Science Journal December 2013

December 2013

Investigating Biological Problems with Network-based Models PG 4

Data-driven Assessments Lead the Way PG 12

Portrait of a Chemist: Stephen Benkovic PG 26

Millennium Scholars Beginning with the End Goal in Mind PG 18

Table of Contents

Feature Stories:

4 Investigating Biological Problems with Network-based Models

Understand how researchers in physics and biology are collaborating using network-based modeling to investigate highly complex biological systems.

12 Data-driven Assessments Lead the Way for Innovative Statistical Solutions for Research

Discover how the Department of Statistics is addressing the statistical needs of the University and beyond through research, collaboration, and education.

18 Millennium Scholars: Beginning with the End Goal in Mind

Learn about the Millennium Scholars, a group of academically talented science and engineering students who, as incoming freshmen, have committed to the pursuit of a doctoral degree.

26 Portrait of a Chemist: Stephen Benkovic

Discover how a chemistry professor uncovers the clues to treating some of our most troubling diseases in his quest to understand enzymes.

College News:

Student Spotlight:

Alumni Gift Enables Faculty to Share Teaching Strategies

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors

Integrating Ethics into Undergraduate Curriculum

Summer 2013 Commencement

Joseph Dixon, in Memoriam

Above and Beyond: Focus on Graduate Students

Penn State Mourns Thomas Wartik Experience Outside the Classroom Years of Service Recognition Intellectual Property Focus

Department News Faculty Spotlight: Faculty Awards and Honors Faculty Promotions New Faculty

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Undergraduate Scientists

Tom Richardson Receives Alumni Fellow Award Annual Benefactor’s Dinner Eracleous and Fabbri Awarded 2013 C.I. Noll Award Snapshot of Philanthropy Retired Faculty Social and Luncheon First Annual All-Science Tailgate Big Success

Outreach: Expanding Opportunities for Faculty and Students

Honor Roll Upcoming Events

Alumni News: Seven Alumni Honored with Penn State’s Outstanding Science Alumni Award

Editor: Tara Immel

Welcome to our Newest Alumni Board Members and Officers Alumni Establish Endowment to Fund The Center of Excellence in Science Education

Writers: Barbara Collins, Barbara Kennedy, Sara LaJeunesse, Brenda Lucas, Joslyn Neiderer, Star Sharp, Katrina Voss, Mary Beth Williams, Michael Zeman. Special thanks to all of our other contributors!

Design: Graphics & Design Printer: Watkins Printing

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Dear Friends of the College, This fall has been another very good time in the Eberly College of Science. In addition to welcoming most of the 17 terrific new faculty recently hired across all disciplines of science, we welcomed another large and enthusiastic freshman class, with almost 950 students attending our freshman welcome day.

Additionally, the college and University are deep in the planning stage for three renovation projects that will expand and dramatically improve undergraduate instructional laboratory space in Mueller, Whitmore, and South Frear laboratories, along with a companion project to complete the renovation of all of South Frear, including research laboratories. Furthermore, recent rankings of Penn State among research universities nationally and internationally have been very positive, with Penn State moving up from 46th to 37th in the U.S. News and World Report ranking of U.S. universities and moving up from 61st to 49th in the world in the recently published 2013-2014 Times Higher Education (UK) World University Rankings.

Despite the good news, we know that we cannot become complacent. If we’re not working to get better, we’re very likely to be slipping backwards. As part of a University-wide effort that will provide direction for the college and the University over the coming five years, we have begun working on a new strategic plan. With a new provost in place – Nicholas P. Jones joined Penn State as executive vice president and provost in July, coming from Johns Hopkins where he had been dean of engineering – and a new president of the University expected to be named soon, we will be in a new era with new opportunities. This is also a time of both serious challenges and great opportunities for higher education generally. The rising cost of higher education is a serious challenge, and there have been many articles, editorials, and commentaries on the cost and value of higher education over the last year. Many of the pundits see online educa-

Science Journal December 2013

tion, an area of vigorous growth in the college and across Penn State, as a way to improve education and constrain costs.

One focus of the new strategic plan will be improving the undergraduate educational experience.

We are already working to improve the sense of community in the college, working to provide better career information, offering more international educational opportunities, improving the math placement exams and process, and working with others across the University to greatly enhance general education. We are also considering more innovative opportunities for our undergraduates, such as a freshman research initiative aimed at getting all students in the college of science engaged in research right from the start of their college careers. Such experiences have proven to have a strong impact on student retention and success.

Undergraduates are certainly not our only focus in the new strategic plan. For example, we have also been working diligently to improve the way that intellectual property is understood and handled. The proper handling of intellectual property is critical to getting the many discoveries and inventions coming from the college put to good use for the benefit of society. As you’ll read in the IP Focus article on page 42, beginning this fall, the college now requires all new graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to receive training in the recognition and development of intellectual property and technology transfer.

Additionally, the college encourages all researchers to take advantage of the intellectual property and technology transfer training provided by the Office of Technology Management.

These are only a few initiatives that we will be developing and implementing in 2014 and beyond.

I look forward to working with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and administration to make these plans and the continued progress of this wonderful college a reality.

Best wishes for a healthy and happy 2014!

Sincerely,

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Feature Story

with Network-based

Models Network-based modeling is allowing scientists to understand how biological systems produce unexpected kinds of behavior. A network model provides a type of map that traces system interactions; it is a very powerful visualization and analysis tool.

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

At Penn State, researchers are collaborating using network-based modeling to investigate highly complex biological systems.

Réka Albert, professor of physics and biology, is considered one of the leaders and experts in the field of network theory; she is also credited as being a major contributor to the development of the discipline. In 1999, while Réka Albert Albert was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame, she co-authored a paper with Albert-László Barabási that introduced the idea of scale-free networks and proposed the Barabási–Albert model, an algorithm for generating random scale-free networks using a preferential attachment mecha-

Science Journal December 2013

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Feature Story nism. Their work outlined that certain univer- provements in the model in cases that they do sal rules govern the structure of all networks not validate.

Albert believes that collaboration is the key – whether they be social, technological, or biological – and mathematically described these to moving forward in scientific thinking and innetwork structures. This work was a major con- vestigation. “Innovation often comes from connecting seemingly disparate concepts and ideas. tributor to the development of network science.

Despite Albert’s successful debut as a theo- These connections are easier to make by a team rist, she realized that she wanted her models to of researchers who contribute their distinct exbe tested and applied to the understanding of pertise to a common goal.” Albert’s specific exbiological systems. Albert came to Penn State to pertise in network analysis and network-based achieve a better understanding of the structure- modeling contributed to an increased underfunction relationship of biological systems. The standing of plant signaling, the immune syscollaborative environment at Penn State gave tem, and ecological communities. “It is my hope her an avenue to pursue this goal. “For each of that network thinking becomes widely accepted the systems I study I’m trying to find the math- in life sciences and network-based modeling ematical model that describes how the system methods will enter the toolbox of life scientists,” changes over time. Our models incorporate the Albert said.

In addition to Albert’s role as a physics facspecific components and interactions of each system and use a parsimonious mathematical de- ulty member, she has an adjunct appointment scription of their dynamics,” Albert said. Models are sets Albert uses algorithms to predict the of assumptions about how system’s behavior in previously unexplored something in nature works paired with algorithms that conditions and to find the alteration that calculate the consequences of these assumptions. When leads to a desired behavior. creating a network model, each element of the system is represented as the Department of Biology. She is also affiliated a network node, and its dynamic status is de- with the College of Information Sciences and scribed by a state variable. The connection or Technology, a faculty member of the Integrative relationship between two nodes is called an Biosciences graduate program in bioinformatics edge; through these edges the nodes affect each and genomics, and has recently become affiliatother’s state. After successfully describing the ed with the bioengineering graduate program. normal behavior of the modeled system, Albert She is a member of the Center for Infections uses algorithms to predict the system’s behav- Disease Dynamics, and active in the Penn State ior in previously unexplored conditions and to Network Science Initiative. “All of these appointfind the alteration that leads to a desired be- ments and affiliations allow me to break down havior. Her collaborators then test the model’s perceived barriers, be involved in many differpredictions by doing follow up experiments. In ent projects, and advise a variety of students in most cases, these experiments will validate the different majors. Our research is driven by an theoretical predictions; the results lead to im- ongoing dialog between experimental measure6

Penn State Eberly College of Science

The signal transduction network corresponding to abscisic acid induced closure as reconstructed by Song Li, Sarah Assmann, and Réka Albert in 2006. The color of the nodes represents their function: enzymes are shown in red, signal transduction proteins are green, membrane transport–related nodes are blue, and secondary messengers and small molecules are orange. Small black filled circles represent theoretically inferred nodes that mediate indirect regulatory interactions. Arrowheads represent activation, and flat tips indicate inhibition. Light blue lines denote interactions derived from species other than Arabidopsis.

ments and theoretical modeling. We build our models on the most salient features of a system, and use our results as predictions and guidance for future experiments. Our diverse, interdisciplinary projects are characterized by the common goal of identifying organizing principles of complex systems,” Albert said.

Albert leads a theoretical and computational biology group, which develops predictive models of biological systems. “We work in close collaboration with experimental laboratories on inteScience Journal December 2013

grated projects that have both experimental and theoretical components,” Albert said. When a researcher is dealing with a biological system and feels that modeling would lend some insights into their work, Albert collaborates with them to discover a set of questions that can be addressed by network-based methods. Currently, two of the group’s main projects focus on signal transduction networks in plants in collaboration with Sarah Assmann, Waller Professor of Biology, and on the stability of mutualistic com7

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Karim Osman, a junior biochemis-

Sarah Assmann

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Katriona Shea

Person-to-Person

munities in collaboration with Katriona Shea, professor of biology.

One of Albert’s most extensive collaboration thus far has been with Assmann, whose research focuses on how and why the guard cells that control the pore size of leaves respond to environmental change. Plants lose water and take in carbon dioxide through microscopic stomatal pores, which is regulated by a surrounding pair of guard cells. Plants have developed sophisticated signal transduction mechanisms to be able to respond to changes in environmental conditions; one mechanism is the closing of stomata in response to drought conditions to curb water loss. Plants respond to dry conditions by producing the hormone abscisic acid (ABA), which inhibits growth and promotes tolerance of abiotic stresses such as drought. Under dry conditions plants synthesize and redistribute ABA, which triggers a response in the guard cells causing the stoma to close thus conserving water.

Assmann’s guard cell work addresses drought as one of the greatest hindrances to crop growth and yield worldwide. “In developed countries, water for irrigation is becoming an increasingly scarce and expensive commodity. In lesser-developed countries, as well as in areas of developed countries that rely on rainfall as the primary source of water for crops, farmers and

try and molecular biology major and mathematics minor, is working on updating the abisicic acid (ABA) guard cell signaling model using data generated by the Sarah Assmann lab. “I decided to work on this project since it seemed to be an excellent opportunity to see how mathematical modeling can be used to describe and solve biological problems,” Osman said.

While working on the ABA guard cell singling model, Osman stated that the diversity and quantity of biochemical components involved in ABA signaling has surprised him thus far. The previous model, which his work is based on, had 41 unique components. The model that is currently being developed has nearly double that number of biochemical components. “One aspect of this project that I find exciting is the way network theory can organize information in a simple and intuitive theoretical framework and simultaneously be a powerful method to find emergent properties in biological systems,” he said.

Osman became interested in biochemistry following his participation in his high school’s Science Olympiad team. “I had the opportunity to participate in a protein modeling event. This experience, and guidance from my very supportive biology teacher, introduced me to the more quantitative side of biology. After that becoming a biochemistry major just naturally followed,” Osman said.

Working on the ABA guard cell signaling project has allowed him to work with both Sarah Assmann, Waller Professor of Biology, and Réka Albert, professor of physics and biology. Osman’s participation in this project has inspired him to pursue graduate studies in computational biology or bioinformatics in the future.

thus consumers are at the mercy of the weather.

Adverse weather conditions can lead to poor crop yields, which in turn lead to higher food prices, and, in some geographic regions, hunger, starvation, and political instability,” Assmann said.

Albert, Assmann, and Song Li, their co-advised graduate student who recently completed his Ph.D., synthesized experimental information on drought signaling to construct the signal transduction network of abscisic acid-induced stomaPenn State Eberly College of Science

tal closure and used it to model how a population of stomata reacts to ABA over a specific time period. “Initially we were surprised by the complexity and apparent redundancy of the network.

The network model we constructed had a large number of seemingly independent pathways through which ABA can drive stomatal closure.

When we perfected the dynamic model it became obvious to us that many of the processes needed to work together, it was not actually redundant,�

Albert said.

This work was the first of its kind to capture the regulation of more than 40 identified network components and to agree with previous experimental results at both the pathway and whole-cell physiological levels. By simulating gene disruptions and pharmacological interventions, they found that the network was robust against significant possible perturbations. The analysis revealed novel predictions that the dis-

Science Journal December 2013

ruption of certain elements led to strong reduction in ABA responsiveness, while disruption of other elements had little effect due to network robustness. The initial experimental analysis assessing ABA-induced stomatal closure in the presence of cytosolic pH clamp imposed by the weak acid butyrate was consistent with the model’s predictions.

This work has led to several investigations into ABA regulation of gene expression. The team, including Rui-Sheng Wang, a physics postdoctoral scholar, analyzed data from global transcriptomes of guard cells generated with Affymetrix ATH1 microarrays and compared these results to ABA regulation of gene expression in leaves and other tissues. The team identified 1173 ABA-regulated genes of guard cells that share significant overlap with ABA-regulated genes of other tissues. They also identified a unique cis-acting motif associated with ABA-induction of gene expression specifically in guard cells. Additionally, approximately 300 genes showing ABA regulation unique to this type of cell were newly uncovered by their study. Within the ABA-regulated gene set of guard cells, it was discovered that many of the genes known to encode ion transporters associated with stomatal opening are down-regulated

by ABA, providing one mechanism for longterm maintenance of stomatal closure during drought. They also found examples of both negative and positive feedback in the transcriptional regulation by ABA of known ABA-signaling genes. The data provided evidence for cross-talk at the transcriptional level between ABA and another hormonal inhibitor of stomatal opening, methyl jasmonate. These predictions provide targets for future experimental analysis.

The results of their work has produced new insights into the biology of guard cells and revealed unique elements of ABA signaling and 9

Feature Story

Colin Campbell received his Ph.D.

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Person-to-Person

regulation of gene expression in these cells. “We are in the process of redoing the whole ABAinduced closure model because dozens of new components were discovered, including new ABA receptor proteins. The model still needs to capture the previous knowledge it captured before but we expect that some of the open predictions will change. We have to understand that in its entirety to make more informed predictions of what will happen when we start to manipulate plant cells,” Albert said. The team is continuing their work with guard cells with the ultimate goal being the engineering of drought resistant crops.

The collaborative work by Albert, Assmann, and their team is utilizing network models to enhance crops’ water usage in the face of global climate change. Another key to crop growth and development are the insects that pollinate these plants. Some communities of plants and pollinators can become so dependent on a single or a few species that their community is vulnerable to collapse. The demise of one species can have a cascading effect on others in the community. For example, honeybees play a crucial role as plant pollinators for many food crops and have been on the decline for years for reasons that are still not fully understood. The decline of the honeybees and other pollinators raise concerns about the stability of the entire ecosystem. The ability to predict the collapse of ecological communities is a valuable tool due to global patterns of rapid species extinction. A team of researchers at Penn State, including Albert, Shea, Suann Yang, a biology postdoctoral scholar, and Colin Campell, a recent Ph.D. graduate in physics, created a novel network-based model of plantpollinator community formation to investigate its stability during species elimination.

The researchers sought to establish why some plant-pollinator communities seem so depen-

in physics at Penn State and is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biology. Campbell chose this unique path of study and research in part by the environment of interdisciplinary collaboration in Réka Albert’s lab.

Campbell was initially introduced to Albert’s work when he came to Penn State as part of the Physics Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. When he came to Penn State to begin his Ph.D., he approached Albert about joining her lab.

In Albert’s lab, Campbell worked on models of the human immune system, and began collaborating with his current co-postdoctoral advisor, Katriona Shea, on the structure and stability of ecological communities. It seemed natural to continue his research by accepting a postdoctoral position in Shea’s lab. The ongoing collaboration has been productive; Campbell, Shea, and Albert recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to continue their work.

Campbell continues to collaborate with Albert on complex systems analysis in his work on the human immune system, the stability of ecological communities, and on mitigating the effects of network damage in cellular regulatory networks. “In all of these cases, the first step is to understand how system components interact with one another, with the eventual goal of being able to effectively predict and influence the system’s behavior,” Campbell said.

Campbell frequently tells new graduate students not to be afraid to explore different areas of scientific study.

“I had anticipated specializing in a more traditional area of physics, but I am very happy that my career took the direction that it did. I owe a lot to Dr. Albert. Beyond the significant impact that a great advisor has on the scientific development of a Ph.D. student, if it weren’t for her, I doubt I’d be in the same field,” Campbell said.

dent on just a few key species for survival. They constructed 1000 model networks, each containing 50 hypothetical plant and 50 pollinator species whose physical characteristics and interactions were drawn from distributions reported in the literature. Each species population was modeled as either abundant or scarce. The team Penn State Eberly College of Science

An example interaction network between plants (diamonds) and pollinators (circles). Interactions that are beneficial for a species are indicated with an arrow, while detrimental interactions are indicated with a flat tip. If plant P3 is removed from the community, the loss has a cascading effect, which results in the entire community collapsing. CREDIT: Colin Campbell

then tested the model communities by randomly deleting some species. They found that with just a few extinctions, the populations could typically adjust, but occasionally an entire community would collapse after the removal of just a few species. “In this work we are actually dealing with model networks, we don’t have enough real data on plants and pollinators in nature. What we do have is distributions that have come from papers that have large amounts of observational data. For this work we are generating a large number of model networks that are based on realistic properties so we have much better control over these networks. The real challenge is the interpretation, making the connections between the model and natural systems; every result we have gotten from this work thus far has been translatable,” Albert said.

In the case of the networks vulnerable to collapse, a strongly hierarchical structure or nestedness occurs. The central core of the community is made up by a small group of closely related species. The combination of these two features, large nestedness and a small-interconnected core, results in a community that relies too heavily on a single species for survival. “The work that we are doing with Réka really shows how these communities work. It’s beautiful because you can focus on an individual or the entire community. That’s why I think it’s so excitScience Journal December 2013

ing; it’s letting me do something that I couldn’t do with the methods that I already have,” Shea said. The team’s work is novel and can be applied to many different ecosystems around the world. The ability to forecast community collapse is an increasing need as loss of the pollinator population poses a major threat to the diversity and affordability of food crops worldwide. “We can look at our work and say, ‘this network property is really important for stability,’ but my lab actually does this sort of testing.

So instead of attempting to make recommendations on a purely theoretical basis the network is giving us targeted areas for experimentation,” Shea said. The team hopes that in the future the combination of their work with more network observations and more experimentation will help to influence policy makers with proven ideas on how to prevent or fix collapsing ecological systems.

Network theory tells scientists that subtle, seemingly unrelated changes to complex networks can trigger sudden and dramatic changes. The work of Albert and her collaborators continue to provide new insights into the biological systems that they are studying. Their novel work is ushering in a new climate of collaborative investigation techniques embracing network modeling to help better understand biological systems.

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Data-driven Assessments Lead the Way for

Innovative Sta Solutions for R

Penn State Eberly College of Science

atistical esearch The Department of Statistics has been addressing the statistical needs of the University and industry for 45 years by providing innovative statistical methods for research; collaborating through two consulting centers; and expanding their educational reach by offering on-campus and online programs.

Statistics supports scientific research by demonstrating that conclusions are presented in an appropriate way and are supported by the data.

“We not only care about what is true for a particular dataset, we want to understand why a method works,” said David Hunter, professor of statistics and department head.

One type of data that has become increasingly valuable in aiding scientific study is digital imagery. The onJia Li and James Wang going and continual development of digital data in the form of imagery has presented a need for an automated tagging and cataloging system in order to optimize organization and retrieval of these images.

The husband and wife team of James Wang, professor of information science and technology, and Jia Li, professor of statistics, have come Science Journal December 2013

Making sense of the data that scientists collect is often a challenging part of research. Scientists employ the use of statistics to analyze data and understand how it is meaningful. together across their respective disciplines to develop a computer system of image annotation, Automatic Linguistic Indexing of Pictures – Real Time (ALIPR). This system tags pictures with relevant key words using only pixel information. The automatic image-tagging system uses novel statistical methods and data mining to link an image’s characteristics with words.

This system is fully automated and works at very high speeds.

For computers, identifying the content of an image with no related text is not an easy task.

“Recognizing what an image is about semantically is one of the most difficult problems in artificial intelligence (AI). Objects in the real world are 3-D. When showing up in an image, they can vary vastly in color, shape, texture, size, and position; a computer usually has no prior knowledge about the variations,” said Li. Wang and Li have designed a novel-clustering algorithm for objects represented by discrete distributions or bags of weighed vectors. This new algorithm, called discrete distributions (D2) clustering, minimizes the total within cluster distance. D2-clustering generalizes the K-Means algorithm for the data form of vectors to sets of weighted vectors. Although similar to K-Means, D2-clustering involves more sophisticated optimization techniques. The duo has 13

Feature Story also created a new mixture modeling method, the pixel information contained within the imthe hypothetical local mapping (HLM) method, age. Every image is characterized by statistical to build a probability measure on the space of distributions and the profiling model specifies discrete distributions. Every image is therefore the probability for distributions. characterized by a statistical distribution; the This advance in cataloging is vital in scienprofiling model specifies a probability law for tific study. “Without computer assistance, redistributions directly. searchers have to manually classify images.

Using these new techniques, the computer is trained as it comes across A team of researchers at Penn State a new image. First, a signature is extracted for each image by analyzhas developed a way to deal with vast ing two types of features, color and amounts of data in the study of the texture, which were chosen because they are relatively abundant in digipossible effects and risk factors of tal photos. Both the color and texture sustained climate change. portions of the signature are formulated as discrete distributions. After the two features are extracted through D2-clus- This process can be slow and fall behind the tering, the image forms a grid of feature vectors. high throughput of new images,” said Li. The The HLM method is applied, which produces a process that the pair developed averages about model about the concept contained in the image. 1.4 seconds on a 3.0 GHz Intel processor and is The computer then assigns a textual description the first to achieve a real-time accurate perforfrom its trained dictionary of semantic concepts. mance level. Wang and Li’s work is furthering Wang and Li are using their vision-process- the understanding of the potential of AI as well ing algorithm to train the computer to recog- as a launching point for future technologies. Benize variations that come naturally to the hu- cause of the proprietary information contained man eye. “Our basic approach is to take a large in the ALIPR system, the duo has received a number of photos – we started with 60,000 pho- U.S. patent to protect their work. tos – and manually tag them with a variety of While Li and Wang are pioneering a method keywords that describe their contents. For ex- to streamline data organization by pixel catalogample, we selected 100 photos of national parks ing, another team of researchers at Penn State and tagged them with the following keywords: has developed a way to deal with vast amounts national park, landscape, and tree. We then of data in the study of the built a statistical model to teach the computer to possible effects and risk recognize patterns in color and texture among factors of sustained climate these 100 photos and to assign our keywords to change. new photos that seem to contain national parks, A collaborative team of landscapes, and/or trees. Eventually, we hope researchers, led by Murali to reverse the process so that a person can use Haran, associate profesthe keywords to search the Web for relevant imsor of statistics, and Klaus ages,” Li said. The annotation is based only on Murali Haran 14

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Keller, associate professor of geosciences and director of a National Science Foundation-sponsored research network on sustainable climate risk management (SCRiM), have been working on developing statistical methods for climate change, focusing on studies of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Greenland ice sheet.

The AMOC is part of the global ocean conveyor belt circulation that transfers heat between low and high latitudes in the Atlantic basin. Researchers are concerned that continued climate change could cause a weakening of the AMOC that would result in considerable changes in temperature and precipitation patterns across the globe. “It is not enough to make a single ‘best’ prediction of future climate; it is also crucial to provide an estimate of the likelihood of various possible future climate outcomes,” said Haran.

“This is because even relatively low probability outcomes may have a large impact on society and the global economy. Taking full advantage of available data in a statistically rigorous manner requires the development and implementation of novel statistical methods and innovative computational strategies.”

AMOC projections rely on simulations from complex climate models. One of the main sources of uncertainty in AMOC projections is the background ocean vertical diffusivity (Kv). Kv is an important model parameter that cannot be directly observed; this value is inferred by combining climate model outputs with observations gathered on the ocean through tracers. Ocean tracers are observations that provide information about the ocean transport process; these tracers are strongly affected by the value of Kv and are used to infer the value of Kv. The observations obtained by these tracers can number in the millions and are subject to measurement er-

Science Journal December 2013

ror; in many cases, they are irregularly distributed over space.

In order to perform statistical inferences on climate systems, a relationship needs to be established between observations and climate parameters. In their approach, the researchers used a computer model emulator to provide approximate outputs at any parameter setting at a small fraction of the computational time and cost.

The researchers developed a novel approach for inferring climate parameters by combining information from observations and climate model output while accounting for observational error and model discrepancy. They used this approach to learn about the climate model parameter Kv and are able to use this parameter to make predictions about the strength of the AMOC. The new approach is done in twostages: in the first stage, a hierarchical model is used to connect the tracers. Kv is then inferred using this emulator and the observations in a Bayesian approach while accounting for observational error and model discrepancy. In the second stage, kernel mixing and matrix identities in a Gaussian process model are utilized to reduce the computational burdens. The resulting inference about Kv can then be used to make projections about the future of the AMOC. “We found that the methods we developed were flexible and allowed us to work with large data sets,” said K. Sham Bhat, a scientist at Los Alamos National Labs who worked on methods for the AMOC while he was a Ph.D. student in statistics at Penn State.

An important advantage to this approach is that it allows the modeling of relationships that are not easily captured otherwise. This method enables the use of exploratory data analysis and knowledge of changing relationships between

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Feature Story spatial fields at differing depths to determine a Penn State, and in some cases, beyond the Unimean function that captures the non-linear re- versity community. lation between them. This allows for the develThe Statistical Consulting Center is an eduopment of more realistic models for regions in cational service unit within the Eberly Colthe ocean that have strikingly different climate lege of Science’s Department of Statistics. The properties. Delivering an early and accurate mission of the Statistical Consulting Center is prediction of change in the AMOC may improve three-fold: to train graduate students to apply risk management strategies. their statistical knowledge to solve real world This work, which has appeared in and has problems and learn the communication skills been submitted to statistics and climate science necessary for interacting with scientists from journals, has involved graduate students who other disciplines; provide statistical advice in work at the interface of statistics, climate science, the design and analysis of experiments for reand computing, including Sham Bhat; Won Chang, a Ph.D. student It is important that researchers stay in statistics; and Roman Olson, a at the forefront of this situation graduate student in geosciences; and several other postdocs and graduate to develop an understanding of students. “It is absolutely essential to have long-term collaborations how fast these changes are or could between climate scientists and be happening and provide an statisticians, as well as researchers from other disciplines like analysis of the risks involved. meteorology, economics, and ethics,” said Haran. “I am grateful to the Eberly College searchers; and to uncover, or identify, unsolved of Science and Penn State for encouraging cross- statistical problems that stimulate new statistidisciplinary work and for providing the right cal research. environment for these types of collaborations.”

Working at the consulting center is a key part Collaborative scientific work is important to of the graduate program. Students learn about present the best and most complete picture of the scientific or data problems, then make reca body of research. Collaboration also increases ommendations on how the problem should be the pace of research and encourages the devel- handled statistically. “The graduate students opment of innovate strategies and ideas. The get to meet real clients with real research quesDepartment of Statistics has two consulting tions,” said Maggie Niu, research associate and centers available to help foster these types of faculty consultant at the Statistical Consulting collaborations: The Statistical Consulting Cen- Center. This interaction enhances the students’ ter and the Clinical and Translational Science ability to communicate statistical knowledge to Institute Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Re- members of other disciplines who may not have search Design (CTSI BERD) core. Both of these the same level of understanding. This provides centers are available to provide statistical anal- them with a useful skill that will serve them ysis to aid in research being done throughout far beyond the University. “It’s a lot of work,

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

but when they leave the program they realize it’s a valuable part of their training if they are going into academics or industry,” said James Rosenberger, professor of statistics.

The CTSI BERD core at University Park provides students and researchers interested in health-related topics with collaborative opportunities and consultation in biostatistics and epidemiology. Areas of consultation include design and analysis strategies for research proposals; sample size and power calculations for research proposals; advice on the selection and implementation of appropriate statistical methods; and, statistical review of grant proposals, protocols, and manuscripts. Fulltime faculty provide the consultations at CTSI BERD; services are only provided to members of the University community.

“One mission of Penn State is to improve the well-being and health of individuals and communities through integrated programs of teaching, research, and service. High quality clinical and translational research will lead to tangible health benefits that improve society. Centers like CTSI BERD support this research. It is very rewarding to work at the CTSI BERD center and to see statistics being put to use to address important health-related questions,” said Mosuk Chow, associate professor, senior research associate of statistics, and CTSI BERD director at University Park.

The consulting centers are increasing the reach of vital statistical collaborations across the University; however, there is also a need for skilled statisticians outside of the realm of higher education and research. Organizations depend on the analysis and interpretation of data to help reduce risk. In response to this need, the Department of Statistics developed two courses of study through Penn State’s World Campus.

Science Journal December 2013

That led to the creation of the online graduate certificate in Applied Statistics, which was the first offering of its type by the Eberly College of Science. The success of the certificate program encouraged the department to create the online master of applied statistics degree, which began accepting applications in 2009. The program now accepts about 75 students each year.

“The key to the online programs’ success is access. The students can attend classes and complete the work on their own time,” said Rosenberger. Half of the students that complete the certificate program, which consists of 12 credit hours, go on to apply for the master’s degree, which consists of 30 credit hours of instruction; the certificate program hours can be applied towards the master’s degree. During the 2012-2013 academic, year there were 1,373 students enrolled for an online statistics course across the two programs.

“The majority of the students who enroll in the online programs are mid-career students; people who have jobs, families, and other obligations that would inhibit them from physically coming to campus to complete a traditional resident program,” said Rosenberger. The students that seek out the online programs are dealing with data every day in their current positions.

“Most of the students in the program are highly motivated because they see the immediate relevance of what they are learning in the context of their current jobs,” Rosenberger said.

Through the continued research efforts, a commitment to collaboration, and increased access to statistical learning through the online programs offered by World Campus, the statistical community at Penn State continues to promote an evolving learning environment that influences statisticians around the world.

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Cover Story

Millenni Scholars:

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

ium :

Beginning with the End Goal in Mind A typical July day starts with breakfast at 6:30 a.m., includes eight hours of classwork, and ends with four hours of math recitation and study sessions before the students return to their dorm rooms at 11:00 p.m. The students move quickly as a group between classes, workshops and seminars – without cell phones, iPods, or laptops. They rush to be on time. They work, eat, and live together.

Meet the first cohort of Penn State Millennium Scholars, a group of academically talented science and engineering students who, as incoming college freshmen, have committed to the long-range pursuit of a research career and attainment of a doctoral degree.

The six-week summer bridge program

Science Journal December 2013

that begins the Penn State Millennium Scholars program is an intense boot camp experience for academic all-stars.

It is designed to introduce the students to the academic and research environment at Penn State, to build cohesion and community among the scholars, and to provide them with the coaching

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Cover Story and network that will help these high-achieving students reach new levels of excellence in science and engineering. The summer bridge program prepares them for college and beyond into graduate programs and their future careers.

The Eberly College of Science welcomed the first cohort of Millennium Scholars in June of this year. This group of talented and motivated students has a range of backgrounds and interests. In addition to a shared dedication to academic excellence in the classroom and lab, Millennium Scholars have also committed to working in an inclusive environment that encourages participation by students from all backgrounds; thirteen of the Millennium Scholars are from traditionally under-represented minority groups. Of this first cohort comprised of twenty students, ten aspire to major in science. The students mostly call Pennsylvania home, but hail from as far away as Dallas and Fort Lauderdale. Every one of the students was a top academic performer in his or her high school classes and cultivated a focus on academic excellence.

Building the Program The Millennium Scholars program began as a collaborative project between the Eberly College of Science and the Penn State College of Engineering, modeled after a similar program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) – the highly regarded Meyerhoff program, which over the last 25 years has graduated over 800 students. Approximately 90% percent of the graduates of the Meyerhoff program continue their education in graduate school; 70% of those students are under-represented minorities. These results are a striking contrast to the national average graduation rate in science of less than 50%, and half that for students of color.

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The Meyerhoff program is a national model and success story; Penn State has benefitted from a robust partnership with UMBC to build the Millennium Scholars program over the last year. The aim of the program at Penn State is to translate the core principles and program components to the much larger, more geographically isolated and less diverse University Park campus. Combined with the core strengths of Penn State – world-class research and facilities,

“This program epitomizes what I want to do in my career and what I hope to achieve. I am so grateful that Millennium SCHOLARS program exists because it has given us countless opportunities to meet and connect with people, a strong support system of friends, and an incredible advising system.”

Taylor Soucy, Chemistry

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Ms. Sharp obtained her B.S. in Biology and M. S. in Cancer Biology from Tuskegee University. Before coming to Penn State, Sharp worked in summer research internships at Washington University, University of Minnesota, Ohio State, and Scripps Research Institute, and worked on translation research in a radiation oncology lab at the University of Iowa.

Starlette Sharp, Director of the Millennium Scholars Program

along with outstanding faculty – the Millennium Scholars Program provides undergraduates with a truly exceptional opportunity.

As a Millennium Scholar, each student receives a substantial scholarship of at least $15,000 annually. Research shows that funding alone is insufficient to attain the high levels of achievement, graduation, and perseverance to graduate programs, which are aims of the program. The Millennium Scholars program is comprehensive in its approach to address the multivariate factors that can lead to disparities in participation and retention in science and engineering. A core component of the program is an integrated, hierarchical support network of peer mentors, advisors, faculty, and alumni. Students meet and interact with many individuals, starting during the summer bridge and throughout their college years, who provide coaching on all aspects of their college and career. The summer program also cultivates a strong sense of unity, or family belonging, among the students. Shedding the high school competition mentality, the Millennium Scholars learn the value of teamwork and develop a shared expectation for group achievements. “Being in a small group with people that take education so seriously motivates

Science Journal December 2013

all of us to work harder, help each other, and achieve great things,” said Millennium Scholar Taylor Soucy.

The first Millennium Scholars cohort is a cohesive unit, and relies on each other as a community of socially conscious scholars pursuing research careers in biochemistry and molecular biology, biology, chemistry, forensic science, and physics. They aim to participate in community service projects each semester, knowing that with the opportunity that they have been given comes the expectation that they will in turn impact their communities. Beginning with their fall semester, the Millennium Scholars work with the college’s Office of Outreach and Science Engagement to identify projects that link their interests in science with community engagement.

The Eberly College of Science is committed to preparing the scientific innovators of tomorrow.

Through the establishment of the Millennium Scholars program, the college is demonstrating that academic excellence and scientific innovation is best achieved by ensuring diversity in thought and inclusive participation. Implementation of the core principles of the Millennium Scholars program is already resulting in the

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Cover Story effusion of best prac“The Millennium Scholars tices throughout the program provides us college. For example, in fall 2013, groups of stuwith opportunities and dents were ‘cohorted’ in presentations that inspire groups of 25 by co-enrolling them in at least me to reach my full two science classes, with the aim that they would potential. ” form learning commuKaleb Bogale, Biology nities. In another example, the “Learn to Learn” class that was developed for the summer bridge program was the teamwork of staff and faculty from four delivered in focused workshops for some of the different colleges at Penn State. Components freshman seminar courses in the college. In- of the programming include enrollment in structional practices will evolve, just as expec- seven credits of coursework in mathematics tations and attitudes about women and minori- and in educational psychology. The Millennium ties in science will rise; expectation is that over Scholars also participated in workshops in time there will be a college-wide impact that chemistry and engineering design to hone their results more broadly in the improved retention problem solving skills and give them a jumpstart on their fall semester coursework. Experts and success of all students in science. talked with the students about professional The Millennium Scholars also development and leadership, team building, and stewardship: they learned everything participated in workshops in from elevator pitches to proper handshakes. chemistry and engineering A highlight of the summer was participation in the well-known World in Conversation design to hone their problem program, which uses facilitated dialog to open conversation about emergent issues including solving skills and give them race relations, gender equity, and international a jump-start on coursework conflict. The students participated in dialogues with each other, and with individuals around they have in the fall semester. the world via video feed to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to spark mindfulness about diversity and its central importance in scientific Summer Bridge Program Seven days a week for six weeks, starting advancement and innovation.

Although the primary purpose of the sumimmediately after high school graduation, is a lot to require of a new college student. Pulling mer bridge program was to academically chaltogether a meaningful program also requires lenge the students, the program also provided

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

multiple opportunities to expand their thinking, explore new areas, and meet new people.

Most freshmen do not begin their academic career at Penn State with a working knowledge of the research facilities and laboratories on campus. Professor Squire Booker led the Millennium Scholars’ “Introduction to Research” discussions during the summer bridge, giving them an inside look at how researchers think and what they do. These sessions were complemented by tours of the Materials Research Institute facilities in the brand new Millennium Science Complex, and research laboratories in chemistry, biochemistry, and physics. The students visited the Breazeale nuclear reactor and the Larson Institute’s Test Track. Additionally,

Science Journal December 2013

Penn State Science alumnus and businessman Rick Grazzini hosted the Millennium Scholars at his company, GardenGenetics, where they learned about the science, the start up, and the importance of intellectual property. By the end of the six weeks, each of the Millennium Scholars had a head start on where to go – and what to do – to identify faculty research mentors for their undergraduate research projects.

One hot Saturday morning, the Millennium Scholars went to Penn State’s Stone Valley Vertical Adventures, which boasts one of the largest challenge courses on the east coast.

The students donned helmets and safety gear, and climbed the nets to the 40-foot tall Odyssey course. Teams of two to six students worked

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Cover Story together to navigate this high-ropes structure, and, in the process, they developed their problem solving, teamwork, and communication skills. They built trust as they steadied each other while leaning, scrambling, and jumping from log to log, thirty feet in the air. Triumphant, they flew down on the zip lines.

On another trip, after boarding buses at 5:00 a.m., the Millennium Scholars rode in the early morning hours to the National Institutes of Health. Despite the early morning departure, Millennium Scholar Kaleb Bogale calls the trip to NIH “the highlight of my summer.” The students toured the Clinical Center in Bethesda and talked with researchers working in the National Genome Research Institute. The trip culminated in a visit to the Clinical Movement Lab to learn about experiments that measure human movement data used to research a wide variety of movement disorders and diseases.

During a separate day trip to Baltimore, the students met their counterparts at UMBC, with whom they commiserated about the rigors of their summer bridge program and lack of sleep. It was an important opportunity that let the students feel a part of the larger community to which they now belonged, and to also hear from program alumni. Former UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars, who are now at Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University, gave presentations on the importance of academic endurance, resilience, and the myriad benefits of program participation. Small group breakout sessions, facilitated by UMBC alumni volunteers, encouraged the students to discuss issues and challenges, and to keep the focus on aiming high. The Millennium Scholars left feeling proud and purposeful – they knew that they are the first of many more cohorts of students that will come after them to Penn State.

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

“We knew there were going to be long days and challenges ahead, but the summer bridge trained us to be diligent and prepared.”

Emily Cribas, Taylor Curtis, Rebecca Plessel, Forensics

The end of the summer academic boot camp culminates with a celebration luncheon that officially inducts the students into the Millennium Scholars program. Plenary speaker and math faculty Nate Brown tells the students, “Every time I pushed you harder, you rose…and you kept rising to every challenge I gave you.” Joined by their parents, faculty, administrators, and staff from across campus, the students’ parents learn from the

Science Journal December 2013

Millennium Scholars what they accomplished in six short weeks and their aspirations for the coming months and years. There are hugs and tears – they have worked hard, slept little, and transformed into scholars who are focused on, and ready to work toward their goals. Together, as a group, they stand and say: “Don’t quit.

Suffer now and live the rest of your life like a champion. Focus. Focus. Focus.”

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Feature Story

Portrait of a Chemist:

Benkovic receiving his National Medal of Science from President Obama in 2010.

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

A chemistry professor discovers the clues to treating some of our most troubling diseases in his quest to understand enzymes.

Our darkest thoughts often plague us during the solitary hours of the night. And so it was for Stephen Benkovic who found himself lying awake at 3:00 a.m. worried that he had missed something important in his experiment or – even worse – that he was headed down the wrong path altogether.

“My greatest fear is that I am completely wrong,” says Benkovic. “It’s a terrorizing thought, especially when you are discovering things people haven’t seen before.”

Benkovic, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry and holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Chemistry at Penn State, is not the sort of person one would imagine would second-guess himself. After all, he’s what some might call a “superstar” scientist.

For example, he is considered to be among the most prominent mechanistic enzymologists in the world; he is a winner of the National Medal of Science; and he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and

Science Journal December 2013

Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Philosophical Society, among other honors. He is also a highly sought-after scientific consultant. In addition, he has advised over 100 graduate and postdoctoral students and maintains an entire floor of laboratories and offices in Wartik Laboratory.

But like all good scientists, Benkovic maintains a healthy dose of fear and concern about the quality of his work, a trait that he says helps ensure that the work is performed to the highest possible standard.

“I pride myself and our group on the fact that our work is done very well,” he says. “We check and recheck everything we do. So, even if other people argue about how we analyze or interpret our data, we at least know they can reproduce it. When it comes time to publish our results, we stand behind them.”

“Borderline” Research Since 1965, Benkovic’s research has been shaping the fields of chemistry and biochemistry.

He says he owes much of his succes to the fact

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A Fascination with DNA

Feature Story

In the 9th grade, Michelle Spiering wrote her English term paper on the human genome project.

“I’ve always been interested in DNA,” says Spiering, a research associate working in Stephen Benkovic’s laboratory. “I’m fascinated by how DNA is made and why it works the way it does. It’s amazing that your entire

genome has to be replicated every time your cells that his work has taken place divide and that it happens so accurately and quickly.” at the borderline between the two disciplines. In fact, his adSpiering focuses her research on DNA replication in a model system called vice to the next generation of bacteriophage T4, a type of bacteriophage that infects E. coli bacteria. scientists is to avoid latching According to Spiering, the enzyme DNA polymerase moves along the two onto others’ areas of interest – strands of DNA, incorporating bases—akin to the rungs on a ladder—which what he calls “doing derivative then attach to each other to form the DNA double helix. work” – and instead “looking “A long-standing question is how does lagging strand [DNA is made up of a for new vistas.” lagging strand and a leading strand] synthesis occur, because the lagging“Some of the more challengstrand DNA is synthesized in short little fragments; the DNA polymerase stops ing, but gratifying, science is and starts over and over again,” says Spiering. “How does it know when to stop done by people who are in two and start a new fragment? I’m testing a new hypothesis that there is actually intersecting areas and find something sitting on the DNA that causes the DNA polymerase to stop and start a boundary line that has all again. I’m trying to show that when DNA polymerase runs into this roadblock— kinds of problems that have which I think is an RNA primer—it comes off the DNA much faster than it would if not been tackled,” he says. there wasn’t anything in front of it.”

Benkovic’s latest “borderTo test her theory, Spiering is taking a piece of DNA, binding a polymerase to it, line” research involves a multiand then either adding an RNA primer block or not. “The polymerase will move enzyme complex that he and one base at a time closer to the block, and if it hits the block, my theory is that his group discovered in 2008, it falls off,” she says. “So I can then measure how much polymerase comes off called a purinosome. Using into solution.” fluorescence imaging technolSpiering, who is conducting the work in collaboration with Benkovic and others ogy, in which fluorescent proin the lab, says her biggest hope is to see DNA polymerase replicating DNA in teins are attached to molecules real time. of interest and viewed under a “We’ve been building toward this goal using magnetic tweezer technology, and special microscope, Benkovic we are entering the last stages of the project,” she says. “What we will actually and his colleagues were able see through a microscope is not the DNA polymerase itself; rather we will see a to determine that the puridiffraction pattern around magnetic beads attached to the DNA. We should see nosome is composed of eight the diffraction pattern get bigger, then shrink, and then get bigger and shrink enzymes that come together again as the DNA is replicated. To think that pattern is the result of an enzyme with the purpose of creating or whole complex of enzymes doing something to the DNA is mind boggling purines, compounds that are because you can’t directly see the DNA or the enzymes; they’re too small. I involved in DNA replication think we’re very close to achieving this goal.” and, therefore, cell replication.

“Cancer cells have very In 2010, Benkovic is standing on a stage, high demands for purines,” said Benkovic. “So we thought if we could find a way to disrupt the having just received the National Medal of Sciformation of the purinosome, it could become a ence from President Barack Obama, who by the potential new target for designing therapeutics way, upon bestowing Benkovic with the presfor treating cancer that would be much more tigious honor clapped him on the shoulder and selective and would work at lower doses.”

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

said, “That medal looks good on you!” Next to Benkovic is another medal winner, a scientist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology named Susan Lindquist.

“We started talking about what she was doing, and I learned that she was working on one of the enzymes in the purinosome, but she was working on it from the point of view of how it’s important in neuron activity,” says Benkovic.

might lead to various oxidation products that accumulated over time. So in collaboration with Schimmel and Nick Winograd, a leading mass spectroscopist at Penn State, Benkovic is analyzing how the lipids in paint oils age over time.

“Our hope is that we will be able to date works of art in a manner analogous to how C14 is used to date fossils,” says Benkovic. “We run the risk of being very unpopular if we find some Italian masterpiecare forgeries, but now it turns out that not only does the es the challenge is too purinosome play a role in cancer proliferation, enticing to forgo.”

In addition, Benit also may be important in maintaining the kovic is working normal operation of neurons. with Tony Huang, associate professor “Sue had discovered that HSP90 suppresses of bioengineering at Penn State, to use nanodethe so-called ‘deranged biochemistry’ that leads vices, called acoustic tweezers, to manipulate to certain neurodegenerative diseases, like Al- objects, including living materials such as blood zheimer’s disease and age-related senility. So cells and entire small organisms. The team testnow it turns out that not only does the purino- ed the tweezers, which use sound waves to move some play a role in cancer proliferation, it also objects, to trap and manipulate Caenorhabdimay be important in maintaining the normal tis elegans (C. elegans), a one-millimeter-long roundworm that is an important model system operation of neurons.”

Benkovic adds, “Just a few days ago, Sue and for studying diseases and development in huI were talking on the phone and we discussed mans. According to Benkovic, acoustic tweethe possibility that maybe the purinosome has zers also are capable of precisely manipulating to be brought in at a certain time to keep the cellular-scale objects that are essential to many neuronal circuitry operating normally. We are areas of fundamental biomedical research. excited because we don’t know where this will lead. In my career, I’ve learned that projects have multiple doors that often lead in directions you never expect.”

One of those directions came about as a result of a casual lunch with Katherine Schimmel, Schematic of an acoustic an art historian. The two began to discuss Retweezers device. naissance paintings and the often-asked ques- CREDIT: Xiaoyun Ding, Stephen J. tion of their authenticity. Schimmel wondered Benkovic, and Tony Jun Huang, if the aging of the oil component of the paints Penn State University.

Science Journal December 2013

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Feature Story In his earlier work, Benkovic and his colleagues discovered another way to manipulate tiny things – they used light to control certain proteins that catalyze biochemical reactions. In their experiment, the scientists designed a hybrid protein by inserting a light-sensing protein from an oat plant into an enzyme from the bacterium E. coli. After engineering the two components together, the researchers found that they could manipulate the enzyme’s activity by shining a light on the light-sensing protein.

“The technology worked like a light switch,” says Benkovic. “When we shone a light on the light-sensing enzyme, its activity increased, and when we shut the light off, its activity decreased.”

The technology already is being used by pharmaceutical companies to investigate the possibility of turning off the activities of diseasecausing proteins in cells.

Using light to control proteins. The scientists attached a light-sensing protein (sensor) from oat plant to an enzyme from E. coli. When they shined white light (stimulus) on the sensor, the enzyme’s activity increased (output).

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Credit: Stephen J. Benkovic

A Chemist From the Get-Go With almost five decades of research accomplishments that are described as being highly original and of unusual breadth behind him and numerous cutting-edge projects on the docket, Benkovic is living his childhood dream. “I was a scientist from the get-go, which was really rather unusual because no one in my family was a scientist,” he says.

A third-generation American, Benkovic was raised by parents who, despite suffering from a lack of resources and opportunities as a result of the Great Depression, felt strongly about the importance of education. “We didn’t have computers, of course, but we had a Book of Knowledge and Encyclopedia Britannicas, and my parents would read Shakespeare to me,” he says. “They really wanted my brother and I to have a chance to do something that circumstances and history blocked them from doing.”

Benkovic started doing chemistry in his family’s basement when he was in junior high school.

“My parents were always concerned I’d burn the house down,” he says. “I made bombs, rockets, mortars, whatever. One time I even drew the attention of the police!”

After high school, Benkovic attended Lehigh University, where he earned bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and English literature.

He then went to Cornell University to pursue a Ph.D. degree. It was there that he married his wife Pat, whom he had met at Lehigh.

“Pat was a chemist by training, graduating from Chestnut Hill College,” says Benkovic.

“She never got her Ph.D. degree; back then women were not really pushed to become educated beyond receiving a bachelor’s degree.

But, alongside me, she has done enough work for ten Ph.D.s.”

Penn State Eberly College of Science

works with whomever he needs to to develop the technology necessary to answer the questions he poses. He asks important questions, comes up with the most insightful hypotheses, and is relentless in his pursuit of the answers to the questions he poses.”

Benkovic and other members of Benkovic’s research team have studied the importance of “clamp loader” enzymes and their activities during DNA replication.

In this image, the clamp loader is represented, for illustrative purposes, by a hand, which is loading the sliding clamp ring onto DNA. Credit: Stephen J. Benkovic

Pat has assisted with many of the experiments for which Benkovic is famous and is the repository of many of the lab’s experimental techniques. The couple moved to Penn State in 1965.

“When we first started, biochemistry was just classifying the enzymes; we were learning that these enzymes were indeed proteins,” says Benkovic. “So our research started out with the investigation of individual enzymes. We then moved on to investigating enzymes in clusters and then to investigating enzymes in the cell.”

Where Benkovic has gone, others have followed, according to Craig Cameron, Eberly Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “Steve is a pioneer,” says Cameron. “He not only benefits from existing technology, but

Science Journal December 2013

Motivated By Outcomes From the time he first began to pursue an understanding of enzymes, Benkovic has been captivated by the complexity of the mechanics of life. “As things start to unfold, it’s so beautifully complicated, so intricate, you just marvel at it,” he says. “For example, everything is interacting; there’s nothing that seems to be working by itself. You look at cells and everything is so complex and everything seems to count and you try to understand how it all goes together. It’s a great puzzle.”

Benkovic is particularly proud of the work he has done on DNA polymerase, an enzyme that is responsible for DNA replication. “DNA polymerases are absolutely amazing enzymes,” he says.

“Here is a protein that makes a mistake once out of every 10 million times. And it copies 500 bases of DNA every second.” Using state of the art single molecule methods where the replication by a single polymerase can be measured, his group in collaboration with the Croquette lab in Paris, has uncovered the steps the polymerase executes to achieve such fidelity.

When Benkovic first began investigating the properties of a second enzyme, dihydrofolate reductase – a key target for anti-cancer and antibacterial drugs – most scientists believed that enzymatic catalysis took place at a very small part of an enzyme, called its active site. So when developing drugs against various diseases, they focused only on such sites. Both Benkovic and

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Feature Story a few others suspected that there must be some role for the remaining major part of the enzyme molecule. He and his colleagues started to generate dihydrofolate reductase enzymes with mutations far from the active site that greatly altered the enzyme’s activity. In short, the entire protein dictated the enzyme’s properties possibly through coupled movements of various parts of the molecule.

A key step in the creation of adenine and guanine, “It became obvious that we needed to be also called purines, are two of the four building blocks thinking about developing drugs that work out- that comprise DNA and are essential for cell replication. side the active site that could impede the motion This protein assembly called the purinosome forms of the enzyme,” he says. under conditions of purine starvation and can be As Benkovic fits together more and more modulated by changing purine levels from purine pieces of the puzzle, he gets closer and closer rich (A) to purine depleted (B) in the cell and by the to his goal of finding treatments for a range of addition of exogenous factors such as kinase inhibitors or effectors of GPCR activity. The ability to halt purine diseases. Already his research has led to new synthesis could prove to be a valuable method for drugs designed to treat diseases such as bactetreating cancer. Credit: Stephen J. Benkovic rial infections, HIV, and cancer.

For example, his California-based biopharmaceutical company, Anacor, is using his re- process of commercializing has the potential to search results on the element boron to discover, cure atopic dermatitis.

“Atopic dermatitis is a serious disease in develop, and commercialize novel small-molecule therapeutics to treat a variety of diseases. young children,” says Benkovic. “It’s a rash from The choice of boron as an element in antifungal top to bottom that causes children to scratch and antibacterial therapeutics derived from his themselves all the time. Our drug would be the research aimed at finding novel inhibitors of Pharmaceutical companies did not favor DNA methyltransferases the incorporation of boron into potential in a collaborative project with Lucy Shapiro drug molecules, yet the Benkovic lab found at Stanford University.

Pharmaceutical compa- such molecules were unusually potent nies did not favor the ininhibitors and were unexpectedly nontoxic. corporation of boron into potential drug molecules, yet the Benkovic lab first one that parents could feel they could use found such molecules were unusually potent in- safely on their children because it does not have hibitors and were unexpectedly nontoxic. One of a steroidal component. If we are successful with the drugs Anacor has developed and is in the this, I think that would be very satisfying.”

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

A phosphorylation cascade in signaling networks .

Credit: Stephen J. Benkovic

Stephen and Pat Benkovic.

The drug is now in Phase II clinical trials.

Benkovic always has gained a great deal of satisfaction from participating in the process of discovery. “It’s exciting to find a new phenomenon that you didn’t even know was there and then try to figure out why it’s there and what it means in relationship to other phenomena that you know about,” he says. Yet, he adds, nowadays he is even more passionate about the outcome.

“We’re seeing great progress,” he says. “Everyone now knows that cancer is a multi-factorial disease and that it is also probably a personal disease in the sense that your lung cancer or prostate cancer or breast cancer is not quite the same as everybody else’s. We are learning that we can be much more specific about how to treat it, so rather than wipe out every cell, we can be selective because we have much more information about the pathways that are involved. We

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are discovering new biological targets for attack.

It’s so exciting to be able to take results from the research I’ve been doing for so long and see it finally being transferred to human health.”

And that, says Benkovic, is the antidote to a sleepless night.

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College News Alumni Gift Enables Faculty to Share Teaching Strategies The Eberly College of Science is invested in increasing student understanding and retention of scientific information.

The Center for Excellence in Science Education (CESE) was founded in 2010 by the college to provide faculty and students with a collaborative educational network that promotes excellence in science teaching and learning. CESE is a resource for faculty to learn about innovations in researchbased educational principles, to improve their methods of communicating course content, and to encourage higher student achievement.

CESE has received several contributions from donors and alumni; among the strongest supporters of the center are Susan (Mathematics ’66) and Cada (Education ’66) Grove.

The Groves have been active supporters of the University, donating both time and money over the years. One of their

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Katherine Masters leads a “Just in Time” workshop.

most recent contributions to the CESE was used to fund a series of faculty workshops aimed at sharing ideas, techniques, and proven methods to improve science education. The Groves believe that teaching is a skill that needs to be taught. “Subject mastery does not automatically mean that someone knows how to teach and communicate ideas to students,” Susan said.

Cada added, “It’s not just about course development – it’s about how to convey the subject matter.”

The inaugural CESE Summer Faculty Institute was held May 20-24, 2013. The

workshops were presented by five Penn State Science faculty and one invited speaker from St. Cloud Technical and Community College in Minnesota.

The presenters from Penn State included: Denise Woodward, lecturer of biology; Richard Cyr, professor of biology; Jennelle Malcos, lecturer of biology; Meredith Defelice, senior lecturer of biochemistry and molecular biology; and Eric Hudson, associate professor of physics. This series of half-day workshops were aimed at sharing research-based practices in science pedagogy with faculty to spark discussion, encourage collaboration, and

Penn State Eberly College of Science

further develop the science teaching community. Topics of the workshop included: new research on learning and how to apply it to the classroom, active learning, building learning communities in mass lecture halls, using technology in the classroom, and improving learning assessments. “Science is moving at such a pace that it really requires lifetime learning to keep up. We have to establish and model that for our students,” said Jacqueline Bortiatynski, director of CESE and senior lecturer of chemistry.

While the majority of the 42-summer institute par-

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ticipants were science faculty, there were also a few participants from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs outside of the college. “It is extremely important that all of us are aware of initiatives and practices across the University.

Having the opportunity to build a larger community of practice was beneficial to all the participants. Everyone at the workshops was really interested in what we could provide for the students,” Bortiantynski said.

Right before the beginning of fall semester, CESE offered a series of “Just in Time” workshops to give educators ideas to enhance the start of the academic year. These workshops included: “Elements of an Effective Syllabus,” presented by Katherine Masters, senior lecturer of chemistry; “Incivility in the Classroom,” presented by John Waters, lecturer of biology; and, “Get SMART: Design Learning Objectives for Your Course,” presented by Larkin Hood, instructional consultant at the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, and Bortiantynski.

In the future, CESE plans to increase faculty engagement to foster a more interdisciplin-

ary environment across the STEM programs at Penn State.

CESE will reoffer and revise programs when there is interest and welcomes feedback from faculty about scheduling and content of future workshops.

Looking for more in-depth information about any of the workshops? Be sure to check out the presentation notes from all past CESE workshops online at http://cese.science.psu.edu/.

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ating gr

College News

Int e

Ethics Although ethics in science education is imperative in a student’s future career, it is not something that is explicitly taught in many undergraduate science courses. While undergraduates may get a sample of ethical training in their lab courses, they often are not exposed to formal ethics education in technical science courses unless a faculty member decides to make it part of the curriculum.

Richard Frisque, professor of molecular virology, sought to increase ethical training for undergraduates by incorporating ethics into his MICRO411: Seminars in Microbiology course 25 years ago. Although Frisque had no formal training in ethics himself, he felt that it was necessary to provide such training to his students in order to prepare them for future careers in science.

“Misconduct in universities came to be recognized as a serious problem in the 1980s; the national exposure to this problem raised significant 36

into the Undergraduate Curriculum

concerns within university labs and among researchers.

I felt the need to do something at Penn State to educate and train students so that they had the skills to make good decisions as scientists,” Frisque said.

Frisque decided to teach through case studies in his first attempt at integrating ethics into his MICRO411 course. He shared short articles on ethical situations in science and microbiology; students responded positively and encouraged Frisque to continue the course to provide other students with the same experience. Although Frisque only taught the course for a few semesters, some of his colleagues in biochemistry and molecular biology took the cue and incorporated the ethical component as well when teaching MICRO411.

The initial push to encourage other faculty to incorporate ethics into the undergraduate curriculum was successful; the course continues to be taught today and faculty continue to

include an ethics portion.

Six years after teaching his first undergraduate ethics course, Frisque received his first formal ethics training when he was selected to attend a weeklong course at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The training, which focused specifically on introducing ethics into technical undergraduate courses, required him to begin integrating ethics into a course at Penn State the very next semester. As a result, in 1995 he revamped BMB480: Tumor Viruses and Oncogenes, a course he had been teaching since 1985, by devoting two full class periods to discussing ethics topics in virology. In the course, students were presented with real-world cases of ethical misconduct and were taught how to approach and understand these ethical problems.

“We could use a lot more than two class periods per semester devoted to examining these ethical situations; students reacted very positively to Penn State Eberly College of Science

the integration of ethics into the course and were actively engaged in the discussions,” Frisque said. This course also yielded success; Frisque continues to teach the class and commits two class periods to teaching and discussing ethical issues.

Because of the positive student and faculty reaction to the introduction of ethical components, in 2010, Norman Freed, former associate dean of undergraduate education, approached Frisque and encouraged him to connect with Nancy Tuana, director of the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State, to develop training for other science faculty.

Together they developed a weeklong workshop, held over the summer, for Eberly College of Science faculty. The annual workshop, which began in 2011, invites one faculty member from each department, plus forensic science, for a total of eight faculty per year. The goal of the workshop is to provide faculty with the knowledge and skills needed to introduce research and professional ethics into their technical courses. It provides an overview of ethical frameworks, concepts, and principles, as well as techniques for identifying and addressing ethical issues.

Science Journal December 2013

Tracy Langkilde, associate professor of biology, participated in the training during summer 2012 to enhance the work she was already doing with ethics in her animal behavior course. “Understanding one’s ethical responsibilities is a critical component of being a scientist, and researchers that study an animal’s behavior have additional important considerations,” Langkilde said.

Although she always incorporated a discussion of ethics into her course, she did not have a structured, systematic approach for doing so. “During the ethics workshop, I learned that there’s actually a framework we can use to systematically think about ethics and evaluate scenarios.

I incorporated this into my animal behavior course in the spring and the students really liked this approach – having a framework helped them, and me, to identify ethically relevant facts, identify alternative courses of action, and evaluate the ethics of these. Understanding why we have the ethical beliefs we do, and how we can evaluate the ethics of our decisions, is as important in everyday life as it is in science,” Langkilde said.

Ben Lear, assistant professor of chemistry, took

the opportunity to participate in the ethics workshop this past summer even though he did not think that his research had much ethical relevance. “As an inorganic chemist I don’t often work with human subjects. Nor do I make new drugs, or work on the manufacture of weapons.

As such, I do not often deal with the stickier ethical issues encountered in the sciences. At least that was my impression before my first day in the Rock Institute’s ethics workshop,” Lear said.

During the weeklong workshop, he learned about the subtle and complex ethical decisions that lie quietly below the surface of daily activities as scientists. “Although the University has clear legal guidelines regarding data ownership, legal and ethical considerations are not always identical,” Lear said.

The workshop opened Lear’s eyes to the ethical decisions that are a daily part of a scientist’s life and also ignited his desire to share what he learned with others.

“Now when I teach freshmen chemistry, my students will be required to participate in discussions regarding data ownership. Besides providing me a platform to discuss ethics with my students, this 37

College News will also provide them with a more personal connection to the scientific material that forms the core of the class.

Besides positively affecting my understanding of ethics and the sciences, the Rock Ethics Institute’s summer workshop will be impacting the lives of 380 freshmen each semester,�

Lear said.

Working together, Frisque and the faculty who have participated in the workshop

over the years, have infused ethics education for science undergraduates. Their dedication ensures that undergraduate courses will continue to integrate ethics into the curriculum. Dean Daniel Larson has made a commitment to continuing to evolve ethics education in the undergraduate curriculum.

The current Eberly College of Science strategic plan emphasized the need for ethics

In Memoriam

Joseph Dixon, 1919 to 2013 Joseph Dixon, professor emeritus of chemistry and

He was named assistant head of the department in

former head of the Penn State University Department of

1967, and then he served as head of the department

Chemistry, died on February 7, 2013 at the age of 93.

from 1971 until his retirement on June 30, 1984. Upon his

Dixon began his career in chemistry in 1937 as an undergraduate student at Penn State, receiving his B.S. and M. S. degrees there before earning his Ph.D. degree in chemistry in 1946. He joined Penn State as a member of the chemistry faculty in 1955, attaining

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education and highlights how undergraduate education would be enhanced with the addition of ethical training. Penn State Science graduates will be even more prepared for their future careers as scientists when they are conversant in ethics and responsible conduct of research. The college plans to continue to support and expand these efforts in future years.

retirement, he was honored with the title of Professor Emeritus of Chemistry in recognition of his superb and transformative leadership in transitioning the Department of Chemistry into a leading research organization.

the rank of professor in 1961. His research interests

Donations in his memory may be made to the Joseph A.

included the study of compounds of organolithium and

Dixon endowment in Chemistry and should be mailed

organomagnesium, the structure of molecules, and the

to the Department of Chemistry, 104 Chemistry Building,

physical properties of organic systems.

University Park, PA 16802.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Penn State Mourns Thomas Wartik, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Dean Emeritus Thomas Wartik, professor emeritus of chemistry and dean emeritus of the Penn State University Eberly College of Science, died on May 29, 2013, at Foxdale Village in State College at the age of 91.

Thomas pictured in 1986.

Born October 1, 1921, in Cincinnati, Wartik began his career by graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1943, doing research related to the Manhattan Project atomic-energy program at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago during the World War II and then earning a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Chicago in 1949.

In 1950, he became an assistant professor of chemistry at Penn State. He was promoted to associate professor in 1956 and to professor in 1961. He served as head of the Department of Chemistry from 1960 to 1971. He then served as dean of the college from 1971 until his retirement in 1984.

At the time of his retirement, when he was honored with the ranks of emeritus professor and emeritus dean, Penn State President Bryce Jordan honored Wartik for his “superb leadership and dedication to science.” Under Dean Wartik’s leadership, undergraduate enrollment in the college increased by 41 percent and support for research grants and contracts increased from about $3 million to more than $15 million.

Science Journal December 2013

Jordan said, “Penn State has the national science reputation that it does in large part because of Tom Wartik’s leadership in the areas of teaching and research.” Wartik also played a key role in attracting a $10-million gift from the Eberly Family that created an endowed chair in each of the college’s academic departments, a gift that Jordan predicted “will assure a very bright future for Penn State’s College of Science.”

In 1987, Penn State honored Wartik by naming a large new research facility on the University Park campus in his honor, Wartik Laboratory.

“Tom’s many capabilities were manifest in his enlightened leadership of chemistry and later as dean of the Eberly College of Science. Under his kind, gentle demeanor was a total, unflinching commitment to high quality standards in teaching and research,” said Stephen Benkovic, Evan Pugh Professor and Eberly Chair in Chemistry.

A memorial service was held on Saturday, June 22, at Foxdale Village in State College. Memorial gifts may be made to Penn State Eberly College of Science, 427 Thomas Building, University Park, PA 16802. Please indicate “Thomas Wartik” on the memo line of the check. Gifts may also be made online at www.givenow.psu. edu by checking the “Eberly College of Science” box and indicating that the gift is in memory of Thomas Wartik in the “other:” box.

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College News

Experience Outside the Classroom Gives Undergrads an Edge What are Eberly College of Science students planning to do after they graduate? How many students have a job offer? Where do they go to medical school? What increases the likelihood of student success after Penn State? Prospective students and their parents ask these common questions year after year; this year, the college is able to respond to them more accurately and supply data to support the responses.

In spring 2013, the college administered a survey to all science students graduating with an undergraduate degree to develop a better understanding on what students plan to do postgraduation. The survey, which was designed to gather data on undergraduate student experiences, as well as document post-graduation goals and intentions, has enabled the college to accurately identify post-graduation plans for a majority of its undergraduates.

A condensed version of the survey was administered to all students in April at graduation checkout; 92% of the graduating students completed the survey. This abridged version contained questions that were identified as the most important for assessing student activities and post-graduation plans. A full version was then administered to approximately half the graduating class via e-mail, providing students with a two-month window to complete the survey.

From the data received from both college surveys, 52% of the graduating class reported that they planned to attend graduate or professional school. Another 8% had already secured a fulltime job, and 30% were seeking full-time professional employment. The remaining 10% of the 40

respondents planned on working for a non-profit, such as the Peace Corps, Teach for America, or had other plans.

Nearly 75% of the graduating class participated in academic opportunities outside of the classroom, including undergraduate research, internships, externships, cooperative education, or study abroad experiences. These activities enabled students to utilize skills that they had learned during their coursework and apply them to real-world situations. The surveys suggest that students who participated in these academic extra-curricular activities were more successful in being accepted into post-baccalaureate programs or securing full-time employment.

The results reinforce the message that students who choose to participate in activities outside the classroom are more successful in achieving their post-graduation goals. Because of this, the college is generating and implementing strategies to ensure that all science students gain experience through co-op, internship, and externship programs or study abroad opportunities. Research shows that getting involved in research and other activities early in an academic career leads to higher retention and graduation rates in STEM and paves the way to better job prospects or post-baccalaureate options after leaving Penn State.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Years of Service Recognition We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize the years of service that our faculty and staff have committed to Penn State. The college is fortunate to be able to recognize 158 dedicated members of the college community for their service in 2013.

25+ Years of Service: Michael Akritas Harry Allcock James Anderson George Andrews G Jogesh Babu Carol Baker Augustin Banyaga Paul Baum Piotr Berman Robert Boor Kenneth Brown Donald Bryant David Burrows Albert Castleman Moses Chan Milton Cole Daniel Cosgrove Dohn Dunmire Daniel Durachko Eric Feigelson Ken Feldman Lynda Fisher Luann Franklin Richard Frisque Martin Furer Raymond Funk Barbara Garrison Sabrina Glasgow Murat Gunaydin Rebecca Halpenny Ross Hardison Beverly Hazzard Steven Heppelmann Teh-Hui Kao Valarie Kelley Barbara Kennedy Robert Korman Melissa Lachat Luen-Chau Li Wen-Ching Li Bruce Lindsay John Lintner

Maria Long Bruce Lord Cathy Lutz Dennis Marince Mark Maroncelli Przemyslaw Maslak Andrea Mastro Julian Maynard Henry McCoullum Peter Meszaros Douglas Miller Webb Miller Chris Moyer Gary Mullen Randi Neshteruk B Tracy Nixon John Nousek David O’Neill Adrian Ocneanu Anthony Omeis Theresa Peters Ronald Porter Lawrence Ramsey Mary Anne Raymond Lisa Reiter Richard Robinett James Rosenberger Ayusman Sen Carl Sillman Andrew Stephenson Ming Tien Chen-Pei Tu Christopher Uhl Leonid Vaserstein Steven Weinreb Roy Willis Nicholas Winograd Eric Younken Jerie Zitek 25 Years: Stephen Schaeffer

Science Journal December 2013

20 Years: Abhay Ashtekar Sarah Assman Leonid Berlyand Paula Farwell Joyce Greslick Lori Lauck Amy Leddy Thomas Mallouk Cheri McConnell Victor Nistor Jo Snyder Yuriy Zarkhin 15 Years: Andrew Belmonte Sandra Berkey Evelyn Bradley Francesca Chiaromonte Claude DePamphilis Marcella Fickes Lee Finn Ryan Jabco Jainedra Jain Mark Levi Chun Liu Hong Ma Kathryn McClintock Barbara McGrath Jennifer Parkes John Roe Steinn Sigurdsson Donna Sosnoski Song Tan 10 years: Réka Albert Gretta Armstrong Alberto Bressan Stephanie Gookin Arthur Lesk Kateryna Makova Anna Mazzucato

Katsuhiko Murakami Anton Nekrutenko Alexei Novikov Chris Palma Denise Patton Wen Shen Jennifer Shook Christopher Stahl Natalie Summerson Adrian Weaver Andrew Wiesner Elena Yakhnina Ae Ja Yee Andrew Youstic 5 Years: Simon Blanford David Boehr Tomás Carlo-Joglar Gong Chen Laurie Dasher John Gajewski Garth Gregor Tara Immel Amanda Jones Crystal Kachik Todd LaJeunesse Ralph Linz Darlene Miceli Jenna Neff Scott Phillips Lisa Sergeant Bradley Seyler Paul Shaffner Scott Showalter Stanley Smith Michael Stroh Tina Thomas Susan Unger Michael Zeman

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College News Intellectual Property Focus

Research Leading to Practical Benefits for Society Intellectual property and its transfer to public use and commercial application are essential components of the research, education, and outreach missions of the Eberly College of Science. Since research is conducted for the purpose of generating new knowledge, it’s critical that faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and students are properly trained on how to manage the intellectual property that results from their discoveries. Beginning with the fall 2013 semester, the college requires all new graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to receive training in the recognition and development of intellectual property and technology transfer.

Additionally, the college encourages its students to take advantage of the intellectual property and technology transfer training provided by the Office of Technology Management.

Kenneth Keiler, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, whose research is described in this column, discovered a unique aspect of protein synthesis in bacteria known as trans-translation. This type of protein synthesis does not exist in other life forms; therefore, it is a potential target for a new class of antibiotics that would likely improve the treatment of potentially fatal diseases. Because of the uniqueness of the research and its findings, Keiler and his collaborators have filed for a provisional patent of their work to protect the intellectual property.

Keiler is just one of many faculty members across the college whose research has led to a patent, and hopefully, future public utilization. Each upcoming issue of Science Journal will feature a faculty member and their intellectual property as the focus of this column.

– Andrew Stephenson, associate dean for research and graduate education

Diseases such as tuberculosis, anthrax, and shigellosis – a severe food-borne illness – eventually could be treated with an entirely new and more-effective kind of antibiotic, thanks to a team of scientists led by Keiler. The team has found that certain molecules inhibit the growth of very distantly related bacteria by stopping trans-translation, a “quality control” mechanism that is found in all species of bacteria that enables the organism to properly synthesize the proteins that it needs for survival. Keiler discovered the trans-translation step as a graduate student in 1996. Since his discovery, he has been working to find molecules capable of disrupting this particular stage of the proteinsynthesis pathway.

To discover which molecules Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) might be capable of cells being killed by a molecule disrupting trans-translation, studied by Keiler. The molecule Keiler and his team tested is naturally fluorescent and it about 663,000 molecules looks blue when it is excited by against a strain of E. coli and monitored how they ultraviolet light in the microscope. were affecting the transCredit: Keiler lab, Penn State University translation process. At the end of these tests, the team had found 46 different molecules that appeared to be effective in the disruption of this process.

The team then tested these molecules in bacteria that are known to cause illness; Shigella, and Bacillus anthracis. One of the molecules, KKL-35, showed to be very promising. “In both bacteria tested we were able to show that in the presence of KKL-35 the cells died specifically because the molecule halted the transtranslation process,” Keiler said.

One of the most exciting features of an antibiotic designed from KKL-35 concerns the unlikeliness of drug resistance in mutant strains of bacteria.

The protection of intellectual property with commercial potential is a crucial piece of the technology transfer process. By having the support of the University to file patents and own intellectual property, scientists like Keiler can protect discoveries until they are ready for public use or commercial application.

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Department News Astronomy Black Holes and Galaxies In the Universe A major discovery in observational cosmology in recent years is that most, if not all, nearby galaxies harbor a supermassive black hole at their center, including our own Milky Way. More strikingly, the mass of the black hole strongly correlates with the properties of its host galaxy. However, the origin of the correlations remains an unsolved problem.

A team led by Professor Yuexing Li, which includes graduate student Qirong Zhu and undergraduate Sydney Sherman, has developed a new model to explain this ubiquitous yet puzzling phenomenon by combining theoretical simulations and observational data of black holes in galaxies.

Zhu has performed a suite of state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, which include the physics of both dark matter and baryons, to self-consistently follow the formation and evolu-

Science Journal December 2013

Sydney Sherman presenting a poster at the AAS meeting in Long Beach in January 2013.

tion of galaxies and black holes from the cosmic dawn to the present day. Meanwhile, Sherman has compiled a large galaxy sample from observations of different galaxy types, at different dynamical stages, and at different cosmic times.

By combining both simulations and observations, the team investigated the relations between black holes and their galaxies, finding that the observed correlations are results of the balance between gravitational and kinetic energy, and self-regulated star formation and black hole growth in galaxies.

Both Zhu and Sherman reported these new findings at the American Astronomical Society meeting in January 2013. They have also finished two papers for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, one on modeling led by Zhu, the other on observations led by Sherman.

Currently, Sherman is working on a new project to study effects of feedback from stars and black holes on the formation, evolution, and properties of galaxies, another outstanding issue in astrophysics.

Yuexing Li, assistant professor of astronomy & astrophysics

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Department News

Chemistry Chemistry Labs to Undergo Renovations to Accommodate More Students After 64 years, a major renovation is coming to our general and organic chemistry labs.

Whitmore Laboratory, built in 1949, has been approved for a $34 million dollar renovation.

This project will involve gutting the first and second floors of Whitmore and a complete makeover of our general and organic instructional labora-

General chemistry will be expanding from eight labs that can accommodate 216 students, to ten labs that will provide instruction for 240 students at once. In addition, an eleventh multi-purpose room will be added, which will provide space for instrumentation, special types of instruction, and student projects. This

A conceptual drawing of the renovated Whitmore lobby (not yet formally approved by the Board of Trustees).

tories. There will also be a major overhaul of Whitmore’s HVAC, plumbing, and electrical systems. Renovations are scheduled to begin in 2015 and will take one-to-two years to complete.

Over the last twenty years, our instructional labs have been shifting from cookbook to more project-style labs whenever possible. The renovations will support these trends in chemistry education.

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cialty sections” in addition to the mainstream courses. These specialty sections present chemistry in thematic contexts, such as biological, materials, and environmental chemistry.

This contextualizing of instruction has been shown to improve student interest and understanding.

The new organic labs will involve alternating rows of hoods and open benches that will improve sight lines and facilitate student interactions. This will create small lab “communities” while preserving the efficiency of a large open space. The renovations will also add a new advanced organic lab that will be used for 400-level organic work and for honors students at the 200-level. The advanced organic lab will be designed in a similar manner to our organic research labs. For example, each hood will be outfitted with double manifold lines to support inert atmosphere reactions.

These renovations will enable us to provide high quality lab instruction for the next generation of scientists.

multipurpose room will have space for 24 students and capacity for live broadcasts of lab instruction to any of the ten general chemistry lab rooms, or in principle, to anywhere in the world.

The ten new lab rooms will not be identical; each will offer different layouts and storage Joe Keiser, lecturer arrangements that will support in chemistry a branched approach to general chemistry labs. Currently, we are offering a variety of “spe-

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Mathematics Math Department Experiencing Growth and New Opportunities The Department of Mathematics is expanding in multiple dimensions, including: welcoming a larger number of new undergraduate students; hiring new instructional and research faculty; securing new research grant sources; recognizing excellence in teaching and research; employing new postdocs; and, establishing the Center for Interdisciplinary Mathematics.

Undergraduates: In 2013, the department graduated 129 math majors, which is the largest number in recent memory. In fall 2013, we have approximately 12% greater enrollment than last fall.

New Hires: Our online activities are steadily increasing in pace with the World Campus level.

Combining research, funding, and online teaching revenue, the department was able to make 30 new hires that carry both research and teaching, including a tenureline associate professor, John Harlim, hired jointly with Meteorology via the

Science Journal December 2013

cyberscience cluster hiring initiative.

Funding: Leonid Berlyand, professor of mathematics, received an RO1 NIH grant.

Jinchao Xu, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, received a $1 million dollar grant from PetroChina.

Awards and Honors: Cindy Parsons, senior lecturer of mathematics, received the University’s George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching. Marc Fabbri, senior lecturer of mathematics, won the Eberly College of Science

C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching. Graduate student Sankha Basu won the Harold F. Martin Graduate Assistant Outstanding Teaching Award from the Graduate School. The University honored Dimitri Burago and Ping Xu with the title of Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.

Fifteen members of the math department were selected to become American Mathematical Society Fellows Yuxi Zheng, department head and professor of mathematics

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Faculty Spotlight Faculty Awards and Honors Gong Chen, assistant professor of chemistry, has been honored with a 2013 Amgen Young Investigator’s Award. The annual award is given by Amgen to young investigators whose scientific contributions impact the field of drug discovery.

Renee Diehl, professor of physics, was honored as the September 2013 Woman Physicist of the Month by the American Physical Society. Diehl is best known for her research on using low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) to address frontier problems in surface science.

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Debashis Ghosh, professor of statistics, has been honored with the Mortimer Spiegelman Award of the American Public Health Association.

and Molecular Biology, has been selected as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Fellows are nominated by their peers and selected for their outstanding achievements in and contributions to the sciences and the profession, and for providing excellent volunteer service to the ACS community.

Kurt Gibble, professor of C.R. Rao, physics, has Emeritus been honored Holder of the with the 2013 Eberly Family European Chair in Frequency and Statistics, has Time Award for his research on been awarded the atomic clocks that keep an honorary doctorate degree international atomic time. from the State University of New York. This is Rao’s 37th Dennis Lin, honorary doctoral degree. professor of statistics, has Mercedes been elected a Richards, Fellow of the professor of Institute of astronomy and Mathematical astrophysics, Statistics, which honored him was honored for his contributions to experias the July mental design and response2013 Woman Physicist of the surface methodology, and for Month by the American service to the profession.

Physical Society. Richards was lauded for her research on the Thomas dynamic interactions between Mallouk, close binary stars by the Evan Pugh society’s Committee on the Professor of Status of Women in Physics.

Chemistry, Physics, and Biochemistry Penn State Eberly College of Science

Marylyn Ritchie, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and the director of the Center for Systems Genomics, has been selected as a 2013 Kavli Fellow and has been invited to serve as a member of the organizing committee for the Kavli Frontiers of Science symposium.

Alexander Wolszczan, Evan Pugh Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, has been honored with the 2012 National Geographic Traveler Grand Prix award, which is given annually for overall achievement in travel, science or exploration along with the pursuit of a life-long passion.

Wolszczan was honored in May 2013 at a ceremony in Warsaw, Poland.

Science Journal December 2013

University/College Awards Gong Chen, professor of biology, has been appointed as holder of the Verne M. Willaman Chair in the Life Sciences.

The appointment, effective on 1 July 2013, was made by the Office of the President of the University, based on the recommendation of the dean, in recognition of Chen’s national and international reputation for excellence in research and teaching.

Claude dePamphilis, professor of biology, has been selected to receive the 2013 Penn State Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Life and Health Sciences. Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme.

Faculty Promotions Congratulations to the following faculty members on their recent promotions in academic rank: To professor: Andrew Belmonte, mathematics Squire Booker, chemistry Nathaniel Brown, mathematics Gong Chen, biology Anna Mazzucato, mathematics Alexei Novikov, mathematics Benjamin Owen, physics Mary Beth Williams, chemistry To associate professor: Iliana Baums, biology Todd LaJeuenesse, biology Lasse Jensen, chemistry Tae-Hee Lee, chemistry William Noid, chemistry Timothy Reluga, mathematics Melissa Rolls, biochemistry and molecular biology Lorraine Santy, biochemistry and molecular biology Zhibiao Zhao, statistics

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Faculty Spotlight

Kyoto Prize Awarded to Penn State’s Masatoshi Nei Masatoshi Nei, Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and director of the Institute for Molecular Evolutionary Genetics at Penn State University, has been honored as the recipient of the 2013 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences. The

New Faculty

Inamori Foundation presents the international award to individuals who have contributed significantly to the progress of science, the advancement of civilization, and the enrichment and elevation of the human

Amie Boal, spirit. The foundation honored Nei in recognition of his “research on the assistant evolution of biological populations using quantitative analyses of genetic professor of variation and evolutionary time.” biochemistry In announcing the award, the foundation stated, “Dr. Masatoshi Nei and molecular made it possible to discuss evolutionary divergence, genetic diversity, biology and and the mode of selection on genes in a quantitative manner by devising chemistry, is diverse statistical methods such as Nei’s genetic distance, and applyworking to understand how ing them to molecular data. Using these methods, Dr. Nei’s research microorganisms acquire and has yielded important contributions to molecular evolutionary biology, use metal ions. The goal of her as well as to many other academic disciplines including ecology and research program is to identify conservation biology.” The award, which includes a diploma, a monetary new ways to treat bacterial prize, and a gold medal, was bestowed upon Nei during the Kyoto Prize infections and to improve Presentation Ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, in November 2013. efficiency in enzymatic reacNei has worked with many collaborators in his development of various tions important in biotechnolstatistical methods to determine the molecular mechanisms of biological ogy applications. Before joining diversity and of evolution. He has constructed a mathematical theory for Penn State, Boal was a poststudying the evolutionary relationships of different species using molecudoctoral scholar in Northwestlar data. A statistic named for him, Nei’s genetic distance, is a cornerern University’s Department stone of population genetic analyses. This measure makes it possible to of Molecular Biosciences. She estimate the origins of populations and the times of their divergence from earned a doctoral degree at the California Institute of Technology in 2008 and a bachelor’s degree at Pomona degree in 1996 at the Ecole for new species. He also uses College in 2002.

Normale Supérieure in France. his empirical research to address theoretical and Benoît biological questions of Eric Ford, Dayrat, broader interest in systematic professor of associate and evolutionary biology. astronomy and professor of Before joining Penn State, astrophysics, is biology, is a Dayrat was an associate working to naturalist who professor at the University of understand the studies the California at Merced, where origins of evolution and biodiversity of he had served as a faculty planetary systems. The goal of marine invertebrates. Dayrat member since 2006. Dayrat his research program is to and his students travel to earned a doctoral degree in translate the observed diversity remote locations across the 2000 at the Université Paris of planetary systems into impliglobe, exploring and searching 7 in France and a master’s cations for the formation

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Penn State administrators honored Nei with a reception in August.

(L-R) President Rodney Erickson, Dean Daniel Larson, Masatoshi Nei, Doug Cavener, and Provost Nicolas Jones.

common ancestors. Nei applied this technique to human populations and obtained the first evidence pointing to the African origins of modern humans. This paper on genetic distance has been listed among the 1000 most-cited papers in all scientific fields. However, a more influential paper is about the proposal of the “neighbor-joining” method of constructing phylogenetic trees. It is one of the most highly cited papers in the entire field of biology, and the number of citations is about 33,000 times, but growing by the day.

Nei earned a bachelor’s degree in genetics at the Miyazaki University of Japan in 1953, and he earned a master’s degree and a doctoral degree in quantitative genetics at Kyoto University in Japan in 1955 and 1959, respectively. Nei joined the Penn State faculty in 1990 as distinguished professor of biology and founding director of the Institute of Molecular Evolutionary Genetics, and was named Evan Pugh Professor of Biology in 1994.

histories of planetary systems in general, and our solar system in particular. Before joining Penn State, Ford was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley; a Hubble Fellow at the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics; and a faculty member at the University of Florida. He earned a doctoral degree at Princeton University in 2003 and bachelor’s degrees from MIT in 1999.

Science Journal December 2013

Ephraim Hanks, assistant professor of statistics, focuses on the statistical modeling of processes that give rise to data that are correlated in space or time.

He uses interdisciplinary research and has applied novel statistical approaches to address questions in landscape ecology, animal movement, and spatial disease mapping.

Before joining Penn State, Hanks was a graduate student at the Colorado State University.

He a earned doctoral degree at the Colorado State University in 2013, and master’s and bachelor’s degrees at the Utah State University in 2010 and 2002, respectively.

John Harlim, associate professor of mathematics and meteorology, is interested in merging theoretical and numerical work on differential equations, numerical analysis, and statistics to advance prediction and understanding of complex turbulent dynamical systems. He is currently working to develop practical filtering algorithms for assimilating data from complex turbulent systems for use in improving weather and climate predictions. Before joining Penn State, Harlim was an assistant professor of mathematics at the North Carolina State University. He earned a doctoral degree at the University of Maryland in 2006 and a master’s degree at the University of Guelph in Canada in 2001. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Padjadjaran in Indonesia in 1998.

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Faculty Spotlight Scott Lindner, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, investigates critical aspects surrounding the passage of the malaria parasite from a mosquito to mice and humans.

Recent work from Lindner has uncovered an abundant and critical assembly of proteins and RNA, which helps to maintain the parasite’s ability to remain infectious while awaiting transmission from the mosquito. Before joining Penn State, Lindner was a staff scientist at the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute.

He earned a doctoral degree at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree at the Florida Institute of Technology in 2001.

Manuel Llinás, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular, focuses on Plasmodium falciparum, the deadly parasite that causes malaria and is responsible for

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over half-a-billion annual cases of the disease worldwide.

Llinás and his colleagues have focused their work on the blood stage of parasite development by studying the parasite’s mechanisms of gene regulation. In addition, Llinás also has been studying and characterizing the metabolic network of Plasmodium.

Before joining Penn State, Llinás was an associate professor of molecular biology and a member of the LewisSigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. He earned a doctoral degree in molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley in 1999.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University in 1992.

Monica Medina, associate professor of biology, focuses her research on different aspects of coral-algal symbiosis and coral-microbe interactions. In addition, her group is studying the evolution of biomineralization in early animals. Her lab uses a combination of experimental field-based approaches with

molecular and genomic tools.

Before joining the Penn State, Medina was an associate professor at the University of California’s School of Natural Sciences. She a earned doctoral degree at the University of Miami in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree at the University of Los Andes in Colombia in 1989.

Miguel Mostafá, associate professor of physics, focuses his research on ultra-high energy cosmic rays, the most energetic and rarest of particles in the Universe. While much progress has been made in nearly a century of research in understanding cosmic rays with low to moderate energies, those with extremely high energies remain mysterious. He has been working on ultra-high energy cosmic rays as a member of the Pierre Auger Collaboration for more than ten years. Before joining Penn State, Mostafá was an associate professor of physics at Colorado State University.

Mostafá obtained a master’s degree in nuclear engineering and a Ph.D. in high-energy particle physics from Instituto Balseiro in Argentina.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Matthew Reimherr, assistant professor of statistics, studies scientific problems that involve processes evolving in complex ways over time and space. To tackle these types of problems, he develops tools based on functional data analysis, which is concerned with establishing statistical procedures for objects that can be viewed as functions or trajectories. He is especially interested in applying these tools in the context of genetic studies with variables measured over time.

Reimherr earned his master’s and bachelor’s degrees at the University of Utah in 2008 and 2006, respectively. He earned a doctoral degree at the University of Chicago in 2013.

Ben Shaby, assistant professor in statistics, focuses on statistical methods that have applications in the geosciences, particularly questions about climate. He studies the behavior of a

Science Journal December 2013

sub-class of spatial processes that he considers especially critical for understanding impacts of climate change, those that represent extreme events like heat waves or intense drought. Before joining Penn State, Shaby was a postoctoral scholar at University of California, Berkeley, and at Duke University. He completed his doctoral training at Cornell University in 2009, and his bachelor’s degree at Stanford University in 2001.

Lingzhou Xue, assistant professor of statistics, is working in the research area of high-dimensional statistical learning and inference. Xue is interested in the statistical analysis of complex networks, statistical inference of large covariance matrices and large-scale optimization algorithms.

Before joining Penn State, Xue was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. Lingzhou received a doctoral degree at the University of Minnesota in 2012, and a bachelor’s degree at Peking University in 2008.

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Student Spotlight

Undergraduate Student Awards and Honors 2013 Myriant Corporation Scholarship Winners Announced The Myriant Scholarship recognizes outstanding undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing careers in bioenergy and/or energy sustainability, and is generously sponsored by the Myriant Corporation of Quincy, Massachusetts. Myriant’s Chairman and CEO Stephen Gatto is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board in the Eberly College of Science, and established this scholarship because Penn State Science is uniquely positioned to train future scientists and leaders in the field of bio-sustainability.

Congratulations to the 2013 Myriant Corporation Scholarship for Excellence in Bio-Energy and Energy Sustainability: Daniel Cetnar, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Clay Swackhamer, Biological Engineering Grant Elledge, Chemical Engineering Steve Tran, Chemical Engineering Christopher Rae, Biochemistry Nicole Bernstein, Chemical Engineering Mustafa Hammudi, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

2013 Braddock Scholarship Recipients The Braddock Scholarship, an award for exceptional freshman science students, was established by the late Homer Frick Braddock, a Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania native, who earned his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from Penn State in 1906. The Braddock Scholarship is available to outstanding high-school seniors who are interested in studying science at Penn State.

Since 1984, this generous gift and prestigious financial award has provided needed and helpful funds to over 240 deserving students.

Congratulations to the 2013 Braddock Scholars: Joseph Puthenpurayil Nathan Arnett Jingyi Jiang Amanda Reese Laura Beebe James Johnston Kokila Shankar Alice Cai Michelle Lai Elizabeth Lesko Grant Smith Sarah N Galang Amar Paul Kenneth Hall

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Networking with Nobel Laureates: Two Students Selected to Attend the 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany Imagine, as a young scientist, to have the chance to travel to Germany for a week and learn from 34 Nobel Laureates. Sound like the opportunity of a lifetime? For two Penn State Science students, this dream trip was a reality during summer 2013.

For the first time in Penn State’s history, both a graduate and undergraduate student were selected to attend Nella Vargas- Maddie the 63rd Lindau Barbosa Sherlock Nobel Laureate Meeting. Nella Vargas-Barbosa, a graduate chemistry student, and Maddie Sherlock, an undergraduate chemistry student and Schreyer Honors College Scholar, were selected to join the annual international meeting, which focuses on promoting the global spread of knowledge in the areas of chemistry, physics and physiology. Out of 20,000 applicants, only 625 young researchers, representing 78 countries, were selected to attend this prestigious event. The multi-step application process was extensive; aside from being recognized as an outstanding young researcher by a selection committee, both students also had to obtain approval from their respective sponsor-

Science Journal December 2013

ing agencies and the Lindau Meeting Council.

The main criterion for selection was to be a motivated young researcher who demonstrates dedication to research with strong recommendations and academic background. Attending the meeting is more than just sitting and listening to speakers; it provides researchers with a unique opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas, to share their enthusiasm for science, and to establish new contacts with scientists from around the world.

Vargas-Barbosa, who works alongside Tom Mallouk, Evan Pugh Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics, had a particular interest in attending this year’s meeting, where one of the focuses was sustainable resources. “I am conducting research on the basic understanding and further development of photoelectrochemical water splitting devices. The reason why this interests us is because these devices could enable us to use sunlight to generate inexpensive electricity and hydrogen fuel from water.

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Student Spotlight It is imperative that research focuses on ways to generate electricity and fuels that do not rely on carbon-based materials, and therefore, minimize environmentally detrimental CO2 emissions,” Vargas-Barbosa said. The main topics of the 2013 Lindau Meeting were green chemistry, chemical energy storage and conversion, and biochemical processes and structures.

Although her research area was not one of the focus areas of the meeting, Sherlock chose to attend for the experience of engaging with other enthusiastic young researchers and learning from renowned scientists. “There were multiple lectures and discussions focused on energy and climate change. Although my research [on a nucleic acid folding structure (G-quadruplex) and its fluorescent properties] is completely unrelated, I found these sessions intellectually stimulating as we approached them from both a research perspective and from the perspective of non-scientists and politicians,” Sherlock said.

Each day of the meeting followed the same schedule. The mornings began with the Laureates lecturing for approximately 30 minutes on the topic of their choice, which ranged from basic research to career and life advice. “Ada Yonath [2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient] gave an excellent summary and explanation of the results on the structure and function of the ribosomes, as well as very encouraging words to female scientists that could be hesitant about the possibility of meeting the expectations of balancing a career and family at the same time.

Richard Ernst [1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient] discussed the importance of having a non-science related passion. These various lectures taught me about the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, something easily forgotten when immersed in interesting

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and long experiments,” Vargas-Barbosa said.

At a lunch sponsored by the Department of Energy, Vargas-Barbosa was surprised with a birthday cake and “Happy Birthday” serenade from the U.S. delegates to recognize her birthday on July 1. “Sir Harold Kroto [1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient], one of the discoverers of bucky balls, was sitting at my table. He gave me a strong handshake and personally wished me a happy birthday. This is my most treasured moment of the time I spent in Lindau,” VargasBarbosa said.

The afternoon provided students with a chance to interact with the Laureates on a more personal level. “In the afternoon, we had several special topic panels, made up of Laureates and other experts in the field. The discussion session, were more like a more personal Q&A session with one Laureate. While the lectures were great to get an impression of each laureate, the discussion sessions were the most inspiring,” Sherlock said. Many Laureates spent this time discussing the projects that led them to the Nobel Prize and answering questions about their current research. “It was very enlightening to hear about their thought process through the development of the projects that earned them the Nobel Prize. It was very encouraging to hear their stories about how they continued to pursue their projects despite of obstacles and failures; it made me realize the characteristics of a successful scientist,” Vargas-Barbosa said.

“The conference was really the chance of a lifetime,” Sherlock said. Vargas-Barbosa had the same sentiment, “Attending the meeting was a priceless experience that I view as another step closer to my professional goal to become an influential research scientist and chemistry professor.”

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Summer 2013 Student Marshal Ciera L. Johnson Represents Penn State’s Eberly College of Science as Student Marshal at Summer Commencement 2013 Ciera L. Johnson of Hughesville, Pennsylvania, was honored as the student marshal for the Eberly College of Science during Penn State University’s summer commencement ceremonies on Saturday, 10 August, 2013, on the University Park campus.

Johnson’s faculty escort for the commencement exercises was Kimberlyn Nelson, a senior lecturer in the Department of Biology.

Johnson graduated from Penn State with a 3.72 gradepoint average and a bachelor’s degree in biology. She was on the dean’s list during semesters in 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 and she was a member of the Alpha Epsilon Delta PreMedical Honor Society.

Science Journal December 2013

During her freshman year at Penn State, Johnson was a member of the Pride of the Lions Pep Band. In addition, she served as an economics teaching assistant for Dirk Mateer, a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics. Her role as a teaching assistant included grading papers and proctoring exams.

She also helped pioneer a new Facebook group for students with teaching-assistant roles.

Johnson plans to pursue an advanced degree to become a pharmacist.

Johnson said she was both honored and humbled by being selected as student marshal.

“My advice for other students is not to take anything for granted. Your time at Penn

State flies by and if you don’t take advantage of the many opportunities available here, you will regret it,” Johnson said. “I loved my years at Penn State and I certainly will miss everything about it.”

Johnson, a 2009 graduate of Hughesville High School, was accompanied at commencement by her mother Lynda Clarkson; her father Terry Johnson; her sister Teal Johnson; her grandparents Patricia and Robert Beck; her fiancé Taylor Rosanova, who graduated from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business in 2012; and her future mother-in-law Beth Taylor.

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Student Spotlight

Undergraduate Scientists Scholarship Provides Science Student an Opportunity to Study Chinese Abroad Pittsburgh native Sarah Newby was heading to her Chinese class at Penn State’s University Park Campus when she received the message that she had been chosen for the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) program.

Newby had taken a chance applying to the CLS program, which has an acceptance rate of less than ten percent, just three weeks before the deadline.

The CLS program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, offers a fully funded summer language institute for U.S. students. The program is part of a government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical-need foreign languages, including Chinese and twelve other languages.

“This scholarship wasn’t initially part of my long-term academic goals. At the time of applying, I was at a crossroads in my education; I realized that the CLS program would open

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Tian’anmen Square, Beijing.

doors that I hadn’t considered, such as double majoring in Chinese and biochemistry and molecular biology,” said Newby.

In the summer of 2013, Newby, a junior Schreyer Honors College Scholar, attended Xiamen University in Xiamen, a city on the southeast coast of China, near Taiwan. In addition to four hours of instruction a day, students were required to attend two hours of one-on-one tutoring with peer mentors. “Each day we had a multi-lined dialogue to memorize, reading summaries to complete, and characters to memorize.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Chinese was the only language spoken in class. Communicating solely in Chinese was my favorite part of the CLS experience,” she said.

Newby asserts that the opportunity to study in China pushed her fluency in the language to another level, citing that immersion is an important step in the process of learning a language.

“The basics of the lanAbout to climb the guage comes from the Great Wall in Beijing! classroom, but fluency comes most quickly through constant interaction with native speakers,” Newby said. Her experience in China has given her more confidence about including her Chinese language skills on her resume. She is preparing to take the Level 5 Chinese Proficiency Test, a national standardized test to assess the Chinese language proficiency of non-native speakers.

Newby encourages undergraduate students to take advantage of opportunities to study abroad. “With more and more global collaboration on research, learning to have respect and appreciation for cultures vastly different from our own is a valuable asset,” Newby said. She spent a total of ten weeks in China, eight weeks with the CLS program and two weeks traveling on a tour of the country, giving her more opportunities to utilize her language skills.

“While touring I found myself translating for the English-only speaking tourists, giving me the opportunity to use my Chinese and practice translation,” Newby said.

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CLS weekend excursion to Wuyishan Mountain.

At Penn State, Newby is a research assistant for Yanming Wang in the Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulation and for Ping Li in the Brain, Language, and Computation Lab. She also volunteers as a counselor for victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault at the Centre County Women’s Resource Center in State College.

Although she is unsure what direction she wants to take when she leaves Penn State, Newby is certain that her undergraduate education has given her the foundation to succeed.

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Student Spotlight

Trekking the Globe: Discovering Academics, Research, and Culture From Tanzania, to China, to Panama, Penn State Science students covered the globe during summer 2013 while participating in short-term study abroad courses offered by Penn State and the Eberly College of Science.

The five international experiences, ranging from biology to physics, enabled students to immerse themselves in various cultures while participating in research and coursework. All five courses offered, including BIOL497I - Cell Development and Cancer Biology, BIOL498A Biology of Eco-Health, BIOL499 - Reproductive Biology and Genetics, PHYS499 - Low Dimensional Electronic Materials, and BIOL297/497 - CHANCE Field Course, were taught by Penn State Science faculty members on-location.

The courses focused on experiential learning, whether through field study or lab research, in a cross-cultural environment. Gaining a global perspective is an important part of a science

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student’s college experience and a goal of the college; no matter where students go after graduation, they will be interacting with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Zhi-Chun Lai, professor of biology and biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State, taught cell Development and Cancer Biology, a collaborative course between the Department of Biology at Penn State and Peking University.

This three-week summer course in Beijing, China, covered topics in cancer biology, as well as cell and developmental biology, and focused on understanding molecular and genetic mechanisms important for animal development and tumorigenesis. In addition to lectures and group discussions,

Penn State Eberly College of Science

students learned alongside Peking University students and listened to guest lectures from Peking University faculty. Students also had the opportunity to visit local research facilities and a number of historic and cultural attractions, including the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, and the Great Wall. Through these activities, students gained unique and first-hand experience and knowledge about biological research in China today, and Chinese culture.

Eight science students participated in the Biology of Eco-Health class, a three-week summer session course that was taught entirely in Tanzania by Anna Estes, research coordinator of Tanzania Programs in Huck Institute of Life Sciences at Penn State; Paul Shaffner, director of Career & International Education in the Eberly College of Science; and, Douglas Cavener, professor and head of biology at Penn State and adjunct professor of the Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology. In the course, students examined topics related to human health, human-environment interactions, and conservation of natural resources. In addition to lectures in thatched-roof classrooms, and discussions with community members about health and environmental issues, students participated in field data collection – making behavioral observations about groups of impala and baboons, and collecting vegetation data.

The course also included guest lectures as well as visits to research institutions, national parks and medical clinics.

Another biology course, Reproductive Biology and Genetics, was taught by Hong Ma, Distinguished Professor of Biology at Penn State, and aimed to familiarize students with a modern understanding of reproductive biology. During

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the course, students examined development of the human reproductive system; physiological and hormonal regulations of reproductive structures and functions in humans; abnormal development of reproductive organs such as cancers in humans; genes and proteins important for the normal reproductive development and function; and genetic studies in a number of experimental organisms, including mice, fruit flies, worms, and plants. Taught at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, this summer program allowed students to learn the course content while experiencing Chinese culture through organized activities and interaction with Chinese students in and out of the classroom.

Science students also had an opportunity to travel abroad with the Connecting Humans and Nature through Conservation Experiences (CHANCE) Field Course offered by Penn State Lehigh Valley and taught by Jacqueline McLaughlin, associate professor of biology. The CHANCE program consisted of two courses: Global Climate Change: Sustainability of Select Tropical Ecosystems and A Field Practicum in Panama. Taken together, these courses prepared students to better understand the challenges of global climate change and the importance of sustaining biodiversity. Through online instruction during the spring semester, students participated in learning opportunities and lessons to prepare them for the summer excursion. These topics included studying the biodiversity of the select ecosystems in Panama, the science behind global climate change, historic events that surround the Panama canal and the creation of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and the indigenous people of Panama. By first participating in the

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Student Spotlight online course, students gained the necessary knowledge to participate in real-world research and conservation experiences while at STRI research facilities in Panama, where they studied the effects of global climate change on ecosystem biodiversity and dynamics. Additionally, students had the opportunity to work with nesting sea turtles and hatchlings to help sustain these endangered animals.

The only physical science course offered abroad during the summer was Low Dimensional Electronic Materials, taught by Ying Liu, professor of physics at Penn State, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China.

This course provided an introduction to physics of low-dimensional electronic materials, combining intensive learning in a classroom with a supervised project of independent research.

The course, taken by students majoring in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and related fields, provided them the opportunity to work together with SJTU students in an international setting.

The opportunity to participate in coursework, field study, and research programs abroad strengthens and expands students’ science background while providing a challenging experience not available through traditional classroom instruction. While each experience abroad is a unique opportunity for a student, each course shares the same fundamental goal of providing students with a global understanding that will benefit them in both their academic endeavors and future careers.

For more information on any of these programs, contact Paul Shaffner, director of Career & International Education in the Eberly College of Science at pxs913@psu.edu. Photo credit: Paul Shaffner 60

Melissa O’Brien:Interacting with African Wildlife This summer I had the opportunity to spend three weeks in Tanzania taking an ecology course, BIOL498A - Biology of Eco-Health, with seven fellow Penn State students.

Over the course of our time in Tanzania, we went on morning walks through the African bush, game drives through Tarangire National Park and Ngorongoro Crater, and even camped out in the Maasai Steppe amid hyenas and Cape buffalo. One of the highlights of the trip for me, however, was getting up close and personal with African wildlife.

During our time in Tanzania, we had the opportunity to visit the Meserani Snake Park. While I certainly had reservations about surrounding myself with mambas and spitting cobras, the snake park would end up teaching me something very important about science education. When we first entered the park, we walked down a long row of enclosures holding everything from shimmering black mambas to bulky rock pythons. We also had the opportunity to see birds of prey, a yellow baboon, and even crocodiles. When we reached a small exhibit housing baby crocodiles, I was Penn State Eberly College of Science

very surprised to see our tour guide casually pick one up. I was even more surprised when he asked us if we wanted to hold one ourselves.

One simple question sent a wave of excitement through our group as each of us anxiously awaited our turn. No sooner had we finished wrangling crocodiles when we came to another exhibit housing Northern stripe-bellied sand snakes. While we are often taught to fear snakes, I could see the smiles spreading across the faces of my classmates as each one got to hold the sand snake. I had seen the same phenomenon during the first week of the course at Ndarakwai Ranch. Ndarakwai is the home of two orphaned elephants, and our instructors had surprised us with the opportunity to meet the elephants in person. I will never forget the excitement of meeting Enkarsis and Raziki for the first time. We greeted the elephants by blowScience Journal December 2013

ing into their trunks. We were also able to touch their rough skin, watch them steal hats off of their trainer’s head, munch on acacia thorn branches, and even hear Enkarsus trumpet. It was an amazing experience, and everyone lit up in the presence of these magnificent creatures.

As a future biology teacher, I am always thinking about how I can make biology come to life in the classroom. As I experienced the trip of a lifetime and saw the way my classmates were drawn to the elephants and reptiles at the snake park, I started to wonder what it was about these encounters that had made them so powerful. The answer was simple. Both of these experiences were hands-on. We weren’t just watching The Lion King. We could see the vast size of elephant ears, hear the trumpet of Enkarsus, touch the smooth scaly belly of a sand snake, smell the palpable scent of elephant dung, and taste the cool breeze rippling across the African savanna. In other words, we were getting in touch with our five senses. In many of my education classes we have discussed the importance of hands-on learning, but I don’t think I really appreciated how much fun it can be until I went to Tanzania. After this trip, I know I will strive to use hands-on activities in my classroom to keep my students engaged in what they are learning and get them excited about biology.

Melissa O’Brien is majoring in biology and participating in the Integrated Undergraduate/ Graduate (IUG) program in the Schreyer Honors College for science education. She plans to graduate from Penn State in 2015.

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Student Spotlight

Jonathan Callan: Experiencing Healthcare Abroad Having never left North America, I felt that I really needed some global perspective; this desire came from my aspiration of becoming a global citizen.

After applying and being accepted to participate in the BIOL 498A course, I was ecstatic to spend three weeks in a whole new part of the world: Tanzania.

I figured Tanzania would be an ideal place to break away from the western world and, with a program being offered on eco-health, I felt the class would be a perfect fit for my future career in medicine; I was certainly not disappointed.

Upon getting off the plane, we were immediately immersed in a major conservation camp where we spent the first week of our adventure taking walking safaris and doing research in the bush. The research enabled us to get hands-on experience doing animal behavior studies of baboons and impala. We also had the opportunity to conduct vegetation plot analyses that gave us insight on the effects of conservation in the East African setting. We continued touring Northern Tanzania, learning about wild life with embedded safaris in the Simanjiro, Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and others.

Along the way Dr. Anna Estes accompanied us. Dr. Estes has over ten years experience in the region as an ecologist and, as our primary instructor, was an amazing guide and resource.

Her and Paul Shaffner also accompanied our group of eight students. Mr. Shaffner lived in Tanzania for three years prior to his tenure at Penn State and has endless knowledge about the people, culture, and country as a whole, making the pair a perfect team to guide us.

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Perhaps one of the most applicable moments for my future career was visiting the Foundation for African Medicine and Education (FAME) clinic in Karatu. We toured a unique facility that gave great insight into what healthcare is like abroad and the flaws with its accessibility in Tanzania and East Africa. From this moment, I knew that my career path had changed; I will forever see the lines of people seeking healthcare and the lack of resources available outside of the FAME clinic. I know now that fulfilling basic needs, such as healthcare in these resource-constrained environments, is an enormous undertaking that requires hundreds of people in order to see any true change; I am ready to join the cause. This course has driven me to a career in medicine focusing strongly on global health and public policy.

Seeing the smiling faces of Tanzanians after receiving their check-ups or treatments at that clinic made me realize the value of healthcare, something I had previously taken for granted.

This program served to alter my career path, for the better, and open my eyes to what we can one day achieve. Quality healthcare is a human right and I want to do my part in making sure this right is upheld, no matter where you live.

Jonathan Callan is majoring in science and plans to graduate from Penn State in May 2015.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Above&Beyond Focus on Graduate Students

Distinguished Graduate Fellowships Assist in Recruiting Outstanding Scientists Penn State Science graduate students are tomorrow’s leaders, and the University and college both work diligently to recruit and retain the best students. With the help of alumni and friends, the University is able to offer select students a distinguished graduate fellowship, which provides significant financial support that assists Penn State in its efforts to recruit the brightest students.

These fellowships often help support students so that they are able to focus intensively on their research at one of the best research institutions in the world.

Nina Wale, a second-year Ph.D. student in biology, is a 2012 recipient of a Campbell Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship recognizes outstanding first year doctoral students who exhibit academic excellence in the Eberly College of Science.

Wale, who studied archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University in England, took a class on the history of disease in humans as an undergraduate. In this class, she read a Science Journal December 2013

paper about the emergence of infectious diseases and decided that is what she wanted to study.

She came to Penn State for the opportunity to work with the diverse group of researchers at The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD). “To work with so many people thinking about the same problems in very different ways was one I couldn’t refuse. It keeps you on your toes and makes you a better scientist,” Wale said.

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Student Spotlight Receiving the fellowship validated Wale’s research and encouraged her. “It was very beneficial and a real honor. Winning the fellowship gave me confidence and enabled me to concentrate on research during the first year of my Ph.D.,” Wale said.

In her research, Wale studies the evolution of drug resistance in malaria parasites. “I use an ecological perspective to understand how drug susceptible and drug resistant strains of malaria compete within the body of a host. I use this understanding to design ways to turn the tables against resistant parasites and thus slow down

the emergence and spread of these parasites,” Wale said. Malaria infects 250 million people a year, and kills one million, the majority of which are children. Once thought to be under control, malaria reemerged as a public health threat when the disease evolved resistance to the drugs used to treat it and its vectors, anopheline mosquitoes, became resistant to the insecticides used to control them.

After she completes her studies at Penn State Wale plans to continue her work on the evolution and ecology of infectious diseases as a postdoctoral researcher and perhaps become a professor.

The Distinguished Graduate Fellowship program is a University-wide initiative to attract the nation’s most capable graduate students to Penn State by increasing the number of available fellowships through philanthropic support. Selection of the Distinguished Graduate Fellows is made at the college level, in concurrence with the dean of the Graduate School. Currently, Penn State has eighteen named Distinguished Graduate Fellowships. Below are graduate students who are 2013 recipients of a Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in science.

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Brian Pomerantz – Astronomy & Astrophysics Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Donny Passary – Mathematics Doty Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Kelvin Kho – Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Taylor Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

David Hughes – Mathematics Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Johann Ohm – Biology Campbell Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Lucas Hackl – Physics Elsbach Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Quingzhou Feng – Biology Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Susan Cooper – Physics Elsbach Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Siyang Hao – Biology Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Cody Messick – Physics Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Ryan Martinie – Chemistry Shriesheim Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Eric Kamp – Physics Elsbach Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Laura Ritchey – Chemistry Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Hyun-Bin Kang – Statistics Brumbach Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Jeremy Mason – Chemistry Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Songshan Yang – Statistics Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Bringing the Best and Brightest to Penn State Science Penn State is proud to recognize talented and driven students with fellowship awards.

Fellowships provide support to students allowing them the opportunity to participate in activities that enhance their educational experiences. These awards also provide incentives for recruitment and retention of outstanding students.

Kezia Manlove, a biology graduate student pursuing her Ph.D., is a recipient of a University Graduate Fellowship and an Academic Computing Fellowship.

The University Graduate Fellowship is a prestigious fellowship program that is awarded to incoming students and provides payment of tuition and a base stipend for the first year at Penn State.

The Academic Computing Fellowship is for doctoral students have a background and strong interest in computing applications within their disciplines. Through their participation in the program and the utilization of computers, the Academic Computing Fellows help develop and disseminate new methods for problem solving within their disciplines. This fellowship appointment is renewable for up to three years.

Manlove specifically came to Penn State to gain affiliation with the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD) and become part of a cross-disciplinary community focused on disease ecology. Her goal is to develop a skillset that will allow her to build engaging and relevant biological ecological modeling using statistics.

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Receiving the fellowships has been beneficial to Manlove’s academic career. “From a monetary standpoint, the awards allow me to travel and present my research to a variety of audiences, which challenges me to communicate broadly.

The fellowships have also granted me autonomy and flexibility to pursue more basic theoretical questions, as opposed to focusing more narrowly on my specific research system. Most importantly, receiving the fellowships gave me an important boost in self-confidence. Receiving the Academic Computing Fellowship made me acknowledge myself as a computational biologist, and not merely a statistical practitioner who dabbles in biology. It empowered me to view myself as a player on a larger academic stage,�

Manlove said.

In her research, Manlove uses statistical and computational techniques to study disease trans-

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Student Spotlight mission in wildlife systems, specifically focusing on pneumonia dynamics in bighorn sheep. Currently, she uses simulation techniques and statistical theory to model pneumonia outbreaks in bighorn sheep, and to understand the statistical properties of small-to-moderately sized social contact networks. “While bighorn sheep don’t get a lot of press in Pennsylvania, their on-going pneumonia outbreaks throughout the west are major impediments to species recovery efforts.

By developing a strong conceptual understanding of ecological and immunological drivers of disease, we hope to eventually inform decisions shaping how bighorn sheep are managed in the mountain west. To me, this is a particularly interesting system because the available data are wrought with small sample size issues. This

piques my interests as a statistician: it’s a common issue for wildlife data, and precludes use of many traditional statistical approaches, which rely on large sample size assumptions,” Manlove said.

When she completes her degree, Manlove plans to continue working on problems that challenge her quantitative and computational skillsets but also allows her to actively engage in the entire scientific process. Currently, she is considering work in a government, non-profit, or academic pathway. “I place a high premium on my quality-of-life, which for me includes both the intellectual stimulation of a scientific career, and also a reasonable work-life balance – Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook COO) says I can have it all, so I’m going to try!”

Brendan Mullan Selected as a 2013 National Geographic Emerging Explorer Brendan Mullan, an astrobiologist, science educator, and a recent Ph.D. graduate from Penn State, joins a roboticist, a glaciologist, a planetary geologist, an artist and an entrepreneur as one of 17 visionary, young trailblazers from around the world who have been selected as this year’s National Geographic Emerging Explorers.

National Geographic’s Emerging Explorers Program recognizes and supports uniquely gifted and inspiring adventurers, scientists and innovators who are at the forefront of discovery, adventure and global problem-solving while still early in their careers. Each Emerging Explorer receives a $10,000 award to assist with research and to aid further exploration.

The new Emerging Explorers were introduced in the June 2013 issue of National Geographic

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magazine. Comprehensive profiles can be found at www.nationalgeographic.com/emerging.

National Geographic Emerging Explorers may be selected from virtually any field, from the Society’s traditional arenas of anthropology, archaeology, photography, space exploration, earth sciences, mountaineering and cartography to the worlds of technology, music and filmmaking.

“As National Geographic celebrates its 125th anniversary year and looks forward to embracing a new age of exploration, we look to our Emerging Explorers to be leaders in pushing the boundaries of discovery and innovation. They represent tomorrow’s Robert Ballards, Jacques Cousteaus and Jane Goodalls,” said Terry Garcia, National Geographic’s executive vice president for Mission Programs.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Mullan has been an active member of the science community from an early age. “I went on a school field trip to a planetarium when I was tenyears old. The lights dimmed, all these bright pinpoints appeared overhead, and I learned about how stars are born, evolve, and die; the mystery of black holes; violent supernovae explosions. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world and decided right there I wanted to know how it all works. I was so fortunate to have access to resources like that; I want to pay it forward to the next generation. What could be more fun and meaningful than sharing the majesty of the cosmos with everyone?”

Mullan puts his passion into action at Penn State. He is developing a course that challenges undergraduate students to consider issues like sustainability and humanity’s long-term survival via stories about a future universe where those problems are pushed to the extreme. The astrobiology summer camp he leads lets middle school kids perform experiments to look for life on distant worlds, hunt for planets around other stars, and try to figure out why we haven’t been contacted by aliens. “I try to bring in guest stars to reflect how diverse the scientific community Science Journal December 2013

really is – men and women of all ages and ethnicities – not just a bunch of white guys with beards. From sliding on 3-D glasses for a tour of our Milky Way Galaxy to playing games that show how habitable planets are formed, the kids really respond.”

Mullan’s distinctive flair for communicating science made him the 2012 United States winner of FameLab. The prestigious global competition encourages scientists to communicate their work to society as a whole in more effective and universally understandable ways. FameLab competitors must explain complex topics in just three minutes. Mullan caught the attention of the judges with quirky analogies blending pop culture and pure science. He compared gamma ray photons to fraternity brothers hurtling toward a party, giving cosmic fist bumps that turn energy into mass, and explained the absence of aliens around us through the perspective of a disappointed realtor trying to sell the Earth. According to Mullan, “The real winner at FameLab is science. It made me very optimistic about the future to see so many amazing people invested in science education.”

Mullan believes that scientists should reach out to school children, college under-graduates, folks in the neighborhood, curious Web browsers, and everyone in between. His research tackles some of astrobiology’s most complex questions, but his public outreach efforts bring astronomy and astrobiology out of the ivory tower to make science more accessible, engaging, and entertaining.

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Outreach

Office of Outreach and Science Engagement: Expanding Opportunities for Faculty and Students Beyond Summer While many people are familiar with Science-U, the week-long science camps that hosts over 500 campers each summer, they may be surprised to learn of the other, lesser-known science offerings available from the Office of Outreach and Science Engagement (OSE). During the last few years, OSE has developed

Instructor and Penn State graduate student, Anna

programs for the fall and spring that

Stanhewicz, takes a question from a camper at the new

support broader impact efforts for

camp, Busted! Myth Meets Science, in June.

faculty and provide students with experiences that compliment their academic goals.

Science-U campers attempt a mock kidney dialysis at Nittany Lion, M.D. camp in July.

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Among the most popular fall and spring events are Haunted-U: Halloween Science, an event that includes a mini camp for children, a haunted demo show, and haunted lab tour; DiscoveryU: Where Genius Meets Imagination, a TEDtalk style showcase of faculty in science and engineering held on campus; Expanding Your Horizons STEM Career Day for Women, a oneday camp for middle school girls that includes a career expo, hands-on sessions, talks, and a panel discussion; and Exploration-U: Community Science Night, where student clubs, faculty, and local teachers team up to present science to the community.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

CSI Camp Director and Senior Lecturer in BMB, Carl

Science-U Energy2.0: The Next Generation campers

Sillman, coached his lab coordinators at camp. Frank

pose for a picture at the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor

Wendt is president of the student Forensics Club and

with mentors before taking the tour to discuss

Kelly Menges is a senior in biology with aspirations to

renewable and non-renewable energy sources in July.

become a physician assistant.

Science leadership

Nittany Chemical Society

Curriculum mentor and campers at Haunted-U:

campers paddle

student group member Zach

Halloween Science Camp stop to pose for a picture in

Bald Eagle Creek to

pours liquid nitrogen to make

October. The theme was zombies!

work on teamwork

dip-n-dots at Exploration-U:

and communication

State College Family Science

skills in August.

Night in March.

OSE has also expanded its summer offerings beyond Science-U. The Summer Experience in the Eberly College of Science (SEECoS), a sixweek residential research experience for diverse Upward Bound Math and Science students entering grades 9-12, was a tremendous success with 50 participants in 2013, under the direction of Lori Van der Sluys, a lecturer in chemistry. Additionally, OSE collaborated with the mathematics department to organize the first Pennsylvania Math Initiative (PMI) teacher workshop. Modeled after the highly successful Vermont Math Initiative (VMI) workshops, Penn State math faculty George Andrews, Evan Pugh Professor and Associate Head for Science Journal December 2013

Photos by Mike Zeman

Faculty Development, Andrew Baxter, lecturer of mathematics, and James Sellers, professor and head of undergraduate studies, teamed up to offer this two-week teacher development course in July.

Faculty and students are energized and passionate about connecting science with the community; many are even seeking ways to be involved before volunteers are sought out. The programs continue to get bigger and better each year because of the interest of the faculty and students. Together with OSE, teams of enthusiastic Penn State scientists are sharing their passion for science with the next generation of scientists and the community all year long.

69

Alumni News

Seven Alumni Honored with Penn State’s Outstanding Science Alumni Award

In its tradition of honoring high-achieving science alumni, the Penn State University Eberly College of Science honored seven alumni with the Outstanding Science Alumni Award. The Board of Directors of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society established this award to recognize alumni who have a record of significant professional achievements in their field and who are outstanding role models for students in the college.

Donald Abraham is the Alfred and Francis Burger Emeritus Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, and Emeritus Director of the Institute for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Abraham has conducted research in a variety of therapeutic areas, but he is perhaps best known for his studies of the structure of hemoglobin and the use of that structure in computer-based drug design. During his career, he founded or co-founded three successful companies: Allos Therapeutics, which produced an FDA-approved anticancer drug, eduSoft; a software company that markets the structurebased design program HINT; and kSERO that specializes in teaching children science through game playing. He also founded and was the first director of the Institute of Structural Biology and Drug Discovery at the Virginia Commonwealth University.

Abraham has published over 175 peer-reviewed articles; he edited the sixth edition of

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Burger’s Medicinal Chemistry; and he co-edited the seventh edition. He is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the Humboldt Prize in 1973, the Virginia Outstanding Scientists of the Year in 2001, the Amgen Paul Dawson award in Biotechnology in 2002, and many others. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition, Abraham was inducted into the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2010.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Penn State in 1958, Abraham received a master’s degree in chemistry from Marshall University in 1959 and a doctoral degree from Purdue University in 1963. He completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Virginia. He joined the faculty in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh in 1964 and became a full professor in 1972. He was chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Virginia Commonwealth University, a position he held until 2007.

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Peter Emanuel is the BioScience Division chief at the United States Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. As the lead for all biological research, he oversees 100 life scientists and over 60,000 square feet of laboratories at the premier non-medical research institute for defense science and technology.

Prior to assuming his role with the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, Emanual served for three years in the administrations of Presidents Bush and Obama as the assistant director for chemical and biological countermeasures within the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President. He managed the chemical and biological defense and medical countermeasures portfolio and coordinated research-and-development efforts across the federal government. In addition, Emanuel has served as a scientific advisor at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, where he developed over 100 highly specific and sensitive tests for pathogen detection, developed recombinant antibodies using a process called combinatorial phage display, was part of a team that developed and patented a novel biological sampling device, and oversaw bacterial-fermentation production and tissueculture production of antibodies.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Maryland in 1988, Emanuel received a doctoral degree in molecular and cell biology from Penn State in 1994.

Science Journal December 2013

Kay Mooney has over 20 years of corporate health-care experience. She has held a variety of senior leadership roles focused on pricing, underwriting, product management, mergers-andacquisitions integration, and medical-cost analytics at Aetna Health Insurance. She previously served as chief of staff for the Office of the Chairman and CEO, where she provided advice and support to Aetna’s Chairman and CEO on critical business, financial, strategic, and enterprise issues. Mooney currently leads Aetna’s national Health Care Reform Exchange Program Management Office, where she is responsible for driving the development and implementation of Aetna’s strategy for public exchanges, one of the most critical pieces of the Affordable Care Act. These roles have made her a sought-after speaker on health-care issues in numerous internal and external forums. She helps to influence policy and she acts as an advocate for consumers, members, employers, and other constituents impacted by the Affordable Care Act. Her efforts have helped to position Aetna as a leading voice in the industry.

Mooney’s advocacy efforts also extend into the community as well. She served as co-chair of the American Heart Association’s Circle of Red and Tell 5 for its 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 campaigns, spreading the word on the risks of heart disease in women and raising money for this life-saving movement. She also served as co-chair for the 2010-2011 Go Red for Women campaign for North Central Connecticut. In addition, she developed and launched a program where actuaries partner with local schools to help children understand and appreciate the power and fun of math.

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Alumni News Mooney graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Penn State in 1989. She is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, and is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. As a member of the Penn State Actuarial Advisory Board, she counsels on changes to the program to improve effectiveness that will benefit and support those graduating from the program.

Christopher Olivia is the president of the Continuum Health Alliance. In this role, he leads Continuum into the future as the organization develops its ambulatory service model, refocusing efforts on the broader care continuum outside the traditional hospital walls. Olivia has extensive experience working with venture-backed healthcare informationtechnology start-ups, having served on the board of nine such entities. He presently is a board member of Foundation Radiology – a teleradiology company, and Eviti – a cancer-care-management company.

Olivia has nearly 20 years of experience in the fields of health insurance, health-care services, and health-information technology. Olivia most recently served as managing director of Philadelphia-based Navigant, where he was responsible for the company’s health-information technology and in charge of HealthAware, Navigant’s technology subsidiary business. Previously he was senior vice president for strategic planning and new-venture development, preceded by president and CEO of Highmark/West Penn Allegheny in Pittsburgh, where he initiatied and completedthe West Penn Allegheny Health System merger with Highmark, the largest payerprovider merger in the United States to date.

He also led the turnaround and growth of the

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Cooper Health System in Camden, New Jersey while serving as president and CEO. Olivia was recognized as one of the nation’s 50 most powerful physician executives in 2010 by Modern Healthcare and Modern Physician magazines. In addition, he received Drexel University College of Medicine’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2005, and was recognized in 2003 and 2004 as a “Top Doc” in New Jersey by South Jersey magazine.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Penn State in 1984, Olivia earned a master of business administration degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned an M.D. degree at Hahnemann Medical School in Philadelphia and completed his residency in ophthalmology at the University at Buffalo.

Jonathan Pritchard is a professor of biology and genetics at Stanford University and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In addition to receiving a Penn State Outstanding Alumni Award from the Eberly College of Science, he was selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013. In the same year, he received an Edward Novitski Prize from the Genetics Society of America. This award recognizes “creativity and intellectual ingenuity in the solution of significant problems in genetics.”

In his research, Pritchard tackles the central problem facing modern human genetics, which is how to make sense of the vast quantity of human genetic variation that exists. Specific questions related to this problem include: Which of the 10-million common single nucleotide polymorphisms and thousands of deletions and du-

Penn State Eberly College of Science

plications in the human genome contribute to complex diseases or other traits? How can researchers identify the functional variants that underlie observed disease associations? What impact do purifying selection and adaptation have on genetic differences within and between populations, or between different species?

After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in biology and mathematics from Penn State in 1994, Pritchard earned a doctoral degree from Stanford University in 1998. He completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford in 2001. In that same year he became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago and was promoted to professor in 2006 before assuming his current role at Stanford University in 2013.

Jane Rigby is an astrophysicist at the Observational Cosmology Laboratory of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where she serves as a project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. Her research interests include galaxy evolution, and rapidstar-forming galaxies, star formation, metal enrichment, and black-hole growth histories of the universe. She also studies gravitational lenses as natural telescopes, active galactic nuclei, obscured accretion, X-ray and infrared backgrounds, and diagnostic spectroscopy. The primary tools Rigby uses to accomplish this research are the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, as well as the Keck and Magellan ground-based telescopes.

In 2006, Rigby received a Spitzer Space Telescope Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2006 and a Carnegie Fellowship in 2009. She received a Robert H. Goddard Award for Exceptional Achievement for Science in 2013.

Science Journal December 2013

After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in astronomy with honors and highest distinction and in physics with highest distinction from Penn State in 2000, Rigby earned master’s and doctoral degrees at the University of Arizona in 2003 and 2006, respectively.

Robert Baltera, Jr., who graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology and a master’s degree in genetics in 1987 and 1990, respectively, will be honored in November of 2013 as the seventh recipient of the 2013 Outstanding Science Alumni Awards. Information regarding Baltera’s achievements and background will be published in a future issue of Science Journal.

MEMB ERSHIP MAT TERS

JOIN the Penn State Alumni Association and help us keep Penn State strong alumni.psu.edu/membership 800-548-LION (5466)

73

Alumni News

Welcome to our Newest Alumni Board Members and Officers We are pleased to welcome four new board members for the 2013-2016 term of office to the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society. Serving in an advisory role to the Eberly College of Science, this board shares its expertise, experience, and helps to shape the future of the college. The alumni board provides the college with invaluable insight to achieve not only its educational goals but also its advancement goals.

Aaron Davidson ‘03 B.S. Biology Senior Field Applications Specialist Roche Diagnostics Baltimore, MD

Kolin Good, M.D. ‘89 B.S. Biology Chair, Department of Psychiatry Reading Health System Reading, PA

Eric Freed, Ph.D. ‘85 B.S. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Chief, Virus-Cell Interaction Section National Cancer Institute Frederick, MD

Michael Koons ‘04 B.S. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Product Development Chemist Adhesives Research York, PA

Visit www.science.psu.edu/alumni/board_members to view a complete list of the Alumni Society members.

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Congratulations to the newest officers of the board, voted upon at the April 2013 meeting President: Dr. Christina Winnicker, ‘93 B.S. Science Vice President: Jeffrey Trulick, ‘90 B.S. Biology Treasurer/Secretary: Robert Duminiak, ‘00 B.S. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Immediate Past President: Dr. Mark Connolly, ‘84 Ph.D. Chemistry

If you are interested in serving on this board, applications are being accepted for the 2014-2017 term of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Board. Completed applications will be accepted until February 21, 2014, and can be completed here: http://science.psu. edu/alumni/forms/Application_Alumni_Board.

Science Journal December 2013

75

Alumni News

Alumni Establish Endowment to Fund the Center for Excellence in Science Education

Susan Wynn Grove (Mathematics ’66) and Cada Grove (’66 Education) have established the Cada R. and Susan Wynn Grove Endowment for Excellence in Science Education. This gift will provide funding to support the efforts and initiatives for the Center of Excellence for Science Education (CESE) in the Eberly College of Science. Both Susan and Cada were first generation college graduates from their respective families and are passionate about the future of science education. To ensure this program is well funded for future generations of students, the Groves will bequeath more than $3 million thru their estate plans to support this endowment.

“We learned about the center when Dean Larson outlined his strategic plan. It piqued our interest and we wanted to know how we could fund it,” Susan said.

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“We contacted the college the next day,” Cada added. Their gift to the center will bolster the mission of developing quality science instruction across the University.

The CESE was established in the fall of 2010 with the mission of providing faculty and students with a collaborative educational network that promotes excellence in science teaching and learning.

Reflecting on their own college experiences, the Groves realized that they were exposed to vastly different teaching styles in the same courses. “I had a small class with a lot of discussion, a lot of chances to ask questions. Cada, who was not a math major, had a mass lecture that consisted of lecture only and no opportunity for discussion. As a result it is questionable as to how much he got out of the course,” Susan said.

The Groves realized that there had to be better techniques to teach math in courses designed for non-majors. “Math is such a critical subject; it teaches a structured way of thinking, analyzing, organizing,” Susan said. “Students in many fields are required to take it, and they need to be engaged. The non-majors are really the students who need an instructor who can spark their interest in the subject.”

The couple agreed that they were interested in funding the development of innovative programs to improve instruction in not only math education, but across all the science disciplines.

They felt that creating this endowment for the center was a way to serve the students at the university they both love. “Penn State is a phenomenal school and Dean Larson’s passion to raise the bar on instruction is something that really spoke to us,” Cada said. The Grove’s gift

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Tom Richardson Receives Alumni Fellow Award Twenty-two Penn State alumni

egations, including both the New

were honored October 16, 2013

Zealand–U.S. and New Zealand–

for their outstanding professional

E.U. Joint Commissions on Science

accomplishments and given the

and Technology Cooperation.

lifelong title of Alumni Fellow, the

Richardson has held numerous

highest award given by the Penn

industry, science, and education

State Alumni Association. Among

governance roles. Among his cur-

the twenty-two Alumni Fellow

rent board positions are Farmax,

recipients, Tom Richardson (’90

Ltd.; Grasslanz Technology,

Ph.D. Botany), was honored.

Ltd.; ScienceNZ (chair); Waiariki Institute of Technology; Riddet

Richardson is chief executive of AgResearch, Ltd., New Zealand’s

Institute; and Gravida: National

largest research institute.

Research Centre on Growth and

Agriculture is the backbone

Development.

Richardson, his wife, Heather

of the New Zealand economy

Carmichael ’83, ’91g, and their

and AgResearch is the research

two sons live in Rotorua, New

institute charged with growing that contribution.

Richardson has held executive

as chief of the Forests and Forest Products Division at Australia’s

Zealand.

Since the Alumni Fellow’s

roles in New Zealand and

Commonwealth Scientific and

establishment in 1973, more than

Australia’s science system

Industrial Research Organization

700 alumni have been honored

for the past 15 years. Prior to

(CSIRO), as the two agencies

with the title of Alumni Fellow,

joining AgResearch, he was

explored models for more

designated a permanent and life-

chief executive at New Zealand

effective Trans-Tasman scientific

long title by the Penn State Board

Forestry Research Institute (Scion).

cooperation. Most recently, at

of Trustees. This represents one-

During his time at Scion, he and

AgResearch, he has led the

eighth of 1 percent of all 616,000

his scientific team developed

re-organization of the institute

living Penn State alumni.

novel DNA-based approaches

and recently announced a $100

to plant and animal breeding,

million campus building program

To learn more about the Penn

which lead to a partnership with

to re-position New Zealand

State alumni honored in October,

the U.S. firm, PE-AgGen, to supply

agricultural science.

visit http://alumni.psu.edu/

Richardson is a frequent

DNA testing to the New Zealand dairy industry.

During his tenure as Scion chief executive, Richardson also served

awards/individual/afa/recipients

contributor to advisory boards, external review panels, and international science and trade del-

will provide resources and training to enhance the educational experience for undergraduates across the entire University.

This gift to the college is not the Grove’s first to the college; Susan and Cada’s philanthropy

Science Journal December 2013

has included other financial and personal service contributions over the years. With these investments of time, experience, and funds, the college can continue to be a premier center of education and research.

77

Alumni News

Eberly College of Science Annual Distinguished Faculty Benefactor’s Dinner Nittany Lion Inn, April 2013 Eberly College of Science – building an outstanding faculty and educating students with appreciation to our generous benefactors.

Eracleous and Fabbri Awarded 2013 C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching The C.I. Noll Award, sponsored by the Alumni Board and the Eberly College of Science, is presented annually to outstanding faculty members within the Eberly College of Science.

Two awards are made each year – one to a tenured or tenure-track faculty member and one to an instructor or other non-tenure-track faculty member. Michael Eracleous, professor of astronomy and

astrophysics, and Marc Fabbri, a senior lecturer in mathematics, are the 2013 recipients of the C. I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Eracleous and Michael Eracleous Marc Fabbri Fabbri were honored of these faculty members and during the April 2013 Disthe names of past recipients, tinguished Faculty Benefacplease visit www.science.psu. tors Dinner. To learn more edu/alumni/2013_noll. about the accomplishments

Blue and White forever…

You’ve worked a lifetime to create financial security for yourself and your family. Now you can share that legacy with Penn State as well through your will or living trust. Whether you choose to direct your support to scholarships or research, faculty or program support, your bequest will be an enduring expression of your passions and values. Our Gift Planning team can work with you and your attorney to ensure that your intentions are fulfilled and that your estate receives the full tax benefits of your gift.

To learn more about these opportunities, please contact: Robert Mothersbaugh, CFRE Director of Development and Alumni Relations Eberly College of Science 800-297-1429 rym4@psu.ed www.science.psu.edu

Brian McCullough, Esq. Gift Planning Officer Office of Gift Planning 888-800-9170 bjm172@psu.edu giftplanning@psu.edu www.giftplanning.psu.edu

B&W Forever_Science_0412.indd 1

Science Journal December 2013

4/19/12 2:38 PM

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Alumni News

Snapshot of Philanthropy – Funding the Future of Penn State Science Thank you to the alumni and friends that have committed funds for scholarships to benefit students in the Eberly College of Science.

Below are gifts received between March – June 30, 2013 Verne M. Willaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowships in Science Established by: Verne M. Willaman* Living Trust (’51 B.S. Agriculture and Biological Science) Amount: $2M Purpose: Provide support for academic excellence for graduate students. Recruit and recognize outstanding doctoral students.

Verne M. Willaman in Science I, II and III Established by: Verne M. Willaman* Living Trust (’51 B.S. Agriculture and Biological Science) Amount: $1M each Purpose: Supplement departmental support for outstanding University faculty in the Eberly College of Science in order to provide a holder of the professorship with the resources necessary to continue and further the scholar’s contributions to teaching, research, and public service.

Professor Philip S. Skell Memorial Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Paul (’67 Ph.D. Chemistry) and Patricia Reichenbacher Amount: $50,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate student in the Eberly College of Science with demonstrated need for funds to meet necessary college expenses.

Norman Freed Undergraduate Research Award in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Norman (retired associate dean of the Eberly College of Science and professor emeritus of physics) and Trygve Freed Amount: $75,000 Purpose: To recognize outstanding research by undergraduate students who are enrolled in the Eberly College of Science.

Joseph and Anna Bones Memorial Scholarship for Medical Laboratory Sciences in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Donna M. Wolk (’80 B.S. Microbiology) Amount: $12,500 Purpose: Provide recognition and financial assistance to outstanding undergraduate students majoring in or planning to major in Biotechnology, or successor degree program(s) in the Eberly College of Science.

Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Anonymous funded through a Charitable Lead Trust Amount: $125,103 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Dean and Barbara Martin Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Dean F. (’58 Ph.D. Chemistry) and Barbara B. Martin (’59 M.S. Chemistry) Amount: $50,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

George and Jewell Moffitt Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Joseph M. Moffitt (’63 B.S. Chemistry) Amount: $50,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

Donna Terefinko Whiteford and Robert Webber Whiteford Trustee Scholarship in the Eberly College of Science Established by: Donna Terefinko Whiteford (’78 B.S. Microbiology) and Robert Webber Whiteford Amount: $50,000 Purpose: Provide financial assistance to undergraduate students who have a demonstrated need for funds to meet their necessary college expenses.

*deceased

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Penn State Eberly College of Science

Retired Faculty Social and Luncheon – August 2013 Dean Larson welcomed and shared remarks

program closed with Mike Degenhart, executive

regarding the college and introduced Star Sharp,

director of gift planning, briefly discussing the

director of the Millennium Scholars program,

benefits of estate gifts to individuals and Penn State.

who presented details on this new initiative. The

Front row: Barbara Minard, Mary Jane Tershak Wronski, Norman Freed, Trygve Freed, Donald Rung, Robert Bernheim, Lloyd Jackman, Stanley Person, Irene Cutler, Margaret Hymer Back row: Robert Minard, Christopher Wronski, Philip Mohr, Leann Mohr, Mary Gage, Ron Pursell, Marie Jackman, Joanne Juhl, Paul Cutler, William Taylor, Wesley Hymer

First Annual All-Science Tailgate Big Success On September 7, 2013, the Eberly College of Science and its Alumni Society hosted the first-ever all-science tailgate at Porter Gardens at Medlar Field. The number of guests far exceeded the expectations of alumni attendance for a first-time event—more than 175 alumni coupled with their families and friends equaled over 350 people.

Smetana Family

Happy Science Tailgaters

Comments overheard: “The food was excellent and it was nice to have a tailgate where we didn’t have to cook!” “What an overall success! It was great to connect with science alumni in one location.” “What a fantastic idea! Please do it next year.”

Channing Broyan ‘11 Bio,

Based on the overwhelming response, mark your calendars for September 6, 2104. Same place, same time!

Dr. Keiser, and Dayton Broyan

Photos courtesy of Tom Range, ’89 B.S. Math

Science Journal December 2013

81

Alumni News

Eberly College of Science Honor Roll 2013 Thank you to all of our alumni, friends, parents, corporations, and foundations for their generous support this past year. Your strong financial support allows us to continue to build on our strengths and continue to be a leader.

Your commitment this past year to the Eberly College of Science, between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, was a record-breaking amount!

A total of 4,673 gifts were made, totaling $18,925,944 in support of undergraduate and graduate student scholarships, endowed faculty positions, summer research stipends for students, unrestricted science future funds for the Dean’s greatest priorities, direct-support to our academic departments, capital improvement projects, and more.

Several of this year’s gifts that contributed significantly to the overall total were planned gifts from donors who are individuals that wish to continue to provide for the future through their wills and estate plans. These gifts were created years ago but are supporting the Eberly College of Science today and making a difference this year and for coming years. Each and every gift propels us forward to meet the challenges of a world class program.

As we enter the final year of the For the Future: The Campaign for Penn State Students, we thank you for being part of this $2 billion campaign. To date, $1,900,000 of this goal has been raised and meeting the goal by the close of the campaign on June 30, 2014 is anticipated. Thank you for showing your Penn State pride and being part this success.

We are pleased to present the following list, alphabetically by gift level, of the individuals and organizations who share our vision of excellence and opportunity in science, education, research, and outreach.

Thank you again for investing in the Eberly College of Science!

Sincerely, Robert L. Mothersbaugh, CFRE Director of Alumni Relations and Development

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$10,000 and more Anonymous Harry R. and Noreen E. Allcock Walter R. Andersen* William S. and Barbara S. Bickel Anita M. Collins Barbara J. and Glenn D. Dalton Mary E. DeVries Jack and Pauline Dickstein Richard D. Dresdner* Edmund J. and Josephine T. Elder Barrett C. and Luanne Breuer Fisher William B. Forest* Norman and Trygve Freed Edward M. Frymoyer Richard A. Gottscho Grant R. Grissom Cada R. and Susan Wynn Grove Opal D. Gugliemelli* Janet K. Hamilton* Marcus C. and Cheryl L. McGrady Hansen Dennis L. Headings and Virginia Louise Corson J. Lloyd* and Dorothy Foehr Huck Savitri K. Kamath Stuart R. and Karen Goldsmith Lessin Louise M. Mapstone Charles E. and Joyce Knauss Mathues Doris N. McKinstry* Joseph M. Moffitt Penn State Eberly College of Science

Vance J. Moss Vincent L. Moss Patricia Mahalic Nelson* Christopher T. and Laurie Olivia Keith M. Olivia Heather L. Rayle and Hillard I. Silman Paul H. and Patricia Reichenbacher Andrea J. Rhodes and Frederick G. Gluck David J. and Cynthia D. Schraer Carl T. Seitz Howard W. and Barbara Podolsky Sharf John R. Shuman* David L. and Teresa Rowan Shupp Richard B. and Barbara Kesner Silverman Wendy Souther Mary A. Stiles Donald W. Strickler Song Tan Peter G. and Ann C. Tombros Larry D. Travis Patricia A. Walls Walter K. and Lynn-Marie C. Wieland Verne M.*and Betty Willaman

$2,500 to $9,999 Anonymous William L. Harkness and Yildiz H. Akin David L. and Judith Allara Jill Grashof Anderson and Sydney H. Brown Scott K. Andrews Jeanne Atlas James Balog and Alvina Bartos Balog Catherine V. Beath George E. Bergey Langhorne H. Brickwedde* Stephen Korzeniowski and Deborah Brzezinski Robert T. and Cheryl Russman Davis John M. and Jane M. Dick John W. Dudley and Andee Aaby William E. Elwood Ray F. and Mary Maloney Evert

Science Journal December 2013

Neal and Phyllis Flomenberg Edward G. Foehr Meredith M. Gee and Gareth Morrell Carol M. Giangiordano Barrett E. and Michele A. Giffel Kolin Good David G. Guy Jeffrey W. Hamilton Alexandra H. Heerdt and Paul Mark Kenneth W. Herko John A. Herritt Helen L. Horen David G. and Susan M. Jones James B. Kadtke Andrea C. Kay Stuart M. and Toni Kipilman George M. Kosco Brian D. and Janet Kramer John and Paige Lapinski Tanya Furman and Daniel J. Larson Richard and Patricia Neidig Lewis William E. Logan Harold G. and Robin U. Loomis Frank W. and Joan Schlosser Luerssen Louis A. Martarano Brian E. and Stacy L. Mattioni Steven M. and Sheryl L. McCrystal Wallace H. and Nancy S. McCurdy Timothy F. and Theresa M. Merkel Robert D. and Barbara F. Minard Monica Morrow Richard M. and Tina S. Ochroch Harold C. and Nancy M. O’Connor Roy A. Olofson Philip C. and Shelly Ovadia Cenan A. and Patricia Ozmeral Lewis E. and Janice L. Patterson Daniel A. and Linda H. Pelak Keith V. and Sharon Fellin Rohrbach Roy J. and Patricia Little Schmidt Allan W. and Kathleen A. Silberman Anthony J. and Heand Johns Silvestri Donald R. and Barbara Orvis Strobach

Ronald D. and Michele A. Sicard Venezie Winston W. and Mary Walker Arthur J. and Gail Folena Wasserman Michael P. Weiner and Camille M. Solbrig Robert and Donna Terefinko Whiteford Donna M. Wolk

$1,000 to $2,499 Anonymous John D. Alvarez Arthur K. and Anne Gjesdahl Anderson Michael D. Anthony Hee Chan Bae William C. and Christie Heritage Baird Jayanth R. and Suchitra Banavar Stuart M. and Katherine Dailey Barrett Clifford P. Bastuscheck Thomas P. Bem Paul and Mildred Berg Stephen M. and Nancy Anderson Berman Joseph A. and Lynne Besecker Wilbur E. and Carol S. Billups Carter D. and Antonia Vido Brooks Charles C. and Jane Strawn Brosius Philip C. Bugaiski James F. and Mary Theresa Denshaw Burke John W. and Susan M. Byrne Iftikhar M. Chaudhry Stanley H. Chia and Fan-Li Chou Gregory B. Christiansen and Laura Brookfield Mario and Jaimie Cross Ciabarra Robert A. and Lorraine Stankiewicz Clare Elizabeth T. Collins and John C. Weeks Mark S. and Deborah A. Connolly John G. and Janet M. Connor David DeWitt Conover and Jennifer L. Conover David J. Coughlan Louis M. Wojcinski and Suzanne R. Dubnicka Roger A. Dunning*

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Alumni News

Eberly College of Science Honor Roll 2013 continued

Christopher R. Dyckman and Susan Scotto Timothy H. Eisaman and Johnnie L. Morgan Ned A. and Kathie L. Enea Gordon G. and Miriam Olander Fee Elizabeth A. Filauri Stacey L. Gleeson Howard R. and Nancy P. Gordon Andrew P. Hackett Susan Houck Hardin and Paul E. Hardin Richard R. and Cindy Lorah Harro Beverly L. Hershey Abram and Mildred R. Hodes William E. and Elsa Hoke Mitchell and Charity Holland Theresa Shuhler Huston Philip B. and Susan D. Inskeep Daniel H. Jackson William D. and Sally Cunningham Johnson Karen A. Kalinyak Steven R. Katchur Matthew S. and Karen E. Keller Richard R. and Rebecca D. Kemmerer Donald W. Kirby Robert C. Kline Robert M. and Maureen Knabb Robert A. and Nancy Krall Douglas M. and Jean Langietti LaBoda Bruce K. Lloyd Barry P. and Michelle Merrill Long Kenneth Lynam Stephen H. and Katherine A. Mahle John I. and Gloria Malone Dean F. and Barbara B. Martin John R. Mashey and Angela M. Hey David G. and Kathy Maskalick Steven D. and Heather A. Maslowski Joseph J. and Suzanne H. Matunis Beth A. Maxwell Thomas D. Mayewski and Faith R. Greenfield Richard P. and Lois Shiring McClain Edward A. and Rosemary A. Mebus 84

Elaine Bova Megonnell Joseph E. and Donna M. Metzger Allen E. and Elizabeth B. Meyer George H. Millman Nicole L. Morozowich Robert D. and Virginia Mulberger Gary L. and Beverly B. Mullen Randy C. and Patricia A. Murphy Edward B. and Kirsten Ravn Nelson Daniel A. and Patricia E. Nolan Frederick G. and Florence Oberender Thomas A. Pavlosky John M. Pearl Jeffrey A. and Margaret Albanese Peck Robert J. Petcavich and Linda R. Young Eric L. and Seema Peterson Linda J. Pursell Ronald A. Pursell Larry and Mary Ramsey Suzanne Reich John W. and Barbara Rhee Jeffrey M. and Andrea K. Firth Roesch Gregory M. Roszyk and Marnie Salisbury Gregory J. and Mary K. Sam Edward M. and Janis Saylor Joellen Schildkraut and Brian Annex H. Mitchell and Alice Schmidt Leonard I. Zon and Lynda C. Schneider Stuart F. and Anne Seides Eric Shea John W. Shigeoka J. Francis Shigley G. Lee Skillington Donald E. Smith Wilbur L. and Flossie Vereen Smith Erland P. and Ellen Mills Stevens Robert J. and Cynthia D. Strouse Edward A. and Sandra L. Tarle Andrew J. and Carolyn Wallace Thomas Gretchen M. Toolan David C. and Karen Brinton Townsend James H. Trask and Frances Hammond

Richard G. and Susan Taylor Turner William F. Waite Thomas* and Louise Wartik Boyd V. and Kimberly Washington Owen W. and Anna M. Webster Michael H. Wetzel Fletcher D. and Ann Hottel Wicker Sarah D. Wright and Gary J. Jones Christopher R. and Mary Jane Tershak Wronski S. Dale and Carol Ann Yakish Stephanie D. Yancey Gary S. and Debra Zander Theodore L. and Nancy Ziff

To view the gifts of $999 and below, please visit www.science.psu.edu/ sciencejournal.

Dean’s Advisory Board 2012-2013 Mr. Kenneth J. Adelberg, (’74 B.S. Bphys, ’74 B.A. Psych), Retired President and CEO, High Fidelity House, Inc., Broomall, PA Ms. Catherine V. Beath, (’70 B.S. Micrb), Worldwide VP, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs, Ethicon, Inc., Sommerville, NJ Dr. Barbara Dalton, (’74 B.S. Biol),VP, Venture Capital, Pfizer, New York, NY Dr. Stephen A. DiBiase, (’78 Ph.D. Chem), Chief Scientific Officer, Elevance Renewable Sciences, Bolingbrook, IL Dr. Edward M. Frymoyer (Chair), (‘59 B.S. ESc, ’67 Ph.D. Phys), President, Holdings, Inc., Half Moon Bay, CA Dr. James R. Gardner, (’04 Hon), Retired, VP, Pfizer; Professor and Executive in Residence, Science BS/MBA Program, Penn State University, University Park, PA Mr. Steve Gatto, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Myriant Technologies LLC, Quincy, MA

Penn State Eberly College of Science

Dr. Richard Gottscho, (’74 B.S. Chem), Group VP and General Manager, Etch Products, LAM Research Corporation, Freemont, CA Dr. Richard Grazzini, (’75 Biol, ’93 Ph.D. Genet), Executive Director, GardenGenetics LLC, State College, PA Mr. Marcus Hansen, (’68 B.S. Sc), Retired, President, Lockheed Martin Management and Data Systems, Chester Springs, PA Dr. Susan Houck Hardin, (’82 B.S. Biol), President, Hardin Holdings, Inc., College Station, TX Mr. Eric Keiter, (‘86 B.S. Chem), Retired Principal, MKP Capital Management LLC, Briarcliff Manor, NY Dr. Richard Kemmerer, (’69 B.S. Chem), Retired, President, UCB, Inc., Consultant to the Chemical Industry, Marietta, GA Dr. Karen S. Kmetik, (‘84 B.S. Biol), Director, American Medical Association, Chicago, IL Mr. Louis A. Martarano, (’76 B.S. Chem), Managing Director, L. MartaranoEnterprises, New York, NY Dr. Chad Mirkin, (’89 Ph.D. Chem), Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL Ms. Virginia (Ginny) Olson (‘73 BA Math), Retired, Towers Watson, Newport Coast, CA Dr. John Patton, (’67 B.S. Zool), Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Dance Pharmaceutical, San Francisco, CA Mr. Daniel Pelak, (’72 B.S. BiSc), Senior Advisor, Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, New York, NY

Science Journal December 2013

Dr. Robert Petcavich, (’76 B.S. Chem, ’80 M.S. SSS1, Ph.D. PlmSc), Chief Technology Officer, Senior VP and General Manager, Opcuity Films, Unipixel, The Woodlands, TX Mr. F. Matt Rhodes, (’79 B.S. Phys), CEO, Semitech Semi Conductor, Blue Bell, PA Ms. Vicki L. Spagnol, (’76 B.A. GenAS), President and Owner, Management Insights, New York, NY Mr. Peter Tombros, (’64 B.S. AgSi, ’68 M.S. AgEs), Distinguished Executive in Residence, Science BS/MBA Program, Penn State University, University Park, PA

Honorary Members Mr. Stephen H. Mahle, (‘64 M.S. Phys), Retired, Executive VP, Medtornic, Inc., Minneapolis, MN Dr. Joseph A. Miller, (Past Chair), (’66 Ph.D. Chem), Executive VP and Chief Technology Officer, Corning, Inc., Corning, NY Dr. James H. Plonka, (’70 Ph.D. Chem), CEO, Michigan Molecular Inst.; Executive Managing Partner, Griffon Financial Services, Midland, MI Dr. Alan Schriesheim (’54 Ph.D. Chem), Director/CEO Emeritus Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, IL

College Campaign Committee Mr. Kenneth J. Adelberg, (’74 B.S. Bphys, ’74 B.A. Psych), Retired President and CEO, High Fidelity House, Inc., Broomall, PA Dr. Kenneth S. Costa, (‘75 B.S. Biol), Dentist, Kenneth S. Costa, D.M.D., Whitehouse Station, NJ Mr. Barry Fisher, (’75 B.S. Sc), Executive VP, Van Horn Metz and Company Inc., Conshohocken, PA

Ms. Luanne Breuer Fisher, (’75 B.S. RehEd), CEO/President, Liberty Lutheran Services, Ambler, PA Dr. Edward M. Frymoyer, (‘59 B.S. ESc, ’67 Ph.D. Phys), President, Holdings, Inc., Half Moon Bay, CA Dr. James R. Gardner, (’04 Hon), Retired, VP, Pfizer, Professor and Executive in Residence, Science BS/MBA Program, Penn State, University Park, PA Ms. Linda Cuomo Gardner, (’67 B.S. Sc), Retired, White Plains Board of Education, Boalsburg, PA Mr. Cada Grove, (’66 B.S. SecEd), Retired, AT&T Communications, Onancock, VA Ms. Susan Wynn Grove, (’66 B.S. Math), Retired, AT&T Communications, Onancock, VA Dr. Dennis Headings, (’64 B.S. PM), Retired, Pediatrician, Luthersville, MD Ms. Ginny Corson Headings, Genetic Counselor, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD Dr. James B. Kadtke, (’79 B.S. Phys, Math), Senior Fellow, National Defense University, Center for Technology and National Security, Washington, DC Mr. John A. Lapinski, (‘69 B.S. BI SC), Lawyer, Clark & Trevithick, Beverly Hills, CA Mr. Louis A. Martarano, (’76 B.S. Chem), Managing Director, L. Martarano Enterprises, New York, NY Dr. Vance Moss, (’94 B.S. Sc), Physician, Mid Atlantic MultiSpecialty Group, Howell, NJ Dr. Vince Moss, (’94 B.S. Sc), Thoracic Surgeon, Mid Atlantic Multi-Specialty Group, Howell, NJ Dr. Gary Mullen, ’(70 M.A. Math, ’74 Ph.D. Math), Professor of Mathematics, Penn State University, University Park, PA

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Alumni News

Eberly College of Science Honor Roll 2013 continued

Dr. Cenan H. Ozmeral, (‘74 M.S. Chem), Senior VP and General Manager, Myriant Technologies LLC, Quincy, MA Dr. John Patton, (‘67 B.S. Zool), and Natalie Rico Patton, Founder and CEO, Dance Pharmeceutical, San Francisco, CA Ms. Barbara (Bobbi) Scheffler, (’72 B.S. Math, ’73 M.S. Stat), Retired, Senior VP, Corporate and Scientific Affairs, U.S. Bioscience, Inc.; President, The Scheffler Group, Inc., Villanova, PA

Office Contacts Robert L. Mothersbaugh, CFRE Director of Alumni Relations and Development rym4@psu.edu Sue Baker Administrative Support Assistant scb10@psu.edu Barbara Collins Assistant Director of Alumni Relations bhc10@psu.edu Brian Crownover Stewardship Officer bdc1@psu.edu Pete Davey Director of Major Gifts pbd3@psu.edu Josetta Lichty Associate Director of Alumni Relations and Stewardship jdl144@psu.edu Brenda Lucas Development Assistant bnl1@psu.edu Elaine Meyers Associate Director of Major Gifts eam21@psu.edu Tracey Moore Assistant Director of Campaign Relations tsc105@psu.edu Selden Smith Director of Major Gifts sws12@psu.edu

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Carol Thomas Administrative Support Assistant cxt4@psu.edu Michael Weyandt Director of Major Gifts mjw134@psu.edu

Alumni Society Board of Directors Dr. Christina “Winnie” Winnicker, (’93 B.S. Biology) Director, Enrichment & Behavioral Medicine, Charles River Laboratories, Andover, MA Jeffrey Trulick, (‘90 B.S. BIOL) Biologist, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C. Robert Duminiak, (’00 B.S. BMB) Partner, Howson & Howson, LLP., Philadelphia, PA Mark Connolly, (’84 Ph.D. CHEM) Global Director – Patents and Intellectual Property, DuPont, Wilmington, DE Amy Bucher, (’86 B.S. MATHBS; ’86 M.A. MATH) Vice President, Global Process Services Integrated IT, IBM Corporation, Poughkeepsie, NY Dr. Robert Clare, (’83 B.S. MICRB) Executive Director, Pfizer, Inc., Collegeville, PA Aaron M. Davidson, (’03 B.S. Biology) Senior Field Application Specialist, Roche Diagnostics, Baltimore, MD Heather J. Erdman‚ (’91 B.S. Biology) Consumer Safety Officer, HHS/FDA/CBER, Frederick, MD

Eric O. Freed, (’85 B.S. BMB) Chief, Virus-Cell Interaction Section, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, MD Forough Ghahramani, (’81 B.S. MATH) Principal, Life Sciences, Computing LLC, Associate Dean, Keller Graduate School of Management, DeVry University, Princeton, NJ Stacey L. Gleeson, (’92 B.S. Math) Enterprise Content & Business Manager, Munich Re-Insurance Company, Princeton, NJ Kolin Good, (’89 B.S. Biology) Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Reading Health System, Reading, PA Daniel A. Kapinos, (’08 B.S. Statistics/ Business Minor) A ssociate Director, GTSS, Aon Hewitt Company, Philadelphia, PA Diane Krusko, (’77 B.S. MICRB) Director of University Alumni Relations, New York Medical College, Valhalla, NY Michael Koons, (’04 B.S. BMB) Product Development Chemist, Adhesives Research, York, PA Dr. John McManigle, (’78 B.S. SC) Vice Dean, School of Medicine Uniformed Services, University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD Abigail Smith, (’02 B.S. Biotechnology, Microbiology minor) Process Engineer, Merck, West Point, PA Pamela Swiggard, (’89 B.S. Microbiology) VP, Regulatory Affairs and Project Management, Trevena, Inc., King of Prussia, PA Carol Zaher, (‘71 B.S. ZOOL) Medical Director, Health Net, Inc., Los Angeles, CA *deceased

Penn State Eberly College of Science

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Science Journal December 2013

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Marketing Office 507 Thomas Building The Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA 16802-2112 814-867-3388 Email: sciencejournal@psu.edu

Upcoming Events January 15 • Mathematics and Baltimore Area Alumni Reception February 8 • Science Alumni Mentoring Dinner and Workshop February 21 • Nominations for the Eberly College of Science Alumni Board Due

April 11 • Dean’s Advisory Board Meeting • Campaign Committee Meeting • Alumni Board Meeting • Benefactors Reception • Blue/White Football Game May 9 • Eberly College of Science Commencement and Reception

For more information on any of the events listed above, visit science.psu.edu/alumni/events.

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