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Merkley leads request for COVID-19-related emergency relief funding for students and universities
On Friday, March 20, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) quickly took a lead role in authoring a letter to Senate leaders urging support for college students and the universities and colleges they attend be included the third version of the coronavirus emergency relief bill. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) joined Senator Merkley in making the request. The letter, co-signed by an additional 23 senators and addressed to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and ranking members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, summarizes the unprecedented and rapid steps colleges and universities across the country are taking to respond to the pandemic, including modifying instruction methods and restricting access to facilities to protect the health and safety of students and employees. Merkley and colleagues opined in the letter “as a result, colleges and universities face significant losses in revenue and face new, unexpected costs. These institutions rely on tuition, and anticipated declines in international and domestic enrollment would be devastating. It is highly doubtful that our higher education systems can continue operations, employment, and teaching without timely stop-gap funding from Congress.” Merkley and his colleagues asked Congress to 1) prioritize protecting students from student aid disruptions and 2) provide emergency stop-gap funding for colleges and universities. As of 8 am on March 25, the bill is pending passage by the full Senate, is expected to move to the House for approval and be signed by the President.
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GI Bill benefits will continue during remote instruction period
March 24, 2020 03:33 pm Within a week of introduction, the Emergency GI Fix for Coronavirus School Closures was passed by Congress and then signed into law by President Trump on Saturday, March 21. The law gives states temporary authority to continue GI Bill education benefit payments, including housing stipends, at normal levels, uninterrupted, in the event of national emergencies. The legislation includes the provision that payments continue even when an approved and accredited education program, such as the University of Oregon, switches from in-person to remote instruction. It also addresses monthly housing stipends and applies through December 21, 2020. The Oregon delegation tracked this issue closely as both the US House and US Senate moved to consider bills to enact a fix. Ultimately, Senate Bill 3503 became law. The University of Oregon joined a coalition of universities to support the bills including signing onto a letter of support as it was pending before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
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Education, law again among best in grad school rankings
First published in Around the O on March 20th, 2020. Several University of Oregon graduate programs are highlighted in the 2021 rankings released by U.S. News & World Report this week. Offerings from both the UO’s College of Education and School of Law continue to be ranked among the best in the nation. The rankings this year focus on six disciplines with the greatest enrollment: education, law, medicine, nursing, engineering and business. The College of Education climbed to the rank of No. 4 public institution on the list and ranks 11th among all schools nationwide. The college’s special education program is, once again, among the top three in the country. For the 21st year in a row, the program ranks No. 3 overall, second among public institutions and best in the Northwest. The College of Education also ranks well for total research funds, with $46.1 million awarded to faculty members last year, placing it in the top 10 nationwide and No. 7 for public institutions.
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Patents & licensing deals, provost's big ideas
First published in Around the O on March 11th, 2020.Innovation Beat is a quarterly roundup of small stories about UO discoveries with big results. This edition of Innovation Beat highlights researchers who’ve earned patents and licensing deals. There’s also calls for entry and updates on entrepreneurship competitions. UO researchers earn patent for promising diabetes treatment Jennifer Hill made national headlines in 2016 with her discovery of a bacterial protein called BefA that shows promise to someday become a component of a new treatment for Type 1 diabetes. On Feb. 18 the U.S. Patent Office confirmed her discovery. Earning a patent is an important step toward translating medical discoveries into solutions that can improve peoples’ lives. “When I learned that our patent had been issued, the first thing I felt was actually relief, followed by excitement, because the patent allows us to continue to push BefA in a direction that might help people someday,” Hill said. “The process of vetting and developing a new drug is extremely expensive and the patent makes the investment in that process worthwhile.” At the time she made her discovery, Hill was studying the microbiome, the community of microorganisms that reside within the bodies of humans and most other animals, in biology professor Karen Guillemin’s lab. She was curious how the microorganisms that live in the gut of zebrafish interact with the pancreas. The pancreas produces beta cells. Beta cells make insulin, a chemical necessary to digest sugars. Type 1 diabetes causes an immune reaction that kills beta cells, making it difficult to process sugars. Hill methodically examined hundreds of samples from bacteria species that live inside zebrafish, a common proxy species for studying human biology. She found a few bacteria that influence beta cell production in the zebrafish pancreas, and then narrowed it down to a single bacterial protein — a huge discovery. She named it Beta Cell Expansion Factor A, or BefA, and now she’s studying it in mammals as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Utah. “It is important to understand how mammals respond to BefA or similar microbial cues because it gives us a clue into how humans might respond, which is important for a potential therapeutic,” Hill said. “I'm learning that, similarly to fish, mice are also ‘listening in’ on resident microbes to shape their pancreas development.” Having the patent protects Hill and Guillemin’s claim to have discovered the BefA protein, as well as the methodologies they developed to use BefA to stimulate beta cell production in the pancreas as a treatment for diabetes. “We are actively studying BefA’s mechanism of action from many avenues,” Guillemin said. “Having this patent allows us to explore different routes to developing BefA as a therapeutic, one of which could be through establishing our own company.” UO research supports literacy evaluation program University research to improve reading fluency assessments will soon be helping teachers across the nation, thanks to a licensing agreement with the education technology company Analytical Measures Inc. College of Education research associate professor Joe Nese developed the Computerized Oral Reading Evaluation to reduce the workload for teachers who must frequently test their students’ reading levels. Evaluation combines an innovative psychometric model and a custom set of reading passages with speech recognition software to better evaluate student reading ability. The automated evaluation allows teachers to simultaneously administer brief reading assessments to multiple students with fewer errors, providing a more accurate understanding of students’ reading development. Analytical Measures will incorporate the tool into its Moby.Read application. The new tool and Moby.Read both received funding from the Institute of Education Sciences.
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The Year of Water opens the spigot on university research
First published in Around the O on March 11th, 2020. Editor's note: Events mentioned in this story have been canceled. Please check the Year of Water website for rescheduled and future events. This month marks the official kickoff of a yearlong initiative to draw attention to one of Oregon’s most important resources: water. The Year of Water is a joint effort by the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Portland State University to highlight the role Oregon’s research universities play as leaders and partners trying to address water-related challenges in Oregon, the region and the world. The initiative, which runs through February 2021, provides the public a chance to learn more about research that takes place across Oregon and for UO researchers and scholars to discover what their colleagues at other universities are up to. Organizers say it could inspire new interdisciplinary collaborations that cut across institutional lines. “So many of us are doing important work around water without being fully aware of what our colleagues in other departments and at other Oregon universities are up to,” said Alaí Reyes-Santos, a professor in the Department of Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies and an organizer of the event. “The Year of Water opens the door for all Oregonians to see the critical research and scholarship that goes on throughout the state in labs, libraries and in the field.” While some UO faculty members have clear ties to water — earth scientists who study glaciers, for example or biologists who study fish — other connections are less obvious. In Reyes-Santos’ case, the study of water is more cultural than literal. Her manuscript-in-progress, “Oceanic Whispers, Secrets She Never Told,” examines restorative justice and community healing through a black Caribbean lens. Reyes-Santos points to the UO’s depth of environmental humanities researchers who are exploring water-related subjects, including those at the UO’s Center for Environmental Futures, not to mention researchers and scholars in English, theater, art and design, earth sciences, chemistry, biology, and more. A few of the UO faculty members involved in the initiative include:
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2020 Oregon Legislative Session: The Recap
On Sunday, March 8, Oregon’s 2020 legislative session officially came to a close. What began on February 3 as a 35-day session effectively ended abruptly on March 5 when a sufficient number of House and Senate Republicans walked out to prevent a quorum, which requires two-thirds of lawmakers to be present in order to hold a vote in both chambers of the Legislature. The “walkout” was motivated by a disagreement between Democrats and Republicans over SB 1530, a measure that would implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Oregon. As a result, all remaining policy and budget proposals have effectively died, barring a special session. Only three bills passed and made it to the Governor’s desk of the 250 or so that were introduced. Unfortunately, none of the budget or policy bills that the UO and higher education stakeholders were actively advocating for were among them. These include: Capital Construction and Bonding Authorization (HB 5202): The UO sought state-backed bonds for the renovation of Huestis Hall, a biological sciences building located in the Lokey Science Complex. The bill authorized $56.75 million in bonds for the renovation of Huestis Hall. It passed out of the Joint Committee in Ways & Means and was awaiting a floor vote. ShakeAlert (HB 5204): The UO sought $7.5 million for the earthquake early warning system operated by the UO and other universities on the West Coast to improve Oregon’s resiliency in the face of earthquakes. The bill authorized the funding from the General Fund for the buildout of this seismic network. It passed out of the Joint Committee in Ways & Means and was awaiting a floor vote. UO’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (HB 5204): The UO sought $500,000 to match university and private investment for a new ship at the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB), the UO’s campus on the southern Oregon coast. The bill authorized the funding to build the new ship, which will better serve students, the community, and faculty. It passed out of the Joint Committee in Ways & Means and was awaiting a floor vote. Food & Housing Security for Students (HB 4055): The UO sought passage of a bill that would conduct a study of food and housing insecurity rates and trends on college campuses and make recommendations to solve them. The bill died in the Joint Committee on Ways & Means. Better outcomes for a new generation of Oregon university students (HB 4160): Increases in diversity are transforming university campuses and creating opportunities for a new generation of Oregon students. Yet outcomes and graduation rates for these traditionally underrepresented students are not keeping pace. UO joined other universities to support establishing a task force on student success for underrepresented students in higher education. The bill died in the Joint Committee on Ways & Means.
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Students will be an important part of the decennial census
First published in Around the O on March 2, 2020. Census Day is fast approaching and accurate student counts are critical to the future and prosperity of the UO and the greater community. Beginning in mid-March, households and off-campus residences across Oregon will receive a mailing from the U.S. Census Bureau asking them to take the census online or by phone. Each household will be asked to provide basic information about the people who reside in that household “most of the time” as of April 1, the official Census Day. Students should fill out the form based on where they are living on April 1. For most, that means entering their residence as Eugene. For college students, census data affects funding for things like safety, the federal Pell Grant program, student wellness programs, community mental health services and medical assistance programs. The census form asks 12 questions, which should be completed by each household. The list of questions is available on the United State Census 2020 website. In 2016 alone, Oregon received more than $13.4 billion in federal assistance, based on data collected during the 2010 census. The census also determines Oregon’s political representation through the number of representatives the state has in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as the number of electoral votes.
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Duck flies to Capitol Hill as one of top undergrad researchers in U.S.
First published in Around the O on March 2, 2020. Research matters, and scientists can do more to make their important work accessible to the public. Those are the messages UO biology major Rennie Kendrick takes to Congress this April.The Stamps Scholar from Portland was chosen among 60 of the nation’s top undergraduate researchers to participate in Posters on the Hill, a Washington, D.C. event showcasing innovative student work and demonstrating the value of federal investments in undergraduate research. “It’s exciting,” said the Clark Honors College senior. “It will be great for members of Congress to see what’s happening at the undergraduate level. It’s important to fund and encourage this research, because discoveries have been made by undergraduates — important discoveries.”Sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research, the annual event highlights student research for members of Congress, congressional staffers and federal government officials. A national panel of experts in their respective fields selects the finalists, and Kendrick is the second UO student to attend since the university joined the council in 2014.The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program and Vice President for Research and Innovation are helping fund her trip.Kendrick will be presenting a poster on memory and innovative thinking, the subject of her honors thesis. Her plans include meeting with members of Oregon’s congressional delegation. Assistant professor Dasa Zeithamova-Demircan is helping Kendrick with the project, part of their work in the UO’s Brain and Memory Lab.The research is novel and complex. But Kendrick is planning a straightforward presentation.“There seems to be a growing misunderstanding about science — for the general public, as well as the politicians who make decisions and allocate resources,” she said. “As scientists, we need to be able to communicate.”Kendrick’s fascination with science started early. After learning about birds in the third grade, she wanted to be an ornithologist. For Christmas, she’d ask for research-related gifts, such as her treasured weather measurement kit.Kendrick first learned about neuroscience while preparing for the eighth-grade science fair. She started her project on memory the summer before school had even started, submitting her idea to the Institutional Review Board so she could conduct experiments with people. “When you’re an eighth-grader, you can’t do much with human subjects,” she recalled. “But I got my approval. And I checked out every neuroscience book they had at the library. I just could not get enough of it. I knew about psychology and biology, then they fused together in my mind. I realized there was an entire biology to how we memorize things and have memories. That blew my mind. From then on, I have wanted to be a neuroscientist.”Kendrick excelled at Portland’s Grant High School, where she ran track and cross country, participated in the state championship cross country team, was part of the 2016 state girl’s 6A champion 4x400 meter relay squad and qualified for state in the 1,500- and 3,000-meter events. She also served as managing editor of Grant Magazine, participated in Grant’s award-winning Constitution Team — which has competed in the We the People national finals — sang in the Royal Blues chamber choir, and volunteered in a behavioral neuroscience lab at Oregon Health and Science University-Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where she was a 2017 Portland Veterans Affairs research fellow.She chose the UO because she was offered a Stamps Scholarship, the university’s most prestigious and generous scholarship. Granted by the UO and the Strive Foundation, it is awarded to just 10 incoming freshmen each year, five residents and five nonresidents.Kendrick joined the UO’s track and cross-country teams as a walk-on during her first year and continued until injuries — ongoing stress fractures that sporadically kept her from competing — forced her to step down this year.“Those were tough lessons,” she said. “You put so much time into something and tomorrow you could be on crutches. That’s a good analogy for research, because you can put years into a project and find that it’s a null result. You have to be OK with saddling up again and putting effort into something, even if you know it could all go wrong at the drop of a hat. It’s a nonlinear progression sometimes, but you have to keep in mind you are still making progress.”Over the years, Kendrick has been able to participate in research opportunities and make the most of her undergraduate experience thanks to support from UO organizations such as the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, the Center for Undergraduate Research and Engagement and the Office of Distinguished Scholarships.Kendrick and another student are collaborating with Professor Alice Barkan on a genetics research project and Kendrick was a 2019 Peter O’Day Research Fellow. She currently works in the UO’s Brain and Memory Lab, as well as the McCormick Lab at the Institute of Neuroscience. She also teaches a supplemental instruction course for business calculus and tutors students in biology, math and chemistry.After graduating this spring, Kendrick heads to the University of British Columbia, where she’ll be working in a lab studying mechanisms of fear memory formation. She hopes to someday join the faculty at a college or university, combining her top three interests: research, teaching and writing.—By Ed Dorsch, University Communications
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The perfect cup of coffee, with a little help from science
First published in the Conversation and republished in Around the O on January 22nd, 2020. Editor’s note: This article is republished as it appears in The Conversation, an independent news publisher that works with academics worldwide to disseminate research-based articles and commentary. The University of Oregon partners with The Conversation to bring the expertise and views of its faculty members to a wide audience. For more information, see the note accompanying this story. Have you ever wondered why the coffee you make at home tastes different from the drinks you buy in cafes? Or why coffee from the same place can taste different throughout the week? You may be quick to blame the barista for changing the recipe, but our recent study, published in Matter, suggests that this variation is down to an inherent inconsistency of common brewing methods. Luckily, we believe to have discovered a path to making a great espresso, to your taste, every time. The quality of a cup of coffee depends on the coffee’s variety and origin, its roast and the water chemistry. The brewing method also plays a critical role in determining the overall flavor. Espresso is certainly the most complicated brewing method because it requires precise measurements. However, espresso also happens to underpin all coffee menus, as it is the basis for lattes and cappuccinos. To make espresso, hot water is forced through a finely-ground bed of coffee. The barista makes decisions about how much coffee and water to use, and how finely the coffee is ground. The machine’s water pressure, temperature and brew volume are also crucial when it comes to taste. Together, these parameters control the relative proportion of around 2,000 different chemicals, a delicate balancing act. Yet, even if the barista does everything perfectly, there remain large variations between espresso shots made following the same recipe. One shot may taste like raspberries and dark chocolate, and the next like motor oil. And while everyone has different flavour preferences, we believe we have derived a procedure to help the barista out, and achieve the flavour profile they intended, every single time. Our research team — which involved a team of mathematicians, chemists, materials scientists and baristas — formulated a mathematical model to simulate the brewing of an espresso in realistic cafe conditions. We used this to make predictions of how much of the solid coffee ultimately ends up dissolved in the cup. This percentage, known as the extraction yield, is the key metric used by the coffee industry to assess different coffee recipes. Solving a series of equations, we found that our model accurately predicts extraction yields that we see in real life, except when the coffee is ground very finely. This is because water flow through the espresso bed is quite unpredictable, resulting in sections of the bed becoming clogged. In other words, parts of the coffee are under-extracted (low extraction yield), while others are over-extracted (high extraction yield). But the objective of a barista isn’t just to produce shots that taste great, they also have to be reproducible. Consistency can be monitored by examining the extraction yields of different shots. Contrary to our expectation, we discovered that to make consistently tasty brews, the barista should use less coffee and grind the coffee marginally coarser. By doing so, they are able to achieve very reproducible, high-yielding shots. The mathematical theory tells us that this is because reducing coffee mass means that the water flows faster through the shallower coffee bed. The coarse grind results in a relatively permeable bed, such that water flow and extraction are uniform and predictable. This method leads to fast, bright, sweet and acidic shots that taste the same each time. Of course, not everyone will enjoy the same flavour profile, and we account for this by presenting a series of procedures that barista can use to help navigate the various flavours available within their coffee. Complex flavours, a result of tasting a mixture of both over and under-extracted coffee, can still be emulated by running and then mixing two shots with different extractions. More importantly, consumers could also simply select a different roast, that features flavour profiles more suited to their palate. One of our key findings, however, is that baristas are able to reduce their coffee waste by up to 25 percent per espresso shot, dramatically increasing their annual profits with no sacrifice in quality. Using our protocol we estimate that, in the U.S. coffee market alone, the total savings would amount to $1.1 billion in America’s cafes per year. What’s more, it has been estimated that 60 percent of wild coffee species are under threat of extinction due to climate change. So ultimately, using less coffee is not only better for making a consistently tasty espresso, it is also better for the environment. —By Jamie Foster, University of Portsmouth and Christopher H. Hendon, University of Oregon The Conversation This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article or sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter. The Conversation works with academics to prepare 700-1,000 word research-based pieces (not op-eds) on timely topics. Stories from The Conversation are then picked up by major media outlets, such as PBS NewsHour, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Salon and the Associated Press. Learn more about The Conversation. If you are a UO faculty member interested in writing for The Conversation, email Molly Blancett.
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