IDENTITIES, CULTURES, AND CONNECTIONS DEVELOPING CELLS, MINDS, AND HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
OREGON RESEARCH ANNUAL REPORT 2012
OREGON: A PLACE, A LABORATORY, A CANVAS SUSTAINABLE FUTURES TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES FOR TOMORROW
SHAPING THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
A New Era of Research Excellence
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t’s an exciting time at the University of Oregon. There’s a renewed collaborative spirit on campus and a fresh optimism that stems from some big developments. This past year, the many research news events coming out of the UO are reasons for our academic community to celebrate:
• There’s the opening of the new Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building. The $65 million facility was designed from the ground up for interdisciplinary research, which is something we’ve always done well at the UO. The Lewis Building will encourage even more collaboration across departments and represents the future of research excellence at the UO. • Numerous other grants and awards, including a recent partnership for innovation award from the National Science Foundation to accelerate the commercialization of inorganic nanoparticle technologies, and an award from the Department of Education to fund new courses and enhancements to the Latin American Studies (LAS) Program and Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS). • Members of our faculty continue to excel on a number of fronts. Chemistry professor Geri Richmond was appointed to the National Science Board by President Obama. Scientists with our Center for High Energy Physics played a pivotal role in the recent discovery of what could be the elusive Higgs Boson particle. You’ll read about some of these discoveries and achievements in this report. Scattered throughout the publication you’ll also find descriptions of our UO Strategic Research Themes. These were devised by junior, midlevel, and eminent faculty members from across the campus to identify strategic research themes that reflect our competitive advantage at the UO and serve as focal points of excellence. You can read the complete themes on our website at research. uoregon.edu, where you will also find up-to-date UO research news. The stories in this report demonstrate a few of the many reasons the UO continues to attract preeminent researchers, top-notch graduate students, and generous donors who step up to make research excellence happen every day. Thank you for supporting research, innovation, and graduate education at the University of Oregon.
Michael R. Gottfredson President University of Oregon
Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation
Table of Contents SIFTING THROUGH THE SUBATOMIC WRECKAGE
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In search of the elusive Higgs Boson particle with a UO physics team
EXPLORING BIOLOGY AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
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UO researchers lead the way in a hot new subspecialty
ENVISIONING MODERN GLOBAL EDUCATION
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A UO professor calls for a more thoughtful approach to educating the global citizens of tomorrow
UNTANGLING THE HUMAN VISUAL SYSTEM
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One researcher examines the neural circuitry of the visual system to explain how we “see”
TRACING THE REMAINS OF A FOUNDING SOCIETY
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Big discoveries from a UO research site in Eastern Oregon provide new insight into the earliest North Americans
STORY OF AN ORGANIZED LABOR MOVEMENT SHEDS LIGHT ON LATINO POPULATION
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Research into the history of the state’s largest Latino organization continues to resonate, more than a decade after it started
RIPPLE EFFECT OF RESEARCH
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Research yields innovations that create jobs and support a higher quality of life for all Oregonians, UO economist says
PROVIDING A PUSH TO RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS
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UO center brings technical knowledge to make innovation a reality
GIVING GRADUATE STUDENTS A LEG UP
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How one student fulfilled her dream through the Graduate Internship Program
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS SUPPORT GRADUATE STUDENT RESEARCH
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A physics student finds that opportunities abound at the UO
A SMALL UO SPIN-OUT WITH BIG POTENTIAL
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A “microfluidic device” captures the attention of drug manufacturers
SCRATCHING THE SURFACE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
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One UO faculty member’s research and advocacy earns her a seat on the National Science Board
NEW HIGH PERFORMANCE SCIENCE HUB RAISES THE BAR
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How the new $65 million Lewis Integrative Science Building is invigorating research and innovation
BY THE NUMBERS
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A look at the numbers behind UO research, innovation, and graduate education
ON THE HORIZON
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Looking ahead to future UO research successes
AWARDS
Back cover
A selection of research-related awards in 2012 On the cover: Sustainable bamboo paneling in the atrium of the Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building serves as the backdrop for the University of Oregon’s Six Strategic Research Themes. Background: Opened in October of 2012, the Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building is the University of Oregon’s new $65 million hub for high-performance science. Innovative in design and function, the Lewis Building brings together strategic clusters of researchers from different disciplines to solve society’s grand challenges.
RESEARCH
Sifting Through the Subatomic Wreckage
James Brau is the UO Philip H. Knight Professor of Natural Science. A professor of physics, and the director of the UO Center for High Energy Physics, he gave the 2012 Presidential Research Lecture.
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mashing protons together in search of the secrets to the universe at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland, yields enormous amounts of data—on the scale of all the information contained on the social networking site Facebook. Deciding which of those collisions are important and which can be ignored is an immense undertaking where the University of Oregon high-energy physics team has taken a leading role, explains James Brau, Philip H. Knight Professor of Natural Science and director of the UO Center for High Energy Physics. In order to sift through the wreckage of interactions, which occur at a rate of hundreds of millions per second, the UO team developed hardware and software algorithms that ignored a million collisions for every one that was saved. “It’s a search of precious golden needles buried somewhere in the haystack,” says Brau, the 2012 Presidential Research Lecturer. “If you don’t do this right, you can throw away the babies with the bath water.” Brau and the UO team have been working on what’s been described as the largest science experiment in the world, the search for the elusive Higgs Boson particle. Through their work on the ATLAS experiment—a particle physics experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) laboratory exploring the fundamental nature of matter and the
basic forces that shape our universe—the team played an important role in what could prove to be the scientific discovery of a lifetime. The Higgs Boson made international headlines in July of 2012 when scientists working at the Swiss collider announced that they had found evidence for the socalled “God particle.” The details of the discovery were published in September 2012. Scientists are not ready to say they’ve definitely found the Higgs Boson. Brau is quick to note that the data only gives a rough measure of the features of this new particle. But so far, it looks for all the world like the Higgs Boson, which has been a missing cornerstone of modern physics for years despite its theoretical status. The Higgs Boson is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, a theoretical foundation for modern physics that offers deep cosmic explanations. The Higgs Boson is believed to provide the mechanism for generating mass in other fundamental particles and is key to understanding the structure of the universe. The particle is named after the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs who proposed its existence in 1964 and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose who earlier developed the theory of particles with integer spin (0, 1, 2, and so on), known as bosons. The Higgs Boson, Brau says, also explains electromagnetism’s relationship to the weak nuclear force that is responsible for radioactive decay. And it leads to deeper theories about dark matter, dark energy, and other mysteries of the universe. “We have no idea of the potential applications or what the eventual practical implications might be,” Brau says. “But its significance in our understanding of the universe cannot be overstated.” The Higgs Boson could have unexpected consequences, says Brau, drawing a parallel with James Clerk Maxwell’s 1873 discovery that electricity and magnetism are both regulated by the same force. Years later came radio, television, microwaves, radar, and thermal imaging. 2
The UO team working on the Switzerland-based experiment includes faculty members David Strom, Eric Torrence, and Ray Frey, as well as UO postdocs and students. Strom, as “trigger coordinator,” has been leading the responsibility for deciding when to capture data after interesting collisions at the ATLAS experiment. Recent UO doctoral student graduates Jacob Searcy and Andreas Reinsch have studied collisions involving other particles. Searcy mapped the rates at which top quarks emerge from collisions and Reinsch sought out microscopic black holes. UO physicists are also part of a worldwide collaboration developing the design and technology for the next great global physics experiment, the International Linear Collider. It will be capable of measuring properties of the Higgs Boson with even greater precision. Such precision is needed, Brau said, for new discoveries that will help shed light on dark matter, extra dimensions of space, and other unexplained phenomena.
Shaping the Information Society UO FACULTY MEMBERS • Are harvesting the massive amounts of digital information at our fingertips and creating new research opportunities involving everything from atmospheric carbon measurements to accelerated particles to voting patterns. • Are utilizing data from this evershifting information “ecosystem” to advance Oregon’s position within the emerging global economy and accelerate progress in computing, humanities, communications, marketing, physical and natural sciences, arts, and education.
A UO Team Leads the Way in One of Biology’s Hottest Specialties
(Left to right) Microbiologist Jessica Green, architect G.Z. “Charlie” Brown, and microbiologist Brendan Bohannan make up the team behind the Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE Center), a national research center devoted to the study of the microbial ecosystems of indoor spaces funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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n a recent TEDx talk she gave before a Portland audience, microbiologist Jessica Green described the ecosystem of a typical indoor space and the trillions of diverse microorganisms that interact with each other, with humans, and with their environment. “Buildings are complex ecosystems that are an important source of microbes—some of which are good for us, some of which are bad,” Green said. A TED fellow, Green is an associate professor of biology who directs the UO’s Biology and the Built Environment (BioBE Center), a national research center funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. With their research into the microbial ecosystems of indoor spaces, Green and her colleagues are shedding new light on one of science’s final frontiers. Although humans in the developed world spend 90 percent of their lives in enclosed buildings, Green says we know very little about the biology of the built environment. The research is just beginning, but already the group’s
findings are challenging the view that biodiversity research only belongs in places like the tropics.
“The diversity of life you’d find outside is in here as well.” “All the beauty one would experience outdoors is inside as well,” said Brendan Bohannan, an expert in the microbes of the Amazon rainforest who directs the UO Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IE2) and has turned his sights to studying indoor environments as a member of the BioBE team. “The diversity of life you’d find outside is in here as well.” Just a few years ago, the research coming out of the BioBE Center would not have even been possible, but advances in microbial genomics now offer the potential to significantly 3
advance our understanding of the “built environment microbiome”—the totality of microbial cells, their genetic elements, and their interactions indoors. In just a short time, the field of “indoor ecology” has become a hot specialty of biology, and UO scientists are leading the way by looking at entire communities of microbes rather than just looking at one pathogen in isolation. The BioBE team was recently featured in a Discover Magazine cover story, which described the center as “a global hub for research into the biology of the great indoors.” The goal of the BioBE project is to promote human health and environmental sustainability by optimizing the design and operation of buildings, which is one of the reasons the team’s core triumvirate includes architect G.Z. “Charlie” Brown. The director of the UO’s Energy Studies in Buildings Laboratory (ESBL), Brown is an expert in sustainable buildings. His involvement ensures that the discoveries made by the BioBE team inform the design of the hospital or office building of tomorrow. “Hospitals often try to solve problems of indoor air quality and infection transmission with highventilation rates that exaggerate heating and cooling, causing increased energy use,” Brown says. “We’ve got a lot of material on airflow, but very little on microorganisms.” Based on the numbers, which show thousands of deaths each year due to hospital-acquired infections, new approaches are needed to create a healthy indoor ecosystem. The BioBE team is studying what will improve the indoor environment by sampling the air inside test sites like the UO’s sustainably built Lundquist College of Business and a Portland hospital. A recently completed test chamber at ESBL’s Portland lab provides them with a venue in which they can precisely control temperature, airflow, humidity, and other variables. It’s too early to draw conclusions from the BioBE team’s findings, but Green is willing to speculate. She believes the architects of tomorrow will use complex microbiological biological data as a design tool to help create more sustainable and healthier spaces for us to live, work, and play.
RESEARCH
Envisioning Modern Global Education
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“We can use technology to turn students from consumers to creators and through creating we stimulate new learning.” Yong Zhao, a professor and Presidential Chair in the Department of Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership, is associate dean for global education at the College of Education.
ow do you prepare students for jobs that have yet to be invented? That question is at the core of Yong Zhao’s research and his new book, World Class Learners, published by Corwin in 2012, which examines some of the ways that students and teachers are harnessing technology to become more global, creative, and entrepreneurial. In his book and on his popular blog, zhaolearning. com, he argues that the race for higher standardized test scores is hurting society and he makes the case for a more thoughtful approach to educating the global citizens of tomorrow. “So far our schools have focused on using technology as a tool for transmitting knowledge or on making students consumers of information,” Zhao says. “But technology is a better vehicle for creation. We can use technology to turn students from consumers to creators and through creating we stimulate new learning.” As Presidential Chair and associate dean for global education at the College of Education at the University of Oregon—and 2011–12 director of the UO Center for Advanced Technology in Education—Zhao has positioned himself squarely at the intersection of technology and education. He has written dozens of articles and books and was recently named one of the ten most influential people in educational technology for 2012 by Tech & Learning Magazine. Earlier this year, he offered his vision of a twenty-first-century classroom when he spoke before a large audience in San Diego at the conference for the International Society for Technology in Education, an annual gathering of more than 20,000 education professionals. “A twenty-first-century school? It’s very simple, actually,” Zhao says. “Every student has a personalized learning experience based on his or her strengths and passions.” Zhao’s vision began shifting into focus in 2012 with the launch of Oba, a UO-sponsored online portal that takes its name from the three middle letters in the word “global.” It presents students and teachers with opportunities 4
to make connections and pursue their specialties—a virtual campus of sorts where students aren’t just learning, but also producing and exchanging ideas with peers and educators from around the world in real time. Of course online education is not a novel idea. Integral to the Oba vision is that it’s the students and teachers who create the opportunities and drive the learning experience. And, with few access barriers in place, the service will catch on quickly, says Zhao, who has a goal of reaching millions of students within the first few years of operation. The possibilities for Oba are still being realized. A student from the U.S. could seek help with her algebra homework from a Chinese student, who in turn asks the American student for advice applying to U.S. colleges. Or the Oba network could help connect students in smaller school districts with a teacher who can lead a virtual class on Shakespeare, Arabic, holistic health, or some other specialized subject. A teacher in New York might offer to share her research on Andy Warhol with an art student from Tokyo in exchange for some practice with her conversational Japanese. “It’s like pen pals, but at a much higher level,” Zhao explains. “It’s Facebook with a meaningful mission.”
Untangling the Neural Circuitry of the Human Visual System
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cientists have been studying human vision for hundreds of years, but still lack a complete understanding of the neural processes that allow us to see the world. Cris Niell, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and member of the University of Oregon’s Institute of Neuroscience, is studying the neural circuitry of the visual system to explain the mechanisms behind visual perception. “I study how we make sense of the visual world around us—how we recognize a friend’s face, find our way to the store, or catch a Frisbee,” Niell says. “Our research is focused on understanding how neural circuits perform the image processing that allows us to perform complex visual behaviors and how these circuits are assembled during development.” Significant progress has been made in studying neural development and visual processing, Niell says, but the two have largely been studied separately. Questions remain about how the visual system wires
Developing Cells, Minds, and Healthy Communities UO RESEARCH Examines the complex process of development, including: • The smallest molecular inputs • Brain development, cognition, and learning • Education, family, and community Is enhancing our understanding of the biological, psychological, and social processes that undergird development to improve the health and well-being of people.
Questions remain about how the visual system wires itself. itself during development to create the specific receptive field properties that underlie vision. Niell hopes finding the answers to these and other questions will result in breakthroughs in the treatment of disorders ranging from blindness and dyslexia to autism and schizophrenia. Since arriving at the UO in the fall of 2011, Niell has racked up an array of achievements, including being named one of fifteen Searle Scholars—an honor that included $300,000 in support— and earning a $50,000 Sloan Research Fellowship. Most recently, he received a 2012 New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award includes a five-year $1.5 million grant. The New Innovator Award recognizes creative new investigators who propose innovative projects with the potential for high impact, which seems an apt description of Niell and his research. A former physicist, Niell turned to biology because he wanted to learn how the brain functions. Working out of the new $65 million Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building, he and his research team employ an array of tools and techniques in the lab. Their latest project examines how neurons establish appropriate circuits that perform specific computations. Their work requires an approach that can bridge molecular and cellular development with systems visual neuroscience, Niell says. “Our previous work demonstrated that the mouse visual cortex is an effective model for studying visual processing,” Niell explains. “And we have recently established a number of techniques allowing us to study the mouse visual system from single genes and cell types up to visual processing and perception.” 5
Those techniques include using molecular genetic tools to manipulate developmental pathways and neural activity in subsets of neurons. The team also uses in vivo imaging to assess the impact of growth and response and performs behavioral psychophysics tests of visual perception. The studies, Niell says, will provide important insight into the assembly of neural circuits and its underlying importance to both normal brain function and numerous developmental disorders. “Having a fundamental understanding of how the visual system works will allow us to treat a range of different disorders that may not seem obviously related to vision,” Niell says. “By studying the visual system and how neurons function and don’t function within various diseases, we can start to understand higher developmental disorders.” Cris Niell, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology and member of the University of Oregon’s Institute of Neuroscience, is the recipient of a 2012 NIH New Innovator Award.
RESEARCH
ANDREW CURRY
Tracing the Remains of a Founding Society in North America
Dennis Jenkins is a senior research associate with the UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History
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raveling south on Oregon Highway 31, it would be easy to drive right past what has recently become a place of international intrigue. In a westward-facing, rock-laden outcropping rising from dry soils just southeast of the picturesque twenty-mile-long Summer Lake are the Paisley Caves, an archaeological site now stamped into North American history. Earlier this year, archaeologists led by Dennis Jenkins of the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History, announced that they had found the oldest directly dated remains of people in North America. The team located obsidian spearheads dated to 13,110 years ago and human DNA in coprolites, or dried feces, dated to 14,300 years ago, providing evidence of a culture (Western Stemmed Tradition) that shared the continent with that of the Clovis people about 13,000 years ago. “The colonization of the Americas involved multiple technologically divergent, and possibly genetically divergent, founding groups,” the UOled team concluded in their report published in the journal Science. The spear points left behind in the Paisley
The report reinforced the theory that two different cultures existed for years in North America. Caves, researchers concluded, belong to the Western Stemmed Tradition and are unlike the fluted projectile points used by the Clovis people––long considered the earliest North Americans. The UO team identified human DNA extracted from coprolites. That discovery was initially reported in 2008 in the journal Science by Jenkins and international scientists who were experts in radiocarbon dating and DNA analyses. The DNA pre-dated any previously found human remains in North America, but some archaeologists challenged the 2008 claim, arguing that contaminants could have tainted the coprolites. In 6
the years since, Jenkins and his team discovered additional artifacts and conducted more refined radiocarbon dating on fibers from the coprolites in a manner that removed any potential contaminants. The findings announced this year resonated within the scientific community and were highlighted by more than 170 news outlets around the world. The report reinforced the theory that two different cultures existed for years in North America—one in the southeastern U.S., the Plains, and the southwestern U.S., and one in states further west. Excavation of the Paisley Caves dates back to 1938 when UO scientist Luther Cressman, the father of Oregon anthropology, discovered artifacts associated with bones of bison, camel, horse, and other animals, but few researchers accepted the findings due to a lack of documentation. In 2002, Jenkins and the UO archaeology field school conducted new excavations at the Paisley Caves, partly to test Cressman’s theories. The digs turned up artifacts in layer after layer of well-stratified soils, including an ash deposit left 7,640 years ago by the eruption of Mount Mazama, which created Crater Lake. Among the finds were additional camel and horse bones, projectile points, sagebrush rope, a wooden peg, and human coprolites. While Jenkins has since sealed the Paisley Caves to preserve them for future generations and newer research technologies, he and his colleagues will continue to study the many artifacts they have found. Jenkins is currently writing a book about his work at the caves. When asked about the legacy of the discovery, Jenkins says he has proved that Cressman’s long-debated conclusions were, in fact, rock solid.
Dennis Jenkins displays two bases for western stemmed projectiles from Oregon’s Paisley Caves. The bases date to 13,100 years ago.
Story of a Critical Movement Sheds Light on Oregon’s Latino Population
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n August 2012—just as incoming University of Oregon President Michael Gottfredson was headed to Woodburn, Oregon, for one of his first public appearances at the Fiesta Mexicana— the UO’s Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies (CLLAS) was also focused on Woodburn with the release of the book The Story of PCUN and the Farmworker Movement in Oregon (CLLAS, 2012). Founded in 1985 in Woodburn to represent the Latino farmworkers who are central to Oregon’s agricultural industry, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) is now the largest Latino organization in the state. The group has played a crucial role in the evolution of Oregon’s Latino population, which has jumped from 2.5 percent in 1980 to 12 percent in 2010 says UO College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor Lynn Stephen, the author of the book and a professor of anthropology who directs CLLAS. “My MO as a researcher is something
Identities, Cultures, and Connections UO IS LEADING RESEARCH • In the exploration of the evolving meanings and expressions of language, identity, culture, attachment, and disconnection being generated in the context of the tremendous political, historical, economic, and technological shifts taking place in the twentyfirst century. • In the changing attributes of transportation, communication, economics, politics, and society, and in how individuals express their identities—as individuals, as members of groups, and as communities.
I call ‘collaborative research,’” Stephen says. “The level of research that I do and the way that I do research results in things that are important to communities.” Stephen’s research starts with a discussion that asks the questions “What do you want to know? What kind of information is theoretically interesting?” When she first posed those questions to a leader in the PCUN organization in 1998, his answer was simple: “He said he wanted someone to tell the story of the PCUN organization,” Stephen recalls. At that time, Stephen was a new professor, fresh from Boston, who was surprised to discover how little academic interest there was in regional immigration issues. The story of California’s migrant workers had been told time and again, but Oregon’s Latino agriculture workers were widely ignored from a research standpoint. As Stephen saw it, there was simply no way to ignore this enormous blind spot any longer—and what better way to tell the story of Oregon’s Latino population than to tell the story of PCUN. In the fall of 1999 Stephen traveled to Woodburn on a weekly basis with a half-dozen students to pore over the PCUN archives. They conducted interviews with PCUN members, sat in on union meetings, visited workers in the fields, and built trust and established relationships. She continued this work in the fall of 2000 with another group of students and also carried out additional research on her own. The research resulted in the first edition of Stephen’s book, published in 2001. The partnership between the UO and PCUN was cemented and gave rise to numerous other collaborations— from a bilingual theater production to a special collection in the UO Libraries that includes all of the historic PCUN documents. Stephen also published an academic book, Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon (Duke University Press, 2007), which documented the lives of indigenous immigrants in Oregon with a 7
special focus on Woodburn and PCUN. Stephen’s updated version of the PCUN book tells the tale of the state’s Mexican labor movement, rooted in Oregon agriculture and the Bracero Program it grew out of in the 1940s. It documents early efforts at political and labor organizing in the 1960s and 1970s, the laying of the groundwork for the birth of PCUN in the 1970s and 1980s, the establishment of the organization in 1985, and the ensuing struggles for collective bargaining, as well as the battle to stop anti-immigration laws and the movement for comprehensive immigration reform. Stephen says many of the students who assisted her in the PCUN research were changed by the experience. One went on to become an immigration lawyer, another teaches history and another earned a PhD in anthropology and now holds a teaching position in France. And to think it might not have ever happened had Stephen not traveled to Woodburn to connect with some friends she met while working in Mexico. “The connections we made and the relationships we forged,” Stephen says. “All of that creates tremendous appreciation of the UO and knowledge about why the research is important and why people are doing it.” Background image: Laborers ready for harvesting, c. 1942–7 [Description-Notes: Mexican nationals loaded into a truck ready to begin a day’s work at harvesting, Hood River. Extension Bulletin Illustrations Photograph Collection (P20:953), Oregon Multicultural Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.)
IMPACT
Economic Impact of Research at the University of Oregon
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Left: Tim Duy, director of the Oregon Economic Forum and author of “The Economic Impact of the University of Oregon”
Return on Research Through Licensing Income (Yield) 10%
UO Yield 8%
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“Research yields innovations that create jobs and support a higher quality of life for all Oregonians.”
the state’s economy. Companies formed from UO research also benefit the state. Aggregate numbers of jobs created and company income generated by UO startups during 2011 was 250 jobs and $35.75 million in Oregon. Research creates jobs and fuels the economy in other ways, as well. Construction of the new $65 million Lewis Integrative Science Building contributed in the form of construction money that went to local and state businesses. With the design team and its consultants all being from the state of Oregon and the construction team using subcontractors that all hail from the state of Oregon, the economic benefits are very clear. The project created an estimated seventy-five FTE jobs for more than two years. The contributions will likely continue, as more sponsored research projects come to Oregon as a result of the Lewis facility, bringing dollars that originate elsewhere to the state.
he University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of “Very High Research Activity” in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities and is nationally recognized for translating basic research discoveries into practical applications. Research and technology creates opportunities for Oregonians. And, says Tim Duy, director of the Oregon Economic Forum and author of “The Economic Impact of the University of Oregon,” UO research provides clear support for the Oregon economy. “The ultimate impact of research extends far beyond that of the initial revenue and spending,” Duy says. “Research yields innovations that create jobs and support a higher quality of life for all Oregonians.” UO research innovations generated nearly $7.9 million in licensing revenue for the Oregon economy in FY2012. Almost all of this revenue comes from beyond Oregon’s borders, bolstering
EDA Grant to Sustain UO’s Lasting Rural Economic Development Efforts
Robert Parker and Megan Smith codirect the Community Service Center.
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common problem in rural economic development is that communities with economic development agendas often lack adequate technical knowledge or staffing to achieve the innovation and entrepreneurship goals they are pursuing. A new $125,000 grant is helping the University of Oregon’s Economic Development Administration Center (EDAC) with its long-running effort to fill those needs. The grant comes from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration and will allow the UO’s Community Service Center to continue to provide technical assistance to businesses and organizations in economically distressed communities throughout Oregon. “Building local capacity is the foundation of our approach,” says Robert Parker, director of the Community Service Center. “Our goal is to build the capacity in communities to set strong, forward-looking policies,
“Our goal is to build the capacity in communities to set strong, forward-looking policies.” develop collaborative networks, and mobilize new investment resources.” The UO’s EDAC puts graduate students into rural communities, where they receive field-based learning experience in helping businesses address such needs as job creation or expansion. Under the new grant, the center will work in conjunction with the UO Department of Economics and Lane Community College’s office of the Oregon Small Business Development Center Network to build long-term partnerships in 9
economically distressed counties. The grant will direct $125,000 a year to the EDAC for up to five years under a matching-support arrangement to fund a $1.3 million project. The center will continue its strong service-learning approach, which it implemented under an initial round of EDA funding three years ago. The center’s focus will include economic development in collaboration with local governments, Oregon’s Native American tribes, and private businesses. One of the aims will be helping businesses conduct feasibility studies and analyses. A key partner in that initiative is Drive Oregon, a nonprofit public-private group seeking to promote, support, and grow the electric vehicle industry in Oregon. The UO’s EDAC is one of several service portals of the Community Service Center and has a long list of completed projects. It is involved in impact analyses of the Latino business community and the snow-ski industry across the state, as well as the development of a comprehensive business strategy for the Cow Creek band of the Umpqua tribe. Other initiatives include a review of water quality issues in Turner, Oregon, and an evaluation of the Eugene Water and Electric Board’s pilot program for smart meters.
Oregon: A Place, a Laboratory, a Canvas THE UO RECOGNIZES THAT • Oregon has a special geography and history and the industry, values, and engagement of its citizens provide a unique context for our research—a laboratory for ideas and a canvas for reflecting and expressing our contributions. • Research at the UO is embedded in the richness and diversity of Oregon—from the distinctive landscape, plants, and animals to the history, populations, languages, literature, and arts that determine its culture.
Lucia Battaglia earned her master’s degree in chemistry from the UO. She completed the Graduate Internship Program and now works as a development engineer at Intel Corporation.
Graduate Internship Program Gives Students an Edge
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ucia Battaglia was a middle-schooler in Mexico when she first showed an interest in the sciences. At the time, it wasn’t exactly clear that she had found her calling. “I was doing terribly,” she recalled. “My chemistry teacher pulled me aside and tried to explain the importance of chemistry to me. He made me believe I could be good at this.” Battaglia, now a development engineer at Intel Corporation, went on to complete her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She moved to Oregon to study chemistry at Portland State University before completing a master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Oregon. Battaglia worked hard to achieve academic success, but it was the Graduate Internship Program (GIP) at the UO that really propelled her toward her ultimate goal of working at Intel. The accelerated program pairs intensive lab and course work with nine-month paid internships in the industry. Students receive instruction, hands-on training, and access to the high-capacity scientific instruments in the Center for Advance Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR),
“My name is Lucia Battaglia and I want to work at Intel.” the UO’s high-tech extension service housed in the Lokey Laboratories. The innovative, results-oriented program fasttracks students into scientific careers. Of course, it also takes a special kind of student. As Battaglia showed when she introduced herself to her classmates in the GIP, her commitment to her goals ran deep. “My name is Lucia Battaglia,” she announced. “And I want to work at Intel.” Battaglia’s fascination with semiconductors began in the chemistry lab at PSU. Her professor suggested she consider the master’s program at the UO, which combined engineering and chemistry and seemed like the perfect fit. Battaglia’s engineering background qualified her for several positions at Intel, but the master’s program helped focus her knowledge of the technology. After spending a summer dissecting semiconductors, she found she had a 10
strong edge over other applicants. Battaglia applied for three positions at the semiconductor giant and got invited back for three interviews. In one of the interviews, she was asked about metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). “Do you know what a MOSFET is?” the interviewer asked. “Do you want me to draw one for you?” Battaglia replied, before offering up a perfect sketch of the commonly used circuit transistor. Battaglia ended up receiving offers for all three positions, but decided the development engineer job was for her. Now that she’s no longer in school, she has time to concentrate on other things—like taking a boxing class, training for a half-marathon, and setting a great example for her son, a student at Portland Community College. Battaglia has come a long way since her days as a struggling chemistry student. As an Intel engineer, she enjoys developing new technologies and seeing the latest and greatest in equipment and processes years before anybody else does. She loves being a part of a vital industry, and her time at the UO helped her dream big and achieve her goals.
NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
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ndrea Yocom’s interest in the sciences crystalized at a summer engineering camp in her native state of Colorado. After earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics, she was drawn to the University of Oregon by the faculty members she met and the stellar materials research facilities she saw during a visit to the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon known as CAMCOR, the UO’s high-tech extension service. “I saw more equipment than smaller universities had and more equipment in one place than larger universities had,” Yocom recalls. “I was definitely impressed.” Now a graduate student in physics, Yocom is focused on optics and materials science. She works with a research group developing more absorbent polymer solar cells. And as the recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, she receives $30,000 annually to achieve her research goals. There are thirteen NSF graduate fellows at the UO—six of them newly chosen in 2012—whose burgeoning research careers are being generously supported by the NSF. Their interests range from microbes to bush monkey flowers, and like Yocom, many of them have wanted to be scientists for as long as they can
FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
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Andrea Yocom, a National Science Foundation Fellow, is a graduate student in physics at the UO.
remember. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s degrees or doctorates. Yocom credits her mentor and advisor, Miriam Deutsch, an associate professor of physics, with providing her the guidance and support she needed to earn an NSF fellowship. NSF fellows have gone on to earn Nobel Prizes and reach other notable heights. Past fellows include U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Google founder Sergey Brin, and Steven Levitt, coauthor of the book Freakonomics (2005).
ach year the UO Graduate School promotes and encourages fellowships and awards that support graduate student research. The school provides tuition and benefits support for graduate teaching fellows and offers additional awards and fellowships. The UO donor- and state-funded fellowships and awards administered directly by the Graduate School, including those provided through its Promising Scholar Awards and Graduate School Research Awards programs, amounted to more than $400,000 in stipends and another $400,000 in tuition in the 2011–12 academic year. The Graduate School also assists students in identifying and applying for hundreds of external fellowships and awards administered by governmental agencies, private foundations, and corporations. What follows is a sampling of graduate student awards in 2012.
Stellar Award—Iain More Fellows Brian Brush, architecture, doctoral Lauren Kahn, psychology, doctoral Christine Lykken, biology, doctoral
UO Public Impact Awards Graciela Lu, geography, doctoral Assitan Sylla, international studies, master’s
NSF GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS Joshua Bahr, biology Ashley Bateman, biology Alese Colehour, anthropology Hannah Dietterich, geology Alexander Kendall, chemistry Laurel Hiebert, biology Kathryn Jankowski, psychology Kirsten Meyer, biology Candice Mottweiler, psychology Jimena Santillan, psychology Kristin Sikkink, biology Andrew Vandegrift, biology Andrea Yocom, physics
UO Doctoral Research Fellows Monica McLellan, comparative literature Christopher Weber, chemistry
OUS Sylff Fellows Winners of the 2012 Iain More Stellar Award were recognized at a Graduate School luncheon. (L to R) Kimberly Andrews Espy, vice president for research and innovation and dean of the Graduate School; Christine Lykken, graduate student in biology; Brian Brush, graduate student in architecture; Iain More ’67, a UO Foundation Board international trustee; Lauren Kahn, graduate student in psychology; Sandra Morgen, vice provost for graduate studies and associate dean; and Jan Monti ’69, MA ’71, a UO Foundation Board trustee.
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Amanda Bednarz, landscape architecture, master’s Jekatyerina Dunajeva, political science, doctoral Melissa Liebert, anthropology, doctoral Karen Rosenbloom, arts management, master’s Laurie Trautman, geography, doctoral
IMPACT
A Small Device with Big Potential for Drug Manufacturers
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emaMetrix is only in its infancy, but the University of Oregon spinout is drawing interest from biotechnology firms and pharmaceutical companies for the “microfluidic device”(or “chip”) developed by the UO team. The apparatus captures and monitors tiny roundworms, allowing scientists to study the effects of particular compounds. At the moment the device has the greatest potential to accelerate the discovery of drugs used to eliminate worm infections in humans and livestock, says Shawn Lockery, a professor in the University of Oregon Department of Biology and codirector of the Institute of Neuroscience (ION). Lockery and codeveloper Janis Weeks, also a professor in the biology department and neuroscience institute, founded NemaMetrix in 2011. Biology professor and ION member Bill Roberts serves as the team’s expert in computerized data mining and statistical analysis. The elastomer device is designed for the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny organism that measures 1 millimeter long and 50 microns wide, which has a strong genetic application to humans. The worm’s pharynx pumps regularly, like a heartbeat, emitting signals that can be monitored as in an electrocardiogram or EKG. Weeks says the fact that anthelmintic drugs used to combat parasitic worm infections generally attack the proteins that control electrical activity makes the C. elegans nematode the perfect test subject. Lockery took a sabbatical leave at Harvard University to study with George Whitesides—a pioneer behind microfluidics, which involves precise control and manipulation of constrained fluids. Lockery returned to Oregon with a clear idea of how to apply his knowledge to drug screening and began fabricating the microfluidic device. He credits the UO’s Technology Transfer Services office with help in focusing his big idea. Initially, he contacted the department with other research he had conducted
(Left to right) Bill Roberts, Janis Weeks, and Shawn Lockery are the core trio behind the UO spin-out NemaMetrix.
Improving global health is a major motivating factor. on C. elegans, but conversations with technology transfer staff members led to the conclusion that microfluidics-based drug screening was a promising area for commercialization. “What I learned through this process is that they’re there to serve your agenda,” Lockery says. “They’re more like a reference library. They say ‘What do you want to do?’ and they’ll help you do it. And then their cut in terms of royalties and licensing is really just for selfsustaining their organization.” Lockery applied for and won a two-year National Institutes of Health challenge grant available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. He and Weeks obtained funding to further validate the device and develop NemaMetrix as a business from ONAMI, the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechologies Institute. On the business side, the team is working with Nathan Lillegard, cofounder and ex-CEO of the successful UO spinoff 12
Floragenex, a genetic research firm, who now is program manager for the Lundquist Center for Entrepreneurship. The NemaMetrix group’s recently published paper on the device was named among the top papers of the year by the journal Lab on a Chip, which focuses on miniaturization at the microand nanoscale. Improving global health is a major motivating factor for members of the NemaMetrix team. Ultimately, the group hopes to see their device implemented in the developing world, particularly in Africa where worm infections have taken a heavy toll. Weeks got involved in global health issues after teaching neuroscience in Africa and has committed herself to expanding the UO’s global health course offerings. She and Lockery hope to take advantage of the new Gabon-UO initiative to inspire collaboration with African countries. Because NemaMetrix’s device can be customized, the researchers plan to apply it to the study of other organisms. There is also the potential to use the device for environmental toxicity screening or, by expressing ion channels of the human heart in the pharynx of the nematode, researchers could efficiently screen drugs for cardiotoxicity.
Tools and Technologies for Tomorrow UO RESEARCHERS ARE • Working on solving today’s challenges and tomorrow’s complex problems in the globally competitive context that requires the development of new tools and entrepreneurial technologies. • Building on the models first initiated at the UO to crack the genetic code of health and disease—combining fundamental inquiry with translational application to create breakthroughs in educational and behavioral assessment.
Scratching the Surface of Science and Technology
Graduate student Laura McWilliams reviews her research with chemistry professor Geri Richmond and fellow graduate student Brandon Schabes. McWilliams uses a laser system to examine interactions on water surfaces.
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eri Richmond’s interest in water is purely superficial—but that doesn’t make her work any less important. She seeks to understand the simplest properties of what holds a water surface together, which can be applied to everything from oil spills to baby diapers. “This is about studying the fundamentals behind the most important surface properties on earth—the surface of water,” says Richmond, the UO’s Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry who recently was appointed by President Obama to the National Science Board. More than just an invaluable natural resource, water bridges virtually all areas of science and technology. Richmond’s research into water surfaces examines some of the key chemical and physical processes of everyday life, such as how water interacts with membranes in the body and how environmental processes occur at liquid surfaces. Some of her recent projects include an examination of sulfur dioxide absorption on aqueous surfaces (i.e., the mechanics behind
atmospheric pollution and acid rain) published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and a National Science Foundation–funded interdisciplinary collaboration with a group of physicists and chemists to boost the efficiency of solar cells. “I see these projects as a means of discovery,” Richmond says. “And more importantly, I see them as a means of training and working closely with research students.” Long before she dreamed of being a scientist, Richmond wanted to be a teacher and that desire has clearly informed her research career. She says that she can’t imagine a more satisfying and enjoyable career than the combination of scientific research and teaching. A twenty-seven-year veteran of the UO, Richmond says she’s been able to conduct important research projects while also having the opportunity to contribute in other capacities, such as mentoring women scientists and graduate students around the world. From 1999 to 2006, Richmond served on the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, the statutory governing board of the Oregon University System and its seven universities. Inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, Richmond was recently awarded the American Physical Society’s 2013 Davisson-Germer Prize in Surface or Atomic Physics, and she received the American Chemical Society’s 2013 Charles Lathrop Parsons Award for her advocacy on behalf of higher education, science policy, and women scientists. Richmond cofounded the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists (COACh), an organization that provides mentoring and support to women scientists around the globe, and
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A recent Obama appointee to the National Science Foundation, Geri Richmond is the UO’s Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry.
she’s been a longtime advocate for women in science. She’s been invited to the White House, given testimony before Congress, and with financial support from the Department of State, is currently working on several projects with women scientists in developing countries. Richmond’s recent appointment to the National Science Board, a key appointment to the organization that acts as the oversight body for the National Science Foundation, follows her national service on numerous science advisory boards, with this being her first presidential appointment. “I am honored to be selected for service on this board,” Richmond says, “and I look forward to working with others on the board to advance the cause for science in this nation.”
The centerpiece of the Robert and Beverly Lewis Center for NeuroImaging (LCNI) is a Siemens Magnetom Skyra 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. The large-bore, whole-body MRI is used by researchers in a variety of disciplines and is open for use by outside partners on a fee-for-service basis.
HIGH PERFORMANCE
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he Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building officially opened its doors on October 26, 2012, with a grand opening ceremony that drew local and state politicians, UO Foundation trustees, faculty and staff members, students, and the major donors who supported the $65 million project. The 103,000-square-foot facility brings world-class researchers from a range of different disciplines together under one roof. It represents a large leap forward in both function and design. As Oregon’s first high-performance science research hub, it will facilitate innovative and collaborative research destined to achieve transformative scientific breakthroughs. The building provides unprecedented access to interdisciplinary labs and high-tech tools and equipment. The facility: • Is on track to earn Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. • Houses the Lewis Center for Neuroimaging, which supports interdisciplinary, multifaceted research in cognitive neuroscience and biological imaging and boasts a research-dedicated 3T MRI scanner and other high-performance research tools. • Is home to the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR), a shared instrumentation facility open to industrial and academic clients on a fee-for-use basis that serves as the UO’s high-tech extension service. The Lewis Building was funded partly through private donations. Donors included Robert and Beverly Lewis and Lorry I. Lokey, along with William Swindells, the James R. Kuse Family Foundation, and Rosaria Haugland. The Lewis Building was also financed with federal and state grants and state bonds, including $30 million in Article XI-G bonds—the largest G-bond investment in academic buildings in the UO’s history. 14
Sustainable Futures UO SCIENTISTS ARE • Redesigning the ways humans manage and steward natural resources. • Taking green approaches to re-engineering the science, manufacturing, and business processes related to manufactured resources. • Restructuring cities and buildings for improved livability. • Developing new advanced materials and processes to reduce our energy footprint. • Making the state an intellectual and economic leader in fostering a sustainable future for our planet and its people.
Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry Chemistry professor Jim Hutchison holds the Lokey-Harrington Chair in Chemistry. A key player in the UO’s nation-leading green chemistry effort, he conducts research in materials chemistry and nanoscience. Hutchison heads a research team that was recently awarded a $500,000 Partnership for Innovation grant from the National Science Foundation to accelerate the commercialization of inorganic, green nanoparticle technologies.
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ne of the most forward-focused occupants of the Lewis Building is the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry (CSMC), which is devoted to the development of new methods and new techniques in sustainable chemistry. The focal point for the UO’s pioneering green chemistry programs, the CSMC is a nationwide program with state and federal partners such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, as well as private-sector partners such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM. In addition to advancing the scientific enterprise, the center aims to transform the next generation of products. Among other projects, researchers are working to produce thinner electronic components and reducing waste in the semiconductor industry to make the production of flat panel television sets greener. Through the center, the UO supports the Oregon governor’s Green Chemistry Innovation Initiative. Oregon State University is a close partner with the UO in the CSMC. Working together, the two Oregon institutions have produced some significant results, including an electronic switch that outperforms the fastest silicon-based semiconductors, and waterbased manufacturing techniques that reduce waste and improve productivity. The center has spun off two startup companies and generated more than a dozen U.S. patents. Another key goal of the CSMC is to prepare students to become the next generation of green chemists. By offering collaborative mentorships, the program aims to broaden graduate student perspectives and opportunities and shorten the time to degree. Students begin their careers by taking a series of summer immersion courses in semiconductor processing. CSMC programs have placed graduate students in high schools to inspire more Oregon students to go to college, and graduate students have participated in industrial, teaching, or national lab internships to help define their career paths, expand research opportunities, and inspire a love of teaching. 15
Chemistry professor Dave Johnson is the Rosaria P. Haugland Foundation Chair in Pure and Applied Chemistry and the director of the Center for Advanced Materials Characterization in Oregon (CAMCOR), the UO’s high-tech extension service. His research interest is at the intersection of chemistry and physics—at the forefront of materials research. His groundbreaking, nontraditional approach to chemical synthesis has led to many new materials that have immediate practical applications. An entrepreneur and an educator, Johnson has helped create research and educational programs with Oregon industries and frequently interacts with high school students and public audiences across the state.
BY THE NUMBERS
Research, Innovation, and Graduate Education
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BREAKOUT OF TOTAL FUNDS AWARDED TO UO IN FISCAL YEAR 2012*
ll told, UO research contributed millions of
dollars to the Oregon economy in 2012. Sponsored expenditures in fiscal year 2012 totaled $121.7 million. Research creates jobs for the people who live in our communities, pay state taxes, and send their children to our schools.
SOURCES OF FEDERAL FUNDING BY AGENCY IN FISCAL YEAR 2012
DEPT. OF EDUCATION
$31,843,615
DEPT. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
$25,357,576
FEDERAL
$96,985,189
INDUSTRY
$4,025,266
FOUNDATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS
$5,030,442
OTHER $2,674,195 STATES $775,770 *Includes all external awards for research, instructional, and outreach activities
GRADUATE ENROLLMENT, FALL 2012
MASTER’S DEGREE PROGRAMS
1,678
DOCTORAL PROGRAMS
1,244
DEGREES AWARDED ACADEMIC YEAR 2011–12
NATL. SCIENCE FOUNDATION $18,679,956 DEPT. OF DEFENSE
$6,498,759
DEPT. OF ENERGY
$5,757,363
OTHER FEDERAL AGENCIES
$4,070,514
MASTER’S DEGREES
987
DEPT. OF STATE
$2,723,221
DOCTORAL DEGREES
173
DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION
$913,672
DEPT. OF THE INTERIOR
$590,191
NATL. ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES
$550,323
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BRINGING IT TOGETHER
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here are numerous reasons to celebrate research over the past year at the University of Oregon—and good cause to look forward to 2013. A few of the developments on the horizon include:
• The opening of the new Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Systems Biology (META CSB), a systems biology research and education center devoted to the study of animal-associated microbial communities funded by a $10.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The center will include twelve UO researchers from four institutes and five departments. • South Willamette Valley Technology Business Accelerator, a proposed community partnership centered on UO and Oregon State University research, designed to foster job creation by advancing the initiation, support, growth, and retention of technology-based startups in our region. • Bridging Open Networks for Scientific Applications and Innovation (BONSAI), a National Science Foundation–funded program to build a high-speed data network to connect researchers in biology, chemistry, computer science, neuroscience, and physics. • A proposed Oregon University Research Information “Collaboratory” program with Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, and Oregon State University, which calls for a $17 million investment in higher education information technology infrastructure. • New research collaborations coming out of the Robert and Beverly Lewis Integrative Science Building. New connections are already being made between researchers from different departments and the seeds are being sown for some great discoveries. Research excellence abounds at the University of Oregon. Faculty members are training the researchers of tomorrow using tools and technologies that didn’t exist just a few years ago, and researchers are working collaboratively to develop solutions to society’s grand challenges today. The year ahead will bring untold research breakthroughs, awards, achievements, grants, donations, and other research successes. Research energizes our state’s economic, cultural, and political structure, and furthers the UO’s mission of creating and transferring knowledge to the state, the nation, and the world.
IMAGE COURTESY OF HDR ARCHITECTURE, INC.; © 2012 HDR, INC.
Looking Forward to 2013
OREGON RESEARCH ANNUAL REPORT Published January 2013 by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Graduate Studies, 1266 University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403-1266, phone 541-3462090, fax 541-346-2023. For information or to leave feedback, visit research.uoregon.edu/content/ we-want-hear-you. Writer and editor: Lewis Taylor Contributing writer: Jim Barlow Publication coordinator: Moira Kiltie Photographers: Jack Liu, Michael McDermott Copyeditor: John R. Crosiar Design and Editing Services
Research and Graduate Education Leadership Team
Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice president for research and innovation, dean of the graduate school
Patrick Phillips Professor of biology, associate vice president for research
Beth Stormshak Professor of counseling psychology, associate vice president for research
Pat Jones Associate vice president for research finance and business administration
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Sandra Morgen Professor of anthropology, vice provost for graduate studies and associate dean
Mia Tuan Professor of education studies, associate dean of the graduate school
OFFICE FOR RESEARCH, INNOVATION, AND GRADUATE EDUCATION 1266 University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403-1266
Nonprofit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Eugene OR Permit No. 63
An equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication will be provided in accessible formats upon request. ©2013 University of Oregon. DES0113-206b-C18323.
External Honors F
ollowing is a sampling of external honors bestowed on UO faculty members in fiscal year 2012. Academia Europaea Member Alexander B. Murphy, geography American Academy of Arts and Sciences Katharine V. Cashman, geological sciences American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows Michael Haley, chemistry Craig Young, marine biology American Chemical Society Fellow Geri Richmond, chemistry American Council of Learned Societies 2012 Digital Innovation Fellowships Massimo Lollino, Romance languages James Tice, architecture American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship Michelle McKinley, law Ellen Herman, history Massimo Lollino, Romance languages American Educational Research Association SER-SIG Distinguished Researcher Award Gerald Tindal, education American Physical Society Fellow Marina Guenza, chemistry American Planning Association Outstanding Federal Planning Project Mark Gillem, architecture American Psychological Association, Margaret Gorman Early Career Award Azim Shariff, psychology Association for Psychological Science Fellow Ed Awh, psychology The Best American Short Stories 2011, “Gurov in Manhattan” Ehud Havazelet, creative writing 2012 Thomas F. Blackwell Memorial Award Suzanne Rowe, law
2011 Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Best Documentary Award Daniel Miller, journalism and communication Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award Shih-Yuan Liu, chemistry DesignIntelligence 2012 Most Admired Educators David Hulse, landscape architecture DuPont Young Professors Shannon Boettcher, chemistry Esri Best Mobile GIS App Award Ken Kato, InfoGraphics Lab European Institutes for Advanced Study Fellowship Programme, EURIAS Senior Scholar Eric Pederson, linguistics Fondation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize (France) Helen Neville, psychology Fulbright Scholar Program Lisa Gilman, English James Goes, business Nicolas Larco, architecture David Li, English Stephanie Wood, UO Libraries Harvard University Center on the Developing Child Senior Fellow Phil Fisher, psychology Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) Young Educator of the Year Kiersten Muenchinger, product design Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton) Membership Bryna Goodman, history Nate Andrade, history Institute of Ismaili Studies Zahid Ali Award (United Kingdom) Sean Anthony, history International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Academy of Environmental Law Senior Prize Svitlana Kravchenko, law Journal of Physical Organic Chemistry Award for Early Excellence Shih-Yuan Liu, chemistry
Lambda Literary Award, Best LGBT Anthology Michael Hames-García, ethnic studies Ernesto Martínez, ethnic studies March of Dimes Foundation, Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award Kryn Stankunas, biology Elinor Melville Prize for Latin American Environmental History Mark Carey, history National Academy of Sciences member Eric U. Selker, biology National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship for University Teaching Sean Anthony, history Gerald Berk, political science National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Research Fellowship Jeff Ostler, history Mary Wood, English OHSU Medical Research Foundation of Oregon Discovery Award Chris Doe, biology OHSU Medical Research Foundation of Oregon Richard T. Jones New Investigator Award Hui Zong, biology Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowships Mike Bray, art Brian Gillis, art Donald Morgan, art Jack Ryan, art Pew Charitable Trusts, Pew Scholar Brad J. Nolen, chemistry Simons Foundation Fellow John Toner, physics Wenner-Gren Foundation Research Award Philip Scher, anthropology Western History Association’s Hal K. Rothman Award Marsha Weisiger, history Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Europe in the Middle East Fellowship Michael Allan, comparative literature