President s Monthly Research and Development Highlights

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1 President s Monthly Department of Environmental Quality Awards $1.6 Million Grant to OU Scientists to Continue Water Cleanup For the past decade, Professor Robert Nairn (Civil & Environmental Science) and his team of students in the College of have worked to begin cleaning mineral contamination from the waters at the Tar Creek Superfund site. The cost-effective, low-effort passive water treatment process designed by Nairn and his team is proving successful and the Department of Environmental Quality recently awarded Nairn a $1.6 million grant to continue his work in northeast Oklahoma. For more than a century, financially lucrative mining operations in the Tri-State Mining District of northeast Oklahoma, southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas extracted zinc and lead minerals from the earth. The evidence left behind included land scorched with contamination and valuable water resources too damaged by zinc, lead, iron and cadmium to support aquatic life. Nairn has made it his lifelong mission to clean the Tar Creek watershed and restore balance to the communities and wildlife in the area. With the additional funding from DEQ, Nairn and his team of engineers and environmental scientists will continue to pursue his goal of clean water in the region. Called the Southeast Commerce Project, design and construction of the additional passive water treatment facility will begin in 2015 in Commerce, Oklahoma. Rural communities deserve a healthy environment free from the toxins left behind by previous industrial activity, Nairn said. I remain hopeful that someday we ll be able to restore the water in the Tar Creek watershed to levels that are safe for human health and the environment. Though Nairn is seeing important and impactful success, his work is far from over. Although the Tar Creek mines have long closed operation, evidence of their chemical and mineral waste in the watershed will remain for centuries longer. The remediation projects address only a small portion of the larger problem. The design life for the passive treatment project is 30 years, but significant maintenance like pond excavation and rebuilding will need to be completed to continue the water remediation process. Weathernews, Inc. Celebrates 10 Years on the OU Campus Weathernews, Inc., the Japanese forecasting company with U.S. operations on the OU Research Campus, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in Norman, Oklahoma. Weathernews moved its U.S. operations to One Partners Place in 2004 when the only other building on the campus was the Stephenson Research and Technology Center. It was the first private company to locate to the campus and remains there to collaborate with OU scientists. We were encouraged to move here by Dr. Yoshikazu Sasaki, emeritus professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said Masaya Yamamoto, Weathernews director of research. The University of Oklahoma had developed forecasting models and new radar that saved lives. 1

2 President s Monthly Weathernews is a global company with three operations offices worldwide Tokyo, Japan; Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Norman, OK. In Japan, Weathernews is similar to The Weather Channel in the U.S. and provides forecasts for aviation, railways, roads and weather. The Amsterdam office is primarily responsible for offshore oil and gas production forecasts. The Weathernews Norman, OK, operations office provides forecasting data to approximately 2,000 vessels each day around the world. Weathernews is more focused on efficiency today, given increases in fuel prices over the past decade, said Lance Steele, WNI meteorologist in the Oklahoma Innovations Center. Weathernews established the Oklahoma Innovations Center in 2010 to develop more efficient data products, related to adaptable radar, artificial intelligence, data assimilation and satellite meteorology. Weathernews has 60 employees in Oklahoma some who are risk communicators, and others who are creating new forecast products for its customers. At least 20 of those 60 employees graduated from OU s School of Meteorology. The origins of Weathernews date back to 1986 and, soon after being founded, it acquired a marine routing company named Oceanroutes that dated back to the 1950s. Astronomers Discover the First Pulsar and Pulsating White Dwarf Binary Assistant Professor Mukremin Kilic (Physics & Astronomy) has led a team of astronomers to discover the first pulsar and pulsating white dwarf binary known. The universe is a place of extremes, but rarely do astronomers get a chance to observe two so closely associated as in this recent finding based on data obtained at the Gemini 8m telescope in Hawaii. The observations reveal a unique, very close pairing of stellar corpses. One is the extremely dense, mountain-sized remains of a supernova explosion (called a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star spinning (in this case) at over 10,000 times per minute) and the other is a Neptune-sized cooling ember of a deceased Sun-like star (a white dwarf) that pulsates about every Collaborative Research Project Professor Yang Hong (Advanced Radar Research Center/Civil & Environmental Science/Meteorology) and Humberto Vergara (Ph.D. student, Hydrometeorology & Remote Sensing Laboratory) visited the University of El Bosque in Bogota, Colombia representing the WaTER and ARRC Center. The purpose of the visit is to establish a research collaborative project between the School of of El Bosque and HyDROS lab. During the three days of the visit (October 6 8, 2014), Hong and Vergara met with some key faculty of El Bosque to share experiences and discussed opportunities of collaboration to work on projects revolving around Risk and Disaster Management for Colombia. The visit was a success with a research collaboration MOU, including technology transfer and capacity building, and professional exchange. 30 minutes. These pulsations, aka star-quakes, provide information about the interiors of stars. Together, this orbiting pair provides a unique laboratory for the understanding of the mass, internal structure, and characteristics of neutron stars and white dwarfs the evolutionary end-states of most stars. The results are published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and featured on a Gemini observatory release at node/

3 President s Monthly We Can Research It The Early Childhood Education Institute on the OU-Tulsa campus participated in the annual OU-Tulsa Chili Cook-Off and Halloween Costume Party fundraiser. The staff dressed as Rosie the Researcher to demonstrate their CAN DO attitude about conducting ECE research. Professor Faruk Civan Receives Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) recently honored Professor Faruk Civan (Petroleum & Geological ) with the SPE Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award at SPE s Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held October 27 29, 2014 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Civan has made a great impact in the area of Reservoir Description and Dynamics by advancing higher education and also making important developments through research. He has published more than 275 technical articles and has been invited to present these worldwide at more than 100 seminars and lectures. SPE serves more than 124,000 members worldwide, sharing technical knowledge for the benefit of our industry. Each year, SPE presents awards that recognize members whose efforts have advanced petroleum technology, as well as their professional achievements and contributions to the industry and the society. It is an honor to recognize Faruk for his commitment and dedication to the oil and gas industry with the Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award. SPE international award winners were nominated by their colleagues and selected by their peers for their achievement and contributions and it s my pleasure to congratulate him on receiving this prestigious international award from SPE, said Jeff Spath, 2014 SPE President. New Publications Palgrave-Macmillan published African Immigrant Families in Another France by Loretta Bass (Sociology) (September 25, 2014). Bloomsbury published Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophical Mother of Coeducation by Susan Laird (Educational Leadership & Policy Studies/ Women s & Gender Studies/Human Relations) (December 18, 2014). CRC Press published Radar Hydrology: Principles, Models, and Applications by Yang Hong (Advanced Radar Research Center/ Civil & Environmental Science/ Meteorology) and Jonathan Gourley (National Severe Storms Lab) (December 23, 2014). Academic Press published Design Theory and Methods using CAD/CAE by Kuang-Hua Chang (Aerospace & Mechanical ) (July 2014). 3

4 President s Monthly President s Monthly Research anddevelopment DevelopmentHighlights Highlights Research and Student Recognition Fabrice Conte, (Ph.D. student, French) is completing an interdisciplinary degree combining French and Drama. He recently learned that his directing work was recognized by the Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival with a Meritorious Achievement Award for Excellence in Directing. The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) is a national organization that exists to celebrate the educational and creative process of university and college theatre. KCACTF promotes professional standards and provides students and faculty with opportunities to bridge the academic and professional worlds and honors achievements in diversity and excellence. The Meritorious Achievement Award offers recognition of individuals who have gone beyond the call of duty and achieved excellence in their particular production role. Nikki Jones (a graduate of OU-Tulsa s Early Childhood Education Bachelor s Completion Program) won the NAECTE Outstanding Practitioner Award. She was nominated by Associate Professor Libby Ethridge (OU-Tulsa Early Childhood Education Institute) Julie Michelle Davis (Ph.D. student, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies) delivered the Presidential Lecture of the Society for Educating Women, an inter-generational and international community of learning and inquiry on women, gender and education in Toronto, Canada on November 1, Davis s Presidential Lecture was titled Educating Women for Gender Insubordination in the Breast Cancer Industrial Complex. On October 31, 2014, also in Toronto, at the annual conference of the American Educational Studies Association, she presented a refereed paper session, Breast Cancer in Global Contexts: Autobiographies and Educating Women. University Dedicates the Radar Innovations Laboratory on the OU Research Campus The Radar Innovations Laboratory was dedicated on October 22, It is the eighth research facility to be built on the OU Research Campus in less than a decade. The Research Campus was named the No. 1 research campus in the nation in The dedication of this new Radar Innovations Laboratory demonstrates the continued growth of our Research Campus, which was named the most outstanding University Research Campus in the U.S. this year, OU President David L. Boren said. This facility, along with OU s outstanding faculty in the radar field, will enable the university to remain in the forefront of this nationally growing and important field of radar research. The 35,000-square-foot facility encourages creative thinking and collaboration among faculty, students and external partners with a goal of innovating the next-generation radar, microwave electronics and related technologies. The lab provides a hands-on active learning environment for OU s engineering and science students. At least 60 students and 20 faculty from the Advanced Radar Research 4

5 President s Monthly Center are housed within the lab and have access to an expansive microwave laboratory that features a full suite of state-of-the-art test equipment, a highbay garage for mobile radar trucks, prototype fabrication facilities, a machine shop, two precision echoless chambers, an experimental observation deck and an Ideas Room to foster collaboration and innovation. Faculty Recognition Associate Professor Erik Braun (Religious Studies) won a Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism from the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley for his book The Birth of Insight: Meditation, Modern Buddhism and the Burmese Monk Ledi Sayadaw. The Toshihide Numata Book Prize in Buddhism (or Toshi Prize) is awarded on an annual basis to an outstanding book in any area of Buddhist studies. Associate Professor Michael Kent (Gaylord College of Journalism & Mass Communication) was elected to a four-year term as president of the Public Relations Division of the National Communication Association. NCA advances Communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific and aesthetic inquiry. Professor Susan Laird (Educational Leadership & Policy Studies/Women s & Gender Studies/Human Relations) has been elected by members of the American Educational Studies Association in October, 2014, to serve as that organization s Vice President in 2015, its President-Elect in 2016, its President in 2017, and its Past President in Associate Professor Petra Klein (Meteorology) was elected to serve on the University Coroporation of Atmospheric Research Board of Trustees for a 3-year term starting in January Professor Frederick Carr (Meteorology) was elected President of the American Meteorological Society for Professor Diane Horm (OU-Tulsa s Early Childhood Education Institute) won the NAECTE Distinguished Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education Article Award along with her two co-authors Drs. Marilou Hyson and Pam Winton. Their article, Research on Early Childhood Teacher Education: Evidence from Three Domains and Recommendations for Moving Forward was selected as the distinguished article through a rigorous peer review process Charles A. Doswell III (CIMMS Research Scientist) was awarded a Special Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Weather Association at its annual meeting held in October in Salt Lake City, Utah. The award was For his exceptional service and contributions to the operational forecasting and research communities through high-quality scientific research, educational workshops, and mentorship of colleagues and students. 5

6 President s Monthly October New Awards Name Dept./Center Funding Agency Project Title Amount Matthew Pranter, Deepak Devegowda, Kurt Marfurt, Shankar Mitra, Jamie Rich, Roger Slatt, & Richard Elmore Geology & Geophysics/ Provost Office Administration Devon Energy Corp., Chesapeake Corp., QEP Resources, Inc., and SM Energy Co. Granite Wash Consortium $55,000 Li Song & Ik-seong Joo Aerospace & Mechanical /Division of Architecture U.S. Dept. of Defense Demonstration of a Building Automation System Embedded Performance Degradation Detector Using Virtual Water/Air Flow Meters $272,020 Paul Spicer & Kermyt Anderson Anthropology OU Health Sciences Center Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Resource: Revised Proposal $104,579 Valentin Rybenkov Chemistry & Biochemistry Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology Condensin dependent potentiation of antibiotics $45,000 Bruce Hoagland OK Biological Survey/Geography & Environmental Sustainability U.S. Dept. of Defense, Army Natural Resources Program Support, Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma $66,881 Bruce Hoagland OK Biological Survey/ Geology & Energy Library Dept. of Transportation Highway Biological Studies $500,000 Robert Nairn, Robert Knox, & William Matthews Civil & Environmental Science/ Biology Dept. of Environmental Quality Passive Treatment Of Contaminated Mine Waters: Design, Construction And Evaluation Of The Southeast Commerce Project $1,508,443 Victoria Duca-Snowden NASA Space Grant Consortium NASA - Headquarters Project u r NASA $500,000 Chuanbin Mao Chemistry & Biochemistry Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology Highly Efficient Non-Viral VEGF Gene Delivery to Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells by Phage-Like Nanoparticles $45,000 Ahmad Ghassemi Petroleum & Geological U.S. Dept. of Energy Laboratory-Scale Characterization of EGS Reservoirs $880,000 Caryn Vaughn OK Biological Survey/ Biology Wildlife Conservation Dept. Assessment of Distribution, Status and Habitat Needs of Rare Mussel Species in the Little River Watershed In Oklahoma $40,758 6

7 President s Monthly Name Dept./Center Funding Agency Project Title Amount Sridhar Radhakrishnan Computer Science Dept. of Transportation Oklahoma Transit Management System $802,149 Robert Cichewicz Chemistry & Biochemistry University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio New Leads for Triple Negative Breast Cancer from Diverse Natural Sources $239,319 Jeffrey Basara Oklahoma Climate Survey/Meteorology U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service Evaluating the Impacts of Sensor Return Interval on Remote Estimates of Evapotranspiration at Field Scales $36,890 Mohammed Atiquzzaman, Ronald Barnes, Joseph Havlicek Computer Science/ Highway Safety Office University of Oklahoma Crash Reporting and Analysis $74,825 Hong Liu OU Health Sciences Center Developing an Advanced Medical Imaging Core Facility $150,000 Hank Jenkins-Smith & Carol Silva Political Science Sandia Laboratories Measuring Non-Market Values for Hydropower and Water Storage in the Western River Systems: Phase IIIa and IIIb Research $715,000 Ian Sellers & Lloyd Bumm Physics & Astronomy Amethyst Research, Inc. Silicon Heterostructure Solar Cells Based on Group IV Colloidal Quantum Dots $81,815 Jeffrey Moore & Taylor Potter Center for Creation of Economic Wealth Lobeck Taylor Family Foundation Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Development $5,000 Richard Tarver Geological Survey U.S. Dept.of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey Creation of Metadata for Oklahoma Aerial Photographs at the Oklahoma Geological Survey - Phase II $10,912 Jeffery Volz Civil & Environmental Science State of Missouri, Dept. of Transportation Field Implementation of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Bridge Deck Panels $140,000 Michael Mares & Steven King Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History Institute of Museum and Library Services (King) Award for National Medal for Museum and Library Services $5,000 Ronald Barnes, Joseph Havlicek, & Mohammed Atiquzzaman /Computer Science Highway Safety Office Police Automated Records Information System $368,500 Berrien Moore Atmospheric & Geographic Sciences Dean NASA - Headquarters Community Workshop on Resolving the Global Carbon Cycle $67,602 7

8 President s Monthly Name Dept./Center Funding Agency Project Title Amount Lei Ding Laureate Institute for Brain Research Development of Imaging and EEG Biomarkers to Refine Neuromodulation Treatment Targets in MdDS $55,009 Karl Hambright Biology Wildlife Conservation Dept. Genetic Analyses in Support of ODWC Fisheries Programs: Largemouth bass Microsatellites and Golden algae-related Fish Kills $15,000 Yan Zhang & Boon Leng Cheong /Advanced Radar Research Center Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology Multifunctional Airborne Sense and Avoid Radar Development $45,000 Zhisheng Shi Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology Quantum Dot Solar Cells Fabricated By Industrially Viable Process $45,000 Chris Fiebrich Oklahoma Climate Survey Solutions Mesonet Data Server and HDF Framework Support for Mesonet Solutions $21,800 Shaya Karimkashi Arani, Caleb Fulton, & Hjalti Sigmarsson Advanced Radar Research Center/ Weathernews Americas, Inc. Multi Beam Reflect-array Antenna Design and Implementation $151,048 Cecil Lewis Anthropology OU Health Sciences Center Tobacco-associated variations in the urinary microbiome during pregnancy $29,042 Produced monthly during the academic year by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Norman Campus. Amy Tougas, Editor 201 David L. Boren Blvd., Suite 180, Norman, OK (405)