USU CoS
The Spring 2019 Issue of Our Friends and Alumni Magazine
The Spring 2019 issue of Discovery, the alumni magazine of Utah State University College of Science, is  now available online . Enjoy alumni stories, college news and a guest column about developing scientific identities by alum Doug Ball. Read about the 30th year of USU's Physics Day at Lagoon and gain insight into Moab's iconic landscape.
Above - Aggie Alum Ruth Novak at Hercules Bacchus Works in Magna, Utah, in the early 1960’s. Novak began her career as a statistician in Quality Assurance.
On October 4, 1957, NBC Radio interrupted a broadcast of the World Series with the announcement: “Listen now for a sound that forevermore separates the old from the new,” followed by a bleating signal from space: “Beep-beep-beep.”

The simple, repeating A-flat tone emanated from Sputnik I, the world’s first human-made satellite. Launched into Earth’s orbit by the Soviet Union, its persistent chirp was a clarion call to startled audiences throughout the world, who never dreamed the U.S.S.R. would lead the charge into the final frontier.

Yet there it was. The Soviets’ launch not only blasted the beach ball-sized satellite into orbit, but ignited a fiercely competitive space race between global superpowers, laid the groundwork for today’s satellite-dependent society and fueled the imaginations of generations of budding scientists...
Above - USU Geology alum James Mauch maps a site in Spanish Valley near Moab, Utah
New Insights into Moab’s Youthful Landscape
These days, USU Geology alum James Mauch MS’18 is busy in his new position as a geologist with the Wyoming State Geological Survey.Based in Laramie with the Hazards, Mapping and Water Resources Division, Mauch is applying his expertise in tectonic geomorphology, geologic mapping, GIS, Quaternary geochronology and geologic hazards to the Equality State’s diverse landscapes. As a graduate student at Utah State, he focused, with faculty mentor, Professor Joel Pederson, on exploring and understanding the origins of southwest Utah’s unique red rock landscape.

Named the College of Science’s 2018 Master’s Student Researcher of the Year, Mauch’s findings were featured in a recent issue of Moab Happenings, Southwest Utah’s Event Magazine. The article, written by Allyson Mathis, is reprinted with permission.

New geologic research into the history of the landscape near Moab has yielded a much better understanding of how it has changed in the recent geologic past and how it continues to evolve. Geologists have long understood that the canyons, cliffs, pinnacles and other geologic features found near Moab are young, but until recently they have struggled to quantify the age of this landscape.
Above - Wearing their e-shirts, Aggie Alum Doug Ball’s students prepare to board a ride at Lagoon during USU Physics Day.
“No matter what others may tell you, I consider you physicists the moment you graduate with a bachelor’s degree in physics.”

Those were the words of an out-of-state visiting physics professor spoken to us undergraduates during a colloquium the year I graduated in physics from Utah State. I have since asked myself why she would make the argument to consider oneself a scientist rather early in a profession. Was I qualified to be a scientist at such a time?

My career path ventured into secondary education as a physics teacher and eventually back to Utah State, where I am now a PhD student in science education. Questions around learning and doing science as it relates to science identity are my driving dissertation research questions. Understanding science identity is understanding how people, and in my case K-12 students, see themselves as citizen scientists, career scientists, or my hope as everyday scientists.