College of Science: Insights Spring 2010

SCIENCE

SPRING 2010

great

issues The inextricable ties between science and society

inside:

:: Competitive Coding :: Joseph Francisco

production & media Julie Rosa, director of publications Linda Thomas Terhune, editor Mike Esposito, designer Eric Nelson, production coordinator Mark Simons and Andrew Hancock, photographers Dan Howell, copy editor Kim Medaris Delker, marketing consultant Contributing writers: Kim Medaris Delker, Art Hobson, William Meiners, Linda Thomas Terhune; research briefs drawn from Purdue External Relations

administration Jeffrey Roberts Frederick L. Hovde Dean of Science Harshvardhan Associate Dean for Graduate Education, International Programs and Research George P. McCabe Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Christie L. Sahley Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education

department heads Richard J. Kuhn Biological Sciences Paul B. Shepson Chemistry Aditya P. Mathur Computer Science Jon Harbor Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Rodrigo BaĂąuelos Mathematics Nicholas J. Giordano Physics Mary Ellen Bock Statistics

Computer science students Zhanibek Datbayev (left) and Arman Suleimenov immerse themselves in coding both in the classroom and off hours, when they prime themselves for programming competitions. They also juggle, do martial arts, have a passion for stunts, and one aspires to be a TV host. Learn all about the codes that make them run on page 17. (Photo by Andy Hancock)

Š 2010 by the Purdue University College of Science. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or duplicated without the prior written permission of the publisher. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information included in this publication at the time of printing, the publisher shall not be liable for damages arising from errors or omissions.

An equal access/equal opportunity university 09.COS.3.009b

The ties between science and society have never been more important than at present when complex global challenges require solutions that often fall at the intersection between the two.

In order to best prepare students for a world in which they need to play an active role as citizens and problem solvers, the College of Science requires all undergraduates to take a Great Issues course that explores the relationship of science and society and introduces students to the ways in which science can inform and impact policies that shape life. The cover story looks at Great Issues classes through the eyes of Andrew Hirsch and William Zinsmeister, two of the faculty who teach the classes. They love the subject to the point of near obsession. I hope you catch their fever as you read the cover story.

The interface of science and society is also a topic of great focus and excitement among Purdue researchers these days, with the recent news that Arden Bement, director of the National Science Foundation, has agreed to serve as the inaugural director of the University’s new Global Policy Research Institute. Bement, former head of the School of Nuclear Engineering, will leave the NSF in June and bring his international connections and reputation to the center.

With the University’s strengths in interdisciplinary research and the STEM disciplines, Purdue will be one of the few policy institutes in the nation to focus on the interface of science and policy. More information on the institute can be found on page 26.

As always, we look forward to hearing your thoughts on news from the College of Science. Science and society, in particular, are food for a great conversation.

Jeffrey T. Roberts

Frederick L. Hovde Dean of the College of Science

contents

features 4 Joseph Francisco Formula for Success

cover story All science undergrads are required to take a Great Issues class. What they learn prepares them for life as scientists and

and the 14 Math Magnificent Merrills Three Sisters, One Major

18 Arctic Stories

Web site brings vibrant land to light

citizens aware of the complicated ties between science and society.

departments 24 Breakthroughs

SCIENCE

SPRING 2010

30 Awards & Honors 33 Class Notes 37 Last Word

CoS logo icon means more information is available online.

Represented in each of the radiating arms of this logo are the seven departments of the College of Science. The stability of the inner sphere symbolizes the knowledge and objectivity of science, while the implied movement of the outer configuration suggests the exploratory and interdisciplinary nature of the field.

formula for success

Joseph Francisco’s inspiring rise to the top

By Linda Thomas Terhune

Joseph Francisco grew up in the shadow of oil refineries and chemical processing plants in Beaumont, Texas. There, as a boy, he walked the railroad tracks that ran through his neighborhood and carried trains loaded with chemicals in and out of the city.

It was on these tracks, as he bent down to investigate droplets of chemical spills and intriguing shimmering liquids left behind by the tankers, that he got his first chemistry lesson.

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Childhood curiosity led Francisco to the library to read up on the substances he came across on the tracks. That same inquiring mind — and what he terms “serendipitous moments” – guided him to a lifetime of excellence in academics and research, and from the rail yards of his youth to the pinnacle of the chemical profession as president of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

He was president of the National Organization of Black Chemists

and Chemical Engineers from 2005 to 2007. Francisco, the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is the first African-American academic to head the ACS. He views his position as a great honor and privilege and an opportunity to give back, to make sure that future generations are embraced by the same type of encouraging culture that welcomed him into the profession.

Photograph by / Andrew Hancock

A chance encounter and encouragement to grow Francisco was raised by his grandparents, who left school in second and third grades to work on sugar cane and cotton plantations. “They were really encouraging of all the pursuits I had and encouraged me to do the best at whatever I did,” he says. His academic interests were also nourished by a series of mentors, two of whom are particularly important.

The first, a neighbor who was a pharmacist, offered Francisco a job as a clean-up boy, then moved him to cashier, and began grooming the young man in the business arena.

The second came about through a chance meeting with a man who was trying to find his way through Francisco’s neighborhood. That encounter resulted in a transformative lifelong relationship. The man passing by was Richard Price, the first African-American mathematics professor at Lamar University. Francisco offered to walk him to his destination. As they walked, the two chatted about Francisco’s work in high school and his ambitions. The professor invited Francisco to stay in touch and the young man did, going to his office after school to hang out and work on math problems. “It was a truly important and beneficial moment for me,” Francisco recalls. “I was at the right place at the right time.

Instead of pointing the direction out to him, I walked with him, and that truly was a transforming moment.”

Francisco didn’t have firm plans for college. He had no idea how or when to apply. Another magical moment pushed him forward — a phone call from a recruiter in the chemical engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin. The high school student had no idea where Austin was located, but soon found himself there, engaging in undergraduate research his freshman year.

The train was on the tracks and had started rolling.

“One of the things I learned is that I really enjoyed the research aspect of the subject. That was a key thing,” he says. That experience left an imprint strong enough that it is the basis of his work in the classroom.

“I always have undergraduates in my research group.

If I can pick students out of the freshman year and give them the opportunity to have some fun and explore, I like to give them the opportunity to get in the lab, get hands on, and make connections between what they are learning in the textbook and what they are doing in the lab. It’s a ‘Gee whiz! Wow!’ moment for the kids.”

Thinking outside the academic box After graduating from the University of Texas in 1977 with a chemistry degree and a math minor, Francisco took his research interest to MIT. There, as a doctoral student, he explored the physics that took place when a molecule interacted with laser light and how that, in turn, induced chemistry. After completing his doctorate,

Photograph by / Mark Simons

he moved on for two years as a postdoctoral research fellow at Cambridge University, and then returned to MIT for a year as a provost postdoctoral fellow. And then he took off on his own. The train was gathering steam.

“I wanted to do something different,” he says. His new line of inquiry? “How can we use this new knowledge and these tools to say something about the chemistry going on in the atmosphere?”

The young researcher was especially interested in how chlorofluorocarbons affect the ozone level. That line of inquiry, which involved using computational chemistry to map oxidation pathways and identify intermediates, drew interest from Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the premier site for environmental and atmospheric chemistry.

“When you are looking at problems in the environment, chemistry alone is not going to help you have the best impact,” he says. “You need to understand how chemistry couples with other environmental processes. The real importance of atmospheric science is that it allows me to make that connection between chemistry and the earth sciences.”

Paying it forward for the next generation After time spent on the faculty at Wayne State University in Detroit and as a researcher at Caltech, Francisco arrived at Purdue in 1995. In addition to his academic contributions along the way, he has consistently engaged with the local community.

An accomplished woodwind musician, Francisco sang as a member of MIT’s chorus and the Boston University Symphony Chorus, which performed at Tanglewood. Until life got really busy, he was a member of Lafayette’s Bach Chorale. While at Wayne State, he founded a science and math tutoring group to encourage local students to succeed in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and math). He was giving back.

Giving back is an important aspect of his role as ACS president. In addition to advising lawmakers on policy and science issues, Francisco is determined that future generations of chemists be given a good start.

“I want to make sure that young people who really love chemistry have opportunities to really learn the profession and make contributions, to make the profession a part of their life, and do what they love, which is chemistry. We have to make sure there are opportunities for those in the profession and those who want to enter the profession to engage in an enterprise that is evolving in this new global marketplace. Are we preparing the new generation today adequately enough to allow them to have mobility in the global chemical enterprise?”

With Francisco as mentor, the odds are good.

The young man who once walked the tracks is now a highly accomplished and mature scientist riding the global express.

Joseph Francisco, the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is invested in his profession. As president of the American Chemical Society, he watches over the nation’s chemical enterprise.

In February, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Tuskegee University.

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5

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SmarthteGrrader 5

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Father and daughter

bond in computer

science workshop

Jim Irmen of West Lafayette works on a computer programming challenge with his daughter Christina.

The Irmens were among 27 families enrolled in a workshop hosted by the Department of Computer Science.

J

im Irmen and his daughter Christina enjoy spending time together playing on the computer. This winter, the father-anddaughter team took their interest into the classroom as one of 27 families in a series of four workshops called “Are You Smarter Than Your Fifth Grader?” hosted by the Department of Computer Science.

Christina, who is a fifth-grader at Happy Hollow Elementary School in West Lafayette, says she likes to explore on the computer and wanted to attend the free Saturday workshops in January and February to learn more skills. “I thought it sounded cool,” she says.

Participants used Alice, a 3-D interactive software development tool, and PicoCricket, a tiny computer that can make objects spin, light up, and play music. Students can hook other devices into PicoCricket and program

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them to react, interact and communicate, such as making a cat purr.

Alice helps students better understand computer programming concepts by allowing them to control the creation and movement of characters on a storyboard in a more user-friendly way than traditional programming code. The goal of the workshops, which were funded by a Motorola Foundation Innovation Generation Grant, is to take some of the intimidation factor out of computer science, especially for girls, according to Mindy Hart, the K-12 outreach coordinator for the Department of Computer Science.

“Our hope is that by introducing students to the Alice Storytelling Design Challenge software and the PicoCricket Design Studio, we can encourage students,

especially young girls, to seek computer science opportunities in school and as careers,” Hart says.

Participants in the workshop used the Alice software to create a story about something they had learned in school. Christina created a story about going to the moon, complete with a spaceship that flew to the moon, dropped off a man, and flew back. She also added a nebula, which she had studied in science.

Her father, who graduated from Purdue in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and is CIO for the Illinois state treasurer’s office, says that even with his background in computers, he learned a lot from the workshop — not just technical skills.

www.cs.purdue.edu/external_relations/k-12_outreach

If children are the future, the College of Science is in great shape.

Take a look at some of our K-12 outreach efforts

“She’s very creative, so this is a good way to combine her creativity with computers,” Jim Irmen says of his daughter. “I’m learning a lot just by watching how she learns and grasps concepts.”

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That is exactly the kind of impact Hart hopes to make with the “Fifth-Grader” workshops, which are in their second year.

“We chose to focus on grades 4-6 because that is a time when many students begin spending less time with their parents,” she says. “Working together in teams, whether it’s a father-daughter team, a mother-son team, or any combination, is valuable for both the student and the parent.”

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Kim Medaris Delker

Photograph by / Mark Simons

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GREAT issues Lessons on the inextricable ties between science and society

By Linda Thomas Terhune

Andrew Hirsch was on a plane eight years ago when his aha moment came.

Hirsch, then head of the physics department, was deep into Matt Ridley’s book “Genome,” reading about society and science in the context of genetics when the idea came to light: Someone at Purdue should offer a course about science and society that involves reading and discussion. In 2002, that someone became him. continued ...

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Photographs by / Andrew Hancock

“We wanted to make sure that the students could understand how their expertise and their disciplines play out into the world.”

– Chris Sahley, associate dean for undergraduate education

Hirsch taught the science and society course for three years, from 2002 through 2004. Its content was drawn from current events and topics. In many ways it was a personal quest. It reflected Hirsch’s curiosity about a wide-ranging number of issues. It required him to educate himself in areas outside of his expertise in high-energy nuclear physics. And it was crafted from a personal belief that scientists benefit from a breadth of knowledge.

A few years later, when the College of Science decided to update its 40-year-old core curriculum, science and society were again in focus. Chris Sahley, associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of biological sciences, led a faculty curriculum review committee that solicited input from college alumni, students, faculty, industry partners, and employers.

One message was clear: “It came across very loudly and very clearly that our students, although technically superb, didn’t appreciate the effect of science on society and society back on science,” Sahley says.

The committee sifted through a vast number of suggested outcomes and eventually winnowed the list to six core areas that form the foundation of the curriculum introduced in 2007. The curriculum requires students to complete a Great Issues course that addresses

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the impact of science on society and related ethical issues.

Given Hirsch’s interest in science and society, he seemed a natural to teach Great Issues in Science and Society. And so the class, with Hirsch at the helm — and librarians Michael Fosmire and Jane Yatcilla as co-pilots — made its debut in spring 2009. The syllabus consists of readings, presentations, guest speakers, and discussion. Topics include an overview of the issues facing energy, climate, food and population, which are examined from scientific, economic, political and ethical viewpoints. The library faculty guide the students in information literacy.

A few other science classes also satisfy the requirement, including the more focused “Fossils, Fuels, Energy, and Society,” developed and taught by Bill Zinsmeister, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences.

Students in Hirsch’s Great Issues course begin the semester reading Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons,” published in “Science” magazine in 1968. The article takes its name from the publicly shared village commons of ancient England, and looks at the way in which individuals, acting independently and driven by self-interest affect a shared resource. Collective versus individual interests come into play.

Guest lecturers are drawn from across the Purdue faculty and outside of the University, adding

multidisciplinary voices to the class.

Among them are agricultural economists Wally Tyner on public policy and Tom Hertel, on global trade and environmental policies; engineers Robin Ridgway and Doug Adams on energy; and philosopher Alon Kantor on ethics.

“The students are asked to process the information, make coherent arguments, and then support the arguments with facts and references,” Hirsch says.

The final project calls on students to work in teams, get creative, and put their critical thinking to use. For spring 2009, they were asked to develop a white paper on an issue and make a video about it to present to a legislator. For spring 2010, the students are creating games that incorporate the great issues.

Molly Amstutz, an actuarial science student who graduated in December 2009, says the class may not have had direct relevance to her new position at Lincoln Financial, but it did make an impression.

Purdue’s Wade Power Plant forms a fitting backdrop for professors Andrew Hirsch of physics (left) and Bill Zinsmeister of earth and atmospheric sciences, who teach Great Issues classes.

Energy is among the topics discussed and debated by students.

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“I tell the students ... You are the ones in the future who are going to make decisions, and you can’t make decisions if you don’t know anything.”

- Bill Zinsmeister

“I think it’s important for scientists to have a broad understanding of all science and all problems that science can solve, because it promotes interdisciplinary collaboration and may inspire ideas and solutions that wouldn’t otherwise be there,” she says.

In addition to exposing students like Amstutz to new ideas, the course exposes them to classmates from other majors. This is often a rarity for science students, whose degrees

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require a curriculum focused within their majors. Sahley says the curriculum task force learned that science students were often missing the connections between disciplines, seeing them as independent rather than all part of a complex whole.

Hirsch is a big believer in cross-disciplinary approaches and broad interest.

“I’ve always been a strong believer that if you focus too narrowly you miss opportunities,” Hirsch says. “In

this class, a chemist might look at public policy. It puts the students out of their comfort zones.”

Among the 70 or so students enrolled in his Great Issues class this spring are students from biology, chemistry, computer science, earth and atmospheric sciences, math and physics. Hirsch, Zinsmeister and Sahley are among a group of faculty members who would like to expand the breadth of the class even further.

They dream of a University-wide

issues class that brings students and faculty from all colleges together.

Zinsmeister is internationally known for his paleontological research and the 30 years of life he focused on Antarctica (10 trips), Patagonia (six trips), and the southern end of the world. But about four years ago, he was smitten with a new love: Energy.

It was a chance meeting — he was asked to teach a course about oil for a colleague who was on sabbatical.

He had nine days to prepare, to teach himself everything he could about the oil industry. He dove into the topic. “I became obsessed. It was an epiphany. I became obsessed with the energy industry, because so few people know anything about it,” he says.

He still hasn’t surfaced. The chance meeting turned into a long-term relationship. It has become his sole focus.

“Fossils, Fuels, Energy, and Society” made its debut in fall 2008.

It is designed to give students an overview of energy: how it is discovered, developed, refined, distributed and retailed, and the steps between.

subject of energy. He says he doesn’t bring his views into the classroom, but teaches students how to find the facts and draw their own conclusions.

Students who took the course during the 2008 presidential race were asked to write a paper tracking the shifting Democratic and Republican positions on energy over the course of the semester.

“I tell the students on the first day of class that this is the most important class you’re going to take. You are the ones in the future who are going to make decisions, and you can’t make decisions if you don’t know anything,” he says.

“Science is important, because you may be coming up with solutions, advising leaders on policy, or informing the general public.”

And helping students become scientists and citizens who are well-armed to make impact is, indeed, the end game.

“We wanted to make sure that the students could understand how their expertise and their disciplines play out into the world,” Sahley says. “We want them to understand that we, as scientists, are not in an ivory tower. We are affected greatly by the society in which we live. As scientists we have a responsibility to make the world better, to use our disciplines to solve the great challenges that are out there.”

Amstutz says the class challenged her to look at issues from new perspectives and broadened her horizons.

“It hasn’t changed my perspective on things, but it did bring awareness on some issues we are facing that I hadn’t previously been aware of or that I assumed could not be changed,” she says.

And that’s just the kind of aha moment the College of Science wants its students to have.

“Without a sound foundation in the basic structure of the fossil fuel industry and the politics and economics of energy usage and implementation, it will be difficult for you to appreciate the challenges our society will face in the transition from a fossil fuel-based society to a renewable energy-based one in the 21st century,” states the syllabus for EAS 375: Great Issues.

Like Hirsch, who must constantly scan news sources to stay on top of current events that feed course content, Zinsmeister says he now spends his life on the computer, checking news and oil prices, and getting to know resources like Gasbuddy.com, which tracks gas prices. Both men describe the course prep time as 24/7.

Zinsmeister, who once wanted to be a history major, doesn’t seem to mind the time he devotes to the class. “If I can learn something every day, I’m happy,” he says. He is especially interested in the way in which politicians and the media spin the

LEFT: It’s not hard to notice the intensity and focus of Professor Andrew Hirsch as he interacts with biology major Jessica Skiba during a Great Issues class. Hirsch, a professor of physics, is passionate about the class, which explores the intersection of science and society. RIGHT: Michael Fosmire, associate professor of library science and co-instructor of the class, discusses a class reading with mathematics education major Aaron Strand.

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Math and the

Magnificent Merrills Three sisters, one major

By Linda Thomas Terhune

Each of the women agrees that math was a favorite subject. They all liked the logic and analysis involved in the subject. And they were all good at it in school.

Raised in rural Illinois and, later, suburban Chicago, the girls grew up in a household where outdoor activities were encouraged and little television was watched. They roamed the neighborhood, played kick-the-can, concocted potions out of berries and leaves, and pretended they were stars like Paul Revere and the Raiders.

Ellen

(Merrill) McCarthy

The Merrill sisters celebrate Thanksgiving 2007.

(From left) Julie, Cindy and Ellen. (Courtesy photos)

I

f you ask the Merrill sisters about the odds of three girls from the same family studying math at the same college, you’ll get a quick answer: 100 percent. At least in their case. And that’s a fact, backed by an actuary.

It all started with Ellen Merrill, who came to Purdue to study French in 1971 and left four years later with a degree in math, a second degree in French, and a minor in economics.

She was followed by Julie, who took to statistics and actuarial science, graduating in 1979. And she, in turn, was followed by Cindy, who earned a degree in computer science in 1984. Their older brother was odd man out; he studied sociology at Illinois Wesleyan.

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Math came easily to Ellen. So did French. She studied both at Purdue, sprinkling in computer programming classes that were just then being added to the curriculum. Her interest in logic and analysis fit well with programming, and she correctly predicted that the emerging area might hold good employment opportunities.

When she graduated in 1975, however, the national economy was bad and the job market was slow.

She took a summer job in Milwaukee at a manufacturing company that was in the midst of installing a corporate computer system. Three years later, she joined Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in Chicago.

“They wanted detail-oriented people,” she says of her hire by Andersen Consulting. And details do interest her. “People say that majoring in math and French is an unusual combo; not so much.

They’re both detail oriented and both have certain sets of rules that you must follow,” she says.

During her 10-year stay at the international company, she became a manager for development of the first online, real-time, relational database manufacturing planning and control software package, which ran on mid-range computer systems. The Materials Requirements Planning (MRP), Inventory Control and Costing applications used math and logic to provide realtime information for many large companies around the world.

She started Ellen McCarthy Consulting after leaving Andersen Consulting, and spent three years as a consultant to Baxter International.

Ellen has been a volunteer with the Junior League of Chicago and the community outreach arm of her church. She oversaw installation of budget development and management software at Housing Opportunities for Women, transitional housing for homeless women. The software helped the organization obtain funding from local foundations and the City of Chicago.

Ever the athlete, Ellen has “retired” to the golf course; she plays in the Chicago area and in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she is club champion at her course.

She is an active supporter of and volunteer with the Western Golf Association, whose major charter is to provide scholarships through the Evans Scholars program.

“Is there a math application to the game of golf, aside from adding up your score?” she asks. “Course management does require analyzing each situation and deciding on the high-percentage shot!”

Julie

Merrill

For Julie, four years younger than Ellen, the family’s move to Chicago came at a tough age. She was in junior high, tall for her age, and ill at ease in the more urban and sophisticated setting. But she had a weapon.

“I did not fit in and it was really hard,” she recalls. “I became a good student in junior high from almost a self-defense thing. I really found that I could excel in math, so that’s where my interest started.”

With calculus and advanced placement courses behind her, she enrolled at Purdue — as an English major. She wanted to be either a novelist or a journalist, but opted instead for a math degree and its promise of secure employment. She focused on actuarial science, an area that satisfied her interest in logic, analysis, and systems. During her last two years at Purdue, she says, she was often the only female in many of her classes but her academic advisor provided great encouragement.

In 1979, when Julie graduated, the country was in the throes of adjustment to affirmative action. She says she had plenty of job offers — for industrial engineering jobs, with electronic companies, from car companies, and in banking. She liked the breadth that banking offered and joined Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., where she stayed for the next 15 years, moving from IT to operations. During her tenure there, she introduced personal computing into the company’s operations, and, as a human resources manager, oversaw the creation of more than 60 retail branches in grocery stores.

Julie expanded her love of math with an MBA in finance and economics

from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management in the evenings. In 1994, when Bank of America purchased Continental, she relocated to corporate headquarters in San Francisco and oversaw human resources for 14 call centers.

Julie left the bank 10 years ago to start her own management consulting firm, Change Catalyst, which orchestrates plans for business that are at critical turning points. It all comes back to math and logic, she says. Math comes into play as she examines her clients’ financial information; logic is applied as she tries to improve their processes.

resources outsourcing and consulting firm. She focuses on retirement plans, which also requires her to use actuarial skills to make assumptions on mortality and pension withdrawal.

What are the odds?

The Merrill sisters say they don’t give much thought to the fact that they all studied math at Purdue or that they were women in a discipline once dominated by men.

“It never occurred to us at the time that it was special or different or unusual,” Julie says, “but it did, later, after I got out and realized it was not the norm. At that point I really came to appreciate the foundation our parents and Purdue gave us.”

In her spare time, she is a board member of the Financial Women’s Association in San Francisco and has developed a healthy interest in outdoor activities, from 100-mile bike rides to kayaking in New Zealand.

And there was nothing preShe celebrated her 50th birthday by meditated about the choice of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a summit major, although Ellen jokes that the Ellen had reached a few years earlier. three must have a natural inclination for math. “It’s not like (Merrill) we sat around the house Donnell doing math problems.”

Cindy, the youngest of the Merrill Whatever the odds, sisters, grew up swimming, playing it’s clear that the math tennis and golfing. Like her sisters, world at Purdue has she’s an avid sports fan and was spelled success for drawn to Purdue by its Big Ten aththe Merrill famletics as much as by her familiarity with it from having visited her sisters. ily — in triplicate.

Cindy

When she enrolled in 1980, she chose chemistry, but not long into her freshman year realized she didn’t want to spend so much time in the lab. Math, she thought, would give her more options. And so the third Merrill sister entered the discipline, choosing to focus on computer science.

Clockwise from top: Cindy, Ellen and Julie in 1974.

“It was the beginning of the computer age and I figured it would be helpful to learn about computers,” she says.

Now, some 25 years later, she still does some programming in her job as an actuarial assistant at Hewitt Associates in Chicago, a human

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STEM the Tide Inaugural Woodrow Wilson teaching fellows to bolster science and math in rural Indiana schools In June of last year, 18 new graduate students stepped onto campus. Unlike the thousands of other first-year grads beginning various Purdue programs, these particular students were, and are, pioneers. As Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching fellows, the 18 are being specially trained to teach science, technology, engineering, and math (the STEM fields) in Indiana rural high schools.

The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, based in Princeton, New Jersey, chose Indiana as the site for its first fellows program for high school teachers. Fellows also are attending Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the University of Indianapolis, and Ball State University.

For Purdue’s part, the fellowship program is a collaboration between the colleges of Science and Education. The directors include Christie Sahley, professor and associate dean of science; Sidney Moon, professor and associate dean of education; and John Hill, executive director of the Rural Association.

All 18 Purdue students come from various walks of life, but two in particular fall under the “nontraditional” category. Susan Reagin graduated from Purdue 22 years ago with an industrial engineering degree. She worked in various aspects of the automotive industry at Delphi Corporation in Kokomo and learned of the fellowship program in a Wall Street Journal article a couple of years ago. She kept the story in the back of her mind and eventually applied for the fellowship online. Soon she’ll be teaching math full time.

Reagin is aware of the lifestyle change. “Within about 15 months I’ll have made the transition from being in industry to being a student to being a teacher,” she says.

From summer and fall classes to on-site classroom observations, Reagin and her fellow grads have been adapting to rapid transitions. After six weeks of classes on campus this semester, Reagin began 10 weeks of student teaching at Taylor High School in Kokomo.

Another student handling the demanding load of a two-certification program in biology and agriculture is Mark McClenning, who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture before returning to Purdue as part of the TTT (Transition To Teaching) program. He says he loved a temporary teaching position he landed at North Putnam High School last year, but the Wilson fellowship allowed for a little more flexibility in classes he needed for certification and provided economic incentive.

TOP: Mark McClenning, formerly employed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, in action as a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellow at Rossville Elementary School outside Lafayette, Indiana. BOTTOM: Susan Reagin (BS ‘88, industrial engineering) left a job in the automotive industry with Delphi Corp. to join the fellowship program. She is now student teaching at Taylor High School in Kokomo and will soon teach math full time.

Students receive a $30,000 stipend throughout the one-year master’s program. In addition, Purdue provides the fellows with graduate tuition scholarships. The fellows, in turn, agree to teach in an Indiana school for three years.

For McClenning, who hopes to find a teaching post this summer, it’s a win-win opportunity. “I’m looking forward to finding a great rural teaching job,” he says, “and I’d love to stay there for the rest of my career.”

William Meiners

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Photographs by / Mark Simons & Andrew Hancock

<html> <head> <title> <h1> Competitive Coding </h1> </title> <content=”You’ve heard of speed reading and speed dating. Now comes speed programming, a competitive sport — and it does get your heart rate up — that’s got Purdue students hooked.”/> </head> 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

<p> Zhanibek Datbayev and Arman Suleimenov are

members of Purdue Cheburashka Team, a computer programming team that placed in the 2009 Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) World Finals in Sweden.

The global collegiate programming competition drew 100 teams from 100 universities around the world. <br/> The ACM programming contest is a five-hour event in which teams of three students work together to solve eight programming puzzles. Ranking is determined by how many problems are solved correctly, and how many minutes it takes to solve each problem. A time penalty is given for each submission that fails to pass the judges’ test cases. Programming is done in Java or C/C++. <br/> Datbayev, a senior in computer science, has been programming computers since his days in elementary school in Kazakhstan and later programmed on old Soviet Union Korvett computers. Suleimenov, a senior in computer science also from Kazakhstan, learned his first programming language — Pascal — at Moscow State University. They are joined on the team by math major Nathan Claus. <br/>

The men spend a lot of time coding throughout the year and compete in online contests on a weekly basis. Two or three months before the annual regional competition, the workouts intensify as the students gather three or four times a week and simulate full five-hour contests. <br/> Here’s how the live-time competition works: After opening the problem set, the team members split the problems and work independently for an hour or so. Once a solution is found, one of the team immediately begins coding; the other members work together on the remaining problems. If they solve a problem, they code on paper to reduce the time spent in front of the monitor.

Suleimenov says one of the trademarks of Team Cheburashka is that it does not “debug” using the computer; it is all done on paper. <br/> There is nothing dull about this. Datbayev terms it “intense.” The 2008 ACM East Central North America regional competition ended in a photo finish: Team Cheburashka completed three problems in the final 20 minutes of the competition, and solved the

Photograph by / Andrew Hancock

final problem at the exact 300-minute mark. The team placed third overall. In 2009, it was fifth among universities and did not advance to the global finals. <br/> “It is a great way to deepen your knowledge of algorithms, improve your coding skills, meet new friends and be part of this exciting phenomena,” says Suleimenov, who is interested in information retrieval, data mining and social computing and Web services. <br/> Datbayev, who plans to continue his studies in graduate school, says the time invested in prepping for the contests answers a larger interest in coding machine-learning algorithms in order to apply them in real world. <br/> Both men get plenty of exercise away from the computer. Suleimenov is a member of the Purdue Taekwondo Club and amuses himself by learning stunts and acrobatics. Datbayev plays volleyball, swims, bikes, and is learning to juggle. <br/> The convergence of an active life and an active mind may come in handy as Suleimenov pursues his dream job: “I want to start a company that will develop localized search engines, create innovative social network services, and make software for the Ministry of Education,” he says. “I want my interests and hobbies to coincide with my job. I see myself as a prolific software engineer, a writer and a host of a popular TV show.” <Linda Thomas Terhune/>

<img src= ”ZhanibekandArman. jpg” height=”226” width=”195” alt= ”Computer science students Zhanibek Datbayev (left) and Arman Suleimenov make their love of coding clear: it’s written all over their faces.”/>

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Arctic Stories Web site brings vibrant land to light

By Kim Medaris Delker

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For Paul Shepson, the Arctic is not a cold, strange, faraway place. continued...

Photograph by / Paul Shepson

Arctic Stories

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We, as humans, are not all there is in the world.

...

The Arctic is a vibrant land, a rich environment for study of both science and humankind that will dramatically showcase changes within our climate and atmosphere.

Shepson, head of the Department of Chemistry and professor of atmospheric chemistry, says the Arctic has valuable lessons for everyone.

“The first time I visited the Arctic, I was stunned by various things, one of which is how quiet it is,” says Shepson. “When you’re walking through the snow, you can hear the crunch of your boots in the snow, but then when you stop, it’s so quiet you can hear your heartbeat. We never hear quiet like that in our society.”

Shepson believes that the public, not just scientists, should know about such experiences. To educate the public about the ecosystem and life in this part of the world, he helped create a Web site called Arctic Stories, which can be found at www.arcticstories.net/.

The site, co-developed by author Peter Lourie, takes visitors on a journey of life in the Arctic, describing how it is changing and highlighting research under way in the Arctic region near Barrow, Alaska, which is the northernmost city in the United States. A mix of photos and videos is used to illustrate the climate, wildlife and stories of people in the region.

Shepson received a grant from the National Science Foundation to support the research described on the Web site. His research is about

Photograph by / Spencer Brown

exchange of pollutants between the air and snow and ice, and he coordinates an interdisciplinary, international collaboration known as OASIS, which stands for OceanAtmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack.

Shepson’s 20-plus years of Arctic research have generated a passion about climate change and its potential effects on wildlife and human life in the far north.

“The ice is a major part of life in the Arctic,” he says. “A lot of species use the ice for defense from predators and for reproductive purposes, for example giving birth to their young in dens on the ice. When the ice melts, species like bowhead whales are likely to be at great risk.

And polar bears, which are charming creatures to many, will be no longer.”

Shepson says that besides showcasing the research that he and colleagues are doing in the Arctic, one of his major goals with Arctic Stories is to impress on the public that we, as humans, and as Americans, are not all there is in the world.

“There is such a lack of information among the general public about the Arctic,” he says. “In the continental U.S., we tend to teach that it is only the U.S. that matters, that other cultures and regions aren’t important.

The fact is that there are thriving, vibrant communities of people in the Arctic that we can learn from.”

For instance, Shepson says that the indigenous populations in the Arctic tend to have very little materially,

but are very happy. Also, the amount of wildlife in the Arctic can be a little surprising to an outsider.

“I witnessed how alive it is,” he says “There are wolves, foxes, lemmings, seals, whales. You’ll be walking along, and you’ll see a wolf, and it’s so quiet there, it’s just you and the wolf, looking at each other. That’s an incredible feeling.

In our culture, animals are seen as a nuisance to humans, something we want to eliminate. But in the Arctic, the opposite is true. It is the human that is the intruder.”

Shepson says the takeaway message from Arctic Stories is that humans need to see that what we do on a daily basis affects not just us and our families, but cultures and ecosystems around the world.

“It’s important to know that choices we make — from the cars we drive to the houses we live in — are having major impacts on our world,” he says “My hope is that Arctic Stories can make people appreciate the way of life of the population of the Arctic and how affected they will be by changes in climate.”

www.arcticstories.net

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breakthroughs

Geophysicists among first on ground after Haitian earthquake When a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti in January, Purdue scientists and engineers were quick to respond. Many of them were already involved in research on the island. Researcher Eric Calais had predicted in 2008 that the fault lines underneath the island made it a likely spot for a devastating quake.

In February, in the wake of the earthquake, Calais and a team of geophysicists set off for Haiti to investigate the cause of the earthquake and determine how to best predict and prepare for temblors.

Calais, a professor of geophysics, leads a team that has been measuring the buildup of energy along the Enriquillo and Septentrional faults on the island of Hispaniola, which includes Haiti and the Dominican Republic, using global positioning system (GPS) technology. The team has studied the area for five years

using 100 GPS markers. In 2008, the team reported the potential for a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Haiti and a magnitude 7.5 earthquake in the Dominican Republic.

In February, the researchers collected crucial geological data for use assessing whether the January earthquake could trigger another major event to the east or west of Port-au-Prince. They were funded by a $130,000 Rapid Response Grant from the NSF to find and map the area of the fault that ruptured, resurvey existing GPS markers, and install 10 new continuous GPS sites to monitor changes that will occur in the years to come as the Earth’s crust readjusts.

“The big question is, instead of small aftershocks, could there be a bigger earthquake coming? There are many historical examples of an initial earthquake triggering an even larger one along the same or nearby faults,” Calais says. “We are concerned for the Dominican Republic, as our preliminary models show that the continuation of the fault in this area is loaded.”

Eric Calais, a Purdue associate professor of geophysics, shows equipment he used to track movements of the continent of Asia over a 10-year period.

In his right hand, Calais holds an example of the geodetic markers he and his team drilled into the Earth’s surface to track movements as small as one millimeter. The data he collected addressed the 40-year debate over how continents respond during collisions of tectonic plates. (Purdue News Service Photo by Dave Umberger)

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ecalais/haiti/

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Research backs asteroid impact as cause of dinosaur extinction Jay Melosh, distinguished professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, is among a group of researchers that has found further evidence an asteroid that crashed into the Earth 65 million years ago caused the mass extinction that ended the age of the dinosaurs.

Melosh is among a panel of 41 experts from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan that evaluated new core samples from ocean and land sites and re-analyzed the relevant work within the field.

“We find that alternative hypotheses are inadequate to explain the abrupt mass extinction and that the Chicxulub impact hypothesis has grown stronger than ever,” Melosh says. “The impact hypothesis has been widely accepted by the scientific community, but there has still been some debate, and we continue to examine the evidence.”

Birds’ selective fall hearing may hold lessons for humans It appears that some birds have found a simple way to avoid love’s call when they are not looking for a mate — they mute their hearing.

Biologist Jeffrey Lucas, who is studying how both birds and humans adapt to noise, found that some bird species have degraded hearing ability in the fall — when it’s not mating season — as well as in other select situations. The findings have potential implications for hearing loss in humans.

Birds serve as a good model for hearing research because of how they learn vocalizations and adapt their hearing to behavioral changes induced by the changing of the seasons.

In the fall, for example, the reproductive activity of some birds comes to a standstill. This behavior causes certain birds to “down regulate,” or decrease the precision of their hearing, Lucas says. Females, in particular, invest less energy in maintaining their auditory system in the fall because they are not looking, or more aptly, listening, for a prospective mate.

About 20 years ago an impact crater more than 200 kilometers wide was discovered in Yucatan, Mexico, that is widely accepted to be the impact that caused the mass extinction event 65 million years ago. However, some scientists suggest that this event, called the Chicxulub (Chick-shuh-loob) impact, happened 300,000 years earlier and could not have been the cause. These scientists suggest the Deccan Traps, unusually active volcanoes in modern-day India, led to global cooling and acid rain that caused the mass extinction.

“These scientists examined deposits at sites around the Gulf of Mexico with a layer of tiny glasslike blobs of melted impact material that they interpret to be deposited about 300,000 years before the mass extinction,” Melosh says. “Our research found that although the material near the site appears to be a series of layers neatly laid down over 300,000 years, it actually was violently churned and then dumped in a thick pile.”

Models suggest that the impact at Chicxulub was a million times more powerful than the largest nuclear bomb ever tested and would have ejected material at high velocity around the world, producing a thick and complex sequence of deposits, Melosh says.

“By understanding in the broadest sense how organisms adapt their hearing to their environment, we can get a better understanding about how our own hearing is adapted to our environment and how that hearing might change either for the good or for the bad,” Lucas says.

Purdue University researcher Jeff Lucas bands a tufted titmouse before releasing it. Lucas is currently trapping chickadees for his studies of how animals manage their energy. (Purdue News Service Photo by Dave Umberger)

Illustration by / Mike Esposito

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Sandra Rossie found that an enzyme blocks a mechanism that can lead to neural cell death. (Purdue Agtricultural Communication photo/Tom Campbell)

Enzyme may be key to Alzheimer’s-related cell death Biochemist Sandra Rossie has discovered that the amount of an enzyme present in neurons can affect the mechanism thought to cause cell death in Alzheimer’s disease patients and may have applications for other diseases such as stroke and heart attack.

molecules. Conversely, decreasing PP5 caused greater cell death.

Rossie found that increasing the amount of protein phosphatase 5, or PP5, in rat neural cells resulted in less cell death associated with reactive oxygen species, which chemically damage cell

Rossie’s lab found that PP5 overexpression prevents neuronal death by amyloid beta and shuts off the stress pathways. When reactive oxygen that wasn’t created by amyloid beta

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One theory on the cause of Alzheimer’s is that overproduction of certain forms of amyloid beta protein by neurons leads to the generation of reactive oxygen species, which activate stress pathways.

was used on the cells, the results were the same. In contrast, neurons with reduced PP5 are more sensitive to death caused by amyloid beta.

“That suggests to us that PP5 protects neurons from cell death induced by reactive oxygen species, not just the presence of amyloid beta,” Rossie says. “This means that PP5 may protect against other health problems involving reactive oxygen species as well, such as stroke and heart attacks.”

breakthroughs

University lands NSF Science and Technology Center Purdue has been awarded $25 million to create the first National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center in Indiana. Wojciech Szpankowski, the Saul Rosen Professor of Computer Science at the center, will lead researchers as they explore emerging frontiers of information science to develop a set of principles extending information theory to integrate the elements of space, time, structure, semantics, and context. Information theory, established by Claude Shannon in 1948, finds the limits of compressing, reliably storing, and communicating data. It made possible computers, the Internet, DVDs, and the iPod. The center will establish an undergraduate course in the science of information, where students will have opportunities to interact with top faculty from the partner universities as well as leading private sector scientists.

“The center brings together world-class scholars from top universities to collectively develop a comprehensive science related to how information is extracted, manipulated and exchanged,” says Richard Buckius, vice president for research. “The team will attack these problems by rigorous theoretical studies driven by critical real-world problems in domains as diverse as biology, social networks, and computer communication networks. The outcomes promise to be transformative, just as development of reliable and affordable digital communication transformed 20th-century life.”

Purdue is partnering with Bryn Mawr College; Howard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Princeton University; Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Close look at chemicals and climate change reveals surprises A new study indicates that major chemicals most often cited as leading causes of climate change, such as carbon dioxide and methane, are outclassed in their warming potential by compounds receiving less attention. The compounds, which contain fluorine atoms, are far more efficient at blocking radiation in the “atmospheric window,” says co-author Joseph Francisco, the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

The atmospheric window is the frequency in the infrared region through which radiation from Earth is released into space, helping to cool the planet. When that radiation is trapped instead of being released, a “greenhouse effect” results, warming the globe. Most of the chemicals in question are used industrially, according to Francisco.

In the results, chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur and nitrogen fluorides stood out in their warming potential because of their efficiency to trap radiation in the atmospheric window.

Alum Andrew Feustel in IMAX film College of Science alumnus and mission specialist Andrew Feustel (BS ’89, earth sciences; MS ’91, geophysics; PhD ’95, geological sciences, Queen’s University) is featured in the IMAX film “Hubble 3D,” which runs through May at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis.

The movie, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, follows the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis during a 2009 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

“Just as the breathtaking images captured by the telescope for the past 20 years have inspired us all, we hope watching astronauts from a similar background or hometown will inspire young students and spark an interest in math, science and engineering at one of our great Indiana universities,” says Barrett Caldwell, director of the Indiana Space Grant Consortium and associate professor of industrial engineering and aeronautics and astronautics.

An understanding of how the chemicals contribute to climate change on a molecular scale affords the opportunity to create benign alternatives and to test new chemicals for their global warming capability before they go to market, Francisco says.

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A

Powerful Connection New Global Policy Research Institute to connect science and society From its new home in the Schowe House on Northwestern Avenue, the Global Policy Research Institute will increase the visibility of Purdue’s research findings and enhance the impact of the University’s discoveries for the common good.

“Purdue can use its strengths in research and international programs to translate issues from public policy into research and to enlighten and provide new options that play an important role in reaching political consensus,” says Arden Bement, director of the institute. Bement is former head of the School of Nuclear Engineering and has served as director of the National Science Foundation since 2004. He led the National Institute of Standards and Technology from 2001 to 2004.

Purdue has long been known for research with global impact. It is recognized for an international campus culture. It is celebrated for top-ranked graduate programs. Bement says the Global Policy Research Institute will draw on these strengths to form strategic partnerships from the local to international level. It will help Purdue do what it does best: allow the power of its science to connect with society so that everyone can make better-informed decisions about today’s grand challenges.

The new institute will stand apart from the nearly 1,500 other policy institutes around the country, Bement

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says. Few other policy institutes can make the vital connection between science and society from a solid foundation in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and agriculture disciplines. Even fewer can do so on a global scale.

Such connections are vital at a time when the rapid advances in science, engineering and technology have the power to change the world instantly.

“With the advance in communication and information technology, the world is shrinking and global issues are proliferating. These issues are complex enough that they are beyond any one university or nation to address,” Bement says.

institute will not play an advocacy role.

Bement says his experience as director of the world’s most noted science agencies has given him the equivalent of a PhD in foreign relations and public policy. It also has connected him with powerful thought leaders around the world, whose expertise he intends to draw on as he establishes the new thought center. He views such global relationships as integral to its success.

Although global in name, the institute will focus on policy at all levels, from local government to international agencies. Its programs will offer opportunities for students to engage in internships and pursue a master’s Among Purdue’s policy-informing research strengths are water research; degree in public policy and public cybersecurity; information technology administration. It will fuel cross-disas applied to health care; pandemics ciplinary and cross-national research. and infectious disease; and predicIt will inform through workshops and symposia, and bring world experts tion of and response to disruptive to campus as visiting scholars. events. Purdue geologists and civil engineers have been on the ground At base, Purdue’s Global Policy in Haiti following the January earthResearch Institute will strengthen quake studying both the seismic connections between science and event and the infrastructural damsociety and, in so doing, prepare all age. They are there at the invitation members of the University community of the Haitian government, which to be responsible, engaged citizens. will take the research into consideration as the country rebuilds.

“Our role is to provide opportunities for debate by identifying new concepts in science that can have bearing on key policy issues,” Bement says, adding that the

Linda Thomas Terhune

Entrepreneurship as a life science Biology grad helps grow Indiana economy Bruce Kidd was born with an entrepreneurial gene. He also came from a long line of basketball players and coaches. And he loved animals. The million-dollar question was which path he’d take.

Kidd (BS ’80, biological sciences) has spent the last 25 years in both the private and public sectors nurturing startups and helping Indiana businesses grow.

developed my appreciation for and passion for small business and entrepreneurship. I have always admired people who take dreams and make them a reality.”

Kidd grew up on the north side of Indianapolis. His father worked for Indiana Bell. His mother and one of his sisters opened The Gardener’s Market, which is still thriving today.

He enrolled in Purdue’s pre-veterinary medicine program so he could follow his love of animals and curiosity about physiology. In his sophomore year, however, he decided to focus his interest in life sciences on biology.

Kidd continued to advise and support entrepreneurial companies at the Indiana Small Business Development Corp.; at Ernst & Young as director of business development for Entrepreneurial Services; the Indiana Venture Center as vice president: and for Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels as director of entrepreneurship for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

(IEDC). The post included responsibility as managing director of the state’s 21st Century Fund, which evolved into a “seed fund” for early stage, high potential companies in Indiana.

After a three-year stint teaching science and coaching high school basketball in Indianapolis — something of a family tradition — the road to the business world lay ahead.

“It gave me a unique opportunity to make a difference in building First stop was the Indiana CPA more entrepreneurial companies and Society, where Kidd led member serthe state’s economic development,” vices and educational programs. He he says.

In three years, the fund learned from the experience that he invested $80 million in 63 high-risk was more interested in the business and high-potential startup compaside of businesses than the educanies.

He believes we will read about tional side. In 1986, he joined the several of them in the near future as Indiana Institute for New Business they commercialize market-changing Ventures, where he oversaw programs and life-enhancing products. that educated entrepreneurs on the startup process. He stayed until 1994.

In 2009, Kidd returned to the private sector as senior vice president “It was a really interesting and for Walker Information, a national fun time,” he says. “I learned a ton customer strategy consulting firm in about business. That was where I

Bruce Kidd has led a career helping businesses and the state of Indiana grow. He chose that vocation over veterinary medicine, but still surrounds himself with animals, including Cassie (left) and Bailey (right); his third dog is camera shy. (Courtesy photo)

Indianapolis. He has been a frequent lecturer at Purdue, served on the board of advisors for the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, and judged numerous entrepreneur competitions at the University.

Once introduced at a venture capital conference as a man with a larger Rolodex than the governor of Indiana, Kidd has made good on the family’s entrepreneurial gene. He has also satisfied his one-time career interest with numerous pets including a current count of three dogs and three cats. Having helped launch hundreds of companies, Kidd is most humble about his biggest launch — himself — saying he merely wants to have impact, give back, and help others.

“I tell students, find your passion and follow it. Those are the lucky people in the world,” he says of his approach. “Learn to appreciate the art of learning and challenging yourself and the rest will take care of itself.”

Kidd and his wife, Chris (BS ’81, pharmacy), have three children: Brandon (BS ’09, Japanese language and Asian studies); Morgan, a sophomore in interior design at Purdue; and Kevin, a high school senior who has been accepted into Purdue’s College of Engineering.

Linda Thomas Terhune

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awards & honors

CLEO CLEO experiment shatters publication record Particle physicists from around the world who have used the subatomic particle detector CLEO to probe the mysteries of the subatomic world are celebrating their 500th academic paper submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. This number of papers, officials say, sets a new world record for a particle physics scientific collaboration.

Purdue faculty, postdoctoral students and graduate students are leading members of CLEO. Physicists David Miller and Ian Shipsey have served as spokespersons of the

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collaboration. Shipsey and Purdue graduate student Box Xin, Cornell faculty member Ritchie Patterson and Cornell graduate student Laura Fields were the analysis team that produced the 500th paper.

ysis hub for the more than 800 U.S. physicists in the CMS collaboration.

“The LHC is an unprecedented project,” Shipsey was quoted as saying in the Fermilab newsletter.

“There has never been a machine like this; there has never been a Shipsey spent the 2009-10 acachallenge this complex. It’s a bit demic year as co-coordinator of the like in the old days when people LHC Physics Center (known as the gathered to build a cathedral, to creLPC) at Fermilab. The center works with the US CMS Remote Operations ate something that transcends the people working on it. To be a part Center, accesses the US CMS Tier-1 of this human story, as it’s being Fermilab Computing Center, and serves as a resource and physics anal- written, is incredibly exciting.”

Awards and Honors

AAAS Fellows

Ahmed Elmagarmid, professor of computer science

Six faculty members from the College of Science were among eight at Purdue elected as fellows into the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for 2010:

and director of the Cyber Center in Discovery Park, is a 2009 recipient of an ACM Distinguished Membership given by the Association for Computing Machinery to members who have made significant contributions to the computing industry and have had at least 15 years of professional experience.

Joseph Francisco, the William E. Moore Distinguished

Professor of Chemistry and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has been named president of the American Chemical Society. He is the second African-American, but the first from academia, named as president of the society, which has more than 160,000 members in chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields. Francisco succeeds 2009 president Thomas Lane, a director with the Dow Corning Corp. and a 1974 Purdue chemistry graduate.

Greg Frederickson, professor of computer sciences,

won the Mathematical Association of America’s 2009 George Pólya Award, which is given for articles of “expository excellence” published in the College of Mathematics Journal. Frederickson received the award for his 2008 article “Designing a Table Both Swinging and Stable.” He also received the award in 2004.

Kevin Gurney, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, has received Sigma Xi’s 2010 Young Investigator Award in the physical sciences.

Svitlana Mayboroda, assistant professor of mathemat-

ics, has received a 2010 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship. The fellowships are awarded to early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise. Mayboroda’s research focuses on partial differential equations and harmonic analysis.

Eugene Spafford, professor of computer science

and executive director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, has been named a Distinguished Fellow of the Information Systems Security Association.

Wojciech Szpankowski, the Saul Rosen Professor of

Computer Science, is a 2009 recipient of the Humboldt Research Award. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany gives this award to nominees who have had a significant impact on academics in their discipline and are expected to continue providing cutting-edge discoveries during their careers.

William Zinsmeister, professor of earth and atmo-

spheric sciences, received the Gilbert Harris Award from the Geological Society of America. The award is presented in recognition of lifetime achievement and excellence in systematic paleontology by the Paleontological Research Institution.

Donna Fekete, professor

of biological sciences Jonathan Harbor, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences Anant K. Ramdas, the Lark-Horovitz

Distinguished Professor of Physics Marcy Hamby Towns, associate

professor of chemical education Jeffrey Vitter, Texas A&M University, former dean of the College of Science and currently adjunct faculty member of Purdue’s Department of Computer Science Mary J. Wirth, the W. Brooks Fortune Professor of Analytical Chemistry

NSF Early Career Awards Eight faculty members from the College of Science are among 13 faculty at Purdue to win the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development awards for 2009: Yong Chen, the Miller

Family Assistant Professor of Nanoscience and Physics Matthew Jones, associate professor of physics Kevin Gurney, associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and agronomy Krista Nichols, assistant professor of biological sciences Dev Niyogi, assistant professor of agronomy and earth and atmospheric sciences Chen Yang, assistant professor of physical chemistry Dabao Zhang, assistant professor of statistics Xiangyu Zhang, assistant professor of computer science

2009 Purdue Science Journalism Laureates The laureates are selected based on their reputation for thought-provoking work and aptitude for translating scientific discoveries into a format the public can easily understand.

K. John Morrow Jr., author and freelance writer.

Susan Hassler, member of Institute

of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a science and technology editor and journalist.

Kevin Maney, independent journalist, author and consultant.

Peter Winter, editor of “The

Burrill Report,” which analyzes the business and financial progress of the biotechnology sector.

Rita Colwell (BS ’56, bacteriology; MS ’58, genetics; HDR ’93; PhD ’61, oceanography, University of Washington), distinguished professor at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been named the 2010 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate.

Colwell is widely recognized as one of this century’s most influential voices in science, technology, and policy associated with water and health. She has made exceptional contributions to control the spread of cholera. Through her groundbreaking research, innovations and decades of scientific leadership, she has defined our current understanding of the ecology of infectious diseases and developed the use of advanced technologies to halt their spread. Her work has established the basis for environmental and infectious disease risk assessment used around the world. Colwell was the first woman to be named director of the National Science Foundation, which she led from 1998 to 2004.

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class notes

Bonnie S. Schnitta (BS ’73, math-

1960s

George Somkuti (MS ‘63, science;

PhD ‘66, agriculture), Lansdale, Pennsylvania, was one of the 2009 recipients of the “Outstanding Food Science Award” from Purdue’s Department of Food Science. He was recognized for his careerlong research on the enzymology George Somkuti (MS and molecular ‘63; PhD ‘66) receives biology of lactic the Outstanding Food fermentation Science Award from Suzanne Nielsen, head bacteria used of Purdue’s Department in dairy food of Food Science. production. In October 2009. recognition of his research contributions, he was also given honorary membership by the Hungarian Society for Microbiology in October 2009. For the past 35 years, he has served as research leader/lead scientist at the Eastern Regional Research Center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Wyndmoor, PA.

1970s

L. Brian Rush (BS ’70, mathemat-

ics), Santa Ana, California, was elected president of the Orange County/Long Beach Chapter of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Clyde W. Holsapple (BS

‘72, mathematics; MS ‘75 computer science; MBA ‘77 management) holds the Rosenthal Endowed Chair in Management Information Systems in the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics and was recently inducted as a fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute.

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ematics), East Hampton, New York, announces that her company, SoundSense, LLC, recently became certified as a WomanOwned Business Enterprise.

Dean G. Assimos (BS’74, Pre-

medicine), Winston-Salem, North Carolina, received the Distinguished Past Scholar Award from the American Urological Association Foundation. The award was based on dean’s accomplishments in advancing new discoveries in the field of urology and being a mentor to young physician scientists.

Jeff Ahbe (BS ’76, earth sciences; MS ’78, earth sciences) is CEO/president of Ahbe Capital, which advises and invests in private equity investments.

1990s

Jon R. Ferency (BS ’90 math-

ematics, MBA ’06 management) became director of alumni relations for Purdue’s Krannert School of Management in August 2009.

Julie Parsons (BS ’93, mathemat-

ics) was named to the Crain’s Top 40 under 40 in Chicago. She works for Allstate Corp. as the vice president for the consumer household business unit.

Budhendra Bhaduri (PhD ’98,

1980s

Larry Peterson (MS ’81, com-

puter science; PhD ’85, computer science), the Robert E. Kahn Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University, was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is being honored for his contributions to the design, implementation and deployment of networked software systems.

Christopher B. Nelson (BS ’86,

biology) serves as a senior director for international medical affairs and policy at Merck’s Vaccines & Infectious Disease Division.

Nazeh Ben Ammar (BS ’89, math-

ematics; BS ’89, IE), Tunis, Tunisia, was elected president of the Tunisian American Chamber of Commerce TACC, a non-governmental organization to encourage networking among businesspeople.

earth and atmospheric sciences) has been selected to serve a threeyear term on the Mapping Science Committee of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Bhaduri is the leader of the Geographic Information Science & Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and a founding member of the Department of Energy’s Geospatial Sciences Steering Committee for ORNL.

2000s

Matthew Feldmann (BS ’03, mathe-

matics) is pursuing a graduate degree at the University of California, Irvine.

Todd McCready

(BS ’06, chemistry) and his wife Caitlin (BS ’07, SLA) live in Indianapolis.

Todd earned a degree in music education from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in May 2009 and is now assistant band director at Riverside Junior High School.

Robert O. Wente (BS ’41, econom-

ics), Reston, Virginia. Mar. 26, 2009.

Mona Frangos (BS ’41, science),

Missoula, Montana. Oct. 28, 2009.

L. Marshall Welch (MS ’41,

Births Ken Smiley (MS ’95, statistics) and

Christine Smiley (MS ’95, statistics), a son, Trevory Michael. Sept. 21.

Laura C. Hart (BS ’99, biology), a daughter, Stella Jean. Sept. 10.

Jeffrey Norton (BS ’93, computer science, MS ’98) and Diane (Feutz) Norton (A ’95, DVM ’98), Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a son, Maxwell Simon.

May 19. Max joins sisters Amelia, Elizabeth, and Julie, and brother Jack.

Marriages

chemistry, PhD ’42, Chemical Engineering). Mar. 20, 2009.

George M. Rothrock (PhD ’45, chemistry), Clover, South Carolina.

Jan. 31, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Betty.

Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jan. 6, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Wanda (BS ’49, Science).

pre-1980 programs) Rochester, New York. Mar. 10, 2009. She is survived by her husband, Geodeminas (MS ’57, Chemistry).

Donna L. (Harvey) Helms

Philip M. Lee (BS ’58, industrial

(BS ’46, biology), Greensboro, North Carolina. July 8, 2009.

economics), Campbellsville, Kentucky. Feb. 15, 2009.

and Jenna Hoelscher (BS’09, Biology). July 18.

Garland, Texas. Feb. 18, 2009.

Zachary E. Tatlock (BS ’07, computer

(BS ’47, science), Carmel, Indiana. May 21, 2009.

Jean E. (Sanders) Pigman

(BS ’37, science), Downers Grove, Illinois. Jan. 9, 2009.

Mary Jane Bauer (BS ’39, science),

Bluffton, Indiana. July 9, 2009.

Donald R. Long (BS ’39, science),

Sun Lakes, Arizona. Sept. 1, 2009.

1940s

John Cochrun (BS ’40, science), Las

Cruces, New Mexico. Nov. 6, 2008.

Patricia V. (Wetzel) Reinis (MS ’57,

Kenneth S. Warren (PhD ’47,

Wilson L. Orr (MS ’47, chemistry),

1930s

Alfred E. Smith (BS ’52, natural science teaching), Hobart, Indiana. Mar. 27, 2009.

George J. Zissis (BS ’46, science),

Bradley J. Fetters (ME ’06)

In Memoriam

John G. Durham (BS ’52, biology), Chesterfield, Missouri. Aug. 20, 2009.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy.

Elmer W. Berrey (BS ’54, science), Brownsburg, Indiana. Aug. 1, 2009.

’00, biology) and Rich Aliano.

Sept. 29 in Lodi, California.

science) and Anne (Schwichtenberg) Tatlock. July 14 in Minnesota.

Indianapolis, Indiana. Mar. 22, 2009.

Joseph C. Touchstone (MS ’46, chemistry), Rosemont, Pennsylvania.

July 26, 2009.

chemistry), Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mar. 30, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Helen (CFS ’39).

Ann (Jacobson) Aliano (BS

Frank N. Strohm (BS ’51, science),

Helen I. (Goodwill) Slater

Roselyn M. (Montgomery) Baker

(BS ’48, interdisciplinary science), Carmel, Indiana. July 28, 2009.

She is survived by her husband, Robert (BS ’49, chemistry).

Nathan Primack (BS ’49, biology;

MS ’50, biology), San Clemente, California. Sept. 4, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Eleanor.

1950s

Elizabeth Suters (MS ’50, Pre-1980 Programs), Rockford, Illinois.

Mar. 2, 2009.

1960s

George L. Roeder (BS ’60,

mathematics; MS ’63, mathematics), Nashua, New Hampshire. Apr. 15, 2009.

Paul G. Arapakos (MS ’61,

chemistry), Kingsport, Tennessee.

Mar. 7, 2009.

Donald L. Sisloff (BS ’61, industrial economics), New Albany, Indiana. Aug. 17, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Patricia.

Michael H. Taylor (BS ’62, mathe-

matics), Austin, Texas. Jan. 25, 2009.

1980s

Jeffrey J. Quasney (BS ’88, com-

puter science), Lisle, Illinois. Aug. 23, 2009. He is survived by his wife, Susan (Dexter) (CE ’90).

2000s

Rosella M. Fields (BS ’02, biology),

Valparaiso, Indiana. Mar. 12, 2009.

spring2010 / insights

31

class notes

What the World Needs Now: Scientific Literacy Art Hobson, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Arkansas

“The life-enhancing potential of science and technology cannot be realized unless the public in general comes to understand science, mathematics, and technology and to acquire scientific habits of mind; without a scientifically literate population, the outlook for a better world is not promising.” These words appear prominently in the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Science for All Americans project. However, surveys show that adults in every nation are overwhelmingly illiterate about science.

It’s ironic that the 20th century took us to the moon but also gave us nuclear weapons, thus bringing our survival into question. Science offers the possibility that we could all live like kings and queens, yet technology and the population explosion have made the human footprint enormous and threatening. We’ve appropriated

32

insights / spring2010

40% of Earth’s plant growth, degraded 45% of the land, appropriated half of the runoff water, changed planetary chemistry by doubling Earth’s “fixed” nitrogen production, raised species extinction rates to between 100 and 1,000 times their previous rate, and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide to 39% above any level in the past 800,000 years. It’s with good reason that thoughtful scientists have dubbed the present geological epoch the “Anthropocene.” Scientists have helped create these problems, and scientists must help solve them.

Science education has a big role to play in any solution. But science education has too often meant only the education of science and technology professionals. What about the other 90 percent? They vote on such issues as global warming and species preservation. Will they “acquire scientific habits of mind,” or be scientifically illiterate?

Consider any science department within a research university. The chances are that their top priority is faculty research and graduate students. Undergraduate departmental majors, along with other science and technology students, get second priority. Scientific literacy for the other 90 percent, namely the non-scientists who will be our politicians, teachers, journalists, businesspeople, and so forth, and who will determine the direction of our culture, ranks lowest if it’s taught at all. These backward priorities are built into the hiring, promotions, salaries, and tenure of essentially all research science departments.

It’s as though we scientists were huddled in a sinking lifeboat, discussing our own research. We’d better help shore up the lifeboat!

We must find room in our curricula and in our lives to discuss the health of this rare jewel of a planet.

Art Hobson is professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas. He is the 2006 winner of the Robert A. Millikan Award given by the American Association of Physics Teachers. Hobson was recognized for his long-term commitment to expanding the target audience for physics and for emphasizing the role physics plays in the broader societal agenda. He is the author of a conceptual (non-technical) physics textbook for non-science college students, “Physics: Concepts & Connections” (Pearson/Addison-Wesley, 5th edition 2010).

Preparing Tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Leaders for a Changing World Growing up, Joseph Francisco thought college was a far-fetched dream â&#x20AC;&#x201D; until a childhood mentor encouraged him to pursue higher education. Today, as president of the American Chemical Society and William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue, he believes in stirring the imaginations of future generations with the excitement of math and science. Discover the possibilities at Purdue.

www.purdue.edu EA/EOU

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Purdue University

150 N. University Street West Lafayette, IN 47907-2067 (765) 494-1729 ScienceNews@purdue.edu www.science.purdue.edu

Students from Williams Elementary School in Gary, Indiana, spent a day in February getting up close and personal with science at Purdue. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Science with a Purpose: A Day of Explorationâ&#x20AC;? involved hands-on experience with physics, biology and chemistry experiments.

The program was led by members of the Sophomore Learning Community and students in the Women in Science Programs.

Photo courtesy of Terri Donald