Spring

2007

Volume 3

No. 1

Collective IntelligenceMentoring MattersHealing Clay

My office window overlooks the SOLS courtyard between Life Sciences C and E-wings, two gardens of native plants, the backside of Old Main, and frames the lively tableau posed by groups of students.I can watch the shadows lengthen as the day comes to a close until, in evening; skateboarders shoot the steps like surfers. Life sciences creep in everywhere out this window, even in places you wouldn’t imagine.

Just as it did when Arizona’s late summer heat brought undergraduate photography majors Lindsey Kukulski, Sarah Roberts and Chelsea Koressel to the SOLS courtyard for their project in 3D Design. Standing on the bridge between E and C-wings, one floor above the courtyard, Kukulski took a series of 30 still photographs of her class-mates below performing a story: a fairy turning a girl into a frog, then the frog turning the fairy into the fly – and eating her. They titled the project Karma. For me it was demonstration of the science in art and the power of education: a kind of photo-metaphysical food chain emerged as each frame was snapped.

The stories in this issue of the SOLS Newsletter tell tales that also border on the fantastic, but which are firmly rooted in real life and relationships: clay that heals disease, collective intelligences, how big fleas have little fleas, and how art ties together centuries of scientific study critical for new discovery. And while we haven’t seen a fairy at work of late, we do have a story or two about transformation and how mentoring can change the lives of young people in our community, creating new doors for them to walk through, and with those new options, new futures for all of us – karma indeed.

Margaret CouloMbe

Outside My WindOW

COntents

Science Viewsdirector’s address, 2alumni, 12vice president and dean of CLAS, 3faculty profile, 4student profile, 6emeriti, 8clay treatment research, 16in-quiz-ative, 25

Artthe science of art, 10

Communitymentoring programs, 6, 14, 15slicing boundaries, 18keeping SOLS running, 20roof garden, 23

Publicationsflea for all, 19got it covered, 22

Dynamic Complexitysocially devoted, 24

Awards and Recognitionsmaking a difference, 26

Observationssalt river, back page

SOLS Publication Staff

Managing Editor: Margaret Coulombe

Editorial Board: Patty Duncan, Faye Farmer, Nancy lesko, Charles Kazilek and robert Page

Staff Writers: Margaret Coulombe, Dave brown, elizabeth Davidson, Faye Farmer, rachel Hayes, Kate Ihle and Phillip tarrant

Designers: Jacob Sahertian, Charles Kazilek

Contributors: Carol Hughes, Sabine Deviche, Jacob Mayfield

Photography: Margaret Coulombe, Sabine Deviche, elizabeth W. Davidson, Nancy grimm, Charles Kazilek, Jacob Mayfield, Stephen Pratt, Jacob Sahertian, robin Schroeder, thomas Story

Funding: School of life Sciences, arizona State university

On the Cover

Temnothorax curvispinosus colony Photograph by Stephen Pratt, 2006.

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direCtOr’s Address

Looking Forward

This is the fourth issue of the SOLS Newsletter and it just keeps getting better! I want to thank the staff for their outstanding product. Inside the cover of this issue you will be introduced to some incredible imagery generated by computer, camera and by hand, providing portraits of the ongoing excitement in SOLS.

SOLS is maturing into a truly integrated unit, and with maturation comes innovation and recognition. That is apparent throughout the pages of this issue. What a year! Ed Wilson visited SOLS, we launched a new Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, we had numerous research papers of high impact published by our faculty and students, and many faculty, staff, and students were recognized with important awards. SOLS is also reaching out and reconnecting with Alumni and Emeriti, learning more about life after ASU.

As we begin the spring semester, we look forward to the changes ahead. ASU is undergoing an incredible transformation, at a pace unimaginable in most academic environments. New Schools, Institutes, and Centers are cropping up weekly. New university-wide graduate degree programs are being invented as you read this, opening up great opportunities for interdisciplinary graduate training and transforming graduate degree programs in SOLS. So hold your breath, hold on, and don’t blink, you don’t want to miss it!

robert e. Page, Jr.

SOLS is maturing into a truly integrated unit, and with maturation comes innovation and recognition...

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A reorganization of ASU’s academic administration, announced Dec. 21, 2006 has resulted in new leadership for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. David A. Young, who had been dean of the college since July 2001, has been promoted to senior vice president for academic affairs for the university. Quentin Wheeler, who was interim dean of the division of natural sciences and mathematics, has replaced Young as vice president and dean of CLAS.

“I’m very excited,” says Wheeler about his new position as head of ASU’s largest academic unit. “There are enormous opportunities in the college, and I’m pleased to be in a position to play a role in that.”

Wheeler, an entomologist, joined the ASU faculty in July as a professor in the School of Life Sciences. He was appointed interim dean of natural sciences and mathematics in August. Wheeler and Young have known each other since 1980 when both were on the faculty at Cornell University.

“I’ve known Quentin for 26 years, and we’ve built a number of programs together,” says Young. “He will be an outstanding new leader for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.”

For further information go to:http://clas.asu.edu/newsevents/newsreleases/2006/quentinwheeler_12212006.htm

Quentin Wheeler Appointed Vice President and Dean of CLAS

by Carol HugHeS

Quentin Wheeler Photograph by tom Story

above image symbolically portrays the relative abundances of various life forms on earth. each organism in the drawing represents a group of species, or taxon, in the real world, with the size of each organism in the drawing proportionate to the number of species in that group. Illustration by Frances l. Fawcett

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The word “collective intelligence” brings to mind the fictional interplanetary warrior race, the BORG - hard wired together and centrally ruled by a queen – that was sensationalized in the television series Star Trek the Next Generation. Fiction, not fact, right?

Yes and No. Real life collectives inspired the tale. Bees and ants, hives and hills, harbor thousands linked in group “think” and who achieve a multitude of coordinated tasking – but any superficial similarity to the BORG ends there. Social insects, while having queens, are not ruled by the overarching intelligence of a single individual; there is no central library to consult – nor even a core congress of decision makers. Yet both groups have success measured in millions of years. How do such insects make group decisions?

Assistant professor Stephen Pratt may be cracking the code of conduct that underlies how such collective group decisions are successfully organized. He studies the ant Temnothorax curvispinosus, a creature less than 3 mm in length, gregarious and long-lived, that is found in colonies of about 300 individuals. Known to prefer rock crevices, hollow twigs, or acorns, in Pratt’s laboratory individual colony members squeeze between small, square glass panels held “ant wide” apart by spacers. The resulting cavity formed and small colony size allow Pratt to watch and chart the activity of individual colony members.

“People have this idea that a collective must be made up of stupid organisms, but the beauty is that is it made of very smart individuals, but smart within a very narrow scope. For example: one ant can find a potential nest space and make very accurate measurements of its features: rooms, cavity space, humidity, temperature, etc. But it can only cover a very limited area.”

Pratt mathematically models two types of group decisions: the move to a better quality home (over a long time scale) versus a move due to nest destruction (short time scale). To do this, he marks each member of the collective with a unique pattern of paint drops. Held in a harness made of a strand of hair and a small sponge, Pratt applies paint to an ant with a single bristle from a paint brush, one drop at a time, under a microscope. Once adorned and back in the colony, Pratt then videotapes and analyzes each ant’s movements, relative to all others in the group, to draw the links between individual behavior and the group outcome.

What he finds are ant algorithms: mathematical patterns generated by individual ant decisions that result in coordinated “intelligent” collective action.

FACuLty PrOFiLe

Ant Algorithms: the math behind collective intelligence

by Margaret CouloMbe

Stephen Pratt. Photography by Jacob Mayfield.

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FACuLty PrOFiLe

Ant Math? How did Pratt come to relate mathematics to insect systems? It turns out that algorithms can model activity in all sorts of systems and situations, from the movement of traffic through intersections to the simple flow of people through buildings. Where there are rules, there are patterns.

“Ultimately, we hope that studying ants can reveal principles that underlie the function of any complex adaptive system, from animal societies to nervous systems to genetic regulatory networks.”

Pratt’s fascination with social insects started when he was a boy, but didn’t fully take form until he took social insect biology as an undergraduate at Harvard University. It was there he met then Harvard scientist (now SOLS Foundation Professor) Bert Hölldobler and undertook undergraduate research in his lab on chemical communication in Ponerine ants. After graduation, Pratt went on to do graduate work in Thomas Seeley’s laboratory at Cornell University studying properties of collectives and the mechanisms producing them in another social insect, bees.

“Bees are great, but there were practical problems. The groups are large and they sting!” Pratt laughs. Such considerations and his growing interest in developing mathematical modeling led him to postgraduate work at the University of Bath with professor Nigel Franks and to his present study animal: T. curvispinosus. Following a second postdoctoral position at Princeton University, it was ultimately ants that led him to ASU.

“Coming here, with Bert, Jennifer Fewell, Juergen Gadau, Gro Amdam, Robert Page, and the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity, opened up every level of collaborative interaction possible: behavioral, genomic, evolutionary, computational. It was a no brainer.”

Pratt’s research has been recently published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He and his collaborator David Sumpter, a computational mathematician from University of Oxford, England, describe what they term “a tunable algorithm” or one that adjusts to the demands of a situation. Say, for example, the family acorn gets crushed by a hiker. Such emergencies mean relocating and quickly. In this situation, the times taken by ants to find a new site, recruit partners to spread the “word,” and to build consensus or a quorum differ from those same steps that underlie more casual routine exploration. Which is to say, searching and relocating for a better neighborhood changes if the decisions are being driven by being given the boot. Speed means quicker relocation, but cruder decision making. More time means greater consideration and accuracy. But what’s most remarkable is that in either case, Pratt’s study reveals that major group actions come as a result of cumulative individual decision making and can be modeled.

Pratt explains, “Tunable algorithms reveal new ways for collectives to solve multiple challenges using a limited set of tools. This has implications for the design of biological systems as diverse as bacterial colonies or our own brains.” He adds, “For example how neurons result in consciousness.” It may be that ants hold the key.

Stephen Pratt’s photo took third place in Princeton university’s inaugural “art of Science Competition” (�005) which

challenged: “Science is boring. art is Stupid. Prove us Wrong.”

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Maya Kapoor, a master’s candidate in associate professor Ann Kinzig’s laboratory, often pops up in the SOLS community projects volunteer lists. In less than a month, she helped coordinate the Thanksgiving food drive to benefit the Pappas School for homeless children; dedicated a Saturday to the SOLS Paint-a-thon, part of the valley-wide Rebuild Together project that helps disabled and elderly individuals; and staffed a booth on “Discover India Day” in Phoenix for the Arizona South Asians for Safe Families, an organization that addresses domestic violence in the community. Her philosophy of service as part of every day practice seems to characterize most of the graduate students encountered in SOLS. Honestly, it’s humbling.

Kapoor oversees eight undergraduate interns, with the support of one assistant teaching assistant, who take MIC 402 Service Learning Class in microbiology. Offered since 2002, this class is one of ten service learning classes based around the sciences. According to Adelina Zottala, assistant director for Science, Math, and Art Service Learning, the concept is to place ASU students into schools to support science, math and the arts in communities with high dropout rates.

Maya’s student interns go twice a week to teach microbiology to the eighth grade science class of Carrie Wyp, a science teacher at Greenfield Elementary School (a Title I school in Phoenix). Kapoor’s interns do some conventional written assignments, but the focus is largely on lesson plans: how they write them, and whether they make sense, are doable, and at the right level for the kids. She also evaluates how the interns teach and interact with the children in the classroom.

Mentoring mentors that matterby Margaret CouloMbe

student PrOFiLe

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“There are three students to every intern, but it’s not just about teaching science, it’s about being there for the kids, paying attention to them, encouraging them to be excited about science, excited about college, and school. Most of the kids have no one in their families who have attended or graduated college. This lets them see that people that go to college are like them, that going to ASU is possible,” says Kapoor.

Kapoor believes that undergraduates come away with an invaluable lesson: “One of my interns really wants to continue tutoring one of her students even after the semester is over. She thinks her student would really do well in high school if she had a mentor. I don’t think that she would have had this idea if not for taking this class,” Kapoor says. “The interns are all great teachers, but a lot of what is important simply involves social awareness and how they can make a difference just as individuals.”

Kapoor came to the School of Life Sciences with her years since high school filled with volunteer and paid community service and outreach experiences. She taught science in after-school programs, helped autistic children learn to swim, worked with the elderly, and performed internships related to environmental education at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. One of her prior internships was with the Audubon Society in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She worked in an environmental education program that targeted economically disadvantaged school districts. She took children on nature walks and collected field data with them. Though surrounded by forests, it was often their only exposure to the “great outdoors,” according to Kapoor.

Kapoor elaborates, “I think that environmental education is really important. I think a lot of the apathy that we see in the public towards the environment isn’t because people don’t care, it’s because they don’t know enough about the science to understand how their own actions can effect the world or how their quality of life can be different.”

Her interests in outreach and environmental education also influences her thesis work. Kapoor’s field research combines an ecological and a social study. She will survey vegetation in Piedras Blancas National Park in Costa Rica and look at the effects of two invasive plant species. But she will combine this work with interviews of local people living around the park. She feels that there is a divide between traditional conservation biology paradigms and many human rights issues: “I’m trying to find ways to reconcile those things in my own research, so I’m thinking about the issue of invasive species as a socio-cultural phenomenon, as well as an scientific phenomenon. I’ll look at how people in different areas think about vegetation in their lives and whether their priorities are the same as those of outside organizations.”

One priority that Kapoor feels is certain for her – that her future will include public outreach and education: “I love spending time with kids. I’m constantly surprised by their perspicacity and personality and I’m encouraged by how smart and creative they are. I feel I’m learning a lot from Carrie Wyp, who is an excellent teacher, as well as from watching my interns and seeing the methods they use to connect to their students. It’s amazing how over the semester each intern has figured out how to engage his or her students in different ways depending on the students’ interests and abilities. This [service learning] position lets me feel a little more connected to the Phoenix metro area, instead of feeling like I live in a little academic bubble.”

student PrOFiLe

“The interns are all great teachers,

but a lot of what is important simply

involves social awareness and how

they can make a difference just

as individuals.”

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Winifred W. Doane, ASU professor emeritus, also known to family and friends as Winkie, grew up on a small island in Long Island Sound. Professor Walsh, her dad, was an architect, author and artist; her mother, Helen, a musician and teacher. Together on City Island in the Bronx, they built a house and family life rich in expression; fertile ground for the creative lights of their daughters, Winifred, Myra, and Jeanne. Winifred, the youngest, began piano lessons at age 2 1/2, moving onto voice, painting, jewelry making, and dozens of other creative activities.

“My mother didn’t so much teach as make everything available to learn from. The house was filled with things. You should have seen my bedroom, with my workbench covered in tools and projects,” Doane says.

While her sisters focused on music, art and writing, Winifred was fascinated by, and excelled in, biology. Summers were spent on the waterfront swimming and sailing, or in Woodstock, NY. where she often could be found in the woods lying in a patch of sunlight studying the reproductive structures of moss. Her powers of observation were honed during these days, a skill not lost on her high school biology teacher. One day, Winifred was telling him about her vacation. She went to the blackboard and began to draw what she’d seen. He was struck by the detail and accuracy of her work. He invited her to illustrate a chapter he was writing for the “Book of Knowledge,” but, more than that, he made a long trip out to City Island to speak with her parents about her potential.

“I didn’t know until long after. My mother told me that he had come to plead with them to let me concentrate more on science. My whole family was about music, art, writing – I was the oddball really,” Doane laughs. “All through college I told them I was really pursuing scientific illustration.”

This oddball would go on to pursue graduate work in embryology at the University of Wisconsin, and doctoral and postdoctoral research in developmental biology and genetics at Yale University during the 1950s and early 1960s. Her research, which employed cutting edge technology, led to the discovery of a number of genes in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, including control genes for tissue-specific expression of the Amy genes (amylase) and adipose, the first obesity gene found in fruit flies. These studies transported her onto the Genetics Study Section review panel for the National Institutes of Health. The panel’s first administrative director, Katherine S. Wilson, encouraged her to seek a career outside of Yale. Doane had little support from the male faculty there except for her former advisor, Donald F. Poulson, who provided her research space in his laboratory.

“It was funny really, here are the very professors who are telling me that my research was unlikely to be funded, and I am on the study section that is reviewing their grants.”

Most of Doane’s female colleagues at Yale were consigned to positions as research associates, lecturers, or postdocs. In fact, it was 15 years before Yale offered her an appointment as an associate professor. During that time she supported herself and her research as the principal investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation and the NIH.

Creative roots nourished prominent geneticist’s science

by Margaret CouloMbe

eMeriti

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Doane notes that, “Yale was the first graduate school in the U.S. to accept women. In my class it was 50/50, men and women. The only trouble was that when you got your degree back then they didn’t expect women to do anything with it,” Doane explains. “University jobs were not openly advertised. There was the ‘grapevine’ for men seeking university positions; women were expected to teach at a women’s college or take some lesser position.”

Ironically, given the prevailing attitudes at the time, it never occurred to Doane that she wouldn’t have her own lab and pursue research. She says this was the result of the constant moral support of her late husband of 46 years, Chuck, an agricultural entomologist, in addition to her parents. She also simply suggests: “I was slow to learn!”

Doane was not slow to see an opportunity when it came in the form of a professorship offered at ASU in 1977. She arrived with her fly mutants and ready for a new challenge. She found it here as the second female faculty appointment in the department of zoology – the first was Kathleen Church, former ASU Vice Provost.

“This was at the time when ASU was just starting to grow and blossom. I could see all the possibilities. I was ready to get out of Yale. I’d been there 21 years and I’d seen so much discrimination against women, including myself. It was unbelievable; it couldn’t even happen today,” Doane remembers. “I came to ASU and really enjoyed the atmosphere. It was: ‘we hired you, we want you to succeed.’ ASU was interested in building community. It was very, very different.”

Doane was at the forefront of her field when she arrived at ASU. She authored many book chapters and more than 100 articles, the latest in 2004, and has hopes that her Drosophila

gene, adipose, holds some promise as a future model for the study of type 2 diabetes. She was also a founding member of the Central Arizona Chapter of the Association for Women in Science, where she is still a board member, and of the ASU Emeritus College Council, which was established in 2004. Most recently, she became a founding fellow of the Arizona Arts, Sciences and Technology Academy (AASTA) which also boasts members George Poste, James Collins, Charles Arntzen, Roy Curtiss III, Nancy Grimm, Bert Hölldobler, Sudhir Kumar, Jane Maienschein, Robert Page, Stephen Pyne, and Willem Vermaas from School of Life Sciences and luminaries from other colleges and schools at ASU and throughout the state. She has indelibly left her mark on the science community in Arizona and ASU, as well as nationally and internationally, through her students and contributions to the field in which she studied for half a century. With all these accomplishments, what is ahead for Wink? - yoga, of which Doane is a devoted practitioner; work for the Emeritus College; a cruise through the Baltic Sea; and many books to read - and maybe even one to write.

“I’d like to do a history of my family’s house near Burlington, VT. It was built in colonial times, and my parents acquired it in the 1950’s. I’ve been renovating it in recent years with the help of my son, who lives there. We’ve found some fascinating things…writing behind the walls and then there is the poltergeist in the hallway – there really was one, let me tell you! But, I don’t want to give it all away.”

Success is sure to follow. Creativity runs in her blood. Doane’s sister, Jeanne Singer, became a prominent concert pianist and composer – and also made her mark through setting the breeding standard for Siamese cats. Given Doane’s life full of scientific discovery, there’s no doubt that in her creative writing enterprises that she too will set a standard for accomplishment.

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The painting Anthony Gill made for his wife, Molly, for her birthday showcases 40 box fishes, cow fishes, and puffer fishes. One for each year, each delineated with a sharp edge of crimson. An inside joke with his wife, who is an artist and who says he doesn’t use crimson often enough. Each fish pictured presents a separate species or are juveniles or adults with different color variations. What strikes me most is that Gill has artfully and with much skill laid before me a both a testament to his love for his wife, and an important lesson about taxonomy.

It is a science that is beautiful and all about the art of seeing, understanding and recording details, characters, relationships, variations, and diversity. A labor of love.

Granted my drawing skill with fishes is at best Suessian – “One fish, two fish; red fish, blue fish” – but I am admittedly rapt as he flips through the rest of the portfolio related to his work. Every picture has a story attached to it that contains both the immediacy of new discovery and a written history that spans hundreds of years. A research scientist and curator of ASU animal collections, Gill’s illustrations and technical drawings are central to his studies in taxonomy and fish systematics. In the age of photography and computers, some might find this detailed drawing anachronistic, but Gill tells me: “drawing things is how you see more. I can’t produce the same results on a computer that I can produce on paper. I like to be in touch with the materials. Different pens, papers and inks behave differently. The world is richer holding onto these sorts of things.”

Curator Tony Gill: Art made Scienceby Margaret CouloMbe

Art And sOLs

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There is an exactitude required for this work: to pick out each scale, spot, gill arch, spine, and patch in graphite and then paint. According to Gill, what medium you choose to work in matters. “Nature is composed of subtle tones and this requires control of the pigment. In this way, gouache, a mixture of gum arabic and water color, serves better than other painting media. It can be built up, as with oil painting, in layers – one color on top of another – and allows the same precision and control, but it is more forgiving than watercolor. Gouache also has the benefit of opacity, enabling the painter to capture the range of tones and shadow that more closely resembles those found in nature. The transparency of the overlaid colors also allows the detailing from the initial graphite sketch to come through in black, allowing even more depth and accuracy.”

Gill’s fascination with art started early. His father was a coal miner, but both his mother and older brother painted. He would “pinch” his brother’s art paraphernalia and experiment. It was his brother (now a curator at an art gallery) who introduced him to gouache and gave him guidance in using this technique.

The subject of his first drawing at age five? A fish.

Gill’s research in the systemics of fishes incorporates all those things that go with documenting a family or genus of fishes: world travel, species discovery, documentation, and distributions. In addition to exotic locations, and finding and naming new species, his career has meant positions in venerated museums – the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. and the Natural History Museum in London, UK – and access to specimens hundreds of years old.

Not all of those drawings and collections from the past are completely without fault. He shows me a drawing of a juvenile trigger fish that looks so different from

adults of the same species that it was mistakenly cataloged as a separate species. Speckled and spotty, the adolescent hides in seaweeds in the Gulf of Aden in the Indian Ocean; its dorsal surface studded with flesh “leaves.” The adult is bigger, longer and sleek, with light banding, and different fin shapes. In another set of color illustrations, Gill shows me a male and female of one fish species whose coloration was so vastly different that it baffled earlier scientists. Then there are all those color variants within a species. One grave, no pun intended, misconception about collections is – because the samples are dead – that this field based on the study of specimens and an old style of illustration is equally stagnant. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Gill is in some respects a detective and a time traveler, slipping through centuries of study and thought, bringing into play his capacities as scientist, historian, artist, explorer, diver, and myth buster in a realm that is both ancient and expanding.

Gill’s biggest concern is the lack of understanding of his field, the oversight that it is the hundreds of years of morphological expertise that carries the trendier molecular researches along. With little funding placed in species discovery or description, the whole system will in time grind to a halt, Gill says: “Kids don’t get into biology because they are interested in tissues. They are interested in organisms. Continued oversights in curriculum and funding for morphology worries me. I wonder what happens to that kid who is keen on fish or snakes, and picks up a syllabus here at ASU and sees nothing in it for them? We need to reverse this trend. That is one thing that we are trying to do through our displays in SOLS: to promote collections-based work here and globally.”

With roughly 90% of species on earth as yet undescribed, there’s a lot coming up to do.

Most of anthony gill’s work is in either pen and ink or gouache (a mixture of gum arabic and water color). His favorite past time is doing miniatures (� X � post-it) in both media, and some watercolor. Kookaburra, an australian bird eating a rare freshwater fish that his friend studies (a morphologist’s inside joke); a pet sugar glider (like a flying squirrel) and an australian friend’s german shepherd mix. He and his wife drew their wedding leaflet together (not shown) based on their homestate flowers: the virginia dogwood, entwined with a New South Wales waratah (a type of Protea) native to australia. they met each other while working at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.

Photograph by Margaret Coulombe

Art And sOLs

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The Peace Corps changes lives forever. Gary Jahn, an undergraduate student in zoology/entomology at ASU from 1978 to 1982, is an excellent example of this. Gary worked in my laboratory as my first undergraduate researcher, exploring bacteria as potential biological control agents for disease-carrying mosquitoes. This experience, and his fascination with insects, led him to pursue a master’s degree in entomology at the University of Florida. From there his scientific journey took flight, literally! Upon completion of his degree, he joined the Peace Corps – bound for the Far East. In Thailand, he learned about tropical agriculture, helped farmers avoid insect pests, and discovered that he had a wonderful talent – the ability to learn difficult Asian languages. He soon became fluent in Thai, and as his career progressed, he learned Khmer and Laotian. It was also in Thailand that he met his wife-to-be, a beautiful Thai lady, Sunee (“Noi”).

At the end of his time with the Peace Corps, Noi and Gary married with plans for Gary to go on for his Ph.D. in entomology in the States. They were looking for a university with both a good entomology program and an atmosphere where Noi would be comfortable. Having just returned from a meeting in Hawaii, I suggested he apply to the University of Hawaii. Gary was accepted and completed his Ph.D. research on insect pests of pineapple in 1992.

With traveling now a theme in their lives, Gary embarked to new regions of the world. On a two-year American Association for the Advancement of Science fellowship to the U.S. Agency for International Development, he traveled to Eritrea and Ethiopia. He investigated locust and armyworm plagues, at a time when Eritrea had just become independent. He was one of only a few foreigners in the country and found Eritrea to be a charming country with beautiful people. One day while searching for the breeding grounds of locusts, Gary and his colleagues found a little girl in the desert dying of malaria. They rescued her and took her to a hospital. Ultimately, in 1995, Gary joined the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), an international agency dedicated to improving production of the world’s most important food crop, where he has spent the remainder of his career.

Gary Jahn- Adventures in Asiaby elIzabetH W. DavIDSoN

gary at the IrrI research site, vientiane, laos.

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The IRRI assignment took Gary and Noi to Cambodia for five years. Their children, Alexander and Katrina were born there. Several adventures marked their stay, including a trip to Papua New Guinea – where Gary and his Cambodian colleague found themselves stranded on an island overnight with nothing to eat but lobsters and coconuts – not a bad diet! An even greater adventure came in the form of the 1997 Cambodian coup: Gary and his family were trapped in Phnom Penh with mortar shells landing a block away from their house. The fighting had closed the airport, but because Noi was a Thai citizen, they were able to be airlifted out to Bangkok by the Thai military. When things calmed again, they returned and Gary continued to lead the Integrated Pest Management Program of the Cambodian-IRRI-Australian Project, supported by AusAID, to develop new ways to improve rice production and lower the impact of insect pests on this vital crop.

In 2000, the Jahn family moved to IRRI headquarters in the Philippines, where Gary was engaged in a 2-year project in Bangladesh studying insecticides applied to rice. From there they moved to Vientiane, Laos, where Gary is the IRRI representative to the Mekong Region and the only international scientist in the group. He is establishing a regional office in Vientiane to oversee offices in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar, and to coordinate research linkages with Yunnan province of China. He continues to be interested in insects and their impact on rice and the lives of millions of citizens who rely on this important crop for most of their diet.

After nearly 25 years of tracking Gary’s travels by e-mail and telephone, I finally visited them in Laos in August 2006. Laos is a lovely, rural country with charming people. I visited the IRRI research site, where genetic and other studies of rice are ongoing, and discussed their research with local and visiting scientists. The critical importance of this crop to a large proportion of the people in the world becomes very evident when visiting any Asian country, and the visit to Laos really brought this home. The Peace Corps was indeed a life-changing experience for Gary Jahn, one that has led to a beautiful family and a lifetime of adventures in Asia- with more to come!

ALuMni

gary, Noi, alex and Katrina Jahn on recent visit to arizona. Photograph by elizabeth W. Davidson.

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Mentoring opportunities come in a variety of forms at ASU, but for many graduate students stepping back into the classroom gets top marks. One program that has received enthusiastic support is the GK-12 Program funded by the National Science Foundation. One of more than 75 such programs initiated nationally in the last four years, ASU’s GK-12 program pairs graduate student scientists with teachers and kids in local schools in the Phoenix area. Graduate students not only mentor and provide expertise for teachers, they can assess and improve their own teaching and communication skills.

“The goal is to communicate research in a way that is beneficial to a classroom,” notes B. Ramakrishna, formerly with the School of Life Sciences and lead author of the collaborative effort that launched the GK-12 program. “But not just the concepts, although those are important, the way of thinking, of making decisions, of designing experiments that lends insight into how scientists work.”

More than 35 graduate student mentors have participated, most pursuing Ph.D. or Masters degrees in bioengineering, microbiology, civil and environmental engineering, material and chemical sciences, geography, geology, psychology, ecology, astrobiology, and anthropology. The majority of GK-12 dollars go into fellowships for graduate students, but some established programs, like the MARS Education Program, and the Ecology Explorers Program administered by the Global Institute of Sustainability also receive support. ASU’s GK-12 program was one of only about 20 that were renewed for funding this year.

“This is one of the most satisfying programs I’ve been involved with,” Ramakrishna says. He believes the next five years will give the opportunity to assess what institutional practices in schools and classrooms change as a result of the GK-12 program. He adds, “We want to make a difference, with students, with teachers. We hope our graduate students will go on to become researchers and teachers, who, when they see a need, can say, yes, I know how to do something about that.”

Back to school with a mission: The GK 12 program

by Margaret CouloMbe

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Cyd Hamilton is a Ph.D. candidate in professor Stan Faeth’s laboratory studying population genetics of fungal endophytes in grasses. She has been working with both ASU CAP LTER Ecology Explorers run by Monica Elser and the GK-12 program. She helps teachers develop and implement lesson plans for junior high and high school students in Gilbert, Anthem, and the Deer Valley School Districts. Hamilton spends two to three weeks with each school as a kind of roving ecology expert – in association with the new Sonoran Desert Center, a desert remnant that has been donated/purchased for classroom research and field study experiences. While no stranger to community service projects, this was her first mentoring experience: “I wanted to explore teaching. I had a tendency to make simple concepts complicated,” Hamilton says with a smile. “GK-12 has been eye-opening, an entry into teaching and education. Now I’m definitely encouraged to do more mentoring.”

Hamilton says that her future research laboratory will include at-risk high school student interns from her local community – something she had not considered previously: “Mentoring provides opportunity and builds relationships – a bridge between people in very different social classes and life experiences.”

Mentor Benjamin Campbell is pursing his Ph.D. in Parents’ Association Professor Andrew Smith’s laboratory. He is studying variations in territoriality among red squirrels in geographically separate populations. Like Cyd Hamilton, he had been active in community service projects (Habitat for Humanity, Appalachia Service Project) prior to this experience, but was intrigued by the prospect of teaching and working with youth. He works with teacher Barbara Babb and 55 students at Chandler High School, two days a week. He says of the experience: “The GK-12 program has taught me a lot about educational approaches and philosophies, but nothing compares to the education provided by being in the classroom 14 hours each week. It’s a nostalgia trip to go back to a high school setting – getting a new and different perspective on America’s public secondary education experience, a posteriori.”

Like Hamilton, Campbell feels that mentoring can play a critical role in the community: “So much of America has a personal responsibility ‘pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps’ attitude. It’s heartening to see all the mentoring opportunities available in our community. I just wish more people would participate on both sides of the mentoring equation.”

GK-12 graduate student mentors making a difference

by Margaret CouloMbe

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Cyd Hamilton (pictured above) and benjamin Cambell (below)

Photograph by Jacob Sahertian

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Southerners are known for their storytelling abilities. Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty and others tell their tales inspired by lyric language, steamy summers and the traditions of the South. But in this tale of adventure, the heroine transplanted from New Orleans is assistant professor Shelley Haydel; the invading hoards are bacterial; and the avenging sword that Haydel wields is not forged from steel, but from clay minerals and innovation.

Clay, a medicinal Excalibur? Does this mean that one day people will go out in their backyards and slap garden variety goo on their wounds? Not exactly, but Haydel, a tuberculosis expert, and collaborator Lynda Williams, associate research professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, are on the cusp of new understandings about this folk curative.

Haydel and Williams are examining the antibacterial properties of one green clay mined in France and used by a humanitarian, Madame Line Brunet de Courssou, to treat Buruli ulcer. Buruli ulcer is a disease caused by infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans, a microorganism closely related to the organisms that cause tuberculosis and leprosy. Infection with M. ulcerans leads to extensive destruction of skin and the

Bacteria beware! Novel technologies could knockout old enemies.

by Margaret CouloMbe

Shelley Haydel and lynda Williams. (opposite page) as Haydel looks on, Williams demonstrates how easily clay can be administered as a form of treatment with the help of undergraduate research student amanda turner, a senior majoring in geology and chemistry. Photograph by Jacob Mayfield

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formation of large ulcers that can expose muscle and bone. Antibiotic treatment is only effective in the early stages of the disease when most patients do not seek medical treatment. However, once an ulcer forms, the only medically accepted treatments are surgical excision of the infected areas and amputation. Since 1980, Buruli ulcer has emerged rapidly in several parts of the world, particularly West Africa. In response, the World Health Organization recently declared Buruli ulcer to be a global health threat.

How does the clay kill bacteria? If Williams and Haydel can understand just what makes this clay effective, then their work could usher in affordable and entirely new methods to treat bacterial infections.

Novel insights, the potential to develop treatments, and research at the cutting edge of discovery are why Haydel became a scientist. Her interest in medicine, diseases and public health led her to declare pre-medicine as an undergraduate at Louisiana Tech University. But it wasn’t until she took a pathogenic bacteriology course as a sophomore that she realized what she really wanted to be doing. “I was much more interested in the question of “How do the bacteria beat us” than in “How do we as humans fight the bacteria,” Haydel recalls. “These little bitty creatures are able to kill us. They are so much smarter than we are. How do they do that?”

Haydel pursued her interest as a post-graduate with the Louisiana Department of Public Health Tuberculosis Laboratory in New Orleans which led to graduate work at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and ultimately her position in SOLS and the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

She still clearly remembers when she was told by the Louisiana Public Health Department that she would be working with tuberculosis (TB): “I was so excited. But my family was not. They thought: TB? No, that’s bad. It causes disease and can kill people.” Haydel laughs. “And that was what excited me!” With one-third of the world’s population infected with tuberculosis, ~7 million new cases each year, and 2 million deaths per year, Haydel’s passion to understand this disease could bring significant gains in combating this formidable global health challenge.

Haydel’s research centers on the study of two-component regulatory systems in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. These conserved regulatory proteins are able to sense an organism’s environment and have been shown in numerous bacterial pathogens to be required for various disease processes. “You walk into this office and you think: it feels warm,” Haydel explains. “Something in your body tells you that it is hot in here. These regulatory systems sense an environment and tell the bacteria “you need to adapt and survive in this particular environment.”

In infective agents like TB, as in many other pathogenic bacteria, this ability to adjust to changes in environment is critical to its survival and transmission. As the TB bacterium

passes from one infected person to another: from the lung, through the air, into another’s body it must adjust to changes in temperature, pH, osmolarity, and other stressors – it does this by modifying what genes are turned on and off.

Haydel is examining five different two-component regulatory systems to determine when these systems function, how they function, what genes are controlled by these systems, and how they are involved in allowing this pathogen to cause disease in humans. To do this, she deletes specific genes from

the M. tuberculosis chromosome, i.e. genes are literally knocked out. Then, she determines how those missing genes affect the ability of the TB organism to survive and cause disease.

Knock out mutations, clays that heal, public health innovations, and transdisciplinary collaborations are all part of what drew Haydel to ASU and away from her heartland in the South. But on her wall is a Mardi Gras mask in purple, gold and green and around her neck is strung a fleur-de-lis, a symbol of France’s old empire and the colonial history of New Orleans, and the present day symbol of the New Orleans Saints. A close tie to family resides on her window ledge: three brass monkeys that were handed down from her stepfather – hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil – plus a fourth pewter monkey that “gets to have all the fun,” Haydel explains. “These monkeys represent my motto as an assistant professor.” With such novel research coming into being in Haydel’s laboratory, perhaps an addendum to the motto could be: there’s just no monkeying around with Haydel when it comes to health.

reseArCh

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Some things just have the power to draw a community together. Free meals, for example, have always had special ap-peal – particularly for graduate students. So, when the former departments of Biology, Plant Biology, and Microbiology merged with the program in Molecular and Cellular Biology to form the massive School of Life Sciences in 2003, pizza became central to building a cohesive graduate student community.

This appetite for community started when graduate students in the former Department of Biology, the largest of the units to join SOLS, met each Friday for informal lunchtime seminars. While others ate their brown bag lunches, one student would give a presentation. Talks were informal, often introducing pos-sible new projects, covering past research, or used as a means for developing presentations for professional meetings. Offer-ing a forum to obtain feedback and advice, Brown Bag rapidly became an instrumental way for biology graduate students to keep track of their fellows’ interests and projects

In addition to intellectual benefits, Brown Bag also offered a place for the development of community. The new cohort of students was introduced at the first meeting of the year. Older grads worked hard over the summer to dig up embarrassing details about new lab members to use in the traditionally long individual introductions. And pizza made its first appearance, purchased with the proceeds from the graduate snack closet - an added lure to entice senior graduate students out of the lab. Slice by slice they gathered.

When the School of Life Sciences officially formed, the supply of pizza was institutionalized. It became the staple at every Brown Bag seminar, drawing the students together from across

the new SOLS. According to recent doctoral graduate David Kabelik, there was an immediate effect on attendance – an end to that mid-semester slump.

Now in its fourth year, the School of Life Sciences is rapidly maturing, and so too its graduate student community, with more than 240 graduate students now on campus. This year, Brown Bag moved from a small classroom into one of the large Life Sciences lecture halls. Graduate students who were here for the transition from the Department of Biology to the School of Life Sciences have noted other changes as well. David Kabelik says that the seminars have become “much more formal.” The presentations are more polished and the results discussed more complete. Students now rarely set up a brainstorming session or look for advice on experimental design. Kabelik sees this as perhaps the result of the larger audiences.

With greater attendance and development of a more multidis-ciplinary student culture has come an expansion in the breadth of topics covered. This semester, graduate students’ talks ranged from: “A Primer to the Non-Vascular Land Plants of Arizona,” “Monkeys in the Middle: Forest Fragmentation in the Brazilian Amazon,” “Paleoclimate: How do we know what we know?” to “Sunscreens, DNA, and Brown Cyanobactria; What Could They Possibly Have in Common?”

With hundreds of graduate students and diverse research inter-ests, Brown Bag has become increasingly important for SOLS graduate students, promoting skills, contacts and resources; breadth of knowledge; networking; but most particularly, the sense of being part of a large and vibrant graduate community. Seems that pizza is destined to be part of their SOLS.

Brown Bag serves up pizza and community by Kate IHle

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Everybody loves a mystery, and no case is harder to solve than when the perpetrator is nearly invisible. Even Hugh Laurie in the television program House would be hard pressed to come up with a diagnosis under such circumstances! Yet, the identification of prime suspects and the successful prosecution of such culprits as viruses, bacteria, and other “no-seeums” is just what research professor Elizabeth W. Davidson does in Big Fleas Have Little Fleas: How discoveries of invertebrate diseases are advancing modern science.

Recently published by the University of Arizona Press in both hard and paperback editions, Fleas comes highly recommended by such entomological experts as John Alcock, Stephen L. Buchmann, and Thomas Eisnere. As well it should. Possessing fewer than 200 pages, Davidson’s tidy little six by nine-inch book is a fun and easy read while being chock full of information. None of the 14 chapters are overly lengthy, and 22 black and white photos help keep the stories moving. And, like all good “who-dunnits,” the clues are often cryptic and the chain of evidence convoluted.

Getting its title from the well known ditty by Jonathan Swift, Davidson’s book is a collection of case histories of invertebrate diseases, each related to our own well-being. Hence, most of the victims are those we find useful and appealing – honeybees and silkworms, for instance. Not so, the villains, which are nematodes, mites, protozoa, fungi, bacteria, viruses, and other sinister-appearing creatures including rhinoceros beetles. The result is a journey of discovery as we learn that a virus that kills caterpillars also produces proteins used in a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, and that a fungus disease called Green Muscle is used to combat locusts in the African Sahel. All of which allows us to join in the combat and engage in germ warfare against mosquitoes, black flies, moths and locusts.

The author knows her subject. A transplanted Ohioan, Davidson has been an insect pathologist with ASU since 1973, and she is part of a team of researchers trying to unravel the mystery underlying the amphibian decline of the 21st century. Although she has authored scores of papers, this is her first book – one 10 years in the making.

The most fascinating stories for me were those involving our so called beneficial insects. I was especially intrigued by the chapter, Bad News for the Good Guys, which documented the plight of honeybees and the diseases that have plagued these important pollinators since Aristotle’s day. As in all the chapters, the reader first learns of the importance of bees to cultivated plants from clover to almond trees. We then trace the honeybee’s ailments from the time of Pliny the Elder through Karl von Frisch to the myriad of mites and other pathogenic organisms that affect bees and bee-keepers today. But best of all, we are treated to a series of success stories. For nearly every pathogen there is remedy, and for every cure, a story of the people who found it.

The book ends with a postscript that chronicles the important “fits and starts” characterizing the study of invertebrate pathology. And even this conclusion has a story of its own, illustrating how one discovery leads to another. A suggested reading list for each chapter followed by a serviceable index make for a satisfactory conclusion. However, one mystery remains. The color cover of the book depicts Dr. Erwin Műller-Kögler, one of the author’s mentors, accompanied by an apricot colored butterfly. This same swallowtail also appears on the back cover, where it is identified as Marpesia berania – a Central American species. Yet, I found no mention of Marpesia in the book, perhaps this mystery can be solved by you?

BOOk revieWs

How the minute advance modern science by DavID e. broWN

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How often do we think about the resources that go into running a city? The renovations, the water and waste management, the mail system, telephone lines and internet are critical to a city’s operation, and require a small army of people to make it work.

With over 100 faculty, a range of diverse and highly specialized research labs, 20 teaching labs, 14 common use resource areas, hundreds of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and a large administrative staff, the School of Life Sciences is itself like a small, high-tech city. Like a city, SOLS requires substantial infrastructure and facilities management or the research and teaching functions would quickly grind to a halt. Who does this? The SOLS Facilities Office headed by Jon Harrison, associate director for facilities, and Barbara Markley, facilities manager.

Facilities Office: Movers and shakers in SOLS cityby raCHel HayeS

barbara Hoffman, richard olson, Margaret gibson, Michael D. long, barbara Markley, Jon F. Harrison, Judy Swartz. Photograph by Jacob Sahertian.

FACiLities OFFiCe

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Harrison, a researcher in insect respiratory physiology, took the position of associate director a year and a half ago. Fortunately for him, Markley had been working on facilities-related projects at ASU for over 16 years, having witnessed the growth of facilities as SOLS evolved from the former departments of Biology, Plant Biology, and Microbiology. Her experience with renovations, space assignments, and planning has been fundamental to effecting smooth operations. At Harrison’s side to help support school operations, in addition to Markley, is an amazing staff: Judy Swartz, Rick Olson, Margaret Gibson, Barbara Hoffman, and Michael Long. The group handled more than 38 faculty moves or new arrivals in 2006. Moves in SOLS mean more than just hefting laboratory supplies from one room to another, it means sorting through hazardous materials, interfacing with about ten separate Facilities Management shops, and establishing telephone lines, data services, furniture, and keys. Linda Zarroli recently joined the facilities staff and is in training in a number of areas to increase the level of support.

The Facilities team maintains Life Sciences A, C, and E buildings and the third and part of the fourth floor of the new Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technology Building 1 (ISTB1). All of the rooms in these buildings’ doors have locks. And where there are locks, someone has to have keys. Judy Swartz processes and tracks these thousands of keys per year.

Swartz also handles maintenance requests and insurance claims. To say that she receives 10 requests a day for assistance: from leaking faucets or loose tiles in the ceilings to room temperature and electrical outlet issues, minimizes all that occurs behind the scenes. Behind each request there is processing, follow-up, and completion of each action. Last year when the student services office flooded, it was Swartz who navigated through the paperwork, processed the insurance claim and helped the school recover more than $18,600. Swartz also is in charge of a huge database that logs the function of every room in Life Sciences, and every faculty, staff, and student office.

As with any city, there is an ongoing need for goods and supplies. Rick Olson oversees the receipt of these items for the school, as he did previously for Zoology/Biology. Last year he received his 20 year service award. In a typical week, Olson logs in about 250 packages. On foot, he racks up the miles ushering materials to buildings, setting up audiovisual equipment for defenses, seminars and meetings, and assisting with moves. He works closely with the UPS, Federal Express, and DHL drivers, among others, to facilitate pickups and deliveries on a daily basis.

The greenhouses, growth chambers, and courtyards also fall under the facilities umbrella. Used for teaching and research projects, requests for space are handled by Margaret Gibson, who also grows all plants used in biology classes. In addition, she assists Olson by providing afternoon delivery services to the ISTB1 building.

Web site support for all these efforts has been developed with the help of Barbara Hoffman. Hoffman also coordinates the SOLS seminar series, a set of lectures held on Fridays that draw speakers from around the country, and she helps keep Harrison and James Elser, associate director of Research and Training Initiatives Office, on track.

Also participating in SOLS facilities governance is the SOLS safety committee – Kim Fondryk, Karen Kibler, Russ Lobrutto, Markley, Harrison, and Long, SOLS safety compliance officer. The group maintains a safety web site and assists with laboratory cleanups, safety reviews and certifications. Long is in charge of arranging safety training, handling fire marshal concerns, coping with hazardous waste generation, and collecting data on lab safety for every research and teaching lab in SOLS. In addition, Long maintains all of the SOLS common-use equipment: autoclaves, centrifuges, environmental rooms, freezers, lyophilizers, laminar flow hoods, ice machines, and water purifiers. If these are working, it is because Long, who developed expertise with equipment over many years at UC Berkeley and ASU, has ensured their maintenance and regular repairs.

The School of Life Sciences helps to expand opportunities for faculty and students. The excellence in teaching and research trains students to solve problems and think critically, and provides students a modern view of the scientific process and first hand experience in research. This dedication toward achievement is made possible with the help of the Facilities Office and their commitment to education, research and safety.

SOLS Facilities Office website: http://sols.asu.edu/facilities/index.php

SOLS Safety website: http://sols.asu.edu/safety/index.php

SOLS Greenhouse website: http://sols.asu.edu/facilities/Greenhouse.php

SOLS Research and Training Initiatives Office: http://sols.asu.edu/rti/index.php

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SOLS faculty rank at the forefront of dynamic new research, but did you know that SOLS’ research images have also captured places on the front covers of scientific journals? Being chosen for a cover requires a competitive selection process and is a testament to the excellence of an image, but it also heralds the quality and import of the research that supports it. Assistant professor Gro Amdam’s image was sported by the journal Nature related to her work on the evolution of sociality. In collaboration with Foundation Professor of Life Sciences Robert Page, she discovered that the complex social behavior of sterile honey bee workers evolved from the maternal behavior of solitary ancestors. Joining Amdam in illuminating both a journal cover and readers was Kathleen Pigg with her cover image of a fossil fruit for the American Journal of Botany. An associate professor in SOLS, Pigg and co-authors illustrated the 50 million year old fossil guava relative Palaeorhodo-myrtus in an article on the value of High Resolu-tion X-ray Computing Tomography, a special type of CT-scan, for nondestructive, three-dimensional reconstruction of rare fossil plants. Adding to the collection of prominent covers and research, was Stuart Newfeld’s image chosen from a field of 51 photographs and articles to grace the front of Genetics. Newfeld, an associate professor, was part of a collaborative team that included SOLS’ staff members Norma Takaesu and Michael Stinchfield. The group discovered a novel role for a cancer causing oncogene in brain development utilizing the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system.

Picture this: You can judge an article by its cover

by Margaret CouloMbe

gro amdam / robert Page: Nature, �00�

Kathleen Pigg: american Journal of botany, �00�

Stuart Newfeld: genetics, �00�

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Most little girls have dreamed of having a secret garden of their own; Margaret Gibson gets to live this dream everyday when she comes to work on the roof of the School of Life Science’s tower.

Gibson, a horticulturalist, works in the greenhouse located on the E-Wing building’s roof. For more than twelve years, she has worked with professors, caring for plants central to novel research. Many of the older plants she tends Gibson grew from seeds. Her favorites are the Rain Tree, whose seeds came from the West Indies, and the guavas. The guava seeds were sent to Gibson by Les Landrum, School of Life Sciences herbarium curator, while he was visiting South America.

The greenhouse contains six isolation rooms, including one which houses tomato and tobacco plants used by assistant professor Tsafrir Mor’s lab. According to Michele Mittman, a member of the lab, they have engineered a protein that has potential as a vaccine against Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV. The protein is grown in tomato and tobacco plants with the hope that it can be produced inexpensively.

While Gibson is active in supporting faculty research in SOLS, the greenhouse and its wealth of plant species are also part of local community service projects. The greenhouse has partnered in providing therapy to children, elderly, and the mentally and physically handicapped. Her favorite guests to the

greenhouse are the children. How do they find their way to the most secret of all gardens? – through the Child Study Lab. The lab is part of ASU’s psychology department and is one of the three early childhood centers on campus. The daycare is based in university’s three-fold mission of teaching, research and services. Beth Wiley, the Study Lab’s assistant director contacted Gibson last year. Wiley was in need of advice in planning a garden for the children. Gibson agreed to meet; bringing with her some recycled potting soil, seeds and cuttings. “I started out donating used soil for their garden and have also brought some of the kids up to the greenhouse for a tour and show and tell,” Gibson explains. The Study Lab’s garden is located in the center’s playground area and is included as part of the curriculum activities.

“This is referred to as Horticultural Therapy – using plants and gardening to interact with others,” says Gibson. Since the goal of the garden is to involve children and expose them to gardening and nature, an agreement was made with the unit for Gibson to interact with the children on a monthly basis. Gibson will visit the children and share cuttings from various greenhouse plants or the children will come to visit the greenhouse.

Gibson is available to give public tours of the greenhouse on the first Friday of every month. Space is limited to 10 people per visit. To contact her, email: margaret.gibson@asu.edu.

SOLS’ Secret Gardenby raCHel HayeS

Photograph by Jacob Mayfield

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The Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity was officially opened this last April by co-directors, Bill Griffin, professor of Family and Human Development and Jennifer Fewell, associate professor of School of Life Sciences.

“Like eusociality, the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity needed the right conditions at the right time,” announced Fewell. Griffin also cited the importance of faculty initiative in the creation of this interdisciplinary group. Both speakers noted that ASU’s increasing emphasis on trans-disciplinary collaborations and the strong partnerships between existing Center members also prepared the ground for the Center’s founding.

Joining Fewell and Griffin at the opening were Alan Artebise, executive dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Sander van der Leeuw, director of the School of Human Evolution and Social Change; and Robert Page, founding director of the School of Life Sciences, who offered their encouragement and strong support for the Center. “It’s a dream come true,” Page stated. “No where else would such a collection of social scientists come together like this.”

Housed within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University, the Center is composed of faculty and students from the School of Life Sciences, the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and the departments of Human and Family Development, Psychology, Computer Sciences and Mathematics. Center faculty share a common interest in

the expanding field of complexity science. Using social groups ranging from insects to humans, the researchers hope to elucidate simple rules of organization that will have far-reaching applications in fields as diverse as biology, education and economics.

Members of the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity occupy two floors of the newly constructed Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 1. The facility was designed with the aims of the Center in mind. Laboratory spaces are open to allow easy flow between labs, graduate students and post-docs share large offices intended to encourage collaboration and information exchange, and meeting areas for seminars and discussions are scattered throughout the Center.

The opening of the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity was preceded by two lectures given by Pulitzer Prize award-winning, Harvard professor, emeritus, E. O. Wilson - the “father” of the field of Sociobiology. Wilson’s first lecture, “The Future of Life,” took place the evening before the Center’s opening. Open to the public, his talk focused on the need for increased conservation to prevent the worldwide loss of biodiversity.

Wilson’s second lecture, which came immediately prior to the Center’s launch, was intended to reach a smaller audience of researchers. In this talk, “Eusociality: Origins and Consequences,” Wilson spoke for the first time about his controversial new paper of the same name authored with School of Life Sciences professor Bert Hölldobler. He advocated that the origin

The Launch of the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity

by Kate IHle

IStb I at night. Photograph by tom Story

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of eusociality could be independent of kin selection, counter to his previous stance, and dependent instead on group selection - as others have proposed.

Wilson quipped, “This is very difficult to say, but I may have been wrong.”

The fulfillment of the Center’s aim for international prominence was immediately apparent. In addition to members of the ASU community, scientists from around the world came to attend the inauguration and a premiere workshop hosted by the Center. The workshop, focused on the use of social insects as model systems for the study of evolutionary development, completed the opening and set the tone for the Center’s participation on the world stage.

“Who is Alex?” With the correct answer to that question, the team of Melissa Meadows, Matthew Toomey, and Bobby (Haralambos) Fokidis, graduate students in the School of Life Sciences, won the inaugural quiz bowl at the 4th North American Ornithological Conference. Held in Veracruz, Mexico, the conference was the largest ornithological meeting in history and was attended by scientists from across the Americas. Each member of this three-student team from ASU was awarded a pair of Audubon Equinox Binoculars. The prize was perfect for the avid and knowledgeable birders, according to Meadows, as her old pair had been stolen. Fokidis also indicated he was in dire need of a new pair of binoculars. For those of you less well-versed in all things ornithological as Meadows, Toomey and Fokidis: Alex is an African Grey parrot who can label seven colors, count up to six objects, and has featured prominently in the debate over whether or not animals can “think.”

Quiz Bowl is for the Birdsby Kate IHle

Eusociality. Defined by E.O. Wilson in Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) as a group of individuals meeting three basic conditions: (1) cooperative care of young, (2) reproductive division of labor, and (3) overlap of generations. Examples of eusocial groups include ants, honeybees, and naked mole rats.

Photograph by tom Story

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AWArds And reCOgnitiOns

Bert Hölldobler, Foundation Professor of Biology and Pulitzer Prize winner for his book “The Ants,” has been awarded the Treviranus Medal from the Society of German biologists (Verband Deutscher Biologen). The award is named after the medical and natural science scholar Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (1776 - 1837) who defined the field of Life Sciences and coined the term “Biologie.” Hölldobler is a member of the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology faculty group.

Daniel Sarewitz, professor in the Human Dimensions of Biology faculty group and director of the Consortium for Science Policy and Outcomes, and Sudhir Kumar, associate professor in the Genomics, Evolution, & Bioinformatics faculty group and director of the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics at the Biodesign Institute at ASU, have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The title of Fellow is given to AAAS members who have advanced applications in science that are technically or socially distinguished.

Sudhir Kumar, associate professor in the Genomics, Evolution, & Bioinformatics faculty group and director of the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics at the Biodesign Institute, has been chosen by ASU President Michael Crow as one of six 2006 Promotion and Tenure Exemplars, “the best of the best” of the university’s faculty.

James Elser, professor in the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group, and Sudhir Kumar, associate professor in the Genomics, Evolution, & Bioinformatics faculty group, will share a $1 million award with former ASU professor William Fagan at the University of Maryland, College Park to develop a bioinformatics database linking ecological discovery with the genome. In addition, Kumar has been independently awarded a half-million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation for research into machine learning approaches for biological image informatics.

Bertram Jacobs, professor in the Biomedicine & Biotechnology faculty group and researcher in the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute at ASU, has received the Innovator of the Year Award for Academia at the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation Awards. Jacobs recently received $965,000 in research support through the Center Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois as part of an international $15.3 million effort, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to use vaccinia virus to create a vaccine to combat AIDS. In addition, Jacobs has recently received nearly $1.5 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health for research to develop a safer smallpox vaccine.

Robert Page, Founding Director and Foundation Professor of the Life Sciences, and Manfred Laubichler, assistant professor in the Human Dimensions of Biology faculty group, were awarded fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advanced Studies – one of the most prestigious German Institutes of its kind). In addition, Laubichler is a co-founder and associate editor of the new journal Biological Theory published by MIT Press.

Shelly Haydel, assistant professor in the Biomedicine & Biotechnology faculty group and researcher in the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology in the Biodesign Institute at ASU, was selected for the Searle Scholars Program Award. In addition, she and Lynda Williams, an associate research professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, were recently awarded $438,000 of National Institutes of Health funding to examine the anti-bacterial effects of clay minerals on Buruli ulcer.

Kevin McGraw, assistant professor in the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology faculty group, was elected to membership in the American Ornithologist’s Union for ‘significant contributions to ornithology and/or service.’

Faculty Honors and Awards

bert Hölldobler Daniel Sarewitz

Sudhir Kumar James elser

bertram Jacobs robert Page

Manfred laubichler Shelly Haydel

Kevin Mcgraw Jianguo Wu

Charles arntzen Willem (Wim) vermaas

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Jianguo Wu, professor in the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science, has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the journal Landscape Ecology.

Charles Arntzen has received the Centennial Award from the Botanical Society of America at their annual meeting. Arntzen is a Regents’ Professor, Florence Ely Nelson Presidential Chair, co-director of the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Biodesign Institute, and professor in the Biomedicine & Biotechnology faculty group in the School of Life Sciences.

Willem (Wim) Vermaas, professor in the Genomics, Evolution & Bioinformatics faculty group and Guy Cardineau, research professor in the Biomedicine & Biotechnology faculty group were awarded the ASU-Tec de Monterrey Award. ASU and the Tecnológico de Monterrey (Tec) have jointly awarded $200,000 for two collaborative research projects in biotechnology. The awards, driven by a recent international research fund established by ASU President Michael Crow and Tec System President Rafael Rangel, is the first of its kind between the partner universities or with a Mexican institution.

Doug Chandler, professor in the Cellular & Molecular Biosciences faculty group and director of the W.M. Keck Bioimaging Laboratory, received a $390,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to examine Vertebrate Sperm Chemoattractant Structure, Activity, and Evolution.

Thomas Nash III, professor in the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group and curator of the ASU Lichen Herbarium, received a $350,000 National Science Foundation award to contribute to an inventory of Lichens of Mexico with emphasis on the genus Parmeliaceae.

Sharon Hall, assistant professor in the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group, has been awarded a $610,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to examine ecosystem response to urban carbon and nitrogen deposition from the atmosphere.

John Briggs, professor, and Sharon Hall, assistant professor, both of the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group, have received a $465,800 National Science Foundation grant to study “Legacies on the Landscape: Prehistoric human land use and long-term ecological change.”

Sharon Crook, assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and faculty member of the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology group, and Carsten Duch, associate professor in the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology faculty group, have been awarded a $457,600 grant by the National Science Foundation that will examine behaviorally relevant neuronal modification during postembryonic development.

Cheryl Nickerson, associate professor in the Biosciences & Biotechnology faculty group and researcher in the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at the Biodesign Institute at ASU has been awarded $339,500 in funding by NASA for the evaluation of host-pathogen interaction during exposure to microgravity analogues. Experiments related to her studies were conducted by astronauts during the recent Atlantis shuttle launch.

Michael Rosenberg, assistant professor in the Genomics, Evolution & Bioinformatics faculty group, has been awarded a $642,800 research grant by the National Science Foundation to do spatial analysis across biological disciplines.

Juliet Stromberg, associate professor in the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group, and her University of Arizona colleagues were awarded an Environmental Protection Agency STAR grant for $866,000 to study hydrologic thresholds for biodiversity in semiarid riparian ecosystems.

Robby Roberson, associate professor of the Cell Biology & Bioimaging faculty group, had an exhibit of art featured at the Tilt Gallery in downtown Phoenix, in October and November 2006. The World Within: Visualize the Biology of Cells was created using light and electron microscopes to visualize the internal motion and three-dimensional order of cells. His work will be featured in the Spring 2007 issue of ASU Research Magazine.

guy Cardineau Doug Chandler

thomas Nash III Sharon Hall

John briggs Sharon Crook

Carsten Duch Cheryl Nickerson

Michael rosenberg Juliet Stromberg

robby roberson

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AWArds And reCOgnitiOns

Andra Williams, student support specialist, Sr. in the School of Life Sciences Graduate Programs Office, was honored by ASU President Michael Crow as ASU Employee of the Year. This award is given based on three criteria: job performance, innovation and social embeddedness. Williams is the much-loved shepard of the more than 230 SOLS graduate students.

Charles Kazilek, director of technology integration and outreach, was elected president of the Arizona Imaging and Microscopy Society www.azmicroscopy.org. In addition, Kazilek’s photographic image received a 4th place win in the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Contest. Chosen from a field of thousands of images, Kazilek’s winning image of a handmade paper will join 16 others photomicrographs to tour museum spaces around the nation. The Small World grouping can be seen at the Arizona Science Center in downtown Phoenix in January. His entire collection of images of paper can be viewed online: www.paperproject.org.

James Heffernan, a Ph.D. student with professor Stuart Fisher of the Ecology, Evolution & Environmental Science faculty group, was awarded the 2006-2007 ASU Division of Graduate Studies Dissertation Fellowship Award.

Jamie Howard, a Ph.D. student with assistant professor Martin Wojciechowski of the Genomics, Evolution & Bioinformatics faculty group, received the 2006 Botanical Society Graduate Student Research Award.

Nate Morehouse, a Ph.D. student with professor Ronald Rutowski of the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology faculty group, has received the 2006- 2007 Faculty Emeriti Fellowship Award created to honor two Ph.D. students for academic excellence and the “potential to change the landscape of academia.”

Jon Davis, a Ph.D. student with assistant professor Dale Denardo of the Organismal, Integrative & Systems Biology faculty group, was featured in the September 2006 issue of National Geographic: “Songs of the Sonora.”

Ed Gilbert and Elizabeth Makings, graduate students with ASU Herbarium curator Leslie Landrum, a senior research scientist in the Human Dimensions of Biology faculty group, have had their master’s theses published in Desert Plants, a journal supported by Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

Jane Maienschein, Parents Association Professor and director of the Center for Biology and Society is lead on a study funded by the National Science Foundation ($750,000) to examine “the different scientific, social, cultural and organizational contexts that have affected the development of embryology as a science.” Joining her are fellow members of Human Dimensions of Biology faculty group: Manfred Laubichler; associate professor; Gary Marchant, professor and director of the Center for Law, Science and Technology; and Daniel Sarewitz, professor and director of the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes.

Kenro Kusumi, associate professor in the Genomics, Evolution & Bioinformatics faculty group, has been invited to serve as a member of a developmental study section with the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review. A four year appointment, members are selected on the basis of their demonstrated competence and achievement in their scientific discipline as evidenced by their research, publications, achievements and honors.

Student and Staff Awards

Jane Maienschein gary Marchant

andra Williams Charles Kazilek

James Hefferman Jamie Howard

Nate Morehouse Jon Davis

ed gilbert elizabeth Makings

Kenro Kusumi

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SOLS Events:14th Annual Undergraduate Research Poster SymposiumMarch 2, 2007 � pm – 5 pm

undergraduates conducting research in the life sciences are invited to attend and present a poster. Mark Jacobs, dean of barrett Honors College and professor in the School of life Sciences at arizona State university, will give the keynote speech.

Free and open to the public.

For more information:http://lifesciences.asu.edu/ubep�00�/index.php

SOLS Takes a HikeApril 7, 2007 � am – noon.

SolS faculty and graduate students will lead guided hikes through the riparian area of tres rios Wetlands at the confluence of the Salt, gila and agua Fria rivers. Come learn more about az birds, insects, plant life and the geology of the area with the experts.

Free and open to the public.

For more information, contact:Margaret Coulombe: (��0) ���-��3�; information about the wetlands:http://phoenix.gov/treSrIoS/index.html

For information on upcoming news and events:

http://sols.asu.edu/sols_newshttp://sols.asu.edu/events

New StaffLinda ZarroliOffice Specialist Sr., Facilities Office.

Tricia QuitmeyerBusiness Operations Manager

Kim MichelLaboratory Coordinator

Rhonda ChapmanAccounting Specialist

Esther WilsonAdministrative Assistant

RetiredJeanette Nickels, administrative secretary in the Graduate Programs Office retired January 2, 2007. She served more than 30 years on the ASU campus. She will assist her husband, Ernie, with his architectural business and catch up on traveling, family and bird watching. We will miss you Jeanette!

linda zarroli tricia Quitmeyer

Kim Michel rhonda Chapman

esther Wilson Jeanette Nickels

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Contact us!If you have information to include in this newsletter, please contact us at SolS@asu.edu. We are particularly interested in reconnecting with alumni and emeriti. Manuscripts should be less than �000 words, photos should be high resolution, and all submissions should include all pertinent contact information. Submissions should be sent to Managing editor, Margaret (Peggy) Coulombe, margaret.coulombe@asu.edu, attention SolS Newsletter, P.o. box ���50�, tempe, arizona, �5���-�50�.

http://sols.asu.edu/events/newsletter_sign_up.php

If you are interested in learning about the many ways you can contribute to the School of life Sciences and aSu please visit the aSu Foundation web site.

http://www.asufoundation.org/giving/

We reserve the right to edit all submissions. © �00� aSu School of life Sciences.

ObservatiOns

Students swimming in the Salt River, 1930s

Courtesy university archives, arizona State university libraries.

Chelsea Crenshaw, graduate student at University of New Mexico conducting field research on the Salt River

Her collaborator is Nancy grimm, professor in the ecology, evolution, & environmental Science faculty group and co-director of the Central arizona-Phoenix long-term ecological research Project (CaP lter).

Photo Credit Nancy grimm