eager to build community and work on outreach events are encouraged to apply. Faculty and staff are invited to submit nominations by April 20 (although later nominations welcome too) and/or spread the word to students who can also self-nominate.

Upcoming events

April 24
Memorial Union Ballroom, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Health Professions Fair: a wonderful opportunity for interested students to connect with over 50 professional schools and programs with specializations in the healthcare industry. Encourage students to attend!

April 25
Linus Pauling Science Center 402, 3 p.m.
Microbiology graduate student Ryan McMinds (Vega-Thurber Lab) will present the 2018 Middlekauf Scholar Award Lecture “Preliminary findings of the Global Coral Microbiome Project, and other stories.” McMinds, an eloquent blogger (The Cnidae Gritty) and the youngest scientist on board the Tara Pacific, will give a preview of results from a two-year expedition with scientists around the world to complete the most comprehensive assessment ever of coral reef health and biodiversity.

April 30
Corvallis Library, 6:30-8:00 p.m.
What do the Nobels Mean? Davide Lazzati, Elisar Barbar and David Hendrix will present a trio of mini public lectures elucidating the science behind the Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology or Medicine, respectively. Dean Haggerty will present introductory remarks.

May 5
LINC Building, 9-10:00 a.m., brunch and art exhibit; 10-11:30 a.m. talent show.
Spring Family Weekend: Faculty and staff are encouraged to join us and welcome science students and their families at our annual brunch, art exhibit and talent show co-hosted with the Honors College. Register today!

June 15
SAVE THE DATE: College of Science Graduation Reception, Outside Kidder Hall, 3:30 – 5:30 p.m. for all science graduates, their families, faculty and staff.

Recent Events

April 20
Weniger Hall 379, 3:30 p.m.
Physics Open House: For the second year, the physics department is adding an outreach event to its flagship Yunker Lecture, an open house with lab tours and a student poster show.

April 20
Weniger Hall 151, 5-6:15 p.m., reception 3:30 p.m. in Weinger 397
29th Annual Physics Yunker Lecture: Laura H. Greene, Chief Scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and Francis Eppes Professor of Physics at Florida State University, will present a public lecture, “The Dark Energy of Quantum Materials,” a mind-bending exploration of how superconductivity might one day levitate trains, provide loss-less power transmission and more.

April 17-18
Stem Role Model Training and Mentoring Café: All science students and faculty are encouraged to participate to mentor and inspire the next generation of scientists – middle and high school students in the Mid-Willamette Valley. The first day involves training STEM professionals and the second day is the outreach event with students. Learn more and register for this free event here.

April 12
Dr. Diane Ebert-May will present an Integrative Biology Special Seminar, “Transforming how we TEACH is good, but transforming what we expect students to LEARN is better.” Free and open to the public.

April 12
TRIAD Club at OSU: Executive Associate Dean Matt Andrews presented a talk on how ground squirrels hibernate using genes found in all mammals, including humans. His research is centered on the genes and small molecules that regulate mammalian hibernation. His work has resulted in hibernation strategies that have application to human health, such as novel therapy for ischemia, reperfusion injury and hemorrhagic shock.

April 9
Corvallis Science Pub: Larry Landis, director of the Special Collections and Archives Research Center at Oregon State, discussed the origins of OSU research and its connections to contemporary issues. Advanced registration was sold out!

April 6
Comedian Sammy Obeid: A nationally recognized nerd-comedian, hosted by the Math Club, visited campus recently. Sammy Obeid is a Lebanese-American mathematician-turned-comedian, who has been featured on Conan, Last Comic Standing, and America’s Got Talent. 

April 5 and 6
Two undergraduate mathematics colloquia presented by the wildly energetic astronomer Dr. Clifford Stoll required only a curious mind and a sense of humor. Currently “Chief Bottle Washer” at Acme Klein Bottles, Stoll is best known for taking down the KGB hacker Markus Hess in 1986, detailing the story in his best-selling book The Cuckoo’s Egg as well as in a PBS Nova show.

April 5
2018 Gilfillan Memorial Lecture, “Catalyzing the transformation of science learning at OSU,” was presented by physicist Corinne Manogue. The stimulating lecture opened up new ways of understanding physics and a path to educational transformation.

March 29-31
Frontier Probability Days: at this NSF-sponsored conference sponsored by the National Science Foundation, leading regional and national researchers and graduate students in probability theory and its applications gathered to foster interactions and stimulate research activity.

March 13
Matt Andrews presented a session at the NASA Ames OCS Space Torpor Workshop on “Portable Hibernation-based Solutions for Protection Against Ischemia and Reperfusion Injury in Non-Hibernating Mammals.” The two-day conference was held at NASA’s research park in Moffett, California, and addressed the scientific relevance and knowledge gaps required to advance synthetic torpor for space
research and application.

March 14
In honor of Pi Day, the Math Club sponsored a special presentation of Calculus: The Musical!, a nationally touring production. At a pi (and pie) reception before the event, mathematics graduate student Sarah Hagen led an interactive discussion and Dean Haggerty was, well, fit to be pie-ed.

March 3
Discovering the Scientist Within, a free half-day workshop designed to encourage young women to pursue STEM careers, introduced 123 middle schoolers, including underrepresented minorities from Portland, Gresham and Woodburn, to hands-on science demos ranging from DNA to fungi and LEGO robotics. A smaller group of 25 parents and 10 high school siblings from Woodburn attended a college readiness and STEM preparation discussion in Spanish, including a campus tour and lunch.

March 1
Saving Atlantis: OSU150 Sea Grant Festival hosted the last of four showings of the OSU-produced coral-reef documentary narrated by Emmy award-winning star Peter Coyote! The film tells the story of how microbiology professor Rebecca Vega-Thurber, biologist Virginia Weis and other OSU researchers are working to save the world’s coral reefs and our oceans from the destruction of climate change and other human impacts.

February 28
Dr. Bil Clemens, professor of biochemistry at California Institute of Technology, led both a biochemistry and biophysics research seminar and, at the Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center, an open discussion on the value of diversity in science. His visit was sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

February 22
The 2018 COS Winter Teaching and Advising Awards ceremony celebrated this year’s winners (see above) and excellence in teaching and advising. Dean Haggerty kicked off the event and mathematics faculty Sara Clark, Lyn Riverstone, Dan Rockwell and Katy Williams shared news about student success in the wake of their redesign of introductory mathematics.

February 10
A YouTube video is now available of Mas Subramanian’s well-received TED talk at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on the theme “Color Wheel.”

October 2017
The 38th Annual Crown Gall Conference last fall was a great success! Seventy participants from around the world gathered on campus to share research about crown gall and hairy root disease, which affects industries contributing more than $745 million to Oregon’s economy. The two-day event was co-hosted by the departments of Microbiology and Botany and Plant Pathology.