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New funding will help advance Oregon’s part in ShakeAlert
First published on August 19th in Around the O, efforts to continue upgrading Oregon’s portion of the West Coast Earthquake Early Warning System will get a $1.6 million boost from new federal funding announced by the U.S. Geological Survey.
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Reflecting on a Rural Revolution
First Published on the University of Oregon College Of Design Website on August 15th 2019. RARE celebrated 25 years July 27 at My Brothers' Farm in Creswell, Oregon As the sun set in the hills of Creswell, it cast long shadows silhouetting buzzing beehive boxes, apple and hazelnut trees, a herd of bison, and a small but mighty community dedicated to helping rural Oregon communities thrive. At My Brothers’ Farm, a family-run operation, this community was hosting a reunion to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Oregon-based AmeriCorps program known as RARE, or Resource Assistance for Rural Environments, a unique University of Oregon learning and outreach program. Taylor Larson, one of the owners of My Brothers’ Farm, is a RARE alum who served in year 2012-13 in Tillamook. RARE operates within the UO's Institute for Policy Research and Engagement (IPRE) in the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM). The programs links the skills, expertise, and innovation of higher education with the economic development and environmental needs of communities and regions in the State of Oregon. Through the service-learning programs, RARE AmeriCorps members gain service and professional experience by partnering with communities on local and regional development. “You all are the reason we can stand here today and say, ‘We have made a difference in rural Oregon’,” Titus Tomlinson, the new RARE Program Director and alum (2006–07 and 2009–10), told a group of about 150, including fellow RARE alumni, their friends and family, and past community partners seated at tables in the grass. New RARE Program Director Titus Tomlinson and RARE Project Coordinator Aniko Drlik-Muehlck (left); Kevin Smith and Karen Laing, siblings of longtime Program Director Megan Smith Karen Hyatt, the UO Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, took the mic and shared U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio’s statement that he read into the congressional record on July 22 acknowledging RARE’s contribution to the state. DeFazio, Oregon’s longest-serving congressperson, voted for the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993, which first established AmeriCorps, paving the way for the inception of the RARE program. “In the past 25 years, RARE members have completed more than 2,000 assessments, plans, and reports for local communities; written more than 700 grants, raised more than $6 million for communities, and recruited more than 10,000 community volunteers who served more than 8.6 million hours,” Hyatt read. “It is my pleasure to congratulate the RARE AmeriCorps program on 25 years of service to rural communities in Oregon and to thank RARE for its many vital contributions. I have no doubt these first 25 years of success will serve as the inspiration for the next 25.” Pillars of the RARE program received heartfelt thanks, including the program founder David Povey (who was unable to attend), longtime IPRE co-director and PPPM Instructor Robert Parker, Departmental Grants Administrator Julie Foster, and Project Coordinator Aniko Drlik-Muehleck. Amid the speeches and catching up with friends, however, there was a notable absence: former RARE Program Director Megan Smith. Smith passed away in October 2018. She had been with RARE since the beginning. Memorial for Megan Smith at RARE reunion; RARE cohort from year two of the program, including Megan Smith, center, and David Povey, front right. “We are all here today because of that amazing woman,” Tomlinson told the crowd. Megan’s siblings, Annie Laing and Kevin Smith, also spoke at the event. “The RARE program was so much of her soul,” Laing said. “You were her kids. She loved you all.” Countless members of RARE, under the guidance of Smith, Povey, Parker, Foster, Tomlinson, and others, have gone on to help communities throughout Oregon. Here is a look back at how RARE shaped its participants, and how its participants have shaped Oregon and beyond. Scroll to bottom for more photos from RARE reunion. RARE 25th Anniversary at My Brothers' Farm; click to enlarge. RARE Map of 25 years of service; click to enlarge. Keavy Cook, RARE 2002–03 Keavy Cook—now the director of The Ford Family Foundation’s Children, Youth, and Families department—joined RARE because she was looking to connect with communities in her own country before setting off on a career in international development. Before she was even selected for RARE, she drove from Boston cross-country to meet Megan Smith. “I have strong memories of Megan Smith. She played more of a role in shaping my professional career and my life in Oregon than any other individual.” Cook was accepted and served with the Siuslaw Watershed Council, where she launched a youth summer camp that still operates to this day and crafted a strategic plan and several grant applications. Cook received a Master in Community and Regional Planning in 2005. She never did go into international development, rather choosing to focus on development at home. “Being in RARE helped me fall in love with Oregon, to feel closer to rural communities, and to develop confidence in my organizational development passions and understand how to apply this to community building,” Cook said. Cook explained how her relationship to RARE is multifaceted: She has been a participant, staff member as RARE’s field coordinator, and, now, a funder. “Not only does the program support the individuals who participate, but it also benefits the nonprofits and communities that host,” she said. “Human capacity is probably the number one thing needed in rural Oregon. RARE has that orientation, the reputation, and the structure to meet this need.” Spencer Masterson, RARE 2010–12 Before joining RARE, Masterson spent a semester abroad in Thailand learning how development projects were adversely affecting the most vulnerable residents in predominantly rural areas. There he co-authored a human rights report that was presented to Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission, an experience that primed him for RARE. For two years, Masterson served with the Ten Rivers Food Web, a food systems network in Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties that works to increase the resilience of the area’s foodshed in the face of climate and economic uncertainty. As a result of community organizing and network development, he wrote a community food assessment of Linn County. One of his proudest accomplishments during his time with RARE was launching a program that matches Oregon Trail Card benefits at farmers markets, which both provides low-income residents with access to locally grown foods and increases sales for local farmers. He also helped organize the Santiam Food Alliance, a community organization that focuses on spreading the joy of growing, buying, cooking, and eating local foods throughout the Santiam River basin. Masterson, who is now associate director of Partnerships & Programs at Oregon Food Bank, said he uses the skills he picked up in RARE on a daily basis. “I learned so much about how communities can band together to make the change they wish to see in their communities,” Masterson said. “I also was able to hone many practical skills such as meeting facilitation, public speaking, and grant and budget management.” Michael Held, RARE 2011–12 While pursuing a master of public administration degree (’11) at PPPM and working as an economic development planning intern with the City of Oakridge, Held met several RARE alumni and Megan Smith, who encouraged him to apply for the program. “Megan became an immediate mentor and someone who I was naturally drawn to because of her tenacity for public service,” Held said. Through RARE, Held served with the Port of The Dalles, working on two major projects and several smaller initiatives. The first project Held spearheaded was the planning and implementation of a $5.5 million industrial lands redevelopment of a 77-acre mill site, which paved the way for dozens of new jobs and private investment. He also facilitated a wetland planning process, which established a regional general permit, or a regulatory device that expedites business permitting and development while transparently maximizing environmental protections. “The relationships I’ve established through RARE serve as my career’s backbone,” Held said. That career has led him to his current position as director of Rural Economic and Policy Services at Rural Development Initiatives based in Eugene. “To this day, the program embodies that public service spirit and is to be commended for its intentional cultivation of public-minded leaders,” Held said. “I view RARE as a critical component to creating an equitable and just social and economic environment for rural communities.” Held says he has hired RARE alumni; he’s also engaged to a RARE alumna he met at an earlier RARE reunion. Jasmine Jordan, RARE 2016–17 Before moving to Oregon to from the Midwest to join the RARE program, Jasmine Jordan went to Burkina Faso with the Peace Corps to be an economic development volunteer with projects focused on small businesses, irrigation, and reforestation. “I always wanted to round out my foreign service by giving back to a community stateside,” said Jordan, who had graduated from the University of Dayton, Ohio, with a BA in political science and international studies. In 2016, Jordan began the RARE program, working as a main street program coordinator for St. Helens Economic Development Corporation (SHEDCO) in northeast Oregon. In St. Helens, she facilitated the development and promotion of local businesses and proprietors through collaboration with the city planning department. Jordan helped write grants for restaurant expansions and art installations, recruit volunteers, develop the SHEDCO website, create wayfinding, and put on events such as the Spirit of Halloweentown celebration (the Disney Channel movie Halloweentown was filmed here). Her biggest impact, she said, was the grant she wrote for the rehabilitation of El Tapatio restaurant: In 2017, the restaurant received $100,000 from the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s Main Street Revitalization Grant. “My position in St. Helens exposed me to many professionals that work in planning, public policy, city government, and economics, specifically the finance and economic firms the city hired to work on urban renewal,” Jordan explained. Exposure to that work and having conversations with these professionals over lunch, she said, helped her decide between going to graduate school for economics or public policy. Jordan is currently a second-year PhD student in economics at the University of California, Riverside. “RARE’s ability to place, train, and encourage volunteers has truly proven itself over its 25 years of commitment to the State of Oregon,” she said. Matt Tsui, RARE 2016–18 The Penn State University environmental science and geographic information systems (GIS) graduate Matt Tsui applied to RARE because it met three criteria to jumpstart his career: an entry-level job in an interesting field for someone who only had internship experience the opportunity to immerse in the culture of a new state the chance to alleviate some student loan debt through the Segal AmeriCorps Education Award. Tsui said he walked away with so much more than that. “It provided me with a family,” Tsui said. “I have had a lot of pretty amazing jobs in the past, but my experience with RARE far beats the rest, because of the support and joy that I received from my RARE fam.” Tsui served as a geographic information system (GIS) coordinator for the City of Umatilla, specifically the public works department, where he collected locations and attributes for all 2,154 city-owned water and sewer utilities. For the data collected, Tsui developed mobile web mapping applications to streamline access to utility maps and plans in the field. In short, Tsui helped modernize the system, establishing a GIS-based tool that helps the planning and public works department make better daily and long-term decisions about how to improve utility services for Umatilla residents. “RARE provided me with the time and flexibility to make mistakes and learn the core principles of geographic information systems.” Tsui uses the principles and skills he learned in his current position in North Carolina as an ArcGIS analyst for Esri, a GIS company that builds mapping and spatial analytics software. RARE is so important to Tsui, he noted, that he flew across the country for the reunion and back in just 48 hours. Emma Porricolo, RARE 2016–18 RARE provided Emma Porricolo with the experience and qualifications that helped her acquire her current job as assistant planner with the Portland-based Angelo Planning Group. In 2016 as Porricolo neared completion of her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science (with minors in PPPM and geology), she says her PPPM advisor Jessica Matthiesen suggested she give RARE a try. “My time with RARE provided ‘real world’ experience that has been invaluable and allowed me to truly understand how cities function and the role of city planners at the local, regional, and state level,” said Porricolo. “Through my time serving with RARE, I gained an understanding and appreciation for the cultural differences across the state of Oregon.” Porricolo began serving with RARE in 2016 as a main street program coordinator for the Hermiston Downtown District. Here, Porricolo developed a network of stakeholders to focus on downtown and helped the district gain 501(c)3 nonprofit status. She said the network continues to partner on events and promotions that bring people downtown. In her second year, she served as a downtown planner for the City of Sandy, working on a walkability study and a master plan for downtown expansion. “Learning firsthand that I could connect with people very different from myself and collaborate with them to reach a shared goal was a pivotal experience for me,” Porricolo said. Corum Ketchum, RARE 2017–19 Corum Ketchum, who received his undergraduate degree in Planning, Public Policy and Management in 2016, first discovered RARE when he was taking the course Real World Eugene and working with the city to research student transportation projects. Megan Smith came and pitched the program to the class. “I didn’t know it at the time, but the conviction from that red-haired woman would point me toward the beginning of my career.” Ketchum just completed his second year with RARE, where he has served as an economic development specialist with the City of Veneta. During his tenure, Ketchum worked on a wide variety of projects including developing a network of local and regional economic development professionals, planning large public events such as Veneta’s downtown festival, and writing policy reports to guide the decision-making of staff and elected officials. He also wrote grants for more than $300,000 in economic and infrastructure projects. “RARE has been the perfect opportunity to apply what I learned in PPPM in a professional context,” Ketchum said. “RARE has made me feel both empowered and vulnerable. Clearly, I have been able to apply myself to a wide range of problems and make my mark. That has been gratifying, but it is the humility I have gathered from spending time with the people I’ve met along the way where I have grown the most as a person.” Ketchum will return to the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management this fall to pursue a Master in Public Administration. Link: https://design.uoregon.edu/reflecting-rural-revolution?utm_source=UOnews
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HEDCO anniversary marks a decade of innovation and service
First published in Around the O on August 12th. The celebration is scheduled for fall, but this summer officially marks the 10th anniversary of the HEDCO Education Building. Part of a $50.5 million construction project, the state-of-the-art facility has transformed the College of Education, created an iconic entrance to the west side of campus and accelerated the college’s far-reaching efforts to advance education and social services. “The architecture is stunning,” said Randy Kamphaus, the college’s dean. “However, the most important benefit of this building is how well it serves our people and their critical work on behalf of children and families. Since it opened, this impressive facility has elevated the college’s teaching, learning, research and community outreach tremendously. It has been, and continues to be, a catalyst for success.” COLLEGE OF EDUCATION No. 3 special education graduate program in the nation. No. 14 graduate school of education in the nation. Highest-ranked academic unit at the UO, due largely to a decades-long record of national and international research and development in special education, counseling psychology, educational leadership and school psychology. Long tradition of translating research into effective models, methods and measures that improve lives. Forty-three commercial education products currently on the market, innovations with an enduring impact in Oregon and across the nation. The building is named for California's HEDCO Foundation. The foundation's gift of $10 million, along with a $12.5 million gift from Lorry I. Lokey, helped secure the Legislature's authorization of $19.4 million in general obligation bonds. Private gifts covered 60 percent of the project costs. “Together, the HEDCO Foundation, individual donors, and the Oregon Legislature made this historic construction project possible,” Kamphaus said. “On behalf of our faculty and the university, I would like to express our gratitude and acknowledge the visionary leaders who made it happen, including my predecessors Michael Bullis and Martin Kaufman.” What began as a plan to expand and modernize facilities overwhelmed by a tripling of enrollment led to a historic renovation of the entire 9.8-acre site. The first construction for the college since 1980, the project updated all the buildings within the education complex, including the Clinical Services Building and the Education Annex, known informally as “the little red schoolhouse.” It also renovated the college's historic brick buildings, naming the three connected wings the Lorry I. Lokey Education Building in appreciation of his investment in the project. At four stories counting the basement parking structure, the HEDCO building increased the college's space within the complex by two-thirds and united its five clinical training programs under one roof. Since the building opened in 2009, the college has served an average of 943 undergraduate students each year, a 33 percent increase over the prior decade. The building continues to provide an ideal learning environment for students who go on to successful careers in teaching, couples and family therapy, speech pathology, school administration and counseling, research, and more. The college is also a resource for current teachers, who must maintain continuing education requirements. The HEDCO building has also helped the college continue its stellar track record for garnering grant dollars. Agencies are more likely to award proposals from organizations with suitable facilities, and the HEDCO Clinic is a big plus when applying for state and federal research funding. In fiscal year 2017, the college was responsible for 53 percent of the university’s grant-related funding. One of the most important benefits, Kamphaus said, has been to help the college recruit, retain and develop a world-class faculty. Visitors are impressed with the building, he said. And facilities — functional offices, convenient meeting rooms and practical work spaces — are big morale builders for the entire faculty. Since Kamphaus started as dean five years ago, the number of tenured faculty members in the college has increased by 35 percent. The building’s flexible design has accommodated the growth well, he said, making it possible to reconfigure the interior layout without affecting the overall aesthetics or functionality. Kamphaus is confident the facilities will continue to help the college realize its ambitious goals for the next decade, and longer. HEDCO Clinic This state-of-the-art university training clinic offers children and families behavioral health services, hosting more than 8,000 client appointments a year. Students seeking careers as couples and family therapists, speech language pathologists, and counseling and school psychologists gain practical experience. For families, the clinic offers one space to access many different services. Some of the simplest amenities added during construction, such as parking, space for children to play while waiting and a washroom, have made big differences. The setting is customized for the clinics as well as the college’s groundbreaking research on concussion management and recovery, speech pathology, stroke patients, autism and more. High tech home Designed to make teaching, long-distance learning and collaboration easy, the building’s leading-edge technology was also planned with upgrades and expansion in mind. This adaptable infrastructure has enabled the college to keep important tools up to date and relevant over the years. Learning community The HEDCO building was designed to promote collaboration and foster community, and informal learning spaces throughout the building reflect this approach. The Swindells Lobby features a fireplace, cafe and a learning commons with a computer lab. Wide hallways encourage students to interact with their peers as well as faculty members. Comfortable, flexible spaces were designed to create a home away from home. By all accounts, these ideas are working well in practice. Throughout the building, learning spills out of labs and classrooms and into the hallways. Multifunctional learning spaces serve an array of configurations for meetings, classes and group projects. Chance encounters blossom into impromptu meetings and discussions, which are significant educational experiences. One of the earliest projects on campus to fully adopt this design approach — now a national trend for universities — the HEDCO building has served as an example for other new construction on campus. All under one roof When it first opened, the HEDCO building united five clinical training programs in one building, encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration — an approach that has been highly successful. The new facility also has enabled the college to offer better services for students, faculty members and staff. Students and faculty members can easily find the information and resources they need. Community members and prospective students can ask questions, get directions or start a tour at the front desk. Welcoming families As home for the College of Education, the building serves as a bridge between the university and the families, communities and professions it serves. Walk through the HEDCO building on any given day, and you’ll see preschoolers playing in the grassy courtyard, parents bringing children to an appointment or students and faculty members collaborating on research that will improve lives. By creating a functional, welcoming environment, the building helps the college serve the community and fulfill its teaching and research missions. —By Ed Dorsch, University Communications
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UO physicist receives a five-year DOE early career award
First published in around the O on July 31st. Laura Jeanty’s search for new particles that may shed light on dark matter and explain why the Higgs Boson has the mass it does has landed the UO physicist five years of financial support from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. Jeanty, an assistant professor of the Oregon Center for High Energy Physics, was one of 73 U.S. scientists chosen for an early career award, which provides $150,000 a year. She is part of the UO’s team that works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland. “I am honored to receive this award,” said Jeanty, who joined the UO in September 2018 after postdoctoral work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. “It is a tremendous opportunity that will allow me and my group to pursue one of the most promising avenues where new discoveries might await in particle physics.” Jeanty is seeking fundamental particles produced by high-energy proton collisions at CERN. Predicted by a theory called supersymmetry, she said, “these particles could clarify the enigma of dark matter, could explain the mass scale of the Higgs boson and might be essential to help unify the theories of the fundamental forces.” In October, Jeanty will become co-leader of the ATLAS team that is searching for supersymmetry. The UO’s research group is looking for signatures of such particles that might travel through the ATLAS detector for some distance before decaying. Winners of the DOE’s early career award are tenure-track assistant or associate professors at a U.S. academic institution or a full-time employee at a DOE laboratory who have received doctoral degrees in the past 10 years. They also must be part of one of the DOE’s six major program offices, and selections are made through outside peer review of each applicant. Jeanty's award came from the DOE's Office of High Energy Physics. “Supporting our nation’s most talented and creative researchers in their early career years is crucial to building America’s scientific workforce and sustaining America’s culture of innovation,” said DOE Secretary Rick Perry. “We congratulate these young researchers on their significant accomplishments to date and look forward to their achievements in the years ahead.” Jeanty, a native of Massachusetts, studied physics and geology at Yale University and earned a doctoral degree in 2013 from Harvard University. She began working at CERN after completing her bachelor’s work and continued research with the ATLAS experiment through her postdoctoral work. “The strong and supportive ATLAS group at the UO was definitely one of the main things that led me to my position at the UO,” she said. https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-physicist-receives-five-year-doe-early-career-award
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UO and OHSU partner to fight cancer with data
First published in the Daily Emerald on July 8th. The University of Oregon is partnering with Oregon Health & Science University to form a joint Center for Biomedical Data Science that will provide students and faculty with new opportunities for cancer research collaborations. “Data analytics and artificial intelligence and those different areas are helping to predict complex systems, and there are complex systems all around us.” — Dr. Robert Guldberg, UO vice president and executive director of the Knight Campus The center will include up to 20 researchers and their teams to analyze OHSU’s patient data, according to Around the O. This continues UO’s new Presidential Data Science Initiative, which is working to include data in department research across the university, according to the Data Science Program about page. “The reason this makes so much sense is that as we are able to measure more and more variables related to a person's genes and proteins and cells,” said Dr. Robert Guldberg, UO vice president and executive director of the Knight Campus. “Data analytics and artificial intelligence and those different areas are helping to predict complex systems, and there are complex systems all around us. Cancer is a great example of that.” The center will be an extension of data science research between UO's Knight Campus, which is currently under construction in Eugene, and OHSU’s Knight Cancer Institute in Portland. Each institution will provide space for the partnership's research teams, according to the Register-Guard. “To make something really big like this happen really takes the stars aligning,” Guldberg said. He said it’s the vision of the president and other UO faculty members, as well as their colleagues at OHSU, that has come together to create the partnership and all that they hope it will accomplish. Dr. Brian Druker, director of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, emphasized the immediate need for cancer treatment. "I can't tell a patient to be patient. They need something today,” Druker said. “Too many patients get diagnosed with cancer too late, and we often don't have something for them. We need something for those patients now, but we need to prevent that from happening by diagnosing cancer earlier." “Too many patients get diagnosed with cancer too late, and we often don't have something for them. We need something for those patients now, but we need to prevent that from happening by diagnosing cancer earlier." — Dr. Brian Druker, director of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny have been major financial supporters of both Knight institutions. Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle and his wife Mary also recently gave the university $10 million to support the research efforts, according to Around the O. “A good portion of the gift from Tim and Mary Boyle is going to be directed towards providing greater opportunities for students and being able to attract great students to come and participate in this center,” Guldberg said. “There will be fellowships and scholarships and funding for student research." Druker said that both institutions are committed to involving underrepresented student demographics. He hopes diversification of student involvement with this research will translate to impactful discoveries for his patients. "My long-term goal is to have this remarkable, energetic group of young individuals that believe they can change the world, and give them the tools to do that," Druker said. A senior director, who would act as a liaison between the two campuses, has not yet been hired. There will be a national and international search for the ideal candidate, Guldberg said. Each university has agreed to pay up to $1 million per year for five years to cover the director’s salary and expenditures, according to the Register-Guard. Guldberg said he wants to continue the Knight Campus’s mission of doing world class science that translates discovery into societal impact at the quickest rate possible and said he hopes this is the first of what will be many centers affiliated with the Knight Campus.
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New data from UO-led study may change glacial melt predictions
First published in Around the O on July 24th. Working in ice-clogged seawater in small chartered boats, a University of Oregon-led research team successfully used sonar to scan Alaska’s LeConte Glacier in the first field tests of a long-used theory on melting that occurs under glaciers. The theory, used in modeling to project climate-driven sea level rise, was shot down in its first real-world test and may need to be revised. “What we found at this one location matters because many simulations of sea level rise and of iceberg melt all rely on this theory," said the study's lead Dave Sutherland, an oceanographer in the UO’s Department of Earth Sciences. "So our findings throw this theory into question.” Reporting in the July 26 issue of the journal Science, the team concluded that tidewater glaciers — those that empty from land valleys into ocean water — are potentially melting at two orders of magnitude, or some 100 times, faster than predicted. In the National Science Foundation-funded research, Sutherland's team worked from two chartered vessels and used autonomous kayaks and drones while deploying a direct approach to measure and analyze the glacial melt rates relative to ocean conditions. Most previous research on underwater glacial melting relied on theoretical modeling of conditions near glaciers and then applying theory to predict melt rates. “This theory is used widely in our field,” said study co-author Rebecca H. Jackson, an oceanographer at Rutgers University who was a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University during the project. “It’s used in glacier models to study questions like how will the glacier respond if the ocean warms by 1 or 2 degrees?” There are two main categories of glacial melt: discharge-driven and ambient melt on large floating ice shelves, such as in most of Antarctica, and those that end with near-vertical upright ice faces, which are common around Greenland and Alaska. Subglacial discharge occurs when large volumes, or plumes, of buoyant meltwater are released below the glacier. The plume combines with surrounding water, picking up speed and volume as it rises swiftly against the glacial face steadily eroding the glacier face and undercutting the glacier before diffusing into the surrounding water. Time-lapse photography done over eight hours from a camp located on a ridge above the LeConte Glacier in Alaska captures the underwater discharge plume flowing away from the glacier. Also visible are icebergs calving into the water, the marine vessel Steller and an autonomous kayak, from which measurements were taken of of the discharge plume. (Video by study co-author Jason Amundson of the University of Alaska Southeast) Direct measurements at ocean-ice interfaces have been made on Antarctic glacial shelves by boring through the ice down to the water underneath. However, with vertical-face underwater glaciers, those techniques are logistically not possible. “We don’t have that platform to be able to access the ice in this case,” said Sutherland, who heads the UO’s Oceans and Ice Lab. “These icebergs are always calving and moving very rapidly, you don’t want to take a boat up there.” Previous studies of ice-ocean interactions have mostly focused on the discharge plumes, which typically affect only a narrow area of the glacier face, while ambient melt instead covers the rest of the glacier face, he said. Predictions have estimated ambient melt to be 10 to 100 times less than the discharge melt, and, as such, it is often disregarded as insignificant, he said. To test the theoretical models in the field, the research team used a multibeam sonar to scan the glacier’s ocean-ice interface six times in August 2016 and five times in May 2017. Sonar allowed the team to image and profile large swaths of the underwater ice. Also gathered were data on temperature, salinity and velocity of water downstream from the glacier, which allowed the researchers to estimate the meltwater flow. Underwater melt rates were found to be high across the glacier’s face over both of the seasons surveyed, and the melt rate increases from spring to summer. “We measured both the ocean properties in front of the glacier and the melt rates, and we found that they are not related in the way we expected,” Jackson said. “These two sets of measurements show that melt rates are significantly, sometimes up to a factor of 100, higher than existing theory would predict.” Video produced by the UO’s Dave Sutherland, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, shows imagery captured by drones and photos during National Science Foundation-funded research done in May 2017 at the LeConte Glacier, located in a 12-mile-long fjord at the head of LeConte Bay southeast of Juneau. While the study focused on one marine-terminating glacier, Jackson said, the new approach should be useful to any researchers who are studying melt rates at other glaciers. That would help to improve projections of global sea level rise, she added. “Future sea level rise is primarily determined by how much ice is stored in these ice sheets,” Sutherland said. “We are focusing on the ocean-ice interfaces, because that’s where the extra melt and ice is coming from that controls how fast ice is lost. To improve the modeling, we have to know more about where melting occurs and the feedbacks involved.” The research team also included members from the University of Alaska Southeast, Juneau and Fairbanks; University of Texas at Austin; University of North Carolina; and Oregon State University. —By Carolyn Levinn and Jim Barlow, University Communications https://around.uoregon.edu/content/new-data-uo-led-study-may-change-glacial-melt-predictions?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=CTAbutton&utm_campaign=spotlight
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50 years later, Apollo 11 remains an inspiration for UO researchers
First published in Around the O on July 19th. Shortly after noon on July 20, 1969, the world watched as Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon. The impact of that moment continues to ripple though society and capture the imagination of many. For these University of Oregon faculty members — an astronomer, a product designer and a linguist — the moon landing was a source of inspiration and the basis of research, and it still resonates in their fields to this day. Scott Fisher, astronomy lecturer, outreach coordinator and director of the Pine Mountain Observatory: Q: How did the moon landing affect your field? A: Astronomers now are still reaping the benefits of Apollo. The generation of my thesis advisors were the kids that were inspired by Apollo. These were the engineers, the technical scientists and the people who wanted to build incredible machines; those are the folks who watched Apollo live. They were in their teens when the program happened. I know for a fact that Apollo and 1960s-era NASA was a major inspiration for many of the instrument builders and technical staff that I worked with at large telescope facilities before my time at the UO. While Apollo was not directly related to astronomy —other than perhaps some stellar navigation during the crisis of Apollo 13 — it was this oblique support that we’re reaping the benefits of now. Q: What does it mean to you now? A: I think I caught the tail-end of the Apollo excitement, but I know now that I would have been, dare I even say, over the moon if I were 10 years older and were in that slightly older generation. I would have been hooked. I can tell because I still am hooked. As an astronomer, I’m a little bit unusual in that I have a strong engineering slant. I freely admit that I love the machines of science. To me, I enjoy learning about the telescopes, and particularly the technology of the cameras and instruments that are used on them to obtain data, because in my mind I can draw a direct path from the camera that I helped build in grad school to someone who was inspired by Apollo. Q: Is that the coolest part for you? A: As an astronomer, it’s pretty cool to still look up the moon and think people walked on that. For me, personally, it’s the technology. I’m just immensely fascinated by the technology, the incredible strides in engineering and technology those folks made with what we would call extremely basic computers. I still find it almost unbelievable that many of the most critical calculations made for Apollo were made by a human. And think that your phone has more memory in it than every Apollo spaceship that ever flew. I think we should all take a moment and respect what they did with what we would consider such limited technology. But you know what? It worked. That is a fascinating thing. We all look up, we all appreciate the moon. I see the same moon as somebody in Australia sees — it’s upside down there — and space is the shared experience. I think we can use that in a positive way. Let’s parlay that fascination into something we can all get behind. I think Apollo was a worldwide catalyst that let us, humanity, do just that. Susan Sokolowski, director of the Sports Product Design Program who earlier wrote about the all-female spacewalk that was canceled because of a lack of properly sized spacesuits: Q: With no female astronauts in 1969, how far has product design come for the U.S. space program since then in terms of incorporating females? A: There were actually 19 women in the U.S. that trained to be astronauts in the 1960s. They were part of the Women in Space Program. The women completed the same required physiological tests as their male astronaut counterparts. Thirteen of the women passed the requirements, and some even outperformed the men. The program, however, was shut down around 1962. The space agency did not select any (new) female astronaut candidates until 1978. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, in 1983. In-flight, she wore identically designed products to her fellow male astronauts. During Apollo days, suits were customized to each astronaut. Today, they are modular, and the parts are put together for each astronaut to create a “portable environment.” In the 1990s, due to budget cuts, some of the smaller-sized parts were discontinued, which makes it more difficult to outfit women properly. Q: What does it say when the all-female spacewalk canceled because of the lack of sufficient female-specific spacesuits? A: It says financially and strategically, that NASA is not keen about outfitting a wide variety of body shapes and sizes in space, and that they would rather outfit the “average man.” It also says that there is not an ecosystem in place for R&D teams to have a voice, to relook at the sizing systems for spacesuits. Although women were highlighted in the recent incident, the lack of sizes could also affect men, as the astronauts are more and more ethnically diverse. Q: What do you think is the coolest thing about landing someone on the moon? A: There are so many dangers and hazards that astronauts can face. I find it incredibly inspiring that a team of people can rally around an effort that seems impossible and make it successfully happen. Melissa Baese-Berk, a linguist who has used advanced research techniques to better determine exactly what Neil Armstrong said when he became the first human to set foot on the moon: Q: What’s the reaction to your research around Neil Armstrong’s famous quote? A: It’s been fun to work on because it captures people’s imagination in a way that typical research doesn’t always do. I think one reason why is we’re really, really good at understanding and producing speech, so most of the time, we don’t have misunderstandings, especially in cases where something is highly scripted or highly public. This quote being so famous and also being a quote that is possibly misunderstood, I think really captures people’s imagination. The fact that there might be an explanation for why he was misunderstood or why he misspoke, depending on your perspective on this, I think both of those things are interesting to people because, from a layman’s perspective, that’s not something you think about happening all that often, misunderstanding or misspeaking. Q: What prompted you to research the quote? A: People have tried to look at this quote in a lot of detail, but it was recorded under really not ideal circumstances — 50 years ago from the moon — so it’s not like it’s the best recording quality we’ve ever seen. The challenge there is you can fight all day back and forth about whether or not he said this. I don’t think we’re going to get a definitive answer from that. What I like about our study is instead of saying is the “a” there, we took two tacks: which is to say, is it plausible that his utterance could be compatible with both “for” and “for a,” or is it only consistent with one or the other? The other question is: do people misunderstand instances like this, with acoustics that are similar to this? If the answer to both questions is yes, then we come down on a slightly more conclusive answer. —By Jim Murez, University Communications
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What were Neil Armstrong's famous first words on the moon?
First published on July 16th in Around the O. On July 20, 1969, an estimated 650 million people watched in suspense as Neil Armstrong descended a ladder towards the surface of the Moon. As he took his first steps, he uttered words that would be written into history books for generations to come: “That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” Or at least that’s how the media reported his words. But Armstrong insisted that he actually said, “That’s one small step for a man.” In fact, in the official transcript of the Moon landing mission, NASA transcribes the quote as “that’s one small step for (a) man.” As a linguist, I’m fascinated by mistakes between what people say and what people hear. In fact, I recently conducted a study on ambiguous speech, using Armstrong’s famous quote to try to figure out why and how we successfully understand speech most of the time, but also make the occasional mistake. Our extraordinary speech-processing abilities Despite confusion over Armstrong’s words, speakers and listeners have a remarkable ability to agree on what is said and what is heard. When we talk, we formulate a thought, retrieve words from memory and move our mouths to produce sound. We do this quickly, producing, in English, around five syllables every second. The process for listeners is equally complex and speedy. We hear sounds, which we separate into speech and non-speech information, combine the speech sounds into words, and determine the meanings of these words. Again, this happens nearly instantaneously, and errors rarely occur. These processes are even more extraordinary when you think more closely about the properties of speech. Unlike writing, speech doesn’t have spaces between words. When people speak, there are typically very few pauses within a sentence. Yet listeners have little trouble determining word boundaries in real time. This is because there are little cues – like pitch and rhythm – that indicate when one word stops and the next begins. But problems in speech perception can arise when those kinds of cues are missing, especially when pitch and rhythm are used for non-linguistic purposes, like in music. This is one reason why misheard song lyrics – called “mondegreens” – are common. When singing or rapping, a lot of the speech cues we usually use are shifted to accommodate the song’s beat, which can end up jamming our default perception process. But it’s not just lyrics that are misheard. This can happen in everyday speech, and some have wondered if this is what happened in the case of Neil Armstrong. Studying Armstrong’s mixed signals Over the years, researchers have tried to comb the audio files of Armstrong’s famous words, with mixed results. Some have suggested that Armstrong definitely produced the infamous “a,” while others maintain that it’s unlikely or too difficult to tell. But the original sound file was recorded 50 years ago, and the quality is pretty poor. So can we ever really know whether Neil Armstrong uttered that little “a”? Perhaps not. But in a recent study, my colleagues and I tried to get to the bottom of this. First, we explored how similar the speech signals are when a speaker intends to say “for” or “for a.” That is, could a production of “for” be consistent with the sound waves, or acoustics, of “for a,” and vice-versa? So we examined nearly 200 productions of “for” and 200 productions of “for a.” We found that the acoustics of the productions of each of these tokens were nearly identical. In other words, the sound waves produced by “He bought it for a school” and “He bought one for school” are strikingly similar. But this doesn’t tell us what Armstrong actually said on that July day in 1969. So we wanted to see if listeners sometimes miss little words like “a” in contexts like Armstrong’s phrase. We wondered whether “a” was always perceived by listeners, even when it was clearly produced. And we found that, in several studies, listeners often misheard short words, like “a.” This is especially true when the speaking rate was as slow as Armstrong’s. In addition, we were able to manipulate whether or not people heard these short words just by altering the rate of speech. So perhaps this was a perfect storm of conditions for listeners to misperceive the intended meaning of this famous quote. The case of the missing “a” is one example of the challenges in producing and understanding speech. Nonetheless, we typically perceive and produce speech quickly, easily and without conscious effort. A better understanding of this process can be especially useful when trying to help people with speech or hearing impairments. And it allows researchers to better understand how these skills are learned by adults trying to acquire a new language, which can, in turn, help language learners develop more efficient strategies. Fifty years ago, humanity was changed when Neil Armstrong took those first steps on the Moon. But he probably didn’t realize that his famous first words could also help us better understand how humans communicate. —By Melissa Michaud Baese-Berk, associate professor, Department of Linguistics
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Universities leave Salem with some wins, some plans to try again
First published in Around the O. The state’s recently concluded legislative session may be remembered most for the partisan politics that dominated its final days, but the UO and students in higher education will see some positive outcomes. The Public University Support Fund, which funds Oregon’s seven public universities, was increased by $100 million, or 13.6 percent, to a total of $836.9 million. That is the second-largest increase in a single session since 1999. The funding will help universities partially cover rising costs and keep tuition increases for Oregonians lower than they would have been otherwise. The increase brought the UO’s resident tuition increase down to 6.91 percent from 9.6 percent, or a $675 total annual increase for students taking 45 credits a year. And the Oregon Opportunity Grant, the state’s primary need-based financial aid program for resident college and university students, increased by $12.5 million, or 8.6 percent, which will allow the grant to serve approximately 2,500 more students across the state. Another success was a new $10 million University Research Innovation Fund administered through the Oregon Business Development Department. The fund will match competitive federal research awards, leveraging federal grants that require matching funds and supporting innovation and research capacity. Grants will be targeted in priority industries, such as advanced manufacturing, high technology, outdoor gear and apparel, health care innovation, food and beverage, and forestry and wood products. Research and innovation faculty members and staff played a key role in lobbying for the fund, as did staff at the business development office. “The University Research Innovation Fund is a good example of how sometimes it takes more than one session to get an idea cross the finish line, especially if it has a price tag attached,” said Libby Batlan, associate vice president for state and community affairs. “We introduced this concept in 2017, and while it was well received, it was not funded. We worked throughout the interim and came home with a win this time around.” Lawmakers also funded deferred maintenance projects at $65 million, which will help make sure buildings and classrooms on campus are safe and up to date. Capital projects, including the UO’s renovation of Huestis Hall, will be on the agenda for funding in the 2020 session. The Legislature has approximately $315 million of bonding capacity to distribute in February. State programs experienced a small increase in funds, including clinical legal education and the Dispute Resolution Program, Labor Education Research Center and TallWood Design Institute. A law, House Bill 2030, was passed making the UO eligible to apply for seismic rehabilitation grants. The campus veteran’s grant program, which provides funding for UO’s veteran’s service officer within the Division of Student Life, was renewed. The $54,000 grant the university currently receives from this program funds a half-time program coordinator, additional computers and technology, expanded student veteran engagement events and increased veteran welcome sessions. Despite efforts by UO faculty members, students and staff who testified before various legislative committees, a number of bills did not pass that would have funded programs and initiatives to help Oregonians statewide. All the measures were unanimously approved by the House and Senate education committees but did not make it out of the ways and means process. Those measures include funding for a new ocean-going research vessel for UO’s Oregon Institute of Marine Biology; a matching fund that could enable communities in rural areas to participate in the Sustainable City Year Program; funding for the UO’s prison education program through the Clark Honors College; and $12 million for the build-out of Oregon’s portion of the multihazard sensor network for the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning and wildfire prevention system. “These are incredible projects and programs from UO faculty members and students, and we believe that they are of value to the state,” said Hans Bernard, assistant vice president for state affairs. “While it’s disappointing they weren’t funded this session, we won’t give up on making sure lawmakers understand their value and will be back in future sessions.” The Legislature will convene again in February 2020. For more detailed information about all the measures that passed that will have an impact on the UO, read the end of session report on the Government and Community Relations Web site
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