FACULTY/STAFF NEWS

Gloria DeFilipps Brush, professor, Art & Design, had a work in Postcards from the Edge exhibition, sponsored by the Visual AIDS organization in New York City, at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Gallery, in December, 2006. Her work was acquired by a private collector in the city.

Clay Carter, assistant professor, Department of Biology, gave two invited talks this fall. He spoke on “Nectar and the syzygy of plants, pollinators and pathogens” at Minnesota State University in Mankato, MN on October 13, 2006 and for the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul on October 31, 2006.

Julie Etterson, assistant professor, Department of Biology, has been awarded a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation, starting in January, 2007. Her study is entitled “RUI - Testing of the evolutionary potential of polyploids in the context of climate change”.
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Dalibor Froncek, associate professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, constructed a 12-team 11-year rotating schedule of a 10-week football tournament for a new format of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Froncek, was appointed Member of the Programme Committee of MISTA (The 3rd Multidisciplinary International Conference on Scheduling: Theory and Applications), Paris, France, August 2007.

In December 2006, Alec Habig, associate professor, Department of Physics, was made co-convener of the MINOS’ Non-Oscillation, Non-Accelerator Physics Working Group, with Giles Barr of the University of Oxford.

Charlene Harkins, registered dietitian and assistant professor, Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, was selected as a volunteer evidence analyst by the American Dietetic Association to assist with the expansion of ADA’s online Evidence Analysis Library. Evidence analysts are experts who review scientific literature on the full range of food and nutrition topics including diabetes, kidney disease, nutrition assessment, pediatric weight management and HIV/AIDS.

Tom Johnson, UMD Large Lakes Observatory and Department of Geological Sciences, and J.M. Russell, (former UMD grad student) Brown University, had an article, “Little Ice Age drought in equatorial Africa: Intertropical Convergence Zone migrations and El Niño Southern Oscillation variability,” published in this month’s Geology, the magazine of the Geological Society of America. New research by Russell and Johnson, using geochemical analyses of well-dated sediments from Lake Edward, shows that central Africa experienced severe drought during the Little Ice Age. The results suggest that the climate of central equatorial Africa has been wetter and more stable over the past century than at any time during the preceding millennium. This finding implies that central Africa is overdue for a return to prolonged drought that would severely disrupt developing East African economies.

Zhuangyi Liu, professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, attended the First Congress of Applied Mathematics at University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru from January 10 to 12. He was a plenary speaker and give a talk on “Mathematical Problems Arising from the Integrated Satelite Antenna Technology”.

On October 23, 2006, at the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Mary Jean Menzel presented on her doctoral research pertaining to UMD’s College In The Schools program. She also presented on her research to the state-wide concurrent enrollment program association, the Minnesota Concurrent Enrollment Partnership (MnCEP) in August, 2006, in St. Cloud.Menzel coordinates the UMD College In The Schools program which currently serves high-ability juniors and seniors in 11 high schools throughout the region.

Richard Ojakangas, professor emeritus, Department of Geological Sciences, presented a UMD Department of Geological Sciences seminar on November 2 entitled “Uranium Deposits of the World: Energy of the Future?”

Raghavan, V., Daniel N. Pope, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and Gogos, G., published their paper “Effects of Forced Convection and Surface Tension during Methanol Droplet Combustion”, in the AIAA Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, Volume 20, Number 4, pp. 787-798, 2006.

Raghavan, V., D. Pope, Howard, D. and Gogos, G., published their paper “Surface Tension Effects during Low-Reynolds-Number Methanol Droplet Combustion”, in Combustion and Flame, Volume 145, Number 4, pp. 791-807, 2006

Eun-Kyung Suh, an assistant professor, Department of Art and Design, will have two-person exhibition at Bloomington Art Center, Bloomington, MN through February 16. Suh’s “Once upon a time” and “Yellow Ribbon I” will be exhibited in “Works on Paper” Exhibition at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA through February 25 2007. Suh’s “Yellow Ribbon I” won the first prize at the “Works on Paper” national exhibition organized by the South Shore Art Center. This exhibition, which features 22 selected artist works, through February 25, 2007.

A story on Janelle Wilson, associate professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology appeared in a recent issue of the Saginaw Valley State University alumni publication, “This is SVSU.” Wilson was also quoted in an article in the December 31 issue of the New York Post. The article is about the high amount of turnover in law firms, especially with Gen-Xers. Recent studies have shown that up to 77% of associates leave big law firms within their first five years due to the amount of work, a lack of free time, and a reduced quality of life.

Xun Yu, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, with R. Rajamani, K. A. Stelson, and T. Cui, published their paper “Carbon nanotube based transparent conductive thin film” in the Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, vol.6 (7), pp.1939-1944, 2006. X. Yu, with R. Rajamani, K. A. Stelson, and T. Cui, presented their paper “Active control the sound transmission through windows with carbon nanotube based transparent speakers and noise source identifications” at the 2006 American Control Conference (ACC 2006), Minneapolis, MN, June 14-16, 2006

NRRI NEWS

Pat Donahue and Matt Aro attended the 10th International Inorganic-Bonded Fiber Composite Conference held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in November. They presented a paper entitled “Durable Phosphate Bonded Natural Fiber Composite Products.”

Lucinda Johnson, senior research associate, was named one of 15 founding fellows of the U of M’s Institute on the Environment. The institute will coordinate the university’s breadth and depth of environmental resources to make it easier for researchers to share knowledge with each other and the public.

Pavel Krasutsky, program director, Dmitry Krasutskyy, research fellow, Oksana Kolomitsyna, research fellow, and Igor Kolomitsyn, research associate were invited by the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (GLRCE) to attend the 4th Annual Meeting at November 29-December 2 in Hilton Head Island, SC. O. Kolomitsyna won an award for the best poster presentation that she gave about “Triterpenes and Their Derivatives against Bacillus anthracis and Staphylococcus aureus” with co-authors D. Missiakas and O. Schneewind (from University of Chicago, Department of Microbiology), D. Krasutskyy, and P. Krasutsky at the conference. D. Krasutskyy gave a poster presentation entitled “Natural Triterpenoids and their Quaternary Ammonium Salts as Adjuvants for Biodefense” with co-authors O. Kolomitsyna, I. Kolomitsyn, and P. Krasutsky at the GLRCE 4th Annual Meeting on December 1 in Hilton Head Island, SC. P. Krasutsky gave an oral presentation entitled “Birch bark triterpenoids in Synthesis of Antibacterial and Adjuvants for Biodefense”.

Dean Peterson, senior research associate, gave a talk titled “New Ideas on Mineralization in the Duluth Complex” to the Mesaba Range Geological Society meeting in Virginia, Minnesota in December.

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