UC Davis News: Physical Sciences

UC Davis plans 13 commencements, will graduate first nursing students

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:25:00 -0700

Thousands of students from the University of California, Davis, will participate in 13 commencement ceremonies this spring, including the first class from the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Commencement season begins Thursday, May 17, and concludes Sunday, June 17.

Guest speakers will include:

Goodwin Liu, an associate justice of the California Supreme Court, at the commencement for the School of Law on May 17;
Marie V. McDemmond, president emeritus of Norfolk State University in Virginia, at the commencement for the School of Education on June 13;
James C. Davis, president of Chevron Energy Solutions, at the commencement for the Graduate School of Management on June 16; and
Secretary General Chris Buijink of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation for the Netherlands, at the commencements for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences on June 17.

For more about speakers, visit: http://commencement.ucdavis.edu/speakers.html.

Commencement dates, times and locations are as follows:

May 17 — School of Law at 2 p.m. at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts;
May 19 — School of Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 13 — School of Education at 4 p.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 14 — Graduate Studies at 4 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — College of Biological Sciences at 9 a.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — School of Veterinary Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 15 — College of Engineering at 3 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — College of Letters and Science at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — Graduate School of Management at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center; and
June 17 — College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion.

In addition, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will hold a special celebration of its first graduates at 12:30 p.m. on June 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center, before students participate in the Graduate Studies commencement. About 25 nursing students are candidates for a Master of Science degree.

Established in 2009, the nursing school admitted the first students to its master’s and Doctor of Philosophy programs in fall 2010. The school focuses on preparing graduates as educators, researchers and leaders to promote health, advance quality of care and safety, and shape policy.

The School of Law will award 23 Master of Laws and 202 Juris Doctor degrees at its ceremony, and the School of Medicine will award 108 Doctor of Medicine, four Master of Health Informatics and 24 Master of Public Health degrees.

Estimates of degrees to be awarded at the other ceremonies will be available in June. In 2010-11, UC Davis conferred 8,350 degrees.

Tickets are required for all commencement ceremonies except Graduate Studies, and they are distributed to graduating students by individual schools and colleges.

UC Davis will offer live and on-demand webcasts of each of the commencements at http://commencementvideo.ucdavis.edu/.

White House hails blind chemistry grad student as “Champion of Change”

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:10:00 -0700

Henry "Hoby" Wedler, a graduate student in chemistry at the University of California, Davis, will be one of 14 individuals honored today (May 7) at the White House as Champions of Change for leading the way for people with disabilities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

“STEM is vital to America’s future in education and employment, so equal access for people with disabilities is imperative, as they can contribute to and benefit from STEM,” said Kareem Dale, special assistant to President Obama for disability policy. “The leaders we’ve selected as Champions of Change are proving that when the playing field is level, people with disabilities can excel in STEM, develop new products, create scientific inventions, open successful businesses, and contribute equally to the economic and educational future of our country.”

Wedler, who is blind, is working toward his Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Inspired by programs offered by the National Federation of the Blind in high school and with encouragement from professors, colleagues and others, Wedler gained the confidence to challenge and refute the mistaken belief that STEM fields are too visual and, therefore, impractical for blind people.

Wedler is not only following his own passion; he is working hard to develop the next generation of scientists by founding and teaching at an annual chemistry camp for blind and low-vision high school students. Sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind, the camp's goal is to demonstrate to these students, by example and through practice, that their lack of eyesight should not hold them back from pursuing their dreams.

Wedler was nominated by Douglas Sprei of Learning Ally, a nonprofit formerly known as Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. The organization allowed Wedler to excel in school.

The Champions of Change program was created as part of President Obama’s Winning the Future initiative. Each week, a different sector is highlighted and groups of champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community leaders, are recognized for the work they are doing to serve and strengthen their communities.

To watch this event live, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/live at 1:30 p.m. ET, 10:30 am Pacific Time today (May 7).

UC Davis academic associations award prizes for faculty teaching, research, service

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:04:00 -0700

The UC Davis Academic Senate and Academic Federation have announced their 2012 teaching and research prize recipients.

The senate each year presents Distinguished Teaching Awards and Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Awards. The federation honors its members for Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Research.

ACADEMIC SENATE

Distinguished Teaching Award: Undergraduate

• Frances Dolan, professor, Department of English — Teaching is central in her work and in her own scholarship. Describing her as a “dazzling lecturer” and mentor for students, English professor Margaret Ferguson said: “Whether teaching a course of 200 or mentoring a single MURALS (Mentorships for Undergraduate Research in Agriculture, Letters and Science) student, Fran pays extraordinary attention to the details of pedagogy; she is interested not only in introducing students to new texts, genres and critical questions, but also in strengthening their ability to read closely and to ask big questions of what they read.”

• Ari Kelman, associate professor, Department of History — He shines at the front of a lecture hall in a way that few others do, said David Biale, professor and chair, Department of History. “Working largely without notes, responding frequently to student questions without losing the thread of his own thought, he proceeds through a lecture, crafting a clear narrative and analysis as he goes along.” He added: “While he sometimes ventures into theater — his lecture on the caning of Sen. Charles Sumner is legendary — students appreciate his lectures most for their combination of sophistication and accessibility.”

• David Osleger, lecturer, Department of Geology — He has “an exceptional ability to get students involved in the course material,” his faculty colleagues wrote in nominating him. In evaluating his classes, students use words like “fascinating,” “fun” and “enlightening.” For many students, taking a general education geology class from Osleger led them to either take more geology classes, or to become geology or natural sciences majors. Osleger also is committed to recruiting students, especially from underrepresented groups, into natural sciences and geology, and mentoring undergraduates on career choices in geological sciences.

• Jay Stachowicz, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology — He is a motivator, engaging and entertaining in the classroom, and “an incredible mentor,” encouraging students to participate in his lab. “He teaches students more than just the skills needed to run different marine ecology experiments,” Natalie Caulk, Elise Hinman and Kristen Kelley wrote in a nomination letter. “He teaches the process of scientific inquiry.” Faculty colleagues Artyom Kopp and Rick Grosberg said Stachowicz’s research experience energizes all of his classes: “His teaching embodies all that a great research university stands for.”

Distinguished Teaching Award: Graduate and Professional

• Richard Sexton, professor and chair, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics — He is a master of his subject matter, communicates well and is remarkably adept at maximizing classroom participation. In addition, he has played an integral role in curriculum development, especially earning praise for master’s-level macroeconomic theory, which he began teaching in 1994 and later expanded into a two-course sequence. Those courses now attract students from many other disciplines. Sexton pioneered the incorporation of industrial organization concepts into instruction on agricultural market analysis.

• Richard Tucker, professor of cellular biology and human anatomy, School of Medicine — He is the primary instructor for the single largest course in the four-year curriculum: “Gross, Radiologic and Developmental Anatomy,” which includes foreign terminology and physically demanding laboratory sessions. Students laud his caring and motivational style, “fantastic ability to present a large amount of developmental information in a short period of time,” and his knowledge of the material, which he “can explain at any level of detail the moment demands.”

Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award

• Liz Applegate, senior lecturer, Department of Nutrition — She puts as much effort into public service as she does to her teaching, notably Nutrition 10, which draws rave reviews, owing to her philosophy of making nutrition and fitness education actionable and pertinent. Off campus, she gives countless lectures and workshops to a broad range of community groups, particularly those comprising underrepresented populations — people who are disabled or chronically ill, for example. She also works with state and national organizations, and youth sport groups. In addition, she is a valuable resource for the media.

• John Largier, professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, and the Bodega Marine Laboratory — He has played a notable and sustained role in service to the public by providing scientific advice on matters related to the health of marine and coastal environments via media events and interviews, membership on assessment and advisory teams, participation in working groups and on task forces, and presentations at public meetings. His efforts are across the spectrum from service intended to spur development of science beyond the university, to the application of science in policy, advising agencies and informing the public.

• Mark J. Mannis, professor and chair, Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science, and director, Eye Center — Recognized for his efforts to increase the number of high-quality ocular tissues available for transplant, as well as the number of ophthalmologists and technicians trained in the latest corneal transplant and eye-banking methodologies — thus restoring sight for tens of thousands of people with blinding diseases around the globe. Starting 30 years ago, Mannis and the UC Davis Medical Center turned the Lions Club’s fledgling eye bank into the well-established Sierra Eye and Tissue Donor Services.

• Robert K. Washino, emeritus professor, Department of Entomology — Throughout his academic career and now in retirement, he gives freely of his time and expertise to local, state, federal and international agencies, as well as the private sector. He served on U.S. Department of Agriculture and California Department of Food and Agriculture task forces targeting such insects as the Africanized honeybee and Mediterranean fruit fly. He added breadth and depth to such organizations as the Entomological Society of America and the World Health Organization.

ACADEMIC FEDERATION

Excellence in Teaching

• Eric Mann, lecturer, Department of Microbiology — His faculty colleagues said he is enthusiastic about his teaching and strives to stimulate his students to think independently. In their evaluations, students praise his clear lecture style, meticulous organization and remarkable sense of humor. His extensive work in curriculum development included a revamp of introductory microbiology to meet the needs of preprofessional students, and a reorganization of the MIC 101 labs so they could be offered in the summer. His dedication is astounding, said his colleagues, noting that he supervises lab instruction 18 hours a week in a typical quarter.

• John Rundin, lecturer, Classics Program — He is described as being abundantly generous to students inside the classroom and out, keeping an open door for those in need of assistance in one of the most difficult subjects: Latin. “His office is next to mine, so I can hear him patiently explaining Latin forms or grammar — never losing his sense of compassion and his conviction that every student can grasp the language — and also offering encouragement and advice,” wrote Emily Albu, associate professor and Classics Program director. “I see the academic results in the number of students who continue to a classics major or minor.”

Excellence in Research

• Wei Yao, assistant adjunct professor, School of Medicine — Her most recent work, published in Nature Medicine earlier this year, involved the development of a novel technique (using the molecule LLP2A-Ale) to enhance bone growth — offering a potential treatment for osteoporosis. Nancy E. Lane, who holds the Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging and Geriatric Medicine, said Yao has made a number of seminal scientific discoveries at UC Davis. “The scope of inquiry, the importance of the topic matter, the methodical construction of a unified approach to the questions and the gratifying results all speak for themselves,” Lane said.

C-STEM Day conference, robot competition promotes robotics in teaching

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:25:00 -0700

(Read about a synopsis of the event, including the awards ceremony for students and teachers.)

Middle and high school students will show their skills in robotics and problem-solving while teachers, educators, researchers and policymakers discuss how to use computing, technology, engineering and robotics in K-14 education at the second annual UC Davis C-STEM Day, Saturday, May 5.

"Robotics is an interdisciplinary field and working with robots can really get students excited about computing and STEM," said Harry Cheng, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, using the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Cheng is director of the UC Davis K-14 Outreach Center for Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM. With the support of the National Science Foundation, the center is working on several key issues: How can STEM learning help close the achievement gap for minority students and promote success for all students; How will STEM learning change school environments, curriculum, instructional and assessment practices; and how will a focus on STEM learning impact teacher preparation and professional development?

C-STEM Day runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with most events taking place in the UC Davis Conference Center. During the morning, there will be a conference on the theme of integrating technology and engineering into math and science education, with a keynote speech by UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, herself an engineer by training. Panel discussions will cover teaching algebra, math, computing and technology; closing the achievement gap; and professional development for pre-service and in-service STEM teachers.

Among those taking part will be Deputy Director Michael Hardwick of Sandia National Laboratories; Winfred Robinson, superintendent of the Davis Joint Unified School District; Timothy Taylor, assistant superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education; and Matthew Perry, director of High School Reform Initiatives for the Sacramento City Unified School District.

At the same time, K-12 students from regional schools will be working on the RoboPlay Robot Challenge. The challenge lets students showcase their real-world problem solving skills in a competitive environment. The teams will be presented with a problem at a remote location such as a space station or planetary habitat, where they have to quickly develop and deploy a robotic solution using only existing resources. The specific challenge will be kept secret until the day of the competition.

In the afternoon, the students will present their results from the Robot Challenge Competition, as well as videos from a "RoboPlay Robot Dance" and “Robot Show” that they have been working on over the preceding weeks and other robotics demonstrations. The day will end with an awards ceremony.

A number of schools from across the greater Sacramento region, including Westmore Oaks Elementary, Bridgeway Island Elementary, and River City High School in West Sacramento, Harper Junior High in Davis, Einstein Education Center in Woodland, and Hiram Johnson High in Sacramento, are working with Cheng's center to implement programs that teach algebra and computer programming, using the modular robot "Mobot" invented in Cheng's laboratory at UC Davis.

The center's RoboPlay competitions are open-ended design challenges that integrate computer programming and math with elements of writing, art, music, choreography, design and filmmaking. Middle and high school students write computer programs to create robot dances and robot shows as well as complete challenges using the Mobot.

The center also offers summer programs and fellowships for STEM teachers to get experience in computing and robotics research that can be applied in their teaching.

A single Mobot module has wheels at each end and two hinges in the center. An individual module can drive on its wheels, crawl or raise one end of its body and pan around. Modules can be connected together to make wheeled vehicles, "snakes", "gorilla," humanoid or other shapes with different applications. Each module is fully programmable and can be controlled simultaneously, making it extremely versatile for a wide range of exercises.

As well as figuring out how to program the robots for different applications, students can design new parts and accessories for the robots and prototype them with three-dimensional printers.

Watch another video featuring the Mobots, Mobots in the Forest.

C-STEM Day is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the UC Davis College of Engineering and University Outreach and International Programs.

To register for the conference or for full program details, please visit http://c-stem.ucdavis.edu/activities/conference/. Attendance is free, but advance registration by May 1 is required.

UC Davis dean elected to Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:30:00 -0700

Immunologist James Hildreth, dean of biological sciences at the University of California, Davis, has been elected to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars.

Hildreth, a leading AIDS researcher, came to UC Davis in 2011 upon his appointment as dean. He left Tennessee’s Meharry Medical College, where he was a professor and director of the Center for AIDS Health Disparities Research.

Before that he served on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he began his research on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

His work at Johns Hopkins University qualified him for the Society of Scholars. Established in 1967, it includes former postdoctoral fellows, postdoctoral degree recipients, house staff, and junior or visiting faculty who served for at least one year at Johns Hopkins and later gained marked distinction in their fields of physical, biological, medical, social or engineering sciences, or in the humanities.

Hildreth earned a bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1979; his doctorate in immunology from Oxford in 1982, as a Rhodes scholar; and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1987.

•••

Newly awarded fellowships are supporting a half-dozen University of California, Davis, faculty members in their research and writing.

Simons Foundation fellowships went to Anne Schilling, professor, and Dan Romik, associate professor, both of the Department of Mathematics; and Warren Pickett, professor of physics.

The awards provide support to extend academic leaves for up to a year, allowing recipients to focus solely on research.

The American Council of Learned Societies is supporting three faculty members in their book projects on medieval French farces, Mark Twain and human rights in the Middle East. The recipients:

• Noah Guynn, associate professor, Department of French and Italian, who is writing The Many Faces of Farce: Ethics, Politics, and Urban Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern France, challenging assumptions that such farces were used to entertain the masses while reconciling them to lives of subservience. Instead, Guynn reveals evidence of cultural resistance and political risk in the genre.

• Hsuan L. Hsu, professor, Department of English, who is writing Sitting in Darkness: Mark Twain and America’s Asia. Hsu describes it as “the first book-length study of Mark Twain’s responses to trans-Pacific historical phenomena such as Chinese immigration, diplomatic relations with China, the annexation of Hawaii and the U.S. regime in the Philippines.”

• Keith David Watenpaugh, associate professor, Department of Religious Studies, who is writing Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, the first major study of the history of human rights and international humanitarianism in the Middle East.

•••

Professor John Eadie of the University of California, Davis, has been honored for his waterfowl conservation efforts.

The waterfowl biologist, affiliated with the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, received the awards at the 77th North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference.

Ducks Unlimited presented a Wetland Conservation Achievement Award, commending Eadie for his research on food resources for migrating ducks in the Central Valley’s seasonally flooded wetland and rice land — data that contributed to a conservation model for these critical wintering grounds.

Eadie received the National Blue-Winged Teal Award from the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, a joint project of the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Eadie, who runs the Avian Conservation and Ecology Lab, joined UC Davis in 1995 as the first holder of the Dennis G. Raveling Professorship.

•••

Composer-musician Kurt Rohde of the faculty at the University of California, Davis, has scored two commissions and two residencies.

One commission is from the Lydian String Quartet at Brandeis University, and the other is from the independent and nonprofit Meet the Composer, part of New Music USA. For the latter, Rohde is collaborating on a work for small ensemble, with narrator and projected images.

Rohde’s residencies will be at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where he will work on the chamber opera projects during the 2012-13 academic year; and the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga (Santa Clara County), where, during the summers of 2013 and 2014, he will collaborate on a film project.

•••

With a swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C., physics professor Robin Erbacher of the University of California, Davis, officially became a member of the federal government’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel.

It advises the government on research in theoretical and experimental physics, reporting jointly to the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Erbacher earned her doctorate from Stanford University and joined the UC Davis faculty in 2004. She is a member of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland.

•••

Professor Laura Marcu of the University of California, Davis, has been elected a fellow of the professional organization SPIE, in recognition of her achievements in biomedical optics.

For example, she developed handheld probes for identifying the edges of tumors during surgery, and probes that can be inserted through catheters to investigate atherosclerotic plaques in heart disease.

SPIE began in 1955 as the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers, and has changed names twice. It is now known simply as SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

•••

Nancy McTygue, executive director of the California History-Social Science Project, based at the University of California, Davis, has taken a seat on the California Instructional Quality Commission, by appointment of the state Board of Education.

The Instructional Quality Commission, known as the Curriculum Commission up until Jan. 1, 2012, serves in an advisory capacity to the state board, on issues related to kindergarten through grade-12 curriculum and instruction.

This is McTygue’s forte. The only panel member with a university-affiliated post, she oversees seven regional sites, each a collaborative of teachers (kindergarten through four-year college) and scholars dedicated to improving history and social science curriculum and instruction in the state’s schools.

The sites range from the UCI History Project at UC Irvine in the south, to The History Project at UC Davis in the north.

National Science Foundation director to speak

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

April 25, Wednesday -- Subra Suresh, director of the National Science Foundation, will speak at UC Davis as part of the Chancellor's Colloquium speaker series. His talk, "Science and Engineering in a Globalized World," will begin at 4 p.m. in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Suresh was sworn in as director of the NSF in October 2010. The agency has an annual budget of $7 billion and is charged with advancing research and related educational programs in all areas of basic science and engineering.

Before his appointment to the NSF, Suresh was dean of the School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India; a master’s degree from Iowa State University; and a Doctor of Science degree from MIT.

At the NSF, he has established several new initiatives including INSPIRE (Integrative NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education), PEER (Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research, in collaboration with USAID), the NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative, and the NSF Innovation Corps.

Admission to his talk is free, but please register in advance at http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/colloquium/index.html.

For more event information, please call (530) 754-2262.

Nobel-winning physicist and his art critic son debate creativity

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

April 26, Thursday -- Martin Perl, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in physics, and his son, Jed Perl, art critic for The New Republic, will discuss the creative process in science and the arts beginning at 8 p.m. at the UC Davis Conference Center. Their discussion will be moderated by Dean Simonton, distinguished professor of psychology at UC Davis. The event is free and open to the public.

Martin Perl is a professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and Stanford University. He shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of a subatomic particle, the tau lepton. Jed Perl has been art critic for The New Republic since 1994. He is the author of a number of books, including "New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century" (2005), which was an Atlantic Monthly best book of the year and a New York Times notable book. Jed Perl is currently a visiting professor of liberal studies at The New School in New York City.

Simonton has written extensively on genius and creativity in science and art. Among his current projects is an upcoming book, the "Handbook of Genius," to be published by Wiley-Blackwell. He is also president of the Society of General Psychology.

The event is sponsored by the UC Davis College of Letters and Science, the Office of University Development, Department of Physics, and the Art Studio Program.

3 from UC Davis are new fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Three professors at the University of California, Davis, are among the newest class of fellows in the American Academy of Microbiology:

• Patricia Conrad — Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine.

• Jonathan Eisen — Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, and Department of Evolution and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences. He is also affiliated with the Genome Center and the Center for Population Biology.

• Wolf Heyer — Departments of Microbiology, and Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Sciences. He is also affiliated with the Cancer Center.

The academy describes itself as the honorific leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s oldest life science organization.

Peer voting determines who gets in to the academy, based on the candidates’ scientific excellence, originality and leadership; high ethical standards; and scholarly and creative achievement.

The academy then calls upon its membership for authoritative advice and information on critical issues in microbiology, from responding to congressional inquiries to organizing meetings and workshops.

•••

James Sanchirico, a natural resource economist at the University of California, Davis, has been named the 2012 recipient of the Rosenstiel Award in Oceanographic Science.

Sanchirico received a doctorate in agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis and later joined the faculty of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy.

He applies quantitative methods to study the design and evaluation of policy instruments aimed at conserving natural resources. His ocean-related research takes in marine population and habitat management, and the design of market-based policies, such as fishing quota systems.

His website lists the following among the projects that he is working on at this time: bioeconomic analysis of stellar sea lion conservation, and coral reef and mangrove management.

He serves the National Research Council as a member of two new committees, one that is reviewing the National Ocean Acidification Research Plan and one that is evaluating the effectiveness of stock rebuilding plans in the 2006 Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act.

The University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science administers the award, with support from the Rosenstiel Foundation. A school spokeswoman said the award (including a $10,000 prize) will be presented to Sanchirico during a dinner April 24.

And, while visiting the school, Sanchirico will deliver one or two lectures, the spokeswoman said.

•••

Mathematics professor Naoki Saito of the University of California, Davis, has been elected to a two-year term as vice chair of the Activity Group on Imaging Science of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Saito is chair of the Graduate Group in Applied Mathematics.

His own studies take in such topics as harmonic analysis, signal processing, image analysis, data analysis and compression, pattern recognition and human and machine perception.

Chemist, mathematician win Sloan fellowships

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded research fellowships to two assistant professors at the University of California, Davis, one a chemist attempting to mimic how plants turn sunlight into fuel and the other a mathematician studying wave reflections from complex objects.

The fellowships, worth $50,000 over two years, are given to early career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars of the next generation of scientific leaders.

Chemist Louise Berben and mathematician James Bremer came to UC Davis as a result of recent campus hiring initiatives in energy and fundamental physics, said Winston Ko, dean of the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences in the College of Letters and Science.

"Their Sloan fellowships confirm the increasing excellence of the faculty we are building," Ko said.

Berben is using metal catalysts to turn carbon dioxide into organic molecules, such as formate, formaldehyde and methanol, which can be used as fuels. Her ultimate aim is to use electrons from photovoltaic cells to convert carbon dioxide to liquid fuel.

Her research focuses on new complexes and clusters based on elements such as iron and aluminum that are abundant in the earth and cheap. She studies how these materials can act as catalysts to convert carbon dioxide into more complex molecules, and can act on organic molecules called alkanes, a group which includes methane, propane and butane.

Berben earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of New South Wales, Australia, in 2000 and her doctorate from UC Berkeley in 2005. She joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009 after postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also holds a diploma in piano performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Bremer's research interests are in computational mathematics, numerical science and computational harmonic analysis. More simply, he is interested in what happens when waves reflect from complex surfaces.

Radar and sonar work by bouncing radio or sound waves off objects and listening to the return signals. For simplicity, engineers usually consider waves bouncing off simple, smooth objects and surfaces. But real objects like jumbo jets and submarines have curves, corners and antenna, Bremer said. His work explores what the return echoes from geometrically complicated objects should look like.

Bremer earned joint bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2001, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 2007. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 2007.

Berben and Bremer are among 126 U.S. and Canadian researchers to be awarded Sloan Research Fellowships this year.

Tiny trees for solar power

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Microscopic “fractal trees” grown from silver could be the basis of a new type of solar cell, say chemists at the University of California, Davis.

“We expect these structures will allow us to make better, more efficient solar cells,” said Professor Frank Osterloh, a principal investigator on the $100,000 grant.

Fractals are patterns that repeat over multiple length scales. In this case, branches of silver 1-50th the width of a human hair are themselves branched, and smaller branches grow on those branches, forming a treelike pattern.

In a solar cell application, the silver trees are coated with light-absorbing polymers. When light particles (photons) hit the polymer coat, they produce short-lived electrons and holes in the polymer. The positively charged holes are collected through the silver branches, while the electrons move to the counterelectrode to create an electrical potential.

Osterloh compared the structures to real trees, which use a fractal structure of branches to twigs to spread a wide canopy of leaves for sunlight collection. Similarly, the nanosized silver trees will have a large surface area.

Osterloh’s lab at UC Davis will fabricate the solar cells, which will be characterized by collaborators Sean Shaheen at the University of Denver and Richard Taylor, University of Oregon. Boaz Ilan, UC Merced, will carry out computer modeling on the systems.

Funding came from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement, which has funded Osterloh’s solar energy research since 2010. The new project was one of three “spontaneous proposals” funded during the organization’s investigators meeting last fall.

Dark matter's odd behavior baffles astronomers

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New results from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope confirm that, contrary to predictions, dark matter -- the invisible substance that makes up much of our universe -- and galaxies parted ways in the collision of two galaxy clusters 2.4 billion light-years away. Now, astronomers are left trying to explain dark matter's seemingly oddball behavior in the Abell 520 merging galaxy cluster.

"This result is a puzzle," said astronomer James Jee, project scientist in the Department of Physics at the University of California, Davis, who led the Hubble study. "Dark matter is not behaving as predicted, and it's not obviously clear what is going on. Theories of galaxy formation and dark matter must explain what we are seeing."

During the collision of galaxy clusters that formed Abell 520, the dark matter collected into a "dark core" containing far fewer galaxies than would be expected if the dark matter and galaxies hung together. Most of the galaxies apparently have sailed far away from the collision.

Current theories of dark matter predict that galaxies should be anchored to the invisible substance, even during the shock of a collision. The initial observations, made in 2007, were so unusual that astronomers shrugged them off as the result of poor data.

A paper reporting the team's results has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and is available online.

About dark matter

Dark matter is thought to be the gravitational "glue" that holds galaxies together. The mysterious invisible substance is not made of the same kind of matter that makes up stars, planets and people. Astronomers know little about dark matter, yet it accounts for most of the universe's mass. They have deduced dark matter's existence by observing its ghostly gravitational influence on normal matter.

One way to study dark matter is by analyzing smashups between galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe. When galaxy clusters collide, astronomers expect the galaxies to tag along with the dark matter. Clouds of intergalactic gas, however, plow into one another, slow down, and lag behind the impact.

That theory was supported by visible-light and X-ray observations of a colossal collision between two galaxy clusters called the Bullet Cluster, and of other colliding clusters, including one nicknamed “Perry’s cluster” which was recently described by another team led by UC Davis astronomers.

Galaxy cluster's odd behavior

But studies of Abell 520 have shown that dark matter's behavior may not be so simple. The original observations found that the system's core was rich in dark matter and hot gas but contained no luminous galaxies, which normally would be seen in the same location as the dark matter. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory detected the hot gas. Astronomers used the Canada-France-Hawaii and Subaru telescopes atop Mauna Kea to infer the location of the dark matter by measuring how the mysterious substance bends light from more distant background galaxies, an effect called gravitational lensing.

The astronomers then turned to Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 to help bail them out of their cosmic conundrum. Instead, to their chagrin, the Hubble observations helped confirm the earlier findings. Astronomers used Hubble to map the dark matter in the cluster through the gravitational lensing technique.

"Observations like those of Abell 520 are humbling in the sense that in spite of all the leaps and bounds in our understanding, every now and then, we are stopped cold," explained Arif Babul of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, the team's senior theorist.

Is Abell 520 an oddball or is the prevailing picture of dark matter flawed? Jee thinks it's too soon to tell.

"We know of maybe six examples of high-speed galaxy cluster collisions where the dark matter has been mapped," Jee said. "But the Bullet Cluster and Abell 520 are the two that show the clearest evidence of recent mergers, and they are inconsistent with each other. No single theory explains the different behavior of dark matter in those two collisions. We need more examples."

Possible explanations

The team has proposed a half-dozen explanations for the findings, but each is unsettling for astronomers. "It's pick your poison," said team member Andisheh Mahdavi of San Francisco State University in California, who led the original Abell 520 observations in 2007. One possible explanation for the discrepancy is that Abell 520 was a more complicated interaction than the Bullet Cluster encounter. Abell 520 may have formed from a collision between three galaxy clusters, instead of just two colliding systems, as in the case of the Bullet Cluster.

Another scenario is that some dark matter may be what astronomers call "sticky." Like two snowballs smashing together, normal matter slams into each other during a collision and slows down. But dark matter blobs are thought to pass through each other during an encounter without slowing down. This scenario proposes that some dark matter interacts with itself and stays behind when galaxy clusters collide.

A third possibility is that the core contained many galaxies, but they were too dim to be seen, even by Hubble. Those galaxies would have formed dramatically fewer stars than other normal galaxies.

Armed with the Hubble data, the group hopes to create a computer simulation to try to reconstruct the collision, hoping that it yields some answers to dark matter's weird behavior.

For images and more information about Abell 520's dark core, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2012/10 and http://www.nasa.gov/hubble.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. in Washington, D.C.

Astronaut and alumna Tracy Caldwell Dyson speaks on campus

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

March 3, Saturday -- Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a NASA astronaut and UC Davis alumna, will give a free public lecture beginning at 4 p.m. in the ballroom of the UC Davis Conference Center, followed by a question-and-answer session. Caldwell Dyson received her doctorate in chemistry from UC Davis in 1997 and joined the astronaut program in 1998. On her first space mission in August 2007, she spent two weeks at the International Space Station. In April 2010, she launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket and spent 174 days at the International Space Station as a flight engineer, returning in September 2010. During the six-month mission, Caldwell Dyson conducted experiments and made three spacewalks to carry out repairs to the space station.

The talk is part of the College of Letters and Science Annual College Celebration, marking 60 years since the establishment of the college. The event is co-sponsored by the Cal Aggie Alumni Association.

Admission is free but advance registration is required. Register online at http://www.ls.ucdavis.edu/about/news-and-research/deans-speaker-series-tracy-caldwell-dyson.html.