Faculty and Staff | Department of Statistics

Imagine working for the Department of Motor Vehicles, not as a desk clerk or driving test administrator, but at the central office in Salem. Imagine that you were tasked with ascertaining how best to allocate fuel tax revenue. This revenue comes from the tax on fuel purchased for cars and trucks, marine boats, off-highway vehicles and other motorized vehicles. How would you go about distributing the revenue to the agencies responsible for these vehicles?

A survey to determine the fuel used in each category might be a good option, but where to begin? The Oregon State University Survey Research Center is ready to help. Since 1973 the Survey Research Center (SRC) has been working with Oregon State faculty and state government agencies to help them conduct and analyze surveys.

In addition to working with more than 15 different agencies in Salem including the Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon State Marine Board and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the SRC has worked with Oregon State University faculty and staff on a variety of projects. Examples range from investigations in applied economics to surveys of students graduating from the College of Science.

"It's fascinating because I learned so much about the state for each survey we work with," said Virginia Lesser, head of the Survey Research Center.

The art of survey design

The process of survey design involves first working with the client to determine the budget and the population to be surveyed. Throughout the entire process there is constant back and forth with the client to figure out exactly what they want and what is possible.

Sometimes clients come in looking to survey a specific segment of the population, such as people who use their service. However, there is often no way of knowing exactly who comprises that population. An important component in designing surveys is to determine and accurately define the population from which the results are gathered. In order to obtain measures of confidence around any estimates, probability sampling must be used.

With probability sampling, every member of the population has an equal chance of being surveyed because they are drawn from a random distribution.

In contrast, non-probability sampling involves selecting from a non-random distribution, such as those who seek out a survey to participate in. Due to the lack of a random selection of individuals, it's impossible to identify biases or compute other measurements. Therefore, data collected using non-probability sampling should be interpreted with caution due to the impact of selection bias.

"So the challenge I have is working with a client to figure out how to get the opinions they need when they don't know who the people are that use their service," Lesser said.

Once the population has been selected, there are three primary components to designing a survey: writing the questions, selecting the probability samples and correctly analyzing the survey data. Writing questions is a bit of an art. Good survey questions should be both unbiased and flow well within a questionnaire. The sample selection depends on the population one is looking to reach and the sampling design. The statistical analysis methods must account for the sampling design and any survey errors, such as nonresponse.

The future of survey distribution

Survey administration methods have evolved significantly over the last several years. Phone-based surveys are not used as much as they were 20 years ago due to the low response rates. Web surveys have become more prominent.

Today the Survey Research Center conducts most of its probability-based surveys using a hybrid web and mail approach, combining the usability of the internet with the higher quality and response rates of mail. This ensures reaching a wider array of demographics than either form would alone.

A key advantage of mail-based surveys is that one can easily mail out surveys to every address or a random sample of addresses in an area. The list of addresses used to select the probability samples for SRC surveys covers nearly 100% of all households in the US. The hybrid web and mail approach provides the opportunity for all selected households to respond either by mail or by web. Thus not all households need to have internet access.

Another method to contact survey participants uses email addresses. Email-based surveys may also be used in cases where the SRC or the client knows the email addresses for the population and know that all potential participants have access to email, for example surveys of Oregon State faculty and students.

Increasingly, more surveys are being conducted using non-probability online panels. These panels are composed of people volunteering to complete surveys in exchange for remuneration or other benefits. They have become popular in recent years due to how cheaply and easily they can be used to get relatively large samples. However, the individuals from an online panel who complete a survey are not a random sample of the population. These respondents choose to actively participate because of personal interest, or because of some sort of incentive, such as a gift card.

Due to their self-selecting nature, estimates from non-probability panel surveys tend to be biased as compared to results from probability sampling methods. Relying on non-probability panels for unbiased information would be like relying on a jury entirely made up of people who really want to be on it.

In addition to its work helping others conduct surveys, the Survey Research Center staff also conduct original research. The main focus of their research is on comparing the effectiveness of different survey techniques, studying how even minute details such as envelope color and size, incentives and content of cover letters impact response rates.

Survey response rates continue to decrease and the research conducted by the SRC examines methods to improve response rates in their surveys. Recently, one of Lesser’s graduate students has been working on how to combine probability and non-probability samples, and thus how to integrate the two approaches.

In our ever-changing social and technological landscape, keeping a finger on the pulse of public opinion is vital. The behind-the-scenes work of designing survey questions and researching survey methods is just as vital. For the past 50 years, the Survey Research Center has done both, through their original research and the services they provided to their clients within and without Oregon State University.

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Four-dimensional tissue self-assembly, integrated river health and ultra-tiny spectrometers: The 2022 College of Science Research and Innovation Seed (SciRIS) award recipients will use collaboration to fill critical knowledge gaps across numerous scientific disciplines to drive real-world impact.

The SciRIS program funds projects based on collaborative research within the College of Science community and beyond. There are two tracks through the program: SciRIS (Stages 1-3) and the SciRIS individual investigator award (SciRIS-ii).

SciRIS Stages 1-3 funds teams in three stages of increasing funding to support training, research and capacity-building, accelerating work toward external funding opportunities. SciRIS-ii funds individual faculty to establish research relationships with external partners, enabling them to demonstrate the feasibility of their ideas and quickening the pace of scientific discovery.

SciRIS-ii Awardees

The following three scientists received SciRIS-ii awards: Bo Sun, Clayton Petsche and Ethan Minot.

Associate Professor of Physics Bo Sun’s research aims to lay the foundation for programmable four-dimensional tissue self-assembly. Current technologies have been unable to harness these naturally occurring processes to assemble dynamic tissue structures for biomedical and therapeutic applications. Four-dimensional tissue self-assembly is critical for many physiological processes including acute wound healing and in lethal tumor metastasis.

Sun and his collaborator, Yang Jiao from Arizona State University, will be building on eight years of collaborative research in the field of cell mechanics and cell migration that has resulted in eight publications.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Clayton Petsche will use his SciRIS grant to help three graduate students complete sub projects within the realm of arithmetic dynamical systems. The research will be entirely student-focused and will help establish their research credentials before entering the postdoctoral job market.

Professor of Physics Ethan Minot will use his award to bring ultra-miniaturized spectrometer technology to Oregon State and pursue follow-up opportunities.

In 2022, with co-authors from Finland, Minot was part of a study published in Science that resulted in a powerful, ultra-tiny spectrometer. Contributing to a field known as optical spectrometry, their discovery could improve everything from smartphone cameras to environmental monitoring.

Minot plans to bring the technology to Oregon to grow the new field of research.

SciRIS Stage 1 Awardees

Four groups of scientists received SciRIS Stage 1 awards up to $10K.

Associate Professor of Statistics Yuan Jiang, along with Anna Jolles, professor in the Department of Integrative Biology, received a SciRIS Stage 1 grant for a project which will help fill a knowledge gap and provide crucial tools to understand microbial community dynamics.

The team will develop a novel analytical pipeline that harnesses longitudinal microbiome data to define the ecological roles of host-associate microbes. Although the accumulation of microbial communities is essential to animal health, there are few statistical routes adequate for characterizing microbial community dynamics through time.

Integrative Biology Professor Anna Jolles and Carson College of Veterinary Medicine Professor Claudia Häse will use their SciRIS Stage 1 award to study eco-evolutionary host-bacterial-phage dynamics. Collaborating with a researcher from the University of Louisiana, the group will be using the Pacific oyster and shellfish pathogen Vibrio coralliilyticus as a model system.

In a project entitled “Bioinformatics for integrated river health,” Integrative Biology Professors David Lytle and Anna Jolles, along with Justin Sanders from the Carson College of Veterinary Medicine, will bring together expertise across disciplines to provide an integrated approach to understanding river health. The group will combine expertise in bioinformatic and genetic methods for characterizing aquatic invertebrate communities, aquatic parasite and pathogen communities, and fish microbiomes. Samples will come from the lower Colorado River, an ecologically and culturally significant ecosystem.

Biochemistry and Biophysics Associate Professors David Hendrix and Colin Johnson, along with Professor of Chemistry Claudia Maier and Patrick Reardon, director of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility at Oregon State, received a SciRIS Stage 1 award to create a pipeline of computational and experimental methods for the prediction, identification and functional characterization of microproteins. Previously dismissed due to their small size, microproteins are now thought to play significant physiological roles including pathological roles in cancer progression.

Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund

Researching Parkinson’s disease, Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics Alysia Vrailas-Mortimer received a grant from the College of Science Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund for a project entitled “Why is a fly a good model to study my grandmother’s tremors?”

Similar to the SciRIS-ii, the fund is focused on assisting individual faculty efforts to establish research relationships with external partners for projects specifically related to health science.

Using fruit flies, Vrailas-Mortimer’s goal is to determine how a stress response protein protects against Parkinson’s-associated iron-induced oxidative damage. Parkinson’s affects over one million people in the U.S. and her research could provide the basis for future therapeutic strategies.

With areas of distinction in marine science, materials science, data science, biomedical science – and other research areas, OSU faculty and students are fighting climate change and moving the world forward to a greener future – whether that is through harnessing new materials, interpreting complex data or reimagining how organisms can adapt to changes. We share just a few examples in this three-part series.

Oregon State University scientists are rapidly rising to the challenge of our changing climate, supported by hundreds of graduate and undergraduate researchers who are committed to leaving a better world than the one they inherited. In part three of this series, we examine some of the data-driven research that is helping usher in a new era of climate policy and action.

Mathematics and statistics are two of the quickest-growing fields in the country, and it's not hard to guess why. As technology advances, mathematical modeling or statistical analysis can provide a faster, more reliable way to examine lots of data. In practice, these skills can provide critical insight to collaborative projects or inform policymakers on the most environmentally sound decisions.

Wildlife behavior

Making green energy safer for wildlife

Professor of statistics Lisa Madsen and statisticians from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have come together to develop methodology to estimate the total mortality of bats, birds and other small creatures on wind farms and solar facilities. The Endangered Species Act requires that wind farms pay particular attention to endangered or threatened species such as golden eagles, brown pelicans, whooping cranes, condors and Indiana bats, which are killed when they accidentally collide with turbine blades.

Madsen and her colleagues have developed complex statistical tools that estimate the actual number of carcasses when they are undetectable for any reason by taking into account a host of predictor variables such as searcher efficiency, variations in plot sizes and location of inaccessible areas.

The software package, created by the team, will be utilized by government agencies as well as Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc., which has already begun to implement the software to assist their clients. The project has also attracted attention from environmental and government agencies in Canada, South Africa, Portugal and Scotland among others. In addition, the USGS statisticians have conducted workshops demonstrating how to use the software to estimate animal mortality at wind and solar energy facilities.

Wildebeast heard crosses the Mara River in Kenya

A recent study shows that groups of organisms that act together, like this wildebeest herd crossing the Mara River in Kenya, have complex relationships with their ecosystems. Not only are these mass movements affected by the external forces of their environments – they also shape the processes around them. These relationships have a powerful role in the behavior of the group, as well as in the health of the ecosystem.

Collective movement to stabilize ecosystems

In addition to being visually stunning, schools of herring, herds of wildebeest and countless other groups of organisms that act in concert can help complex ecosystems maintain their diversity and stability. Published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, a study led by mathematical biologist Benjamin Dalziel demonstrates that when individuals band together to consume resources as a collective group, the surrounding ecosystem is prone to be more resilient and able to support a wider range of species.

Their findings could be an important step toward understanding how cooperation and biodiversity help living systems stay on an even keel. “We constructed simulations in such a way that we could turn collective behavior on and off without changing anything else in the system,” Dalziel said. “What we found was that adding collective behavior was a game changer in the simulations – it stabilized ecosystems.” Since collective behavior is ubiquitous across the planet, playing a prominent role in everything from bacterial biofilms to human cities, the study’s findings have wide significance.

In the sagebrush steppe of the intermountain West, invasive species like cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) change soil composition and increase fire intensity and frequency, effectively squeezing out integral vegetation like sagebrush. Post-fire seeding efforts give sagebrush a fighting chance to recover from the impact of this interloper.

Data-driven resource management

The need for native seeds

Climate change and irresponsible land use have resulted in the degradation of millions of acres of land around the country. These disturbances are detrimental to native plant health and often creates opportunities for invasive species to thrive.

Statistician Virginia Lesser served as a panel member for a committee to assess the Need for Native Seeds and the Capacity for Their Supply, sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Native seeds play an essential role in maintaining and restoring natural areas. The committee explored the complex systems of native seed production and use in the United States, and examined their viability for future projects. Their committee was formed in 2019 and developed an interim report in 2020, with a final report expected in 2022.

Smarter forestry practices for a drier climate

As the earth warms, scientists in the Pacific Northwest can be sure of two things: rising temperatures and drier summers. In a state that relies heavily on Douglas fir trees - as a habitat for wildlife as well as economically - understanding how changing temperatures affect forest growth patterns will be critical for forest management. In a collaboration with the College of Forestry, statistics professor Lisa Ganio published a study that found that minor differences in temperature, soil depth or moisture did not significantly influence tree growth patterns. However, growth patterns were significantly impacted by competition, with higher growth in less competitive areas. The results of this study suggest that foresters will be able to focus more attention on other areas, such as habitat preservation.

Changing flood regimes, new projections

The potential for changes in flood regimes due to climate change, in combination with the deep limitations of climate projections, necessitates rethinking how we make flood risk management decisions.

Statistics professor Alix Gitelman participated in a study to develop a new approach for dealing with hydrologic uncertainty and flood management. The developed bottom-up approach was applied to the American River, CA, USA flood management system by first identifying the sensitivity and vulnerability of the system to different climates. To do this, they developed a climate response surface by calculating and plotting Expected Annual Damages (EAD, $/year) under different flood regimes.

The time it takes a forest to recover after high-severity fires has important implications for how the landscape will respond in the future to changing fire regimes. A warming planet could delay forest recovery by either hindering tree seedling establishment and growth, or through the loss of seed sources if patches of high-severity fire become larger.

Bolstering fire resistance in a changing climate

As fires become more prevalent throughout the west, landscapes are altered in ways that may make them more or less resilient to fire in the future. Enrique Thomann, a mathematics professor, participated in a study published in the Journal of Ecology to examine how changing ecological composition impacts the landscape's ability to resist fire damage in the future - an area that continues to be under-researched.

As the climate warms, there is a growing concern that forest landscapes risk transformation to non- forest systems through alteration of their fire regimes. Fire modifies vegetation composition and structure, including effects on fuel amount and type, fuel connectivity, and canopy- mediated influences on microclimate and fuel moisture. These effects may then shape the spread and severity of subsequent fires.

The strength of fire–vegetation feedbacks (i.e., the degree to which fire- driven changes to vegetation, fuels and microclimate affect the spread and behavior of subsequent fires) is influenced by numerous global change pressures. Given the many interacting variables that influence how ecosystems respond to disturbance, models calibrated to a specific study area are highly valuable in evaluating how that ecosystem responds to alterations of its disturbance regime.

Helping mitigate energy disasters in the Arctic

With expertise that spans disciplines, mathematics professor Malgo Peszynska primarily works on problems related to energy engineering and climate change. Her modeling of transport includes porous media phenomena in aquifers, oil and gas reserves, carbon sequestration, solar cells and the effect of permafrost warming. Perhaps most notable is her use of computational mathematics to model methane hydrate transfer and evolution.

Methane hydrate is an “ice” found primarily in the Arctic permafrost as well as in sub-ocean sediments. Known as one of the largest potential sources of fossil fuel, it is also one of the most risky. Existing in a delicate pressure-temperature equilibrium, exposure to heat could lead to melting that could cause explosions, or the escape of huge quantities of methane gas into the atmosphere.

The specific conditions at which it exists have also meant that it has been exceedingly difficult to study using traditional research tools. This is where using mathematics can be so useful. “As an applied mathematician in this area, the objective is to provide reliable and accurate modeling tools for simulation of various scenarios to help mitigate and contain the possible disasters,” Peszynska said.

Leaving a better world

As one of only three Land-, Sea-, Space- and Sun-Grant institutions in the country, Oregon State University has a commitment of service that extends beyond our campus, state or country borders. Students not only have the opportunity to receive a world-class education, but the opportunity to perform high-level research with faculty who genuinely care about the future of the planet - whether they are biologists, physicists or statisticians.

Seed funding from the College of Science Research and Innovation Seed (SciRIS) program continues to bolster ambitious and expansive projects, empowering our scientists to delve into fundamental research discoveries and translate them into revolutionary applications. Founded in 2018, the SciRIS program provides funding for collaborative projects that pursue fundamental discoveries and create societal impact, accelerating the pace of research, discovery and innovation in the College of Science.

Between 2019 and 2021, the SciRIS program provided $763K in seed funding to scientists leading research projects in both basic and applied science and mathematics, with the potential to produce practical solutions for industry, people and the planet.

There are two pathways through this program, the SciRIS Stages 1-3 awards and the SciRIS individual investigator award (SciRIS-ii). The SciRIS Stages 1-3 program funds teams in three stages, ranging from $10K to $125K, to foster team development, build capacity and accelerate project development for procuring larger external grants, while the SciRIS-ii program provides funds ranging from $10K to $20K to individual investigators to establish partnerships, accelerate project development, generate data and manuscripts and foster proposal submissions.

The 2022 Science Research and Innovation Seed Individual Investigator awards (SciRIS-ii) are catalyzing initiatives that will open fresh pathways in science.

Supporting pure and applied mathematics, agriculture, gene therapy, molecular movie technology and quantum mechanics

Radu Dascaliuc, a man with glasses and a beard.

Radu Dascaliuc, associate professor of mathematics

Dascaliuc researches stochastic cascades and energy transfer in equations of fluid dynamics. The mathematics of fluid flows allow us to understand and predict the complexity of behaviors exhibited in fluids. Deeply rooted in questions of applied science and engineering, the proposed research is a part of a larger program aimed at exploring connections between the mathematics of equations of fluid motions and physics of fluids.

Part of the proposal is to organize a two-week summer collaborative research program for graduate and undergraduate students. This program will be devoted to attracting students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in STEM and especially in the field of fluid dynamics. The project will be structured so that students without advanced knowledge in differential equations, mathematical analysis and probability can contribute and hopefully become interested and motivated to learn more about the mathematics involved. Funds for Dascaliuc’s SciRIS-ii project titled, “Stochastic Cascades and Energy Transfer in Equations of Fluid Dynamics” are provided by a generous gift made to the Robert W. Lundeen Science Faculty Development Award Fund.

Yanming Di, a man with glasses standing outside.

Yanming Di, associate professor of statistics

In partnership with the Oregon State Seed Lab, Yanming Di innovates seed sampling devices and protocols. Seeding testing — used for determining seed lot quality and establishing seed value — is a fundamental phase of the agricultural marketing system. Getting an accurate subsample of seed depends on the accuracy and precision of the device used.

Devices and protocols developed by the OSU Seed Lab and the USDA in the 1970s are still considered state of art today, leaving ample room for further improvements. With SciRIS funding, Di and collaborators aim to start a new wave of groundbreaking innovations by incorporating recent advances in robotics, computer vision, machine learning and stochastic modeling into seed testing. Funds for Di’s SciRIS-ii project entitled “Innovating Seed Sampling Devices and Protocols” come from the College of Science’s Education & General Funds.

Colin Johnson, associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics

Colin Johnson’s research uncovers new connections between the ferlin family of genes and disease. Mutations in dysferlin are linked to muscular dystrophy, while mutations in otoferlin and myoferlin have been linked to deafness and breast cancer, respectively. Previous research led by Johnson uncovered key components of otoferlin gene therapy, moving one step closer to restoring hearing for the congenitally deaf.

In partnership with collaborators from the College of Engineering and College of Agricultural Sciences, Johnson’s new project will focus on ferlin gene Fer1L6, which has been linked to ovarian failure and neural tube development deficiencies. It will be the first study to unpack the effects of Fer1L6 on organismal development and neural tube defects. Funds for Johnson’s SciRIS-ii project, entitled “Establishing a Zebrafish model for the study of the Ferlin gene Fer1L6,” come from the College’s Education & General Funds.

Chong Fang, associate professor of chemistry

SciRIS-ii funding will support a research collaboration between OSU and Stanford University led by Chong Fang. The project will implement state-of-the-art femtosecond laser spectroscopy at the Linus Pauling Science Center. By advancing the mechanistic knowledge and rational design of reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins, this emergent tool for super-resolution microscopy and bioimaging will elevate both labs’ research to new heights while further enhancing the visibility and impact of “molecular movie” technology at OSU.

Funds for Fang’s SciRIS-ii project, entitled “Elucidating primary events of engineered photoswitchable fluorescent proteins with a powerful ultrafast spectroscopy toolset,” are provided by a generous gift made to the Ben and Elaine Whiteley Materials Research Fund.

Man smiling in front of a bush of flowering azaleas

Clay Petsche, associate professor of mathematics

Petsche is working with graduate students Chifan Leung, Chatchai Noytaptim and Peter Oberly to develop new ways to measure the arithmetic complexity of dynamical systems – a mathematical construction which takes input data and feeds it through a repetitive process – and to show that certain families of arithmetic dynamical systems can be divided into the simple and the complex. Using mathematical techniques including Galois theory, which is the study of symmetry in the solutions to polynomial equations; potential theory; and the analytic theory of Berkovich spaces, a fully modern construction that has recently given mathematicians the ability to apply classical analytic techniques toward modern number theory applications.

Funds for Petsche’s SciRIS-ii project, entitled “Exceptional maps in arithmetic dynamical systems,” are provided by a generous gift made to the Robert W. Lundeen Science Faculty Development Award Fund.

Axel Saenz Rodriguez, a man with dark hair.

Axel Saenz Rodriguez, assistant professor of mathematics

According to quantum mechanics, we can only know the probability for the location of an electron at any given moment. Yet, if the electrons are confined to a one-dimensional space, the system exhibits certain symmetries that may allow one to obtain exact formulas for the statistics of the electrons. Axel Saenz Rodriguez aims to develop the mathematical theory to determine these statistics and to host a conference focused on this research topic. The two-day conference at OSU in Fall 2022 will build a regional network of collaborations; develop research projects suitable for grant proposals; and build research activity and a community on campus for graduate students and faculty. Funds for Saenz Rodriguez’s SciRIS-ii project, entitled “Probability law for 1D quantum electrons,” are provided by a generous gift made to the Robert W. Lundeen Science Faculty Development Award Fund.

Bolstering medicine through interdisciplinary research

As part of the SciRIS program, the College of Science offers other donor-funded awards to bolster research and innovation. The Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund (DMPF) supports research into the mechanism, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of human disease by the College of Science faculty. These funds are provided by a generous gift from David and Donna Gould. The awardees are Swati Patel, assistant professor of mathematics and Adrian Gombart, professor of biochemistry and biophysics.

Swati Patel, assistant professor of mathematics

Swati Patel’s DMPF proposal is titled “Mathematical modeling of Anthelmintic resistance in soil-transmitted Helminths.” Patel’s research addresses soil-transmitted helminths (STH), parasitic worms that infect an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide, particularly in developing tropical countries that lack adequate sanitation systems. Periodic de-worming is necessary to treat and prevent infection, but STH are developing resistance against the drugs used. Patel develops projects to investigate the mechanisms that lead to resistance and strategies to prevent it through systematic mathematical modeling.

Adrian Gombart, professor of biochemistry and biophysics

Gombart’s DMPF project, “The role of the cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide in the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” continues work from a previous DMPF award, studying the potential use of an antimicrobial peptide called cathelicidin to curtail the development of Alzheimer’s. Vitamin D and other nutrients regulate expression of the peptide. Gombart’s project could lead to further development of effective preventative therapies or treatments of Alzheimer’s disease. Gombart is a principal investigator at the Linus Pauling Institute and is known for his extensive research on the uses and functions of vitamin D, including using it to combat infection via wound dressings and sutures.

On February 22, the College of Science gathered to recognize academic, administrative and teaching excellence at the 2021-22 Combined Awards Ceremony. The first portion of the ceremony celebrated research and administrative achievements, while the second highlighted outstanding teaching, advising and mentoring.

The College celebrates the Teaching and Advising Awards winners below for their deep commitment to engaging with the student experience and application of mentoring and advising expertise to ensure student learning and success within and beyond the classroom. Effective teaching, advising and mentorship are the very heart of the College of Science’s identity as a robust and thriving community of students and scholars. Driven almost exclusively by students’ nominations, these awards are an opportunity for our community to express gratitude and appreciation for each other.

2022 Teaching, Advising and Mentoring Award Winners

Olaf Boedtker Award for Excellence in Academic Advising

Rachel Palmer, a woman with long hair, smiling.

Integrative Biology Advisor Rachel Palmer

Rachel Palmer, integrative biology advisor, won the Olaf Boedtker Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising for her tireless support, efforts and advocacy on behalf of undergraduate students. This award was established in 1988 in honor of Olaf Boedtker, a professor in the Department of Physics who served as Head Advisor in the College from 1973 to 1987. While at Oregon State, he provided exceptional service to students and to the College.

Several students nominated Palmer for this award, praising her dedication and ability to connect and encourage students to achieve their goals.

One student nominator wrote of Palmer: “Right off the bat, Rachel came across as a very happy-go lucky person. She has always been extremely kind and caring at every meeting, treating me as an equal adult and even cracking some jokes that set me at ease. She has always been able to answer every question I had, no matter how specific or vague. I can absolutely tell she wants to help me and set me on the best path possible. Rachel pays mind to each and every student as an individual. She is passionate, inspirational, dedicated and she really knows her stuff!”

Another student had similar feedback for Palmer: “Rachel has made the beginning of my journey towards my Bachelors of Science in Zoology a wonderful experience even through uncertainty. She really goes above and beyond the call of duty, you would not think an advisor could be such a hero.”

“I admire how easily Rachel has helped me find a class schedule that works so well," wrote another student nominator. "She asks important questions, listens to your expectations and executes. One thing she does well is helps me find classes that work well together as far as content.”

Additional nominees for the Olaf Boedtker Award included:

Cody Duncan, advisor for integrative biology
Allison Evans, instructor of microbiology
Jen Olarra, advisor for biology
Kari Van Zee, senior instructor of biochemistry and biophysics

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching (Undergraduate)

Assistant Professor of Chemistry Kyriakos Stylianou

This year’s Loyd Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Undergraduate Teaching in Science goes to Kyriakos Stylianou, assistant professor of chemistry.

Every year since 1946, the Loyd F. Carter Award has been presented to two outstanding College of Science faculty members: one for undergraduate teaching and one for graduate teaching. The purpose of the award is to encourage and recognize effective and inspirational teaching. The final selection is based solely on student nominations and voting.

Stylianou’s students describe him as passionate, inspirational and dedicated. “This man is so incredibly intelligent but also one of the humblest people you will ever meet,” one student said.

“He has to be one of the best professors I have had here at OSU,” said another student nominator. “Walking into CH 233, I was super nervous. I heard it was the hardest of the chemistry series. With everyone feeling the burnout of virtual learning, he made sure to make his class engaging and put everything he had into every class.”

Many students praised the learning atmosphere Stylianou creates in his classes and his attentiveness to student needs. “He cares very much about his students and wants to see them succeed. He devotes a significant amount of time inside and outside of class to give them the opportunities and resources they need to be successful in his class, and beyond. He never tries to beat around the bush, always gives you an honest answer, and just wants to see the best in people. The jokes and wise-cracks in class always help to lighten the mood as well.”

Additional nominees for the Loyd F. Carter undergraduate award included:

Daniel Myles, senior instructor of chemistry
Devon Quick, senior instructor of integrative biology
Marita Barth, instructor of chemistry
Malcolm Lowry, assistant professor of microbiology
Nathan L. Kirk, senior instructor of integrative biology
Paul Cheong, associate professor of chemistry
Phil McFadden, associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics
Scott Geddes, instructor of chemistry
Stacey Vaughn, instructor of mathematics

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching (Graduate)

Assistant Professor of Statistics James Molyneux

This year’s Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Graduate Teaching in Science goes to James Molyneux, assistant professor of statistics.

Students nominating Molyneux described him as caring, uplifting and welcoming, and praised his ability to adapt during the pandemic. "He consistently encouraged me and my cohort during the transition from COVID to campus, to keep up our spirits in one of the most difficult academic years of our lives," said one student. "Without him, I would not have gathered the courage to continue moving forward. He is brilliant in the classroom as a professor and a loyal mentor and advocate for our success."

Another student said the following of Molyneux: "He excels at making statistics, a subject which is generally taught dryly and without much passion, relevant to grad students' research and our daily life. He uses timely examples and highlights the nuance of stats, in a way that makes it fascinating instead of frustrating. He was always available for extra help or assistance outside of class, and always seemed willing to discuss other topics than just the class material! He is supportive and compassionate with graduate students, and was the best stats teacher I've had so far at OSU! He also made sure the class content was accessible to students in multiple ways by recording both Zoom and in-person classes, and making the lecture notes easily available. His high-energy and engaging teaching style was apparent in both the in-person and online class I took with him, which I have found to be a rare occurrence in a remote setting!"

Thomas Sharpton, associate professor of microbiology, was also nominated for the Loyd F. Carter graduate award.

Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching Science

Associate Professor of Physics Elizabeth Gire.

This year’s Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching Science goes to Liz Gire, associate professor of physics.

This award honors Fred Horne, who served as Dean of Science at Oregon State from from 1986 to 1999. Fred passed away in 2021, a renowned researcher, scholar, teacher and leader.

Fred exemplified the values of our college, embracing a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in science. He was instrumental in establishing two programs that encourage students of color to pursue and continue their education in science, math and engineering: Science and Math Investigative Learning Experience (SMILE) and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).

The purpose of this award is to recognize sustained excellence in teaching science by honoring a faculty member in the College of Science who has repeatedly demonstrated exceptional instructional qualities and has had a significant impact on students over a period of not less than five years.

Liz Gire has earned this award through her tireless dedication to support the holistic student experience. A plethora of students and colleagues wrote at length in support of Gire's nomination. One student nominator said, "Her level of dedication to the genuine support and inclusion of the students in her courses is something I’ve never seen in an educator before. She backs that up with her skill and experience in education and communication that makes difficult content still accessible and enjoyable to learn. She takes every opportunity to build others up, whether that be her students, her teaching team, her research partners or the many people in our department who aren’t any of those things, but still know they can come to her because she is the type of person who will help however and whenever she can."

Another student nominator said, "Liz is a wonderful professor because she is a master at reading the atmosphere of a classroom. Sure, part of this is an intuition that comes from experience, but more importantly, she takes time to ask questions. Each student is expected to grab a small white board and marker at the beginning class. Later when Liz looks out and says, 'write down something that you know about angular momentum' she can measure students’ level of confusion and use student responses to guide the classroom discussion. This makes everyone much more willing to participate in class because they know that she honestly cares for their well-being and success."

Congratulations to all the winners and all the nominees!

The inner workings of a cell, more powerful mass spectrometry and building a tropical reef at Oregon State: The 2021 College of Science Research and Innovation Seed (SciRIS) awards are empowering initiatives that will open fresh pathways in science.

The SciRIS program funds projects based on collaborative research within the College of Science community and beyond. There are two tracks through the program: SciRIS (Stages 1-3) and the SciRIS individual investigator award (SciRIS-ii). SciRIS Stages 1-3 funds teams in three stages to support training, research and capacity-building, accelerating work toward external funding opportunities. SciRIS-ii funds individual faculty to establish research relationships with external partners, enabling them to demonstrate the feasibility of their ideas and quickening the pace of scientific discovery.

The newly-established College of Science Innovation Award provides critical resources for projects that take a new direction, utilize a new technology or are in the “proof-of-concept” phase.

Three groups of scientists received SciRIS Stage 1 awards, two at $10K each and one at $20K. One group received the Innovation Award at $10K.

Professor of Microbiology Rebecca Vega Thurber and her colleagues will use their award to develop a model tropical reef facility within Oregon State’s world-renowned John Fryer Aquatic Animal Health Lab.

The model will allow College of Science researchers across biology, chemistry and ecology to perform highly controlled, repeatable experiments on reef ecosystems, which are under increasing threats from climate change, pollution, habitat destruction and disease. By bringing the reef to researchers, carbon emissions associated with travel are also reduced.

The facility will also serve as an outreach platform, bringing awareness of far-off ecosystems to the local community. By interacting with the lab, citizens will learn about how humans affect these fragile habitats and how they personally can potentially mitigate and reverse reef decline.

Chemistry Professor Wei Kong and Statistics Professor Lan Xue will use their SciRIS grant to develop more effective mass spectrometry through inclusion of electron diffraction. With this addition, future mass spectrometers will be able to reveal not only the mass composition of an unknown species, but also the three-dimensional arrangement of the constituent atoms. This capability can change the paradigm of nanomaterial synthesis, allowing intelligent design and quality control of custom-made materials applicable in medical diagnostics and therapeutics, in energy harvesting and storage, and in catalysis.

Biochemistry and Biophysics Professor Elisar Barbar and collaborators received a SciRIS award to integrate structural biology with cell and organismal biology. Capitalizing on Oregon State’s high concentration of expertise and resources for studying dynamic protein complexes across scales, the team aims to establish new technologies to investigate cancer related complexes and host-parasite interactions. Their eventual goal is to submit a proposal to the NSF Biology Integration Institute, which supports interdisciplinary projects that translate discoveries from the molecular scale to the cellular level of organisms and vice versa.

Associate Professor of Physics Matt Graham and colleagues received the College of Science Innovation Award support their work converting waste heat to electricity, contributing to a more sustainable world through the recovery of energy losses and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The team will develop a prototype of an ultralow bandgap semiconductor device that converts residual waste heat to electricity. The award will support their work optimizing the efficiency of the device’s waste heat to energy conversion and validating the current extraction model related to the device prototype.

Katherine McLaughlin is a statistical detective of sorts, employing sampling and data analysis methods to identify and understand hard-to-reach or hidden populations. An assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at Oregon State University, McLaughlin’s work explores a large number and wide variety of at-risk populations around the globe and involves collaborations with epidemiologists, statisticians, and public health officials.

Last summer the onset of the pandemic drove her statistical research towards a different direction. McLaughlin was appointed co-principal investigator with Oregon State University’s nationally recognized TRACE-COVID-19 project. She is TRACE’s lead researcher on providing statistical analyses and guidance. In this role, McLaughlin develops robust and innovative sampling designs and data analyses for community testing, as well as dissemination of public facing results for TRACE-OSU.

The highly successful TRACE-COVID-19 project has set a national example in containing COVID-19 risk. Oregon State researchers, including McLaughlin, recently received a $2 million grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to create a national TRACE Center that will expand OSU’s COVID-19 public health project to other states.

“I was drawn to respondent-driven sampling because it merges my interest in designing specialized sampling methods tailored to the needs of a population with the possibility to help groups that are typically underserved and face elevated risk of HIV and other diseases.”

Team-based Rapid Assessment of Community-Level Coronavirus Epidemics, or TRACE-COVID-19, was launched by OSU in April, 2020 with door-to-door sampling in Corvallis, home to Oregon State’s main campus, and expanded to other cities around the state while also adding a wastewater testing component.

In late September, at the start of the academic year, TRACE also started conducting prevalence testing among OSU students, faculty and staff in Corvallis, at OSU-Cascades in Bend and at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon.

Putting statistics to use in the cause of public health

McLaughlin’s research on sampling methods made her the ideal scientist for TRACE. “My work on TRACE aligns well with my interest in sampling methodology, where the challenge is to design a data collection strategy tailored to the unique needs of the population that will best allow the research question to be addressed,” said McLaughlin.

While spearheading sampling and modeling methods at TRACE, McLaughlin has responded to unique challenges in different communities across Oregon, with several variables at play. For instance, she and her colleagues had to figure how to best incorporate wastewater data collected in advance of TRACE sampling to inform allocation of field teams to households within the community.

In her own research on vulnerable populations, McLaughlin has similarly estimated prevalence of HIV or the proportion of a population that are victims of human trafficking, and typically elude standard sampling and estimation procedures. More broadly, McLaughlin is interested in social science applications of statistics, for example, understanding how human behaviors contribute to things like missing data on surveys of at-risk populations.

This dimension of her research also exists in her work at TRACE, where she analyzes “how differential participation rates may be impacting our estimates.”

Hidden populations constitute socially stigmatized groups that are reluctant to disclose their identities, remaining largely invisible to researchers. Due to this difficulty in locating members of a small target population, researchers have encountered a dearth of data on the characteristics and demographics of hidden populations.

In her statistical research, McLaughlin has developed new data sampling designs and computational models to estimate characteristics of hidden populations around the world. These comprise female sex workers (FSW), men who have sex with men (MSM), victims of sexual violence, people who inject drugs (PWID) and migrants — some of the groups most vulnerable to infectious diseases, substance misuse and behavioral health issues.

Her models to estimate the size of hidden populations attempt to address shortcomings in existing methods of population inference. Her research contributions have included important modifications and extensions to respondent-driven sampling — a type of chain-referral sample used by the CDC, WHO, UNAIDS and other organizations that utilizes the social/peer network of relationships and friendships of a population to recruit and enroll individuals who may be at high risk for HIV/AIDS and related infections.

McLaughlin is currently working on new models that account for measurement error and examining their effectiveness using different parameters and in a wide variety of real data applications. According to McLaughlin, these models have the potential to correct numerous biases that arise from self-reported social network size due to missing data and intentional and unintentional misreporting.

She has worked with data from populations of FSW, MSM, migrants, and PWID in Morocco; women with sexual violence related pregnancies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; FSW, MSM, and PWID in Armenia; MSM and PWID in Kosovo; MSM in Italy, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia; and PWID from the United States in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Discovering statistics

McLaughlin took her first statistics course as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley and, in her own words, “was hooked from the first class.” She loved learning how to gather information and solve complex real-world problems using quantitative methods.

A REU project (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) on election auditing introduced McLaughlin to research and inspired her to apply to graduate school. As a graduate student at UCLA, McLaughlin wanted to pursue a thesis topic that would have “real-world impact and would benefit people.” As she learned more about the statistical challenges of sampling hidden populations, she discovered there was room for much needed improvement of standard sampling and estimation techniques, and it became a fruitful area to work on during her Ph.D.

“I was drawn to respondent-driven sampling because it merges my interest in designing specialized sampling methods tailored to the needs of a population with the possibility to help groups that are typically underserved and face elevated risk of HIV and other diseases,” said McLaughlin.

Several undergraduate and graduate mentors helped McLaughlin connect with statistics and succeed in the field. She considers herself fortunate for having the support of amazing mentors at all stages of her education.

“In particular, my undergraduate research and thesis mentor, Phillip Stark, helped me develop research and scientific writing skills and encouraged me to apply to graduate school. My Ph.D. advisor, Mark Handcock, guided me through the complexities of academia and introduced me to a wide range of collaborators. Lisa Johnston, an epidemiologist I collaborate with frequently for respondent-driven sampling studies, has also been a great mentor for interdisciplinary work,” said McLaughlin.

She is currently involved with a wide range of research projects that revolve around making hidden population estimation more broadly applicable. These include using multiple years of data in a capture-recapture framework (a collaboration with Brian Kim from the University of Maryland) and extending the methodology for clustered hidden populations (work by Oregon State Ph.D. student Laura Gamble).

McLaughlin received the College of Science Research and Innovation Seed Program Award to support her research on estimating the number of people who inject drugs in metropolitan areas in the U.S. as a way to contain the HIV epidemic and slow the rate of transmission. In collaboration with CDC, she is developing innovative sampling analysis and statistical methodologies to obtain more precise estimates of the size of the hidden populations that are at high risk for contracting and transmitting HIV.

McLaughlin has also helped to broaden the use of respondent-driven sampling to other types of hidden populations, including trafficked populations.

From designing models to collect accurate information about social groups to estimating the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Oregon, McLaughlin’s research has had tangible impact and implications for public health. Her statistical models hold great promise for unbiased estimates of hidden populations and effective public health interventions.

Read more stories about: faculty and staff, women in science, statistics, data science, research

On April 22, the College of Science gathered virtually to recognize academic, administrative and teaching excellence at the 2020-21 Combined Awards Ceremony – a merge of our annual Faculty and Staff Awards and Teaching and Advising Awards events.

The first half of the ceremony celebrated excellence in research and administration, and the second half the ceremony focused on outstanding teaching, advising and mentoring,

The College congratulates the Teaching and Advising Awards winners below who exemplify deep commitment, skill and effectiveness in mentoring and advising to ensure student learning and success within and beyond the classroom. Effective teaching, advising and mentorship are the very heart of the College of Science’s identity as a robust and thriving community of students and scholars.

Congratulations to all the nominees and especially to the award winners.

2021 Teaching, Advising and Mentoring Award Winners

Olaf Boedtker Award for Excellence in Academic Advising

BioHealth Sciences Advisor Tiffany Bolman

Tiffany Bolman, biohealth sciences advisor, won the Olaf Boedtker Award for her tireless support, efforts and advocacy on behalf of undergraduate students. Olaf Boedtker was a former professor in the Department of Physics for 23 years and served as head advisor in the College for 14 years from 1973 to 1987. This award recognizes exceptional and inspirational undergraduate advising.

More than ten students nominated Bolman for this award, praising her dedication and ability to connect and encourage students to achieve their goals.

One student nominator wrote of Bolman: “During one of the hardest years of my life, I met my new advisor, Tiffany. Changing your advisor in the middle of your junior year can be stressful. The first time I met her, my meeting lasted almost two hours because we spent time getting to know each other and talking about life. The way that Tiffany has been here to support me is incredible – as an advisor, a mentor, a friend and a support system. She's helped me in countless ways this past year, not just for school and for my future, but personally. I know I would not be where I am right now without her.”

“Tiffany has guided me in my fast-paced college experience and is always courteous when I talk to her,” wrote another biohealth science student nominator. “She has provided ample opportunities for me to get involved in health care and shadowing, even during Covid-19, in order for me to be a competitive applicant for medical school. I feel as though Tiffany wants the best for all of her students, including myself, and her heartwarming encouragement never lets me down.”

Another student had similar praises for Bolman. “I transferred to Oregon State and [Tiffany Bolman] was the first faculty member I had any interactions with. She seems to truly care about the future of the students she is advising and is overall an amazing person to talk to.”

Additional nominees for the Olaf Boedtker Award included

Allison Evans, instructor of microbiology
Kari Van Zee, senior instructor for biochemistry and biophysics
Maureen Leong-Kee, advisor for integrative biology
Vince Remcho, professor of chemistry

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching (Undergraduate)

Professor of physics Corinne Manogue

Professor of physics Corinne Manogue won this year’s Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching in Science. Manogue teaches the nationally-recognized Paradigm in Physics courses, which are a restructuring of the traditional upper-division curriculum for physics students to a more modern, flexible and inclusive model for learning physics.

Student nominees cited Manogue’s extra efforts to ensure her students understand content, her ability to teach complex topics, and her compassion with her students in an especially tiring year.

“She is an outstanding teacher who really works to understand how her students are approaching the material and provides numerous ways for the students to actively engage with the content,” wrote one student nominator. “She is very aware that each student has a different learning style and that content needs to be restated multiple ways and in multiple forms and that each version will resonate differently with each student.”

Other student nominators had similar praises for Manogue. "She is truly fantastic at explaining complex topics in ways that relate them to us students, and it was often that many would exclaim how well they understood ideas and techniques significantly better after having an explanation from her in class," said one nominator, and another added: "Corinne convinced me that there weren't such things as 'STEM people' and that success in STEM was available to me and other students who like me had been dissuaded by a perception of being inherently 'not smart enough' to become physicists."

Manogue has received recognition at multiple levels – Oregon State University, the state of Oregon and nationally – for her teaching excellence and has previously won a number of awards recognizing her teaching excellence, including the College of Science Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching in 2000, an American Association of Physics Teachers Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching in 2008, and the 2016 Oregon Academy of Science Outstanding Educator in Science and Mathematics award.

Additional nominees for the Loyd F. Carter undergraduate award included

Daniel Myles, senior instructor of chemistry
Daniel Rockwell, senior instructor of mathematics
Devon Quick, senior instructor of integrative biology
Kimberly Halsey, associate professor of microbiology
Linsday Biga, senior instructor of integrative biology
KC Walsh, senior instructor of physics

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching (Graduate)

Charlotte Wickham with a black background

Senior Instructor of statistics Charlotte Wickham

Senior Instructor of statistics Charlotte Whickam received the Loyd Carter award for her inspirational and superb mentorship and teaching of graduate students.

“Charlotte is an extremely talented statistician and teacher. You can tell she is extremely passionate about the things she teaches and is invested in her students learning. She is also very approachable, despite teaching an online course,” wrote one graduate student nominator. “The material I have learned in her class has been useful and applicable to all of my work as a statistician,” they added.

“Dr. Wickham really took the time and got involved with my term project topic. She understood my skill level and was really great on providing feedback,” wrote another nominator.

A specialist in R training, Wickham teaches courses in data visualization and the foundations of data analytics. In 2020 Wickham received the Oregon State Ecampus Excellence in Online Teaching and Student Engagement Award. Wickham has developed multiple Ecampus courses built around students and their learning, leveraging open source materials and engaging texts from the Valley Library at Oregon State University.

Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching Science

Senior Instructor for biochemistry and biophysics Kari Van Zee

Senior Instructor for biochemistry and biophysics Kari Van Zee won the Frederick H. Horne Award for her exceptional qualities as a teacher and mentor. This award is named after Fred Horne, OSU Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and the former College of Science Dean for 13 years, from 1986 to 1999.

Kendra Jackson (’20, biochemistry and biophysics), praised Van Zee in her nomination letter, writing, “Kari made a great impact on my education at OSU and has empowered me to be an independent learner.”

Jackson interacted with Van Zee as a student, mentee, teaching assistant and advisee. She added in her letter that “Kari is compassionate and deeply cares about the well-being of her students.” This quality was especially apparent during the 2020-2021 school year with remote learning. “Kari constantly checked up on struggling students in each section, offered solutions for students who could not access technology or adequate study spaces, and adapted the class based on student feedback.”

Tanushri Kumar, a 2020 biochemistry graduate and Ph.D. student at the University of Washington, also wrote a nomination letter. She praised Van Zee’s personal connection with her students: “Kari is a fantastic teacher, a scholar, and a devoted mentor to all her students. It is truly rare to find a teacher as talented and as compassionate as she is. Without her guidance, I would have never discovered my own passion for research, and without her support I would not have had the courage to apply for graduate school. The impact she has had on my life has been huge, and I am incredibly grateful for having her as a mentor and instructor.”

College of Science Whiteley Faculty Scholar for Teaching Excellence Award

Senior Instructor of integrative biology Devon Quick

Senior Instructor Devon Quick in the Department of Integrative Biology received this award which recognizes excellent teaching and learning innovation. This award will provide Quick with an annual stipend of $12,500 for three years.

Widely commended for her teaching of biology, human anatomy and physiology courses, Quick has received awards for her exceptional teaching in the past. In 2020, she received the Loyd F. Carter Award, and in 2016 she received university-wide recognition by receiving the OSU Faculty Teaching Excellence Award.

Quick is a co-founder of the Learning Assistants Program, which puts high-achieving undergraduate assistants in large enrollment, often first-and second-year STEM classrooms to facilitate and strengthen undergraduate learning. She also collaborated with fellow biology instructor Lindsay Biga to adapt an open source biology textbook that is freely accessible to OSU students and learners worldwide.

OSU Faculty Scholars for Teaching Excellence Award

Physics instructor KC Walsh

Physics instructor KC Walsh won the Faculty Scholars for Teaching Excellence Award. This award for a three-year faculty scholar position supports excellence and innovation in teaching and carries an annual stipend of $12,500.

Walsh helped to transform OSU’s introductory physics classes by reversing the traditional learning environment. In flipped classrooms, students receive course content online outside of the classroom, freeing up classroom time for active learning. He then pioneered the flipped classroom in the online environment long before the pandemic forced all instructors and faculty to adjust to all-online teaching. The results of the flipped classroom model have been dramatic: the withdraw rate from introductory physics class dropped from 36 percent to only 12 percent with a marked increase in course satisfaction.

Walsh previously received the OSU Faculty Teaching Excellence Award for his significant and meritorious achievement in teaching and scholarship that enhances effective instruction. And in 2018, the Department of Physics received the American Physics Society (APS) Award for Improving Undergraduate Physics Education, due in part to Walsh’s pioneering flipped classrooms and his early use of online resources to increase student success.

The OSU and Whiteley Faculty Scholars for Teaching Excellence awards are made possible thanks to the generous philanthropic support of our alumni and friends and matching funds invested by the Provost’s Office.

Read more about the winners of the 2020-21 graduate and undergraduate research and administration awards.

In recognition of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, held on February 11, we acknowledge the women faculty, students and alumnae of the OSU College of Science. The world’s population is 50% women, and yet only 30% of scientists identify as women.

“Women and girls represent half of the world’s population and, therefore, also half of its potential. Gender equality, besides being a fundamental human right, is essential to achieve peaceful societies, with full human potential and sustainable development.” (Source: https://www.un.org/en/observances/women-and-girls-in-science-day)

The UN main event will take place online. Additionally, the 6th International Day of Women and Girls in Science Assembly will be held at the United Nations Headquarters virtually.

The UN theme for 2021 is “Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19”. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected women academics, including women scientists, who may face significant career damage, extending the gender gap in science and highlighting unequal effects and existing systemic inequities. In fact, if we are to learn from past pandemics, women are most affected by pandemics.

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) endorsed an open letter, published by the European Women in Mathematics which emphasized the unequal effects of this pandemic on all women academics, especially untenured women and caregivers. They offered suggestions for universities, government and funding agencies to proactively support their most vulnerable populations.

"We did not experience the crisis equally. Untenured faculty lost more. Women lost more. Caregivers lost more. The more vulnerable the population, the greater the disadvantage. No one chooses a pandemic, but now we can choose how to respond." -- the EWM Standing Committee and the EWM Working Group on the Corona Crisis

It is also important to recognize that we cannot fold the experiences of all women into one. Covid-19 has its deadliest effects at crossroads of differing axes of oppression. To meaningfully address issues of equity and inclusion requires that we respond to the unequal effects at the intersections of race & ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation, among other social axes of oppression.

And yet, women have made critical contributions to understanding and combating the virus and mitigating its effects on disadvantaged populations.

During this International day of Women and Girls in Science, we take the opportunity to highlight the contributions of OSU College of Science women, both alumnae and current faculty and students, to the fight against Covid-19.

Science faculty, students and alumnae making a difference

Dr. SreyRam Kuy

Dr. SreyRam Kuy (Microbiology '00) was honored with a 2020 Alumni Fellows Award (as an OSU Honors College nominee) at the OSU Alumni Association’s awards virtual ceremony on October 20, 2020. The award recognizes eminent alumni who have distinguished themselves in their professions and communities. Kuy is a practicing general surgeon, healthcare executive and quality improvement researcher. She currently serves as Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, Texas and is a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine.

As the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, Kuy developed a Covid-19 Preparation Tool to help healthcare facilities, businesses and communities rapidly gauge their preparedness for the outbreak, identify areas of weakness and strategically target resources for their greatest impact. She partnered with industry to deploy the free tool widely.

"I had such amazing support at OSU. My teachers and advisers took genuine interest in me and helped and encouraged me. It was a pivotal point in my life that helped me get into medical school and become a doctor,” — SreyRam Kuy

Biochemistry Professor Elisar Barbar

Elisar Barbar, professor and head of the Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, has received a two-year $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue research on the SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19. The research project is aimed at understanding how the N-protein of the SARS-CoV-2 performs its essential functions in viral infection and transmission.

The award was made by the NSF EAGER (Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research) program, which supports new, exploratory and potentially transformative research ideas or approaches that involve the application of new expertise and novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives.

“My lab is one of the few labs in the world that works on disordered proteins in viruses using NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy). This is an opportunity for us to lead and make an impact. We cannot afford to be spectators." — Elisar Barbar

Dr. Eva Galvez

Dr. Eva Galvez (Biology ’99), a family physician at the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, was honored with the 2020 Alumni Fellows Award

The daughter of immigrants, Galvez and her twin sister, Olivia, graduated from the College of Science’s biology program and went on to pursue careers in medicine. Galvez regularly speaks on panels to educate the public around health disparities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Galvez has become a vocal advocate for mitigating health risks for Oregon’s seasonal farm workers and has addressed the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in the House of Representatives.

"Much of our society has this belief that health is something that we have control over — that if we as individuals can just eat the right food and exercise the right amount and take the right medications you will be healthy. ... The reality is only about 20% of our health is determined by healthcare and our individual choice. And the rest is shaped by social factors, otherwise known as social determinants of health, and those include cultural beliefs and your values.” — Eva Galvez

Mathematics alumna Carrie Manore

Mathematics alumna Carrie Manore (Ph.D. ’11) is at Los Alamos National Laboratory working as part of the Covid-19 modeling team. Manore is a mathematical epidemiologist in the Information Systems and Modeling Group at LANL since 2013. Her work focuses on modeling mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika, chikungunya, dengue and West Nile virus. The LANL Covid-19 forecasts are part of the modeling New Mexico Department of Health officials have been using since April to prepare for and tackle the Covid-19 outbreak.

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has placed mathematical models in the spotlight as they have become central to public health interventions, planning, resource allocation and forecasts. OSU mathematics alumni have made important contributions to Covid-19 modeling and research at both national and regional levels.

"I got a really strong background in math at OSU, which not only helped me acquire mathematical skills, but also a way of thinking. It prepared me to work on real problems in the world like I am doing now.” — Carrie Manore

Integrative Biology graduate student Rachael Aber

Rachael Aber, Integrative Biology graduate student, has been involved in the TRACE-COVID project that involves door-to-door community surveillance to gather the information that is essential to slowing the spread and minimizing the impact of the disease. She recently spoke at the ARCS Foundation Virtual Event - Science is the Solution about her experiences. She talked about the importance of scientists interacting with the public. Aber received the ARCS Foundation Oregon Chapter Scholar Award.

She was drawn to the Department of Integrative Biology because of its strong tradition of support for interdisciplinary approaches to urgent research questions. She hopes to focus her doctoral research on investigating issues at the intersection of disease ecology and population biology in the lab of Benjamin Dalziel.

“Working in a lab that employs methods from various fields of study will be invaluable to my progress as a science professional.” — Rachael Aber

Microbiology graduate student Elizanette Lopez

Recent microbiology master’s program graduate Elizanette ‘Nette’ Lopez (Microbiology, M.S. '20) was selected to participate in the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellowship program. Lopez was offered a position at the Center for Disease and Control (CDC) Biorepository in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Her graduate studies were partly funded by a diversity grant from the NIH. During her time at OSU, Lopez advocated for underrepresented minorities and was an active member of the Microbiology Graduate Student Association, Ethnic Minorities United in STEM and a founding member of the Women of Color Caucus. Toward the end of her graduate studies, the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disruptions globally. However, the crisis also provided an opportunity for Lopez to gain experience in public health microbiology as a volunteer for the TRACE-COVID-19 project.

As a volunteer, Lopez helped process thousands of swab samples collected from participants in the field. As an ORISE Fellowship recipient, Lopez will soon process SARS-CoV-2 samples and help organize other collections in the biorepository in Atlanta, Georgia.

OSU statistician Katherine McLaughlin

Katie McLaughlin is an assistant professor of statistics and co-Principal Investigator of the TRACE-COVID-19 project. McLaughlin is an applied statistician specializing in sampling methodology and social network analysis, particularly for hidden populations at high risk for infectious diseases. The pandemic has led to volumes of data which require statistical interpretation. The data gathered and analyzed by TRACE researchers provide important guidance for local and state officials deciding which public health actions make the most sense in protecting their communities.

“Thanks to all of the support we continue to receive, and thanks to Oregon State’s overarching spirit of collaboration and service, we’re able to play a key role in helping communities stay safe.” — Katie McLaughlin

In addition to the International Day of Women and Girls in Science this month, the International Women’s Day is on March 8, 2021. The UN announced the theme for 2021 is “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”, which is aligned with the priority theme of the 65th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, and calls for the full participation of women, gender equality, elimination of violence against and empowerment for all women and girls. Activities planned around this event will be announced.

Corvallis, Ore. — Javier Rojo, professor of statistics at Oregon State University, has received a national award for his contributions to the fields of statistics and mathematics and for his commitment to increasing the success of minority students in those disciplines.

Rojo, whose official title is Korvis Professor of Statistics, received the 2020 Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, in part for his Research for Undergraduates Summer Institute of Statistics@OSU.

Each year the institute, known as RUSIS, recruits up to 15 underrepresented minority students who don’t have easy access to a research experience at their institutions, including students from community colleges, tribal colleges, historically Black colleges and Hispanic-serving institutions. Rojo and colleagues mentor and train the students for careers in research in mathematics and statistics.

“I’m very humbled and greatly honored to be chosen for this award,” said Rojo, who came to the OSU Department of Statistics four years ago from the University of Nevada at Reno following 13 years at Rice University and 18 years at the University of Texas at El Paso. “It’s an incredible honor for anyone and especially for someone who grew up in Ciudad, Juárez, México, dreaming of being Mickey Mantle’s successor in center field for the New York Yankees.”

Rojo, who played baseball for UTEP before an injury ended his hopes of a major league career, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from that school before gaining an additional master’s from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley.

“One of the amazing things about Dr. Rojo is his willingness to take risks,” said Bill Velez, professor emeritus of mathematics at Arizona State University. “He accepts students who don’t have a great GPA or who do not have a substantial background in mathematics. Yet his data is enviable and shows that in spite of this, his RUSIS students are pursuing postgraduate studies.”

Rojo created the RUSIS program while at Rice and since its inception it has welcomed 246 participants, 40 of whom have gone on to earn a Ph.D.

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