UND Discovery

DISCOVERY FOCUS: RETURN ON INVESTMENT

UNDDiscovery AUTUMN 2014

Investment and impact Return on investment, or ROI, is an expression commonly used in business and finance to refer to the increase resulting from the investment of money or other resources.

While it may at first seem surprising to think of return on investment in the context of a university, it is, in reality, a critical consideration in deciding how university resources are allocated to support research and creative activity. ROI is also a critical factor used in evaluating the success of research support.

Although ROI is usually measured in dollars, we also look at it in terms of its impact on a discipline. A good example of this is the impact that our aviation programs have made around the world. We have been recognized internationally for our training programs in traditional aviation, and now with our investments in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) research, we are seeing a similar effect. In this issue of UND Discovery, we spotlight the direct and indirect returns on investment resulting from the major programs to increase research and creative activity at UND and their corresponding effects on the state.

These research investment programs can be divided into two main types: (1) those that serve as “seeds” to develop the capabilities of faculty members, and (2) those that serve to build the infrastructure of UND and other state educational institutions. In addition, we focus on specific areas of research that are poised to substantially increase their role in the University and the state.

The University uses a number of seed programs to support individual and collaborative research, including its faculty seed money program, EPSCoR (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, a collaboration between the National Science Foundation and the State of North Dakota), and the INBRE (Idea Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) and CoBRE (Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence) programs from the National Institutes of Health. These programs support new faculty and existing faculty through start-up funding and seed grants to successfully obtain external funding from many sources. With these programs we typically see ROI between five-fold and ten-fold in terms of dollars spent compared to dollars returned in successful grant proposals.

We also spotlight new areas of research with the potential to substantially increase research and recognition, including UAS-related work and the new test site, and a new spirit of cooperation between UND College of Engineering and Mines and the Energy & Environmental Research Center.

The University takes ROI very seriously since it has a major impact on our ability to obtain external funding to advance knowledge, to have an impact on the economic development of the state, and to educate our students to be successful following graduation.

Barry Milavetz Interim Vice President for Research and Economic Development

Front-end funds, back-end results Twice a year in our office, we focus on putting together the best publication we can to showcase UND’s research enterprise.

The time and resources we devote to the cause result in the fall and spring editions of this magazine, UND Discovery. We’ve been doing it faithfully since 2003. We hope you’ve enjoyed the returns on the University’s investment. It is our pleasure to present these interesting stories about our innovative cadre of artists and scientists.

Speaking of returns on investment, also known as ROI, that is exactly what this issue of UND Discovery is about. Over the next several pages, you will find examples of how University researchers and other creative thinkers are using public and private funding to discover, create and employ new and exciting advancements for the benefit of North Dakota, our nation, and in some cases, the world.

One need only look at the work of Nick Lentz in the College of Engineering and Mines.

He’s been able to parlay about $1.5 million, supplied by the North Dakota Industrial Commission as matching money to a much larger private-sector investment, into a state-of-the-art Advanced Material Characterization Lab that is poised to play a major role in enhancing the amount of recoverable oil in western North Dakota’s shale formations. See the story on Page 13.

Then there’s the pioneering work by our aviation experts at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences in the realm of unmanned flight. UND Aerospace, thanks in no small part to doses of public funding on the front end, has quickly evolved into a major hub for UAS research, education and training. And the world has taken notice of UND’s UAS Center of Excellence. Media from around the globe come here to report on the UAS juggernaut on the prairie. The UND Center also was instrumental in North Dakota recently being named one of six federally designated UAS Test Sites. Check out the stories on Pages 8, 9, and 10.

Rounding out the ROI theme, this issue also has stories of investment success from the world of Arts and Sciences, the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the Energy & Environmental Research Center.

We invite you to invest some of your own time in this issue of UND Discovery and see for yourself what returns come your way!

Thank you, David Dodds Editor, UND Discovery

IN THIS ISSUE OF

UNDDISCOVERY As much as this issue of UND Discovery is a showcase of UND’s ability to produce meaningful results from public and private investment, it also is an intriguing blend of science and art.

The cover illustration is emblematic of this idea that the creative activities of the artist, author, poet, designer and musician are every bit as important to the University’s diverse fabric of research and scholarly achievement as the mechanical engineer, astrophysicist, biologist, or atmospheric scientist (all featured in this issue).

The illustration shows a portion of an artistic wall-sized rendering of the Periodic Table of Elements (see the article on Page 23). It is displayed in the north lobby of Abbott Hall, home of the UND Chemistry Department. The project was spearheaded by the UND Undergraduate Chemistry Club and is infused with artistic interpretations of science and pop culture based on each of the 118 known elements. Many of the elements are identifiable without much difficulty, but others force the viewer to stretch the imagination a bit more or, in the case of the newest synthetic elements, delve into some research.

North Dakota gets its nod with a play on the element rhodium (Rh, atomic number 45), calling to mind “roads” and the state’s familiar road sign.

Arsenic (33) is quickly identified with the play and movie, “Arsenic and Old Lace.” The depiction of einsteinium (99) is more subtle, but with a recognizable abstract interpretation of the physicist’s famed hair and mustache.

Rubidium (37) suggests Rubik’s Cube, while krypton (36) plays on its association with comic book hero Superman. The synthetic element darmstadtium (Ds, 110, on the cover) was named for the place of its discovery, Darmstadt, Germany. It is represented on the mural with that city’s coat of arms. ��������������������������������������������������������������� The project, a collaborative effort of the Departments of Chemistry and Art and Design, was dedicated on Oct. 10, 2014, as part of the UND Art Collections “Living Museum Across the Campus and Beyond.”

Likewise, in this issue of UND Discovery, you will find, intermixed with all of the hard-science stuff, plenty of stories that focus on the artistic side of UND’s research community. These include everything from the acclaimed UND Student String Quartet heading west to perform in North Dakota’s oil patch to a story about UND Art and Design efforts to restore lost or damaged masterpieces on campus.

UND Discovery is published by the Office of the Vice President for Research & Economic Development, with assistance from the Division of University & Public Affairs. Editor: David Dodds. Contributors: Brian Johnson, Juan Miguel Pedraza, David Dodds, Amy Halvorson, Kate Menzies, Derek Walters (EERC), and Kari Suedel (EERC). Principal photography by Jackie Lorentz and Shawna Noel Schill. Please send inquiries and comments to the Office of the Vice President for Research & Economic Development, University of North Dakota, 264 Centennial Drive Stop 8367, Grand Forks, ND 58202-8367. UND is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.

UND.edu/research

AUTUMN 2014

2 Telltale tweets – Social networks offer new opportunities for crisis communication.

3 Dirty work: science below the surface – Soil is North Dakota’s most important resource.

4 INBRE: the “ripple” effect – This major program seeks to spur participation in biomedicine fields and more.

5 EPSCoR: right on track – UND and NDSU collaborate to promote high-quality science in North Dakota.

6 An energizing match – Energy Research Day highlights facilities and programs.

8 Unparalleled and soaring – UND’s unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) activities draw international attention.

10 Onward and upward – A new building, Robin Hall, will house UAS, Aerospace research and education.

11 Maximizing the state’s oil play – The Advanced Material Characterization Lab enhances prospects for oil development.

12 Rescued art – An unexpected gift enlarges UND’s art collection and expands student learning opportunities.

13 Sudden impact – Rapid development creates the need for an improved human services foundation in the state’s oil patch.

14 Tempests in the tropics – The different nature of tropical storms poses new challenges for UAS use and training.

15 Book notes – Rebecca Weaver-Hightower explores the influence of cinema on attitudes.

16 Book notes – David Whalen traces the early history of the satellite communication revolution.

17 A “hole-in-one” discovery – An international team reports the discovery of the largest black hole yet.

18 Rock-solid mysteries – A new lab seeks to unlock climate clues from glacial rock samples.

19 Games on the brain – A UND team is recognized for pioneering work in applying a video game to science education.

20 Strings in Oil Country – A talented quartet of UND musicians from places afar delight North Dakota audiences.

21 Home for autumn – Grand Forks native Matthew Peterson has achieved international recognition as a young composer.

22 Alumni impact: Kathryn Uhrich – A UND graduate is named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.

23 Tech Accelerator: full speed ahead – The REAC 1 building gets a new name more reflective of its mission.

23 It’s elemental! – Science and art blend for an installation in the lobby of Abbott Hall, UND’s chemistry building.

24 Spotlight on students Focus on faculty (INSIDE BACK COVER) UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 1

Faculty seed money augments a UND scholar’s research on “people as sensors” and the Twitter sphere as a medium for crisis communication.

Telltale tweets

By Brian Johnson

PHOTO BY CHUCK KIMMERLE

PAGE 2 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

North Dakota has a reputation for extreme weather — there’s no doubt about it.

The state has seen its share of flooding over the years, and the cold weather has become something of a hallmark.

Andrei Kirilenko, a researcher at the University of North Dakota, has had his share of cold memories since his arrival here in 2006.

The Moscow, Russia, native remembers the day that he was photographed by the Grand Forks Herald in a field in the dead of winter.

His experience with Russian winters didn’t make it any more bearable.

“That’s a common misconception about Russians,” Kirilenko laughed. “In Russia, we are taught to fear the cold. We always overdress for the weather.”

Kirilenko’s research since joining the UND Department of Earth System Science and Policy may help North Dakotans during future extreme weather — or disaster — conditions.

Much of his research has been focused on climate change impacts in the region. Specifically, he’s been studying the Devils Lake, N.D., watershed, the resulting change in land use, and future scenarios that may result.

But currently, Kirilenko is focusing on crisis communication, which has gone through remarkable changes in recent years with the rise of social media.

“The social networks present an interesting, large source of information — especially now with mobile phones,” said Kirilenko.

“People act as sensors of the environment, and you can observe what they are talking about.”

Kirilenko decided to specifically analyze the social media platform Twitter, and he received a Faculty Seed Money Program award to kick-start his research. The seed money allows him to try something new, collect data, and do a pilot study. If the results are promising, Kirilenko will apply for larger grants.

“This is a new and interesting area of research,” he said. “An interesting study was done in Japan on earthquakes, and scientists

were able to detect 96 percent of quakes intensity scale 3 or more with speed comparable with the Japan Meteorological Agency and send the warnings to people.”

Another study on information, about the spread of flu in the United States, found that Twitter information circulates at essentially the same rate as Centers for Disease Control (CDC) messages, said Kirilenko. Last year the CDC challenged researchers to work on flu prediction using social network data. These days, the network people normally use to proclaim their love of a television show or what they ate for breakfast also can double as a disaster warning system, he noted.

The major task during any disaster is delivering crucial information to people and agencies that need it. A new field of study called Kirilenko “disaster informatics” — the study of the use of information and technology during various phases of disasters and other emergencies — has prompted scientists to look at how people discuss substantial events using social media, particularly Twitter.

At its crux, Twitter is about people describing what is happening, when and where it is happening, and how they feel about what is happening. It’s a natural looking glass for researchers to study spatial distribution and temporal dynamics during times of crises.

“Twitter is a type of communication that prompts a person to write condensed texts right after an event has occurred, which is useful to a researcher,” said Kirilenko. “So you have this immediacy that doesn’t occur in other forms of social networking.”

Along with critical timeliness, Twitter offers a variety of information, everything from disaster events to donations needed.

“I came across a tweet about the need for wedding gowns,” said Kirilenko. “People had their wedding attire ruined because of flood events, and people reached out for donations.

Everything is on Twitter.”

Kirilenko has collected the data for his study — roughly 1 million tweets. He is filtering his tweet collection through a database and has whittled it down to about 200,000. He will classify and study that batch and should have definitive results early next year.

Kirilenko’s work may provide state agencies with the data necessary for more efficient communication channels in times of crises or in the case of hazardous road conditions.

For the communities thriving in North Dakota’s unforgiving landscape, the payoff could be extreme. n

Dirty work: science below the surface Start-up money gives biologist Brian Darby and his students a jump-start to toil in the soil.

By Brian Johnson Most of us outgrow the impulse to play with dirt at a fairly young age.

Aside from extraordinary moments like military basic training or Woodstock, we try to avoid dirt whenever possible.

But the dirt — and the microorganisms that live in it — is worthy of more attention than most people are willing to admit. It is essential for human survival and a staple of the economy.

“I like to say that the most important resource in this state ends with O-I-L,” said University of North Dakota biologist Brian Darby. “It’s not oil. It’s soil, and we need to figure out how to take care of it while meeting our agricultural demands.”

Darby began focusing on soil science at Northwestern College in his home state of Iowa. During a research experience for undergraduates, he heard something that sparked his interest in the subject.

“We were told that soil nematodes consume as much plant biomass below ground as bison or grasshoppers do above ground,” said Darby. “My first thought was, ‘How did I not hear about this before?’ This seems like a pretty significant thing.

“My next thought was, ‘What’s a nematode?’”

These worm-like organisms are the most numerous multicellular animals on the planet and are found in nearly every ecosystem.

Darby spent his graduate school years becoming an expert in the subject, focusing on nematode taxonomy and ecology. After his stint as a post-doctoral researcher at Kansas State University, he came to UND, which happens to be firmly planted atop of the world’s richest soil.

North Dakota is an agricultural state.

There’s no question about it. We rely on the microbial systems in our soil. They recycle the nutrients that become available for the plants.

They fix the nitrogen. They mediate a lot of the plant and fungal interactions.

Darby is focused on understanding and taking care of those systems with the help of a recent “Start-Up” award from ND EPSCoR

(North Dakota Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research).

Researchers at small-state institutions, such as UND, compete on a challenging playing field. The Start-Up definitely helps to level matters, said Darby. That’s because federal agencies know that a scientist’s work is worth funding when institutions put resources behind it to get started.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

Brian Darby: “The most important resource in this state ends with O-I-L. It’s not oil. It’s soil, and we need to figure out how to take care of it while meeting our agricultural demands.”

Most of the Start-Up money was used to purchase new equipment and consumables that answer ecological questions with molecular and genomic techniques.

“Soil science used to be about the chemical and physical environment of the soil,” said Darby. “Now, because of genetic and genomic tools, we’re able to access more information about the biological world in the soil. That’s where I step into it.”

Darby has a group of students stepping in with him.

A graduate student is currently working on the main project, sequencing the genome of Oscheius tipulae. Oscheius tipulae is a nematode that often occurs in patches of highly enriched soil, such as compost or dung patties.

It is able to tolerate whatever North Dakota throws at it, like extreme heat, desiccation and freezing. Performing a gene expression analysis in these intense environments helps Darby and the students understand the genes that have tolerance to these conditions.

Additionally, Darby has a graduate student studying environmental phosphorus and nitrogen enrichment, two undergraduates working on characterizing gene flow of muskrats in eastern North Dakota, one undergraduate sequencing the soil microbial community at Oakville Prairie near Grand Forks, and another undergraduate attempting to sequence and identify the endophytic fungi associated with cool-season grasses.

“Half of my contract is teaching and half of it is research,” said Darby. “On any given day, I can get a lot out of either one of them.”

Will Beaton, a wildlife and fisheries biology major and editor-in-chief of The Dakota Student newspaper at UND, is working on the soil sequencing at Oakville Prairie, one of UND’s field station research sites. He’s been able to apply what he has learned in class to Darby’s lab work, and vice versa.

“Having hands-on experience on actual scientific research not only helps me understand concepts better, but it also gets me to care about them on a personal level,” said Beaton, a Grand Forks native. “Instead of shoveling information in, memorizing it, and regurgitating it for an exam, I understand how these things work so I can follow along and even suggest changes to our research.” n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 3

Spurring research

Thanks to major NIH funding, INBRE enables the School of Medicine and Health Sciences to provide mentoring on research and career development across the educational spectrum in North Dakota.

By sharing resources and providing assistance, ND INBRE increases research in North Dakota and develops interest in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.

Yearlong research programs have been established at all four of the PUIs and at two of the tribal colleges. Undergraduates at all of the institutions are producing presentations and publication quality research.

The research being conducted varies widely, from “Ghrelin Interaction with Genetic Risk Factors of Methamphetamine Addiction” to “Mercury in Fish from the Sakakawea Reservoir.”

“It’s amazing what students learn from this,” said Donald Sens, professor of pathology at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences and INBRE’s principal investigator.

Showcasing the work

the “ripple” effect

ND INBRE has established a summer undergraduate biomedical research program at UND called Research Experience For UND Undergraduates (REFUNDU).

The Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium has also been established, as well as the North Dakota Tribal College Research Symposium, where ND INBRE undergraduate researchers can network and showcase their research efforts with all of the ND INBRE partners.

“When we go to the annual symposium, it really is amazing to watch students stand up and present and defend their data against faculty members,” Sens said. “You just say, ‘Wow, this was worth it.’”

Returns on investment

By Amy Halvorson The University of North Dakota recently received a five-year award for $16,799,671 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support ND INBRE (pronounced “in-BRAY”). ND INBRE is the North Dakota IDeA (Institutional Development Award) Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. A major goal of ND INBRE is to prepare the workforce pipeline of the next generation of health professionals and researchers in the biomedical and behavioral sciences.

UND’s role

UND, through its School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), was selected as the research university to provide mentoring and career development activities for faculty and students at other North Dakota universities and colleges. The money will create and maintain hands-on research experiences for North Dakota undergraduates. The program gives students the opportunity to work on research as undergraduates and add that valuable experience to their résumés.

Who’s involved?

ND INBRE is a collaborative effort of many North Dakota universities and colleges. The following are assisted by the ND INBRE grant:

• Research Intensive (RI) — University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University • Primary Undergraduate Institutions (PUI) — Mayville State University, Valley City State University, Minot State University and Dickinson State University • Tribal Colleges — Cankdeska Cikana Community College, Fort Berthold Community College, Turtle Mountain Community College, United Tribes Technical College, and Sitting Bull College • Community Colleges — Bismarck State College, Dakota College at Bottineau, Lake Region State College, North Dakota State College of Science and Williston State College

PAGE 4 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

• Since the program began, more than 500 North Dakota undergraduates have participated for at least a 10-week period during the summer performing undergraduate research. This has led to approximately 500 poster presentations and 100 peer-reviewed publications. Of the students who have participated in ND INBRE and completed their bachelor’s degree, 54 percent are either in or have completed advanced degree programs.

• ND INBRE has been assisting North Dakota high schools and middle schools by paying all of the students’ state and regional science fair registration fees. At Schroeder Middle School in Grand Forks, ND INBRE provided busing for UND undergraduate students to help judge the students’ projects.

• By being a part of the ND INBRE grant, UND has been able to receive other prestigious grants. ND INBRE assisted Jacque Gray, UND associate professor in rural health, in her successful effort to establish the UND SMHS Seven Generations Center of Excellence in Native American Behavioral Health through support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources Services Administration.

• The success of ND INBRE also supported a successful application

by Cynthia Lindquist and Lane Azure of Cankdeska Cikana Community College to establish a Native American Research Center for Health (NARCH), named Cankdeska Cikana NARCH: Health and the Environment. Both of these multimillion-dollar awards are highly competitive and illustrate the impact of the IDeA program in priming the research and health professional pipeline.

• ND INBRE has helped establish core facilities at UND, which all of the partner schools are welcome to use. UND’s facilities are now better designed for researching flow cytometry, cell sorting and bioinformatics. In addition, UND is in the process of becoming better geared for metal and environmental analysis, as well as animal behavior research.

• Equipment is one of the biggest costs and obstacles when it comes to research, and ND INBRE has enabled North Dakota schools to buy several pieces of critical equipment and associated attachments.

SMHS support In a show of strong support, the SMHS has been adding an extra $80,000 to $100,000 on top of the ND INBRE funding for the summer research program at UND. “Without their support,” said Sens, “this program wouldn’t have happened.”

In the future, ND INBRE would like to further involve the community colleges by recruiting the students interested in STEM into its summer programs and by increasing mentoring and career development opportunities for the students during the academic year. They would also like to expand and help sustain the undergraduate research programs at the tribal colleges.

ND INBRE also hopes to initiate a certificate program in biologi-

cal data sciences to encourage North Dakota students and faculty to become proficient in data mining and the handling of large sets of data.

The ND INBRE Mentoring Team

• Cankdeska Cikana Community College: Lane Azure (vice president for academic affairs), math and program coordinator.

• UND SMHS: Associate Professor Van Doze (pharmacology, physiology and therapeutics), Associate Professor Jane Dunlevy (anatomy and cell biology), Associate Professor Scott Garrett (pathology), Associate Professor Seema Somji (pathology), Associate Professor Jacque Gray (rural health), and Assistant Professor Kurt Zhang (pathology).

n

EPSCoR: right on track UND-NDSU collaborative research efforts produce high-quality science where it matters: in North Dakota.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza In its national mission statement, the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR promises to “strengthen research and education in science and engineering throughout the United States.” That, in fact, is what EPSCoR — the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research — was chartered to do.

Why? “To help states like ours compete with concentrated research capabilities in places such as California, Massachusetts and New York,” said North Dakota EPSCoR associate project director Mark Hoffmann, a Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in the University of North Dakota Department of Chemistry.

“EPSCoR’s stated aim is to avoid undue concentration of such research and education,” said Hoffmann, an internationally renowned theoretical computational chemist.

“Really, we’re all about stimulating innovation and competitiveness in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” Hoffmann said. “We want our people to be able to

compete for merit-based grants and contracts in support of research from federal funding agencies.”

The news this season is that the North Dakota EPSCoR program was awarded fiveyear funding —UND and North Dakota State University $10 million each — for “Track 1,” which began on Aug. 1.

A state match and synergistic funding is added to the base federal funding, totaling another $10 million. It is all part of a program dubbed “INSPIRE-ND,” or Innovative and Strategic Program Initiatives for Research and Education – North Dakota.

“This is the core program that keeps a lot of things that EPSCoR does going,” said Hoffmann, whose own program of research takes him into a field of atmospheric chemistry that only a handful of people globally can comprehend.

Hoffmann, who came to UND in 1988 shortly after completing his Ph.D. at the University of California-Berkeley, says EPSCoR, with its special pool of funding, is undeniably a catalyst for young researchers.

For the past two Track 1 programs, the UND-led portion was SUNRISE — Sustainable eNergy Research, Infrastructure and Supporting Education program — a multi-institution, multidisciplinary cluster of researchers sharing expertise and resources for the benefit of the state’s two primary economic sectors: agriculture and energy.

In the latest Track 1 effort, the UND-led portion supports regional climate studies, featuring a collaboration between the UND Departments of Atmospheric Sciences and Earth System Science and Policy (both part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences), and the UND Department of Chemical Engineering (part of the College of Engineering and Mines), as well as several departments at NDSU. The $10 million, five-year NDSU-led

portion of the current Track 1 program is in sustainable material science. The NDSU-led cluster also includes the participation of UND researchers.

“We continue to get funded in this tough competitive environment,” said Hoffmann, “because, I think, the National Science Foundation is very favorably impressed by the cohesiveness of our efforts and because we hit the state fidelity part very well. We’re not just doing high-quality science that matters, we’re doing the science where it matters.”

That means doing science in North Dakota that will help the next-generation agricultural and water management planning for the state.

“What we were trying to answer with the research projects that we proposed — and that were funded — is what basic science do we need to perform to position North Dakota well for the biochemical feedstocks that will be needed 20 to 30 years down the road,” Hoffmann said.

Yes, there is a Track 2, but this isn’t a program where the number indicates a mandatory sequence.

“Track 1 and Track 2 refer to types of programs, not a programming sequence,” Hoffmann said. “Our Track 2 — about $3 million over three years split between UND and NDSU — is for research in lignin, which is derived from wood and crop residue.”

A vital part of the current EPSCoR grant series is outreach and education.

“We want to encourage underrepresented groups, especially Native Americans, to develop careers in the physical sciences and engineering,” he said.

Overall the program’s success has attained ongoing recognition from lawmakers.

“Both sides of the aisle in Congress support EPSCoR funding because they see the value in it, and therefore, support it,” Hoffmann said. n UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 5

An energizing match UND’s EERC and College of Engineering and Mines hold their first-ever Energy Research Day to foster stronger collaborations.

By David Dodds and Derek Walters

EERC Director Tom Erickson guides a tour through portions of the Center’s technology demonstration facilities (top), including its newest demonstration building, the Fuels of the Future Facility (above).

Photos by Kari Suedel, EERC graphic designer.

PAGE 6 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

The University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), along with the College of Engineering and Mines (CEM), presented an Energy Research Day as a step toward stronger partnerships between the two major research hubs.

Energy Research Day was an opportunity for UND students, faculty and staff to learn about current CEM and EERC projects and to explore the potential for collaborative activities regarding energy-related research.

The Energy Research Day featured tours and project exhibits at CEM and the EERC. “We are committed to strengthening strategic collaboration between the EERC and the UND College of Engineering and Mines,” said Tom Erickson, EERC director. “The

open exchange of information between our organizations will foster a positive working relationship and possibly lead to the initiation of future energy-related projects.”

More than 200 people from around the campus community participated in the events, which took place in early September.

“Perhaps the biggest positive from the event was to fully demonstrate to faculty and researchers from CEM that under EERC’s new leadership the doors are wide open for collaboration,” said Michael Mann, UND professor of chemical engineering and a co-planner of the Energy Research Day activities.

Areas highlighted included the EERC’s Bakken Production Optimization and Bakken CO2 Enhanced Oil Recovery Programs, the Plains CO2 Reduction Partnership Program, analytical and physical characterization for the petroleum industry, the Natural Materials Analytical Research Laboratory, and renewable energy activities.

The CEM featured the CACHYS CO2 Capture Program, the Autolab for the testing of cores for oil recovery, the energy and environmental test facilities, and the Advanced Material Characterization Laboratory.

A significant portion of the CEM research portfolio is in the area of energy, Mann explained. Examples are fuels and chemicals from biomass materials, environmental control including mercury and CO2, understanding the shale formations of western North Dakota with the goal of enhancing oil recovery, and a wide range of renewable energy technologies. Research in advanced materials also crosses both entities.

“Most of the activities in the CEM are focused on fundamental to applied research, where new concepts are conceived and proved, Mann said. “The strength of the EERC is to take these technologies through demonstration and commercialization. I see our greatest synergism is the capability and expertise to take a technology from an idea to a commercial venture.”

Mann added that the Institute for Energy Studies, administered out of the CEM, was established to bring together researchers from across campus, including the EERC, to work on complex issues. Because each unit brings different strengths, UND has the potential to address many complex issues facing the state and the nation, he said.

Erickson agreed, saying that, while the EERC and the CEM have different missions, there are several intersections in common.

“This event was focused on encouraging discussions to capitalize on the benefits of those common activities,” he said. “Numerous discussions are taking place right now between researchers at the EERC and the CEM faculty regarding future proposal submissions in a variety of areas.”

Several other discussions between the

EERC and UND departments are ongoing as well, including sharing professional expertise, shared equipment usage and instrument maintenance, utilization of EERC personnel for teaching classes, and efforts to expand opportunities for CEM students at the EERC, Erickson added.

CEM Dean Hesham El-Rewini said that he and Erickson have agreed to conduct periodic meetings to ensure that collaboration between the two is moving in the right direction.

“The Energy Research Day is just the beginning,” says El-Rewini. “I strongly believe that as we continue to work collaboratively together, our two organizations will become stronger by utilizing the talents and expertise that both the College of Engineering and Mines and the EERC bring to the table. UND will be in a great position to make long-lasting contributions to solving grand challenges in energy and sustainability facing our region, nation, and the world.” n

The three-level portable lab for the CACHYS project is located next to UND’s steam generation plant, which is used as a source for testing flue gas streams.

ABOVE: Peng Pei, a research scientist with the CEM’s Institute for Energy Studies (IES), leads a tour of the autolab used for characterization of core samples to enhance oil recovery. BELOW LEFT: Dennis Laudal, IES research scientist, showcases CO2 capture equipment for the CACHYS program. BELOW RIGHT: Chad Wocken, senior research manager, provides information about EERC activities in renewable energy, biomass utilization, and alternative fuels. All photos by Kari Suedel, EERC.

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 7

UNPARALLELED AND SOARING

David Dvorak, founder of Field of View LLC, and fellow engineer Kaci Lemler produce UAS camera systems specifically designed for use in agricultural and aerial imaging. Photograph by Juan Miguel Pedraza.

UND’s unmanned aircraft systems center of excellence is the envy of the world in a sky’s-the-limit industry that’s now just getting off the ground.

PAGE 8 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

By Juan Miguel Pedraza When he first came to the University of North Dakota, David Dvorak dreamed about building cool jet fighters.

Instead, in an office park south of Grand Forks, Dvorak now runs his own business, Field of View LLC, where he and fellow engineer Kaci Lemler produce camera systems that are specifically designed for use in agricultural aerial imaging on unmanned aircraft.

The third member of Field of View is Danny Hajicek, a test engineer who does software coding remotely from California.

They connected with their careers in one of the world’s hottest industries — unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, often dubbed “drones” by the media — as a direct result of their education and training at the University of North Dakota.

UND is a global leader in UAS. In a multidisciplinary, collaborative effort centered at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, UND is setting a blistering pace of innovation in this field.

“We got an excellent education in this field, including a lot of hands-on work,” said Dvorak, a St. Cloud, Minn., native who started the company after he and his team won an Innovate ND Business Plan Competition in 2011. “We launched Field of View as a company that would build and deploy UAS that could survey agricultural crops.”

For Lemler, a Buxton, N.D., native who double-majored in mechanical engineering and mathematics, the UAS light came on during an academic counseling session with Will Semke, a UND mechanical engineering professor, near the end of her sophomore year.

“Dr. Semke asked me if I wanted a summer job, and he got me into the UAS engineering project,” said Lemler, who was home-schooled but also did 90 credits of college courses during her high school years.

“At that point I had no idea what UAS was; I was completely new to the scene,” she said.

“Later, as part of my master’s degree, I wrote my thesis on UAS. My senior design project, as an undergraduate, was on a project with Lockheed Martin to build a search-and-rescue payload for their Desert Hawk UAS.” The Field of View trio and several other students made waves not long ago when they won a cash prize as part of an international UAS competition in Australia that stumped all the other participants. The goal of that competition was to locate a life-sized dummy known as “Outback Joe” and then deliver him a water bottle.

Today, Field of View — with its original roadmap altered to reflect regulatory challenges — focuses on designing and building payloads that are used by other UAS companies.

All three of these young engineer-entrepreneurs are graduates of the UND College of

World-class operation What is a UAS? There is no single, all-encompassing definition. Some folks call them drones, others call them unmanned aerial vehicles, while at UND, they’re consistently referred to as unmanned aircraft systems, or simply UAS. UND offers the country’s first UAS Operations degree, with a curriculum that offers breadth and depth of instruction needed to ensure graduates are prepared to work as pilots/operators and/or developmental team members of UAS teams.

Folks like Ben Trapnell and Michael Corcoran — just two of the marvelously adept UND UAS faculty members — take students on a ride through the world of UAS that promises untold opportunities.

Think we’re exaggerating?

Check out the media coverage of UND UAS in the last couple of years: from all over the world, closing in on 100 media contacts, requests for interviews, and TV news presentations.

For example, a recent issue of Popular Science reports on an interview with UND Center for UAS Research, Education and Training Director Al Palmer. He’s also quoted on camera in an extensive recent video story about UAS by the United Kingdom’s largest commercial television network.

The UND Center for UAS Research, Education and Training, established in 2006, is a key link between private industry and UAS researchers. The Center promotes commercialization of new UAS-related products and services while bringing new UAS-related business ventures to North Dakota, notes Palmer, a 30-year-plus veteran of UND Aerospace.

“Our most important goals are to create a world-class infrastructure for UAS development, testing and evaluation,” said Palmer. “We also want to create the finest

PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

Engineering and Mines: Dvorak and Lemler in mechanical engineering, and Hajicek, a Fargo native, in electrical engineering. All three hold UND engineering master’s degrees in their respective fields.

Opportunities abound through UND’s UAS training and education, says Dvorak. “I got interested in UAS after going to the UAS Summit in Grand Forks in 2007,” he said.

“There was a presentation about a UAS designed to take pictures of crops so farmers can save money, increase yields and reduce environmental impact. I found that pretty compelling,” Dvorak continued. “Then I was made the lead on a student team that was designing a precision agriculture payload. That effort was part of the College of Engineering and Mines’ UAS Engineering group under (Semke) and the late Dr. Richard Schultz. I worked with the team to design a payload designed to look at plant stress.”

The work in unmanned aircraft systems being carried out at the University of North Dakota has drawn international interest. Above, Marie Klareskov, a TV photographer for the Danish Broadcast Corp., films UND students Meg Kaiser and Andrew Regenhard with the “hexicopter” they built in a class.

training program of its kind anywhere in the world.”

Hub of collaboration Those goals are closely tied with the Center’s aim of promoting commercialization and stimulating private-sector job growth throughout the region. This UND Center of Excellence performs research and development on UAS technologies, applications and human factors issues, and encourages commercialization of new UAS-related products and services. The UAS Center also focuses on education and training for UAS integration into the national airspace system. UND researchers in the Center come from UND Aerospace, the College of Engineering and Mines, the Northern Plains Center for Behavioral Research, and the Center for Innovation.

The Center also collaborates with the Grand Forks Air Force Base and the Fargo Air National Guard, both designated UAS bases.

UND has also been invited to collaborate in UAS research and development with several private sector partners, including Lockheed Martin, Frasca International, Inc., and Alion Science and Technology.

In addition, UND Aerospace collaborates with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Center of Excellence for General Aviation Research (CGAR) on integrating UAS into the national airspace system; and with Mayo Clinic for a Flight Medicine Residency incorporating UAS training.

“The University of North Dakota has over 40 years in manned aviation education,” Palmer said. “From this experience stems a well-established aviation industry reputation and a long-term relationship with the FAA,

allowing enhanced airspace access.”

UND also is unique in the world with its UAS Research Compliance Committee.

It’s a standing committee of the Division of Research and Economic Development.

The committee reviews all research using UAS conducted by any members of the University including faculty, staff and students. Without explicit committee approval, such research cannot progress. The committee considers the ethical consequences of the proposed research and applies community standards in determining whether a research project may be approved. It comprises local and regional law enforcement, including Grand Forks County Sheriff Robert Rost and community members.

It’s all part of the UND UAS effort in a world-changing technology.

“Unmanned aircraft are having a profound impact on aerospace, and UND is on the leading edge of UAS development,” said Bruce Smith, dean of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. “I know of no other college in higher education that could develop a degree program and a training system, in an emerging and complex technology, with this level of success in such a short period of time.” n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 9

Robin Hall will house research space for UAS research and education programs, classrooms, offices and student areas in 66,000 square feet. It is expected to be completed in the late spring of 2016.

Rendering courtesy of ICON Architectural Group.

Onward and upward Robin Hall will provide new facilities for UND Aerospace’s growing UAS enterprise while making a bold architectural statement for the western campus.

By David Dodds Things just keep getting more exciting for UND Aerospace and its prospects for aviation research.

On Oct. 9, 2014, UND’s John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences and the UND Aerospace Foundation broke ground on its newest building addition — Robin Hall — a proposed 66,000-square-foot aerospace research facility that eventually will house secure areas and other spaces for the school’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Research, Training and Education Center, along with additional classrooms, offices, aerospacesimulation equipment and student gathering spaces.

The new building will be set adjacent to UND Aerospace’s existing Ryan Hall, at the corner of James Ray Drive and University Avenue on the west side of the UND campus.

In March 2013, the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education (SBHE) ratified the North Dakota University System Chancellor’s interim approval, authorizing a ground lease between UND and the Aerospace PAGE 10 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

Foundation for site approval and construction of a new aerospace building. The authorization would allow the new building to be constructed, owned and managed by the Aerospace Foundation.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, UND recognized the generosity of major donors to this project, Si Robin and his wife, Mary E. Bazar, by naming the new building “Robin

Hall.” Mary is president of Sensor Systems, a manufacturer of aerospace antennae, based in Chatsworth, Calif.; and Si serves as the company’s vice president.

On Aug. 20, 2014, the SBHE Challenge Fund Committee approved a state grant in the amount of $1 million for the proposed aerospace/UAS research building. The state had previously authorized UND to use up to $24.9 million from private donations or grants for the facility.

UND Aerospace’s Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, which will be a major tenant of the new research building, was the first collegiate degree program of its kind in the nation. UAS will become the dominant choice for all airborne missions except passenger travel and will rapidly grow large enough to serve to diversify the economy of North Dakota, according to the Aerospace Foundation.

The most recent UND Aerospace campus building, Clifford Hall, was built in 1991.

Today, the Odegard School is bursting at the seams. With all of the advancements that are taking place in aerospace studies, the school is in need of a new campus building to sustain that growth and success.

Thus, the Aerospace Foundation, with the help of exceptional donors such as Robin and Bazar, and the state of North Dakota, is addressing this need with the construction of a new UAS research, education and training building. This new building will become the home for technology, training, teaching, classrooms, labs, research support, student space and gathering areas for the UAS Center of Excellence, part of the National Test Airspace Operation, as well as the school’s expanding aerospace research programs. n

PHOTO BY SHAWNA NOEL SCHILL

Ground was broken Oct. 9, 2014, for Robin Hall. The site on the western edge of the campus is adjacent to Ryan Hall and northeast of the North Dakota University System Information Technologies facility (in the background at right).

PHOTO BY JUAN MIGUEL PEDRAZA

Nicholas “Nick” Lentz runs the Advanced Material Characterization Lab in UND’s College of Engineering and Mines. It boasts state-of-the-art capabilities for analysis of core samples.

Maximizing the state’s oil play

By Juan Miguel Pedraza How dependent are we on foreign crude oil?

The U.S. Energy Information Administration tells us that we still import about half of the crude that’s processed into fuel here — but that dependence is falling, in growing part because of North Dakota oil.

And that’s likely to be a continuing trend, as more oil and better ways of getting it are developed.

Scientists at the University of North Dakota are already playing a major role in the exploration and recovery of North Dakota oil resources. That’s about to step into a higher gear following the creation of the Advanced Material Characterization Lab at the UND College of Engineering and Mines (CEM).

“As a direct result of a generous contribution from the North Dakota Industrial Commission, we were able to build this fabulous, state-ofthe-art lab facility,” said CEM Dean Hesham El-Rewini. “The state’s investment has already seen returns as we analyze samples of North Dakota rocks and minerals. And we will see improvements in the quality of the workforce resulting from student engagement with this advanced facility.”

The college began planning the lab with $1.5 million the Industrial Commission provided to coincide with a combined $10 million gift from Harold Hamm and Continental Resources last year.

“This lab will be used by researchers in the College of Engineering, the EERC (Energy & Environmental Research Center) and across campus,” said El-Rewini. “It will also be used by industry partners, and that will generate revenue that will help us maintain and expand the lab.”

The lab was put together and is run by Nicholas “Nick” Lentz, CEM associate director of energy technology applications, and it will be supported by CEM technicians who will be cross-trained in the lab’s specialized equipment.

It’s an opportune creation.

The U.S. Geological Survey says rising domestic oil output stems from production from unconventional reservoirs, including the Williston Basin of western North Dakota. The U.S. currently produces

about 7.4 million barrels of oil daily — including 1 million from North Dakota — and it points toward U.S. energy independence, especially as another big oil play, the Three Forks Formation below the Bakken, is being developed.

“We will contribute to research related to determining the amount of recoverable oil in the Three Forks,” said Lentz. The Good Thunder, Minn., native recently transitioned from the EERC to the CEM’s Institute for Energy Studies, where he is an assistant professor.

“We are all about very accurate measurement,” said Lentz. “After we got the $1.5 million from the Industrial Commission, specifically to create this facility, we now have some of the most advanced analytical and characterization capabilities in the country. That’s good for our students and researchers, and it’s great for attracting industry contracts.”

One of the lab’s pieces of equipment is a $500,000 nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, unit that took nearly six months to build.

“This is a very high-end Oxford Instruments core NMR. It’s one of only one or two in the world right now with the same capability,” Lentz said. “It’s special to the petroleum industry because it can fully analyze 4-inch samples (cores). Existing probes are commonly 1 or 2 inches in diameter, which requires holes to be plugged.

“It measures 15 parameters, including oil content, size and distribution of the rock pores, movable water and other important facts. That helps companies decide whether or not to drill in a particular spot and how much oil they can expect to extract.”

The lab also acquired a $500,000 scanning electron microscope (SEM) from instrument builder FEI. “There are a couple of other SEMs on campus, but this one is unique because it has an imaging resolution of less than 3 nanometers. That’s very valuable in petroleum exploration because the pores in these unconventional systems run 1 to 10 nanometers (a human hair is about 60,000 nanometers in diameter),” Lentz said. That provides additional accuracy for detecting porosity, which indicates among other things how easily the oil may flow from the formation to the well bore.

“This kind of analytical instrumentation and the sophisticated packages of analytical software we got with them position UND very well to do characterizations for enhanced oil recovery,” Lentz said.

Lentz and El-Rewini also said the lab significantly boosts UND’s research and teaching missions.

“This lab, with its top-of-the-line equipment and analytical capabilities, puts us at the national level,” said Lentz. n

The scanning electron microscope in the Advanced Material Characterization Lab has exceptional accuracy for detecting porosity, an important indicator for how easily oil may flow.

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 11

Filling the gaps

Rescued art Unearthed treasures expand the University’s art collections and provide valuable learning resources for students, professors and the public.

By Amy Halvorson It was just a regular Friday afternoon for University of North Dakota Art & Design facilities technician Wesley Rabey — that is, until he received a call from a man wondering if he could stop by and drop off some art he had in his possession.

“I didn’t know what to make of it, but I knew it was something I needed to pay attention to,” said Rabey.

After receiving directions to UND, the man on the phone drove to UND’s Hughes Fine Arts Center with a folded cardboard box that was duct-taped together. He introduced himself as Wallace Gylten from Northwood, N.D. Included in the box were about 100 pieces of art, ranging from original prints to drawings and paintings from the 17th to 20th centuries. Some were signed and dated, while the age of others could be assessed based on materials and style. Several of the pieces were specifically dated back to 1847, for some unknown reason.

Gylten had removed the artwork from an abandoned security building in downtown Grand Forks shortly before that structure burned during the historic 1997 flood and fire. Since then, he had stored the art in an outbuilding on his property.

“This stuff is like treasure to us because we don’t have that many items of the types included in this collection; it will be very valuable for students to study,” said Arthur Jones, chair of the Art and Design Department and director of UND Art Collections.

“I had no idea how valuable it was,” said Gylten.

One of the works was recognized as an original John James Audubon print. The collection also contains works by other notable artists, several of whom were women, yet many are anonymous.

Due to recent restoration efforts, the University’s art collections now span from the time of ancient Egypt to the 21st century. Many of the works have been acquired since 2007.

“In order to generate public and student support, we try to acquire famous artists and fill in the gaps in art history,” Jones said. “The University has never before had a comprehensive collection like this one.”

The purchasing of artwork for the UND Art Collections is funded entirely by the Myers Foundation, a private source. Col. Eugene E. Myers was a UND alumnus who left a large endowment to be distributed equally among UND, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and West Virginia University for the acquisition and preservation of art, as well as several other specifically restricted purposes.

Through this endowment, UND has been able to purchase original pieces by famous artists, such as Picasso and Rembrandt, that provide students with the privilege of holding such revered works in their hands, Jones said.

“It’s a way of connecting the artwork with the students,” said Nathan Rees, assistant professor of art history and coordinator of exhibitions for UND Art Collections.

The students are able to utilize these newly acquired artworks as fresh sources for research.

“We try to look for ways to put art to use for student learning,” said Rees, who teaches a museum studies class in which the students curate shows using art from UND Art Collections. New acquisitions of art help fill in some of the chronological gaps.

“I had no idea how to do any of this (curating an exhibition),” said Glen Henry, an art and design student from Dunseith, N.D. “It was an enlightening experience.”

Expanding limits Some of the newly acquired art from Northwood will be exhibited during the spring in an upcoming show at the Empire Arts Center, featuring the 19th century French artist, Honoré Daumier. None of the new acquisitions from Northwood are by Daumier, but there are several satirical prints from approximately the same time period. They will help the viewing audience better understand the era in which Daumier was working, Jones said.

Thanks to Gylten and the hidden treasures he provided, UND is able to expand the limits of its art collections. Preserving art and making it available for generations of students to enjoy and learn from is the primary focus of UND Art Collections. n PHOTO BY SHAWNA NOEL SCHILL

Educational purpose Identifying the background of art is like solving a puzzle for the professors and students of the Art and Design Department. They have to look for little clues (in one case, it was found in the coat of arms of the Medici family) or other signs to help place the artwork in history and figure out where they came from.

“These become interesting issues to discuss with students,” said Jones.

Gylten considered donating the art to UND after reading an article in the Grand Forks Herald about “Lost, Found, and Rescued,” an exhibition in the UND Art Collections Gallery at the Empire Arts Center, 415 DeMers Avenue, in downtown Grand Forks. The article, titled “Missing Art,” showcased the efforts at UND to restore art and give it an educational purpose.

“We have been trying to rebuild our collection so that it can be of greater value for students in their education,” Jones said. “Over the years at UND, many art pieces have gone missing or suffered neglect.”

PAGE 12 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

About 100 items were in a collection of art donated to the UND Art Collections by Wallace Gylten of Northwood, N.D.

Sudden impact PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

Thanks to research supported by a faculty seed money grant, UND scholars are building a stronger human services foundation for North Dakota’s oil patch.

By Brian Johnson The shock wave from North Dakota’s energy boom has pushed the state’s once declining human population in the opposite direction.

Subsequently, the state is playing catchup as it builds more infrastructure to sustain more people and businesses.

In the Bakken Formation oil extraction region, locals can’t help but notice the drastic changes. New transportation systems, hotels and homes are being constructed quickly, but other crucial support systems — the ones that aren’t obvious — may be falling through the cracks.

That’s why Carenlee Barkdull, chair of the University of North Dakota Social Work Department, is looking to ignite another boom: one in the human services sector.

“I’m interested in the intersection between housing issues and child welfare workforce issues,” said Barkdull. “I think that is an essential part of workforce issues that often gets overlooked.”

Barkdull’s work in the Bakken started with a UND faculty seed grant received in January 2012. An interdisciplinary group of researchers, which included Barkdull, UND Indian Studies chair Sebastian Braun, Bill Caraher (History), Ann Reed (Anthropology), and Bret Weber (Social Work), were interested in the region and wanted to conduct a variety of studies.

So far, the seed money has generated plenty of fruit. Barkdull and Weber have just finished a manuscript on temporary labor housing policy for the North Dakota Man Camp Project. The Man Camp Project has generated a great deal of interest from outside the state and has opened doors for UND researchers and for collaborative work with researchers from outside the state as well.

“The wonderful thing about a seed grant is that it provides an opportunity to obtain some external funding to do more,” said Barkdull.

Using the data collected from the seed money research, Barkdull and other UND faculty members applied for and received a five-year, $735,000 grant from the National Childhood Welfare Workforce Institute, part of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. The purpose of

Carenlee Barkdull: “Substance abuse, domestic violence, poverty, mental health — these are all child welfare involvement issues. An educated child welfare workforce that can effectively partner with and support struggling families is crucial.”

the grant is to help alleviate the child welfare workforce shortage in North Dakota’s oil patch. It was awarded in March, which, coincidentally, was the same month that the Children and Family Services Training Center at UND celebrated its 30th anniversary.

“That center certifies every child welfare worker in the state and trains all the foster parents as well,” said Barkdull. “Having it housed in an academic setting at UND provides rich possibilities for trench-to-bench and bench-to-trench kinds of research.”

In turn, Barkdull and other researchers can bring their practice-based evidence straight to the classroom. The ability to bring up-to-date material into the classroom is crucial, considering the serious nature of what social work graduates see in the field.

“Substance abuse, domestic violence, poverty, mental health issues — these are all child welfare involvement issues,” said Barkdull.

“An educated child welfare workforce that can effectively partner with and support struggling families is crucial, as is advocacy to address severe service shortages in the western part of the state, as resources have not kept pace with growth.”

Addressing workforce shortages is the first

step. Jobs are hard to fill in in the Bakken, with some social work jobs remaining vacant for months. The NCWWI grant aims to mentor and support future social workers and lower the turnover rates.

By the end of the grant cycle, there will be 20 to 25 stipends given to “child welfare scholars” who will receive tuition and specialized training and mentoring in return for working in designated child welfare agencies after graduation. The first student to receive a stipend just graduated last summer.

Along with the stipends, the Social Work Department is mapping its curriculum and will make adjustments as needed. It is also looking to strengthen relationships.

“We are looking to improve partnerships with the University and child welfare entities across the state,” said Barkdull. “We’re mandated to figure out, with those partners, some systemic improvements around child welfare workforce needs.” n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 13

PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

Mike Poellot and Gretchen Mullendore of the UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences are the principal investigators for a Northrop Grumman-funded project to assess how tropical thunderstorms might affect unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

Tempests in the tropics Tropical thunderstorms are much different from those experienced in our part of the world.

Understanding those differences is crucial for safely operating unmanned aircraft systems.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza While most of us celebrate clear skies and fair weather, Gretchen Mullendore and her team of students — not so much.

The UND atmospheric scientist likes storm clouds. The more intense, the more eager she is to get right into them with her computer models. It’s a research interest that was recently noticed by a major international aerospace company.

When the Northrop Grumman Corporation wanted to figure out how tropical thunderstorms would impact unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) flights, they turned to Mullendore.

“We started talking with Northrop Grumman awhile back about defining the hazards of tropical thunderstorms to UAS,” said Mullendore, a faculty member and thunderstorm expert in the UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences, part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. “We received a research grant from the company to start phase one and phase two of research into that.”

Mullendore is a principal investigator on the grant; her co-principal investigator is the department chair, Mike Poellot, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. And part of the research team includes atmospheric sciences graduate student Katelyn PAGE 14 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

Barber and undergraduate atmospheric sciences major Emily Maddox.

“Most of the research about the hazards of thunderstorm systems to aviation has been done in the mid and northern latitudes, so we have clearly understood hazards and defined rules for pilots about how to avoid such storms,” said Poellot, who among other duties is principal investigator for UND’s Cessna Citation II atmospheric research jet. That knowledge and those rules apply equally for unmanned aircraft.

“As part of this grant, we will summarize what we already know about tropical stormrelated hazards to aviation,” said Mullendore, whose key tool in the project is computer modeling.

“Then we’ll move forward with the climatology, studying all the available satellite data and the limited available radar data to help us model how tropical thunderstorms behave,” Mullendore said. “They’re much different from the thunderstorms we experience in our part of the world. Part of the grant’s aim is to find out how to help aircraft, crewed or unmanned, avoid those hazards in the tropics.”

The students are a key part of this research program.

“Our students think it’s really great to be involved in hands-on research,” said Mullendore, who helped launch the UND Women in Science chapter and is its advisor.

Maddox, from Redfield, S.D., says her interest in science was helped along by her dad, who worked as a county emergency manager.

“Because of him, I developed a passion for severe weather,” Maddox said. “When I was in high school, a portion of our farm was

destroyed by straight-line winds. I used to be terrified of storms, but became more curious, especially when my dad started taking me weather spotting with him. Weather spotting was among his duties as an emergency manager. I wanted to learn a lot more about storms like that and decided to study atmospheric sciences. Dr. Mullendore has broadened my interest in computer modeling, computer programming and numerical methods.”

Research experience like the kind she’s engaged in with this project is vital to her career, she says.

Maddox is working on computer modeling for Mullendore’s tropical atmospheric storm research project.

Barber, from Rochester, N.Y., says she plans to continue her studies in the Ph.D. program at UND. “I got into science because I like to ask questions, and I always enjoyed the earth sciences; I liked to be outside,” Barber said. “Not understanding storms when I was young drew me into meteorology. I took several advanced placement courses in high school. I knew I’d have a better future if I understood science.”

Barber spent two months of her junior year in college in Brazil, doing research.

“Right now, I’m creating a classification of the types of thunderstorms, using radar images from Guam to understand the dynamics of tropical storms,” Barber said. She’s also spent time in UND’s research jet on research flights, in her words, “babysitting a complex instrument.”

“That was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had,” Barber said. “I was actually doing observational research, and it was a truly unique opportunity.” n

PHOTO BY JUAN MIGUEL PEDRAZA

The research team includes graduate student Katelyn Barber (left) and undergraduate student Emily Maddox. Youthful experiences with storms attracted both to the field of atmospheric sciences. Barber is creating a classification system for the types of thunderstorms, and Maddox is working on computer modeling.

BOOK NOTES

Cutting through the fog of film ducing people to films and literature they wouldn’t see or read otherwise. By publishing her research, she hopes to encourage students to think about how different media can work with politics and culture to serve an informative purpose.

“I have learned a lot about the culture and history of other places and have been reminded that my own culture is one of privileges that I should be aware of and appreciate,” said Weaver-Hightower. n

An English professor’s research leads to a book exploring postcolonial influences in movies and their effects on viewers.

By Kate Menzies University of North Dakota English professor Rebecca Weaver-Hightower takes the title of movie critic to a new level.

Not many people can say that they conduct research on popular movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark and District 9.

But that’s exactly what she does.

While most of us enjoy watching films and giving our own critique, Weaver-Hightower analyzes the hidden themes that occur in these blockbuster hits.

Throughout her research, Weaver-Hightower has discovered how pieces of popular culture, like movies, are used to create a climate of Western superiority.

Weaver-Hightower’s research on postcolonialism reflects the classes she teaches in postcolonial studies. Postcolonialism, by definition, is colonialism and its aftermath. In Weaver-Hightower’s case, this involves observing the identities of nations that were former British colonies.

Her interests have spanned beyond the history books and have taken a more visual approach. Specifically, she studies how film or movies have portrayed and incorporated postcolonial spaces as well as the building and breaking down of the European empire.

Weaver-Hightower’s research has led her to Australia, South Africa, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and China — all places that were once or continue to be under British rule. This enabled her to become familiar with the local cultures and hints of British influence that still linger, even years after independence.

Her interests and experiences abroad have given her a unique lens through which to view the films she studies.

The idea for her research spawned from an American Comparative Literature Association conference that she attended about five years ago.

“I realized film was being put out all over the world and there wasn’t enough being written on it,” said Weaver-Hightower.

She and her colleague, Peter Hulme, revis-

ited the topic of postcolonial studies and its role in film by contributing to and co-editing a book titled Postcolonial Film: History, Empire, Resistance.

The book is unique in that each chapter represents a case study examining how a particular film from a nation reflects that nation’s postcolonial situation.

Within the book, Weaver-Hightower specifically examines the science fiction movie District 9 and how the movie represents a South African postcolonial hybrid. Throughout her analysis of the film, Weaver-Hightower delves into the movie’s depiction of multiracial and multicultural forces and the audiences’ perceptions of segregation and discrimination.

UND Associate Professor of French Sarah Mosher also has a chapter in the book examining an Algerian film.

Weaver-Hightower hopes her research will inspire others to dig a little deeper into the underlying themes and references that shape how films are made and presented to viewers.

“I want more people to read and view postcolonial text and think about them in the terms of colonialism context and how it was important,” said Weaver-Hightower.

Weaver-Hightower’s research benefits students and the University alike by intro-

Through this book, Weaver-Hightower hopes to encourage readers to think about how images and media may have influenced their views of politics and culture.

PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

Rebecca Weaver-Hightower

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 15

BOOK NOTES The rise and fall of a technological “Camelot” Space Studies’ David Whalen pens the second of three books on the history of satellite communications.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza The new iPhone 6 is the latest buzz, jam packed with novel digital wizardry. You could say the genesis of this technology — imaginable but not doable 20 years ago — evolved from the beep-beep-beep of Sputnik.

That was the world’s first artificial satellite, launched on Oct. 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union. That launch triggered the “Space Race” and the telecommunications revolution that included COMSAT, a government-sponsored but privately owned communications system that opened the universe beyond landline telephones.

University of North Dakota Space Studies faculty member David Whalen, who spent many years in the satellite and communications industries, has just published the second of three volumes on the history of satellite communications.

Whalen’s new book is titled The Rise and Fall of COMSAT: Technology, Business, and Government in Satellite Communications, and is published by Palgrave Macmillan, London.

“COMSAT was created by Congress when it passed the Communications Satellite Act of 1962, and it was incorporated as a publicly traded company in 1963,” said Whalen. In his book, he acknowledges the intellectual debt owed by the satellite industry to Arthur C. Clarke, a British science fiction writer, whose book, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was translated into the movie. In the mid-1940s, Clarke predicted a network of communications satellites and envisioned the system to support that network.

“COMSAT was a technological Camelot,” said Whalen.

Whalen’s history of COMSAT has all the makings of a prime-time television soap opera, complete with foreign intrigue, financial shenanigans, and plenty of heroes, villains and working folks.

Whalen has more than 30 years of experience as an engineering manager in the satellite communications business, working for RCA, Lockheed and Ford Aerospace, among others.

His original expertise was in flight dynamics, but his experience evolved into mission management and executive management. He lived through some of the corporate soap opera he writes about in his most recent book Today, the global satellite communications industry produces $100 billion annually.

COMSAT — now out of business — was an integral mover in the origins of this industry.

Whalen explores the factors that contributed to COMSAT’s rise and eventual demise.

Whalen named ‘Mentor of the Year’ by international satellite group

David Whalen PAGE 16 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

A career-long interest in helping young people move into aerospace careers helped Whalen net a “Mentor of the Year” award from the Society of Satellite Professionals International.

Space Studies is part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences.

Whalen, who grew up in Puerto Rico and later served as a flight officer in the U.S. Navy, is an expert in satellite systems. His experience includes work at the U.S. Naval Observatory as an astronomer.

He joined UND Space Studies in 2007 as associate professor and chair. Since then he has mentored and taught dozens of students.

“He is known as a faculty member who will go the extra mile to help the next generation,” said Jeremy Straub, a graduate student in the UND Department of Computer Science and one of the students who recommended Whalen for the award.

The Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) announced the winners of its Promise and Mentor Award on Oct. 8, 2014, and honored them at SSPI’s ninth annual Future Leaders Dinner at The Penn Club in Manhattan on Nov. 11. n

The history of COMSAT resembles a TV soap opera, complete with foreign intrigue, financial shenanigans and plenty of heroes and villains.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza

A “hole-in-one” discovery

The most massive black hole yet detected lies at the heart of galaxy Holm 15A (center) in this view of the galaxy cluster Abell 85.

A black hole identified by Wayne Barkhouse and his fellow researchers may be 10 times larger than any previously detected.

Peering deep into the night sky over several years, UND astrophysicist Wayne Barkhouse and an international team recently discovered what appears to be the largest black hole ever.

This is no run-of-the-stars discovery, Barkhouse says.

“This black hole is potentially 100 billion times the mass of our sun and 10 times bigger than the largest black hole seen up to now,” he said. “I am happy to report that my collaborators and I have just had a paper about this discovery accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in which we will announce the discovery of potentially the most massive black hole ever detected in our universe.”

The black hole lies in the heart of the galaxy Holm 15A, which is the brightest galaxy in the galaxy cluster Abell 85 (see accompanying image). This galaxy Barkhouse cluster is about 750 million light-years away — meaning that light from it takes 750 million years to reach us.

This study was conducted by researchers in Mexico, United Kingdom, Chile and at UND. Barkhouse is no stranger to amazing discoveries in the universe.

A key player in an international dark energy survey team, last year he shared in another major astronomical discovery that gets us a step closer to understanding how the universe works. That discovery, like the recent black-hole find, will help scientists further understand the origins of the universe.

Using a specially built camera high in the Chilean Andes, an international team of scientists, called the “Dark Energy Survey,” captured images of three very distant supernovae, or exploding stars, that are expected to help prove that the universe is full of dark energy.

The proof of dark energy will be sought, in part, with software developed by Barkhouse, who’s also an accomplished computer programmer.

The Dark Energy Survey began a couple of years ago and is taking advantage of the atmospheric conditions in the Andes to deliver pictures with the sharpest resolution seen in such a wide-field astronomy survey.

Over five years, the survey will create detailed color images of one-eighth of the sky, or 5,000 square degrees, to discover and measure 300 million galaxies, 100,000 galaxy clusters, and 4,000 supernovae. n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 17

Rock-solid mysteries UND’s new Cosmogenic Isotope Lab helps researchers get to the bottom of eons-old questions abut climate and geology.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza Isolating an isotope in a rock sample is like tracking down one special mouse in New York City: you can do it, but it takes time and money, and requires a deep scientific knowledge about isotopes — or mice.

This specialized kind of rock-probing work is being tackled by scientists at the University of North Dakota’s new Cosmogenic Isotope Lab, largely assembled over the last year by Ted Bibby, a Ph.D. candidate in the UND Harold Hamm School of Geology and Geological Engineering.

His advisor and Ph.D. committee chair — and the impetus behind the lab — is Jaakko Putkonen, a geomorphologist who is no stranger to remote places and rare rock samples.

So what’s an isotope, and why are Bibby and Putkonen tracking them down in hard-toprocess rock samples?

“Primarily we are trying to use specific isotopes isolated from rock samples at the surface of the Earth to date the rocks and the formations they come from,” said Putkonen, who has led several expeditions to Antarctica

PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

and field courses in the Himalayas of Nepal.

The isotopes they’re using in this process are like a chronometer that accurately can date a rock sample.

An isotope, they explain, is a variant of a particular chemical element that contains a different number of neutrons. So while an atomic number identifies a particular element on the periodic table of elements — such as hydrogen, the lightest element, atomic number 1 — that atomic number does not identify isotopes of an element, such as protium, the most common isotope of hydrogen.

“Isotopes in rock are relatively rare,” said Putkonen. “They were produced when these rocks were exposed to cosmic radiation, close to the Earth’s surface. These isotopes are very handy for doing measurements at the Earth’s surface. This goes hand-in-hand with this relatively new tool, cosmogenic isotope analysis, developed about 20 years ago.”

The scientific theory behind this kind of analysis has been known for more than 50 years.

“But it took a while for it to become a useful tool, similar in concept to the muchbetter-known radiocarbon dating,” said Putkonen.

“After the introduction of this tool, it got a lot easier for us geomorphologists to date things because we no longer needed to find organic material, which is necessary for radiocarbon dating,” he said. “It takes a complex process to prepare rock samples for isotope dating, but it sure beats what we had before, which wasn’t much, in the way of technologies to handily date rock samples.”

Extracting climate clues from glacial rocks

Jaakko Putkonen (left) and Ted Bibby describe UND’s new Cosmogenic Isotope Laboratory as the only one of its kind in the Upper Midwest. The lab will enable researchers to uncover important climate clues from rocks deposited by glacial action. The lab’s analytical capabilities should encourge collaborative efforts among researchers.

PAGE 18 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

OK, we’ve got that part: isotopes are rare, they’re tough to extract from rocks, and difficult to measure.

But what does all that really tell us?

“Once we have the isotopes, we can figure out the concentration in the rock sample, and once we identify the concentration, we can figure out how much time this rock that the sample came from was exposed at the Earth’s surface,” Putkonen said.

“So this may not sound particularly exciting on its own, but we can, with this technology, go around the world and date glacial advances (or retreats),” Putkonen said.

“And why would we want to do this?” Putkonen asked. “Because glaciers, especially the moraines — the heaps of dirt that the glaciers leave behind — are some of the best markers of how climate has shifted in the past. We can use that knowledge to compare with the climate change we’re seeing now.”

Scientists like Putkonen and Bibby can (Rock-solid mysteries, continued on Page 22)

PHOTO BY JACKIE LORENTZ

Co-authors (from left) Mark Guy, Tim Young, Austin Winger (Ph.D. student in Teaching and Learning) and Richard Van Eck submitted the paper, “Project NEO: Assessing and Changing Pre-service Teacher Science Knowledge with a Video Game,” to ICALT, the International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies. Project NEO is a game about science, covering such topics as Earth, the planet’s movement, seasons, plants, and more.

Games on the brain An interdisciplinary team of UND scholars wins a “best paper” award at an international conference on innovative approaches to using video games as teaching tools.

By Juan Miguel Pedraza You could say they’re just toying around, but that would only be half the story.

The University of North Dakota’s Richard Van Eck and Mark Guy, both full professors in the Department of Teaching and Learning, and Tim Young, a professor in UND’s Physics and Astrophysics Department, along with their co-authors helped to develop and test a classroom digital game that connects young students with science.

Their work earned them a “best conference paper” award at an international conference earlier this year in Greece.

“We were told that we won the award for best conference paper because of the clarity of our design and paper and for the potential impact of the game and the innovative approach it adopts,” said Young, who delivered the presentation at the conference. The paper was titled “Project NEO: Assessing and Changing Pre-service Teacher Science Knowledge with a Video Game.”

“We’re working the game right now with pre-service teachers right here at UND,” said Guy, who notes that’s where this process has to begin to effect meaningful and productive change in the way we teach science and math in schools.

“This is a very collaborative effort,” said Van Eck, the team’s project evaluator who also designed the research project and collects the data. “This game — graphics and game engine

developed by Triad Media and being tried and evaluated by us — helps learners conceptualize, for example, why we have seasons. We’re not just lecturing or relying on an animation or video to impart that understanding.”

In addition to improving pre-service teachers’ scientific knowledge, a key challenge is to get the pre-service teachers beyond the concept of a game as a medium for delivery of information.

“The secret is it’s interactive,” Van Eck said.

“With this game, we’re exposing tomorrow’s teachers to personally meaningful ways to interact with technology in support of learning. This engagement with the game is really about the kind of back-and-forth learning that really helps a person develop the conceptual knowledge they can apply in the real world.”

The three began collaborating on their game project a year ago; Guy and Young have been collaborating since 2005 on a public outreach and education program to help people understand the Sun-Earth-Moon system.

Young also is well known for his collaboration with Ron Marsh, chair of UND’s Department of Computer Science, on Internet-based coverage of solar and lunar eclipses that has taken them all over the world.

One of the major strengths of the gamebased approach for learning is that it uses mastery as a core concept. This means that learners, in this case, the pre-service teachers in their UND classroom, are being offered the opportunity to take different paths to learning.

“And then we encourage them to demonstrate what they know,” Guy said. “Our goal is to advance everyone to the same level of understanding without having to provide oneon-one tutoring for everyone.”

Right now the game is targeted at novice pre-service teachers who have to deliver standards-based science education when they graduate.

“The game is aligned with the Next Generation of Science Standards,” Guy said. “The alignment of the game with those standards is based on performance, which means it’s much more than simply saying the answer — we’re asking pre-service teachers to show us with evidence that they understand.”

Ultimately, it’s about raising the level nationwide of scientific understanding.

If they are right, this could be an important first step in addressing the need for more students to choose science as a career, Van Eck said. n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 19

Strings in Oil Country Talented UND musicians from North and South America perform free concerts for residents of Stanley, Williston and Bismarck.

By David Dodds The University of North Dakota Student String Quartet brought an exceptional program of music to western North Dakota by performing concerts in three communities in early October. The concerts were all free and open to the public in Stanley, Williston and Bismarck.

The UND Student String Quartet is directed by UND Associate Professor of Music Alejandro Drago, a native of Argentina, who has performed and conducted around the world and specializes in violin, viola and orchestra performance. The Quartet comprises talented UND student musicians from North and South America (short biographies follow).

“UND has teamed up with supporting donors to create the Student String Quartet, whose members enjoy a substantial measure of financial support, which they return to the University and the community at large through an intense schedule of performances, recordings, visits, outreach activities and tours like this one,” said Drago.

During the western North Dakota performances, the string quartet played “Badlands,” an original composition by Matthew Peterson, a native of Grand Forks who currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He is among the world’s most honored young composers (see the article about Peterson on the opposite page). “Badlands” is a “soundscape” evoking the landscape of North Dakota’s West. The UND group also played a selection of eight Armenian folk dances and Quartet Number 1, Opus 18, by Ludwig van Beethoven, a standard in the classical repertoire.

The Quartet: Lihue Czackis was born in Venezuela and raised in Argentina, where he started taking violin lessons at age 6. Czackis has studied with noted violin instructors Luis Saba and Luis Korsos, who introduced him to the viola. At age 14, he began studying viola with Professor Korsos at the Juan Pedro Esnaola Music School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and later worked with Kristine Bara from the National Philharmonic of Buenos Aires. Czackis has participated in several youth orchestras in Buenos Aires, among them the National Radio Symphony and the Youth Academic Orchestra. He also played in the Uninorte Symphony Orchestra in Asuncion, Paraguay, as a guest violist. Recipient of the Peterson UND String Quartet Scholarship in 2010, he is currently a student of Drago pursuing a Bachelor of Music degree in Viola Performance.

Carlos Breña, from Lima, Peru, plays violin and is a first-year graduate student in the Master of Music in Performance Program under the guidance of Drago. He holds a bachelor’s degree and Licenciate of Music, majoring in violin performance, from the National Conservatory of Music in Lima. He has played several times with opera companies such as Romanza and Peru Clásico, accompanying Juan PAGE 20 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

Far, far from their hometowns, the members of the UND Student String Quartet paused to grab a “selfie” at the center of North America while on tour in western North Dakota. From left, they are Carlos Breña, violin; Lihue Czackis, viola; Kara Hartten, cello; and Vinicius Sant’Ana, violin.

Diego Flórez, guest violinist with the National Symphonic Orchestra in Peru. Breña took first place in the Interschool Contest of Musical Audition in 2003 and at a National Concert Contest about Mozart in 2006. He played in France in 2009 for the Festival of Baroque Music led by “Chemins du Baroque.” That same year, he traveled to Spain and Portugal with the Iberian American Youth Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Breña also got a chance to conduct the Youth Symphonic Orchestra in 2010. He also traveled to Belgium to the Gent Festival of Flanders with the American organization, “Traveling Notes.” In 2011, he took a summer course on violin performance in Fontainebleau, France, obtaining a Diploma in Music-Fine Arts from the American Schools of Music and Fine Arts of Fontaienbleau. Also among his other accomplishments are first place finishes on piano in the National Concert Contest about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as the London College of Music and Media Examinations held in Lima, where he obtained a diploma in piano forte.

Vinicius Sant’Ana, from São Paulo, Brazil, plays violin and is a junior majoring in music performance at UND. He began his musical studies at Grupo Pao de Acucar music institute in Brazil, where he quickly became concertmaster of the Pao de Acucar Orchestra. During his time as concertmaster, the orchestra performed in the United States, Argentina and Italy. In 2008, he began his collegiate studies at the Pensacola Christian College in Florida, studying violin with Alberto Jaffe. Sant’Ana has been a member of the UND String Quartet

since 2012. Currently, he is pursuing his undergraduate degree under the guidance of Drago. He regularly performs with the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, and the Bismarck Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, he won first prize at the Grand Forks and Bismarck Symphony Competitions playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto and “Lalo Symphonie Espagnole.”

Kara Hartten began her musical studies at the age of 5 in her hometown of Redding, Conn. She has studied with Darilyn Manring, Yeon-Ji Yun, and Eric Edberg, and performed in master classes with renowned cellists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Matt Haimovitz, Nicholas Photinos, Anna Clift and Laszlo Varga. After completing both a Bachelor of Music Performance and a Bachelor of Arts in French at DePauw Univer-

sity, Hartten continued her musical and cultural studies in Versailles, France. While taking a French course at the Université Inter-Âges of Versailles, Hartten studied cello with Natalie Jacquet at the Conservatoire d’Evry outside of Paris. Currently, Hartten is pursuing a Master of Music Degree in Cello Performance under Professor Simona Barbu at UND. In May of 2014, Hartten performed with UND’s Red River Trio in a tour of China and Japan. In addition to working as the graduate teaching assistant in cello, orchestra and string quartet at UND, Hartten performs with the Greater Grand Forks Symphony and Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestras. She also works with local music programs and teaches private lessons. n

Home for autumn Music composer Matthew Peterson comes back to his hometown for a UND residency.

By Brian Johnson Renowned composer and Grand Forks native Matthew Peterson recently visited the University of North Dakota as a guest of the UND Music Department, and the timing was perfect.

“October is the month that I get homesick,” said Peterson. “This year is fun because I got to be in North Dakota a bit for the fall.”

A lot has changed since the last time he was here. Peterson, 30, lived on and near the UND campus while his mother studied nursing and his father studied zoology and music. It was here that Peterson took up piano at 6 years old, and, later on, he picked up the double bass and saxophone. Throughout his childhood, Peterson was involved in music activities with former and current UND faculty members.

“Growing up I played a lot of sports,” said Peterson. “It was a pretty typical childhood for this area. But, from age 14 on, it was music that dominated my thoughts and activity.”

It was at that age, while performing with the North Dakota All-State Orchestra, that Peterson realized what career path he was taking.

“We played ‘Jupiter’ from ‘The Planets,’ and that was the moment I was hooked,” said Peterson. “I knew I had to do something in music; I just didn’t know what.”

Peterson thought he wanted to be a conductor after high school, and Jim Popejoy, UND director of bands and Peterson’s youth symphony conductor, was there to give advice.

But like so many others, Peterson would find his calling during his college years.

As an undergrad at St. Olaf College, Peterson took a music composition course taught

by Mary Ellen Childs, a freelance composer based out of the Twin Cities. On the first day, Childs handed out the listening list that would end up influencing his decision to become a composer.

PHOTO BY SHAWNA NOEL SCHILL

Playing in the North Dakota All-State Orchestra at the age of 14, Matthew Peterson realized that music was his calling.

“I had no idea that music could be like that,” said Peterson. “I had no idea how exciting, relevant and unique this music was from the end of World War II through today.”

Peterson would eventually land a Fulbright Grant to Stockholm, Sweden, where he currently lives and works. He has received many awards and accolades over the years, including a major award for best orchestral score and grand prize in the 2014 Uppsala composer competition. His music has been performed around the world. Locally, his commissioned choral and orchestral composition “The River” premiered at Grand Forks Central High School in the fall of 2013, and the UND Wind Ensemble performed his piece “A Winged Heart” in the spring of 2014.

Some of Peterson’s success stems from inherited musical talent from his parents, but talent alone will only take you so far in any profession.

“I had a couple people tell me that I started late at 19 and I should stick to double bass,” said Peterson. “But I was willing to put the time and energy into it, and that ultimately helped me succeed.”

Though he lives a world away from North Dakota, Peterson finds it easy to keep in touch with his hometown using Facebook. Michael Wittgraf, UND music professor and chair, and Chris Gable, UND music lecturer, have discussed their hopes for UND Music with Peterson. This led to his one-week residency at the University, which he completed in midSeptember.

Also, Peterson’s original piece, “Badlands,” was performed by the UND Student String Quartet during a series of shows Oct. 3-5 in western North Dakota. n

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 21

Alumni impact: Kathryn Uhrich A UND alumna and Grand Forks native is honored as a Fellow of the American Chemical Society.

By David Dodds University of North Dakota alumna and Grand Forks native Kathryn Uhrich, a renowned polymer scientist and Rutgers University chemistry and chemical biology (CCB) professor, has been named a Fellow of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world’s largest scientific society.

Uhrich, who received her Bachelor of Science in chemistry from UND in 1986, was honored during the ACS 248th National Meeting and Exposition in San Francisco on Aug. 11.

Even after leaving UND and Grand Forks, Uhrich has remained committed to her alma mater and hometown in many ways. In fact, she currently serves on the UND College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board.

PHOTO BY NICK ROMANENKO, RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY

Uhrich, also a proud graduate of Grand Forks Central High School, received in 2012 the UND Alumni Association’s highest alumni honor, the Sioux Award, for her esteemed work in the field of chemistry. In 2013, Uhrich was named a fellow in the National Academy of Inventors.

A Rutgers University faculty member since 1995, Uhrich leads a laboratory that designs biocompatible and biodegradable polymers for medical, dental and personal care applications. She has trained more than 160 junior and senior scientists in polymer chemistry and generated nearly $30 million in federal and corporate funding. Uhrich also is the former dean of mathematical and physical sciences in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences.

“Throughout her career, Kathryn Uhrich has been a leader in the advancement of science with many innovations and patents in biomedical materials and drug delivery,” said CCB Chairman and Professor John Brennan. “Many students come to Rutgers from all over the world to benefit from her vast knowledge and expertise. Kathryn is a tremendous role model for our students, and we congratulate her on this very well-deserved honor.”

Among many distinctions, Uhrich has received the Common Pathways Award from the New Jersey Association for Biomedical Research, ACS Buck-Whitney Award, Dow’s Turner Alfrey Visiting Professorship, and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award from the R&D Council of New Jersey. Uhrich is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, as well as the ACS Polymer Division.

After leaving UND, Uhrich earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cornell University.

“The scientists selected as this year’s class of ACS fellows are truly a dedicated group,” said ACS President Tom Barton. “Their outstanding contributions to advancing chemistry through service to the Society are many. In their quest to improve people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry, they are helping us to fulfill the vision of the American Chemical Society.”

The ACS Fellows Program recognizes “members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession and the Society.”

Uhrich now resides in Plainfield, N.J. n

(Continued from 18)

Rock-solid mysteries now accurately measure, by means of the cosmogenic isotope analysis, the magnitude of the climate change in degrees of temperature.

Getting those answers requires a meticulous and painstaking multi-step chemical processing protocol in the Cosmogenic Isotope Lab, notes Bibby.

“We can also tell when these changes happened, and that allows us to put a date on these phenomena, which was difficult in the past,” Putkonen said. “Now we can start addressing questions such as, ‘Has climate change of the kind we’re experiencing now happened before?’”

The only such facility of its kind in the Upper Midwest, it is part of a geology lab run

by UND geochemist Ronald Matheney.

PAGE 22 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

“(Matheney) graciously allowed us to convert a portion of his lab into this new facility,” said Bibby, who traveled to several larger labs around the country, including one at Purdue University.

Ultimately, Putkonen and his colleagues hope this lab’s analytical capabilities will be used by other researchers.

“I know researchers in the region who would love to have access to a lab like this one,” said Putkonen.

“It’s really all about collaboration,” Putkonen said. “However, this isn’t like sending in a water sample to find out how many nitrates are in it. It’s a much more complex process to get from a rock sample to a quantified analysis of that sample. Typically this process is so

complex that our lab will have to be part of the sampling procedure. It requires additional measurements in the field, and you have to clearly understand what the numbers mean at the end.”

The UND Cosmogenic Isotope Lab significantly enhances the University’s research capability, Putkonen says.

“It’s also going to make a big difference in the education and training of future students,” he said. “A lot of what we’re doing is to excite the students about our world-class research. If we want to be a top-notch university, we have to do top-notch research of the kind that a lab like this facilitates.” n

UND chooses a new name to better describe a research center.

Tech Accelerator: full speed ahead

By Amy Halvorson The University of North Dakota’s Research Enterprise and Commercialization building (REAC 1) has been renamed and is now the UND Tech Accelerator.

The new name is intended to clarify UND’s ownership of the facility, better describe the purpose of the building, and bring the Tech Accelerator into a comprehensive campuswide innovation strategy. It is also designed with the flexibility to accommodate sponsorship if that opportunity arises.

The process of renaming of the building began in 2013, when UND purchased the building from the UND Research Foundation.

The name change was approved recently by the State Board of Higher Education.

Preliminary logos and signage are now in the process of being made. n

Now the UND Tech Accelerator, this facility opened in 2008 to house UND’s Center of Excellence in Life Sciences and Advanced Technologies, or COELSAT.

It’s elemental!

By Amy Halvorson It was a perfect collaboration of art and sciences, with the elemental ingredients being the 118 elements of the Periodic Table and the artistic interpretations of the University of North Dakota’s Undergraduate Chemistry Club.

The club, with help from the Chemistry and Art and Design Departments at UND, recently completed a large mural of the Periodic Table outside of the largest classroom at Abbott Hall, home of the Chemistry Department. A dedication ceremony took place during Homecoming Week on Oct. 10,

following the department’s Annual Homecoming Lecture, which this year was presented

by UND alumnus James Morley, a general manager at Takeda R&D. The mural is an artistic representation of the Periodic Table from the students’ perspectives of science and popular culture. It’s also part of the UND Art Collections “Living Museum Across the Campus and Beyond.”

Part of an Exceptional UND In keeping with the collaborative emphasis of the “Exceptional UND” initiative, the mural project is the result of a campus-wide effort of many students, faculty and community members. The images were printed using an MZ ceramic pigment printing system, and the tiles were fired at the ceramics facilities of the UND Department of Art and Design.

The co-curators of the project were Wesley Smith, associate professor of art and design, and Julie Abrahamson, assistant professor of chemistry.

This project was supported by contributions from the UND Chemistry Department and its alumni, the UND Department of Art and Design, and the Myers Foundation. n

A new mural in the lobby of Abbott Hall blends chemistry and art in a compound of imagination, technique, pop culture and whimsy.

UND DISCOVERY / AUTUMN 2014 / PAGE 23

SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENTS UND student violinist plays Carnegie

UND students an important part of ‘superbug’ research

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? University of North Dakota student violinist Vinicius Sant’Ana knows the answer. And forget the “practice” part; he’s had plenty of that.

Sant’Ana, a native of São Paulo, Brazil, was a featured performer at the famed Manhattan recital hall on Nov. 28, when he played with the Orquestra Instituto GPA, also of Brazil. During the Thanksgiving concert at Carnegie, Sant’Ana and the group were led by conductor Daniel Misiuk, playing works by Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski, Breiner and Kreisler, as well as renditions of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind.”

Sant’Ana is a junior majoring in music performance at UND. He began his musical studies at Grupo Pao de Acucar music institute in Brazil, where he quickly became concertmaster of the Pao de Acucar Orchestra. During his time as concertmaster, the orchestra performed in the United States, Argentina and Italy. In 2008, he began his collegiate studies at Pensacola Christian College in Florida, studying violin with Alberto Jaffe. Sant’Ana has been a member of the UND String Quartet since 2012 (see story on Page 20). The quartet recently completed a tour of western North Dakota and received rave reviews for those performances. Currently, he is pursuing his undergraduate degree under the guidance of Alejandro Drago, UND associate professor of music. He regularly performs with the Greater Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra, Fargo-Moorhead Symphony Orchestra, and the Bismarck Symphony Orchestra. In 2013, he won first prize at the Grand Forks and Bismarck Symphony Competitions playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Lalo Symphonie Espagnole.

A group of UND medical and graduate students are getting a close-up and personal look at the world of important medical research, thanks to faculty member Min Wu and a major grant he recently received from the National Institutes of Health.

Wu, an associate professor of biochemistry in the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences, has received a $1.7 million, five-year R01 grant from the NIH to study a unique defense against superbug infections.

And he’s doing it with a crew of able-and-ready UND students, including Alec Hildebrand, a second-year UND medical student who is participating in the school’s Research Experience for Medical Students Program. Hildebrand is joined in the research by graduate students Yan Ye, Xuefeng Li, Shirui Tan and Changpei Gan. SMHS Research Specialist Quiang Guo and faculty members Rongpeng Li and Shuang Zhang also are involved in the research.

More than 20 percent of the deaths in the world are the result of bacterial infections. However, multidrug-resistant bacteria, or “superbugs,” have developed a resistance to some of the best drugs in modern medicine’s disease-fighting arsenal. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the NIH recognized the promising research being conducted by Min Wu by awarding him the grant.

Wu and his lab team have proposed transforming a common cellular housekeeping function and using it in combatting superbugs. The human body’s cells employ a process called autophagy (self-eating) to rid the body of aging or dying cells. Wu will study how to turn autophagy into a weapon to fight pathogens, a process scientists call phagocytosis that is carried out in the lungs and other organs by macrophages (phagocytic cells).

The NIAID’s interest was piqued when Wu’s team identified a novel mechanism taking place in autophagy that also facilitates phagocytosis.

They have elucidated the disease pathways used by multidrug-resistant bacteria and have identified several critical genes that may regulate bacterial metabolism and their means of invading the body.

Kalka’s award-winning paper examines history of STEM disciplines at UND

PAGE 24 / UND DISCOVERY / UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

PHOTO BY WANDA WEBER, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES

Joseph Kalka, Grand Forks, a University of North Dakota sophomore majoring in history and Honors, won the 2013-14 Merrifield Competition for his research on the history of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines at UND. Kalka’s paper, “Unbalanced Scales: Women in STEM Fields at the University of North Dakota, 1940-1960,” examined the history and development of women studying in these fields.

Named in honor of Webster Merrifield, UND’s first librarian and third president, the Merrifield Competition awards a $1,000 scholarship for the most outstanding student research paper that uses historic documents from the Chester Fritz Library’s Elwyn B. Robinson Kalka Department of Special Collections. The competition is sponsored by Special Collections and the UND Department of History.

A five-member jury reviewed the papers submitted for the competition. The jury comprised Curt Hanson, UND head of Special Collections, and four UND faculty members: Eric Burin, history; Matthew Notbohm, accountancy; Michelle Sauer, English; and Burt Thorp, interdisciplinary studies.

The papers were judged on quality of research, clarity of thesis and conclusion, writing skill and the investigation of primary sources.

Pictured left to right, front row: Min Wu, M.D., Ph.D.; Alec Hildebrand, second-year medical student participating in the Research Experience for Medical Students Program; Yan Ye, graduate student; and Xuefeng Li, graduate student. Back row: Shirui Tan, graduate student; SMHS Research Specialist Quiang Guo, M.D., Ph.D.; and SMHS Faculty Members Rongpeng Li, Ph.D., and Shuang Zhang, Ph.D.; and Changpei Gan, graduate student.

FOCUS ON FACULTY Koszewski named Fellow of Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Wanda Koszewski, chair of the UND Nutrition and Dietetics Department in the College of Nursing and Professional Disciplines, has been named a Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Koszewski, a clinical associate professor of nutrition and dietetics, has been a member of the department for about a year. The Academy awards fellowships to those who have disKoszewski tinguished themselves among their colleagues and communities by their service to the dietetics profession and by optimizing the nation’s health through food and nutrition.

Koszewski’s areas of research and interest include nutrition education and its impact on quality of life. She is a licensed registered dietitian.

Kaabouch secures NSF grant to improve radio spectrum The National Science Foundation has awarded $300,000 to Naima Kaabouch, UND assistant professor of electrical engineering, for a project to improve access to the radio spectrum.

This research will impact cellular infrastructure, vehicular networks, aircraft, emergency and defense networks.

“Efficient radio spectrum management has become a necessity,” Kaabouch said.

“Conventionally, portions of the radio spectrum are assigned statically to license holders. However, the model needs an urgent Kaabouch rethink due to the huge demand for radio spectrum channels created by portable devices and data rates for wireless communications.”

This project will provide research opportunities to two Ph.D. students and several undergraduates. More engineering students will be trained through the integration of research outcomes in a course taught by Kaabouch.

Wen-Chen Hu of Computer Science and Kaabouch are the editors of a research publica-

tion on the same topic, titled Handbook of Research on Software-Defined and Cognitive Radio Technologies for Dynamic Spectrum Management, published by IGI Global.

Combs receives Michael J. Fox grant to fight Parkinson’s Disease Professor Colin Combs in the Department of Basic Sciences at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences has been awarded $90,000 from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

The project will investigate the role of neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s disease using mice that have been “humanized.” Inflammation is a defensive response by the body’s immune system to an injury, infection or allergy. In the central nervous system — the brain and spinal cord — the immune response is Combs performed by specialized cells called microglia, which patrol the central nervous system and clear it of cellular debris and dead neurons. Over-activation of microglia during the immune response has been associated with neuroinflammation and the cellular degeneration that occurs in Parkinson’s disease.

“This suggests that brain inflammation may influence the course of disease and that anti-inflammatory therapies might be useful,” said Combs. “However, it is difficult to answer this question with the typical lab approach of using rodents to study the disease since the rodent immune system may differ quite a lot from that of a human.” Combs and his lab team will overcome this limitation by using mice that have been “humanized” with stem cells derived from the bone marrow of human adults. This process allows laboratories like Combs’ to address how the human immune system works, even though the model remains a mouse. The Michael J. Fox Foundation, which was founded in 2000, is the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Parkinson’s disease research.

Geiger, Chen secure grant to help in research on early signs of HIV neurological complications The National Institutes of Health granted $1.6 million to Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor Jonathan Geiger and his colleague,

Xuesong Chen, both in the Department of Basic Sciences at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, for HIV-related research.

The five-year grant funds research on some very new, novel and potentially important mechanisms that control levels of intracellular calcium in neurons that may explain neurological complications associated with HIV-1/ AIDS. For more than Geiger 20 years, the Geiger laboratory has been studying HIV-1-associated neurocognitive disorders, or HAND. Geiger’s team has been trying to determine the effects of HIV-1 proteins on neurons, with a special focus on the involvement of Chen intracellular calcium, a universally important signaling molecule.

“We were the first group in the world to show that one of the earliest effects of exposure of neurons to the HIV-1 protein Tat is the release of calcium from specific stores of calcium in intracellular organelles known as endoplasmic reticulum, and that this calcium release can lead to neuronal cell death,” Geiger said. “We are now showing that there is an earlier event: release of calcium from other intracellular organelles known as endosomes and lysosomes. We have also shown that this release of calcium can cause a profound influx of extracellular calcium into the neurons by a never-before identified mechanism.” Thus, the effects of HIV-1 proteins are being amplified inside of neurons, and this might help explain neurological complications associated with HIV-1/AIDS. “The study of HIV-1-associated neurocognitive disorders is particularly significant because about half of all people living with HIV-1/AIDS suffer from HAND with learning and memory issues similar to those experienced by people with Alzheimer’s disease.”

Geiger’s research group includes postdoctoral fellows Liang Hui and Mahmoud Soliman, second-year medical students Adam Nygard and Cole Laber, and undergraduate students Nick Geiger, Marisa Eastman and Nicole Sobolik.

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President Robert Kelley hosted a reception Oct.14, 2014, to celebrate the accomplishments of UND scholars and researchers who have recently published works. More than 300 were invited to the event, held in the Gorecki Alumni Center. Among those inspecting a display of published works there were (left to right) Myrna Olson of the Department of Teaching and Learning, Marcia Mikulak of the Department of Anthropology, Yen Lee Loh of the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, and Todd Sabato and John Fitzgerald of the Department of Kinesiology and Public Health.