Volume 36 | Aug. - Sept. 2023 | |
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Students, Staff, Faculty, Alumni and Friends,
As the 2023 academic year begins, I am pleased to welcome you to the University of Oklahoma Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences.
The mission of our college is to master existing knowledge in our fields of study, to create new knowledge of the physical world and new understandings of the human condition through our research and scholarship, and to put those understandings to work to improve our communities. I am proud of all we have accomplished together in pursuit of our mission through the years, and I know that we have much to look forward to this year.
We have made significant progress on our college Pathways to Excellence Strategic Plan. We are finalizing our system for measuring performance and outcomes. The power of this plan is not purely in expressing the goals and aspirations of the college. Its force comes from many contributors across our community and its success rests upon the strong foundations of our unit-level plans.
I’d like to begin the semester by thanking each of you for the work you have done and for the work that you will do over the course of this year as we continue to advance our mission. Your deep commitment to ensuring that our students feel connected to their programs of study, to the college, and to the university, as well as to each other, gives the college its distinct identity as a place of belonging and as the flagship college of this large public research university.
This is the first edition of the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences newsletter for the 2023-24 academic year. Over the years, our newsletter has provided timely updates on the achievements of our students, faculty and staff. Please join us in celebrating the excellence of our college in the stories of groundbreaking research, scholarship and creative activity, to innovations in the classroom and partnerships in the community.
Sincerely,
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David M. Wrobel
Dean, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences
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OKLAHOMA VS. TEXAS RECEPTION TO BE HELD OCT. 6
Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Wrobel and University Libraries Dean Denise Stephens invite you to join our team at the Oklahoma vs. Texas Reception, set from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6, in the Katy Trail Room at the Omni Dallas Hotel, 555 S. Lamar St. Please RSVP by Sept. 29.
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NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS
Each year, the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences presents its highest honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, at our annual Kaleidoscope Evening. We extend the invitation to nominate an outstanding graduate to our entire college community, as you have first-hand knowledge of our graduates who are making a difference in the world.
Nominees must have obtained a degree, bachelor or graduate level, from the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences. Nominees for the Distinguished Alumni Award must have graduated a minimum of 10 years ago to be considered. The Young Alumni Award recognizes graduates who earned their degree in the past 10 years.
Click here to submit your nomination form(s) for the Distinguished Alumni Award by Sept. 13, 2023. Visit the college website for a complete list of past winners. As a reminder, alumni nominations submitted but not selected last year will be reviewed automatically with this year’s nominees.
Pictured: 2023 award recipient Eyang Garrison
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OU ROTC JOINS THE DODGE FAMILY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
This June, University of Oklahoma Senior Vice President and Provost André-Denis Wright announced OU’s ROTC military programs would transition to the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences as their new academic home. OU ROTC consists of the Army ROTC, the Naval/Marine ROTC and the Air Force ROTC. Each branch serves an individual purpose and provides vast opportunity and experience to students. The Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences is proud to call itself the home of these branches, which have influenced ROTC programs nationwide. University College and the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences are working closely together to ensure a smooth transition and strong support for our ROTC students to help ensure their academic success. Our university has a long and honorable history of engagement with the military, and we are very proud and pleased to have the ROTC programs join our college. To read more about the OU ROTC programs, please visit this website.
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FACULTY AND DEPARTMENT NEWS | |
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Among the addition of new faculty members this year is Yujin Nagasawa, who is joining the University of Oklahoma Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy as the Professor and Kingfisher College Chair in the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics. Nagasawa completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and later obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy at the Australian National University. In addition to his studies in philosophy, Nagasawa pursued applied mathematics and statistics as an undergraduate student, developing a deep appreciation for the beauty and precision found in mathematical sciences. He then went on to hold academic positions in Australia, Canada and the UK. After spending 18 years teaching at the University of Birmingham in the UK, Nagasawa is returning to the United States to be a part of the OU community.
Nagasawa has received a variety of notable awards and honors, including serving as president of the British Society for the Philosophy of Religion in 2017, a position he held for three years, and of several research grants from major bodies in the United States, the UK and Continental Europe. Of these, the most notable was a $2.4 million award from the John Templeton Foundation for the Global Philosophy of Religion Project, which he has directed in recent years.
Nagasawa extends his heartfelt gratitude to the people at OU for their warm welcome, remarking, “From the faculty members to the administrators and students, everyone I’ve encountered so far has been incredibly kind, helpful and generous. I am genuinely thrilled and eagerly looking forward to embarking on my academic journey at OU!”
He also shared that he feels the University of Oklahoma has gained international recognition for its excellent philosophy program, expressing that he “was deeply honored to receive an offer for the Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics, a position previously held by Linda Zagzebski, one of the most influential philosophers of religion in our time.” While this is what initially drew him to OU, he was also very impressed by the community of faculty members and students.
“It was a rare experience to encounter such a friendly, welcoming and supportive environment for everyone," Nagasawa said. “I sensed that as a researcher, I could truly thrive and grow at OU. Having given lectures at universities in over 20 countries worldwide, this campus ranks among my favorites.”
Click here to read more about Nagasawa’s research, previous and upcoming projects, and his life.
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The college congratulates Kyle Harper, professor of classics and letters, on being elected to hold the annual chair of the Collège de France’s Avenir Commun Durable (Sustainable Common Future) for 2023-24. Harper will be the third holder of the chair for this interdisciplinary project focused on addressing the challenge of climate change.
Founded in 1530, the Collège de France is considered France’s most prestigious research establishment. As of 2021, 21 Nobel Prize winners and nine Fields Medalists have been affiliated with the collège. Professors are chosen by the professors themselves, from a variety of disciplines in both science and the humanities. The unique identity of the collège lies in it being the crossroads of cutting-edge research and broad dissemination of knowledge. Researchers meet at the collège to advance all areas of inquiry. This collective knowledge, which belongs to the world at large, is taught openly and free of charge to all, as new discoveries continue to emerge. Dedicated to meeting the challenges of environmental and energy transition, the collège welcomes international experts every year to highlight current research in this field. Harper, who will be one of just a few Americans to ever hold a chair at the collège, will give nine public lectures, plus organize nine seminars and a colloquium. He will draw on his past and ongoing research focusing on the resilience and vulnerability of past societies faced with climate change. Harper’s lectures will focus on climate change in human history and what we can learn from the past record of how human societies respond to climate change as we face current and future challenges. Harper, who is also a Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, is a historian whose work attempts to integrate the natural sciences into the study of the human past. His main research includes the history of infectious diseases and climate change and their impact on human societies. More broadly, he writes about the history of humans as agents of ecological change and explores how issues such as biodiversity, health and sustainability can be approached from a historical perspective. He is the author of four books, including Slavery in the Late Roman World, From Shame to Sin, The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality, Plagues upon the Earth, Disease and the Course of Human History and The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, the last of which has been translated into 12 languages, including French. His next book, The Last Animal, is a story of human impact on global biodiversity from the origins of our species to the present day. Harper has been honored by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Dumbarton Oaks Institute.
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 |  | Anthropology professor Racquel-María Sapién, Ph.D., was one of two OU professors who were selected to receive Fulbright U.S. Scholar fellowships for the 2023-2024 academic year. The fellowships are awarded by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in recognition of the recipients’ academic merit and leadership potential. Fulbright Scholar Awards are prestigious and competitive fellowships that provide opportunities for scholars to teach and conduct research abroad. Fulbright scholars also play a critical role in U.S. public diplomacy, establishing long-term relationships between people and nations. Sapién will travel to Suriname, where she will work with Dr. Renata de Bies, who chairs the National Language Council of Suriname. A goal of the project will be to support the use of minority languages as a medium of instruction at the primary level in Suriname. Sapién will also develop and deliver two series of workshops aimed at increasing resources and visibility for minority languages of Suriname, as well as advancing research into language ideologies in the country. An associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, Sapién works primarily with speakers and heritage learners of languages that have fallen out of regular use. Her research focuses on developing methodologies that are inclusive of community members who have a vested interest in work with their languages.
Along with mentoring OU students working with their own heritage languages, Sapién has taught at institutes such as the Northwest Indian Language Institute at the University of Oregon, the Institute on Collaborative Language Research and the Oklahoma Breath of Life, all with a goal of supporting language work. READ MORE
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Allyson Shortle, an associate professor and the director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science, was selected by the Public Religion Research Institute – a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization – among the 16 interdisciplinary scholars as PRRI Public Fellows. Selected via a nationwide open call, the diverse cohort of fellows will work alongside PRRI researchers and staff to generate impactful public scholarship focused on contemporary issues at the intersection of religion, culture and politics. Shortle studies group identity in the context of American political behavior. She is also a faculty member in Latinx Studies and Women and Gender Studies, runs OU’s Community Engagement + Experiments Laboratory, and serves as the PI of Oklahoma City’s Community Poll. READ MORE
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 | | William Selinger, an assistant professor of Constitutional studies in the Department of Classics and Letters, has received the honor of being named the 2024 Quentin Skinner Lecturer in Intellectual History at Cambridge University. This is an extremely high honor in the field of Early Modern Studies, and Selinger’s tenure as lecturer will be during Cambridge Easter Term 2024. This fellowship has been in place since 2009 and provides a space for the selected Quentin Skinner Fellow to give a lecture on a subject of their choosing in the broad field of intellectual history since 1500, including the history of political thought, and organize a half-day colloquium to follow the lecture. For more information regarding the history and process surrounding the Quentin Skinner Lectureship in Intellectual History, please visit this website. Selinger has previously been a lecturer in European History (1700-1850) at University College London. He received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Chicago and his doctoral degreefrom Harvard University. Selinger’s research focuses on the modern history of representative democracy. He has published an award-winning book titled Parliamentarism: From Burke to Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) and has also been published in Modern Intellectual History, Review of Politics, European Journal of Political Theory, History of European Ideas, Constellations, Contemporary Political Theory, Tocqueville Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and several edited volumes. Selinger’s next book is under contract with Princeton University Press and is a comprehensive study of Montesquieu’s life and thought. This will serve as the basis for his Skinner Lecture.
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 | | John Peters, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and his electron bifurcation team have won the prestigious Faraday Horizon Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry. The team won the award for their biologically inspired discovery that captures energy from renewable sources. The competitive international Horizon Prize celebrates groundbreaking developments that push the boundaries of science. The Royal Society of Chemistry has recognized excellence in the chemical sciences for more than 150 years. The electron bifurcation team, a collaboration involving researchers from Duke University, the University of Georgia, the University of Kentucky, Montana State University, Arizona State University, Washington State University and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was the only North American team to win the 2023 Horizon Prize. Peters, a Presidential Professor at OU, and the team successfully unraveled the rules underpinning how living systems split apart pairs of electrons into high- and low-energy pools without producing energy-wasting “short-circulating” reactions. Such reactions can be used to define new biologically inspired approaches to capture and manipulate energy from renewable sources. READ MORE
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Daniel Becker, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, has received a competitive Oak Ridge Associated Universities Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award for his continued research on bat migration in western Oklahoma. “We’re studying migratory Mexican free-tailed bats and the pathogens they might carry that are possible threats to human or wildlife health,” Becker said. “This award allows us to purchase the microchips we implant in the bats and a receiver for the cave that helps us monitor which bats are coming and going as they migrate.” Recipients of this award are faculty members who are in the first two years of their tenure track and work in one of five science and technology disciplines. Each winner receives a total of $10,000 in seed funding to enhance their research and professional growth during the 2023-24 academic year. READ MORE
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The Supreme Court Historical Society recently announced that David W. Levy, professor emeritus of history, has been awarded the Hughes-Gossett Award for Best Article published in the Journal of Supreme Court History. To read more about his recent award and research, see this article from the Supreme Court Historical Society Quarterly. This award was delayed due to the COVID pandemic and was conferred at the annual Supreme Court Historical Society banquet, held in Washington, D.C.
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Jennifer J. Davis, associate professor of early modern European history in the Department of History and an affiliate member of women’s and gender studies, has recently released her second book, which was published and made available by the University of Nebraska Press. It has received grant support from the University of Oklahoma Arts and Humanities Faculty Fellowship, OU Libraries and the Huntington Library. Davis’ book is titled “Bad Subjects” and documents Libertine Lives in the French Atlantic, 1619-1814. This work has been praised by authors as “[a] lively, ambitious and provocative book.” The college congratulates Davis on this achievement!
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MEET MICHAEL KEETER
Meet Michael Keeter, a longtime staff member of the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, who was promoted to his role as senior financial manager last fall. In this position, he provides daily assistance and training to departments with financial, budgetary and administrative support matters. Keeter is also responsible for senior-level financial analysis, utilizing financial databases and preparing reports for leadership.
Though born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Keeter was primarily raised in Liberty, Oklahoma. He attended school in Roland, Oklahoma, and worked in retail management for over a decade before deciding to work in higher education.
Keeter shared an inspiring story of how he came to the University of Oklahoma and dedicated himself to working his way to the title he holds now, stating, “When I decided to change job fields from retail management, I was looking for somewhere that I could make a career and retire from. Getting hired at OU was competitive, so I decided to bet on myself and my ability to move up within a corporation or university, as the case may be. I was hired in December of 2012 with property control, where I unloaded trucks and helped with capitalized inventory control. During my 10 and a half years at OU, I have moved from property control to stockroom manager with the microbiology department, to financial associate with the microbiology department, and now to senior financial manager for the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s office.”
Keeter has proven to be a valuable resource in this department in a variety of ways, ranging from training new financial staff and chairs/directors to being a resource for current university policy, as well as helping to unravel financial or budgetary issues in departments.
Keeter is deeply connected to the university and has always been a fan of OU. What appealed to him the most and drew him to building a career here was “the thought of working at a university with such an eclectic group of people.” Working with diverse groups of people across campus and the sight of campus in the spring are just two of the many things that Keeter loves about OU. His wife, Tammy, also works at the University of Oklahoma. After dating for 26 years, the two married in Las Vegas earlier this summer in a small ceremony with close friends, ending the night with dinner at Lago in the Bellagio. The pair are avid sports fans and movie lovers and enjoy attending OU sports events or watching from home and going to the movies.
The biggest piece of advice that he wants to give to new staff members is this: “I love my job and I love working at OU. If I could advise new staff members, I would tell them to stay with OU! The university supports others and there is room for personal and professional growth.”
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RESEARCHERS USE MASS SPECTROMETRY TO EXPLORE ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
Laura-Isobel McCall, Ph.D., and Zhibo Yang, Ph.D., co-principal investigators and associate professors of chemistry and biochemistry in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, have been awarded a prestigious R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health for their project, “Novel single-cell mass spectrometry to assess the role of intracellular drug concentration and metabolism in antimicrobial treatment failure.” “Our project builds upon Dr. Yang’s research that shows variations in chemotherapy drugs inside individual cancer cells,” McCall said. “Using his techniques with single-cell mass spectrometry, if we find that cells with persistent pathogens also have less intracellular drug levels, then we could explain antimicrobial treatment failure.” READ MORE
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RESEARCH EXPLORES HOW THE BRAIN INTERPRETS TASTE
Taste is a complex neurological experience that has the potential to provide extensive, and perhaps surprising, information on how the brain makes sense of sensations and the organization of brain pathways. A research project funded by the National Institutes of Health, led by Christian H. Lemon, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Biology in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, aims to better understand how the brain processes taste and how those neural pathways can evolve. READ MORE
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RESEARCHERS ADVOCATE FOR SCIENCE FUNDING ON CAPITOL HILL
Researchers from across the country represented their universities and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to meet with lawmakers in Washington, D.C. on May 17. Ann West, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biochemistry in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, associate vice president for research and partnerships and incoming chair of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Public Affairs Advisory Committee, joined 15 other U.S. academic researchers to convey the importance of federal funding for fundamental research. In their first Capitol Hill visit since 2019 due to COVID-19 restrictions, the researchers participated in 48 meetings, speaking with staff members of 16 U.S. senators, including James Lankford and Markwayne Mullin, and eight U.S. representatives, including Tom Cole from Oklahoma’s fourth district. READ MORE
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RESEARCHERS DEMONSTRATE SECURE INFORMATION TRANSFER USING SPATIAL CORRELATIONS IN QUANTUM ENTANGLED BEAMS OF LIGHT
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma led a study recently published in Science Advances that proves the principle of using spatial correlations in quantum entangled beams of light to encode information and enable its secure transmission.
Light can be used to encode information for high-data rate transmission, long-distance communication and more. But for secure communication, encoding large amounts of information in light has additional challenges to ensure the privacy and integrity of the data being transferred. Alberto Marino, Ted S. Webb Presidential Professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, led the research with OU doctoral student and the study’s first author Gaurav Nirala and co-authors Siva T. Pradyumna and Ashok Kumar. Marino also holds positions with OU’s Center for Quantum Research and Technology and with the Quantum Science Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. READ MORE
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OU RESEARCHERS DISCOVER
ANTIFUNGAL MOLECULE
Fungal infections are killing thousands of Americans each year, some with a morbidity rate of nearly 80%. To make matters worse, only a handful of antifungal treatments are available, and even those are becoming less effective as fungi become more resistant. However, University of Oklahoma researchers recently published findings in the Journal of Natural Products indicating that a novel breakthrough treatment may have been discovered. The rise in fungal infections is due, in part, to the successful treatment of other diseases. As people live longer and successfully undergo treatments like chemotherapy and organ transplants, they often live with weakened immune systems. When drugs that treat arthritis and other ailments that also weaken immune systems are added to the mix, a perfect storm is created for potentially deadly fungal infections. Robert Cichewicz, who has been researching fungi for nearly 20 years, leads the Natural Products Discovery Group at OU. This team of researchers discovered this novel molecule and developed a unique method for testing plants for their antifungal properties. READ MORE
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RESEARCH SUPPORTING INCREASED CROP GROWTH PUBLISHED IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
An article describing research conducted by John Peters, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and fellow researchers has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article, “Structural insights into redox signal transduction mechanisms in the control of nitrogen fixation by the NifLA system,” explores the way bacteria regulate the expression of genes related to nitrogen fixation – the conversion of nitrogen in the air into ammonia that can help plants grow. “Using small angle X-ray scattering and mass spectrometry-coupled surface labeling, we revealed how a protein can sense the levels of oxygen, nitrogen and energy in the (plant’s) cell and, in response, regulate the expression of genes that support nitrogen fixation,” Peters said. READ MORE
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RESEARCHERS DISCOVER METHOD TO OVERCOME ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
The World Health Organization has labeled antimicrobial resistance a global threat because most clinical antibiotics are no longer effective against certain pathogenic bacteria. The Center for Antibiotic Discovery and Resistance at the University of Oklahoma, led by Helen Zgurskaya, Ph.D., and Valentin Rybenkov, Ph.D., is working on finding alternative therapeutic solutions. Antibiotics work by targeting specific parts of a bacteria cell, such as the cell wall or its DNA. Bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics in a number of ways, including by developing efflux pumps – proteins that are located on the surface of the bacteria cell. When an antibiotic enters the cell, the efflux pump pumps it out of the cell before it can reach its target so that the antibiotic is never able to kill the bacteria. However, OU researchers have contributed to a recent discovery published in the journal Nature Communications. The scientists found a new class of molecules that inhibit the efflux pump and make the antibiotic effective again. READ MORE
Helen Zgurskaya is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Valentin Rybenkov is a professor of biochemistry, both in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Learn more about their research at the Center for Antibiotic Discovery and Resistance.
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DEMON HUNTING: PHYSICISTS CONFIRM 67-YEAR-OLD PREDICTION OF MASSLESS, NEUTRAL COMPOSITE PARTICLE
In 1956, theoretical physicist David Pines predicted that electrons in a solid can do something strange. While they normally have a mass and an electric charge, Pines asserted that they can combine to form a composite particle that is massless, neutral and does not interact with light. He called this particle a “demon.” Since then, it has been speculated to play an important role in the behaviors of a wide variety of metals. Unfortunately, the same properties that make it interesting have allowed it to elude detection since its prediction.
Now, a team of researchers led by Peter Abbamonte, a professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have finally found Pines’ demon 67 years after it was predicted. As the researchers report in the journal Nature, they used a nonstandard experimental technique that directly excites a material’s electronic modes, allowing them to see the demon’s signature in the metal strontium ruthenate.
Among the collaborators on this project is Bruno Uchoa, associate professor and Ted and Cuba Webb Presidential Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at OU. Uchoa was recruited to help with research by the lead author of the study Ali Husain, whom he met at a Gordon Conference. Husain expressed to Uchoa that the team had developed a new spectroscopy technique (M-EELS), but they did not know how to use it properly because they were unsure how to calibrate their data with sum rules. In the words of Uchoa, “Sum rules reflect fundamental conservation laws in solids. Their technique is different of usual light spectroscopy because it scatters electrons across a surface but, at the same time, has excellent energy and momentum resolution. This is something that one does not usually get with electron scattering. This new probe permits them to observe low energy excitations at finite momentum, which is exactly what they needed to observe a demon.” Uchoa’s contribution to the project was deriving a sum rule that the team could use to calibrate their scattering cross section. He recalls, “It turns out that the sum rule was important to show that the spectral weight of the demon vanishes in the limit of zero momentum, and therefore this excitation should not be charge neutral because it does not couple to light. This is a central aspect of the prediction of demons by David Pines 67 years ago.” READ MORE
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3D SCANNING BRINGS MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT TO LIFE
Bill Endres, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of English, Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, and emerging technologies librarians in University Libraries are working to scan the St. Chad Gospels, a medieval illuminated manuscript. “Illuminated manuscripts date back to the Byzantine Empire, when they would use gold in manuscripts to make them shine,” Endres said. “This would give the pages a sense of otherworldliness and would emulate the divine light and divine wisdom within the words of the manuscript.” Emerging technologies librarian Kristi Wyatt traveled with Enders to Lichfield Cathedral in Lichfield, England, in October 2022 to scan the pages of the eighth-century text. The pair worked to capture 12 of the manuscript’s most significant surviving pages before they deteriorated further using 3D scanning and photogrammetry. With assistance from Bobby Reed, head of OU Libraries’ emerging technology program, the team has now developed a beta 3D experience of the St Chad Gospels. The 3D model includes six two-page spreads of text and illuminations positioned on a virtual table. Users can interact with the pages using virtual reality headsets. READ MORE
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JUSTIN REEDY (COMMUNICATION)
LINDSEY MEEKS (COMMUNICATION)
$49,944 - U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY IDOI-USG
DEVELOPING ACTIONABLE SCIENCE PRIORITIES FOR CULTURAL RESOURCES THROUGH DELIBERATIVE FORUMS IN TRIBAL AND MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES
Justin Reedy is the principal investigator on the grant and Lindsey Meeks is a co-PI. The rest of the team includes researchers at the OU Center for Applied Social Research, the South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, the College of Charleston (South Carolina), the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, and the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville).
Climate change threatens to damage historical sites and disrupt cultural practices in communities around the world. Researchers have begun to pay greater attention to the impact of climate change on these "cultural resources," but currently little guidance exists for decision makers interested in protecting them. Because communities value and interact with cultural resources in different ways, effectively planning for their protection requires broad-based public participation. This planning project will lay the foundations for conducting deliberative public forums in tribal and marginalized communities to facilitate conversations about climate threats to cultural resources and plan for their protection. In the planning phase, the project will focus on (1) building relationships with researchers and professionals working to protect cultural resources, (2) identifying and engaging with tribal and marginalized communities in Oklahoma, Arkansas and South Carolina who may be interested in hosting deliberative public forms, and (3) reviewing current literature on how cultural resources have been defined for the purpose of climate adaptation planning.
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YIHAN SHAO (CHEMISTRY)
$588,597 - NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
AN INTEGRATED SOFTWARE PLATFORM FOR SIMULATING POLARITON PHOTOCHEMICAL AND PHOTOPHYSICAL PROCESSES
The award from the NSF Office of Advanced Cyber infrastructure supports the development of a set of computational tools to simulate complex molecule-cavity hybrid systems. These tools will facilitate new discoveries in the emerging field of polariton chemistry, and have the potential of impacting catalysis, energy production and the field of chemistry at large. Shao is working with Pengfei Liu (co-PI, University of Rochester) on the project.
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ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT STUDY ABROAD IN LONDON
During the summer, high-achieving and dedicated economics students were given the opportunity to spend time studying abroad in London. Learning about economies in the financial capital of the world, these OU students toured world-renowned academic institutions of financial research with OU faculty experts. They visited historical sites from ancient to modern eras, including the John Snow Walk and Tower of London. The economics study abroad program in London is led by Professor Greg Burge and Professor Joan Hamory.
“Studying urban economics and world development economics in the heart of London, England, was a perfect match. The concepts are seen firsthand just walking the streets of London. Each moment was not only illuminating academically, but also thoroughly an irreplaceable memory that I got to enjoy in the beautiful city of London facilitated by the amazing Dr. Burge and Dr. Hamory!"
Abi Simmons, OU student
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Dr. Burge managed to secure a tour of Parliament with MP Chishti, which was the ultimate highlight of the trip, and there were a lot of incredible high points to contest that claim. Aside from that momentous event, he brought an energy and zeal to the trip and his class that helped keep us all excited for each new day of the trip. Dr. Hamory drew back the veil of rigorous economic experimentation and showed how immensely clever participants in this field of study can be. Her material and her delivery of it have redoubled my interest in the School of Economics. It was the best academic experience I've had with the university so far by a significant margin."
Andy Marang, OU student
"It was the most fulfilling experience and one that I will never forget. I am extremely thankful for the educational and cultural investment this program provided to my personal development."
Ashlyn Darter, OU student
The first photo (above) shows the group just before entering Wimbledon, while the second photo (below) shows the group on a walking tour of University College London led by Ramin Nessahi, director of community outreach and engagement for the UCL Econ Department.
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STUDENTS ATTEND SUMMER STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM IN ROME
Fifteen undergraduate students, together with a team of researchers from the Department of Classics and Letters and the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, spent five weeks this summer at work exploring an ancient site near the town of Ficulle, in the Umbria region northwest of Rome. Students were enrolled in the Romans in Umbria Archaeological Field School, a program of OU’s Education Abroad.
Preliminary results point to a complex, multi-period (with a dominant Roman presence) settlement located on the Chiani River (the ancient Clanis), a river that served as a major channel for trade and communication between the imperial capital of Rome and northern Italy. A combination of geophysical prospection and targeted excavation revealed, among other things, the presence of first-century CE bath building and domestic structure, grain mills indicating food processing, and a late antique/medieval cemetery.
Students, most of whom had no previous archaeological experience, learned techniques of excavation, geophysical exploration, archaeological drawing and documentation, and finds processing — working heroically through near record-setting temperatures in Italy.
Sue Alcock and Joey Williams, recent hires in the Department of Classics and Letters, working in tandem with other archaeologists on campus, hope the work at Ficulle will be only the beginning of a revival of active Mediterranean fieldwork and research at the University of Oklahoma.
“The Romans in Umbria dig was in all seriousness, probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done. Not only that, it truly solidified in my mind that digging in the hot sun and discovering things is what I want to do with my life! This is what I want to do for grad school, this is what I want to study, and the people I met on this dig are the kind of people I want to work with forever. Ficulle is a beautiful, wonderful town and it was so awesome that the people who lived there seem genuinely delighted that our team was there. The way we lived really helped augment the way we were able to dig, and it only boosted how powerful the entire experience was. I just can’t speak enough on Ficulle’s enthusiasm. The mayor would come to site, and when we had an exhibition day, a ton of townsfolk made the (not insignificant!!) drive down to see our work. The Umbrian newspaper put our discoveries on the front page! I just truly cannot stress enough how grateful I am that I was chosen for this dig, that I was able to learn from this set of professors, and how incredible the experience was. I feel like we really started finding some awesome stuff by the end of the dig, and I know next year’s team will have just as good a time.” - August Stroud, OU graduate May 2023
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Sept. 20 - The Institute for American Constitutional Heritage will host the J. Rufus Fears Lectures on Patti and Roger Clapp Constitution Day on Sept. 20. The lectures begin at 1:30 p.m. and will be held in the Mary Eddy and Fred Jones Auditorium, 555 Elm Ave., on the OU Norman campus. Please RSVP by email to [email protected]. This year, lectures will be given by Jonathan Gienapp, associate professor of history at Stanford University and author of The Second Creation: Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era (Harvard/Belknap 2018), and Anne Twitty, associate professor of history at Standford and author of Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857 (Cambridge 2016).
Sept. 22 - DFCAS Dissertation Completion and Research Fellowship Applications are due to the Dean's office.
Sept. 25 - Deadline to submit new graduate degree programs or graduate certificates (using State Regents forms) to the Dean’s office.
Sept. 25 - Deadline to submit new undergraduate degree programs (using State Regents forms) to the Dean’s office.
Sept. 26 - Chairs and Directors meeting, Noon
Sept. 27 - CASFAM Staff meeting, 9 a.m.
Sept. 27 - Sabbatical leave reports from fall 2022 and spring 2023 (two-semester sabbatical) or spring 2023 only are due to the Dean’s office.
Oct. 1 - DFCAS Faculty Fellowship reports due to the Dean's office.
Oct. 3 - 5 - Frances E. Lee, an award-winning professor of politics and public affairs from Princeton University, will deliver three lectures on the theme “Two Cheers for Congress: A Defense of Shared Power for a Polarized, Distrustful Society” Oct. 3-5 at the University of Oklahoma. The Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Representative Government series, which is complimentary and open to the public, will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. each day in the Mary Eddy and Fred Jones Auditorium at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave. Lee will present “Representation: A Decent Respect for the Opinions of Mankind” on Oct. 3, “Policymaking: A Government of Accommodation” on Oct. 4, and “Executive Accountability: Let Facts Be Submitted to a Candid World” on Oct. 5. The Julian J. Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Representative Government was endowed in 1981 by Joel Jankowsky and his mother, Irene Rothbaum, in honor of her husband, Julian. Rothbaum was an OU alumnus, a leader in Oklahoma civic affairs and a lifelong friend of Carl Albert. The lectureship was initiated in 1983, and focuses on the role of representative institutions. It also aligns with principles that were significant to Rothbaum: the importance of the relationship between education and public service in a representative democracy and the importance of participation by private citizens in public affairs.
Oct. 6 - Deadline for academic units to submit nominations for DFCAS faculty teaching awards to the Dean's office. Nominations should be emailed to Elizabeth McHenry in the Dean's office.
Oct. 13 - Deadline for academic units to submit nominations for university faculty and advising awards to the Dean's office.
Oct. 23 - Deadline to submit undergraduate program modifications and undergraduate certificates (using State Regents forms) to the Dean’s office.
Oct. 23 - Deadline to submit graduate program modifications (using State Regents forms) to the Dean’s office.
Oct. 24 - Chairs and Directors meeting, Noon
Oct. 25 - CASFAM Staff meeting, 9 a.m.
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If you have information or announcements for News & Updates, please submit to the College communication office.
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