Volume 12 | August 28, 2019
Students, Staff, Faculty, Alumni and Friends,

We are excited to begin the fall 2019 semester and offer a special welcome to all new faculty and staff, to the large and immensely talented new undergraduate class of 2023, and to our new master’s and doctoral students and postdocs.

We are one College with a shared mission to master existing human knowledge, create new knowledge through our research and scholarship, and put those understandings to work to advance our fields of study, strengthen communities and improve society. Although there is still much work to be done, the College is proud to be a leader in research, educational affordability and student success, and in nurturing, sustaining and championing diversity and inclusion. We must do more to ensure our mission is properly met.
 
Last year, 40 students utilized the Emergency Scholarship Fund to remain enrolled in school. Serving students such as these, which was a passion of the late Homer Paul, will be among our greatest needs on  OU Giving Day .
 
This is the first edition of the College of Arts and Sciences newsletter for the 2019-20 academic year. Please join us in celebrating the excellence of our College in the stories that follow, because our students, faculty and staff are, with the support of alumni and friends across the globe, creating the new knowledge and understanding that improves the world.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OU GIVING DAY SET FOR SEPT. 10
Be a part of something BIG when Sooners around the world join together Sept. 10.

OU Giving Day is an annual university-wide fundraising event that lasts ONE DAY to inspire students, alumni and friends to make a gift to the areas on campus that are meaningful to them. For ONE DAY we encourage you, Sooner Nation, to come together as a community and show your support.

Your participation helps provide educational and cultural experiences for OU students. Last year on Giving Day, generous donors like you helped raise $480,000 for scholarships, colleges, departments and programs. Visit the College of Arts and Sciences Giving Day website Sept. 10 to support our College.

This year, the Board of Advocates for the College of Arts and Sciences has generously offered to match every gift, dollar for dollar, up to $3,500! Make your gift to the undergraduate scholarship support fund to double your impact! The board is doing this in memory of Mr. Homer Paul. Homer was a loyal alumnus of the College of Arts and Sciences, a wonderful friend to many areas of the University and is greatly missed.
BEAT TEXAS RECEPTION TO BE HELD OCT. 11
College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Wrobel and University Libraries Interim Dean Carl Grant invite you to join our team at the Beat Texas Reception, set from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, at the Omni Dallas Hotel (Fair Park 2), 555 S. Lamar St. Please respond by Sept. 27 at link.ou.edu/OUinDallas   or (405) 325-6201 .
WELCOME NEW FACULTY MEMBERS
The College is pleased to w elcome   and congratulate 32 faculty members who will join the University or who have taken a new position this year. We work hard to identify and recruit the most gifted scholars and teachers from around the country and across the world. Each one brings accomplishments to our University and we look forward to their contributions to our community for many years to come. Please visit the   College website   to view a complete list of new faculty members.
SCOTT GLUCK NAMED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT
On Aug. 19, Scott Gluck joined the College of Arts and Sciences as executive director of development. Gluck will plan and implement development activities to facilitate philanthropic support of strategic initiatives for the College and its 28 academic units and 20 Research Units, Centers, Institutes and Surveys. He will serve as the College liaison to University Development and steward and cultivate relationships to advance the mission of the College and the University. 

Gluck comes to OU with proven success as a strategic advancement leader in higher education and nonprofit organizations. Prior to joining OU, he served for more than six years at Ohio University as the senior director of development for the Russ College of Engineering and Technology. During the “Promise Lives” Capital Campaign, Ohio University raised over $550 million, of which $124 million was raised by the Russ College of Engineering and Technology; both totals were records for Ohio University. 

Prior to Ohio U., Gluck was the director of development for the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre (2010-12) and the director of annual giving for the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Foundation (2009-10).

Born in Wooster, Ohio, Gluck is a Certified Fund-Raising Executive who earned his master’s degree in sports administration from St. Thomas University and his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Slippery Rock University. 

He and his wife, Debbie, have three daughters, Gabriella, Gianna and Graycabella. 
“The University of Oklahoma has an amazing combination of a storied history and remarkable future,” Gluck said. “I was immediately impressed by the passion and commitment of alumni, friends, faculty, staff and students, and look forward to becoming part of the OU family and the College of Arts and Sciences.” 

Gluck succeeds Eric Melton, who provided two years of outstanding service to Arts and Sciences as interim executive director of development while continuing to serve as OU’s director of planned giving. “The college offers a warm and enthusiastic welcome to the OU family to Scott, an accomplished and committed development leader, and to his family,” said Dean David Wrobel. 
The Civic Engagement Fellows accept an award from the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education on behalf of OU as the overall winner of the 2018 Campus Compact voter registration contest. Pictured (front left) are State Regents Chair Jay Helm, Madison Morrow, Lauren Schueler and Chancellor Glen D. Johnson; (back left to right) Stephen Cromwell and Carson Ball.
OU VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE AND COMPETITION
From July 1 through Oct. 11, OU Votes is coordinating a campus-wide voter registration drive as part of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education and Oklahoma Campus Compact’s Voter Registration Competition. OU is competing against OCCC, OSU, TCC and UCO to achieve the greatest percentage of student body registration for both in-state and out-of-state students. OU regularly leads the state in voter registration efforts and in 2018 won the overall competition after registering 685 students.

OU Votes is a student-led effort that focuses on student voter registration, voter mobilization and education. OU Votes is a coordinated effort between various student organizations, colleges and departments and is sponsored by the Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center.

In addition to voter registration, OU Votes sponsors debate and election watch parties, a politics and pizza series and disseminates information about elections. Visit bit.ly/OUVotes for important information about voter registration, upcoming events and more.
COLLEGE SPOTLIGHT

SUPPORTING DATA SCHOLARSHIP
Jonathan McFadden
Chongle Pan
Carrie Schroeder
Data are an ever-growing part of scholarship. This is true across all scholarly domains we serve in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences — natural sciences, social sciences, humanities and professional programs. 

The ability to manipulate and analyze data sets, especially “big” data sets, is a high-demand skill. Our aim is to increase support for data scholarship, research and creative activity in the College by supporting ongoing scholarly activities of faculty and implementing new learning opportunities in the form of classes, certificates and minors. The applications of data science are wide ranging and run the gamut from medical imaging, bio-related research and business decision making to the mining of historical and literary texts.

To strengthen   scholarship that builds on synergies with existing and new areas of research focus at OU, the College has invested in hiring in Data Scholarship across our areas.

In the humanities, this year we are welcoming Carrie Schroeder as a professor in the Department of Classics and Letters. In the social sciences, this year we are welcoming Jonathan McFadden as an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. In 2018, Chongle Pan joined the natural sciences with a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology and the School of Computer Science in the Gallogly College of Engineering.

Visit the college website to learn more about the new faculty members and our commitment to data scholarship. 
STUDENTS TRAIN FOR CAREERS IN BILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY
OU-TULSA HOSTS SIGNING DAY EVENT
OU-Tulsa will receive a $550,000 grant, thanks to the partnership between OU-Tulsa’s Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work and the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s Children and Family Services Administration. The grant, provided over four years, will allocate stipends to students to earn their bachelor’s or master’s degree in social work. Five students were selected to receive WEI UP stipends: Brittani Candioto, Samantha Faulk, Trenton Rabbit and Jennifer Shelley of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and Karie Mashunkashey of the Cherokee Nation. To honor the five inaugural recipients, OU-Tulsa hosted a Signing Day event. Upon graduation, the recipients will work at CFSA or another tribal child welfare program.
INSIDE-OUT PROGRAM RECEIVES SUPPORT FROM THE LEMON FAMILY FOUNDATION
The OU Department of Sociology received a gift of $25,000 from the Lemon Family Foundation to support the Department's Inside-Out Program at Mabel Bassett Correctional Center. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program that facilitates dialogue across differences by bringing together OU college students with incarcerated students for a semester-long university-level course held in a prison. OU sociology is proud to continue the tradition of offering students the chance to participate in the "Inside-Out" program. OU sociology offers the course, "Drugs, Alcohol, and Society," to 15 OU students and 15 Mabel Bassett students each year. 

The OU Inside-Out Endowment at the OU Foundation was established last year by a former student, Abigail Utz, in coordination with OU sociology professors John Carl and Loretta Bass, and with the support of the Utz Family Foundation. The OU Inside-Out Endowment is used to support program costs and training, and it hopes to arrange for college credits for the Mabel Bassett Inside students. For more information about the OU Inside-Out Program, please contact soc@ou.edu or click here
FACULTY AND STAFF ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Georgia Kosmopoulou , associate dean for research in the College, was recently appointed as a co-editor for the Southern Economic Journal . SEJ , the journal published by the Southern Economic Association, is the eighth oldest American academic journal in the profession. It aims to disseminate results of novel research in theoretical and applied economics. Kosmopoulou also has served since May as an expert at the National Science Foundation. 
Pictured (left to right) are David, Jonathan, Rhonda and Mary
The OU Department of Intercollegiate Athletics welcomed Rhonda Dean Kyncl and her husband, David, as Headington Hall's newest Faculty-in-Residence family. Rhonda serves as the associate dean for students in the College, while David is an adviser and recruiter in the Gibbs College of Architecture.

The Kyncls moved to OU in 1999.They have two children: Mary, who graduated from OU with a degree in elementary education, and Jonathan, who is a sophomore in the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication this fall.

The faculty-in-residence program was established at OU in 1997 to ensure students living on campus had a faculty family presence under the same roof. The program enables students to develop out of the class room relationships and experiences with professors. Faculty members and their families live in OU housing centers and often host guest lecturers, special meals and other events, while also providing a further sense of home-life qualities for residents.
Earlier this year, June Abbas professor , School of Library and Information Studies, became the editor-in-chief for the prestigious journal Library and Information Sciences Research . Her transdisciplinary research focuses on the complex process of user-centered design of systems, which combines an understanding of users’ information behaviors and interactions with systems (e.g., computers, social media, and other humans), with principles of knowledge and information organization and representation, to design the systems based on users, their information organization needs and work tasks, and how they engage with systems of all forms. Abbas’ research also focuses on youth and the socio-cognitive factors associated with use of information technology. Her research spans boundaries and has brought new understanding to the field about various communities. Her research projects have developed new and innovative knowledge in the fields of library and information science, computer science and digital humanities.
Charles Kimball , Presidential Professor and director of religious studies, has authored Truth Over Fear: Combating the Lies About Islam. Kimball writes questions and fears about Islam have proliferated American life for decades, from the Iranian Revolution in 1979 to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Yet more recent history has seen a new development in the tangle of Christian-Muslim relations: the mainstreaming of Islamophobia as a path to political and societal power at the highest level. Politicians and religious leaders now routinely spread fear and confusion about Muslim beliefs and practice to bolster their own positions. Truth over Fear  provides resources to address the manipulation of religious misunderstanding and intolerance. A renowned Christian scholar of Islam and longtime participant in Christian-Muslim engagement, Kimball demystifies Islam, the world’s second-largest religion, and provides practical guidance on how to share simple facts about Muslim beliefs and practices with family and others, how to take the first steps in dialogue with Muslim neighbors, and how to move beyond dialogue to shared ministry and community building. 
Chan Hellman, OU-Tulsa social work professor, is making a difference worldwide through his work on “Hope.”   He spent two weeks in Ireland, where he delivered the keynote speech at the “From Hurt to Hope” international conference for judges, attorneys and advocates whose work is focused on domestic violence response. 
Victor Hutchison (George Lynn Cross Professor Emeritus of Biology) has received the Henry S. Fitch Award for Excellence in Herpetology. The award is administered by the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and was presented at the annual Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists this July in Snowbird, Utah. The Fitch Award is one of ASIH’s highest honors and is given for long-term excellence in the study of amphibian and/or reptile biology.
Assistant professor of sociology Samuel Perry and his co-authors were recently awarded the 2019 Distinguished Sociology of Religion Journal Article Award by the Association for the Sociology of Religion for their 2018 article, " Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election ," published in the journal Sociology of Religion . In addition, Perry was recently interviewed by The New Yorker about his book Addicted to Lust: Pornography in the Lives of Conservative Protestants (Oxford University Press, 2019).
JA Pryse , senior archivist at the Carl Albert Center, recently received two awards for his community outreach efforts and contributions. In August, Pryse received an award from the Pioneer Library Board of Trustees in recognition of his work with library patrons during the previous year. In September, Pryse will receive the Certificate of Recognition from the Oklahoma Museums Association recognizing his contribution to the community.

Pryse was also selected to attend a Specialized Data Curation workshop Nov. 5-6 at Washington University in St. Louis. The workshop is hosted by Penn State University Libraries through a grant from the Institute for Library and Museum Services. The program seeks to build and extend capacity for advanced data curation among academic library staff nationwide.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Meredith Worthen , professor in the Department of Sociology, recently published a paper that explores the so-called “rainbow wave” of LGBTQ voters that emerged during the Trump presidency . The paper was published in the Springer Nature journal, Sexuality Research and Social Policy . Specifically, the study examined sexual, gender and queer identity gaps in liberalism among a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults collected by Survey Sampling International after the November 2018 polls. The OU study works toward a deeper understanding of the political motivations of LGBTQ people.
An OU-led study generated improved annual maps of tropical forest cover in the Brazilian Amazon in 2000-17 and provided better characterization on the spatio-temporal dynamics of forest area, loss and gain in this region. The findings from the study could have significant implications for land-use policy, forest management and conservation, terrestrial carbon-cycle, hydrology and climate. The study, “Improved Estimates of Forest Cover and Loss in the Brazilian Amazon in 2000-2017,” was published in Nature Sustainability . “Monitoring, verification and reporting of tropical forest dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon have been a critical but challenging task for the research community and society-at-large. Available maps of tropical forest cover in the region have large uncertainty. In 2015, we assembled an international team from the United States, Brazil and China to tackle the challenging problem,” said Xiangming Xiao , George Lynn Cross Research Professor, Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology.
An OU team of microbiologists, led by Jizhong Zhou , director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics, have developed a mathematical framework for quantitatively assessing ecological diversity in an ecological community, whether deterministic or stochastic. A recent study by Zhou and his team has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Click here for more information.
Physicist Bruno Uchoa has published a paper on Mott physics in Physical Review Letters. OU physicists show the Mott state in graphene bilayers favors ferromagnetic alignment of the electron spins, a phenomenon unheard of in conventional Mott insulators, and a new concept on the novel insulating state observed in twisted graphene bilayers.

“We are trying to understand the nature of the Mott state in this system,” said Uchoa. “The Mott state we proposed is an insulating state that may lead to superconductivity in some conditions, yet is different from Mott states observed in other systems. There are fundamental differences, however, and this is what we are studying.”
The pungent smell of the spray associated with skunks has inspired countless home remedies over the years, including tomato juice, hydrogen peroxide and baking soda, but OU researchers have identified a compound from fungi that safely and effectively neutralizes skunk spray odor.
 
Professor Robert Cichewicz and his team at the Natural Products Discovery Group published their findings in a recent edition of the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Natural Products.  Cichewicz also recently discussed the research with News Channel 4.
Samuel Eliades, a third-year ecology and evolutionary biology Ph.D. student and researcher at the Sam Noble Museum, is leading a project at the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden to help save one of the state’s most iconic species: the horny toad . Formally known as the Texas horned lizard, this species – once a common sight across much of the state – has become increasingly rare as its habitat has been lost and fragmented due to urbanization and other factors. A National Science Foundation-funded study underway at the OKC Zoo’s Lizard Lab is exploring how to improve survival rates of lizards raised in human care when they are reintroduced into the wild. The research is also examining how the gut bacteria in populations in human care compares to that in wild populations. (Photo courtesy of the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden)
The Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center was recently awarded a $5,000 grant from the American Political Science Association’s Special Projects Fund. The project, “Indian Self-Determination and the People’s Voice” will engage graduate students and early-career indigenous scholars by providing funding for a research workshop using the Carl Albert Congressional and Political Collections. 
ELLEN RUBENSTEIN - LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES

SUSAN K. BURKE - LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES

$475,785 - INSTITUTE OF MUSEUM AND LIBRARY SERVICES NATIONAL LEADERSHIP GRANT

COMMUNITY HEALTH AND WELLNESS: SMALL AND RURAL LIBRARY PRACTICES, PERSPECTIVES AND PROGRAMS

Ellen Rubenstein and Susan K. Burke joined with Noah Lenstra (Department of Library and Information Science, University of North Carolina at Greensboro), and Christine D'Arpa (School of Information Sciences, Wayne State University) to receive a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to study health and wellness programming in public libraries in Oklahoma, Vermont, North Carolina and Michigan. The researchers will perform an in-depth analysis of how small and rural public libraries support community health and wellness through public programs. The research will be used to develop and disseminate a model that will inform libraries about successful strategies and common obstacles associated with developing new health and wellness programs and how to assess and build on existing programs. By gathering data from librarians, patrons and outside partners with whom libraries develop and implement these programs, the project team will answer the over-arching research question: How do small and rural public libraries address health and wellness through public programs?
ERIN MAHER  - SOCIOLOGY

DIANE HORM - EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION INSTITUTE

$63,312 - OKLAHOMA PARTNERSHIP FOR SCHOOL READINESS

EVALUATION OF OK FUTURES PRESCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANT


Erin Maher and Diane Horm have been awarded an evaluation contract to support the goals of a Preschool Development Grant awarded by the Departments of U.S. Health and Human Services and Education. The $3 million federal grant, Oklahoma’s Future Begins with Children (OKFutures), is a one-year grant to conduct a needs assessment and strategic plan through a collaborative and community engagement process for improving the quality, availability and parental choice for the birth to age 5 population throughout the state of Oklahoma. The researchers will be evaluating the collaboration, planning process and pilot efforts of the grant, as well as developing a system-wide evaluation framework. This work aligns with OU’s commitment to being a national leader in early childhood research and practice. Click here for more information about the OKFutures planning grant awarded to Oklahoma. 
LARA MAYEUX   - PSYCHOLOGY

DAPHNE LADUE - CENTER FOR ANALYSIS AND PREDICTION OF STORMS


$20,913 -  U.S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

PILOTING A SURVIVOR STORY PROTOCOL
This NOAA-funded project brings together social scientists and engineers to explore questions related to tornado survivability and decision-making. Mayeux and LaDue are working with engineering professors David Roueche of Auburn University and Frank Lombardo of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This is a field study that requires the group to deploy to areas hit by tornadoes quite quickly; for example, in the pilot study, they were in Lee County interviewing survivors within 8 days of the March 2019 outbreak. They combine interviews with people who survived a tornado in their home with structural engineering assessments of the damage to the home to better understand how structures “fail” during tornadoes, and how best to prevent those failures. They are also exploring factors that influence decision-making related to taking shelter, including the kinds of communications people receive (e.g., weather alerts, texts from loved ones) and the social context of the sheltering decision (such as whether there are children present in the home). Finally, they are interested in identifying the kinds of coping strategies that survivors use during and after the tornado, as well as factors that promote resilience.
HANK JENKINS-SMITH   - POLITICAL SCIENCE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK AND RESILIENCE

CAROL SILVA   - POLITICAL SCIENCE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RISK AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

$118,000 - SANDIA LABORATORIES

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT FOR THE NUCLEAR ENERGY FUEL CYCLE PROGRAMS

Through this project, OU's Center for Energy, Security and Society will assist Sandia in developing a strategy to capture, transfer and preserve knowledge for Sandia's Nuclear Energy Fuel Cycle Programs. In the initial stages of the project, the CES&S research team identified key knowledge areas to be captured, effective methods of transferring knowledge and approaches to preserve and update knowledge in the future. In the second stage of the project (continuing into the fall of 2019), the research team will design and conduct focus groups aimed at identifying the types of information about the Nuclear Energy Fuel Cycle Programs that would be of most interest to the target audience (early and mid-career staff within the NEFC) as well as the preferred methods of delivery and accessibility of the captured knowledge. They will then make recommendations to Sandia that will inform the implementation of knowledge capture, transfer and preservation efforts, and will develop and implement a knowledge capture and preservation application that will provide easy accessibility to the captured information for the target audience and offer the ability to easily update the information.
JOE RIPBERGER - POLITICAL SCIENCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RISK AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

HANK JENKINS-SMITH   - POLITICAL SCIENCE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RISK AND RESILIENCE

CAROL SILVA   - POLITICAL SCIENCE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR RISK AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

$122,964 - U.S. DEPARTMENT. OF COMMERCE, NOAA, NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LAB 

SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL MEASURES OF NWS PERFORMANCE IN SEVERE WEATHER FORECASTS AND WARNINGS

National Weather Service forecasters have many responsibilities, ranging from the issuance of forecasts and warnings during high-impact weather events to outreach and public education campaigns during less turbulent periods. Effective risk communication across this range of responsibilities requires knowledge of the communities that forecasters serve. This includes knowledge about atmospheric and climate conditions in communities as well as knowledge about the people in those communities. Forecasters often have access to a wide variety of data that facilitate the first type of knowledge, but relatively little data on the populations they serve. As a result, it can be difficult to answer basic questions, such as what risks do the people in my community worry about or neglect? Do they generally receive, understand and respond to forecasts and warnings? What sources of information do they rely on and trust? This project will help forecasters evaluate and improve risk communication practices by providing data that will help them identify the characteristics of the communities they serve.
VALENTIN RYBENKOV - CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

ROBERT CICHEWICZ - CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

$232,500 - U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HEALTH

SMALL MOLECULE INHIBITORS OF BACTERIAL CONDENSIN

A number of pathogenic bacteria have developed resistance to all presently available antibiotics resulting in high mortality rates among affected patients. Drug resistance continues to spread, necessitating the development of novel antibiotics. Rybenkov's group has recently validated a new target for antibacterial drug discovery and discovered the first known inhibitors of this target. The new grant from NIH supports further search for condensin inhibitors aiming to discover plausible leads for antibiotic development.
CECIL LEWIS - ANTHROPOLOGY

DAVID JACOBSON - ANTHROPOLOGY (PH.D. STUDENT)

$30,972 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

FACTORS INFLUENCING ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS OF THE HUMAN GUT MICROBIOME

When we examine microbes on humans, we see a rich ecology of largely friendly or health-neutral bacteria. However, we also see that these ecologies change in response to industrialization, which is hypothesized to have had adverse effects, including a rise in autoimmune diseases. This study compares how human-animal interactions (specifically, between humans and pigs) impacts taxonomic diversity and gene-level ecological function in two distinct populations and lifeways: in Burkina Faso (Africa) and in Oklahoma. Using ecological models and next generation DNA sequencing methods, this tests hypotheses on whether these changes in bacterial taxonomic diversity between lifestyles also reflect changes in functional redundancy and ecological resilience of the human gut ecologies.
KATHLEEN BROSNAN - HISTORY

$124,989 - NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

MAPPING NATURE ACROSS THE AMERICAS - NEH SUMMER SEMINAR FOR K-12 TEACHERS

Kathleen Brosnan, the Travis Chair of Modern American History at OU, and James Akerman, the director of the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library, successfully applied for a grant for a summer seminar of schoolteachers to be held at the Newberry Library in Chicago in July 2020. The official award was made to the Newberry Library. The seminar explores the interplay between mapping and environmental knowledge across Pan-American history. Mapping Nature across the Americas , led by Akerman, a geographer, and Brosnan, an environmental historian, will emphasize how map study can provide insights into the complicated, contradictory, and contested ways in which humans conceived their place in nature through history. The institute will be distinctive in its use of maps as the core texts for this exploration, emphasizing the development of teachers’ skills in the use of maps in their classroom teaching as they consider how mapping has represented and transformed human conceptions of nature over time.

The institute will draw heavily upon the scholarship and insights generated by the successful 2014 NEH summer institute for university and college professors on the same topic, also codirected by Brosnan and Akerman at Newberry. The core text for the institute will be an eponymous collection of essays edited by Brosnan and Akerman , consisting of chapters written by participants and faculty from the 2014 institute. The book will be published in 2020 by the University of Chicago Press.
ANTHONY BURGETT - CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

$20,000 - HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER

OXYGENASE JMJD4 AND ITS ROLE IN BREAST CANCER

The Burgett research group in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, working with collaborators at the OU Health Sciences Center, received a $100,000 grant to investigate new potential anticancer drug compounds targeting the JMJD4 protein. Recently, the JMJD4 protein has been implicated as driving breast cancer proliferation. The OU research group is led by Anthony Burgett, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a member of the Stephenson Cancer Center. Burgett is a College of Arts and Sciences alumnus, earning bachelor of science degrees in microbiology and biochemistry from OU.
MATHEMATICS

$154,264 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

BANACH SPACES AND CONNECTIONS TO RELATED AREAS

Banach spaces are a useful and powerful abstract framework to understand real-world data such as images, sound or experimental results. For this project, the spaces under consideration come from both Signal Processing (which deals with the problem of storing information about an object by considering it as a sum of simpler ones) and Quantum Information Science (which studies a mathematical framework for communications where one can encode information not as a string of zeroes and ones as today’s computers do, but rather in the state of a quantum-mechanical system).
MUKREMIN KILIC - PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

$399,588 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

WOU-MMA: THE WHITE DWARF MASS DISTRIBUTION AND THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE FOREGROUND FROM DOUBLE WHITE DWARFS


White dwarf stars are extremely compact objects that are the remnants of stars of similar mass to the sun, which have exhausted their nuclear fuel, but shine for billions of years from their residual heat. A research collaboration between OU and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory will study the population statistics of white dwarfs, with an emphasis on extremely low-mass double white dwarfs, orbiting each other with periods as short as a few minutes. These studies are very important for astrophysics, since double or binary WDs are expected to be major sources of gravitational waves detected by future space-based gravitational wave observatories such as the planned LISA mission. They are also expected to eventually merge, leading to a stellar explosion or supernova, of Type Ia, an important type of supernova that is used to measure the expansion rate of the universe. The investigators will use data from the Gaia space mission to identify candidate extremely low-mass white dwarfs, and then use ground-based telescopes to confirm the candidates and determine their characteristics. They will also study the entire population of white dwarfs of all masses within about 300 light years of Earth. This project will provide research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students.
SHAORONG LIU - CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

$455,000 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

ENABLING OPEN TUBULAR LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY FOR SINGLE MAMMALIAN CELL ANALYSIS

Cells are life’s smallest building blocks. The capability of analyzing each of these blocks (single cells) enables scientists to better understand how cells develop, how dysfunction cells (illnesses) evolve and how diseases cure. Two major challenges are there for analyzing single cells: (i) the contents in every cell are very complex (many millions of compounds) and (ii) the volume of a single cell is extremely small (less than 100,000,000 th the volume of a drop of water). No effective tools are available for analyzing single cells. The group has developed an advanced technique – narrow open tubular liquid chromatography (NOTLC) – that can potentially overcome the above problems.

Preliminary results were all produced using 2-micron-bore capillaries; the bore size is about one 100 th of the thickness of a human hair. When proteins/peptides were separated, we obtained a peak capacity of ~2000 within three hours, a record number for liquid chromatography. Initial tests from coupling NOTLC with mass spectrometry identified 8,759 unique peptides and 1,568 proteins using only 10 pg sample; this represented ~1000-fold mass sensitivity improvement. Ultra-fast separations were also achieved using NOTLC. For example, six amino acids were separated within ~300 ms, and the separation could be completed within ~1.3 s.
CHUANBIN MAO  - CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY

$329,376 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: PLASMONICALLY-INDUCED PHASE-CORRELATED ULTRALONG TRANSPORT OF EXCITATION ENERGY IN VIRAL QUANTUM DOT CIRCUIT

This research is a collaboration with the University of Alabama on the use of biological structures to assemble functional nanoparticles. The assembled nanoparticle arrays could transmit energy to reduce energy loss.
MICHAEL SANTOS - CHARLES L. BLACKBURN PROFESSOR IN ENGINEERING PHYSICS

$100,000 - AMETHYST RESEARCH, INC.

WAFER GROWTH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF INFRARED DETECTOR ARRAYS

The research group is working with Amethyst Research Inc., in Ardmore, on the development of a camera that is sensitive to light in the extended short-wave infrared (eSWIR) wavelength range. The application areas for an eSWIR camera include homeland security (identification of chemical and biological hazards), agriculture (identification of soil properties and vegetation) and recycling (plastic sorting). The pixels of the camera are made from layered semiconductor materials that are grown by the Santos research group in the Physics and Astronomy department. 
HOMER L. DODGE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

$311,908 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

CAREER: MATTER-WAVE QUANTUM OPTICS IN SPIN-SPACE IN ULTRACOLD SODIUM GASES

Schwettmann’s research group studies collisions in ultracold sodium gases and their applications for quantum technologies such as enhanced microwave sensors. At room temperature, atoms in a gas collide randomly and uncontrollably, but at ultracold temperatures the atoms form what is known as giant matter wave or Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) where they collide in unison with predictable and controllable patterns. The colliding atoms act like small magnets that rotate their north and south poles during each collision. Schwettmann’s team can precisely control these rotations using radio frequency and microwave radiation. This control allows them to put the atoms into interesting configurations. In one such configuration, the atoms form a microwave antenna with quantum-enhanced sensitivity. The proposed research will improve experimental understanding of such sensor configurations and other quantum technologies based on ultracold collisions under realistic circumstances, in the presence of loss and impurities. This has practical applications for development of robust quantum-enhanced sensors, for development of quantum-enhanced probes for ultracold gases, and for improving our understanding of how we can control spin in atomic gases at the quantum level.
ELYSE SINGER - ANTHROPOLOGY

$10,000 - WENNER-GREN FOUNDATION

REMAKING MEXICAN DEATH: THE QUEST FOR DIGNITY AT THE ENDS OF LIFE

Long-standing contests between Church, state and individual control of the body in Mexico crystalized in 2008 with the watershed legalization of “passive euthanasia”—the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment—in the country's left-leaning capital (GDF 2008). As part of the pioneering “Ley de Voluntad Anticipada,” all Mexico City residents can now make their end-of-life wishes known by filing advance directives at a hospital or public notary.

Situated in a context where moral and medical regimes of death are fundamentally in flux, this ethnographic study of a public palliative care hospital in Mexico City is designed to capture how terminally ill patients, care providers and ordinary Mexicans imagine and strive to achieve a “good death,” and what bioethical and bureaucratic obstacles they encounter along the way. 
INGO SCHLUPP - PRESIDENTIAL PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY

$593,443 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

NSFDEB-NERC: THE ORIGIN OF SPERM PARASITISM THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS OF THE AMAZON MOLLY

How do species originate? This question has been a central topic in biology for ages. Most species are formed by a splitting event, but some species are actually formed by combining two existing species into one. Many of these hybrid species are highly unusual. For example, some hybrid fishes are known to have only females in their species, and they can naturally clone themselves – traits that are rare yet fascinating. It is known that they are of hybrid origin, but the exact circumstances under which they were formed are unknown. More importantly, it is often assumed that several important evolutionary changes, such as the loss of males and formation of diploid eggs, happened at the same time. Theoretically, this is highly unlikely, but this is nonetheless the prevailing explanation. In this project, the researchers will attempt to form a synthetic species by carefully following the natural pathway that led to the origin of a fish species, the Amazon molly. This will be done first using mathematical models, which is done by a team in Great Britain, and then in an actual experiment crossing several existing species. This will allow a much deeper understanding of the process that leads to new species and can provide unique insights into the origin of hybrid species. Furthermore, this research will provide a platform for rich outreach to the public via workshops and training opportunities for multiple young scientists in the STEM field.
 
The research aims at artificially forming a species through hybridization of two existing species. This is using an existing species as a model. This existing species is a live-bearing fish from Texas and Mexico that is the result of a natural hybridization event. To retrace the evolution of this species, the research team will use several mathematical techniques, including Monte-Carlo Simulations, to model the most likely pathway for the evolution of a unique set of traits, including unisexuality, formation of unreduced eggs and clonality. Current thinking claims that all of these massive changes happened in one giant evolutionary step, but this does not seem theoretically very likely. Guided by the mathematical models, a large-scale crossing experiment will be conducted to actually form the hybrid species in the laboratory. This will involve crossing sexual fishes, and also crossing the resulting F1 individuals among each other, and backcrossing them. Every unique cross will further be characterized genomically, genetically and morphologically.
BRADLEY STEVENSON - MICROBIOLOGY AND PLANT BIOLOGY

$994,000- NASA’s EXOBIOLOGY PROGRAM

INVESTIGATING A NOVEL ROLE FOR IRON REDOX CYCLING IN THE LITHIFICATION OF MICROBIAL MATS AND THE RISE AND FALL OF STROMATOLITES IN EARTH HISTORY

Bradley Stevenson is part of a multidisciplinary research team from OU, the University of Southern California and Colorado School of Mines that will investigate whether the microbial metabolism of iron plays a novel role in the formation of stromatolites – laminated, fossilized structures typically built by microorganisms. Stromatolites represent the most abundant record of life in the first 7/8ths of Earth history (the Archean and Proterozoic Eons). Despite a long history of study, many fundamental questions remain about the formation of stromatolites and their distribution throughout geologic time. The research team will examine iron reduction in modern stromatolites growing in a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park using a suite of molecular, geochemical and imaging tools. They will then conduct a comparative study of ancient stromatolites, testing the prediction of iron incorporation during lamination formation versus the iron concentrations in ancient oceans. 
DEADLINES AND FEATURED EVENTS
Sept. 1                
Deadline to request a new online course or to redesign an existing online course for the upcoming spring 2020 semester.

Sept. 1               
Junior and Senior Faculty Fellowship reports due to Cassie Zaccarelli-Fleischman.

Sept. 20              
Deadline to make changes to fall 2019 OTIS.

Sept. 24              
Chairs and Directors meeting, 9 a.m., Dale Hall Tower 906

Sept. 25             
CASFAM Staff meeting, 9 a.m., Dale Hall Tower 906
Sept. 25 - Sept. 27
Second Annual Symposium: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at OU. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning comprise a large set of computational techniques for autonomous prediction and decision making, and for using data to automatically construct models that make these possible. In the last several years, the confluence of standardized tools and high-powered computational hardware have made the process of constructing new models, even from large data sets, possible for many science/engineering laboratories and organizations. This convergence is fundamentally changing the way that science and engineering are done in many domains. The goal of this symposium is to bring together AI/ML scientists and practitioners, high-performance computing experts, domain scientists and engineers from the OU campuses, and corporate partners to discuss current and new AI/ML tools and their use in solving research and applied problems, and new opportunities for collaboration.  Please click here to learn more about the program and register to attend. 
Sept. 27
Students in Recovery, a student organization at the University of Oklahoma and the Anne and Henry Zarrow School of Social Work, will host A Night of Recovery from 5 to 7:30 p.m. in the Henry and Anne Zarrow School of Social Work Community Room, 700 Elm Ave.

A Night of Recovery will discuss the importance of recovery support services and collegiate recovery programs in higher education as an essential component to support student success. The event will include a panel discussion moderated by Oklahoma State Sen. Mary Boren. Featured panelists include Tim Rabolt, executive director of the Association of Recovery in Higher Education; J.D. Fennel, executive director of Recovery Teen Solutions; Adrian Gibbs, OU Student Government president; District Judge Michael Tupper; and Max Verna, a student in long-term recovery and member of the Students in Recovery organization. The panel will be followed by a question-and-answer session for the panelists and an ice cream social and a meet and greet. The event is free and those planning to attend should click here to register

Sept. 27              
Deadline for academic units to finalize and freeze tenure and promotion dossiers in the TPS system for faculty review.

Sept. 27             
Sabbatical leave reports from spring 2019 only or both fall 2018 and spring 2019 (two-semester sabbatical) are due to the Dean’s office.

Sept. 27              
Deadline to submit new graduate degree programs or graduate certificates (using State Regents forms) to the Dean’s office.         
              
Oct. 4                    
Deadline to submit new undergraduate degree programs (effective fall 2020) to the Dean’s office.

Oct. 11
College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Wrobel and University Libraries Interim Dean Carl Grant invite you to join our team at the Beat Texas Reception from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11, at the Omni Dallas Hotel (Fair Park 2), 555 S. Lamar St. RSVP by Sept. 27 at link.ou.edu/OUinDallas   or (405) 325-6201.

Oct. 11 (est.)         
Deadline for academic units to submit nominations for CAS faculty teaching awards to the Dean’s office.