ANANYA BHAKTARAM NAMED OU’S CARL ALBERT AWARD RECIPIENT
Ananya Bhaktaram of Oklahoma City, a University of Oklahoma dual-degree student in community health and in letters, has been named the recipient of the 2021 Carl Albert Award, presented each year to the outstanding senior in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to graduating in May with two bachelor’s degrees, Bhaktaram will also earn a minor in geographic information systems. The focus of her studies has been socioeconomic health inequities, with a concentration in constitutional studies. After graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in social factors of health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and eventually earn a doctoral degree in social determinants of health. Her primary research interest is how socioeconomic and behavioral factors like education, poverty and substance abuse can morph into chronic conditions with age. Ultimately, she would like to serve communities she calls home, both domestically and internationally, by crafting interventions and policies to promote early prevention and high-risk behaviors in vulnerable adolescent communities.
The Carl Albert Award, the most prestigious honor given to a student by the OU College of Arts and Sciences, is based on academic performance, moral force of character and promise of future service to the state and nation. First presented in 1966, the award was established to honor Carl Albert, the late OU alumnus and U.S. Speaker of the House, for his distinguished undergraduate career and national service. Julian Rothbaum, former state regent and longtime friend of Albert, endowed the award in 1965. READ MORE
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COLLEGE ANNOUNCES OUTSTANDING SENIORS
The college congratulates our 2021 Outstanding Seniors. Each year, the university presents awards of merit to the outstanding seniors of each undergraduate college as selected by the college dean.
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Heidy Briones is graduating with a bachelor of arts degree in political science. After graduation she plans to take a gap year to work on community organizing in South Oklahoma City. She plans to apply to law school to pursue her career as a public defender. |
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Natalie Bayer is graduating with bachelor of arts degrees in English and in Women's and Gender Studies, with a minor in Spanish. Post-graduation, she will attend law school at the University of Texas at Austin. Ultimately, she plans to practice public interest law. |
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Robert Cascella is graduating with a bachelor of science degree in microbiology with minors in Spanish, chemistry and medical humanities. He has been accepted to medical school and plans to begin this fall. |
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Jacob Moser is a mathematics and Spanish double major. After graduation, he will be moving to Texas to work at Bain & Co. Ultimately, he hopes to continue to advocate for equitable social and economic policy. |
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OU TO HOST SYMPOSIUM COMMEMORATING 100-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE
The University of Oklahoma will host a three-day symposium to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the deadliest acts of anti-Black violence in American history. Themed “Reflecting on the Past, Facing the Future,” the symposium will be held April 8-10 and will feature a variety of in-person and virtual events open to the public, including keynote presentations, plenary talks and a premiere performance by the OU School of Dance. All events will be livestreamed to accommodate a larger audience due to COVID-19 capacity limitations and safety protocols. The symposium caps off a yearlong initiative across the university to educate and to provide the community an opportunity to reflect on the upcoming centennial. The symposium is hosted by the Office of the President; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; and the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Coordinating Committee. The OU commemorations of the Tulsa Race Massacre are being coordinated by professors Kalenda Eaton and Karlos Hill of the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies, along with Daniel Simon, assistant director and editor-in-chief of World Literature Today. Activities are financially supported, in part, by a major grant from Oklahoma Humanities, the Norman Arts Council and a Faculty Investment Program grant from the OU Research Council and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Partnerships.
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OU GIVING DAY SET FOR APRIL 13
Be a part of something BIG when Sooners around the world unite for the fourth annual #OUGivingDay on April 13. 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, OU Family, to come together as a community and show your support. Your participation helps provide educational and cultural experiences for OU students. Visit the College of Arts and Sciences Giving Day website April 13 to support our college.
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FACULTY AND DEPARTMENT NEWS |
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A book of poetry by a professor of English at the University of Oklahoma was honored recently with the 2021 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry. Honorée Fanonne Jeffers received the award for her collection of poems, The Age of Phillis (Wesleyan University Press, 2020), which is based upon 15 years of archival research on the life and times of Phillis Wheatley Peters, a formerly enslaved African person who in 1773 became the first Black American woman to publish a book. The Age of Phillis was long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry, is the finalist for the 2021 PEN/Volcker Award and the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, and was chosen as the “common read” for the Society of Early Americanists for the academic year of 2020-2021.
“The OU College of Arts and Sciences congratulates Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on all of her recent outstanding achievements, including recognition at the 52nd Annual NAACP Image Awards,” said College of Arts and Science Dean David Wrobel. “Honorée is an extraordinarily gifted poet whose vitally important work illuminate issues of Black culture, racism, American history and gender. Her meticulously researched, deeply poignant, and thoroughly captivating collection of poems, The Age of Phillis, imagining the remarkable life and powerful work of Phillis Wheatley Peters, is thoroughly deserving of the universal acclaim it is receiving. Honorée Jeffers is an inspiring example of our world-class faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences who are boldly shaping the world of letters. She is also an inspiring example of how the world of letters shapes our understanding of the world we live in and guides us toward tangible improvements in that world." READ MORE
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Karlos K. Hill, Associate Professor and Chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at OU, has recently published two books.
Incorporating the latest research, The Murder of Emmett Till is the first text to present this shocking crime in a graphic history format. Hill and illustrator Dave Dodson provide a riveting narration of the events surrounding the murder of young Emmett Till in a graphic format. Hill's meticulous research provides readers with both the context to place the crime in its wider historical setting and the primary sources to analyze the case in detail.
In The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History Hill offers a perspective largely missing from other accounts of the evening of May 31, 1921, and the early morning hours of June 1, when several thousand white citizens and authorities violently attacked the African American Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the course of some 12 hours of mob violence, white Tulsans reduced one of the nation’s most prosperous black communities to rubble and killed an estimated 300 people, mostly African Americans. This richly illustrated volume, featuring more than 175 photographs, along with oral testimonies, shines a new spotlight on the race massacre from the vantage point of its victims and survivors.
In addition, Hill also aided an OU Libraries Task Force that recently spearheaded an effort to successfully change how the Library of Congress officially catalogs the Tulsa Race Massacre. The Library of Congress has agreed to update its subject heading from “Tulsa Race Riot” to “Tulsa Race Massacre,” thus changing how the massacre is listed in subject headings in library systems worldwide. READ MORE
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Bayram Saparov, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, received a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation for his project, “Exploring Luminescence in Low-Dimensional Halides.” Saparov and his research group aim to develop a new type of affordable, easy-to-prepare, earth-abundant and robust luminescent material based on inexpensive metal halides, which are compounds between metals and halogens. He says the project may introduce new avenues for energy-saving solid-state lighting technologies, like LEDs, which “could reduce lighting energy use by 75% in 2035. READ MORE
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A University of Oklahoma research study on the causes contributing to a declining insect population was named the finalist for the prestigious Cozzarelli Prize through the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The OU article received the “2020 Cozzarelli Prize Finalist” designation in the applied biological, agricultural and environmental sciences class, one of six scientific disciplines within the National Academy of Sciences. The article, “Nutrient dilution and climate cycles underlie declines in a dominant insect herbivore,” draws on evidence that insect populations have been steadily declining and proposes a novel hypothesis that a significant contributing factor to this decline is attributable to rising carbon dioxide levels making plants less nutritious, a concern not only for insect populations but ecological systems at large. “Experiments show that plants contain lower concentrations of nutrients when grown under increased atmospheric carbon dioxide,” said Ellen Welti, the lead author of the study. “Our study suggests this is could be a growing problem for herbivores like grasshoppers and caterpillars.” The research was conducted in an open-air ecological laboratory, Konza Prairie, at Kansas State University. Michael Kaspari, the paper’s senior author and a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the OU Department of Biology, said that scientists expected that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide would cause a “greening of the Earth.” “While strictly true – grass production at our Kansas prairie doubled over the past 30 years – that rise in the amount of food masks a decline in its nutrients, the equivalent of transforming a field of kale into a mountain of iceberg lettuce,” Kaspari said. “Carbon dioxide pollution is creating ‘green deserts’ where animals like grasshoppers are having difficulty making a living.” The study was led by researchers from OU’s Department of Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences. READ MORE
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Donna Nelson, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, recently was named to the University of Texas-Austin’s listing of 12 Texas women who made history. Throughout the 2000s, Nelson, who was listed under UT-Austin’s heading “Breaking Bad Habits in Chemistry,” championed the Nelson Diversity surveys, which quantify the representation of women and minorities in science- and engineering-related professorships at research universities. As one of the science advisers for the hit AMC television series Breaking Bad, Nelson worked to promote scientific accuracy in the media. In 2016, she was named as president of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, with over 155,000 members currently. READ MORE
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Congratulations to Caryn Vaughn, a George Lynn Cross Distinguished Research Professor and Presidential Professor in the Department of Biology and Oklahoma Biological Survey, who was selected as a 2021 Society for Freshwater Science Fellow. She is one of six fellows selected nationally. Vaughn’s research focuses on the ecology and conservation of freshwater mussels, one of the world’s most imperiled faunas. Over the past 30 years, integrative research in her laboratory has demonstrated that mussels are hotspots of biological activity in rivers, providing biogenic habitat and modifying sediments, filtering the water, and storing and recycling nutrients.
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Congratulations to Jenel Cavazos on being selected to chair the American Psychological Association’s Society for Teaching Psychology’s Task Force for Resources for “Pivot Teaching.” This task force will gather, solicit and publicize resources for “pivot teaching” – e.g., changing modalities mid-semester, accommodating individual students whose situation has changed and integrating more flexibility into courses generally. The resources might include information on shifting to online, hybrid, or HyFlex modalities, for providing online resources for students in a face-to-face course, and for communicating with students in flexible, creative and inclusive ways. The task force will prioritize top-notch, evidence-based, student-centered teaching and learning as modalities and other conditions shift.
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Doerte Blume, a professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been selected among the 151 Outstanding Referees of the Physical Review journal. Instituted in 2008 to recognize scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals, the efforts of the referees in peer review not only keep the standards of the journals at a high level, but in many cases also help authors to improve the quality and readability of their articles – even those that are not published by APS. The highly selective Outstanding Referee program annually recognizes about 150 of the roughly 71,000 currently active referees.
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The OU Schusterman Center for Judaic and Israel Studies is pleased to announced Hadas Cohen, Ph.D., has accepted an offer to join the center as a two-year Israel Institute Fellow who will teach during academic years 2021-23. Cohen serves as a post-doctoral fellow at the Faculty of Law, Bar Ilan University, and she teaches at the Hebrew University. She holds a doctorate in political science from the New School University, a master’s degree in human rights and international affairs from Columbia University, and she is a licensed lawyer in Israel with a bachelor of arts degree in law from the Hebrew University. After receiving her Ph.D., in which she wrote a dissertation about women traitors within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she was awarded a post-doc fellowship from the Leibniz-DAAD foundation. She moved to Berlin to carry out a one-year research project as a guest researcher at the Social Science Research Center, investigating the Israeli immigrant community in the city. Currently, she is a visiting researcher at the Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University. Her research interests include gender theory, identity, the construction of nationalism, patriotism and the concept of treason. She is also interested in postcolonial theory that links East and West, and the intersectionality of gender, race and class in the global North and South. Cohen will teach in the OU Department of History and the Department of International and Area Studies.
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COLLEGE STAFF HONORED BY STAFF SENATE
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Gary Bates (College of Arts and Sciences, Director of Technology Services)
In his role, Gary Bates and his team provide IT support to nearly 600 faculty and 200 staff members, as well as servicing the college computer lab and tech classroom that serve more than 8,000 undergraduate minors and 2,000-plus graduate students. In the midst of the early phase of the COVID crisis, when all classes and college operations transitioned to remote delivery methods, he was selflessly devoted to meeting the needs of the college community as he followed safety protocols to facilitate remote teaching and learning. His efficiency, kindness, concern, deep knowledge and intuitive ability to find the right answers quickly are legendary in the college and beyond.
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Lauren Schueler (Carl Albert Center, Director of N.E.W. Leadership and Civic Engagement)
Lauren Schueler’s job performance at the Carl Albert Center sets her apart. One of her primary responsibilities is leading the Women’s Leadership Initiative Programs, including the National Education for Women’s Leadership program, and Pipeline to Politics. For N.E.W. Leadership, she sets the agenda for the five-day program, including finding dozens of speakers, takes care of many of the logistics, recruits 30-40 attendees from across the state and leads fundraising efforts to keep the programming going. Through her efforts, the center has raised tens of thousands of dollars. In her civic engagement position, she works with student groups across campus to lead voter registration drives. Over the past few years, she has taken it upon herself to place OU as a national leader for civic engagement. Based on her leadership, OU is now on the list of Top Schools for Student Voting.
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Tami Kinsey (Department of Economics, Managerial Associate)
Tami Kinsey has served the economics department since 1986 and is the epitome of how a staff member can make vital and long-lasting contributions to OU’s mission. As a humble, generous, attentive and dedicated colleague, she has helped the department evolve over the years. She has been the go-to person to ask about virtually any aspect of the department. The department members rely on her institutional knowledge and her efficient and effective management. During the pandemic, she has managed the operations for the department admirably. Her working knowledge of the people, policies and procedures of the university are second to none, and she always wears a smile and cares about the people she interacts with. She is the real deal when it comes to professional managerial staffing.
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STAFF SPOTLIGHT: MEET RHONDA HILL
For more than 30 years, Rhonda Hill has been an instrumental member of the OU community. Her career at OU began with the College of Continuing Education, and she currently serves as the office manager and assistant to the chair for the political science department.
“I do basically anything and everything I can do to support the chair of the department,” said Hill. “I also oversee the department’s payroll and financials and budget, faculty searches, class schedules, events and scholarships. It’s different things everyday; this job keeps me busy and learning, which is something I love about it.”
Never in her time at OU did Hill think she would be working from home amidst a global pandemic. However, Hill has adjusted accordingly and has found herself thankful that she is able to continue with a job that she loves.
“Working from home is more work, but I am thankful my department works well together and that we have good communication,” said Hill.
Hill also serves on the Executive Committee of OU’s Staff Senate as the president of the Organizational Staff Council. The council exists to promote staff interest, improve communications and contribute to a sense of university community. Throughout her OU career, she has also gone out of her way to help a number of faculty and staff members.
“When we began the Public and Community Health Program, I did not have a specific administrative assistant for the first year,” said Jen Ross, program coordinator. While the college staff were wonderful, Rhonda was the one who helped me navigate OU systems and processes. She was very helpful, and I’m not sure if we could have handled our program growth without her generous help. Personally, she helped me maintain a reasonable amount of sanity and calm as I learned to navigate OU waters.”
When she’s not working, Hill enjoys making her own cards and sewing rag quilts, two hobbies that she has enjoyed for years.
“Rhonda Hill has been essential to keeping our department operating through these extraordinary times,” said Scott Robinson, chair of the political science department. “She is the friendly voice that helps everyone in our department, from students to faculty to other staff. When the pandemic made work hard, she stepped up to help not only people within our department, but took on extra responsibilities to serve others within our building and across campus. It is safe to say that the department would not have handled the pandemic nearly as well as it has without her exemplary efforts.”
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STUDENT SUCCESS CENTER SPOTLIGHT |
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MEET CORBIN WALLS
The staff of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Student Success Center recently highlighted OU freshman Corbin Walls. Walls, from Miami, Oklahoma, is studying public and nonprofit administration with a minor in economics and Latin.
Q: What is your favorite course administered by the College of Arts and Sciences?
A: I have not taken a course that I have disliked, so this is pretty hard to decide, but I am going to go with Administration and Society, PSC 3173, taught by Daniel Brown. This is my favorite course because it was the first political science course I took at the university and it really opened my eyes to the complexity of a subject that often seems rather straightforward. It gave me a greater appreciation for the bureaucracy and greater respect for its power, as well as convinced me that bureaucrats really do get too much undeserved criticism.
Q: What is your favorite thing about the College of Arts and Sciences?
A: I love the College of Arts and Sciences because it offers such a wide range of courses. Thanks to its variety in offerings, I could take classes ranging from the history of gospel music to theories of probability if I decided to do so. A lot of people don’t have that kind of access to education and I am more than grateful that I am at a university that offers that to me.
Q: What is your favorite study spot on campus?
A: My favorite study spot on campus is definitely the Honors College. If it is a nice day outside, I can sit in the courtyard and do my work without worrying about the wind, but if it’s a little dreary, I can go inside and read in some really comfortable chairs.
Q: How do you destress?
A: I have a few ways to destress, including playing with my roommate’s dog, spending time with my friends and meditating, but my favorite way to destress is going home and seeing my family.
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The goal of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Student Success Center is to prepare students for lives of professional accomplishment, civic engagement, personal fulfillment and lifelong learning, and to ensure that financial and logistical barriers never stand between a student and their goals. To learn more about the Student Success Center, visit the website or follow on social media via Twitter or Facebook.
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DAVID MARTINEZ EARNS PRESTIGIOUS RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP; CONTRIBUTES SUCCESS TO OU
Growing up in El Salvador, David R. Martinez, Ph.D., never would have imagined the impact the University of Oklahoma would have on him and how it would lead to the life-saving COVID-19 research he conducts today. His work was recently recognized by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which named Martinez as one of 21 exceptional early career scientists for the 2020 Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program. The program supports diversity in biomedical research. Martinez recently shared the impact OU has had on his academic career and research endeavors.
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OU STUDY HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR IMPROVING METHANE EMISSION DATABASE
A University of Oklahoma-led study published in 2020 revealed that both area and plant growth of paddy rice is significantly related to the spatial-temporal dynamics of atmospheric methane concentration in monsoon Asia, where 87% of the world’s paddy rice fields are situated. Now, the same international research team has released a follow-up discussion paper in the journal Nature Communications. In this paper, the team identifies the limits and insufficiency of the major greenhouse emission database in estimating paddy rice methane emissions. READ MORE
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MINING THE NATIVE AMERICAN AUTHORED WORKS IN HATHITRUST FOR INSIGHTS
An OU research project was selected by the HathiTrust Research Center to participate in its special round of Advanced Collaborative Support, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Scholar-Curated Worksets for Analysis, Reuse and Dissemination project. Raymond Orr (associate professor, Native American Studies), Raina Heaton (assistant professor, Native American Studies) and Kun Lu (associate professor, School of Library and Information Studies) seek to compile a collection of Native American-authored works in HathiTrust and apply various text mining methods to the collection to reveal the coverage, subjects, perspectives and writing styles of Native authors. A list of Native authors and their works will be compiled from an existing database created by a member of the project team and from other online resources. This list will be aligned with the HathiTrust digital library to create a work set of Native American authored works in HathiTrust for further analysis. Then, a variety of text mining methods will be used to analyze the subjects, topics, language use and writing styles of Native American authors. Comparative analysis will be carried out to understand the characteristics of this textual community. The project is expected to develop a database of Native American authors and the bibliographic information of their works, create a reusable work set of Native American authored works in HathiTrust, identify potential gaps in the HathiTrust corpus on this textual community and provide insights into the characteristics of the community by text mining their works.
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$300,000 — NSF - DIVISION OF UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION
IDENTIFYING & IMPLEMENTING EVIDENCE-BASED ONLINE TUTORING PRACTICES: ONLINE PRACTICES FOR TUTORING IN MATHEMATICS USING MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS
This two-year collaborative project between West Virginia University and the University of Oklahoma targets improving the effectiveness of online tutoring. Deborah Moore-Russo, OU's First-Year Mathematics director, and Christine Tinsley, OU's Math Tutoring Center director, are leading OU's involvement in this project.
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XINYU DAI - HOMER L. DODGE DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMOY
$32,454 —SMITHSONIAN ASTROPHYSICAL OBSERVATORY
CONSTRAINING THE SIZE OF UNRESOLVED X-RAY EMISSION OF RADIO-LOUD QUASARS WITH MICROLENSING
This project will make a critical measurement on the size of the unresolved X-ray emission region of radio-loud quasars, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Einstein’s natural telescope, gravitational lensing. The origin of the unresolved X-ray emission of radio-loud AGNs is still under debate, as whether it is dominated by the corona or jet emission around supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. An emission size measurement will provide a crucial constraint to distinguish the two models.
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$5,058 —U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS, OKC VA MEDICAL CENTER
AN INVESTIGATION OF ADAMTS13 IN COVID-19
This award supports research exploring thrombosis in COVID-19 patients to identify potential targets for improving health care delivery through early diagnosis, adequate risk assessment and pharmacological interventions. The research will compare differences in ADAMTS13 activity between veterans with confirmed COVID-19 infection and those without COVID-19 infection and characterize changes in ADAMTS13 activity over the course of COVID-19 infection in relationship to thrombotic outcomes. The team of OU and VA Medical Center researchers is led by PI Dr. Calin Prodan (neurologist, VA Medical Center, and professor, OU College of Medicine) and Andrea Vincent will primarily provide statistical analysis support.
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$22,145 — NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY
PARTICIPATORY APPROACHES TO AGROECOSYSTEM RESILIENCE IN TIME OF DROUGHT (ARID)
Agriculture is a major driver of worldwide land-use/land-cover change. Coupled with cyclical drought and climate variability, land managers in agroecosystems often must seek balance between economic and ecological sustainability. The Southern Great Plains, in particular, is an agroecosystem of interest due to its importance to national agricultural production, record of historical recurrent drought events (such as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s), and reliance on groundwater resources (e.g. the Ogallala Aquifer) to support livelihoods and expand agricultural production. As agriculturalists and other stakeholders face both climate and economic uncertainty, it is paramount to understand how agricultural and water policies influence land and water resources. Participatory Approaches to Agroecosystem Resilience in Times of Drought is a multi-institutional, transdisciplinary approach to explore and address these critical land and water resource issues facing the Southern Great Plains. The project has three overarching goals: 1) link land-use/land-cover change dynamics to land management and water policies across multiple scales; 2) support effective land and water management through citizen science and participatory approaches; and 3) develop outreach and extension programs and materials to support resilience-based management strategies in the face of recurrent cyclical drought and climate variability. Researchers from the University of Oklahoma (Todd Fagin, Ph.D.), Oklahoma State University (Jacqueline Vadjunec, Ph.D.), and Zeigler Geologic Consulting (Kate Zeigler, Ph.D.) constitute the field research team and are exploring these complex issues around goals one and two. Additionally, researchers at New Mexico State University and OSU (under the guidance of PI Caitriana Steele, Ph.D.) are spearheading extension activities to ensure that engagement is maintained well into the future (goal three). The field team works on the ground with farmers, ranchers and other stakeholders in a three- county/three-state area of the Southern Great Plains (Cimarron County, Oklahoma; Union County, New Mexico; and Las Animas County, Colorado) to explore local land management and livelihood dynamics (household surveys and ethnography), monitor groundwater recharge rates on participants’ lands; document land-use and land-cover dynamics both at the household level through the use of small unoccupied aerial systems and the regional level through satellite-based land cover classification; and encourage participation in other citizen science initiatives, namely the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network. The research and extension teams will disseminate this information in both formal and informal gatherings and through the development of outreach programs and the production of training materials. Overall, this research and extension work tests how participatory and citizen science approaches impact socio-ecological resilience at the household level. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and builds on previous research conducted in the region by Vadjunec and Fagin (CMMI-1266381) and Zeigler. For more information, see: https://arid.nmsu.edu and https://biosurvey.ou.edu/Grasslands/
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The expansion of artificial night lights globally has had important impacts on animal behavior and health, recent studies have shown. A study led by a research team at OU on the effects of bright city lighting on grasshoppers appeared in the journal Biology Letters. Elske Tielens, a postdoctoral research fellow conducting research at the Corix Plains Institute at OU, is lead author on the study, “Nocturnal city lighting elicits a macroscale response from an insect outbreak population,” which represents the first analysis of lights at night on insect movement at regional scales. The study was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (EF-1840230). READ MORE
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Vera Maria Passegger, an OU postdoc in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, contributed in characterizing the planet by deriving fundamental parameters of the host star. An accurate and precise determination of the star's mass, radius and temperature is essential for constraining the size of the planet itself, and therefore its bulk density, and estimating the surface temperature. READ MORE
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April 27
Chairs and Directors meeting, 9 a.m.
April 28
CASFAM Staff meeting, 10 a.m.
April 30
Deadline for academic units to submit copies of progress-toward-tenure letters to the Dean’s office.
April 30
Deadline for academic units to submit post-tenure review dossiers via FAS to the Dean’s office.
May 1
Deadline for academic units to request reimbursements from the college to departments.
May 1
Deadline for academic units to submit Regular Faculty Recruiting Applications to the Dean’s office.
May 1
Deadline to request a new online course or to redesign an existing online course for the upcoming fall 2021 semester.
May 14
Deadline for units to submit to the Dean’s office the names of any faculty members who will undergo promotion-only review in the following academic year.
May 14
Deadline for units to submit to the Dean’s office their lists of external evaluators for faculty members who will undergo tenure and promotion or promotion-only review in the following academic year
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If you have information or announcements for News & Updates, please submit to the College communication office.
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