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scope a look inside the college of physical and Mathematical Sciences In this issue Toward Convergence Science 2 Green Energy 4 Virtual Rat 8 Into the Fold 9 Green Researchers across the college are seeking better ways to use both traditional and renewable resources Energy Sumer 2012 PAMS Foundation Board of Directors Officers Cathy Sigal, Chair Leigh Wilkinson, Vice Chair Anita Stallings, President Michelle Duggins, Secretary Kathy Hart, Treasurer Charles Leffler, Assistant Treasurer General Members Susan Atkinson Tom Blinten John Brocklebank Charles Case Sheila Chickene Maureen Droessler David Duncklee Jonathan Earnhart Kathy Harris Lawrence Ives Roger Liddle Rob Lindberg Roy Martin Ed Mathers Alan Menius Randy Miller David Montgomery Connie Moreadith Michael Peirson Mitch Perry Stephen Smeach Cecil Smith Phil Summa Michael Thompson Bill Trent Barton White Ji Zhang Miriam Zietlow Emeritus Richard Cook PAMS Alumni & Friends Advisory Board Officers Benton Satterfield, President Nancy Ridenhour, Vice President Larry James, Secretary Robert Hill, Assistant Secretary General Members Stephen Ashley Damon Butler Kim Deaner Todd Fuller Bob Jackson Maggie LaPlante Sherice Nivens Glenn Osmond Er Ralston Jean Richardson Pam Pittman Robinson Aimee Tattersall Joselyn Todd Mike Trexler Chip Wentz Scope is published by the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. The college is made up of internationally recognized departments: Chemistry Marine, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Mathematics Physics Statistics Molecular & Structural Biochemistry Dean Daniel Solomon Managing Editor Anita Stallings Editor Steve Townsend Contributing Writers D’Lyn Ford Ernie Hood Bill Krueger Star-Lena Quintana Angela Spivey Design Zubigraphics On the cover: Elon Ison’s work with green catalysts is one of several PAMS research projects that is helping to shape the future of energy production. Photo by Roger Winstead. 13,500 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $7,200.00 or $.53 per copy. scope in this issue… Sumer 2012 4 8 10 13 Dean’s message 2 Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS College news 3 NC State announces creation of the College of Sciences 10 The forecast is bright for Logan Dawson’s future 12 On the road with CMAST 18 Blondin chosen as new head of Physics Research highlights 4 Back to Basics: PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy 8 Seeking real health answers in a “virtual rat” 9 Into the fold for a clearer picture of Parkinson’s Honors 14 Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner 16 Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching 16 Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong 17 Notables Alumni and development news 18 How to make a gift 20 Young alumni show their Wolfpack pride in ways big and small Just for fun 13 PAMS physicists help bring back the Bell Tower’s musical tradition 19 A celebration 125 years in the making 2 ■ Summer 2012 | scope As you may have heard—or may already have gleaned from the headline on the next page—Chancellor Woodson recently informed the Board of Trustees of his intention to create a College of Sciences at NC State University effective July 1, 2013. This new college will include the physical and chemical sciences, the mathematical and statistical sciences, the earth-system sciences, and the biological sciences. The quote above from a 2011 white paper out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gives just one of a myriad of societal and scholarly justifications for making this shift to a more com-prehensive and “convergent” College of Sciences. Advances in medicine and biotechnology, as well as in other domains such as energy and environmen-tal sustainability (an in-depth discussion of some current PAMS projects in this area begins on page 4), depend on a rethinking of our traditional organizational structures and how we prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers. Just as PAMS was created from the ground up in 1960 to better feed the disciplines that drove NC State’s unprecedented growth in the post-World War II era, the College of Sciences will be an entirely new assemblage of expertise from across the university. This new entity is being designed to build synergies—in research, teaching, mentoring, outreach, administration, infrastructure and more—that will make the university a destination for the best and brightest scientific talent for decades to come and will provide that talent with an environment to make groundbreak-ing discoveries that impact the human condition. Even with the long list of reasons why the time is right for us to make this transformational and historic shift in the structure of our academic sciences, such decisions are never easy to make or execute within an institution of NC State’s size and scope. I applaud Chancellor Woodson and Provost Arden for their bold leadership and strong vision. I look forward to taking this journey with you in the months and years to come. As always, we seek and appreciate your input along the way. Sincerely, Daniel L. Solomon, Dean Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS “ Convergence is a new paradigm that can yield critical advances in a broad array of sectors, from health care to energy, food, climate, and water.” — The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering Courtesy of University Communications Photo by Marc Hal Summer While many of the details will be worked out in the coming months, the chancellor has made the primary directives quite clear. PAMS will be transitioned to a broader, more comprehensive College of Sciences. This college will include faculty and academic programs in the physical and chemical sciences, the mathematical and statistical sciences, the earth-system sciences, and the biological sciences. The new College of Sciences will offi-cially debut July 1, 2013. Provost Arden has asked PAMS Dean Dan Solomon to serve as the new college’s inaugural dean, and Dean Solomon has accepted. Looking Back: The Academic Science Program Task Force This decision has its genesis in the Strategic Realignment Plan commissioned by the chancellor in January 2011. Led by Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Charles Leffler, the purpose of this initiative was to position NC State for greater strength, effective-ness and efficiency. One of the chief recommendations of this plan was to undertake a compre-hensive assessment of the university’s academic sciences. While this assessment was no small feat at a STEM institution of NC State’s size and scope, the Academic Sciences Task Force—made up of faculty representing all 10 colleges, the Graduate School and the Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs—spent the next 12 months determining the best ways to en-hance the natural synergies among the sci-ence programs at NC State and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and research while reducing administrative overhead. After receiving campus-wide input on the task force’s final report, Provost Arden recommended to the chancellor the course of action that included the establishment of a strong, comprehensive College of Sciences. In announcing his acceptance of this recommendation to the campus community, Chancellor Woodson said: “This strategic move brings NC State in line with national best practices, align-ing related science departments in one college and allowing enhanced interdisci-plinary educational opportunities, improved research collaboration and more efficient support operations. Some of the most pressing scientific issues of today lie at the intersection of the mathematical, compu-tational, physical and biological sciences. Bringing these disciplines together under a single organizational umbrella is a transformative change that better positions NC State to advance these issues through multidisciplinary research, teaching and service.” Looking Forward: Next Steps While this transition will provide incred-ible new opportunities for NC State stu-dents and faculty, it is not one that can be achieved overnight. To make the transition a successful one requires careful coordination of people and resources. These moves will be coordinated by a College of Sciences Steering Committee. To be chaired by the provost, co-chaired by Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives Duane Larick, and comprising the deans of NC State’s six science and engineering colleges, this committee is charged with determining the most appropriate admin-istrative structure for the new college and determining a process for identifying which faculty and academic programs will move to the new college. One of the earliest actions of the College of Sciences Steering Committee will be to determine the composition of implementation teams that will focus on topics such as academic programs and personnel; budget and finance; student support services; space, infrastructure and shared resources; and development and alumni relations. While it will be a challenging year of transition, the future is very bright for STEM disciplines at NC State. College Sciences NC State of scope | summer 2012 ■ 3 In the midst of NC State’s 125th anniversary celebration, Chancellor Randy Woodson made a bold decision that will better prepare the university to meet the challenges of the next 125 years. Upon the recommendation of Provost Warwick Arden, the chancellor announced to the Board of Trustees at their April meeting that he had authorized the creation of a comprehensive College of Sciences. For More Informa t ion Chancellor Woodson’s announcement of the establishment of the College of Sciences: go.ncsu.edu/cos_announcement Check back here throughout the year for updates on the transition process: go.ncsu.edu/cos_updates the Announces creation of Summer How Green Is My Catalyst? Assistant professor of chemistry Elon Ison and his research group work on making greener catalysts, those spunky compounds that facilitate chemical reactions. Developing greener catalytic reactions can help to conserve precious chemical and natural resources while reducing the generation of waste and environmentally hazardous byproducts. It all boils down to truly understanding the chemical processes involved. “What we do is basic, fundamental chemistry,” Ison says. “We ask ourselves how does a catalyst work? The answers we get will help us rationally design new catalysts.” The search for these answers has been deemed important enough to earn Ison and his team a five-year, $530,000 grant via a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award, more commonly known as a CAREER Award. In the long term, this work could lead to the development of chemical methods that reduce the generation of waste and environmentally hazardous materials and could potentially lead to the more efficient utilization of our chemical and natural resources—resources such as oil, coal, natural gas or biomass—as sources of energy. PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy The need for clean, renewable options continues to grow along with the ever-increasing U.S. and global demand for energy. While fossil fuels will continue to be a part of the mix for the foreseeable future, “green energy,” in its many forms, will be vital to maintaining our economies and lifestyles for generations to come. However, the viability of green energy as a panacea will only be as strong as the progress made in the basic science at its foundation. Each in his own way, four PAMS researchers are making major contributions to the knowledge base necessary to build the bridge to future energy technologies. basics: Back to 4 ■ summer 2012 | scope Elon Ison scope | Summer 2012 ■ 5 Another project in Ison’s lab explores the idea of converting methane, the primary component of abundant natu-ral gas, into methanol, which can be used as a replacement for gasoline. While the vision may be grand, it is ultimately the quest for knowledge that drives Ison and his colleagues forward. “We continue to learn, because the basis of our chemistry is fundamental,” he says. “We will always develop new applications, but at the end of the day, we think we can use the ap-proach of asking and answering questions on the molecular level to solve many catalytic problems.” Fill ‘Er Up with Sunshine How would our world change if we had the ability to convert sunlight into carbon-neutral liquid fuels ready to put into to-day’s pipelines and gas tanks? The answer will be found in a process called artificial photosynthesis, and Walter Weare, an as-sistant professor of chemistry, is working on it. To make solar-to-fuel a reality, you need several vital components, Weare says. “You have to have a catalyst to create the fuel, you have to have something that absorbs the sunlight, and you have to be able to transfer the energy of the sunlight into those catalysts in order to do the chemistry.” Right now, Weare and his group are trying to find a way to control absorbing the light and transferring the energy in the form of electrons into the catalyst, to create a liquid fuel—such as methanol— from carbon dioxide. Progress is encouraging, Weare reports. “So far we’ve been able to make the molecules we’re interested in, and we are starting to learn how to tune the energy levels of the excited state, or the state after it absorbs the light from the sun.” The work is still very basic, and the molecules being produced are unlikely to actually end up in a device, but under-standing the process in a systematic way will drive the science forward. “Right now, people kind of throw stuff together, and if it works, great, if it doesn’t work, then they don’t necessarily learn a whole lot,” Weare explains. “Hopefully by doing these very basic studies, we’ll be able to learn the design rules in order to do this more efficiently.” While solar-to-fuel doesn’t yet “exist” in reality, the concept is enthralling. It theoretically bypasses some of the major barriers associated with large-scale use of solar power or biofuels. With solar-to-fuel, there would be no need for massive batteries to store the energy nor would its production consume large amounts of plant feed-stocks, land areas and/or water. “With this type of technology,” says Weare, “the water you need is limited only to the water necessary to make oxy-gen, and that’s not very much. Potentially it doesn’t even need to be clean water; it could just be waste water. You could do it on a rooftop, you could potentially do it in a road, you could do it in places where you can’t grow plants.” That flexibility opens up some remark-able possibilities, according to Weare. “If the technology becomes developed enough where it’s just a module that you put on your roof, that’s very attractive from the standpoint of solving issues both in the developed world and the developing world, because then you create the op-portunity to have individualized power and individualized fuel. Someone in the middle of nowhere who doesn’t have access to electricity or an electric grid could make their own fuel and very quickly enhance their quality of life.” Photos by Roger Winstead Walter Weare 6 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Beyond Shake-‘n-Bake With costs decreasing and efficiencies rising, the marketplace viability of solar-to-electricity technologies has grown dramati-cally in recent years. But there is still a great deal of room for innovation, and the development of so-called organic solar cells is one of the most promising areas. These photovoltaic cells are made of polymers and other organic materials, as opposed to today’s silicon. They can be processed very inexpensively, via a simple roll-to-roll printing process similar to print-ing a newspaper. The challenge lies in increasing the ef-ficiency with which these cells can convert sunlight to usable electrical power. This is another burgeoning field of energy-related research where the basic science—understanding and optimizing the process at the molecular level—is where the action is. That’s where PAMS physicist Harald Ade comes into play. Ade and his team are working on new-and-improved pro-cessing methods for the production of organic photovoltaics. They also conduct considerable research on how to optimize the composition of the cells themselves and have developed the detection meth-ods needed to characterize the materials and the results of the manufacturing processes. That basic knowledge will be crucial to gain rational control over how best to mix the layers of organic materials used in the cells to maximize energy conversion. “The process of controlling the materials themselves has still not evolved to the point where we really understand how to do it,” says Ade, a professor and graduate program director in the Depart-ment of Physics. “Right now, it is mostly done by Edisonian trial and error: ‘shake and bake’ and see what you get.” With the advances being made by Ade and his all-star team of collaborators, that heuristic approach is likely to soon become a thing of the past. The team has some processing facilities at NC State, but much of their work takes place at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a synchrotron radiation facility located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. There, the team uses soft X-rays, via a scanning transmission microscope designed by Ade, to determine the composition, morphology and structure of polymeric and electronic materials at the sub-micron scale, thus contributing to understanding their performance characteristics. In organic solar cells, two materials are combined, and the interface of their domains is where the energy conversion takes place—one layer is the donor, the other is the acceptor, and electrons pass from the former to the latter. “People knew we needed two differ-ent types of materials, and we knew from measurements that the domain size had to be on the order of 10 nanometers,” Ade explains. “They conjured up an idealized structure of the best device, with a pure donor and a pure acceptor phase. It turns out, though, based on our work, that that picture needs to be revised. It looks as if, rather than having two domains of a certain composition, there may even be three or more domains.” The materials actually mix to a certain degree, and that level of miscibility—or measurement of homogeneity—is one of the most important elements in determin-ing efficiency. “So the picture is much more complicated, and that might explain why it’s so difficult to control,” says Ade. “Once we understand the picture better, we would know better which aspect of the manufacturing we need to control, which would give more consistent results and improve device yield.” Ade and his team also work on organic LEDs, which have begun to appear in many places in the commercial market-place. He says we’re only at the beginning of these organic electronic devices. “If you look at your basic microelectronics that started in the 1950s, we’ve been working on them for a long time. The organics are 40 years later, so we’re at the very early stages in terms of really under-standing and optimizing and engineering the devices, and I would anticipate many, many years of continued improvement.” Photos by Roger Winstead Harald Ade scope | Summer 2012 ■ 7 The Answer, My Friend… Today, wind energy accounts for less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity con-sumption, but President Obama has pro-posed increasing that figure to 20 percent by 2030. To approach that ambitious goal, there will need to be major improvements in the technologies used to harness the wind’s power to feed energy demand. It should come as no surprise that NC State is at the forefront of basic research in this arena as well. Sukanta Basu, an associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, specializes in an area called boundary layer meteorology, which focuses on weather patterns in the layer of the atmosphere very close to the ground. He spends more than half of his research time on wind energy-related questions, and the answers will go a long way toward moving the field forward. Like Ison, Basu is also a recent recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, with a five-year, $505,000 grant funding research to enhance modeling of wind resources. As Basu explains, “The U.S. Great Plains have very good wind resources, mostly caused by one particular atmo-spheric phenomenon called low-level jets. My CAREER Award supports research to develop better modeling and better forecasting of these low-level jets, which will allow us to have better accuracy in understanding the wind resource.” That increased understanding will allow more precise placement of wind farms, particu-larly as available sites become scarcer. Trained as a civil engineer, Basu is col-laborating on another NSF-funded project with structural engineers at the University of Texas at Austin. This team is seeking to improve the design of wind turbines to both increase their efficiency and extend their useful life, which is currently about 20 years. For Basu’s contribution, it’s all about the turbulence experienced by the turbines. “Turbines are designed for a certain type of flow conditions, but if you have enhanced turbulence, you will see sub-optimal production,” he says. “If you have wind direction that is fluctuating quite often, the turbines will have a hard time facing the prevalent wind direction.” His group is trying to come up with a new modeling framework to better character-ize this inflow of turbulence that leads to sudden loads on the turbines. They are also participating in a large U.S. Department of Energy grant focused on forecasting wind. His group is collecting considerable wind data at heights up to 500 meters using a ground-based remote sensing instrument called SODAR, or Sonic Detection and Ranging. Ultimately, improved wind forecasting will optimize utilization and efficiency of wind power resources. “All of these problems we are studying are going to remain very, very relevant for the next 10 years,” Basu says. “The problem is that wind energy is very much dependent on our understanding of atmo-spheric turbulence, and turbulence is one of the most unresolved mysteries in the scientific arena. So I’m not worried that I won’t have anything to work on!” Sukanta Basu Summer There are a lot of health dangers in the world, but nothing kills more people each year than cardiovascular diseases. According to the World Health Organi-zation, this group of ailments involving the heart and/or blood vessels killed an estimated 17.3 million people worldwide in 2008 alone. With a challenge this big and deadly, researchers like NC State’s Mette Olufsen are always looking for new ways to better understand cardiovascular health. One of their newest tools is a rat—a virtual one, anyway. The Virtual Physiological Rat (VPR) project is made possible by a five-year, $13 million grant from National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Much of the work will be done at the Medical College of Wis-consin, but collaborators on the project hail from around the world, including the United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand, Washington, California, Wisconsin and right here at NC State. According to Olufsen, an associate professor of mathematics, research on cardiovascular and physiological diseases uses a variety of animals, including the rat, in order to fulfill the goal of translating animal models into human models. Rats have long been used as a stand-in for humans, in part due to the high percent-age of genes that are shared between the two—about 90 percent. Olufsen and her NC State team will be focusing on developing mathematical models that will help make the virtual rat behave as closely as possible to a real one and will allow for the simultaneous adjustment and obser-vation of multiple individual factors. “We want to design a computational model that can be combined with many experimental studies in order to bridge the gap between what we predict will happen and what does happen,” she says. “One main thing—and the most difficult thing, when it comes to our role—is that it’s easy to generate generic features, but it’s not so easy to make them patient specific.” The VPR project will allow for long-term interaction between mathematical modelers and experimental scientists that steadily moves the depth of knowledge from a broad understanding of basic physiological and genomic data down to the very complex relationships between multiple genes and disparate environmental factors. That enhanced knowledge base ulti-mately could help physicians predict and diagnose cardiovascular diseases earlier and more successfully. It could even make it possible for drugs to be developed to treat patients at the individual level. the Into fold 8 ■ summer 2012 | scope S e e k i n g in a Health Answers Real “Virtual Ra t ” Mette Olufsen Photo by Steve Townsend scope | Summer 2012 ■ 9 The intricate folding of proteins can determine the difference between dis-ease and health. NC State physicists use quantum mechanical modeling to paint a precise picture of how it happens. Sometimes our bodies go haywire, and even scientists can’t tell us why. Parkinson’s disease, for instance, causes tremors, trouble walking and other severe problems for at least half a million people in the U.S., and the causes aren’t com-pletely understood. But physicists with NC State’s Center for High Performance Simulation (CHiPS) are learning more about diseases like Parkinson’s by using computers to model intricate events happening inside our bodies, such as protein folding. While DNA provides the body’s operat-ing instructions, proteins carry out those instructions. But before a protein can do its work, it must fold from a simple coil into a 3-D structure. Many researchers in the country study proteins and their activities. But because the NC State researchers use quantum mechanics to model protein activities on a subatomic level, they can track events more precisely than even some laboratory studies. The brains of people with Parkinson’s contain plaques, which are abnormal clumps of protein, mostly a protein called alpha-synuclein. It’s not known exactly what causes these plaques to form. So NC State professors Miroslav Hodak and Jerry Bernholc and Ph.D. candidate Frisco Rose simulated by computer the most likely sce-narios. They modeled what happens when this protein encounters copper; high levels of the metal are found in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with Parkinson’s, and lab studies of cells have shown that copper is the most efficient metal at speeding up the protein clumping. “We wanted to find out if copper is capable of causing changes that are seen in Parkinson’s disease, and if we could prove it by using our simulation,” says Hodak, a research assistant professor of physics. Hodak and Bernholc, Drexel Professor of Physics and director of CHiPS, used a new method they created that combines two types of modeling to achieve greater accuracy while keeping the calculation manageable. The method uses molecular mechanical modeling, which divides ob-jects into atoms, and quantum mechanical modeling, which further divides atoms into nuclei and electrons. Other researchers had shown with lab experiments using real cells approxi-mately where copper first attaches to the protein. “But the information from lab ex-periments was imprecise,” Bernholc says. “We figured out on the basis of quantum mechanical calculations exactly where the copper goes.” Given that precise location, the researchers could use molecular mod-eling to determine how the protein folds. Their simulation showed a detailed, likely scenario for how copper attaches to the protein involved in Parkinson’s plaques and exactly how the protein folds to form them. The study was published June 14, 2011, in Scientific Reports. The work provides clues for other researchers to use as they look for treatments. The NC State team will expand on their work by exploring the promise of a particular drug as a potential Parkinson’s treatment. “We have a target drug we want to look at to find out if it removes the copper from a misfolded protein and makes it fold back into the original structure,” Hodak says. This article originally appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine, which is a benefit of membership in the North Carolina State University Alumni Association. the Into fold Photo by Becky Kirkland for a Clearer Parkinson’s Pictureof From left to right: Frisco Rose, Jerry Bernholc and Miroslav Hodak 10 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Your heart is racing and your muscles are tensing. You peek outside one more time and see that the thunderstorm is still pounding. Lightning has struck a tele-phone pole and split it down the center. You close your eyes tightly and you wait for the worst of it to pass. Fear is a feeling well known to anyone who has experienced a severe storm up close. What is uncommon is Logan Dawson, who opened his eyes after a deadly tornado hit his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and turned his fear into a passion and a quest for knowledge. Dawson, who graduated this spring with a double major in meteorology and marine science, vividly remembers the day that set his academic path in motion. “On April 8, 1998, when I was seven years old, there was an F5 tornado that hit the county, and 30 people were killed,” he recalls. “After seeing the damage from the tornado, I decided that I wanted to be a meteorologist. From that point on, I want-ed to understand the weather and predict when storms were going to happen.” Dawson’s path to NC State was put in motion by his exceptional accomplish-ments in high school, which resulted in an offer of a Park Scholarship. At first a little hesitant to study so far from home, it was during Park Scholars finalist weekend that Dawson fell in love with the campus, the atmosphere and, of course, the meteorology program. The final selling point was the vast array of opportunities for hands-on learn-ing, leadership development and campus and community involvement that often defines the NC State student experience. Easy, laid-back sumers? No thanks. Dawson has made sure to take full advantage of his summer time away from classes. The summer after his freshman year, he spent time working as a student volunteer doing research at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Alabama, alongside an NC State alumnus. The following two summers he spent interning at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, respectively. Dawson’s undergraduate research has been vital to his academic experience as an undergraduate and, more recently, an appealing element to his graduate school applications. He will begin his gradu-ate studies this fall in the atmospheric sciences program at Purdue University. Ultimately, he plans to work in a national future The for forecast is bright Logan Dawson’s scope | Summer 2012 ■ 11 research lab studying ways to improve severe weather forecasting. Gary Lackmann, an associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sci-ences, and also Dawson’s advisor and Park Scholarship mentor, has been impressed with how well-rounded Dawson is—a trait Lackmann believes will serve him well. “Logan is really smart and not only good with science, but good with people,” Lackmann says. “It’s that community-minded mentality that will continue to move him higher.” Leaving his NC State legacy As a person who is driven by being able to help others, Dawson quickly became engaged in activities throughout the cam-pus. One activity he has been involved with since freshman year is also one that he is most proud to have been associated with: the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, which he first heard about when visiting NC State during finalist weekend for the Park Scholarship. The Krispy Kreme Challenge began rather modestly in 2004 when a couple of undergraduate students at NC State dared each other to run from the Memorial Bell Tower to the Krispy Kreme donut shop two miles away, eat a dozen donuts each, and run back to the Bell Tower. The chal-lenge has gained so much notoriety and positive feedback in the years since, that it has grown into an event that is not only universally celebrated across campus, but widely known as one of the more unique college traditions in the country. The race evolved from a simple dare to a large charity event that benefits the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. Dawson served as a co-chair of the 2011 challenge, working with a group of student and campus leaders to strength-en the race and encourage its spread across the nation. More than 7,500 run-ners were registered, and $122,000 was raised in 2011. Dawson is also involved with the Society of African American Physical and Mathematical Scientists, the PAMS Student Ambassador Program and the American Meteorological Society Student Chapter. Through these organizations, he served as a mentor to younger students pursuing degrees in meteorology, as-sisted in recruitment by speaking to high school students, and volunteered at the Raleigh Girls Club. As serious as he is about his academic and community service pursuits, Dawson may be even more serious when it comes to his support of NC State athletics. A member of the Student Wolfpack Club, Dawson was a regular at NC State sport-ing events, and not just big-time events like football and basketball. Whether it was volleyball games, tennis matches or swim meets, he always seemed to find the time to cheer on his Wolfpack. While he made the most of his NC State experience, Dawson’s primary passion is still the same one that brought him here: the quest to better understand and predict deadly storms like the one that swept through his hometown back in 1998. “I still see it as my primary goal to study the weather to better understand it so we can improve our predictions and keep people out of harm’s way,” he says. Photos of Logan Dawson by Melvin Moore Photo by Becky Kirkland 12 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Larval superhighway: NC State receives nearly $1.3 million to study larvae dispersal The Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) has received a $1.24 million research grant from the National Science Foundation to study the dispersal of oyster larvae in the Pamlico Sound. The official title of the grant is “ Collaborative Research: Interacting Effects of Local Demography and Larval Connectivity on Estuarine Metapopulation Dynamics.” The project, which includes partners from UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland, will be led by David Eggleston, professor of MEAS and director of CMAST. “This project will produce new tools, as well as test and refine others for studying larval connectivity in marine systems,” Eggleston said. “It also will provide decision-support tools for improving the efficacy of marine reserves for management and restoration of marine species and ecosystems.” Eggleston noted that the grant also will help train future generations of marine scientists. “There is an extensive educa-tion and outreach component in the form of training undergraduate and graduate students, mentoring post-docs, and providing hands-on research opportunities for high school students and their teachers,” he said. Support sustainable fisheries right on your bumper CMAST also recently announced the development of a specialty license plate that provides the opportunity to raise funds to support student research in sustainable fisheries in North Carolina. In July 2011, the NC General Assembly approved legislation authorizing the sale of sustainable fisheries license plates. Public support of the CMAST Sustain-able Fisheries License Plate Program will allow continued research and conservation of recreational and commercially important fisheries, support undergradu-ate and graduate student training, and provide educational outreach to help keep North Carolina waters, and hooks, full for generations to come. Before plates can be produced, the NC Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) must re-ceive 300 paid applications. The cost of a plate is $30 ($60 for personalized plates), in addition to any regular license fees. Part of the proceeds goes to DMV with the re-maining going to a special fund earmarked for CMAST research and programs. To preorder a specialty plate contact CMAST at 252-222-6302 for an application or visit the CMAST website: www.cmast. ncsu.edu. Located on the Carteret Community College campus in Morehead City, NC, CMAST is within short walking distance of the UNC Institute of Marine Science and the NC Division of Marine Fisheries head-quarters, and is within five miles of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, the Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research, the NC Maritime Museum and the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. Photo by Roger Winstead CMAST Director David Eggleston (center) and MEAS graduate students taking measurements in the Pamlico Sound. From the underwater “superhighway” that transports oyster larvae across the Pamlico Sound to the more traditional highways we humans travel on dry land, the folks at NC State’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) are always up for a road trip. On the CMAST road with scope | Summer 2012 ■ 13 There are still no bells in the Memorial Bell Tower, but music has returned to the campus landmark. The music comes from a carillon, which enables songs played on a keyboard in the basement of Holladay Hall to create the sounds of bells that are then amplified through speakers inside the Bell Tower. The carillon had been broken since 1989, but university officials worked with the carillon’s manufacturer last fall to make it functional again. “It was amazing,” says Thomas H. Stafford Jr., vice chancellor for student affairs, who was on hand on an October afternoon when NC State’s alma mater was played on the carillon and broadcast through the Bell Tower. “It’s been over 20 years. Just to hear it again almost gave me goose bumps.” The alma mater was performed by Chris Gould, PAMS associate dean for administration and a professor of physics. Gould, an accomplished pianist, learned about the broken carillon when he was talking with Stafford about tours that Stafford gives of the Bell Tower. Gould and others in the Department of Physics unsuccessfully tried to get the carillon working again. But workers at the univer-sity’s Physical Plant got involved, and after consulting with representatives of the carillon’s manufacturer, had success. “It’s amazing that it works this well,” says Gould. “If you look inside, it’s a mechanical marvel.” Stafford says students and others used to play four to six songs on the carillon every afternoon. Handwritten logbooks from 1970–1989 show that religious songs were played regularly, but that students also played songs that were popular at the time. Stafford hopes that music will soon be played at a certain time each day, as well as on special occasions. “It has stirred up quite a bit of excitement,” Stafford says, “especially among people who remember the music we used to play.” A version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine, which is a benefit of member-ship in the North Carolina State University Alumni Association. Interior Photos by Steve Townsend; exterior photo by Roger Winstead PAMS Help Bring Back Bell Tower’s Musical Tradition the physicists Clockwise from top: Memorial Bell Tower, Vice Chancellor Tom Stafford reminds Nancy Ridenhour (B.S. ‘76 Statistics) how to play a tune on the carillon, old log books from the 1970s, PAMS physicists examine the carillon. Summer David Montgomery Distinguished Alumnus Award David Montgomery (B.S. ’68, Ph.D. ’82 Physics) was selected as the college’s 2011 Distinguished Alumnus. Estab-lished in 1990, the PAMS Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes alumni whose exceptional achievements in business, education, research or public service have brought honor and distinction to PAMS and NC State. A North Carolina native, Montgomery comes from a “true red” Wolfpack family. Upon graduating from High Point Central High School in 1964, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother and father by enrolling at NC State. He continues to serve his alma mater to this day through ongoing service on the PAMS Foundation Board of Directors as well as financial con-tributions to the college, the Department of Physics and The Science House. Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree from NC State in 1968, Montgomery was honored as a Distinguished Military Graduate of the Army ROTC program and was commissioned with the rank of second lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps of the United States Army. He received an active duty delay to begin his graduate studies, where he had the opportunity to study under two legendary physicists, Willard Bennett and Wesley Doggett. Under the direction of Bennett and, later, Doggett, Montgomery learned the ins and outs of plasma physics. He also provided outstanding service to PAMS and the university in various teaching assistantships and research positions, both on campus and—for two summers— at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As Montgomery, himself, recently recalled of this experience, “One of the most fortunate occurrences in my life was having these two gentlemen as mentors.” When his four-year military delay expired, Montgomery left campus for the Ordnance Corps’ Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to satisfy his active-duty requirement. He then served as an instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve School and the North Carolina National Guard in the area of wheel and track vehicle mechanics, reaching the rank of captain before retirement. By the time he earned his Ph.D. from NC State in 1983, Montgomery had already been working for four years as a plasma physicist at Becton Dickinson and Company in Research Triangle Park. His early work at what is now known as BD used low-temperature, ionized gas pro-cesses to physically and chemically alter the surfaces of disposable polystyrene tissue culture products—products such as petri dishes—so that cells would prop-erly attach and colonize on the surfaces. Montgomery designed and built a laboratory of custom apparatus directed toward the research and development of commercially viable processes that could mimic the glass surfaces on which tissue culture had traditionally been done and also to develop and analyze new surface chemistries that allowed the culturing of cells that previously required protein-based substrates. Much of his work over the subsequent three decades has been in adapting these basic processes into new applications and products. The results continue to be impressive, and he has been recognized for them within BD, nationally and even internation-ally. His work has led to 15 U.S. patents and 5 European patents. In 2001, he received BD’s Wesley J. Howe Award for Process Development Excellence for his work in the creation of a process required for the functioning of a bacterial identi-fication and antibiotic susceptibility test panel. In 2010, he received the company’s Wesley J. Howe Award for Lifetime Achievement for his entire body of work. He is one of seven recipients of the award out of some 28,000 BD employees around the world. Martha Gardner Medal of Achievement Martha Gardner (Ph.D. ’97 Statistics) was selected as the recipient of the college’s 2011 Medal of Achievement. Established in 2005, this award recognizes early- to mid-career alumni of the College of Physi-cal and Mathematical Sciences who have excelled through their chosen professions or public service, and proven themselves destined to make a significant impact in science, government, education, business or industry. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Gardner received her B.S. in applied mathematics and classical languages from the University of Alabama. By her own recollection, Gardner wasn’t enamored of mathematics at first. In fact, she thought she was on her way to becoming a Latin professor when an advisor told her that the reason she didn’t like math was that she hadn’t taken the “right kind” of math yet. At that advisor’s encouragement, Gard-ner enrolled in her first statistics classes in the last semester of her senior year. She would go on to earn an M.S. in statistics from Alabama, then came to NC State to study under Professor J.C. Lu. Her experi-ences with Dr. Lu and his collaborators in the College of Engineering interested her The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences continued its tradition of celebrating the achievements of its alumni and friends at the annual PAMS Awards Dinner, held last December at the Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh. The three 2011 honorees all boast impressive professional resumes and unparalleled service to NC State and PAMS. 14 ■ summer 2012 | scope Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner Summer in a career in industry and prepared her to work across different disciplines. Upon graduation from NC State, Gardner joined the Applied Statistics Lab at General Electric Global Research. She spent the early part of her career focused on the development and application of novel and efficient approaches to experi-mental design and analysis for physical and computer experiments. Later, she turned her attention to aircraft engines, serving as project leader of the probabilistic design research effort for GE’s aviation and energy businesses. Probabilis-tic methods she and her team developed at that time were implemented in in-house design tools and have since been adopted by hundreds of GE engineers. Since 2004, Gardner has served as global quality leader for GE Global Research. She leads GE’s Design for Six Sigma and Reliability Councils, and she is currently focused on integrating TRIZ decision making into research and technology development at the company. Gardner has been recognized for her success throughout her 13 years at GE. In 2002, she received GE Research’s Hull Award for early career research. In 2004, the MIT Technology Review listed her as one of their “Top 100” young innovators. She was promoted to principal scientist in 2007 and chief scientist in 2011. Gardner is a certified GE Design for Six Sigma Black Belt, GE Quality Leader, and MATRIZ Level 3 TRIZ Practitioner. She is also a past-chair of the Quality and Productivity Section of the American Statistical Association and serves on the editorial boards of Significance, Quality Engineering and The Journal of Statistics Education. Throughout her career, Gardner has maintained ties with PAMS and been a strong supporter of the Department of Statistics, most recently as a leader in the drive to endow the R.A. Fisher Distinguished Professorship. Damon Butler Zenith Medal for Service Damon Butler (B.S. ’96, Applied Math-ematics) was selected as the recipient of the college’s 2011 Zenith Medal for Service. Established in 2005, this award recognizes alumni or friends of PAMS for distinguished contributions or advocacy that significantly advance our ability to make powerful impacts on science, the economy, the environment and the quality of human life. Upon his graduation from NC State in 1996, Butler joined the U.S. Air Force. He spent six years as a space and mis-sile operator with top secret security clearance in Air Force Space Command, eventually rising to the rank of captain. He continued his formal education dur-ing his military service, earning a master’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. After his separation from the Air Force, Butler went on to earn an M.B.A. from Duke Univer-sity’s Fuqua School of Business in 2004. Butler then moved to New York City to join New York Life, where he has since ris-en to corporate vice president, with current responsibilities in optimizing productivity, analyzing competitor underwriting guide-lines, designing workflow enhancements and evaluating performance metrics. In addition to his professional accom-plishments, Butler has had a profound impact on PAMS and its students. In many ways, that service began while he was still an undergraduate major serving as a math tutor to his fellow students. Today, he serves his fellow former students as well as the college as a member of the col-lege’s Alumni and Friends Advisory Board. While he has been extremely gener-ous with his time, money and talents, Butler’s greatest contribution to PAMS has been as a leader in the ongoing ef-forts to increase participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities among underserved and underrepresented populations. He regularly returns to campus at his own expense—and often on short notice—to serve as a motivational speaker and role model for future STEM leaders. He has engaged elementary and middle school students through Imhotep Academy and Kyran Anderson Academy. He has addressed prospective and current PAMS students through the Multicultural Affairs Visitation Day, freshman diversity classes and last fall’s Department of Mathematics graduation ceremony. Butler also recently established the Butler Summer Academy. Modeled after Imhotep and Kyran Anderson academies, two successful PAMS programs, the Butler Summer Academy will enhance the STEM knowledge and leadership and etiquette skills of rising 6th graders from underserved populations in and around Wake County. scope | summer 2012 ■ 15 Photo By Marc Hal Award recipients Martha Gardner, David Montgomery and Damon Butler 16 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Stephen P. Reynolds, Alumni Distin-guished Undergraduate Professor of Phys-ics in the College of Physical and Math-ematical Sciences, has been honored with an Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. One educator from each UNC system campus wins the award, which comes with a prize of $7,500 and a bronze medallion. The Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching is the most presti-gious award given to faculty for teaching excellence and was created in 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and encourage, recognize and reward outstanding teaching. Nominees for the award must be tenured professors who have spent at least seven years at the nominating institutions and who have “demonstrated excellent or exceptional teaching ability over a sustained period of time.” Reynolds is the fifth PAMS faculty member to receive the award. Previous winners include Forrest C. “Buzz” Hentz (Chemistry, 1994–1995), Richard R. Patty (Physics, 1998–1999), William H. Swal-low (Statistics, 2006–2007) and Robert J. Beichner (Physics, 2009–2010). In addition to being a world-renowned astrophysicist, Reynolds is also an ac-complished violinist. As an undergradu-ate student at Harvard, he served as concertmaster and assistant conduc-tor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. In graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, he performed with the Oakland Symphony and other Bay Area professional orchestras. An endowed scholarship recently was es-tablished in Reynolds’ honor to support an outstanding undergraduate student who is pursuing a minor in music with a stringed instrument. Reynolds received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard in 1971, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 and 1980, respectively. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong Huixia “Judy” Wang, assistant profes-sor of statistics, has received an Early Career Development Award, more com-monly known as a CAREER Award, from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award is one of the highest honors given by NSF to early-career university faculty in science and engineering, and is intended to advance the development of their research and careers. This is the 18th CAREER Award received by a PAMS fac-ulty member—and the fourth received by a member of the statistics faculty—since 2004. Each of the college’s academic departments has received at least two awards during that time. Wang’s five-year, $400,000 grant will fund research related to her proposal, titled “A new and pragmatic framework for modeling and predicting conditional quantiles in data-sparse regions.” Through this work, Wang and her collaborators will seek to develop new theories and meth-odologies to better model and predict events that may be extremely rare, yet have significant consequences. Unexpect-edly heavy rainfall, large portfolio loss, and dangerously low birth weight are just a few examples of the types of events that could be addressed. A native of Henan Province, China, Wang earned her B.S. and M.S. in statis-tics from Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University before coming to the United States in 2002 to conduct her doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. After earning her Ph.D. in 2006, Wang joined the faculty of the NC State University Department of Statistics, where her research has focused on bioin-formatics, quantile regression, measure-ment error, missing data, longitudinal data analysis, survival data analysis, empirical likelihood and extremes. Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching Photo By Marc Hal Photo by Becky Kirkland Huixia “Judy” Wang scope | Summer 2012 ■ 17 Harald Ade (Physics), Jerry Bernholc (Physics) and Sastry Pantula (Statistics) were elected as Fellows of the Ameri-can Association for the Advancement of Science, an international organization “dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional organization.” Edmond Bowden (Chemistry) was named the 2011 “Alumni Star” by the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. Bowden earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from VCU in 1982 before joining the NC State faculty. Charles Case (B.S. ‘73 Physics) was named a North Carolina Super Lawyer for 2012. Case is a partner in the firm of Hunton & Williams and heads up the firm’s environmental group in Raleigh. He also serves on the board of directors of the PAMS Foundation. It is the seventh consecutive year that he has appeared on this annual listing of the state’s top attorneys. Richard Deans (Chemistry undergrad-uate student) was one of four NC State students to receive a 2012 Goldwater Scholarship. This merit-based scholarship is awarded to about 300 college sopho-mores and juniors nationwide. Todd Fuller (B.S. ‘96 Applied Math-ematics) is a member of the 2012 class of the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament Legends. A na-tive of Charlotte, Fuller was a dominant inside presence for the Wolfpack, earning All-ACC honors three times and leading the conference in scoring his senior year before a five-year career in the National Basketball Association. Chueng Ji (Physics) was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for his remarkable and pioneering con-tributions in QCD (quantum chromody-namics) applying light-front dynamics to fundamental aspects of hadron physics, including spectroscopy, wave functions and form factors.” Tim Kelley (Mathematics) has been named chair of the board of trustees of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, an international organization of more than 13,000 applied and computational mathematicians, computer scientists, numerical analysts, engineers, statisticians, mathematics educators and students. Nicholas Lowman (Applied Math-ematics graduate student), Molly Matty (Chemistry undergraduate student) and Alison Moyer (Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences graduate student) received National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships. These prestigious fellowships support outstand-ing students in STEM disciplines, provid-ing three years of support with an annual stipend of $30,000, a cost-of-education allowance, and international research and professional development opportunities. Paul Roelle (M.S. ’96, Ph.D. ’01 Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sci-ences) has been promoted to the rank of colonel by the U.S. Air Force. Roelle is the deputy chief of integration, plans and requirements for Headquarters Air Force Weather. Photo by Aelx Sacehnz NC State Madei Renslatio NOTABLES Courtesy of Paul Roele Todd Fuller Molly Matty Paul Roelle 18 ■ Summer 2012 | scope John Blondin has been selected to serve as head of the Department of Physics, effective January 1. He suc-ceeded Michael Paesler, who returned to the faculty after six years of service as department head. Blondin earned a B.A. in physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. He then proceeded to the University of Chicago for graduate studies, earning his M.S. in 1984 and his Ph.D. in 1987 under the direction of Arieh Konigl. He com-pleted postdoctoral research positions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel Hill before joining the NC State physics faculty as an assistant professor in 1993. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and full professor in 2002. Before being appointed head, Blondin had served as the department’s director of under-graduate programs since 2007. An internationally renowned astrophysi-cist, Blondin has been computing the cos-mos for over 20 years, using everything from a laptop to supercomputers. He began his experience in high-performance computing with the opening of the Na-tional Center for Supercomputing Applica-tions, and continues to take advantage of the largest machines currently available, including Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, with 63,000 processor cores, and Jaguar at the National Center for Computational Sciences, with 224,000 processor cores. His research includes interacting binary stars, accretion disks around black holes, supernova remnants, and the origin of supernova explosions. He co-authored the hydrodynamics code VH-1, which is widely used in the astro-physics community. John Blondin has been honored throughout his career for excellence in research and teaching. He received the Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award in 1995, Cottrell Scholar Award in 1996 and National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award in 1997, and he was elected a Fellow of the American Physi-cal Society in 2009. Blondin also received NC State University’s Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award in 2000 and the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award in 2010. In his very limited free time, Blondin enjoys playing ice hockey with his two sons, both of whom are NC State mathematics majors. Physics has a rich history at NC State, dating back to the earliest days of the uni-versity. In 2009, two now emeritus faculty members, Jasper Memory and Raymond Fornes, completed a comprehensive history of the department, titled History of the NC State University Department of Physics: A Success Story. You can check it out at www.phys-ics. ncsu.edu/history. You may remember how difficult it was to manage the expense of higher education. You may want to help today’s students achieve their dreams. The PAMS Foundation provides many ways to support students, faculty and pro-grams of the college. Whether you want to contribute to an existing scholarship, support a departmental enhancement fund, make a memorial gift or consider support in other areas, our staff is avail-able to help you explore the options. To support existing funds To contribute to a scholarship, fellow-ship or other fund, fill out our secure, online gift form at www.pams.ncsu. edu/give or mail a check to the PAMS Founda-tion, Campus Box 8201, Raleigh, NC, 27695. Make checks payable to PAMS Foundation and write the name of the fund on the “notes” or “for” line. If your employer provides matches for charitable donations, please send a completed matching gift form with your contribution. There are many funds not mentioned in this issue of Scope. For a full list of funds, visit go.ncsu. edu/pams_funds or contact our office. To explore other options If you have questions about gift planning, we can help you identify tax benefits, choose between permanent en-dowment versus one-time support, and explore estate planning or life-income options. There are many ways to match your interests with specific college needs, and several possibilities for making your vision a reality. Whether using cash, appreciated stock, real estate or a bequest, we can help you find the best way to make the most of your gift. Contact us at 919-515-3462 or by e- mail at pams_dev@ncsu.edu. Blondin chosen as of new head physics John Blondin How to make a gift Photo By Marc Hal Summer For a celebration worthy of NC State’s 125th birthday, we need more than just one party. In fact, we’re going to take a whole year to celebrate and invite all our closest friends, starting with faculty, staff, students and alumni. The celebration theme, Tradition and Transformation, sets the stage to take a proud look at our past and imagine the many discoveries ahead. It all started on March 5, with the traditional Founder’s Day Dinner, followed by the transformation of the university’s Website, ncsu.edu, on March 7, NC State’s official birthday. The first week of March also marked the unveiling of the 125th logos, which include stylized renderings of the Memorial Bell Tower. But that’s just the beginning. A blue-ribbon planning committee, co-chaired by Dean Dan Solomon, has put together a series of signature events. Undoubt-edly, the highlight so far was a raucous, campus-wide birthday party held April 2 at Reynolds Coliseum. More than 4,500 students, faculty, staff and supporters came out to enjoy music, food and give-aways and to share their Wolfpack pride. Beyond the campus-wide activities, entities from across the university—from the 12 colleges to dozens of student organizations— are also taking part by giving their programming this year a special 125th twist. “What I like about the 125th is that it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate our connection and passion for NC State,” says Nevin Kessler, vice chancellor for university advancement and the other co-chair of the 125th planning committee. “We can set our goals a little higher, reach a little further than we have in the past, and have some fun doing it.” You can keep up with the latest 125th news at 125.ncsu.edu. A 125 scope | summer 2012 ■ 19 making years celebration in the Photos Courtesy of University Communications 20 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Kristen Hall loves NC State, PAMS and the Department of Marine, Earth and At-mospheric Sciences (MEAS). As a gradu-ate student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who just earned her B.S. in geology from NC State in 2010, Hall is not in a position to make a large donation to her alma mater. That doesn’t make her any less committed to giving back and supporting current students. She also knows that her contribution, combined with others, goes a long way toward making a transformative impact on the department, college and university she loves so much. “I decided to make a gift to PAMS because of the great experiences I had as a geology major,” Hall says. “While I was at NC State, I had so many opportunities at my fingertips, and I hope my small gift will go a long way in continuing to make those opportunities possible.” During her time as an undergraduate student, Hall took full advantage of both NC State’s world-class research opportu-nities and the smaller communities the university and PAMS offer. She worked in the laboratory and in the field alongside MEAS graduate students and faculty, quickly developing a sense of what it means to do real research. She was also a part of the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) living-learning village and was the president of the PAMS Student Council. A native of Wilmington, NC, Hall is using her experiences at NC State to study shoreline erosion and accretion of Masonboro Island. Her research is directed at how hurricanes, beach renour-ishment, and the implementation of the jetties have affected the island. She also works at the tutoring center on campus focusing on geology, physics, chemistry, environmental sciences, oceanography and marine biology and teaches classes every semester in UNCW’s Department of Geography and Geology. Every gift counts While universities across the country, including NC State, tend to publicize the larger, sometimes million dollar gifts, smaller gifts have a tendency to go unannounced. However, they are very much noticed—and very much appreciated. Last year, gifts of $100 or less to NC State added up to just over $1.1 million, with over $40,000 going to PAMS. These gifts impact the university’s reputation as well as its bottom line. Alumni giving—at any level—is a key factor in college and university rank-ings, including the annual rankings in U.S. News and World Report. Parents and students often compare rankings when making enrollment decisions. According to Ann Horner, executive director of the NC State Annual Fund, alumni gifts are more important than ever. “My goal for Annual Giving at NC State is to help alumni get into the habit of giving back to us,” she says. “The best thing about annual giving is that anyone can participate. All it takes is that first gift in the amount best for that person at that time.” To make a gift of any amount to PAMS, please contact the Office of Col-lege Advancement at 919-515-3462 or give online at www.pams. ncsu.edu/give. Young alumni show their in ways big and small Wolcfpak pride Kristen Hall on graduation day and hard at work as a UNC Wilmington graduate student photos courtesy of Kristen Hal Dr. Margaret D. “Canopy Meg Lowman is director of the Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and research professor in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State University. “ Learn more at www.pams.ncsu.edu How do we address some of the world’s greatest challenges and unlock the mysteries of the universe? We start by preparing the next generation of scientists with the skills, the confidence and the sense of responsibility to be effective communicators of science and informers of public policy. The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State is proud to be a leading partner with the Nature Research Center in inspiring future generations to be great scientists and great science champions. Transform. NC State University. Partners in Transforming Science Nonprofit Org US Postage PAID Raleigh, NC Permit #2353 Campus Box 8201 Raleigh, North Carolina 27695–8201 Encourage Excellence Your contribution to the PAMS Fund for Excellence provides direct support for Dean’s Circle Scholarships. These scholarships help the college recruit the best and brightest students from across North Carolina and beyond—students who will be the next generation of science leaders. Giving is easy. You can either contact our office directly or give online at www.pams.ncsu.edu/give. The online gift form will allow you to designate your gift to the Fund for Excellence or the departmental fund of your choice. www.pams.ncsu.edu pams_dev@ncsu.edu 919-515-3462 Would you like to be a member of the Dean’s Circle? Donor recognition levels begin with your gift of $1,000 or more.
Object Description
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Title | Scope : a look inside the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
Other Title | Look inside the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences |
Date | 2012 |
Description | Summer 2012 |
Digital Characteristics-A | 1.87 MB; 24 p. |
Digital Format |
application/pdf |
Pres File Name-M | pubs_serial_scopelookinside2012summer.pdf |
Full Text | scope a look inside the college of physical and Mathematical Sciences In this issue Toward Convergence Science 2 Green Energy 4 Virtual Rat 8 Into the Fold 9 Green Researchers across the college are seeking better ways to use both traditional and renewable resources Energy Sumer 2012 PAMS Foundation Board of Directors Officers Cathy Sigal, Chair Leigh Wilkinson, Vice Chair Anita Stallings, President Michelle Duggins, Secretary Kathy Hart, Treasurer Charles Leffler, Assistant Treasurer General Members Susan Atkinson Tom Blinten John Brocklebank Charles Case Sheila Chickene Maureen Droessler David Duncklee Jonathan Earnhart Kathy Harris Lawrence Ives Roger Liddle Rob Lindberg Roy Martin Ed Mathers Alan Menius Randy Miller David Montgomery Connie Moreadith Michael Peirson Mitch Perry Stephen Smeach Cecil Smith Phil Summa Michael Thompson Bill Trent Barton White Ji Zhang Miriam Zietlow Emeritus Richard Cook PAMS Alumni & Friends Advisory Board Officers Benton Satterfield, President Nancy Ridenhour, Vice President Larry James, Secretary Robert Hill, Assistant Secretary General Members Stephen Ashley Damon Butler Kim Deaner Todd Fuller Bob Jackson Maggie LaPlante Sherice Nivens Glenn Osmond Er Ralston Jean Richardson Pam Pittman Robinson Aimee Tattersall Joselyn Todd Mike Trexler Chip Wentz Scope is published by the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. The college is made up of internationally recognized departments: Chemistry Marine, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences Mathematics Physics Statistics Molecular & Structural Biochemistry Dean Daniel Solomon Managing Editor Anita Stallings Editor Steve Townsend Contributing Writers D’Lyn Ford Ernie Hood Bill Krueger Star-Lena Quintana Angela Spivey Design Zubigraphics On the cover: Elon Ison’s work with green catalysts is one of several PAMS research projects that is helping to shape the future of energy production. Photo by Roger Winstead. 13,500 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $7,200.00 or $.53 per copy. scope in this issue… Sumer 2012 4 8 10 13 Dean’s message 2 Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS College news 3 NC State announces creation of the College of Sciences 10 The forecast is bright for Logan Dawson’s future 12 On the road with CMAST 18 Blondin chosen as new head of Physics Research highlights 4 Back to Basics: PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy 8 Seeking real health answers in a “virtual rat” 9 Into the fold for a clearer picture of Parkinson’s Honors 14 Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner 16 Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching 16 Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong 17 Notables Alumni and development news 18 How to make a gift 20 Young alumni show their Wolfpack pride in ways big and small Just for fun 13 PAMS physicists help bring back the Bell Tower’s musical tradition 19 A celebration 125 years in the making 2 ■ Summer 2012 | scope As you may have heard—or may already have gleaned from the headline on the next page—Chancellor Woodson recently informed the Board of Trustees of his intention to create a College of Sciences at NC State University effective July 1, 2013. This new college will include the physical and chemical sciences, the mathematical and statistical sciences, the earth-system sciences, and the biological sciences. The quote above from a 2011 white paper out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gives just one of a myriad of societal and scholarly justifications for making this shift to a more com-prehensive and “convergent” College of Sciences. Advances in medicine and biotechnology, as well as in other domains such as energy and environmen-tal sustainability (an in-depth discussion of some current PAMS projects in this area begins on page 4), depend on a rethinking of our traditional organizational structures and how we prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers. Just as PAMS was created from the ground up in 1960 to better feed the disciplines that drove NC State’s unprecedented growth in the post-World War II era, the College of Sciences will be an entirely new assemblage of expertise from across the university. This new entity is being designed to build synergies—in research, teaching, mentoring, outreach, administration, infrastructure and more—that will make the university a destination for the best and brightest scientific talent for decades to come and will provide that talent with an environment to make groundbreak-ing discoveries that impact the human condition. Even with the long list of reasons why the time is right for us to make this transformational and historic shift in the structure of our academic sciences, such decisions are never easy to make or execute within an institution of NC State’s size and scope. I applaud Chancellor Woodson and Provost Arden for their bold leadership and strong vision. I look forward to taking this journey with you in the months and years to come. As always, we seek and appreciate your input along the way. Sincerely, Daniel L. Solomon, Dean Toward Convergence Science: The next incarnation of PAMS “ Convergence is a new paradigm that can yield critical advances in a broad array of sectors, from health care to energy, food, climate, and water.” — The Third Revolution: The Convergence of the Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Engineering Courtesy of University Communications Photo by Marc Hal Summer While many of the details will be worked out in the coming months, the chancellor has made the primary directives quite clear. PAMS will be transitioned to a broader, more comprehensive College of Sciences. This college will include faculty and academic programs in the physical and chemical sciences, the mathematical and statistical sciences, the earth-system sciences, and the biological sciences. The new College of Sciences will offi-cially debut July 1, 2013. Provost Arden has asked PAMS Dean Dan Solomon to serve as the new college’s inaugural dean, and Dean Solomon has accepted. Looking Back: The Academic Science Program Task Force This decision has its genesis in the Strategic Realignment Plan commissioned by the chancellor in January 2011. Led by Provost Arden and Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Charles Leffler, the purpose of this initiative was to position NC State for greater strength, effective-ness and efficiency. One of the chief recommendations of this plan was to undertake a compre-hensive assessment of the university’s academic sciences. While this assessment was no small feat at a STEM institution of NC State’s size and scope, the Academic Sciences Task Force—made up of faculty representing all 10 colleges, the Graduate School and the Division of Undergraduate Academic Programs—spent the next 12 months determining the best ways to en-hance the natural synergies among the sci-ence programs at NC State and to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and research while reducing administrative overhead. After receiving campus-wide input on the task force’s final report, Provost Arden recommended to the chancellor the course of action that included the establishment of a strong, comprehensive College of Sciences. In announcing his acceptance of this recommendation to the campus community, Chancellor Woodson said: “This strategic move brings NC State in line with national best practices, align-ing related science departments in one college and allowing enhanced interdisci-plinary educational opportunities, improved research collaboration and more efficient support operations. Some of the most pressing scientific issues of today lie at the intersection of the mathematical, compu-tational, physical and biological sciences. Bringing these disciplines together under a single organizational umbrella is a transformative change that better positions NC State to advance these issues through multidisciplinary research, teaching and service.” Looking Forward: Next Steps While this transition will provide incred-ible new opportunities for NC State stu-dents and faculty, it is not one that can be achieved overnight. To make the transition a successful one requires careful coordination of people and resources. These moves will be coordinated by a College of Sciences Steering Committee. To be chaired by the provost, co-chaired by Senior Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives Duane Larick, and comprising the deans of NC State’s six science and engineering colleges, this committee is charged with determining the most appropriate admin-istrative structure for the new college and determining a process for identifying which faculty and academic programs will move to the new college. One of the earliest actions of the College of Sciences Steering Committee will be to determine the composition of implementation teams that will focus on topics such as academic programs and personnel; budget and finance; student support services; space, infrastructure and shared resources; and development and alumni relations. While it will be a challenging year of transition, the future is very bright for STEM disciplines at NC State. College Sciences NC State of scope | summer 2012 ■ 3 In the midst of NC State’s 125th anniversary celebration, Chancellor Randy Woodson made a bold decision that will better prepare the university to meet the challenges of the next 125 years. Upon the recommendation of Provost Warwick Arden, the chancellor announced to the Board of Trustees at their April meeting that he had authorized the creation of a comprehensive College of Sciences. For More Informa t ion Chancellor Woodson’s announcement of the establishment of the College of Sciences: go.ncsu.edu/cos_announcement Check back here throughout the year for updates on the transition process: go.ncsu.edu/cos_updates the Announces creation of Summer How Green Is My Catalyst? Assistant professor of chemistry Elon Ison and his research group work on making greener catalysts, those spunky compounds that facilitate chemical reactions. Developing greener catalytic reactions can help to conserve precious chemical and natural resources while reducing the generation of waste and environmentally hazardous byproducts. It all boils down to truly understanding the chemical processes involved. “What we do is basic, fundamental chemistry,” Ison says. “We ask ourselves how does a catalyst work? The answers we get will help us rationally design new catalysts.” The search for these answers has been deemed important enough to earn Ison and his team a five-year, $530,000 grant via a prestigious National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award, more commonly known as a CAREER Award. In the long term, this work could lead to the development of chemical methods that reduce the generation of waste and environmentally hazardous materials and could potentially lead to the more efficient utilization of our chemical and natural resources—resources such as oil, coal, natural gas or biomass—as sources of energy. PAMS researchers are laying the foundation for green energy The need for clean, renewable options continues to grow along with the ever-increasing U.S. and global demand for energy. While fossil fuels will continue to be a part of the mix for the foreseeable future, “green energy,” in its many forms, will be vital to maintaining our economies and lifestyles for generations to come. However, the viability of green energy as a panacea will only be as strong as the progress made in the basic science at its foundation. Each in his own way, four PAMS researchers are making major contributions to the knowledge base necessary to build the bridge to future energy technologies. basics: Back to 4 ■ summer 2012 | scope Elon Ison scope | Summer 2012 ■ 5 Another project in Ison’s lab explores the idea of converting methane, the primary component of abundant natu-ral gas, into methanol, which can be used as a replacement for gasoline. While the vision may be grand, it is ultimately the quest for knowledge that drives Ison and his colleagues forward. “We continue to learn, because the basis of our chemistry is fundamental,” he says. “We will always develop new applications, but at the end of the day, we think we can use the ap-proach of asking and answering questions on the molecular level to solve many catalytic problems.” Fill ‘Er Up with Sunshine How would our world change if we had the ability to convert sunlight into carbon-neutral liquid fuels ready to put into to-day’s pipelines and gas tanks? The answer will be found in a process called artificial photosynthesis, and Walter Weare, an as-sistant professor of chemistry, is working on it. To make solar-to-fuel a reality, you need several vital components, Weare says. “You have to have a catalyst to create the fuel, you have to have something that absorbs the sunlight, and you have to be able to transfer the energy of the sunlight into those catalysts in order to do the chemistry.” Right now, Weare and his group are trying to find a way to control absorbing the light and transferring the energy in the form of electrons into the catalyst, to create a liquid fuel—such as methanol— from carbon dioxide. Progress is encouraging, Weare reports. “So far we’ve been able to make the molecules we’re interested in, and we are starting to learn how to tune the energy levels of the excited state, or the state after it absorbs the light from the sun.” The work is still very basic, and the molecules being produced are unlikely to actually end up in a device, but under-standing the process in a systematic way will drive the science forward. “Right now, people kind of throw stuff together, and if it works, great, if it doesn’t work, then they don’t necessarily learn a whole lot,” Weare explains. “Hopefully by doing these very basic studies, we’ll be able to learn the design rules in order to do this more efficiently.” While solar-to-fuel doesn’t yet “exist” in reality, the concept is enthralling. It theoretically bypasses some of the major barriers associated with large-scale use of solar power or biofuels. With solar-to-fuel, there would be no need for massive batteries to store the energy nor would its production consume large amounts of plant feed-stocks, land areas and/or water. “With this type of technology,” says Weare, “the water you need is limited only to the water necessary to make oxy-gen, and that’s not very much. Potentially it doesn’t even need to be clean water; it could just be waste water. You could do it on a rooftop, you could potentially do it in a road, you could do it in places where you can’t grow plants.” That flexibility opens up some remark-able possibilities, according to Weare. “If the technology becomes developed enough where it’s just a module that you put on your roof, that’s very attractive from the standpoint of solving issues both in the developed world and the developing world, because then you create the op-portunity to have individualized power and individualized fuel. Someone in the middle of nowhere who doesn’t have access to electricity or an electric grid could make their own fuel and very quickly enhance their quality of life.” Photos by Roger Winstead Walter Weare 6 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Beyond Shake-‘n-Bake With costs decreasing and efficiencies rising, the marketplace viability of solar-to-electricity technologies has grown dramati-cally in recent years. But there is still a great deal of room for innovation, and the development of so-called organic solar cells is one of the most promising areas. These photovoltaic cells are made of polymers and other organic materials, as opposed to today’s silicon. They can be processed very inexpensively, via a simple roll-to-roll printing process similar to print-ing a newspaper. The challenge lies in increasing the ef-ficiency with which these cells can convert sunlight to usable electrical power. This is another burgeoning field of energy-related research where the basic science—understanding and optimizing the process at the molecular level—is where the action is. That’s where PAMS physicist Harald Ade comes into play. Ade and his team are working on new-and-improved pro-cessing methods for the production of organic photovoltaics. They also conduct considerable research on how to optimize the composition of the cells themselves and have developed the detection meth-ods needed to characterize the materials and the results of the manufacturing processes. That basic knowledge will be crucial to gain rational control over how best to mix the layers of organic materials used in the cells to maximize energy conversion. “The process of controlling the materials themselves has still not evolved to the point where we really understand how to do it,” says Ade, a professor and graduate program director in the Depart-ment of Physics. “Right now, it is mostly done by Edisonian trial and error: ‘shake and bake’ and see what you get.” With the advances being made by Ade and his all-star team of collaborators, that heuristic approach is likely to soon become a thing of the past. The team has some processing facilities at NC State, but much of their work takes place at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), a synchrotron radiation facility located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. There, the team uses soft X-rays, via a scanning transmission microscope designed by Ade, to determine the composition, morphology and structure of polymeric and electronic materials at the sub-micron scale, thus contributing to understanding their performance characteristics. In organic solar cells, two materials are combined, and the interface of their domains is where the energy conversion takes place—one layer is the donor, the other is the acceptor, and electrons pass from the former to the latter. “People knew we needed two differ-ent types of materials, and we knew from measurements that the domain size had to be on the order of 10 nanometers,” Ade explains. “They conjured up an idealized structure of the best device, with a pure donor and a pure acceptor phase. It turns out, though, based on our work, that that picture needs to be revised. It looks as if, rather than having two domains of a certain composition, there may even be three or more domains.” The materials actually mix to a certain degree, and that level of miscibility—or measurement of homogeneity—is one of the most important elements in determin-ing efficiency. “So the picture is much more complicated, and that might explain why it’s so difficult to control,” says Ade. “Once we understand the picture better, we would know better which aspect of the manufacturing we need to control, which would give more consistent results and improve device yield.” Ade and his team also work on organic LEDs, which have begun to appear in many places in the commercial market-place. He says we’re only at the beginning of these organic electronic devices. “If you look at your basic microelectronics that started in the 1950s, we’ve been working on them for a long time. The organics are 40 years later, so we’re at the very early stages in terms of really under-standing and optimizing and engineering the devices, and I would anticipate many, many years of continued improvement.” Photos by Roger Winstead Harald Ade scope | Summer 2012 ■ 7 The Answer, My Friend… Today, wind energy accounts for less than 2 percent of U.S. electricity con-sumption, but President Obama has pro-posed increasing that figure to 20 percent by 2030. To approach that ambitious goal, there will need to be major improvements in the technologies used to harness the wind’s power to feed energy demand. It should come as no surprise that NC State is at the forefront of basic research in this arena as well. Sukanta Basu, an associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, specializes in an area called boundary layer meteorology, which focuses on weather patterns in the layer of the atmosphere very close to the ground. He spends more than half of his research time on wind energy-related questions, and the answers will go a long way toward moving the field forward. Like Ison, Basu is also a recent recipient of an NSF CAREER Award, with a five-year, $505,000 grant funding research to enhance modeling of wind resources. As Basu explains, “The U.S. Great Plains have very good wind resources, mostly caused by one particular atmo-spheric phenomenon called low-level jets. My CAREER Award supports research to develop better modeling and better forecasting of these low-level jets, which will allow us to have better accuracy in understanding the wind resource.” That increased understanding will allow more precise placement of wind farms, particu-larly as available sites become scarcer. Trained as a civil engineer, Basu is col-laborating on another NSF-funded project with structural engineers at the University of Texas at Austin. This team is seeking to improve the design of wind turbines to both increase their efficiency and extend their useful life, which is currently about 20 years. For Basu’s contribution, it’s all about the turbulence experienced by the turbines. “Turbines are designed for a certain type of flow conditions, but if you have enhanced turbulence, you will see sub-optimal production,” he says. “If you have wind direction that is fluctuating quite often, the turbines will have a hard time facing the prevalent wind direction.” His group is trying to come up with a new modeling framework to better character-ize this inflow of turbulence that leads to sudden loads on the turbines. They are also participating in a large U.S. Department of Energy grant focused on forecasting wind. His group is collecting considerable wind data at heights up to 500 meters using a ground-based remote sensing instrument called SODAR, or Sonic Detection and Ranging. Ultimately, improved wind forecasting will optimize utilization and efficiency of wind power resources. “All of these problems we are studying are going to remain very, very relevant for the next 10 years,” Basu says. “The problem is that wind energy is very much dependent on our understanding of atmo-spheric turbulence, and turbulence is one of the most unresolved mysteries in the scientific arena. So I’m not worried that I won’t have anything to work on!” Sukanta Basu Summer There are a lot of health dangers in the world, but nothing kills more people each year than cardiovascular diseases. According to the World Health Organi-zation, this group of ailments involving the heart and/or blood vessels killed an estimated 17.3 million people worldwide in 2008 alone. With a challenge this big and deadly, researchers like NC State’s Mette Olufsen are always looking for new ways to better understand cardiovascular health. One of their newest tools is a rat—a virtual one, anyway. The Virtual Physiological Rat (VPR) project is made possible by a five-year, $13 million grant from National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Much of the work will be done at the Medical College of Wis-consin, but collaborators on the project hail from around the world, including the United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand, Washington, California, Wisconsin and right here at NC State. According to Olufsen, an associate professor of mathematics, research on cardiovascular and physiological diseases uses a variety of animals, including the rat, in order to fulfill the goal of translating animal models into human models. Rats have long been used as a stand-in for humans, in part due to the high percent-age of genes that are shared between the two—about 90 percent. Olufsen and her NC State team will be focusing on developing mathematical models that will help make the virtual rat behave as closely as possible to a real one and will allow for the simultaneous adjustment and obser-vation of multiple individual factors. “We want to design a computational model that can be combined with many experimental studies in order to bridge the gap between what we predict will happen and what does happen,” she says. “One main thing—and the most difficult thing, when it comes to our role—is that it’s easy to generate generic features, but it’s not so easy to make them patient specific.” The VPR project will allow for long-term interaction between mathematical modelers and experimental scientists that steadily moves the depth of knowledge from a broad understanding of basic physiological and genomic data down to the very complex relationships between multiple genes and disparate environmental factors. That enhanced knowledge base ulti-mately could help physicians predict and diagnose cardiovascular diseases earlier and more successfully. It could even make it possible for drugs to be developed to treat patients at the individual level. the Into fold 8 ■ summer 2012 | scope S e e k i n g in a Health Answers Real “Virtual Ra t ” Mette Olufsen Photo by Steve Townsend scope | Summer 2012 ■ 9 The intricate folding of proteins can determine the difference between dis-ease and health. NC State physicists use quantum mechanical modeling to paint a precise picture of how it happens. Sometimes our bodies go haywire, and even scientists can’t tell us why. Parkinson’s disease, for instance, causes tremors, trouble walking and other severe problems for at least half a million people in the U.S., and the causes aren’t com-pletely understood. But physicists with NC State’s Center for High Performance Simulation (CHiPS) are learning more about diseases like Parkinson’s by using computers to model intricate events happening inside our bodies, such as protein folding. While DNA provides the body’s operat-ing instructions, proteins carry out those instructions. But before a protein can do its work, it must fold from a simple coil into a 3-D structure. Many researchers in the country study proteins and their activities. But because the NC State researchers use quantum mechanics to model protein activities on a subatomic level, they can track events more precisely than even some laboratory studies. The brains of people with Parkinson’s contain plaques, which are abnormal clumps of protein, mostly a protein called alpha-synuclein. It’s not known exactly what causes these plaques to form. So NC State professors Miroslav Hodak and Jerry Bernholc and Ph.D. candidate Frisco Rose simulated by computer the most likely sce-narios. They modeled what happens when this protein encounters copper; high levels of the metal are found in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with Parkinson’s, and lab studies of cells have shown that copper is the most efficient metal at speeding up the protein clumping. “We wanted to find out if copper is capable of causing changes that are seen in Parkinson’s disease, and if we could prove it by using our simulation,” says Hodak, a research assistant professor of physics. Hodak and Bernholc, Drexel Professor of Physics and director of CHiPS, used a new method they created that combines two types of modeling to achieve greater accuracy while keeping the calculation manageable. The method uses molecular mechanical modeling, which divides ob-jects into atoms, and quantum mechanical modeling, which further divides atoms into nuclei and electrons. Other researchers had shown with lab experiments using real cells approxi-mately where copper first attaches to the protein. “But the information from lab ex-periments was imprecise,” Bernholc says. “We figured out on the basis of quantum mechanical calculations exactly where the copper goes.” Given that precise location, the researchers could use molecular mod-eling to determine how the protein folds. Their simulation showed a detailed, likely scenario for how copper attaches to the protein involved in Parkinson’s plaques and exactly how the protein folds to form them. The study was published June 14, 2011, in Scientific Reports. The work provides clues for other researchers to use as they look for treatments. The NC State team will expand on their work by exploring the promise of a particular drug as a potential Parkinson’s treatment. “We have a target drug we want to look at to find out if it removes the copper from a misfolded protein and makes it fold back into the original structure,” Hodak says. This article originally appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine, which is a benefit of membership in the North Carolina State University Alumni Association. the Into fold Photo by Becky Kirkland for a Clearer Parkinson’s Pictureof From left to right: Frisco Rose, Jerry Bernholc and Miroslav Hodak 10 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Your heart is racing and your muscles are tensing. You peek outside one more time and see that the thunderstorm is still pounding. Lightning has struck a tele-phone pole and split it down the center. You close your eyes tightly and you wait for the worst of it to pass. Fear is a feeling well known to anyone who has experienced a severe storm up close. What is uncommon is Logan Dawson, who opened his eyes after a deadly tornado hit his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, and turned his fear into a passion and a quest for knowledge. Dawson, who graduated this spring with a double major in meteorology and marine science, vividly remembers the day that set his academic path in motion. “On April 8, 1998, when I was seven years old, there was an F5 tornado that hit the county, and 30 people were killed,” he recalls. “After seeing the damage from the tornado, I decided that I wanted to be a meteorologist. From that point on, I want-ed to understand the weather and predict when storms were going to happen.” Dawson’s path to NC State was put in motion by his exceptional accomplish-ments in high school, which resulted in an offer of a Park Scholarship. At first a little hesitant to study so far from home, it was during Park Scholars finalist weekend that Dawson fell in love with the campus, the atmosphere and, of course, the meteorology program. The final selling point was the vast array of opportunities for hands-on learn-ing, leadership development and campus and community involvement that often defines the NC State student experience. Easy, laid-back sumers? No thanks. Dawson has made sure to take full advantage of his summer time away from classes. The summer after his freshman year, he spent time working as a student volunteer doing research at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Alabama, alongside an NC State alumnus. The following two summers he spent interning at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, respectively. Dawson’s undergraduate research has been vital to his academic experience as an undergraduate and, more recently, an appealing element to his graduate school applications. He will begin his gradu-ate studies this fall in the atmospheric sciences program at Purdue University. Ultimately, he plans to work in a national future The for forecast is bright Logan Dawson’s scope | Summer 2012 ■ 11 research lab studying ways to improve severe weather forecasting. Gary Lackmann, an associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sci-ences, and also Dawson’s advisor and Park Scholarship mentor, has been impressed with how well-rounded Dawson is—a trait Lackmann believes will serve him well. “Logan is really smart and not only good with science, but good with people,” Lackmann says. “It’s that community-minded mentality that will continue to move him higher.” Leaving his NC State legacy As a person who is driven by being able to help others, Dawson quickly became engaged in activities throughout the cam-pus. One activity he has been involved with since freshman year is also one that he is most proud to have been associated with: the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, which he first heard about when visiting NC State during finalist weekend for the Park Scholarship. The Krispy Kreme Challenge began rather modestly in 2004 when a couple of undergraduate students at NC State dared each other to run from the Memorial Bell Tower to the Krispy Kreme donut shop two miles away, eat a dozen donuts each, and run back to the Bell Tower. The chal-lenge has gained so much notoriety and positive feedback in the years since, that it has grown into an event that is not only universally celebrated across campus, but widely known as one of the more unique college traditions in the country. The race evolved from a simple dare to a large charity event that benefits the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. Dawson served as a co-chair of the 2011 challenge, working with a group of student and campus leaders to strength-en the race and encourage its spread across the nation. More than 7,500 run-ners were registered, and $122,000 was raised in 2011. Dawson is also involved with the Society of African American Physical and Mathematical Scientists, the PAMS Student Ambassador Program and the American Meteorological Society Student Chapter. Through these organizations, he served as a mentor to younger students pursuing degrees in meteorology, as-sisted in recruitment by speaking to high school students, and volunteered at the Raleigh Girls Club. As serious as he is about his academic and community service pursuits, Dawson may be even more serious when it comes to his support of NC State athletics. A member of the Student Wolfpack Club, Dawson was a regular at NC State sport-ing events, and not just big-time events like football and basketball. Whether it was volleyball games, tennis matches or swim meets, he always seemed to find the time to cheer on his Wolfpack. While he made the most of his NC State experience, Dawson’s primary passion is still the same one that brought him here: the quest to better understand and predict deadly storms like the one that swept through his hometown back in 1998. “I still see it as my primary goal to study the weather to better understand it so we can improve our predictions and keep people out of harm’s way,” he says. Photos of Logan Dawson by Melvin Moore Photo by Becky Kirkland 12 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Larval superhighway: NC State receives nearly $1.3 million to study larvae dispersal The Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (MEAS) has received a $1.24 million research grant from the National Science Foundation to study the dispersal of oyster larvae in the Pamlico Sound. The official title of the grant is “ Collaborative Research: Interacting Effects of Local Demography and Larval Connectivity on Estuarine Metapopulation Dynamics.” The project, which includes partners from UNC-Chapel Hill and the University of Maryland, will be led by David Eggleston, professor of MEAS and director of CMAST. “This project will produce new tools, as well as test and refine others for studying larval connectivity in marine systems,” Eggleston said. “It also will provide decision-support tools for improving the efficacy of marine reserves for management and restoration of marine species and ecosystems.” Eggleston noted that the grant also will help train future generations of marine scientists. “There is an extensive educa-tion and outreach component in the form of training undergraduate and graduate students, mentoring post-docs, and providing hands-on research opportunities for high school students and their teachers,” he said. Support sustainable fisheries right on your bumper CMAST also recently announced the development of a specialty license plate that provides the opportunity to raise funds to support student research in sustainable fisheries in North Carolina. In July 2011, the NC General Assembly approved legislation authorizing the sale of sustainable fisheries license plates. Public support of the CMAST Sustain-able Fisheries License Plate Program will allow continued research and conservation of recreational and commercially important fisheries, support undergradu-ate and graduate student training, and provide educational outreach to help keep North Carolina waters, and hooks, full for generations to come. Before plates can be produced, the NC Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) must re-ceive 300 paid applications. The cost of a plate is $30 ($60 for personalized plates), in addition to any regular license fees. Part of the proceeds goes to DMV with the re-maining going to a special fund earmarked for CMAST research and programs. To preorder a specialty plate contact CMAST at 252-222-6302 for an application or visit the CMAST website: www.cmast. ncsu.edu. Located on the Carteret Community College campus in Morehead City, NC, CMAST is within short walking distance of the UNC Institute of Marine Science and the NC Division of Marine Fisheries head-quarters, and is within five miles of the Duke University Marine Laboratory, the Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research, the NC Maritime Museum and the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. Photo by Roger Winstead CMAST Director David Eggleston (center) and MEAS graduate students taking measurements in the Pamlico Sound. From the underwater “superhighway” that transports oyster larvae across the Pamlico Sound to the more traditional highways we humans travel on dry land, the folks at NC State’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST) are always up for a road trip. On the CMAST road with scope | Summer 2012 ■ 13 There are still no bells in the Memorial Bell Tower, but music has returned to the campus landmark. The music comes from a carillon, which enables songs played on a keyboard in the basement of Holladay Hall to create the sounds of bells that are then amplified through speakers inside the Bell Tower. The carillon had been broken since 1989, but university officials worked with the carillon’s manufacturer last fall to make it functional again. “It was amazing,” says Thomas H. Stafford Jr., vice chancellor for student affairs, who was on hand on an October afternoon when NC State’s alma mater was played on the carillon and broadcast through the Bell Tower. “It’s been over 20 years. Just to hear it again almost gave me goose bumps.” The alma mater was performed by Chris Gould, PAMS associate dean for administration and a professor of physics. Gould, an accomplished pianist, learned about the broken carillon when he was talking with Stafford about tours that Stafford gives of the Bell Tower. Gould and others in the Department of Physics unsuccessfully tried to get the carillon working again. But workers at the univer-sity’s Physical Plant got involved, and after consulting with representatives of the carillon’s manufacturer, had success. “It’s amazing that it works this well,” says Gould. “If you look inside, it’s a mechanical marvel.” Stafford says students and others used to play four to six songs on the carillon every afternoon. Handwritten logbooks from 1970–1989 show that religious songs were played regularly, but that students also played songs that were popular at the time. Stafford hopes that music will soon be played at a certain time each day, as well as on special occasions. “It has stirred up quite a bit of excitement,” Stafford says, “especially among people who remember the music we used to play.” A version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of NC State magazine, which is a benefit of member-ship in the North Carolina State University Alumni Association. Interior Photos by Steve Townsend; exterior photo by Roger Winstead PAMS Help Bring Back Bell Tower’s Musical Tradition the physicists Clockwise from top: Memorial Bell Tower, Vice Chancellor Tom Stafford reminds Nancy Ridenhour (B.S. ‘76 Statistics) how to play a tune on the carillon, old log books from the 1970s, PAMS physicists examine the carillon. Summer David Montgomery Distinguished Alumnus Award David Montgomery (B.S. ’68, Ph.D. ’82 Physics) was selected as the college’s 2011 Distinguished Alumnus. Estab-lished in 1990, the PAMS Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes alumni whose exceptional achievements in business, education, research or public service have brought honor and distinction to PAMS and NC State. A North Carolina native, Montgomery comes from a “true red” Wolfpack family. Upon graduating from High Point Central High School in 1964, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother and father by enrolling at NC State. He continues to serve his alma mater to this day through ongoing service on the PAMS Foundation Board of Directors as well as financial con-tributions to the college, the Department of Physics and The Science House. Upon receiving his bachelor’s degree from NC State in 1968, Montgomery was honored as a Distinguished Military Graduate of the Army ROTC program and was commissioned with the rank of second lieutenant in the Ordnance Corps of the United States Army. He received an active duty delay to begin his graduate studies, where he had the opportunity to study under two legendary physicists, Willard Bennett and Wesley Doggett. Under the direction of Bennett and, later, Doggett, Montgomery learned the ins and outs of plasma physics. He also provided outstanding service to PAMS and the university in various teaching assistantships and research positions, both on campus and—for two summers— at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. As Montgomery, himself, recently recalled of this experience, “One of the most fortunate occurrences in my life was having these two gentlemen as mentors.” When his four-year military delay expired, Montgomery left campus for the Ordnance Corps’ Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland to satisfy his active-duty requirement. He then served as an instructor for the U.S. Army Reserve School and the North Carolina National Guard in the area of wheel and track vehicle mechanics, reaching the rank of captain before retirement. By the time he earned his Ph.D. from NC State in 1983, Montgomery had already been working for four years as a plasma physicist at Becton Dickinson and Company in Research Triangle Park. His early work at what is now known as BD used low-temperature, ionized gas pro-cesses to physically and chemically alter the surfaces of disposable polystyrene tissue culture products—products such as petri dishes—so that cells would prop-erly attach and colonize on the surfaces. Montgomery designed and built a laboratory of custom apparatus directed toward the research and development of commercially viable processes that could mimic the glass surfaces on which tissue culture had traditionally been done and also to develop and analyze new surface chemistries that allowed the culturing of cells that previously required protein-based substrates. Much of his work over the subsequent three decades has been in adapting these basic processes into new applications and products. The results continue to be impressive, and he has been recognized for them within BD, nationally and even internation-ally. His work has led to 15 U.S. patents and 5 European patents. In 2001, he received BD’s Wesley J. Howe Award for Process Development Excellence for his work in the creation of a process required for the functioning of a bacterial identi-fication and antibiotic susceptibility test panel. In 2010, he received the company’s Wesley J. Howe Award for Lifetime Achievement for his entire body of work. He is one of seven recipients of the award out of some 28,000 BD employees around the world. Martha Gardner Medal of Achievement Martha Gardner (Ph.D. ’97 Statistics) was selected as the recipient of the college’s 2011 Medal of Achievement. Established in 2005, this award recognizes early- to mid-career alumni of the College of Physi-cal and Mathematical Sciences who have excelled through their chosen professions or public service, and proven themselves destined to make a significant impact in science, government, education, business or industry. A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Gardner received her B.S. in applied mathematics and classical languages from the University of Alabama. By her own recollection, Gardner wasn’t enamored of mathematics at first. In fact, she thought she was on her way to becoming a Latin professor when an advisor told her that the reason she didn’t like math was that she hadn’t taken the “right kind” of math yet. At that advisor’s encouragement, Gard-ner enrolled in her first statistics classes in the last semester of her senior year. She would go on to earn an M.S. in statistics from Alabama, then came to NC State to study under Professor J.C. Lu. Her experi-ences with Dr. Lu and his collaborators in the College of Engineering interested her The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences continued its tradition of celebrating the achievements of its alumni and friends at the annual PAMS Awards Dinner, held last December at the Cardinal Club in downtown Raleigh. The three 2011 honorees all boast impressive professional resumes and unparalleled service to NC State and PAMS. 14 ■ summer 2012 | scope Montgomery, Gardner and Butler honored at annual PAMS Awards Dinner Summer in a career in industry and prepared her to work across different disciplines. Upon graduation from NC State, Gardner joined the Applied Statistics Lab at General Electric Global Research. She spent the early part of her career focused on the development and application of novel and efficient approaches to experi-mental design and analysis for physical and computer experiments. Later, she turned her attention to aircraft engines, serving as project leader of the probabilistic design research effort for GE’s aviation and energy businesses. Probabilis-tic methods she and her team developed at that time were implemented in in-house design tools and have since been adopted by hundreds of GE engineers. Since 2004, Gardner has served as global quality leader for GE Global Research. She leads GE’s Design for Six Sigma and Reliability Councils, and she is currently focused on integrating TRIZ decision making into research and technology development at the company. Gardner has been recognized for her success throughout her 13 years at GE. In 2002, she received GE Research’s Hull Award for early career research. In 2004, the MIT Technology Review listed her as one of their “Top 100” young innovators. She was promoted to principal scientist in 2007 and chief scientist in 2011. Gardner is a certified GE Design for Six Sigma Black Belt, GE Quality Leader, and MATRIZ Level 3 TRIZ Practitioner. She is also a past-chair of the Quality and Productivity Section of the American Statistical Association and serves on the editorial boards of Significance, Quality Engineering and The Journal of Statistics Education. Throughout her career, Gardner has maintained ties with PAMS and been a strong supporter of the Department of Statistics, most recently as a leader in the drive to endow the R.A. Fisher Distinguished Professorship. Damon Butler Zenith Medal for Service Damon Butler (B.S. ’96, Applied Math-ematics) was selected as the recipient of the college’s 2011 Zenith Medal for Service. Established in 2005, this award recognizes alumni or friends of PAMS for distinguished contributions or advocacy that significantly advance our ability to make powerful impacts on science, the economy, the environment and the quality of human life. Upon his graduation from NC State in 1996, Butler joined the U.S. Air Force. He spent six years as a space and mis-sile operator with top secret security clearance in Air Force Space Command, eventually rising to the rank of captain. He continued his formal education dur-ing his military service, earning a master’s degree in aeronautical science from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. After his separation from the Air Force, Butler went on to earn an M.B.A. from Duke Univer-sity’s Fuqua School of Business in 2004. Butler then moved to New York City to join New York Life, where he has since ris-en to corporate vice president, with current responsibilities in optimizing productivity, analyzing competitor underwriting guide-lines, designing workflow enhancements and evaluating performance metrics. In addition to his professional accom-plishments, Butler has had a profound impact on PAMS and its students. In many ways, that service began while he was still an undergraduate major serving as a math tutor to his fellow students. Today, he serves his fellow former students as well as the college as a member of the col-lege’s Alumni and Friends Advisory Board. While he has been extremely gener-ous with his time, money and talents, Butler’s greatest contribution to PAMS has been as a leader in the ongoing ef-forts to increase participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities among underserved and underrepresented populations. He regularly returns to campus at his own expense—and often on short notice—to serve as a motivational speaker and role model for future STEM leaders. He has engaged elementary and middle school students through Imhotep Academy and Kyran Anderson Academy. He has addressed prospective and current PAMS students through the Multicultural Affairs Visitation Day, freshman diversity classes and last fall’s Department of Mathematics graduation ceremony. Butler also recently established the Butler Summer Academy. Modeled after Imhotep and Kyran Anderson academies, two successful PAMS programs, the Butler Summer Academy will enhance the STEM knowledge and leadership and etiquette skills of rising 6th graders from underserved populations in and around Wake County. scope | summer 2012 ■ 15 Photo By Marc Hal Award recipients Martha Gardner, David Montgomery and Damon Butler 16 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Stephen P. Reynolds, Alumni Distin-guished Undergraduate Professor of Phys-ics in the College of Physical and Math-ematical Sciences, has been honored with an Award for Excellence in Teaching from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. One educator from each UNC system campus wins the award, which comes with a prize of $7,500 and a bronze medallion. The Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching is the most presti-gious award given to faculty for teaching excellence and was created in 1994 to underscore the importance of teaching and encourage, recognize and reward outstanding teaching. Nominees for the award must be tenured professors who have spent at least seven years at the nominating institutions and who have “demonstrated excellent or exceptional teaching ability over a sustained period of time.” Reynolds is the fifth PAMS faculty member to receive the award. Previous winners include Forrest C. “Buzz” Hentz (Chemistry, 1994–1995), Richard R. Patty (Physics, 1998–1999), William H. Swal-low (Statistics, 2006–2007) and Robert J. Beichner (Physics, 2009–2010). In addition to being a world-renowned astrophysicist, Reynolds is also an ac-complished violinist. As an undergradu-ate student at Harvard, he served as concertmaster and assistant conduc-tor of the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra. In graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, he performed with the Oakland Symphony and other Bay Area professional orchestras. An endowed scholarship recently was es-tablished in Reynolds’ honor to support an outstanding undergraduate student who is pursuing a minor in music with a stringed instrument. Reynolds received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard in 1971, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 and 1980, respectively. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Wang keeps PAMS’ CAREER Award streak going strong Huixia “Judy” Wang, assistant profes-sor of statistics, has received an Early Career Development Award, more com-monly known as a CAREER Award, from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award is one of the highest honors given by NSF to early-career university faculty in science and engineering, and is intended to advance the development of their research and careers. This is the 18th CAREER Award received by a PAMS fac-ulty member—and the fourth received by a member of the statistics faculty—since 2004. Each of the college’s academic departments has received at least two awards during that time. Wang’s five-year, $400,000 grant will fund research related to her proposal, titled “A new and pragmatic framework for modeling and predicting conditional quantiles in data-sparse regions.” Through this work, Wang and her collaborators will seek to develop new theories and meth-odologies to better model and predict events that may be extremely rare, yet have significant consequences. Unexpect-edly heavy rainfall, large portfolio loss, and dangerously low birth weight are just a few examples of the types of events that could be addressed. A native of Henan Province, China, Wang earned her B.S. and M.S. in statis-tics from Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University before coming to the United States in 2002 to conduct her doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. After earning her Ph.D. in 2006, Wang joined the faculty of the NC State University Department of Statistics, where her research has focused on bioin-formatics, quantile regression, measure-ment error, missing data, longitudinal data analysis, survival data analysis, empirical likelihood and extremes. Reynolds receives award for excellence in teaching Photo By Marc Hal Photo by Becky Kirkland Huixia “Judy” Wang scope | Summer 2012 ■ 17 Harald Ade (Physics), Jerry Bernholc (Physics) and Sastry Pantula (Statistics) were elected as Fellows of the Ameri-can Association for the Advancement of Science, an international organization “dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional organization.” Edmond Bowden (Chemistry) was named the 2011 “Alumni Star” by the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University. Bowden earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from VCU in 1982 before joining the NC State faculty. Charles Case (B.S. ‘73 Physics) was named a North Carolina Super Lawyer for 2012. Case is a partner in the firm of Hunton & Williams and heads up the firm’s environmental group in Raleigh. He also serves on the board of directors of the PAMS Foundation. It is the seventh consecutive year that he has appeared on this annual listing of the state’s top attorneys. Richard Deans (Chemistry undergrad-uate student) was one of four NC State students to receive a 2012 Goldwater Scholarship. This merit-based scholarship is awarded to about 300 college sopho-mores and juniors nationwide. Todd Fuller (B.S. ‘96 Applied Math-ematics) is a member of the 2012 class of the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament Legends. A na-tive of Charlotte, Fuller was a dominant inside presence for the Wolfpack, earning All-ACC honors three times and leading the conference in scoring his senior year before a five-year career in the National Basketball Association. Chueng Ji (Physics) was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for his remarkable and pioneering con-tributions in QCD (quantum chromody-namics) applying light-front dynamics to fundamental aspects of hadron physics, including spectroscopy, wave functions and form factors.” Tim Kelley (Mathematics) has been named chair of the board of trustees of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, an international organization of more than 13,000 applied and computational mathematicians, computer scientists, numerical analysts, engineers, statisticians, mathematics educators and students. Nicholas Lowman (Applied Math-ematics graduate student), Molly Matty (Chemistry undergraduate student) and Alison Moyer (Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences graduate student) received National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships. These prestigious fellowships support outstand-ing students in STEM disciplines, provid-ing three years of support with an annual stipend of $30,000, a cost-of-education allowance, and international research and professional development opportunities. Paul Roelle (M.S. ’96, Ph.D. ’01 Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sci-ences) has been promoted to the rank of colonel by the U.S. Air Force. Roelle is the deputy chief of integration, plans and requirements for Headquarters Air Force Weather. Photo by Aelx Sacehnz NC State Madei Renslatio NOTABLES Courtesy of Paul Roele Todd Fuller Molly Matty Paul Roelle 18 ■ Summer 2012 | scope John Blondin has been selected to serve as head of the Department of Physics, effective January 1. He suc-ceeded Michael Paesler, who returned to the faculty after six years of service as department head. Blondin earned a B.A. in physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1982. He then proceeded to the University of Chicago for graduate studies, earning his M.S. in 1984 and his Ph.D. in 1987 under the direction of Arieh Konigl. He com-pleted postdoctoral research positions at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Virginia and UNC-Chapel Hill before joining the NC State physics faculty as an assistant professor in 1993. He was promoted to associate professor in 1997 and full professor in 2002. Before being appointed head, Blondin had served as the department’s director of under-graduate programs since 2007. An internationally renowned astrophysi-cist, Blondin has been computing the cos-mos for over 20 years, using everything from a laptop to supercomputers. He began his experience in high-performance computing with the opening of the Na-tional Center for Supercomputing Applica-tions, and continues to take advantage of the largest machines currently available, including Ranger at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, with 63,000 processor cores, and Jaguar at the National Center for Computational Sciences, with 224,000 processor cores. His research includes interacting binary stars, accretion disks around black holes, supernova remnants, and the origin of supernova explosions. He co-authored the hydrodynamics code VH-1, which is widely used in the astro-physics community. John Blondin has been honored throughout his career for excellence in research and teaching. He received the Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award in 1995, Cottrell Scholar Award in 1996 and National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award in 1997, and he was elected a Fellow of the American Physi-cal Society in 2009. Blondin also received NC State University’s Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award in 2000 and the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Award in 2010. In his very limited free time, Blondin enjoys playing ice hockey with his two sons, both of whom are NC State mathematics majors. Physics has a rich history at NC State, dating back to the earliest days of the uni-versity. In 2009, two now emeritus faculty members, Jasper Memory and Raymond Fornes, completed a comprehensive history of the department, titled History of the NC State University Department of Physics: A Success Story. You can check it out at www.phys-ics. ncsu.edu/history. You may remember how difficult it was to manage the expense of higher education. You may want to help today’s students achieve their dreams. The PAMS Foundation provides many ways to support students, faculty and pro-grams of the college. Whether you want to contribute to an existing scholarship, support a departmental enhancement fund, make a memorial gift or consider support in other areas, our staff is avail-able to help you explore the options. To support existing funds To contribute to a scholarship, fellow-ship or other fund, fill out our secure, online gift form at www.pams.ncsu. edu/give or mail a check to the PAMS Founda-tion, Campus Box 8201, Raleigh, NC, 27695. Make checks payable to PAMS Foundation and write the name of the fund on the “notes” or “for” line. If your employer provides matches for charitable donations, please send a completed matching gift form with your contribution. There are many funds not mentioned in this issue of Scope. For a full list of funds, visit go.ncsu. edu/pams_funds or contact our office. To explore other options If you have questions about gift planning, we can help you identify tax benefits, choose between permanent en-dowment versus one-time support, and explore estate planning or life-income options. There are many ways to match your interests with specific college needs, and several possibilities for making your vision a reality. Whether using cash, appreciated stock, real estate or a bequest, we can help you find the best way to make the most of your gift. Contact us at 919-515-3462 or by e- mail at pams_dev@ncsu.edu. Blondin chosen as of new head physics John Blondin How to make a gift Photo By Marc Hal Summer For a celebration worthy of NC State’s 125th birthday, we need more than just one party. In fact, we’re going to take a whole year to celebrate and invite all our closest friends, starting with faculty, staff, students and alumni. The celebration theme, Tradition and Transformation, sets the stage to take a proud look at our past and imagine the many discoveries ahead. It all started on March 5, with the traditional Founder’s Day Dinner, followed by the transformation of the university’s Website, ncsu.edu, on March 7, NC State’s official birthday. The first week of March also marked the unveiling of the 125th logos, which include stylized renderings of the Memorial Bell Tower. But that’s just the beginning. A blue-ribbon planning committee, co-chaired by Dean Dan Solomon, has put together a series of signature events. Undoubt-edly, the highlight so far was a raucous, campus-wide birthday party held April 2 at Reynolds Coliseum. More than 4,500 students, faculty, staff and supporters came out to enjoy music, food and give-aways and to share their Wolfpack pride. Beyond the campus-wide activities, entities from across the university—from the 12 colleges to dozens of student organizations— are also taking part by giving their programming this year a special 125th twist. “What I like about the 125th is that it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate our connection and passion for NC State,” says Nevin Kessler, vice chancellor for university advancement and the other co-chair of the 125th planning committee. “We can set our goals a little higher, reach a little further than we have in the past, and have some fun doing it.” You can keep up with the latest 125th news at 125.ncsu.edu. A 125 scope | summer 2012 ■ 19 making years celebration in the Photos Courtesy of University Communications 20 ■ Summer 2012 | scope Kristen Hall loves NC State, PAMS and the Department of Marine, Earth and At-mospheric Sciences (MEAS). As a gradu-ate student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington who just earned her B.S. in geology from NC State in 2010, Hall is not in a position to make a large donation to her alma mater. That doesn’t make her any less committed to giving back and supporting current students. She also knows that her contribution, combined with others, goes a long way toward making a transformative impact on the department, college and university she loves so much. “I decided to make a gift to PAMS because of the great experiences I had as a geology major,” Hall says. “While I was at NC State, I had so many opportunities at my fingertips, and I hope my small gift will go a long way in continuing to make those opportunities possible.” During her time as an undergraduate student, Hall took full advantage of both NC State’s world-class research opportu-nities and the smaller communities the university and PAMS offer. She worked in the laboratory and in the field alongside MEAS graduate students and faculty, quickly developing a sense of what it means to do real research. She was also a part of the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) living-learning village and was the president of the PAMS Student Council. A native of Wilmington, NC, Hall is using her experiences at NC State to study shoreline erosion and accretion of Masonboro Island. Her research is directed at how hurricanes, beach renour-ishment, and the implementation of the jetties have affected the island. She also works at the tutoring center on campus focusing on geology, physics, chemistry, environmental sciences, oceanography and marine biology and teaches classes every semester in UNCW’s Department of Geography and Geology. Every gift counts While universities across the country, including NC State, tend to publicize the larger, sometimes million dollar gifts, smaller gifts have a tendency to go unannounced. However, they are very much noticed—and very much appreciated. Last year, gifts of $100 or less to NC State added up to just over $1.1 million, with over $40,000 going to PAMS. These gifts impact the university’s reputation as well as its bottom line. Alumni giving—at any level—is a key factor in college and university rank-ings, including the annual rankings in U.S. News and World Report. Parents and students often compare rankings when making enrollment decisions. According to Ann Horner, executive director of the NC State Annual Fund, alumni gifts are more important than ever. “My goal for Annual Giving at NC State is to help alumni get into the habit of giving back to us,” she says. “The best thing about annual giving is that anyone can participate. All it takes is that first gift in the amount best for that person at that time.” To make a gift of any amount to PAMS, please contact the Office of Col-lege Advancement at 919-515-3462 or give online at www.pams. ncsu.edu/give. Young alumni show their in ways big and small Wolcfpak pride Kristen Hall on graduation day and hard at work as a UNC Wilmington graduate student photos courtesy of Kristen Hal Dr. Margaret D. “Canopy Meg Lowman is director of the Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and research professor in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State University. “ Learn more at www.pams.ncsu.edu How do we address some of the world’s greatest challenges and unlock the mysteries of the universe? We start by preparing the next generation of scientists with the skills, the confidence and the sense of responsibility to be effective communicators of science and informers of public policy. The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences at NC State is proud to be a leading partner with the Nature Research Center in inspiring future generations to be great scientists and great science champions. Transform. NC State University. Partners in Transforming Science Nonprofit Org US Postage PAID Raleigh, NC Permit #2353 Campus Box 8201 Raleigh, North Carolina 27695–8201 Encourage Excellence Your contribution to the PAMS Fund for Excellence provides direct support for Dean’s Circle Scholarships. These scholarships help the college recruit the best and brightest students from across North Carolina and beyond—students who will be the next generation of science leaders. Giving is easy. You can either contact our office directly or give online at www.pams.ncsu.edu/give. The online gift form will allow you to designate your gift to the Fund for Excellence or the departmental fund of your choice. www.pams.ncsu.edu pams_dev@ncsu.edu 919-515-3462 Would you like to be a member of the Dean’s Circle? Donor recognition levels begin with your gift of $1,000 or more. |
OCLC number | 234234013 |