DISCOVERU n i v e r s i t y o f N e v a d a , R e n o

Extraordinary People, Programs & Projects from the College of Science

www.unr.edu/scienceThe Davidson Mathematics and Science Center is the new,state-of-the-art home of the College of Science. A National Tier 1 University

22009-2010 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLNESS GUIDEDISCOVER

Dean Jeff Thompson

College of Science Dear Friend of Science,elcome to the inaugural edition of our brand-new magazine, Discover! Discover is our forum to help you experience the

excitement and enthusiasm of the people in the College of Science as they teach their classes, lead discoveries and work to better our community, our state and our world.

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I would like to invite you into our college to discover the sensational work of our students, faculty and staff. In the classroom, laboratory and in field work, the faculty and students in the College of Science investigate a broad range of issues, from the development of nerves and nervous systems to the physics of stars; from the safety of mine shafts in underground mines to the culture and geography of the West. Their work and studies address society’s issues, unearth new knowledge and bring this information to our students and to the greater global community. As you can tell, I am very proud of the students, faculty and staff in the College of Science, and I hope you enjoy reading their stories in Discover.

Jeff ThompsonDean, College of ScienceUniversity of Nevada, Reno

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rofessor, Paul Starrs teaches cultural and historical geography and serves as the Geography department chair all the while, he churns out a steady stream of publications

and lends an acclaimed and passionate research rigor to a variety of topics associated with the geography and cultural history of the so-called "New West."

His first book, Let the Cowboy Ride, was published by John Hopkins University Press in 1998. He has published nearly 100 articles, book chapters, and reviews on topics that include cyberspace, everyday landscapes, migration and the evolution of the Great Basin, urban geography, and a suite of resource-based issues.

Starrs conducts research on the woodlands and people of Mediterranean Europe with notable comparisons and scientifically important contributions to the conservation and management of California’s oak woodlands.

Starrs has co-written the book, Black Rock, with his equally esteemed Nevada colleague and art professor, the photographer Peter Goin, about the Black Rock country of northwestern Nevada, home to the annual Burning Man event.

He is currently engaged with several additional book-length projects, many of which he serves not only as author, but also as aggregator and translator of a diverse chorus of foreign contributors.

Though decidedly city born and raised, Starrs maintains an enduring affection for the West's many rural places and serves as a solid cornerstone to the University’s thriving Geography program.

PPaul Starrs, Professor of GeographyLooking Towards Starrs to Study Land Through Historical, Regional & Cultural Geography

Paul F. Starrs, Ph.D.

Department of

Geography

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42009-2010 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLNESS GUIDE

ven a casual conversation with “the Caterpillar Guy”, a moniker the glut of his research would proffer, immediately expands an understanding and appreciation of the impact that Biology Professor Lee Dyer’s work has on the world of science and our society in general.

Through research programs focused on biodiversity, conservation and ecological interactions predominantly conducted in the richly diverse tropics, Dyer is single-handedly making significant advancements in the fields of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. His passionate focus is studying environmental shifts ranging from almost imperceptibly slight to devastatingly damaging that have a direct and measurable impact on species adaptation and evolution, has important implications within science and industrial advancement where understanding the full spectrum of possible biological and chemical interactions and effects is critically important. Dyer, a 2014 Foundation Professor is an esteemed example of the high-caliber teaching and research faculty that the University has continued to attract as it has evolved over the years. He has been a notable figure within the College of Science since his arrival five years ago, with a steady stream of achievements: high and growing rate of publication, lucrative grant awards such as his annual $400,000 grant from the highly selective National Science Foundation and prominent international recognition for his long-term outreach work in high-profile organizations such as Earthwatch Institute.

Lee Dyer, Ph.D.

Department of Biology

Lee Dyer, Professor of BiologyEarthwatch Recognition, National Science FoundationSupport & Prominent Global Impact

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2009-2010 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLNESS GUIDE

na de Bettencourt-Dias, a National Science Foundation funded professor in the Chemistry

Department, envisions a country where a large percentage of non-radioactive material could

be separated from the thousands of tons of nuclear waste generated in the U.S. each year to reduce storage, disposal cost and long-range environmental impact.

She is passionate about pursuing this goal and believes with continued research, lobbying and education it could become a reality within a generation or two. The focus of de Bettencourt-Dias's research, the luminescence of lanthanide ions, has applications ranging from electronic display technologies to bioimaging and sensing.

Her luminescence research has implications and impact not only on the environment, but also potentially in the medical community with bioimaging, as used in cancer research, as well as in electronic consumer product development with LED components such as smart phones.

Portuguese-born and educated, de Bettencourt-Dias received her higher education and training in Germany and the U.S., earning the equivalent of a Ph.D. at the University of Cologne and as a Gulbenkian postdoctoral fellow here in the U.S. at the University of California, Davis.

Ana de Bettencourt-Dias, Professor of ChemistryThe Lightness of Being Professor Studies Luminescence to Shine Light on Global Solutions

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Ana de Bettencourt-Dias, Ph.D.

Department of ChemistryDe Bettencourt-Dias is a professor who, though she works with all levels of students from beginning Chemistry students to post-doctorate professionals, strives to engage her undergraduate students in hands-on research by including student findings and citations in her professional publications. In doing so, she truly embodies the mission at Nevada to offer all students ready access to high caliber research opportunities and one-on-one interaction with world-class faculty.

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Zeb Hogan,College of Scienceresearch professor travels the globe finding, studyingand preserving the planet’s largestfreshwater fish.

ollege of Science Research ProfessorZeb Hogan is looking for big fish – bigger than Tahoe’s 25-pound Makinaws, bigger than the record size 41-pound Lahontan cutthroat trout caught in Pyramid Lake. He’s looking for megafish:

six feet long and 200 pounds – or bigger.

Hogan travels the globe to find, study and protect the world’s largest freshwater fish – megafish like six-foot trout in Mongolia, 500-plus-pound sturgeon in the Pacific

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Northwest, 14-foot-long freshwater stingrays in Thailand or a 600-pound carp. He chronicles his travels on the National Geographic television show Monster Fish, now in it’s fifth year of production.

Hogan’s show, televised in North America, Asia and Europe, offers a mix of science, adventure and exploration around the world, with challenges such as expeditions up the Amazon and the remote Rio Roosevelt, a rugged 400-mile-long river in western Brazil that has remained largely unexplored since Theodore Roosevelt first boated down it in 1913.

This year, Hogan traveled to Thailand, Guyana, Nicaragua, Brazil and Australia to find and study the big fish. He will feature six of them in his National Geographic show.

“This year’s focus was top-of-the-food-chain predators,” he said. “We were on the search for a 400-pound freshwater shark, huge wolf fish, tarpon and electric eels – to name a few.”

Hogan, who has a a doctorate in ecology, has worked with nearly 100 scientists on this project, which spans six continents (North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia) and encompasses several of Earth's most diverse freshwater ecosystems - ecological treasures - including World Heritage Sites, Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance and United Nations Environment Program Biodiversity Hotspots.

Zeb Hogan, Ph.D., Megafish ExpertFish Biologist and National Geographic Television Star

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Other sites include (among others) the Amazon River, the Mekong River, the Mississippi River, the Nile, the Lake Baikal watershed in Russia, the Murray-Darling River in Australia, the tributaries of the Danube and the Yangtze River in China.

He also works to establish conservation programs in these areas to protect the threatened fish. Partly as a result of Hogan’s work with the governments of Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos, it is now illegal to capture the Mekong Giant Catfish in those countries.

The Mekong catfish can grow to nearly 13 feet long and almost 660 pounds and can live for 30 years. The catfish never stop growing. Estimates indicate that the total number of these giant catfish has decreased by 90 percent during the past two decades. It is just one of the 70 percent of two dozen species of huge freshwater fish that are at risk of extinction. Hogan, a conservation biologist, said the closest to extinction is the Chinese paddlefish, which is found in the Yangtze River in China. Determining which species are on the brink of extinction is the primary goal of Hogan's research in collaboration with College of Science limnologist and assistant professor Sudeep Chandra. Hogan said dams, pollution and overfishing are the biggest threats to freshwater megafish, such as the giant freshwater sting-ray that rivals the Mekong catfish in size, or other of the many species of megafish that live in the Mekong River, home to more species of giant fish than any other river on Earth.

“The giant freshwater stingray is an iconic species – a true life Loch Ness monster - a mega-predator in an era of decline of most of the world’s large predatory species, and symbolic of the health of the great rivers of Asia,” said Hogan.

"Science is not our only tool," Hogan said. "Education and outreach are crucial, too. Because in many places, endangered species conservation is a brand new concept that must be introduced and made relevant."

Hogan has also worked with conservation and education groups in the United States, such as along the Kootenai River in Idaho and the Great Lakes, on conservation projects.

He is a National Geographic Explorer and was named a National Geographic Fellow in 2011. He was a visiting Fulbright scholar in the Environmental Risk Assessment Program at Thailand’s Chiang Mai University and has also served as a World Wildlife Fund senior freshwater fellow.

His National Geographic bio can be seen at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/zeb-hogan/.

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2009-2010 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLNESS GUIDE8

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All of the 2014 Westfall Scholars with their mentors, Dr. David & Shirley Westfall.

Dr. David Westfall served as the founding dean of the College of Science. During his tenure as dean, he created the Senior Scholars Award for the College of Science to honor undergraduate students graduating with the highest GPAs in

their respective academic department, along with a faculty mentor selected by the student. Upon his retirement, the name of the award was changed to Westfall Szcholar.

The College of Science Salutes the 2014 Westfall Scholars

Derek Fitchett(the Durham Prize Winner)with Dr. Stephen Durham

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The College of Science Salutes the 2014 Westfall Scholars

Physics Mac Murphy with his mentor,Andre Derevianko.

Mining & Metallurgical EngineeringClaudia Betancourt with her mentor,George Danko.

Mathematics & Statistics Derek Fitchettwith his mentor, Aleksey Telyakovskiy.

Biology Frank Gonzalez with his mentor,Pamela Sandstrom.

Geological Sciences & EngineeringSara Beckman with her mentor,Robert Watters.

Geography Jared Landers with his mentor,Scott Bassett.

Chemistry Mark Walton with his mentor,Ana de Bettencourt Dias.

Biology Amy Daby with her mentor,Sarah Cummings.

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Jeff Thompson,

Dean of the

College of Science

pictured with

dinner guests.

ean Jeff Thompson understands the care and feeding of bright young science students, and not just in the figurative sense. He and his wife, Michelle, make student success at the

University of Nevada, Reno a real “kitchen table issue” right in their own dining room. “I remember what it was like being a college student off on your own,” Dean Thompson recalled. “I wanted to create an environment here where students could see that faculty, and even Deans, are real people so that they would feel connected and comfortable around them, to engage with and learn from them.”

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The dinners, held mostly during fall semester, are buffet style. One recent dinner featured a variety of Italian pastas, salads, garlic bread, and desserts. Jeff makes the students take the leftovers with them, again, because he remembered his days as an active and hungry undergraduate.

During the dinner Jeff, his wife, and several invited guests kept up a steady banter with the students, asking about their backgrounds, their interests, their challenges and their dreams. One invited guest, a graduate student, discovered that one of the science students was a whiz in statistics and a tutor as well and, voila!, the two worked out a tutoring deal during dinner.

There’s science to support the idea of creating a sense of home and nurturing around college students. A recent New York Times article by Charles M. Blow, Nurturing in College Matters, cited a recent Gallup and Purdue report that linked post-college well-being and engagement at work with being nurtured in college. Students who had at least one professor who made them feel excited about learning, cared about them as a person, or encouraged them to pursue their goals and dream were twice as likely to have a sense of well-being and engagement at work as their peers who weren’t nurtured in college.

But back to Dean Thompson’s dining room. After students have eaten, and new friendships are formed, Jeff surprises each student by giving him or her a T-shirt that says, “I fed my mind… Dinner with the Dean, College of Science.” The excited students ask Jeff for autographs, and lots of photos and selfies follow in short order. The students eagerly wrap up the leftovers and, after many thanks, head for home… fed, nourished, and nurtured.

Catering to Student SuccessDinner with the Dean Nourishes Young Minds

athematics major and Physics minor Derek Fitchett, a promising graduate from the College of Sciences, Mathematics

and Statistics Department, approaches the world as he would a big gnarly math problem.

“Being mathematically minded is something that can be applied in other areas of life,” says Fitchett. “The structure to think through a situation in terms of identifying variables and constraints and then to consider how what you learn in that analysis affects the outcome is a valuable skill.” Considering that Fitchett is a 2014 Westfall Scholar and this year’s Durham Prize winner, his structured way of thinking seems to be adding up to a future with decidedly few constraints. “ I had no idea I’d win the Durham Prize, I’m really not the smartest student I know—I get help from those guys,” he says with a chuckle. “When Dean Thompson announced my name as the Durham Prize winner at the Westfall Scholars lunch, I was truly shocked.”

Derek Fitchett, Stellar Student in Math & PhysicsWestfall Scholar & Durham Prize Winner 2014

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Derek Fitchett

Westfall Scholar

& Durham Prize

Winner 2014

Though his genuine modesty is infinitely endearing, perhaps Fitchett shouldn’t have been so shocked once he breezed through the prize application and interview process. Remarking that the interview with College of Science Dean Jeff Thompson, former Dean David Westfall and board member and prize sponsor Stephan Durham was really a “relaxed and fun” meeting, he apparently handled even surprisingly esoteric questions with aplomb. Laughing he recounts that Dr. Durham’s questions really caused him to pause, “He asked me that if I was an all-powerful creature, what problem would I fix first in the world,” says Fitchett. “I did my capstone in World Architecture, so right away, instinctively I said that I would eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels that has negatively impacted our world since the Industrial Revolution,” said Fitchett. “They seemed to appreciate my answer,” he said with a smile in his voice. Whatever Derek Fitchett’s future holds, it is clear that his strong foundation in and personal philosophy about mathematics will continue to prove out as a combination of qualities with exponential impact for success.

Building on the Success of 2013’s BioFIT,

NevadaFIT Prepares New Students for Success

2009-2010 UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, RENO HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLNESS GUIDEDISCOVER

ate this summer, hundreds of incoming freshmen are going to hit the ground running (figuratively speaking) a week before classes start to attend a four-day academic “boot camp” focused on their intended college major.

For many freshmen, the transition to college can be overwhelming.These boot camps can help set the tone of the academic rigor necessary for success in college by sending a strong message that college is not an extension of high school, but rather a much different endeavor that requires a whole new level of dedication, responsibility and academic application. The boot camp initiative came to the University with Provost Kevin Carman, who had seen impressive results with a similar program in his former post as the Dean of the College of Science at Louisiana State University. Under Dr. Carman and his team’s stewardship, students who participated in LSU’s boot camps showed markedly better academic results at the end of their freshman year that continued throughout their degree progression. “Academic boot camps dramatically increase academic performance and student success rates,” Carman said. “It’s exciting to see these students recognize and embrace the hard work needed to be successful. Students who go through boot camp are twice as likely to graduate in their major. We give them tools for success.” Last summer, the University's College of Science created a pilot program called BioFIT. The program attracted 48 biology and neuroscience students and put them through a simulated exam week which proved to be a real eye-opener.

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The BIOFIT program was inspired by the BIOS program created by the Biology Department at Louisiana State University (LSU). The data above are based on LSU-BIOS.

“I didn’t know what to expect other than that I would be exposed to biology content,” said Nelson Quezada Jr., a BS-MD student. “Nothing in high school could have prepared us for the strenuous five days. All 48 of us came out of the program exhausted, but mentally stronger. I know I have an advantage over all other incoming freshmen because of BioFIT.” Due to the initial success of BioFIT, the boot camp advantage is now going to be available to other incoming freshmen across disciplines in Summer 2014. The new campus-wide program has been dubbed NevadaFIT, and there’s already a great deal of interest among well-prepared students who want to succeed at the University of Nevada, Reno. For more information, visit www.unr.edu/nevadafit.

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THE BUSINESS OFSCIENCE

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Our first Business of Science speaker was Stephen Durham, Corporate Senior Vice President of Global Preclinical Services at Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. since 2010. Previously, Durham served as Corporate Vice President of Charles River Laboratories International Inc. and is responsible for global toxicology and pathology. Dr. Durham has a veterinarian degree from Texas A&M University and a doctorate from Cornell University.

The first speaker in the Business of Science series was Stephen K. Durham, Corporate Senior Vice President of the $1.13 billion global medical research company, Charles River Laboratories. He travels the globe in his business, and is headquartered in Reno. Durham’s successful career in both the world of science and business provides a prime example of what is possible for enterprising science students in today’s business climate.

“Scientists are highly trained, intellectual individuals that typically think in a linear fashion,” he said. “Academia frequently involves a didactic setting with minimal opportunity to experience entrepreneurship. There is minimal consideration or exposure as to the requirements and expectations to achieve success in industry.”

In his talk he provided personal insights as to strategies to employ to meet the work place challenges in order to be successful in industry, which Thompson hopes each speaker in the series will address.

The idea that the discipline of science can and should be integrated in business is one of the cornerstones to this innovative interdisciplinary lecture series. The next speaker is slated for the fall semester.

For more information on the“Business of Science” Lecture Seriescall 775-784-4591or visit www.unr.edu/science.

t first glance, one wouldn’t think Doug Smith, the founder and lead scientist of the Yellowstone Wolf

Project and Kevin McArthur, former President of the Goldcorp Mining Company and current owner of one of the newest mining companies

in Nevada, Tahoe Resources, have anything in common.

But they do. They are both College of Science graduates, and they are both successful business leaders. They made an effective transition from academia to the world of business, albeit with quite a different focus.

“Most of the students we graduate from the College of Science work in the for-profit world,” Dean Jeff Thompson said. “We do a great job of training them in academia, for academia, but we need to emphasize how to succeed in the business world.”

Thompson points out many examples of College of Science alumni from which to choose, such as Dan Kappas, Kevin MacArthur, Bill Honjas, Satish P., and Alan Krause, President and CEO of the company that is building the massive new Panama Canal.

Thompson is inspired by the connection between business and science in the corporate world. He wants today’s science students to fully understand the career interplay a foundation in science can provide in business. Thompson has created a new lecture series, “The Business of Science,” to illustrate how science students have gone on to be successful in business.

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hen the earth moves, even by a millimeter, research professor Bill Hammond knows it. He and the gang of researchers at the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory in

the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology use the Global Positioning System to track tectonic and geothermal activity around Nevada and the world.

As the surface of the Earth moves, as the earth changes shape or as the tectonic plates nudge one another, the effects can be tracked with GPS, and is, by the lab’s GPS network, the largest GPS data-processing center in the world, able to process data from 12,000 stations around the globe, continuously, 24/7.

The facility measures the shape of the Earth every day using data drawn in from the global network with stations on every continent around the planet, including stations from the National Science Foundation EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory, as well as stations in space.

“The data is like a gold mine, we keep digging for new discoveries,” Hammond said. “Scientists around the world use it extensively for research such as modeling earthquakes and volcanoes.”

For the past few years, among other things, he and director of the geodetic lab Geoff Blewitt have been tracking the upward movement of the Sierra

Nevada mountain range. Like a detective story with twists and turns in the plot, they are unfolding the story of the famous 400-mile long Sierra Nevada mountain range of California and Nevada.

They partnered with the University of Western Washington, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Ottawa in the research. The team discovered groundwater depletion and subsidence in California’s Central Valley has caused rapid uplift of the Sierra Nevada, by as much as six inches in the past 150 years, as well as increasing seismic activity on the San Andreas fault.

“We first wrote two years ago about the rapid rise of the Sierra, with its 14,000-foot peaks in the south and 10,000-foot peaks at Lake Tahoe, moving as much as 1 to 3 millimeters per year,” said Blewitt. “The puzzling results of our earlier research cannot be explained easily by geology alone. We’ve now found that a reason for the rapid uplift may be linked to human activity.”

The newest chapter of the research was published by Hammond and his collaborators in May in the scientific journal Nature, showing that draining of the aquifer for agricultural irrigation in California’s Central Valley results in upward flexing of the earth’s surface and the surrounding mountains due to the loss of mass within the valley. The groundwater subsidence was found to also correlate with seismic activity on the San Andreas Fault.

Bill Hammond, Ph.D.

Research Professor

College of Science

Bill HammondUniversity of Nevada, Reno Researcher Discovers Uplift Caused By Human Activity

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avier Rojo has joined the University of Nevada, Reno College of Science as the new chair of the Mathematics and Statistics Department.

“I’m excited to be at the University and College of Science,” Rojo said. “In my visits here, I was impressed by the faculty; they are all passionate for their work. I got a good sense of the challenges and opportunities for the department. There’s a lot we can contribute to the University and the community.”

Rojo comes to the University of Nevada, Reno from Rice University in Houston, Texas where he was a tenured professor of statistics. He has been a statistics program director at the National Science Foundation, is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a fellow or member of several other renowned national and international organizations.

In 2013, he was a member of the National Science Foundation Division of Mathematical Sciences Committee of Visitors, a panel of external experts that helps the NSF maintain its high standards of program management, continuous performance improvement, and openness to the research and education community.

Some of the opportunities Rojo sees for the future include building a doctoral program, building more collaborative research beyond the department and the college, and enhancing and building on undergraduate research opportunities.

“Dr. Rojo is the ideal person to lead the department,” Jeff Thompson, dean of the College of Science, said. “He’s enthusiastic about mathematics and statistics and getting students interested in how it applies to the world around us. Javier brings new energy to the department that comes from an enthusiasm for his work. I’m confident he will inspire faculty and students to reach new heights.”

Rojo is especially interested in helping first-generation college students get connected to education and be successful. He brings to campus the Research for Undergraduates Summer Institute of Statistics, a successful specialized program that prepares undergraduate students for a graduate research career in the statistical sciences, especially those students from underrepresented minority groups.

Rojo will continue his research in survival analysis, reliability theory, statistical decision theory, extreme value theory and dimension reduction of high dimensional data sets.

Javier Rojo Joins Science as Math & Statistics ChairDistinguished Scholar Comes from Rice University in Houston, Texas

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Javier Rojo, Ph.D.

Mathematics and

Statistics

Department Chair

College of ScienceDean’s OfficeUniversity of Nevada, Reno/0424Reno, NV 89557-0424

Jeffrey ThompsonCollege of Science, University of Nevada, RenoReno, NV 89557

DISCOVERSCIENCELECTURESERIESPast Speakers Include:Michael WatermanCharles GoldmanNeil deGrasse TysonAnna RooseveltMary RoachDavid DaweHarry GrayJeff LeibermanNaomi OreskesBill Nye The Science GuyRobert TriversDouglas SmithMichio KakuSteven StrogatzBrian GreeneAlan KrauseRobert Ballard Visit www.unr.edu/dslsfor upcoming speakers and dates.