OSU People and Programs « OSU Spotlight

Kent Abel is working on a process that will allow him to look through steel and nonmetallic pipes.

Kent Abel is working on x-ray vision to see through steel

He’s not faster than a speeding bullet.

He can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound.

But Kent Abel is working on seeing through steel.

As part of his research on the flow of bubbly material through pipes, Abel is using powerful neutron beams from OSU’s nuclear reactor to get the 3-dimensional images he needs to investigate high pressure and high temperature processes in thick steel pipes.

And Abel, who is working toward a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, finds himself at the cutting edge of research in the area of finding industrial applications for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology.

Working with faculty members in nuclear engineering, Abel has found a new use for the huge MRI machines normally found in hospitals. He is using them to obtain concentrations and velocity profiles for a variety of gas-liquid flows that are typical of industrial fluid processes that take place in PVC and other nonmetallic pipes.

“Nobody else is using an MRI to do this,” Abel says. “We’re able to obtain an incredible amount of information on complex flows with the single touch of a button.”

Because there is a variety of research that could be done with an MRI, the College of Engineering is working with various other colleges on campus to obtain an MRI at OSU. “It’s very exciting,” Abel says.

Engineering newsletter article on Abel’s research

Jeff Olivas rode across the country this summer to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities.

Jeff Olivas rode 3,900 miles on his bike across America

Jeff Olivas has never been an avid bicyclist. He biked occasionally, but never really went on long rides. Until this year, that is. In January he started riding a lot, getting in over 1,000 miles in just a few months.

The reason for the change is the opportunity to help others by riding his bicycle. The OSU Business Administration senior has volunteered to help with Push America, Pi Kappa Phi’s national philanthropy, since joining the fraternity in 2002.

This year he went the extra mile—or the extra 3,900 miles to be more precise, participating in the Journey of Hope, a 64-day bike ride from San Francisco to Charleston, South Carolina, which raises nearly $500,000 each year for those with disabilities.

The ride involves 70 members of the fraternity, half of them riding across the southern states and half across the northern states. Each participant is required to raise at least $5,000 for charity. Jeff, a member of the northern team, has raised about $6,200.

“Each day the team rides until about 4 p.m.,” he says. “After that we get out in the community of whatever town we’re in and raise awareness and make friendship visits with kids with disabilities.”

After riding 60 miles or more in a day, the participants often find themselves active well into the evening, dancing during a friendship visit, playing a game of wheelchair basketball, or performing a puppet show for children.

Jeff says he was honored to be part of the Journey of Hope because many Pi Kappa Phi members apply each year, but only 70 are accepted.

Greek Life at Oregon State University

OSU Pi Kappa Phi chapter information

Journey of Hope website

Hung-Yok Ip is exploring the relevance of Buddhism to the modern and postmodern world.

Buddhism is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, a prince of the Sakya tribe of Nepal, who lived about 2,500 years ago.

At the age of 29, he left home to seek the meaning of the suffering he saw around him. After six years he achieved enlightenment and became the Buddha. He then wandered northeastern India for 45 years teaching the path of mental and moral self-purification.

How do the teachings of Buddhism fit into today’s world? Are they still relevant?

That’s the focus of research by Hung-Yok Ip, associate professor of history at OSU and a fellow at the university’s Center for the Humanities. Ip, who was raised in Hong Kong, came to the United States at the age of 24 to attend graduate school at the University of California-Davis. She has been at OSU since 1994.

In her research on Su Manshu, a monk who also was a revolutionary and writer during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, she focused on how Buddhism was integrated into an important dimension of Chinese modernity—the formation of the individual.

“By comparing Su Manshu with his contemporaries as well as writers who were active in the 1920s and 1930s, I expand on how Buddhism helped the individual in his or her pursuit of individuality,” she says. “But more important, I shall concentrate on how Buddhism is relevant to one fundamental problem of modernity—the problem that freedom does not guarantee gratification and happiness.”

Ip also is involved in a book-length research project on Engaged Buddhism in the contemporary world.

“I once again explore how Buddhism is relevant to the modern world—in this case to problems caused by capitalism in the age of transnational capital. I intend to argue that Buddhism represents a new mode of social activism vis-is the injustice created by capitalism,” she says. “To some extent, I compare Engaged Buddhism to secularist and Christian approaches to resistance.”

Center for Humanities newsletter article on Ip’s research

Ip’s faculty home page

OSU’s Open Source Lab is becoming a focal point for Open Source software development at the university and beyond.

Open source development is growing in popularity

With his enthusiasm about the potential of open source software, Scott Kveton relishes the challenge of helping OSU become a critical worldwide center for open source development.

Kveton, program director for OSU’s Open Source Lab, says the university got into open source because it was a great way to solve computing problems inexpensively.

“Open source software is free and open, so we are able to use and modify whatever is out there,” he says. “Because we are a large university with a lot of specialized needs, open source meets our needs in many cases better than shrink-wrap software.”

The basic idea behind open source is that any programmer can freely read, redistribute, modify, and improve the source code for a piece of software, making it evolve much more rapidly than conventional software.

“Open source fits in well with the university mentality of open research,” Kveton says. “We say, ‘Here are our results, take a look at them, test them, and make them better if you want.'”

Some of the better-known open source projects are the Linux operating system and the Mozilla web browser, and OSU has become an open source player by hosting some of the major projects.

Over half of OSU’s infrastructure is operating on open source tools, Kveton says, and open source is being used in a number of areas, including e-mail, web servers, and domain name space management.

One of the biggest areas of growth for open source software use may well be on the computer desktop. “Open source solutions can provide a fantastic alternative to Windows, something that is more secure and more resistant to viruses and can be tweaked to meet our needs,” he says.

OSU Open Source Lab

Open source initiative website

David Rosowsky destroys buildings in order to make them better.

OSU professor David Rosowsky would like homes to be built so they not only protect lives during a hurricane or an earthquake but also avoid massive repair and reconstruction costs.

In order to accomplish that, he has used huge vacuums to suck the sheathing off roofs and fired 2x4s through walls with an air cannon made out of a beer keg. To see whether a structure could resist the impact of a tree falling on it, he and colleagues created an experiment smashing a massive steel pipe into a house.

Rosowsky, holder of the endowed Richardson Chair in Wood Engineering, and other structural engineers at Oregon State are bringing hurricane force winds and violent earthquakes right into the laboratory to help re-evaluate construction concepts that have been accepted for decades.

“Current U.S. building codes are minimum standards designed to protect life and safety,” Rosowsky says. But in a world full of expensive houses that lie in the path of hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes those minimal standards are inadequate to contain the enormous costs associated with structural damage, even if they may be effective at reducing loss of life.

Rosowsky’s goal is to make the Department of Wood Science and Engineering at Oregon State into the nation’s leading research program in structural reliability and performance-based design of wood structures. Along the way, he may have to smash and destroy a few more buildings. But he seems up to the task.

Research article

Ariko Iso, OSU Exercise and Sport Science graduate, is the National Football League’s first female athletic trainer.

Iso is the frist female athletic trainer

When she was 14 and living in Japan, Ariko Iso didn’t appear headed to the NFL–or even to the U.S. Then she suffered an ACL injury playing sports, and during her recovery she had the opportunity to talk to college athletic trainers. That experience convinced her that she wanted to be a Certified Athletic Trainer herself–and that she wanted to go to college in the United States.

At that point, she says, a little luck entered the picture. She and her parents met then-Exercise and Sport Science department head Chris Zauner, who was lecturing in Japan. They talked about the possibility of her attending Oregon State. A short time later she was studying at OSU, receiving her degree in 1993 with an option in athletic training.

She worked as a trainer for college women’s and men’s basketball teams, eventually making an NFL contact at a conference.

Five years later, after a lot of hard work, perseverance, and two summer internships, she was hired by the Pittsburgh Steelers as an assistant athletic trainer. She’s now in her second year of experiencing life as an NFL trainer.

Pittsburgh Steelers home page

Tory Hagen’s research suggests it may be possible to slow-and perhaps even reverse-the aging process.

Tory Hagen’s lab in OSU’s Linus Pauling Institute features rats that seem to be in the prime of life. They are active, full of energy, and have good memories.

The amazing thing is that these rats are quite old–in the time of their lifespan when most rats are sedentary, slow, and rather senile.

What makes these rats different from others is that Hagen, associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Oregon State, is feeding them two dietary compounds, carnitine and lipoic acid, that can mask metabolic problems caused by cellular aging.

“What we are trying to do is understand how these micronutrients work in the body,” Hagen says. “We need to understand both the proper effective dosage and whether they are completely safe.”

So far, the tests have been short-term studies, Hagen says, so it’s unknown whether the benefits can be preserved over the long term.

“Before going on to human clinical trials, we feel compelled to understand the ramifications of supplementation, including any potential safety problems with the use of these supplements,” he says. “Therefore, I cannot recommend that people use them until this information is available.”

“This research is exploring the fundamental process of aging, and we may in fact find ways to slow down that process and even reverse some of the effects of it,” says Balz Frei, professor and director of the Linus Pauling Institute. “But what we learn about aging is also directly relevant to the chronic diseases that kill most people around the world, such as heart disease and cancer.”

Tory Hagen’s Linus Pauling Institute page

Tory Hagen’s gene research center page

LPI newsletter interview

Students, faculty, and visiting business leaders are living and working in the renovated hall focused on entrepreneurship.

The College of Business’ new Austin Entrepreneurship Program now has a home of its own with the reopening of historic Weatherford Hall in the fall of 2004.

A College of Business faculty member and visiting professionals live with students in Weatherford to complement the college’s formal and informal entrepreneurial programming.

“Our goal is to help formalize the chaos of entrepreneurship by providing entrepreneurs with business acumen to succeed,” says Mark Green, head of the program. “We’ve graduated many entrepreneurs from this college, and now we’ll have a focused program to encourage more innovativeness that we hope will have a long-term impact on Oregon’s economy.”

Although the renovation of Weatherford wasn’t completed until fall, the first class of students in the entrepreneurship minor begins course work in winter 2004.

The new residential college program was spurred by a gift from OSU alumnus Ken Austin and his wife Joan. It makes OSU one of the few universities in the country where students live, eat, learn, work, and dream together in a business incubator community.

In addition to rooms that accommodate 285 students, the renovated Weatherford features a cyber café, business incubator spaces, a library, seminar rooms, and apartments for visiting faculty and business leaders. The program, which is intended to stimulate economic growth and create new jobs in Oregon, is administered by the College of Business in partnership with University Housing and Dining and the College of Engineering. It is expected to attract top students from a variety of OSU colleges, including engineering, forestry, and pharmacy.

College of Business Entrepreneurship Program site

Weatherford applications being accepted

Suzanne Austin’s undergraduate research internship helps determine why bluebird populations are declining.

Working with researcher Tara Robinson, fisheries and wildlife senior Suzanne Austin was involved in a study to examine the population viability of the Western Bluebird.

At issue in Robinson’s research is an effort to determine why young birds often are killed in the nest, and then finding out whether something can be done about it.

Austin’s involvement in the project is part of an OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife requirement that students must complete two internships before they graduate. After the internships, most students enter their last year of undergraduate study with a refined sense of what they want to learn and what they want to do after they graduate.

“Most of our students are from urban areas,” says Rebecca Goggans, coordinator of the internship program. “They’ve seen a lot of nature shows on TV but don’t know how that translates into a career. So the internship is one of the best ways to give students an experience that allows them to synthesize the skills and theories they learned in class.”

And it seems to be working.

Spencer Rearden spent his internship monitoring salmon return in remote Alaskan rivers. He gathered data on the return to help establish quotas for commercial salmon fishing.
Jaimie Wisnowski did his internship in Wyoming working on the wolf recovery program in Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Nemesia Herzstein learned during her internship as a naturalist at BLM’s Yaquina Head natural area on the Oregon coast that she not only loves to work with animals but also to teach people about them.

“The internship experience seems to make college much more meaningful for the students,” says Goggans. “They feel like they are at OSU for a reason.”

Stephen Giovannoni looks for life in some of the most inhospitable places on Earth–and he usually finds it.

Stephen Giovannoni and his colleagues have discovered colonies of bacteria thriving beneath one of the coldest, driest deserts on Earth–the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica.

The find suggests that it’s possible life also exists in the inhospitable climate of Mars. The average temperature in the McMurdo Dry Valleys is about 68 degrees below zero. Within that frigid environment are warmer pockets where a combination of minerals, water, and solar radiation supports a surprisingly vigorous population of bacteria.

Giovannoni and OSU oceanographer Martin Fisk also have discovered evidence of rock-eating microbes living nearly a full mile beneath the ocean floor in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans.

What these discoveries have in common are to primitive processes that were undertaken to create a simple, basic life form. These processes may have taken place hundreds of millions of years ago on Earth and may be taking place right now on Mars or Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter, Giovannoni said.

“It’s been suggested that Mars is too dry and cold for life to exist,” he said. “But it’s also known that both Mars and Europa have frozen water on or near their surfaces. It would be a distinct possibility that similar life forms could exist there.”

Giovannoni’s research team also has shown recently that one of the smallest known bacteria, SAR11, is also one of the most abundant organisms on Earth.

Dr. Giovannoni’s Department of Microbiology page
Dr. Giovannoni’s Center for Gene Research and Bacteriology page
SAR11 news release
Rock-eating microbes news release
Life in Antarctic ice news release

OSU Spotlight

The people and stories of Oregon State University

Category Archives: OSU People and Programs

As good as x-ray vision?

Biking for those who can’t

Adapting to modern times

Looking to Open Source

Designing for disaster

OSU grad breaks an NFL gender barrier

Searching for the “fountain of youth”

Weatherford Hall now “open for business”

Solving a bluebird mystery

Searching for life in strange places

Contact Info