Fall 2009 • Volume 5 • No. 1

On the cover: Synechocystis-filled tubes on the top of the Engineering Research Center (ERC) building, ASU, Tempe campus. Image courtesy of Biodesign Institute.

MARgARET COUlOMBE

The Challenges before usI’m at home sitting at my 1958 desk with my middle-aged dog in the kneehole digging in a pillow rescued from my old brown couch. She loved that couch, comfortable and familiar. So we kept one pillow just for her when we moved into our new home and bought a blue, vintage sofa. You’re probably wondering where this is leading. Well, I confess, so do I. Bear with me.

Eight Challenges were launched this Homecoming by President Michael M. Crow. Asking us (in this story anyway) to rise from our desks (and our old pillows) to pioneer solutions to the pressing needs in human rights, in global health, in technological discovery and dissemination, in sustainability and creating new alternatives in fuel, in communication, in our communities and in discovery. Some of the tools we need are already in our hands, our hearts and our minds. As you’ll see in this issue of School of Life Sciences Magazine, focused on biotechnology and biomedical discovery, our alumni, faculty, staff and students are already engaged.

For our alumni Katherine Brind’Amour, Carolyn Larabell, Santos Rojas and Donald Wetter it has meant working with new mothers and babies; creating technology to revolutionize the way we see and study cells and disease; helping first generation and minority students reach their dreams and transform their communities; and supporting those who’ve met with disasters and limiting the reach of catastrophes in the future.

For the thousands of undergraduates now pursuing life sciences, it means taking up the tools, training and challenges offered by faculty, such as Tsafrir Mor and Katherine Sykes in new vaccine discovery or Jeffrey Touchman as he seeks the origins of photosynthesis; Page Baluch or Brian Smith in imaging and neurosciences or Valerie Stout as she teaches about microbiology and biofilms; or Willem Vermaas as he engineers new fuels from cyanobacteria. It means volunteering in communities and defining what those communities shall be. And for me, at this moment, it means taking my dog for a walk, making my deadline and marveling how each of us carries within ourselves the solutions to the challenges ahead.

contents

building health, 2x-ray vision, 3challenges, 6microbiology dance, 9seeing double, 11stimulus boosts, 14books ‘09, 16covered, 18generation success, 20solution to disaster, 21recognized, 22

sols publication staffmanaging editor: margaret coulombeeditorial board: patty duncan, charles kazilekand robert pagecopy editors: elaine finke and anna nelsonart direction and design: jacob sahertianphotography: charles kazilek, jacob mayfield, jacob sahertian and tom storyfunding: school of life sciences,arizona state university

(additional credits noted in articles)

We are particularly interested in reconnecting with Alumni and Emeriti. If you have information to include in this magazine, please contact us at sols@asu.edu. Manuscripts should be less than 1000 words, photos should be high resolution, and submissions should include all pertinent contact information. Send to Managing Editor, Margaret (Peggy) Coulombe,margaret.coulombe@asu.eduSOlS Magazine, P.O. Box 874501 Tempe, Arizona, 85287-4501. sols.asu.edu/publications/magazines.php

To learn about the many ways you can contribute to the School of life Sciences and ASU please visit the ASU Foundation web site. secure.asufoundation.org/givingWe reserve the right to edit all submissions. © 2009 ASU School of life Sciences.

School of life Sciences is an academic unit of the College of liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University.

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Katherine Brind’Amour’s entry into her master’s degree program at Arizona State University was jack rabbit quick. A semester into her program, Brind’Amour, who also received her bachelor’s degree from ASU, was already organizing and running prenatal care and pregnancy courses at the 1st Way Pregnancy Center in Phoenix.

The 1st Way Pregnancy Center is a non-profit center dedicated to providing education and assistance to pregnant women and girls. The center’s clients are typically low-income women with limited education. Brind’Amour first became involved with the center while researching her undergraduate honors thesis on public prenatal healthcare, under the tutelage of her thesis advisor Jason Robert. She also worked at the center as a volunteer.

With support from Robert, an associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, and Barbara Wilson from the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovations, Brind’Amour has worked with 1st Way to create a series of eight classes on pregnancy and prenatal health. The classes cover a wide range of topics from prenatal health and diet, breast-feeding, delivery courses, to sessions on healthy relationships, preconception health, and fetal development.

One of the goals of the program is to reduce premature deliveries and low birth weights. The experience has been rewarding, says Brind’Amour: “I have great support from the center, and the women really want to be there.”

With such a broad curriculum covering physical health and mental health, as well as the basic biology of pregnancy, Brind’Amour enlisted the help of center volunteers. Two registered nurses and a social worker volunteered their time to teach sections of the course. According to Brind’Amour, these healthcare professionals brought more to the course than their expertise. They also helped to ease Brind’Amour’s concerns that as a

young, childless woman, she might not be taken as seriously when presenting course material.

The classes are open to any center client and are offered in both English and Spanish. Brind’Amour has collected data from about 40 of the 300 attendees who meet eligibility criteria and will follow their progress, after delivery, to track birth outcomes.

Birth outcome data, such as birth weight, can be used to track practical outcomes of the prenatal education. Brind’Amour’s hope is that her research may allow pregnancy centers throughout the Valley to set a benchmark for the practical outcomes of their work and provide them with real data to present to potential donors and to secure future funding.

“If we can reduce costs associated with low birth weight and premature delivery, the earlier we start this care for women, the better it is for everyone,” Brind’Amour notes. With such tangible potential outcomes, Brind’Amour’s research is already generating interest in pregnancy centers throughout the Valley. Because many of these centers rely on private donations and volunteers, they often lack the resources to follow up on the effectiveness of their programs. According to Brind’Amour, “They often only hear from mothers when there has been a problem.”

Brind’Amour graduated in May 2009, but she will continue her passion to work with expectant mothers. Since the eighth grade, Brind’Amour has been fascinated with development. At a middle school presentation about fetal development, she remembers thinking, “Wow, it’s such a beautiful thing!” That excitement hasn’t left her. Many scientists work with people when they are trouble, in pain and ill. Brind’Amour loves her work because she “gets to work with women when there’s an excitement. It’s an important time in their lives.”

Graduate research builds healthier communities

By KATE IhlE

If Superman came from Kansas, then a meeting with Carolyn Larabell might well make one argue that superwomen come from Michigan.

Michigan-born Larabell can imagine and image things differently than most people. In fact, she does have X-ray vision.

Larabell is the director of the National Center for X-ray Tomography. She is also a professor in the Department of Anatomy at University of California, San Francisco, and a faculty scientist in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Larabell has served on scientific advisory committees for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) imaging centers and advisory boards organized by the National Academies of Sciences. She has been a member of more than 50 NIH, National Science Foundation and Department of Energy (DOE) study sections. In addition, she sits on editorial boards and reviews for 16 major scientific journals.

Pretty good for a farm girl who grew up in a small rural town of 2,000 people.

“I was a rebel. I had a strong streak of independence,” Larabell says. “I’ve never wanted to do what everyone else does. I wanted to do something different.”

“I think I’ve managed that,” she quips.

Indeed, ASU alumnus Larabell now sits comfortably at the center stage of a one-of-a-kind multimillion dollar instrument, a soft X-ray cryomicroscope more than 70 feet in length, and at the helm of a biomedical technology research center that is revolutionizing imaging and discovery in cell biology.

X-ray tomography, at its simplest, is like what is done for a computed axial tomography (CT) scan. A series of X-rays are taken from all directions, which are then assembled to yield a three dimensional image. What makes Larabell’s instrumentation different is scale, speed and keeping things cool.

Larabell can see into a single cell, look deep into its organelles, localize specific proteins and generate a full three-dimensional data set in under five minutes, without stains or dyes. The key is imaging using X-rays with energies in what is called the “water

A rebel with x-ray vision

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window,” where the organic material of cells such as carbon and nitrogen are seen with high contrast and water in the cell becomes transparent.

“We can look at whole cells, fully hydrated, unstained, at resolutions approaching 20 nanometers. It isn’t quite as good as an electron microscope but 10 times better than a light microscope, which resolves, at best, 200 nm,” explains Larabell.

Larabell says that for some people what makes this technique exciting is the ability to look at the structures in a cell (twenty nanometers is approximately 5,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair). But, what she finds exciting is the concept of looking at the position of proteins in cells at that resolution: “I have this idea: to map all the proteins expressed throughout the cell cycle – and visually chart their course over time.”

“I admit it’s a lofty goal, looking past what exists to what can become. But it’s conceivable,” she adds.

This entrepreneurial rebel spirit has fueled much of Larabell’s journey.

Larabell came to Arizona to escape the cold and, perhaps, convention, with a degree in business administration. She found a job with Good Samaritan Hospital.

“There I became interested in how bodies functioned. I had two wonderful mentors in neurology. I was trained to do electroencephalograms – brain wave tests – which made me interested in the science and the biology behind the testing.”

Noting her growing interest, Larabell was invited on grand rounds, to neurology conferences, and to view spinal taps, CT scans and even some brain surgeries.

“Even more than learning about the technology or how to treat patients, I wanted to know how cells functioned, or didn’t function, because of the disease. I wanted to do research.”

Fueled by curiosity, she took biology classes at Phoenix College and then enrolled to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology at ASU.

“It was the first course I took in cell biology, with Douglas Chandler,that convinced me that what I wanted to do was learn more about cells,” Larabell says.

It was also at ASU that Larabell began to work with advanced imaging technology in the School of Life Sciences Bioimaging Facility, using light and electron microscopes. Upon completion of her degree, she enrolled in a doctoral program with Chandler, studying the changes that occur in the extracellular matrix of frog eggs during oocyte maturation and fertilization.

“The electron microscopy fascinated me. I would get trapped down in the electron microscopy suite for hours, absolutely entranced. Sometimes I’d go in early in the morning and come out late at night. It was all about imaging from then on.”

Earning her doctorate in 1988, Larabell moved to the University of California, Davis, to do calcium imaging of cell fertilization events using ratiometric dyes (dyes where brighter colors mean more “stuff”). From there, she went to Stanford University, and then on to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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Each move added new skills and new questions about cells, cell processes and how to better image them.

“I’m a visual person. Photography was a love of mine for a long time. I used to take my camera on backpacking trips in Arizona and Colorado,” Larabell recalls. So it was natural to choose imaging approaches for studying cells. “I wanted to see small things inside of a cell. Biochemistry is extremely important and interesting, but you can’t see the reaction occur. I wanted to see what changes happen inside a cell, how that biochemistry changes the structure of that cell.”

Larabell’s broad base of experiences with imaging, including transmission electron microscopy, confocal microscopy, freeze fracture techniques, X-ray crystallography, photography and work with calcium dyes, fueled her desire to push the technology further – to see things no one had seen before.

“I like doing work that is innovative, at the cutting edge,” she says.

This drive for discovery ultimately led her to X-ray microscope pioneer Werner Myer-Illse, a physicist with a talent for computers, microscopes and developing freezing techniques and cryostages. Cryo-fixation kept the cells from becoming damaged in the X-ray beam.

“It all came together. That was when I had my Eureka moment,” Larabell says. “The cells could be frozen. Examined frozen, the images were exquisite. The structures became visible without chemicals or dyes or artifacts. It was what a cell looked like without perturbations.”

With Myer-Illse, the first X-ray tomography (XM1) was borne, and with it beautiful data sets of cells. But, a major set back was in store for them. The same week that Larabell and her colleague saw the future of where microscopy could go, Myer-Illse was killed in a car accident.

“It was devastating. He had designed the whole XM1, he wrote all the computer programs, operated the system that collected the data, that evaluated it, that took the pictures as a series of montages (tiles). There were no operations manuals, no technical manuals, and no notes: it was all in his head. It meant going back in and reinventing the wheel.”

Reinvent it she did. In collaboration with talented physicist Mark Le Gros, with support from the Department of Energy and National Institutes of Health, the duo developed the next generation of X-ray tomography: the XM2.

“This combination of a cell biologist and a physicist, stepping out of our fields, is what made this work,” Larabell asserts. “It’s been a very strange journey. I started with CT scans on human brains before I was a student at ASU, and now I’m heading up one of the leading imaging centers in the world doing what are essentially CT scans on cells.”

“I work with a great group of people: physicists, chemists, molecular biologists, cell biologists, computer scientists. Looking back, I don’t think I could have ever predicted I would have ended up where I am.”

How funny. Surely, Larabell, if anyone, should have known that X-ray vision has never been 20/20.

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A host of challenges shapes our lives and our planet. How will we promote human, animal and environmental health? How can we develop sustainable solutions to feed the hungry and produce clean energy? How best to educate and build stronger communities? ASU School of Life Sciences catalyzes bioengineering, biomedicine and sustainability science to shape the future of Phoenix and the world.

Transgenic cropsRoberto Gaxiola’s work seeks to improve productivity in marginal agricultural lands. His collaborations include a program to develop transgenic sugar cane with Arnoldo R. Facanha, director of Center for Biosciences and Biotechnology with North Fluminense State University, Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil. Their project entails the generation of transgenic sugarcane with enhanced root and shoot development, enhanced water and nutrient use efficiency and, very likely, enhanced sucrose production. The root system is an extremely attractive candidate for engineering crops to step up productivity as an enhanced root mass is expected to increase crop biomass and seed yields. Gaxiola’s group examines how over-expression of the H+-Ppase gene in candidate crops could enhance food and fuel production in rice, corn, sweet sorghum, alfalfa and cotton.

Alternative fuelsWhat comes after oil? Let’s be direct and go for the sun. No organism is easier to grow or more direct in its ability to harvest solar energy than photosynthetic bacteria, the evolutionary ancestor of plants. Life sciences researcher Willem Vermaas works to genetically engineer cyanobacteria, photoautotrophic organisms able to live just by using sunlight, water and some minerals. Found on land and sea, they also have a genome that is open to manipulation by standard molecular biological techniques and provides an efficient means to utilize solar energy without competing with agriculture and food production. The goals of Vermaas’ group are two-fold. They work via genetic engineering to get cyanobacteria to make fuel-like lipids rather than sugars, which can then be extracted to produce a new form of diesel, and they tinker with their enzymes, which have the capacity to produce biohydrogen. Some recent studies have revealed new features of the photosystem proteins in these bacteria and have shown the capacity to enhance hydrogen evolution. sols.asu.edu/podcasts/index.php?year=2008#Vol_27

Microbial sunscreensImagine a beach. Picture warm, white sand, turquoise water and a healthy fish and coral community. Now transport yourself to that beach and focus on your tan. But, put away that chemical spray or coconut-scented goop. Professor Ferran Garcia-Pichel and others have discovered that some cyanobacteria naturally synthesize a sunscreen – scytonemin. Found in the extracellular matrix, the pigment effectively absorbs ambient ultraviolet (UV) irradiation before it can reach the cell’s interior. Garcia-Pichel’s group has been able to obtain a scytonemin-deficient mutant by random transposon insertion into a putative gene. The genomic region of mutation has been identified and is currently being studied for its significance in the biosynthesis of scytonemin. Scytonemin also has potential in biomedical applications because of its strong anti-proliferative and anti-inflammatory activity. Perhaps, one day, that UV screen will be green. askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/index.html#Garcia-Pichel

ChAllENgES

A cyanobacterial community growing on a cliff wall. Cyanobacteria prevent the cellular damage that comes from exposure to Uv by using sunscreen pigments in slime capsules and sheaths outside their cells. The red pigment gloeocapsin stains colonies of Gloeocapsa sp. and the brown scytonemin, the filaments of Scytonema sp. Image courtesy of Ferran garcia-Pichel.

Abidopsis thalianaImage courtesy of Roberto gaxiola

Freeze-fracture image of a cell of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803, which is used for most bioenergy applications in the vermaas lab. The image shows thylakoid membranes inside the cell, which are the location of photosynthetic light capture. Image by Robert Roberson.

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Green vaccinesVaccine research in the School of Life Sciences intersects with Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology and Center for Innovations in Medicine in the Biodesign Institute. Charles Arntzen and Hugh Mason take vaccine research into the plant realm. Innovations in agricultural biotechnology allow plants, such as tobacco, potato, alfalfa, corn or tomato, to be harnessed to produce large amounts of valuable recombinant proteins at relatively low cost, offering new approaches to vaccines against hepatitis B, hepatitis C and even cancer. Creating effective, low cost vaccines for developing countries is also key concern for Roy Curtiss III and Bertram Jacobs. Supported by the Gates Foundation, Curtiss is manipulating Salmonella pathogens to develop an oral vaccine for pediatric pneumonia and prevent tuberculosis, flu and other diseases, while Jacobs’ focus is on Vaccinia virus and production of safer smallpox and HIV/AIDS vaccines. Stephen Johnston and Katherine Sykes use a “genes to vaccines” approach to develop a uniform system to mobilize the genomic sequences of pathogens into modern, effective vaccines. They hope to elucidate rules that allow accurate prediction the best vaccine for any particular pathogen. Ultimately, the pathogen genes discovered by “genes to vaccines” may be the key to their cure.

Photosynthetic originsThe process of photosynthesis has had profound global-scale effects on Earth; however, its origin and evolution remain enigmatic. Primary production by photosynthetic organisms supports nearly all ecosystems. Oxygen, one of the by-products of photosynthesis by cyanobacteria and their descendants (including algae and higher plants), transformed the Precambrian Earth. Jeffrey Touchman, assistant professor and director of DNA sequencing at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), is seeking to fill large gaps in the available genomic data for photosynthetic prokaryotes. He works with phototrophic extremophiles (organisms living in unusually harsh and exotic environments) and does genomic sequencing and molecular analyses of heliobacteria, proteobacteria and a cyanobacterium with the ability to shift into anoxygenic photosynthesis in the presence of sulfide, a possible evolutionary “missing link” between anoxygenic and oxygenic photosynthetic organisms. Knowing how photosynthesis originated and evolved is essential to obtaining the deep understanding required to yield improvements in bioenergy, agriculture and the environment.

Enhancing immunityInflammation is now recognized as being pivotal in the development of many diseases known to constitute metabolic syndrome and which include obesity, insulin resistance, hypertension and atherothrombosis. A hallmark of chronic inflammation is the migration of leukocytes from the peripheral blood and their accumulation and activation within tissues. Research in Tatiana Ugarova’s laboratory focuses on integrin receptors which mediate leukocyte adhesion and migration during the immune-inflammatory response and which regulate numerous leukocyte effector functions. The types of analyses employed in the laboratory range from basic studies of integrin structure to investigation of molecular and cellular models of inflammation, obesity and thrombosis.

ChAllENgES

Pharmer Tsafrir Mor, associate professor, uses protein engineering and tobacco plants as platforms for production of useful – especially therapeutic – polypeptides, proteins and enzymes and pursues solutions to bioterrorism and antidotes to disease such as hIv/AIDS.

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Sound brain healthGreat discoveries—how are they made? Sometimes, you have to “kick out the jams” and take risks. Other times it’s relentless patience and methodical testing. Of course, sometimes a mere accident holds the key. William (Jamie) Tyler’s “Aha” moment occurred in graduate school during an aural overload of the bands “Dr. Dre” and “Rage Against the Machine.” His revolutionary discovery? Ultrasound can be harnessed to remotely stimulate brain circuits, making the noninvasive modulation of the activity of neural circuits in the intact brain possible. The technique opens new doors in uses that range from medical treatments to video gaming. “The prospects are exhilarating,” Tyler says. “The improved patient access that low-intensity, low-frequency ultrasound confers over surgical intervention or gene therapy means that literally millions of people might be helped through use of ultrasonic neuromodulation.” Tyler and his colleagues are now carefully characterizing the influence of ultrasound on intact brain circuits with a goal of translating low-intensity ultrasound laboratory research to clinical treatments. sols.asu.edu/podcasts/index.php?year=2007#Vol_21

From distress to destressDeadlines to meet. Airplanes to catch. Traffic jams and disagreements. We all know what can cause stress, and the dangers of prolonged stress, so what if you could simply control how to turn it off? Professor Miles Orchinik, associate director of undergraduate programs in the School of Life Sciences, is trying to better understand the brain mechanisms that terminate the stress response. With more than $1 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, his group and collaborators from the University of Colorado and University of South Dakota are investigating a novel mechanism to terminate the stress responses. The researchers’ state-of-the-art neurochemical, brain imaging and behavioral studies seek to determine whether stress hormones (corticosteroids) block serotonin transport via a newly described transporter in the brain, leading to enhanced serotonin signaling and suppression of the stress response. A key aspect to these studies involves the training of students (graduate, undergraduate and high school) and post-doctoral researchers in cutting-edge neuroscience. askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/index.html#Orchinik

Insulin arraysOne of the School of Life Sciences’ most recent hires is Dawn Coletta, an assistant professor whose research studies the genetics and molecular basis of insulin resistance. With the near epidemic rise of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, and characteristic increase in insulin resistance, Coletta hopes that her work will lead to the identification of the genes involved in the development of resistance to insulin and offer new targets for therapeutic interventions.

ChAllENgES

William (Jamie) Tyler

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Valerie Stout, associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, has a room-filling, infectious laugh, a broad, welcoming smile, and a monumental love of teaching students about very small organisms. While teaching Introductory Microbiology for Non-Majors for ten years might sound to some like a term of punishment, Stout jovially recalls each semester with a sincere fondness. She knows how each semester will evolve based on overall student reaction to her “chemotaxis dance,” a stumbling interpretative dance that mimics the “runs” and “tumbles” used by bacteria to locate food sources. Positive, light hearted reactions tell her that the students are ready for a journey of discovery over the semester, while a stoic, serious response means the semester will require getting straight to the business of learning microbiology.

While Stout commonly lectures more than 200 students at a time, she finds ways to reach each student on a very personal level. This personal touch in teaching has earned Stout multiple teaching awards, most recently the 2007 Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Stout’s philosophy is to treat each student holistically; “their individual stories and backgrounds need to be considered, similar to a physician needing to consider patients as a whole, rather than just as a gall bladder or liver packaged in a body.”

To this end, each student begins the semester with an “A” in her class. She is acutely aware of the fact that simple errors in judgment and sometimes a “regular life” gets in the way of students’ success over the course of the semester. While maintaining high expectations of her students, she believes that teaching is about guiding students along their personal path to greatness.

Stout credits her teaching success to the joy she finds in “doing” science. She says, “I strive to pass on my enthusiasm and passion for science and learning and instill a love of the scientific process to students.”

She won awards as early as fifth grade (at a science fair in a suburb of St. Louis). Stout fondly remembers, while in high school, completing an experiment using a media plate for bacterial growth. Despite this initial brush with microbiology, Stout pursued an undergraduate major in wildlife biology at Colorado State University. Her initial

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Nothing miniscule about this MICROBIOLOGIST

By FAyE FARMER

interest in large organisms soon became a passion for the small. She graduated with a degree in bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Attending graduate school at Kansas State University, Stout chose to focus on conjugation and chromosome mobilization in Staphylococcus aureus (the most common cause of staph infection).

Stout readily admits that though she was a “science geek,” science did not “come easy” to her. A particularly difficult interaction with an organic chemistry teaching assistant during her undergraduate years brought with it personal understanding that students learn in diverse ways. She discovered, after some comparison with other students, that she took briefer notes than others, and that she learned best by listening to information. This discovery led her to incorporate multiple modalities in her teaching, from textbooks to physical models. For example, she’s found that kinesthetic learners benefit from what she calls her “bag of props,” a nondescript paper bag that holds balloons and construction paper models used to demonstrate protein synthesis. While many of her lectures are activity based, she also finds it useful to relate learning to real world experience, often providing examples students can incorporate into their everyday lives.

Mentoring students in the laboratory, in addition to her teaching duties, is a priority for Stout. In many ways, the two overlap. Students engaged by her outgoing teaching style often ask to work in her laboratory. With consultation and supervision, all levels of students in her research group find themselves engaged in the design, implementation, data collection and data analysis of their own experiments. Students leave the laboratory having learned a significant amount about the real-world process of science. Evidence of her success with this approach is found in the numbers; she has mentored more than 50 undergraduates and several graduate students.

While teaching students in large lecture halls about minute organisms and completing research in a very narrow area of microbiology, Stout has managed to create an increasingly expansive impact on students. Since her arrival at ASU in 1991, she has taught two to four microbiology and biology courses annually. She also reaches out to K-12 students and teachers through the School of Life Sciences’ Ask A Biologist website, where she stars in the podcast “Bugs in Film.” In the podcast, Stout covers a variety of topics and how they relate to her current research on biofilms (layers of bacteria that are difficult to break up into component parts). Always teaching, she uses the everyday example of regularly brushing your teeth in order to break up harmful biofilms called plaque.

At the end of the day, Stout says that her love of teaching centers on the “eureka” moment when “the light goes on” for her students: when a specific idea or concept suddenly makes its way into a student’s deep understanding. Laughing broadly about the simplicity of such a moment, coupled with the sheer joy Stout receives as a result, it takes very little effort to see why this microbiologist is an enormous hit with her students.

To find out more about Valerie Stout’s research: askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/index.html#Stout

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A picture is worth a thousand words. Nowhere is that statement more evident than in the life sciences. When Antonie von Leeuwenhoek first observed microorganisms under his primitive lenses in the 1680s, he could never have imagined the incredible details that we can now observe through microscopes. Whether we are asking questions about plant cells or viruses, insect cuticle or human nerves, in the end we relate our findings to images developed by two major types of microscopes.

The first, the light microscope, uses visible light to either image the surface of objects at relatively low magnification (i.e., dissecting microscope) or to image internal details of the cells (bright field optics, phase contrast, or fluorescence microscopes). But microscopes that rely on visible light are restricted in the size of objects which they can distinguish; if an object is smaller than about half the wavelength of the light (e.g. a virus), it cannot be resolved.

The second type, the electron microscope, developed by Ernst Ruska and Max Knoll and others during the early 1900s, uses an accelerated electron beam instead of visible light to distinguish objects down to the size of large molecules. Because we cannot see a beam of electrons, the image must be projected onto a small screen, much like a black and white television; and because electrons are scattered by air molecules, the beam is generated (and the specimen examined) under a vacuum. An electron microscope can capture images as small as ~ 0.2 nanometers; by comparison, the common cold virus is about 18-26 nanometers in width. The ASU School of Life Sciences’ Bioimaging Facility contains sophisticated microscopes of both types, which are housed in a pair of facilities, the W. M. Keck

Seeing doubleBy ElIzABETh W. DAvIDSON

Life Sciences’ Bioimaging Facility:

The Bioimaging Facility is comprised of the W.M. Keck Bioimaging laboratory and the Electron Microscopy (E.M.) laboratory. Shown are Bioimaging Facility managers Page Baluch (left) and David lowry (right).

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Bioimaging Facility and the Electron Microscope Laboratory in the sub-basement of the Life Sciences C-wing. These facilities are directed by Douglas Chandler, professor, and Robert (Robby) Roberson, associate professor.

The W. M. Keck Bioimaging Facility (aka: Keck Lab) was established with grant funds secured by Chandler from the Keck Foundation in 1996. With more than 2,000 square feet of research space, the Keck Lab is primarily a light microscope facility and houses instrumentation used for basic and advanced imaging, such as laser scanning confocal microscopes (visible and ultraviolet) that can visualize up to three fluorescent labels in both fixed and living materials using three different lasers; a total internal reflection fluorescence microscope that can detect single molecules and cellular dynamics at a cell’s surface; and a microinjection system capable of introducing biologically important materials into a single cell. Also affiliated with the Keck Lab is a third confocal microscope housed separately in a facility at ASU’s Biodesign Institute.

In partnership with Chandler, a series of managers, including Yuri Lyubchenko, Dennis McDaniel, Bret Judson and current manager Page Baluch, have supported and enhanced the facility and assisted students and faculty with their research. In the last 10 years, the Keck Lab has served more than 100 investigators from 14 departments at ASU, as well as other biomedical research institutes in the Southwest. “The Bioimaging Facility serves as a catalyst to consolidate ASU’s bioimaging capabilities, to launch new bioimaging curricula and training for ASU students and to strengthen university relationships with external partners, such as Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, and the National Institutes of Health Diabetes Facility in Phoenix,” says Chandler.

The Keck Lab’s partner in the SOLS’ Bioimaging Facility is the Electron Microscopy (EM) Laboratory, founded in 1962 when a then new microbiology faculty member, William Northey, received funding from the National Science Foundation to purchase one of the earliest commercially available

transmission electron microscopes (TEM). Initially managed by James Swafford, the laboratory has been directed by Roberson since 1989 – with support from David Lowry, the laboratory manager, who took over from William Sharp in 2005. The EM Laboratory microscopes are used for both research and teaching and are housed in specially built facilities with vibration-proof floors, dark rooms and preparation areas.

”Preparation of samples for viewing with a transmission electron microscope requires many steps,” Roberson notes, “including fixation and staining with heavy metals that are visible in the electron beam. The samples are then embedded in resin and cut in extremely thin sections – down to a nanometer – 1 millionth of a millimeter – using an ultra sharp glass or diamond knife. Once mounted on a thin film supported by a copper or gold grid, only then can the sections be examined in the microscope.”

Searching for answers in those ultra-thin tissue sections can lead to new discoveries, taking scientists in exciting

Microscopy, a process that starts like a complex recipe for mere technological mastery, is in fact an art; an art that, if done well, can unlock mysteries that have perplexed scientists for generations. left: Frog oocyte, image by Doug Chandler. Right: mold Neurospora crassa, image by Robert Roberson.

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and unexpected directions. For example, in 1996, James Jancovich, then a technician, professor James Collins and research professor Betty Davidson were investigating what might be killing salamanders in southern Arizona. After many hours of examining sections from sick salamanders on the TEM, they increased the magnification 110,000 times. Much to their surprise, polyhedral virus particles appeared in view – the first virus ever seen in salamanders. This discovery led to dozens of publications and a decade-long collaboration with scientists around the world studying amphibian disease and decline.

The second type of electron microscope in the EM Laboratory is a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Unlike the TEM, a scanning microscope allows high magnification of the outside surface of samples. When the specimen is coated with a heavy metal, the electron beam interacts with the metallic surface and emits electrons that can be used to visualize the sample.

Professor Tad Day uses this technology to help expand his study of microarthropods and ecosystems in the Antarctic: “We had originally planned to examine only the larger microarthropods – those that we could identify using light microscopy. However, Dave’s [Lowry] expertise with SEM allowed us to identify many of the smaller microarthropods in our samples, giving us a much broader picture of the biodiversity of communities at our sites.”

Over the more than 40 years of research in the Bioimaging Facility’s Keck Lab and the EM Laboratory, many scientific advances have been made, and many dissertation and thesis projects completed.

Some early discoveries at ASU linked to SOLS’ Bioimaging Facility were the first microscopic images of an enzyme crystal, the isocitrate dehydrogenase enzyme, found by William Burke of the Chemistry Department, Jim Swafford and William Reeves and published in the journal Science. In another study, the ASU Lichen Herbarium group headed by professor Thomas Nash was able to analyze lichen (a symbiotic association of fungus with a photosynthetic partner, such as algae or cyanobacteria) collected near Mount St. Helens when the eruption occurred in 1980. Using a special system at the facility, his group was able examine the influences of the eruption on the algal cells within the lichen.

More recently, the facility supported an ASU research partnership with British Petroleum and the Science Foundation of Arizona, which included professors Willem Vermaas and Roy Curtiss III, associate professors Ferran Garcia-Pichel and Roberson, and Bruce Rittmann, director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute at ASU. Their project focused on the photosynthetic bacterium, Synechocystis, genetically modified to produce biodiesel fuel.

Images from the Bioimaging Facility are also being used to delve into fungal evolution in the Tree of Life Consortium, plant vaccines, cytoskeletal dynamics, neuronal growth and many other research projects. With the investment in such facilities, School of Life Sciences faculty and students are able to define research and produce images that rise to the level of high art and bring to the greater community new understandings about the depth of the beauty to be found in nature and science.

from top to bottom:

1. Negative stain of Woodchuck hepatitis virus (TEM) for Roy Curtiss III’s laboratory.

2. A scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of the dorsal surface or “back” of a small mite (Nanorchestes nivalis) that occurs in soils of tundra along the Antarctic Peninsula. The large coral-like structure is a seta or hair. Along the surface of the back are folds or striations (that form parallel lines).

3. This high pressure frozen sample viewed in the transmission electron microscope (TEM) illustrates a dividing yellow-green single cell alga that grows in sandstone deposits near Winslow, Az. (from work being done by Milt Sommerfeld, ASU Polytechnic).

Photos by David lowry

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Arizona State University has received more than $70.8 million in economic stimulus research grants from the $787 billion appropriated for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) passed in February. In the School of Life Sciences, these funds boosted scientists’ ability to develop tools for biomedical informatics, genomics and technology and provide a platform to examine climate change, biodiversity, water resources and ecosystems dynamics (and even manage recreational fishing). The stimulus research dollars, funneled through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have also meant expanded access to tools and training for students and teachers in rural, Native American and inner city schools and communities.

A 2-photon shot in the darkASU researchers were awarded 26 NIH stimulus grants totaling more than $10 million. More than $1.6 million of those funds will further translational research and enhance biomedical discovery in the School of Life Sciences. Professor Brian Smith and assistant professor William (Jamie) Tyler’s efforts will lead to the acquisition of a 2-photon confocal microscope, the first of its kind at ASU. A powerful optical tool to investigate structure and function in intact brain cells and circuits, the multi-use microscope will revolutionize the research capabilities of biomedical researchers across the campuses, as well as enhance interdisciplinary neuroscience programs for students. Smith also received funding for his core research in learning and memory for a study of the behavioral and physiological mechanism of olfaction, using the honey bee as a model.

Mega tools and aligning evolutionGenomics and biomedical informatics research has transformed rapidly, requiring the creation of innovative software and tools to do high-throughput analysis (studies where large numbers of variables are assessed simultaneously). As with any tool set, advancements in technology and understanding have also meant that refinement is necessary. Stimulus funding will support studies pioneered by Michael Rosenberg, an associate professor who uses novel statistical and computer methods to study computational evolutionary biology, evolution of genomes and bioinformatics. Rosenberg seeks to better understand (and potentially correct) how errors in sequence alignment, generated in early stages of high-throughput analyses, propagate.

For Sudhir Kumar, professor in the School of Life Sciences and director of the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics in the Biodesign Institute, NIH stimulus funds will mean that software, such as the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software (MEGA) he’s developed over the past 13 years, can be reworked with an eye toward the future. MEGA is an “integrated tool for conducting automatic and manual sequence alignment, inferring phylogenetic trees, mining web-based databases, estimating rates of molecular evolution and testing evolutionary hypotheses.” The software is offered free and has been downloaded by more than 50,000 unique individuals representing students, educators and investigators from non-profit and commercial institutions.

Stimulus boosts environmental and biomedicine sciences

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Virtual museum democratizes useThe National Science Foundation contributed more than $1.7 million in stimulus funding to extend the School of Life Sciences’ contributions to public education, tools and training and to advance cutting-edge modeling of hydrology, climate change and ecosystem function. Les Landrum, curator of the ASU Herbarium, received more than $389,400 to advance the Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet), in partnership with Corinna Gries of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Andrew M. Salywon of the Desert Botanical Garden. Their Web-based network offers public access to 1.4 million botanical specimens in museums. A boon to scientists, land managers, conservationists, geographers, amateur botanists and students, the stimulus project will also offer workshops to train teachers from rural and Native American communities whose access to museum resources and teaching tools has been traditionally limited.

Desert water websIf you are a cricket and it is a dry season on the San Pedro River in Arizona, on your nighttime ramblings to eat leaves, you are more likely to be ambushed by thirsty wolf spiders, according to work by John Sabo. It is a potential horror story for any cricket. However, it is also a tale of water limitation that looks beyond how most ecosystem studies are considered. Much current work about the relationships between predators and prey is based on nutrients or energy limitation – via a food web. Sabo and graduate student Kevin McCluney’s work looks at connectivity between organisms based on water – a water web. Studies on insects and riparian ecosystems lend critical insights into how arid and semi-arid environments and their flora and fauna may be specifically affected by global climate change. Sabo notes: “Water seems to be the ecological currency governing consumption behavior at multiple trophic levels, which indicates a role for water in understanding effects of global change on animal communities.” A grant of $865,000 was awarded to Sabo, with a second grant of $449,000 to fuel stream studies directed by Nancy Grimm, in collaboration with Sabo. These NSF studies seek to span the critical gap between studies of ground water, hydrology and energy in food web ecology in terrestrial systems, as well as the impacts of climactic variability, flash floods and droughts in stream ecosystem structure. The research will also extend development of databases for conservation and management professionals, engage K-12 teachers and students, enhance science curricula in schools in rural areas and Web-based monitoring of river flows on the San Pedro River.

Dynamic anglingRecreational angling is a significant source of fish population declines – assuming sportsman success. Stocking a lake is not simply a matter of fry in, fish out. Seasonal activity of anglers and fish population dynamics play key roles. Eli Fenichel, assistant professor, searches to develop bioeconomic models that better predict when to limit take or increase stock in lakes and streams. If you hook a big one in the Great Lakes in Canada or the U.S. in the future, it just might be a result of stimulus funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Fenichel’s studies. sols.asu.edu/podcasts/index.php?year=2009#Vol_43

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Image by Kevin McCluney

Editors Juliet Stromberg, associate professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, and Barbara Tellman’s (University of Arizona) publication The Ecology and Conservation of the San Pedro examines one of the last undammed perennial rivers in the Southwest and illustrates important processes common to many desert riparian ecosystems. Although historic land uses and climatic extremes have led to aquifer depletion, river entrenchment and other changes, the river still sustains a rich and varied selection of life. Resilient to many factors, portions of the San Pedro have become increasingly threatened by groundwater pumping and other impacts of population growth. An interdisciplinary team of fifty-seven contributors – biologists, ecologists, geomorphologists, historians, hydrologists, lawyers and political scientists – weaves together threads from diverse perspectives to reveal the processes that shape the past, present and future of the San Pedro’s riparian and aquatic ecosystems. They review the biological communities, stream hydrology and geomorphology, then look at conservation and management

challenges along three sections of the San Pedro. From the headwaters in Mexico to its confluence with the Gila River, the authors describe the legal and policy issues and their interface with science: activities related to mitigation, conservation and restoration; a prognosis of the potential for sustaining the basin’s riparian system; and important lessons for restoring physical processes and biotic communities to rivers in arid and semiarid regions (excerpt from publisher: University of Arizona, 2009).

Arizona Wildlife: The Territorial Years 1863-1912 is a book about the history and future of Arizona’s wildlife and a sequel to Man and Wildlife in Arizona. Arizona Wildlife continues the true story of wildlife in early Arizona told through the historic accounts of scientists and settlers, hunters and history makers. Editors Dave E. Brown, Arizona Game and Fish “Educator of the Year” and faculty associate in the School of Life Sciences, Neil Carmony, Harley Shaw and the late W. L. Minckley’s work chronicles the period between 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the law creating Arizona

Territory, through 1912 when statehood was achieved. The book investigates the pursuits and concerns of Arizona’s pioneers, the evolution of game laws and the introduction of cattle and non-native fish – a saga of the territory’s wildlife as it happened (excerpt from publisher: Arizona Game and Fish, 2009).

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was one of the first endangered birds to receive conservation attention, and yet it disappeared – a fate followed soon after by the Imperial Woodpecker. The probable extinction of two of North America’s largest and most charismatic birds has much to teach us regarding conservation efforts, especially as many other species face similar problems. The Travails of Two Woodpeckers: Ivory Bills and Imperials authored by Noel R. R. Snyder, David E. Brown and Kevin B. Clark closely examines the history of the decline and cause of extinction and offers strategies for future conservation and research efforts that focus on the often largely understated role of human depredations” (excerpt from University of New Mexico Press).

SOLS books 2009

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It has become commonplace these days to speak of “unpacking” texts. Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction is a book about packing that prose in the first place. While history is scholarship, it is also art – that is, literature. Stephen Pyne proffers the Voice and Vision for those who wish to understand the ways in which literary considerations can enhance nonfiction writing. Pyne, professor and author of more than 20 books on subjects that range from the history of fire and exploration to ships, space and first-hand accounts from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the ice of Antarctica. Pyne explores the many ways to understand what makes good nonfiction and explains how to achieve it. His experience and insight show that “while nonfiction has no need to emulate fiction, slump into memoir or become self-referential text, its composition does need to be conscious and informed” and can illuminate the way to make one’s non-fiction soar.

Editor Ben A. Minteer’s book Nature in Common? Environmental Ethics and the Contested Foundations of Environmental Policy, published by Temple University Press, brings together leading environmental thinkers to debate a central conflict within environmental philosophy: Should we appreciate nature mainly for its ability to advance our interests or should we respect it as having a good of its own, apart from any contribution to human well being? Minteer, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences, has collected 14 essays and created a seminal volume with contributions from some of the most respected scholars in the field, including Donald Brown, J. Baird Callicott, Andrew Light, Holmes Rolston III, Laura Westra and many others. Although Nature in Common? will be especially useful for students and professionals studying environmental ethics and philosophy, it will engage any reader who is concerned about the philosophies underlying contemporary environmental policies (excerpt from Temple University Press, 2009).

For over 350 million years, thousands of species of amphibians have lived on earth; but, since the 1980s they have been disappearing at an alarming rate, in many cases quite suddenly and mysteriously. What is causing these extinctions? What role do human actions play in them? What do they tell us about the overall state of biodiversity on the planet? In Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline, James Collins, professor in the School of Life Sciences, and Martha Crump explore these pressing questions and many others as they document the first modern extinction event across an entire vertebrate class, using global examples that range from the Sierra Nevada of California to the rainforests of Costa Rica and the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Joining scientific rigor and vivid storytelling, this book is the first to use amphibian decline as a lens through which to see more clearly the larger story of climate change, conservation of biodiversity and a host of profoundly important ecological, evolutionary, ethical, philosophical and sociological issues. The book has been published by Oxford University Press, 2009.

Form and Function in Developmental Evolution, published by Cambridge University Press, represents a new effort to understand very old questions about biological form, function and the relationships between them. Editors Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein, professors in the School of Life Sciences, have collected essays that reflect the diversity of approaches in evolutionary developmental biology (Evo Devo), including not only studies by prominent scientists whose research focuses on topics concerned with evolution and development, but also historically and conceptually oriented studies that place the scientific work within a larger framework and ask how it can be pushed further. Topics under discussion range from the use of theoretical and empirical biomechanics to understand the evolution of plant form, to detailed studies of the evolution of development and the

role of developmental constraints on phenotypic variation. The result is a rich and interdisciplinary volume that will begin a wider conversation about the shape of Evo Devo as it matures as a field.

In this landmark volume, Organization of Insect Societies: From Genome to Sociocomplexity, edited by School of Life Sciences professors Jürgen Gadau and Jennifer Fewell – with a foreword by Edward O. Wilson – an international group of scientists from fields of molecular biology, evolutionary genetics, neurophysiology, behavioral ecology and evolutionary theory synthesize their collective expertise and insight into a newly unified vision of insect societies and what they can reveal about how sociality has arisen as an evolutionary strategy. Published by Harvard University Press, this homage to Pulitzer Prize Award winning author and researcher Bert Hölldobler, professor in the School of Life Sciences, will have broad-ranging significance to those interested in social evolution and complex systems.

In the past, biologists have relied exclusively upon the fossil record to infer an evolutionary timescale. Advances in molecular biology now allow the estimation of the relationships of many groups of organisms and their times of divergence. The Timetree of Life, written by a consortium of 105 experts and edited by Sudhir Kumar, ASU professor of life sciences, and Blair Hedges, a professor at Penn State University, becomes the first reference book to synthesize the wealth of information relating to the temporal component of phylogenetic trees. Released in partnership with the Web tool: timetree.org, such ‘time-trees’ allow scientists and non-scientists easy access to information about when living species and their ancestors originated (excerpt for Oxford University Press).

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Brian Smith, et al. Associative conditioning tunes transient dynamics of early olfactory processing. Journal of Neuroscience 29 (33): 10191-10202.

Gro Amdam and Ricarda Scheiner. Impaired tactile learning is related to social role in honeybees. Journal of Experimental Biology 212, 994-1002.

Sharon Hall, Bony Ahmed, Ryan Sponseller and Nancy Grimm. Urbanization Alters Soil Microbial Functioning in the Sonoran Desert. Ecosystems 12: 654-671. The photo is of their study site on South Mountain Park.

Timothy Linksvayer, Robert E. Page, Jr., Gro Amdam, Osman Kaftanoglu, Adam Siegel. The genetic basis of transgressive ovary size in honey bee workers. Genetics in Oct 2009 (online Jul 2009).

Tsafrir Mor, Irene Cherni, et al. Biochemical and immunological characterization of the plant-derived candidate HIV-1 mucosal vaccine CTB MPR649 684. Plant BiotechnologyJ 7:129-145.

Stephen Pratt and David Sumpter. Quorum responses and consensus decision making. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 364:743-753; doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0204.

Zachary R. Stahlschmidt and Dale DeNardo. Effect of nest temperature on egg-brooding dynamics in Children’s pythons. Physiology and Behavior 98(3):302-306.

Adrian Smith, Adam Dolezal, Carter Tate Holbrook, Juergen Gadau, et al. Ants (Formicidae): models for social complexity. Cold Spring Harbor Protocols: doi:10.1101/pdb.emo125.

Kevin McGraw, et al. Annual, sexual, size- and condition-related variation in the colour and fluorescent pigment content of yellow crest-feathers in Snares Penguins (Eudyptes robustus). Emu Austral Ornithology 109(2).

Stephen Pyne. No Longer on the Fringe. Forest History Today (2009).

Covering science 2009The School of Life Sciences’ faculty, postdoctoral fellows and doctoral students published more than 390 articles in the past year – many in high profile scientific journals. Of these, a number of high impact stories captured the front covers of leading journals and featured researchers’ illustrations or photos. Being chosen for a journal cover requires a competitive selection process and heralds not just the quality of the illustration, but also the importance of the research behind it.

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A first-generation success storyBy ElIzABETh W. DAvIDSON

Santos Rojas earned her doctorate in biology in 2009, but her dream started while she was a student at Central High School in Phoenix. It was there that she discovered that Arizona Public Service (APS) power company offered internships – internships that provided tuition for undergraduate studies, as well as summer work at APS sites around the Valley. With her application accepted (based on her math scores, an essay and an interview), Rojas took the first steps toward a college degree with APS’ support. Working in offices, she learned new skills using computers, and, at the nuclear power plant, she sampled for radiation in the surrounding environment.

Rojas, who has seven siblings, was the first in her family to finish high school and to consider attending college. The prospect seemed so daunting that she began her college experience with studies at Phoenix and Mesa Community Colleges, transferring to ASU in her junior year. Though initially interested in engineering, she chose to pursue biology in the School of Life Sciences.

Support was an important factor while she pursued her degree. Fortunately, once at ASU, Rojas discovered a program that fostered the dreams of gifted students from underrepresented groups, the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) program. Funded by National Institutes of Health, MARC paid her tuition and opened a new door, that of undergraduate research with a faculty mentor.

Elizabeth Davidson, research faculty member, became Rojas’ mentor, training her to work in a life sciences laboratory. Rojas explored the influence of temperature on the susceptibility of salamanders to a newly discovered viral disease. Rojas’ work produced important results, which were published with Rojas as the lead author. When she received her Bachelor’s degree at ASU in 2001, it was an accomplishment that touched not only Rojas, but her entire family. However, the story doesn’t end there. Rojas’ experiences in the laboratory and with viruses inspired her to pursue her doctorate. She joined the graduate program in virology at the University of California, Irvine, and received her degree, having studied the herpes virus. She now mentors minority students at U. C. Irvine, and teaches at a community college. Her journey taught her more lessons than any one class or experiment could. Her fearless choice to step into territory outside of her family’s experience, fostered by her community, created both opportunities and a desire to make an impact on the next generation, particularly on students who, like herself, were seeking to take their “first” steps. Rojas now looks toward a future as a researcher, but more importantly, as a bridge for those going where none have gone before.

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ASU alumnus Don Wetter is a confirmed adrenaline junkie. He’s fought fires in Washington State and Arizona, and was with the American Embassy assessing the Kuwaiti’s emergency capacity when 26 missiles from Iraq met Patriot missiles midair. He stood at ground zero in New York City, even as the dust settled from 9/ll, serving as liaison officer for emergency management, bringing together the federal agencies, emergency service teams and medical support that rendered aid, cleared debris, treated burn victims, and provided mortuary services from one of the 27 trailers set up to house the dead. He was one of the first Americans allowed into Iran with a U.S. delegation after the devastating earthquake in Bam, Iran in 2003, and he was on the streets giving relief post-Katrina.

If there’s a disaster, then there you’ll find Wetter. Wetter is a Field Supervisor with the National Disaster Medical System and a Regional Emergency Coordinator for the US Department of Health & Humans Services in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness & Response.

How did he stumble on this path seemingly made for super heroes, rather than mere mortals? It started with Arizona and with Arizona State University.

Wetter got his undergraduate degree at ASU in 1972 in microbiology. His advisor was Jean Schmidt. He came

to ASU to do research, but then he found much at hand in the community to compel him, even more than he had imagined.

“I started working part time on an ambulance in Tempe and Mesa before I came to ASU and volunteered as a fire fighter with rural Metro. That got me interested in the clinical aspect of things,” Wetter recalls. “I moved into clinical and emergency medicine, and got my physician assistant’s certificate in Birmingham, Alabama.”

However, Arizona wasn’t done with Wetter yet. He came back to become one of the first certified emergency medical technicians in the state (number 57) and met his wife, Susanne, a former ASU nursing student, in the emergency room of Phoenix Baptist Hospital, where she worked and he was working part time on the medical helicopter.

Wetter’s wife, a native of Phoenix, went on to complete her master’s degree in nursing in 2006 – at age 52. The two come back for ASU’s Homecoming Week, every couple of years, and he still tracks ASU’s football team. With family in the area, Wetter says that he and Susanne would like to come back to Arizona some day: “We always joked about being snowbirds.”

Of course, that means no more hurricanes or handing out Cipro during anthrax attacks. For the moment, Wetter feels that being a field supervisor has brought all of his

interests together: microbiology and science; medical training; clinical and emergency room medicine; and firefighting.

A field supervisor matches resources with shortfalls, helps the authorities make assessments and identify problems, and pulls together all the relief, federal, public health, emergency services and volunteer agencies to target solutions. Wetter finds it essential that he and others in disaster work come from a wide variety of backgrounds and training. Although he never went further with microbiology, microbiology has come into play throughout his work, particularly in reference to his bioterrorism work.

“I’ve even taught a microbiology class to my students,” Wetter notes, with a smile.

Being a devoted ASU alumnus, and feeling a sense of connection to the cross-disciplinary research and training opportunities core to School of Life Sciences, are what brought him to the SOLS Magazine’s door, literally.

Wetter enjoys making a difference and putting all his skills to work. “It’s a job that’s never done,” Wetter says, “If there’s not a disaster, well then we are planning for one!”

to the disasterBeing the solution

waiting to happen

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John Sabo

gro Amdam

Faculty Grant Awards

Miles Orchinik, associate professorand associate director of undergraduate programs in the School of Life Sciences, is trying to better understand the brain mechanisms that terminate the stress response. With more than $1 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, his group and collaborators from the University of Colorado and University of South Dakota are investigating a novel mechanism to terminate stress responses.

Pioneering studies with insect models for aging, Gro Amdam, associate professor, was awarded $1 million by the Research Council of Norway to pursue collaborative research with Johns Hopkins Medical School and an additional $575,000 from the National Institutes of Health to investigate the “biodemography of aging” with Robert E. Page, Jr., Foundation Professor and Founding Director of the School of Life Sciences.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine awarded Shelley Haydel, assistant professor, more than $1.66 million to study the broad spectrum antibacterial characteristics of clay minerals and to determine the mechanism of action of bioactive materials. Her work could open a new avenue for the topical treatment of MRSA, Mycobacterium ulcerans and other disease.

National Science Foundation has awarded grants of $865,000 to John Sabo, associate professor, to examine water webs, connectivity in arid ecosystems based on water, and $449,000 to fuel stream studies directed by Nancy Grimm, professor, in collaboration with Sabo. These NSF studies seek to span the critical gap between studies of ground water, hydrology and energy in food web ecology in terrestrial systems, as well as the impacts of climactic variability, flash floods and droughts in desert stream ecosystem structure. Sabo also garnered funds from the Arizona

Water Institute, with Tushar Sinha, to study the “impacts of future climate change on agriculture in Arizona.”

Juliet Stromberg, associate professor, has been awarded $880,000 from the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program to study the “structure and function of ephemeral streams in the arid and semiarid Southwest: implications for conservation and management.” She will collaborate with John Sabo and University of Arizona colleagues.

Jeff Touchman, assistant professor and director of the DNA Sequencing Facility with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), has been awarded $867,133 by the National Science Foundation and USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to study the “evolutionary diversification of photosynthesis and the anoxygenic to oxygenic transition.”

Juergen Gadau, associate professor and associate director of graduate programs, was awarded two grants totaling $500,000 to investigate the genetic architecture of reproductive caste determination in ants with Earlham College.

Professor Brian Smith and Jamie Tyler, assistant professor, have been awarded more than $418,000 by the National Institutes of Health to acquire a 2-photon confocal microscope, the first of its kind at ASU. In addition, Smith has been awarded a grant to pursue his core research in learning and memory. He will receive $336,552 to examine the behavioral and physiological mechanisms of olfaction using the honey bee model.

William (Jamie) Tyler was awarded $450,000 in funding for three years from the Army Research Laboratory to study remote control of intact mammalian brain circuits using pulsed ultrasound.

Shelley haydel

Nancy grimm

Jeff TouchmanJuliet Stromberg

Juergen gadau Brian Smith

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AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

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Faculty Grant Awards

Kevin McGraw, associate professor, was chosen ASU Exemplar by President Michael M. Crow for his outstanding contributions to research and discovery. McGraw was awarded a National Science Foundation grant, an Erskine Fellowship from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and a Fyssen Foundation post-doctoral grant to bring a member of the laboratory of Philipp Heeb in France to ASU in 2010.

Les Landrum, curator of the ASU Herbarium, received more than $389,400 to advance the Southwest Environmental Information Network (SEINet), in partnership with Corinna Gries of the Global Institute of Sustainability and Andrew M. Salywon of the Desert Botanical Garden. Landrum also received another small award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to “digitize type specimens from Latin America and other areas.”

Michael Rosenberg, associate professor, has been awarded a two year National Institutes of Health grant to better understand (and potentially correct) how errors in sequence alignment, generated in early stages of high-throughput analyses, propagate.

Sharon Hall, assistant professor, will take her expertise to the African continent with $299,000 in funding to study “Ecosystem science close to home: Impacts of the urban environment on nutrient cycling in Fynbos shrublands of the Cape Town metropolitan area.” Hall will collaborate with researchers from the University of Cape Town, and South Africa Ecological Observatory Network (SAEON).

Jason Robert, associate professor, was awarded more than $262,000 by the National Science Foundation to study “the whys and how of establishing new model systems in biology and neuroscience.” The proposed research will begin to equip biologists with new knowledge about the benefits

and limitations of particular research programs and about strategies for expanding the knowledge-base of biological and behavioral science.

Professor Nancy Grimm received a $259,769 National Science Foundation award to do “collaborative research on the impacts of urbanization on nitrogen biogeochemistry in xeric ecosystems” in collaboration with Stevan Earl in the Global Institute of Sustainability.

Sudhir Kumar, professor in the School of Life Sciences and director of the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics in the Biodesign Institute, has been awarded $246,413 by National Institutes of Health to reengineer the source code of the Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis software (MEGA) he’s developed over the past 13 years.

Douglas Lake, associate professor,has been awarded an Eureka Grant to pursue “working backwards from the proteome.” He will receive $200,000 per year for four years and an opportunity to study new genes and proteins with new functions. Lake was also selected to receive a Mayo-ASU seed grant to study the plasma peptidome of pancreas cancer patients with Mayo researcher G. Anton Decker.

Eli Fenichel, assistant professor, has been awarded a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Saltonstall-Kennedy grant to pursue the “joint modeling of seasonal recreational demand, entry-exit decisions, and fish stocks over time with an application to Great Lakes sportfishing.” The $190,000 award is shared with collaborator Josh Abbott in the ASU School of Sustainability.

Stuart Newfeld, associate professor, received an award from the European Network of Excellence in Systems Biology (ENFIN). The network was developed to facilitate collaboration between computational and experimental approaches to biology to

Kevin Mcgraw

Sharon hall

les landrum

Michael Rosenberg

Jason Robert Sudhir Kumar

Douglas lake Eli Fenichel

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AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

promote “whole genome” or “systems level” understanding of complex biological processes such as bacterial physiology and cancer. Newfeld will be “testing informatics predictions for post-translational modification of Smad tumor suppressor genes” in collaboration with researchers from Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, Uppsala, Sweden and University College London, United Kingdom.

Susanne Neuer, associate professor, and James Elser, Regents’ and Parents Professor in the School of Life Sciences, in partnership with Ariel Anbar, associate professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and lead investigator on the NASA Astrobiology Institute: Follow the Elements, were awarded $6.4 million to understand evolution in the early oceans and show how chemical “elements have shaped the distribution of life, the state of the environment and the course of evolution.”

Yung Chang, associate professor, received a Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) concept award for study of “multi-specific aptamer-nanoscaffolds to induce aptamer-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ApDCC) against breast cancer cells.” Concept awards have

been established to support the exploration of “a highly innovative new concept or untested theory that addresses an important problem relevant to breast cancer.”

Jeanne Wilson-Rawls, assistant professor, was funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Association to study “the role of the Notch/Numb interaction in promoting skeletal muscle repair” in collaboration with Alan Rawls, associate professor. Both awardees are also faculty members of the University of Arizona-Phoenix College of Medicine in partnership with Arizona State University.

Andrew Hamilton, assistant professor, received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to examine “biodiversity: biological systematics in historical and conceptual context” and an $84,000 postdoctoral fellowship for work “on the ecologist, environmentalist, and public figure L. C. Birch.”

Charles Kazilek, director of technology integration and outreach, and Margaret Coulombe, media relations coordinator, were awarded $150,000 from the National Science Foundation for the redesign of the Ask A Biologist website. The new website will also be part of the National Science Digital Library.

Susanne Neuer

yung Chang N. Jeanne Wilson-Rawls

James Elser

Andrew hamilton

Margaret Coulombe

Charles Kazilek

Faculty Grant Awards

voteuglyaskabiologist.asu.edu/uglybugs

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Honors

AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

Robert E. Page, Jr. Stuart Fisher

Robert E. Page, Jr., Foundation Professor and Founding Director of the School of Life Sciences, was selected as a Fellow of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the oldest scientific academy in the world, for his pioneering research in behavioral genetics of honey bees. He joins the ranks of luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Alexander von Humboldt and Marie Curie.

Professor Stuart Fisher was chosen to receive the Eugene P. Odum Education Award from the Ecological Society of America. The award recognizes extraordinary individuals for “outstanding work in ecology education, teaching, outreach and mentoring activities.”

The School of Life Sciences has been selected as one of three finalists for the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Award – Academia based on Professor Sudhir Kumar’s “MEGA” and “Timetree of Life” projects. These discovery tools for comparative genomics of humans and their pathogens have contributed to a wide range of research, business and non-profit organizations and discovery in Arizona.

David E. Brown, author and faculty associate, has been selected by the Arizona Game and Fish Commission as “Educator of the Year.” The honorees will be formally recognized at the annual Commission Awards banquet to be held in January 2010.

Jason Robert, associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, associate professor of Basic Medical Sciences and Lincoln Associate Professor of Ethics in Biotechnology and Medicine has been appointed the Franca Oreffice Dean’s Distinguished Professor in the Life Sciences.

Professor Ronald Rutowski received the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences 2009 Hall of Fame Distinguished Faculty Award at Homecoming celebrations at ASU on October 30.

Professor Jennifer Fewell received a Guggenheim Fellowship to compose the book Sociocomplexity: From Group to Individual.

Susanne Neuer, associate professor, was appointed to the National Board of Directors of the Association of Women in Science and received an award for Outstanding Achievement and Contribution from the ASU Commission for the Status of Women.

Regents’ Professor James Elser was chosen as “Professor of the Year” by the ASU Parents Association. Elser also received the ASU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Distinguished Faculty Award for “instructional excellence, special dedication to students, and performance that makes an impact in the greater community and/or a professional field.” In addition, he has been chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Lecturer for the Department of Biology at the University of Notre Dame.

Foundation Professor of Life Sciences Bert Hölldobler was the keynote speaker for the February 12th Darwin celebration at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (one of the oldest and most distinguished Academies in Germany) and also the keynote speaker at the Idea Festival in Louisville, organized by the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation in October.

James Elser

Ronald Rutowski

Susanne Neuer

Bert hölldobler

Jason Robert

Jennifer Fewell

David E. BrownSudhir Kumar

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Honors

AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

Gro Amdam, associate professor, has been awarded a fellowship by the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Wiko), Institute for Advanced Study for January and February 2010, to join a focus group “Social Insects as a Model System for Evolutionary Developmental Biology.”

Gro Amdam delivered the plenary address at the National Science Award Ceremony, Research Council of Norway (‘Forskningens Festaften’), Oslo, Norway.

Ask A Biologist, an online science education Web site developed by Charles Kazilek, director of Technology Integration and Outreach, was featured in Raising Arizona Kids Magazine in April 2009. In addition, two students, Marissa Henderson and Michael Saxon, seventh-graders, won ASU’s Ask A Biologist podcast contest. They were invited to spend the day working at ASU and producing a new podcast for the School of Life Sciences. They also won Apple iPods.

Eli Fenichel, assistant professor, was invited to lecture at the New York Times Institute for Scientific/ Environmental Journalism in March 2009. He was also part of the team awarded a grant as part of the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis working group, “Synthesizing and Predicting Infectious Disease while accounting for Endogenous Risk, SPIDER.” The first meeting of four workshops was held in Tennessee, with a second meeting scheduled for November 2009.

Harvard University Press published “Voice and Vision: A Guide to Writing History and Other Serious Nonfiction” authored by Stephen Pyne. Regents’ Professor Pyne has also contracted with Viking (Penguin) to print “Seeking Newer Worlds: Voyager and the Third Great Age of Discovery” to be published in 2010.

In addition, Stephen Pyne was invited to Colorado State University, as part of the Furniss Lectures, Oklahoma State University, and to the National Advanced Fire and Resource Institute in Tucson, a major wildland fire training center for federal agencies.

Professor Charles Perringsreceived the Kenneth E. Boulding Memorial Award.

Professor Nancy Grimm was an invited plenary speaker at the Alliance for Global Sustainability annual meeting entitled “Urban futures: the challenge of sustainability” in Zurich, Switzerland in February 2009, speaking on “global change in the urban century.” Grimm also spoke at Brown University and Cornell University.

Professor Roy Curtiss III was selected to participate on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – Grand Challenges Explorations Review Panel and American Society of Microbiology, Culture Collections Colloquium Planning Committee.

Professor Manfred Laubichler was appointed to the editorial board of the Archive for History of the Exact Sciences.

Eli Fenichel

Charles Perrings

Roy Curtiss III

Stephen Pyne

Nancy grimm

Manfred laubichler

Charles Kazilekgro Amdam

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Graduate Student Honors and Awards

AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

Oliver Hyman and advisor James Collins were awarded an $81,000 Heritage grant from Arizona Game and Fish for their research on chytridiomycosis in Arizona: “Aquatic Environment and the Persistence of the Frog Killing Fungus.”

Brandon Guida, doctoral student with Shelley Haydel’s group, received travel awards to attend an American Society of Microbiology meeting. Guida also presented the best poster presentation at the 2009 Arizona Imaging and Microanalysis Society (AIMS) meeting in Tucson, AZ. In addition he was selected to attend the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Advanced Bacterial Genetics Course held June 3 - 23, 2009, Cold Spring Harbor, NY.

Mike Butler, doctoral student with Kevin McGraw’s group, was awarded the Graduate and Professional Student Association (GPSA) JumpStart Research Grant and Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Grant-in-Aid-of-Research.

Christina Wong, a School of Sustainability doctoral student working in Nancy Grimm’s lab, received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Wong is also the holder of a Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Kirsten Traynor, a doctoral student with Robert Page’s group, received an Honorable Mention from National Science Foundation for the Graduate Research Fellowship Program.

Winners of National Science Foundation GK-12 Fellowships for 2009-2010 are Celena LeClair (Brian Verrelli lab), Laura Taylor-Taft, Joanna Malukiewicz (Ananias Escalante lab).

Winners of the Frontiers in Life Sciences Conference Award for 2010 were doctoral students: Rebecca Clark and Tate Holbrook with professor Jennifer Fewell’s group; Rick Overson (Juergen Gadau lab); Dani Moore, Clint Penick and Adrian Smith (Juergen Liebig lab).

Faculty Emeriti Association Fellowship awardees for 2009-2010 are doctoral students Brigitte Hogan (Andrew Smith lab) and Susan Holechek (Bertram Jacobs lab).

Tate holbrookMike Butler Kirsten Traynor

Jennifer Brian

Rebecca Clark Rick Overson

Aimee Kessler Matt Toomey Kate IhleClint Penick Susan holechek Brad Butterfield Elisabeth larson

Oliver hyman Joanna Malukiewicz

National Security Education Program (NSEP) Boren Graduate Fellowship and Rufford Small Grant for Nature Conservation 2009 were awarded to doctoral student Aimee Kessler, a doctoral student in Parents Professor Andrew Smith’s group.

Brad Butterfield was invited to speak at the British Ecological Society Annual Symposium in Aberdeen, Scotland. His work will be published in a Special Topics issue of Journalof Ecology.

Matt Toomey (Kevin McGraw lab), Daryn Stover (Brian Verrelli lab), Elisabeth Larson (Nancy Grimm lab), Johnny Winston (Andrew Hamilton lab) and Kate Ihle (Gro Amdam lab) received Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants from the National Science Foundation to pursue “The Fate of Nitrate in Stormwater Retention Basins in an Arid Metropolitan Area.”

Jennifer Brian, doctoral student with Jason Robert’s group, received a PEO Scholars award from PEO International.

Ryan Meyer, with Daniel Sarewitz’s group in the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, received a Fulbright Postgraduate Scholarship for study in Australia in 2010.

Ryan Meyer

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Graduate Student Honors and Awards

Fellows for 2008-2009 IGERT in Urban Ecology were selected: Elizabeth Cook (Sharon Hall lab); Kristin Gade and Shade Shutters (Ann Kinzig lab); Rebecca Hale and Elisabeth Larson (Nancy Grimm lab) and Hoski Schaafsma.

Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Bridge to the Doctorate Fellowships were awarded to Erin Schultz (Michael Moore lab), Yusuf Tufail (William Tyler lab) and Jolene Trujillo. Trujillo, a doctoral student with assistant professor Sharon Hall, was also awarded a fellowship by the Western Alliance to Expand Student Opportunities.

Jake Brashears, with Dale DeNardo’s group, received the Peabody Family Memorial Graduate Fellowship 2008-2009.

Science Foundation Arizona Graduate Fellowships in Science and Engineering have been awarded to: Jessica Corman (James Elser lab),

Kelly Dolezal, (Brenda Hogue lab), Jeffrey Liao (Bertram Jacobs lab), Vicki Moore (Willem Vermaas lab), Joshua Wray (Milton Sommerfeld lab), and Karl Wyant (John Sabo lab).

Katherine Brind‘Amour received a Teaching Associate of the Year Award 2008-2009. Honorable mentions were Jennifer Brian (Jason Robert lab) and Damien Salamone (Bert Jacobs lab).

A National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship Graduate Research Fellowship for 2008-2011 was awarded to doctoral student James Waters, a member of Jon Harrison’s group.

Lisa Taylor and Melissa Meadows, doctoral students in Kevin McGraw’s group, earned Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid-of-Research from the local chapter of the Sigma Xi Scientific Society. Meadows also received a travel grant from the Animal Behavior Society to attend a meeting in Brazil.

In addition, Melissa Meadows received First Prize for her oral presentation on hummingbird fights and colors and Yevgeniy Marusenko, a Master’s student, took the award for Best Poster at the 2009 GELSS Symposium.

Michelle McCrackinMelissa Meadows yevgeniy Marusenko

Kristin gade Jessica Corman Katherine Brind‘Amouryusuf Tufail James WatersJake BrashearsJolene Trujillo

lisa Taylor Dana Nakase Bony Ahmed

AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

Michelle McCrackin, doctoral student with Regents’ and Parents Professor James Elser, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for study in Norway in 2009.

Doctoral student Dana Nakase received a 2008-2009 GPSA Teaching Excellence Award (Sharon Hall lab), as didAutumn Ervin (Andrew Webber lab) and Pavithra Venkatagopalan (Brenda Hogue lab).

Bony Ahmed, who conducted his Honors Thesis research in the laboratories of Nancy Grimm and Sharon Hall, received the Dean’s Circle award.

Elisabeth Larson, with Nancy Grimm’s group, was the recipient of the SOLS Lisa Dent Award for her dissertation work “Water and Nitrogen in Designed Ecosystems: Biogeochemical and Economic Consequences.”

Scott Davies, a doctoral student with Pierre Deviche, received awards from the CAP LTER Summer Graduate Research, GPSA Development grant, GiFT and Sigma Xi to attend a course at the Organization for Tropical Studies’ field station in Costa Rica.

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Dawn Coletta

Amy Casaldi

Carita harrell

leah McFarland

Matt Stelling

Rebecca Fisher

Janet Franklin John lynch Michael White

Anna Fields

Jonathan huffer

Michelle Meyers

Dan Childers

Dona Begley

Stacey Flores

laura Kaufman

John Priewe

AWARDS AND RECOgNITIONS

New FacultyDan Childers, ProfessorDawn Coletta, Assistant ProfessorRebecca Fisher, Assistant ProfessorJanet Franklin, ProfessorJohn Lynch, Assistant ProfessorMichael White, Assistant Professor

Basic Medical Sciences FacultyUA Medical College-Phoenix in partnership with ASUBradley Appelhans, Assistant ProfessorPaul Boehmer, ProfessorStuart Flynn, ProfessorChad Foradori, Research Assistant ProfessorAmelia Gallitano, Assistant ProfessorSourav Ghosh, Assistant ProfessorRayna Gonzales, Assistant ProfessorKurt Gustin, Associate ProfessorTaben Hale, Assistant ProfessorRonald Hammer, ProfessorRobert Handa, ProfessorKaren Taraszka Hastings, Assistant ProfessorMark Haussler, ProfessorDaniel Holterman, Assistant ProfessorJui-Cheng Hsieh, Research Assistant ProfessorPeter Jurutka, Assistant ProfessorSuwon Kim, Assistant ProfessorElla Nikulina, Research Associate ProfessorCynthia Standley, Research ProfessorPaul Standley, ProfessorG. Kerr Whitfield, Research Assistant Professor

New StaffDona Begley, Accounting Specialist, Business OfficeAmy Casaldi, Academic Success Specialist, Advising OfficeAnna Fields, Manager, Faculties OfficeStacey Flores, Academic Success Specialist, Advising OfficeCarita Harrell, Academic Success Specialist, Advising OfficeJonathan Huffer, Technology Support AnalystLaura Kaufman, Student Services CoordinatorLeah McFarland, Academic Success Specialist, Advising OfficeMichelle Meyers, Student Services AssistantJohn Priewe, Specialist, Faculties OfficeMatt Stelling, Specialist, Graduate Programs Office

As the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” draws nigh, so too does the last in the Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series that has headlined ASU’s Darwinfest since November 2008. Thanks to all the speakers, organizers and sponsors and the more than 3,800 attendees who contributed to making Darwinfest a success and whose diverse viewpoints elevated the discussion. Darwinfest will continue on virtually, captured as the Darwin Distinguished Lecture Series audio recordings (podcasts), featured by Apple on iTunesU and darwinfest.asu.edu, in addition to the ongoing conversations about who we are and where we’re going featured in the School of Life Sciences audio programs, Science Studio sols.asu.edu/podcasts/ and Ask A Biologist podcasts askabiologist.asu.edu/podcasts/.

darwinfest.asu.edu

social biomimicryinsect societies and human designFebruary 18-20, 2010ASU Memorial Union, Tempe Campus

sols.asu.edu/biomimicry