Research news
OSU selects Linfield exec for vice president post
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Glenn Ford, who has been vice president and chief financial officer at Linfield College in Oregon since 2007, has been named vice president for Finance and Administration at Oregon State University.
Ford will begin his new duties on July 8. He succeeds long-time Oregon State vice president Mark McCambridge, who is retiring.
OSU President Ed Ray said that Ford’s experience, which includes stints at three Land Grant universities prior to his Linfield position, would help him “hit the ground running.”
“Mark McCambridge did an exemplary job of helping keep OSU on sound financial footing in a difficult economic environment and doing so in a most transparent manner,” Ray said. “Glenn Ford has the experience and vision to continue that success as the university moves forward.”
As vice president for finance and administration at Oregon State, Ford will serve as the university’s chief financial officer, advising Ray on financial matters and overseeing an organizational structure that includes budget and fiscal planning, business affairs, business services, conferences and special events, facilities services, human resources and public safety.
“I am thrilled to join Oregon State University – a world-class research university with a student-centered focus,” Ford said. “My philosophy aligns well with Oregon State’s core values of accountability, diversity, integrity, respect and social responsibility. I am very impressed by the university’s culture of collaborative decisiveness that enhances Oregon State’s distinctiveness and keeps OSU at the forefront of higher education in the United States.”
In addition to Oregon State’s large Corvallis campus, the university operates 15 Agricultural Experiment Station branches, Extension Service operations in 36 counties, the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend, the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and the Food Innovation Center and a range of other programs and facilities in Portland.
Ford has had similar responsibilities at Linfield College in McMinnville, where he oversees planning and budgeting, investment management, human resources, public safety and security, environmental health and safety and a range of other services. Before joining Linfield, he was vice president for business and finance at Utah State University, a Land Grant university with multiple campuses as well as Extension and Experiment Station operations.
Ford also worked at Washington State University for 15 years in a variety of positions, including four years as finance and operations director (vice chancellor) at the WSU Vancouver campus. Ford also worked at the University of Idaho.
Ford recently was appointed to the board of the Oregon 529 College Savings Network, and is a board member of the West Coast College Consortium, Pioneer Educators Health Trust, and the Willamette Valley Medical Center. He is a graduate of the University of Idaho, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in forest products (business management option) and a master’s of business administration.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Steve Clark, 541-737-4875
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageOSU selects Linfield exec for vice president post
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Glenn Ford, who has been vice president and chief financial officer at Linfield College in Oregon since 2007, has been named vice president for Finance and Administration at Oregon State University.
Ford will begin his new duties on July 8. He succeeds long-time Oregon State vice president Mark McCambridge, who is retiring.
OSU President Ed Ray said that Ford’s experience, which includes stints at three Land Grant universities prior to his Linfield position, would help him “hit the ground running.”
“Mark McCambridge did an exemplary job of helping keep OSU on sound financial footing in a difficult economic environment and doing so in a most transparent manner,” Ray said. “Glenn Ford has the experience and vision to continue that success as the university moves forward.”
As vice president for finance and administration at Oregon State, Ford will serve as the university’s chief financial officer, advising Ray on financial matters and overseeing an organizational structure that includes budget and fiscal planning, business affairs, business services, conferences and special events, facilities services, human resources and public safety.
“I am thrilled to join Oregon State University – a world-class research university with a student-centered focus,” Ford said. “My philosophy aligns well with Oregon State’s core values of accountability, diversity, integrity, respect and social responsibility. I am very impressed by the university’s culture of collaborative decisiveness that enhances Oregon State’s distinctiveness and keeps OSU at the forefront of higher education in the United States.”
In addition to Oregon State’s large Corvallis campus, the university operates 15 Agricultural Experiment Station branches, Extension Service operations in 36 counties, the OSU-Cascades campus in Bend, the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and the Food Innovation Center and a range of other programs and facilities in Portland.
Ford has had similar responsibilities at Linfield College in McMinnville, where he oversees planning and budgeting, investment management, human resources, public safety and security, environmental health and safety and a range of other services. Before joining Linfield, he was vice president for business and finance at Utah State University, a Land Grant university with multiple campuses as well as Extension and Experiment Station operations.
Ford also worked at Washington State University for 15 years in a variety of positions, including four years as finance and operations director (vice chancellor) at the WSU Vancouver campus. Ford also worked at the University of Idaho.
Ford recently was appointed to the board of the Oregon 529 College Savings Network, and is a board member of the West Coast College Consortium, Pioneer Educators Health Trust, and the Willamette Valley Medical Center. He is a graduate of the University of Idaho, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in forest products (business management option) and a master’s of business administration.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Steve Clark, 541-737-4875
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageHolocaust Memorial Week at OSU observed April 8-12
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University will observe Holocaust Memorial Week April 8-12 with a series of events, including a film screening about a notable Holocaust survivor who will also give a public talk, a lecture by an expert on the relationship between big business and Nazism, and a discussion about genocide in Cambodia.
This observance is the 27th in the annual series, which is a collaboration of OSU, the Corvallis/Benton County Public Library, the City of Corvallis, Beit Am, and School District 509-J.
For a complete schedule of events, go to http://oregonstate.edu/dept/holocaust
The program will also include the following events, all of which are free and open to the public:
- Monday, April 8, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Alexander Hinton, “Annihilating Difference: The Cambodian Genocide.” Hinton will discuss the Cambodian genocide which resulted in almost 2 million Cambodians dying between 1975 and 1979, and issues of why genocides happen. Hinton is director of the Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights. He is author of the 2005 book, “Why did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide.”
- Tuesday, April 9, 4 p.m., Darkside Cinema, 215 S.W. 4th, Corvallis – A screening of the film, “Landscapes of Memory – The Life of Ruth Klüger” (in German, with subtitles). It is a biopic about noted Holocaust survivor and memoirist Ruth Klüger.
- Tuesday, April 9, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Ruth Klüger, “The Shoah in Fiction.” Klüger was born in Vienna in 1931 and her memoir, “Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered,” documents her internment at several camps, including Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. Klüger will discuss recent trends in depicting the Holocaust through fiction.
- Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Peter Hayes, “From Aryanization to Auschwitz: German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust.” Hayes, a professor of Holocaust studies at Northwestern University, is an expert on the interaction between German corporations and the Nazi state. In his talk, Hayes will address the involvement of German big business with the Holocaust and the advantages gained by corporations, including the opportunity to exploit slave labor.
- Thursday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Henryk Grynberg, “Bearing Witness through Literature.” A Holocaust survivor who has been described as “the chronicler of the Polish Jews,” Grynberg is an award-winning author of major works of fiction and nonfiction dealing with the Holocaust in Poland. An early novel, “The Jewish War,” tells of his experiences during WW II and the sequel, “Victory,” follows his life after the war. It is listed among the “One Hundred Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature.”
- Friday, April 12, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., OSU Memorial Union Journey Room – A student conference called “Social Justice in Policy and Education.” The objective of the conference is to address issues of social justice. It includes a visual presentation on aspects of Poland that recall the Holocaust, such as memorials of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jewish Museum in Warsaw, and the Majdanek death camp. OSU students who recently returned from Poland will narrate the presentation and lead discussion.
Corvallis Mayor Julie Manning will issue a proclamation at the April 8 event. Among the co-sponsors of these events are the OSU School of Language, Culture, and Society; the OSU School of Writing, Literature and Film; the OSU College of Business; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and the Austrian Consulate General, Los Angeles.
Media Contact: Angela Yeager Source:Paul Kopperman, 541-737-3421
Multimedia:
Henryk Grynberg will give a talk, “Bearing Witness through Literature,” on April 11, 2013 as part of OSU's Holocaust Memorial Week. (photo courtesy of Jacek Lagowski/Agencja Gazetta)
Ruth Klüger will also speak at Oregon State University on April 11 as part of Holocaust Memorial Week.
Holocaust Memorial Week at OSU observed April 8-12
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University will observe Holocaust Memorial Week April 8-12 with a series of events, including a film screening about a notable Holocaust survivor who will also give a public talk, a lecture by an expert on the relationship between big business and Nazism, and a discussion about genocide in Cambodia.
This observance is the 27th in the annual series, which is a collaboration of OSU, the Corvallis/Benton County Public Library, the City of Corvallis, Beit Am, and School District 509-J.
For a complete schedule of events, go to http://oregonstate.edu/dept/holocaust
The program will also include the following events, all of which are free and open to the public:
- Monday, April 8, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Alexander Hinton, “Annihilating Difference: The Cambodian Genocide.” Hinton will discuss the Cambodian genocide which resulted in almost 2 million Cambodians dying between 1975 and 1979, and issues of why genocides happen. Hinton is director of the Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide, Conflict Resolution, and Human Rights. He is author of the 2005 book, “Why did They Kill? Cambodia in the Shadow of Genocide.”
- Tuesday, April 9, 4 p.m., Darkside Cinema, 215 S.W. 4th, Corvallis – A screening of the film, “Landscapes of Memory – The Life of Ruth Klüger” (in German, with subtitles). It is a biopic about noted Holocaust survivor and memoirist Ruth Klüger.
- Tuesday, April 9, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Ruth Klüger, “The Shoah in Fiction.” Klüger was born in Vienna in 1931 and her memoir, “Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered,” documents her internment at several camps, including Auschwitz and Theresienstadt. Klüger will discuss recent trends in depicting the Holocaust through fiction.
- Wednesday, April 10, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Peter Hayes, “From Aryanization to Auschwitz: German Corporate Complicity in the Holocaust.” Hayes, a professor of Holocaust studies at Northwestern University, is an expert on the interaction between German corporations and the Nazi state. In his talk, Hayes will address the involvement of German big business with the Holocaust and the advantages gained by corporations, including the opportunity to exploit slave labor.
- Thursday, April 11, 7:30 p.m., C&E Auditorium, LaSells Stewart Center – A public talk by Henryk Grynberg, “Bearing Witness through Literature.” A Holocaust survivor who has been described as “the chronicler of the Polish Jews,” Grynberg is an award-winning author of major works of fiction and nonfiction dealing with the Holocaust in Poland. An early novel, “The Jewish War,” tells of his experiences during WW II and the sequel, “Victory,” follows his life after the war. It is listed among the “One Hundred Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature.”
- Friday, April 12, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., OSU Memorial Union Journey Room – A student conference called “Social Justice in Policy and Education.” The objective of the conference is to address issues of social justice. It includes a visual presentation on aspects of Poland that recall the Holocaust, such as memorials of the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jewish Museum in Warsaw, and the Majdanek death camp. OSU students who recently returned from Poland will narrate the presentation and lead discussion.
Corvallis Mayor Julie Manning will issue a proclamation at the April 8 event. Among the co-sponsors of these events are the OSU School of Language, Culture, and Society; the OSU School of Writing, Literature and Film; the OSU College of Business; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and the Austrian Consulate General, Los Angeles.
Media Contact: Angela Yeager Source:Paul Kopperman, 541-737-3421
Multimedia:
Henryk Grynberg will give a talk, “Bearing Witness through Literature,” on April 11, 2013 as part of OSU's Holocaust Memorial Week. (photo courtesy of Jacek Lagowski/Agencja Gazetta)
Ruth Klüger will also speak at Oregon State University on April 11 as part of Holocaust Memorial Week.
National security leader to deliver OSU commencement address in June
Brigadier Gen. Julie A. Bentz, who advises President Obama on national security issues, will return to her alma mater later this spring when she delivers the commencement address at Oregon State University on June 15.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Brigadier Gen. Julie A. Bentz, who advises President Obama on national security issues, will return to her alma mater this June when she delivers the commencement address at Oregon State University.
Bentz, director of strategic capabilities policy on the National Security Staff, is a 1986 graduate of OSU, where she received an ROTC commission and earned a degree in radiological health. She is the first female officer from the Oregon Army National Guard to achieve the rank of general.
“Gen. Bentz has played an integral role in advising the United States about security matters – and especially nuclear defense strategies and implications – since Sept. 11, 2001,” said OSU President Edward J. Ray. “Her journey from a small town in Oregon, to Oregon State University, and on to national prominence will provide a compelling message for our graduates.”
Bentz grew up in the tiny, unincorporated town of Jordan, Ore., which is near Stayton, and earned a national ROTC scholarship that would have allowed her to attend any of more than 200 universities in the country. She chose Oregon State, and earned her bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees in radiological health. She accepted her ROTC commission and was stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
She later was stationed in San Antonio, Texas, where she worked as a nuclear, biological and chemical officer, training U.S. medical forces during the first Gulf War.
Then she became a missionary, and spent four years in Europe and Africa, while still working as an Army reserve officer.
“The pay I received from my service time was enough to pay for my missionary lifestyle,” she told the Oregon Stater magazine in a recent interview.
Bentz earned master’s (health physics) and doctoral (nuclear engineering) degrees from the University of Missouri, and another master’s degree in national security strategy from the National War College in Washington, D.C. She worked at the Pentagon during the 9-11 attacks, received a Legion of Merit medal for her work on the Homeland Security Council, and recently helped coordinate the U.S. response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
OSU’s 144th commencement ceremony will take place on Saturday, June 15, in Reser Stadium.
Generic OSU Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Steve Clark, 541-737-4875
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Promote to the OSU home pageNational security leader to deliver OSU commencement address in June
Brigadier Gen. Julie A. Bentz, who advises President Obama on national security issues, will return to her alma mater later this spring when she delivers the commencement address at Oregon State University on June 15.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Brigadier Gen. Julie A. Bentz, who advises President Obama on national security issues, will return to her alma mater this June when she delivers the commencement address at Oregon State University.
Bentz, director of strategic capabilities policy on the National Security Staff, is a 1986 graduate of OSU, where she received an ROTC commission and earned a degree in radiological health. She is the first female officer from the Oregon Army National Guard to achieve the rank of general.
“Gen. Bentz has played an integral role in advising the United States about security matters – and especially nuclear defense strategies and implications – since Sept. 11, 2001,” said OSU President Edward J. Ray. “Her journey from a small town in Oregon, to Oregon State University, and on to national prominence will provide a compelling message for our graduates.”
Bentz grew up in the tiny, unincorporated town of Jordan, Ore., which is near Stayton, and earned a national ROTC scholarship that would have allowed her to attend any of more than 200 universities in the country. She chose Oregon State, and earned her bachelor of science and bachelor of arts degrees in radiological health. She accepted her ROTC commission and was stationed in Landstuhl, Germany.
She later was stationed in San Antonio, Texas, where she worked as a nuclear, biological and chemical officer, training U.S. medical forces during the first Gulf War.
Then she became a missionary, and spent four years in Europe and Africa, while still working as an Army reserve officer.
“The pay I received from my service time was enough to pay for my missionary lifestyle,” she told the Oregon Stater magazine in a recent interview.
Bentz earned master’s (health physics) and doctoral (nuclear engineering) degrees from the University of Missouri, and another master’s degree in national security strategy from the National War College in Washington, D.C. She worked at the Pentagon during the 9-11 attacks, received a Legion of Merit medal for her work on the Homeland Security Council, and recently helped coordinate the U.S. response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
OSU’s 144th commencement ceremony will take place on Saturday, June 15, in Reser Stadium.
Generic OSU Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Steve Clark, 541-737-4875
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Promote to the OSU home pageOSU tracks furniture for special needs students through new Wi-Fi tagging system
OSU’s Disability Access Services is using the AeroScout Real-Time Location System and Asset Tracking & Management solution to instantly track the location of items in order to reduce costs through improved inventory utilization while ensuring that the campus is accessible and comfortable for everyone.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Oregon State University is using a new tracking system for specialized items for students, faculty and visitors with disabilities and special needs.
OSU’s Disability Access Services is using the AeroScout Real-Time Location System and Asset Tracking & Management solution to instantly track the location of items in order to reduce costs through improved inventory utilization while ensuring that the campus is accessible and comfortable for everyone.
OSU implemented the new system to track the location of hundreds of assets – primarily specialized furniture – tables, podiums and chairs – dispersed across the campus. The system, which works with OSU’s standard Wi-Fi network, allows the Disability Access Service team to immediately locate needed items across the 1,800-acre Corvallis campus, which includes 40 buildings and more than 450 classrooms, and reposition the items where they’re needed.
“We have a lot of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and we needed to find a cost-effective way to accommodate them with specialized furniture,” said Jennifer Gosset of Disability Access Services. “Before deploying the AeroScout solution, there were times when 75 percent of (our) assets were unaccounted for. This impacted the campus experience for many of our students and staff members and drove up costs.
“Now we know exactly where every item is,” she added. “As a result, we’re able to provide a much better experience for our students with disabilities and we’ve significantly improved asset utilization and staff productivity.”
The new system includes tags that are attached to the specialized furniture. The tags send location information of each item over OSU’s Wi-Fi network to MobileView, which has a graphical map of the campus that shows the location of each item.
Media Contact: Theresa Hogue Source:Jennifer Gossett, 541-737-4454
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageOSU tracks furniture for special needs students through new Wi-Fi tagging system
OSU’s Disability Access Services is using the AeroScout Real-Time Location System and Asset Tracking & Management solution to instantly track the location of items in order to reduce costs through improved inventory utilization while ensuring that the campus is accessible and comfortable for everyone.
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Oregon State University is using a new tracking system for specialized items for students, faculty and visitors with disabilities and special needs.
OSU’s Disability Access Services is using the AeroScout Real-Time Location System and Asset Tracking & Management solution to instantly track the location of items in order to reduce costs through improved inventory utilization while ensuring that the campus is accessible and comfortable for everyone.
OSU implemented the new system to track the location of hundreds of assets – primarily specialized furniture – tables, podiums and chairs – dispersed across the campus. The system, which works with OSU’s standard Wi-Fi network, allows the Disability Access Service team to immediately locate needed items across the 1,800-acre Corvallis campus, which includes 40 buildings and more than 450 classrooms, and reposition the items where they’re needed.
“We have a lot of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and we needed to find a cost-effective way to accommodate them with specialized furniture,” said Jennifer Gosset of Disability Access Services. “Before deploying the AeroScout solution, there were times when 75 percent of (our) assets were unaccounted for. This impacted the campus experience for many of our students and staff members and drove up costs.
“Now we know exactly where every item is,” she added. “As a result, we’re able to provide a much better experience for our students with disabilities and we’ve significantly improved asset utilization and staff productivity.”
The new system includes tags that are attached to the specialized furniture. The tags send location information of each item over OSU’s Wi-Fi network to MobileView, which has a graphical map of the campus that shows the location of each item.
Media Contact: Theresa Hogue Source:Jennifer Gossett, 541-737-4454
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageNewport researchers seek to reduce bycatch in groundfish trawling
Researchers from two agencies at the Hatfield Marine Science Center have tested a new bycatch reduction system that lowered the rate of incidental halibut bycatch by 57 percent.
NEWPORT, Ore. – Researchers working with the groundfish fishing industry in the Pacific Northwest have tested a new “flexible sorting grid excluder” – a type of bycatch reduction device that shows promise to significantly reduce the incidental bycatch of Pacific halibut from commercial bottom trawl fishermen.
In a series of tests that included 30 tows off the Washington coast, commercial fishermen were able to reduce the number of halibut taken as bycatch by 57 percent, while retaining 84 percent of the targeted groundfishes, according to Mark Lomeli of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, an organization that helps resource agencies and the fishing industry sustainably manage Pacific Ocean resources.
The findings are being published in the journal Fisheries Research.
Incidental bycatch is a significant issue in many coastal regions including the Pacific Northwest. It occurs when fishing operations result in the discard of non-targeted fish and invertebrates, or through accidental interactions with mammals, seabirds and sea turtles. It is of particular concern, resource managers say, when these “bycaught” species are overfished, threatened or endangered.
The halibut project is the latest success in a series of bycatch reduction projects conducted through a collaboration between NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. These projects have captured the interest of the fishing industry, according to Waldo Wakefield of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, a principal investigator on the project and co-author on the article.
“Fishermen are really engaged in the research because they are concerned about getting shut down if the weight of the halibut bycatch approaches a certain threshold,” said Wakefield, who works out of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. “The fishermen are not only engaged with the scientists, but they interact with each other and with the net-makers.
“In addition to the reality of being shut down, there is a perception issue,” added Wakefield, who is a courtesy professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “They don’t want to unnecessarily be killing halibut, salmon and other species.”
The flexible sorting grid excluder uses two vertical sorting panels that sort fish by size as they progress back toward the codend, noted Lomeli, who was lead author on the Fisheries Research article. The concept to the design is that fish smaller than the grid openings will pass through and be retained, where fish greater than the grid openings – such as the halibut – will be excluded from the net via an exit ramp.
“The system is not perfect,” Lomeli said. “Smaller halibut will occasionally slip through and fishermen in the tests lost about 16 percent of the groundfish they were targeting.”
Nevertheless, the reduction of the halibut bycatch is significant and may be improved by further research.
“The benefit of this type of gear is that fishermen can use smaller or bigger grids depending on the size of the fish,” noted Lomeli, who also works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. “What works for one vessel may not work for another, and fishermen may want to adjust when they target different species. “
Bycatch has become a major issue, the researchers noted, especially since many of the fisheries have gone to a catch-share management system, which caps the number of fish individual fisherman can catch instead of the old system, which had a quota for the entire industry. As part of the new management system, observers are now aboard each fishing vessel to note the catch numbers and weight of both targeted fish and bycatch.
“If the fishermen start getting close to catching too many fish of the wrong species, they typically move, change gear or fish during a different time of the year,” said Wakefield, who is with the Fishery Resource Analysis and Monitoring Division of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
Wakefield and Lomeli have been collaboratively conducting trawl selectivity studies in West Coast trawl fisheries. Their initial work began with the Pacific whiting industry at reducing Chinook salmon bycatch. In this work, a bycatch reduction device using an open escape window was developed that allowed strong-swimming Chinook to escape through the open window, while weak-swimming Pacific hake passed through to the codend.
They also worked with Bob Hannah and Stephen Jones of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in helping the Oregon pink shrimp industry reduce habitat impacts and bycatch of eulachon, a small threatened species in the smelt family, by modifying components of the trawl net. The research team is continuing its work with shrimpers, developing new proposals to further decrease the bycatch of eulachon as well as juvenile rockfish.
The collaborative effort to reduce bycatch by NOAA, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, ODFW, the fishing industry, net-makers and others is one reason Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center was established – and is considered one of the most unique marine research and education facilities in the world. The bycatch issue is of such significance it will be a focus of Marine Science Day on April 13 at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Waldo Wakefield, 541-867-0542
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home page Boiler Plate - OLD: Hatfield Marine Science CenterNewport researchers seek to reduce bycatch in groundfish trawling
Researchers from two agencies at the Hatfield Marine Science Center have tested a new bycatch reduction system that lowered the rate of incidental halibut bycatch by 57 percent.
NEWPORT, Ore. – Researchers working with the groundfish fishing industry in the Pacific Northwest have tested a new “flexible sorting grid excluder” – a type of bycatch reduction device that shows promise to significantly reduce the incidental bycatch of Pacific halibut from commercial bottom trawl fishermen.
In a series of tests that included 30 tows off the Washington coast, commercial fishermen were able to reduce the number of halibut taken as bycatch by 57 percent, while retaining 84 percent of the targeted groundfishes, according to Mark Lomeli of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, an organization that helps resource agencies and the fishing industry sustainably manage Pacific Ocean resources.
The findings are being published in the journal Fisheries Research.
Incidental bycatch is a significant issue in many coastal regions including the Pacific Northwest. It occurs when fishing operations result in the discard of non-targeted fish and invertebrates, or through accidental interactions with mammals, seabirds and sea turtles. It is of particular concern, resource managers say, when these “bycaught” species are overfished, threatened or endangered.
The halibut project is the latest success in a series of bycatch reduction projects conducted through a collaboration between NOAA Fisheries and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. These projects have captured the interest of the fishing industry, according to Waldo Wakefield of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center, a principal investigator on the project and co-author on the article.
“Fishermen are really engaged in the research because they are concerned about getting shut down if the weight of the halibut bycatch approaches a certain threshold,” said Wakefield, who works out of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore. “The fishermen are not only engaged with the scientists, but they interact with each other and with the net-makers.
“In addition to the reality of being shut down, there is a perception issue,” added Wakefield, who is a courtesy professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “They don’t want to unnecessarily be killing halibut, salmon and other species.”
The flexible sorting grid excluder uses two vertical sorting panels that sort fish by size as they progress back toward the codend, noted Lomeli, who was lead author on the Fisheries Research article. The concept to the design is that fish smaller than the grid openings will pass through and be retained, where fish greater than the grid openings – such as the halibut – will be excluded from the net via an exit ramp.
“The system is not perfect,” Lomeli said. “Smaller halibut will occasionally slip through and fishermen in the tests lost about 16 percent of the groundfish they were targeting.”
Nevertheless, the reduction of the halibut bycatch is significant and may be improved by further research.
“The benefit of this type of gear is that fishermen can use smaller or bigger grids depending on the size of the fish,” noted Lomeli, who also works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. “What works for one vessel may not work for another, and fishermen may want to adjust when they target different species. “
Bycatch has become a major issue, the researchers noted, especially since many of the fisheries have gone to a catch-share management system, which caps the number of fish individual fisherman can catch instead of the old system, which had a quota for the entire industry. As part of the new management system, observers are now aboard each fishing vessel to note the catch numbers and weight of both targeted fish and bycatch.
“If the fishermen start getting close to catching too many fish of the wrong species, they typically move, change gear or fish during a different time of the year,” said Wakefield, who is with the Fishery Resource Analysis and Monitoring Division of NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
Wakefield and Lomeli have been collaboratively conducting trawl selectivity studies in West Coast trawl fisheries. Their initial work began with the Pacific whiting industry at reducing Chinook salmon bycatch. In this work, a bycatch reduction device using an open escape window was developed that allowed strong-swimming Chinook to escape through the open window, while weak-swimming Pacific hake passed through to the codend.
They also worked with Bob Hannah and Stephen Jones of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in helping the Oregon pink shrimp industry reduce habitat impacts and bycatch of eulachon, a small threatened species in the smelt family, by modifying components of the trawl net. The research team is continuing its work with shrimpers, developing new proposals to further decrease the bycatch of eulachon as well as juvenile rockfish.
The collaborative effort to reduce bycatch by NOAA, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, ODFW, the fishing industry, net-makers and others is one reason Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center was established – and is considered one of the most unique marine research and education facilities in the world. The bycatch issue is of such significance it will be a focus of Marine Science Day on April 13 at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Waldo Wakefield, 541-867-0542
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home page Boiler Plate - OLD: Hatfield Marine Science CenterMiami marine science leader named director of OSU’s Hatfield center
CORVALLIS, Ore. – One of the nation’s leading marine science education and research facilities is getting a new director.
Robert K. Cowen, a marine biologist and administrator from Miami, Fla., has been named director of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. He succeeds George Boehlert, who recently retired.
Janet Webster will continue serving as interim director of the center until Cowen begins his duties in late July.
Cowen holds the Robert C. Maytag Chair of Ichthyology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, where he has served on the faculty since 1998. He previously was on the faculty of State University of New York at Stony Brook and conducted research as a doctoral student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, Calif.
“Bob Cowen has marine science education and research experience on both coasts and is well-suited to lead the Hatfield Marine Science Center into the future,” said Richard Spinrad, OSU’s vice president for research. “That future could include the development of a cohesive marine science-based curriculum as well as continuing to expand the center’s robust research and public outreach missions.”
Cowen’s studies range broadly, encompassing such issues as coastal fish ecology, fishery oceanography, larval transport and connectivity of marine organism populations. He has served on numerous national committees and panels, and is affiliated with the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), a multi-institutional research effort led by OSU. He also has served as associate dean for research at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
“I am very enthusiastic about joining the Hatfield Marine Science Center and OSU – not only for their great reputation, but also for the huge potential for bridging marine science education and science activities across the university,” Cowen said.
OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is located on a 49-acre site in Newport, and has a combined annual budget of about $45 million and 300 employees. Its mission includes both research and education and what makes the facility unique, officials say, is that it houses scientists and educators from OSU and several federal and state agencies - a collaborative environment unmatched at most marine science facilities in the country.
Among those agencies are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The center also includes the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies – a joint research initiative between OSU and NOAA; the university’s Marine Mammal Institute; the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, which is the first of its kind in the country; and the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a national leader in the development of wave energy.
“I look forward to working with all partners at Hatfield to further its education, science and public outreach missions,” Cowen said.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Rick Spinrad, 541-737-0662
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home page Boiler Plate - OLD: Hatfield Marine Science CenterMiami marine science leader named director of OSU’s Hatfield center
CORVALLIS, Ore. – One of the nation’s leading marine science education and research facilities is getting a new director.
Robert K. Cowen, a marine biologist and administrator from Miami, Fla., has been named director of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport. He succeeds George Boehlert, who recently retired.
Janet Webster will continue serving as interim director of the center until Cowen begins his duties in late July.
Cowen holds the Robert C. Maytag Chair of Ichthyology at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, where he has served on the faculty since 1998. He previously was on the faculty of State University of New York at Stony Brook and conducted research as a doctoral student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, Calif.
“Bob Cowen has marine science education and research experience on both coasts and is well-suited to lead the Hatfield Marine Science Center into the future,” said Richard Spinrad, OSU’s vice president for research. “That future could include the development of a cohesive marine science-based curriculum as well as continuing to expand the center’s robust research and public outreach missions.”
Cowen’s studies range broadly, encompassing such issues as coastal fish ecology, fishery oceanography, larval transport and connectivity of marine organism populations. He has served on numerous national committees and panels, and is affiliated with the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), a multi-institutional research effort led by OSU. He also has served as associate dean for research at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
“I am very enthusiastic about joining the Hatfield Marine Science Center and OSU – not only for their great reputation, but also for the huge potential for bridging marine science education and science activities across the university,” Cowen said.
OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is located on a 49-acre site in Newport, and has a combined annual budget of about $45 million and 300 employees. Its mission includes both research and education and what makes the facility unique, officials say, is that it houses scientists and educators from OSU and several federal and state agencies - a collaborative environment unmatched at most marine science facilities in the country.
Among those agencies are the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The center also includes the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies – a joint research initiative between OSU and NOAA; the university’s Marine Mammal Institute; the Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station, which is the first of its kind in the country; and the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center, a national leader in the development of wave energy.
“I look forward to working with all partners at Hatfield to further its education, science and public outreach missions,” Cowen said.
Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Rick Spinrad, 541-737-0662
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home page Boiler Plate - OLD: Hatfield Marine Science CenterNew website details Linus Pauling’s breakthroughs in protein structure
The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center has added to its series of documentary history websites on the life of Linus Pauling
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center has added to its series of documentary history websites on the life of Linus Pauling with its newest addition, “Linus Pauling and the Structure of Proteins: A Documentary History.”
The website (http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/proteins/index.html) is filled with rarely-seen photographs and letters and behind-the-scenes tales of controversy and collaboration.
This is the sixth website in the Special Collections & Archives Research Center’s series focusing on specific aspects of Pauling’s remarkable life and career. The proteins site is organized around a narrative written by Pauling biographer Thomas Hager and incorporates more than 400 letters, manuscripts, published papers, photographs and audio-visual snippets in telling its story.
Pauling (1901-1994) remains the only individual to have been awarded two unshared Nobel prizes, and his research in molecular biology is now the stuff of legend. Prompted during the Great Depression by a lack funding, Pauling shifted gears from his successful investigations into the structure of minerals and crystal structures in favor of a new program of research on biological topics. His relationship with the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded most of this new line of inquiry, is a major theme of the proteins website.
So, too, is the long running competition between Pauling’s laboratory and an array of British proteins researchers that helped inspire Pauling’s alpha helix, a fundamental component of many protein structures. The alpha helix lay at the center of seven remarkable papers published by Pauling and his Caltech collaborators in the spring of 1951 that helped define the modern scientific understanding of protein structure and function. It was with these papers that Pauling came to be known as one of the founders of molecular biology.
The proteins story was not without its drama, and readers will learn of Pauling’s sometimes caustic confrontations with Dorothy Wrinch, whose cyclol theory of protein structure was a source of intense objection for Pauling and his colleague, Carl Niemann. The website also delves into the fruitful collaboration enjoyed between Pauling and his Caltech co-worker, Robert Corey and explores the controversy surrounding his interactions with another associate, Herman Branson.
Many more discoveries lie in waiting for those interested in the history of molecular biology: the invention of the ultracentrifuge by Theodor Svedberg; Pauling’s long dalliance with a theory of antibodies; his critical concept of biological specificity; and the contested notion of coiled-coils, an episode that pit Pauling against Francis Crick.
Linus Pauling and the Structure of Proteins constitutes a major addition to the Pauling-related resources available online. It will be of interest to students, educators and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds. For much more on Pauling and his legacy, see the Linus Pauling Online portal at http://pauling.library.oregonstate.edu
-30-
Boiler Plate: Valley Library Media Contact: Theresa Hogue Media Contact:Source: Chris Petersen, 541-737-2810
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageNew website details Linus Pauling’s breakthroughs in protein structure
The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center has added to its series of documentary history websites on the life of Linus Pauling
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections & Archives Research Center has added to its series of documentary history websites on the life of Linus Pauling with its newest addition, “Linus Pauling and the Structure of Proteins: A Documentary History.”
The website (http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/coll/pauling/proteins/index.html) is filled with rarely-seen photographs and letters and behind-the-scenes tales of controversy and collaboration.
This is the sixth website in the Special Collections & Archives Research Center’s series focusing on specific aspects of Pauling’s remarkable life and career. The proteins site is organized around a narrative written by Pauling biographer Thomas Hager and incorporates more than 400 letters, manuscripts, published papers, photographs and audio-visual snippets in telling its story.
Pauling (1901-1994) remains the only individual to have been awarded two unshared Nobel prizes, and his research in molecular biology is now the stuff of legend. Prompted during the Great Depression by a lack funding, Pauling shifted gears from his successful investigations into the structure of minerals and crystal structures in favor of a new program of research on biological topics. His relationship with the Rockefeller Foundation, which funded most of this new line of inquiry, is a major theme of the proteins website.
So, too, is the long running competition between Pauling’s laboratory and an array of British proteins researchers that helped inspire Pauling’s alpha helix, a fundamental component of many protein structures. The alpha helix lay at the center of seven remarkable papers published by Pauling and his Caltech collaborators in the spring of 1951 that helped define the modern scientific understanding of protein structure and function. It was with these papers that Pauling came to be known as one of the founders of molecular biology.
The proteins story was not without its drama, and readers will learn of Pauling’s sometimes caustic confrontations with Dorothy Wrinch, whose cyclol theory of protein structure was a source of intense objection for Pauling and his colleague, Carl Niemann. The website also delves into the fruitful collaboration enjoyed between Pauling and his Caltech co-worker, Robert Corey and explores the controversy surrounding his interactions with another associate, Herman Branson.
Many more discoveries lie in waiting for those interested in the history of molecular biology: the invention of the ultracentrifuge by Theodor Svedberg; Pauling’s long dalliance with a theory of antibodies; his critical concept of biological specificity; and the contested notion of coiled-coils, an episode that pit Pauling against Francis Crick.
Linus Pauling and the Structure of Proteins constitutes a major addition to the Pauling-related resources available online. It will be of interest to students, educators and researchers from a wide variety of backgrounds. For much more on Pauling and his legacy, see the Linus Pauling Online portal at http://pauling.library.oregonstate.edu
-30-
Boiler Plate: Valley Library Media Contact: Theresa Hogue Media Contact:Source: Chris Petersen, 541-737-2810
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageMobile LIDAR technology expanding rapidly
The rapidly expanding technology of mobile LIDAR could change the way we see, study and record the land forms around us, with multiple applications in science and industry.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Imagine driving down a road a few times and obtaining in an hour more data about the surrounding landscape than a crew of surveyors could obtain in months.
Such is the potential of mobile LIDAR, a powerful technology that’s only a few years old and promises to change the way we see, study and record the world around us. It will be applied in transportation, hydrology, forestry, virtual tourism and construction – and almost no one knows anything about it.
That may change with a new report on the uses and current technology of mobile LIDAR, which has just been completed and presented to the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. It will help more managers and experts understand, use and take advantage of this science.
The full exploitation of this remarkable technology, however, faces constraints. Too few experts are trained to use it, too few educational programs exist to teach it, mountains of data are produced that can swamp the computer capabilities of even large agencies, and lack of a consistent data management protocol clogs the sharing of information between systems.
“A lot of people and professionals still don’t even know what mobile LIDAR is or what it can do,” said Michael Olsen, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Oregon State University, and lead author of the new report. “And the technology is changing so fast it’s hard for anyone, even the experts, to keep up.
“When we get more people using mobile LIDAR and we work through some of the obstacles, it’s going to reduce costs, improve efficiency, change many professions and even help save lives,” Olsen said.
LIDAR, which stands for light detecting and ranging, has been used for 20 years, primarily in aerial mapping. Pulses of light up to one million times a second bounce back from whatever they hit, forming a highly detailed and precise map of the landscape. But mobile LIDAR used on the ground, with even more powerful computer systems, is still in its infancy and has only been commercially available for five years.
Mobile LIDAR, compared to its aerial counterpart, can provide 10 to 100 times more data points that hugely improve the resolution of an image. Moving even at highway speeds, a technician can obtain a remarkable, three-dimensional view of the nearby terrain.
Such technology could be used repeatedly in one area and give engineers a virtual picture of an unstable, slow-moving hillside. It could provide a detailed image of a forest, or an urban setting, or a near-perfect recording of surrounding geology. An image of a tangle of utility lines in a ditch, made just before they were backfilled and covered, would give construction workers 30 years later a 3-D map to guide them as they repaired a leaking pipe.
Mobile LIDAR may someday be a key to driverless automobiles, or used to create amazing visual images that will enhance “virtual tourism” and let anyone, anywhere, actually see what an area looks like as if they were standing there. The applications in surveying and for transportation engineering are compelling, and may change entire professions.
Just recently, mobile LIDAR was used to help the space shuttle Endeavour maneuver through city streets to reach its final home in Los Angeles.
Some of the newest applications, Olsen said, will have to wait until there are enough experts to exploit them. OSU operates one of the few programs in the nation to train students in both civil engineering and this evolving field of “geomatics,” and more jobs are available than there are people to fill them. Due to a partnership with Leica Geosystems and David Evans and Associates, OSU has sufficient hardware and software to maintain a variety of geomatics courses. But more educational programs are needed, Olsen said, and fully-trained and licensed professionals can make $100,000 or more annually.
Other nations, he said, including Canada, have made a much more aggressive commitment to using mobile LIDAR and training students in geomatics. It is critical for the U.S. to follow suit, Olsen said.
Collaborators on the new report included researchers from the University of Houston, Lidarnews.com, David Evans and Associates, Persi Consulting, and Innovative Data, Inc.
Boiler Plate: About the OSU College of Engineering: The OSU College of Engineering is among the nation’s largest and most productive engineering programs. In the past six years, the College has more than doubled its research expenditures to $27.5 million by emphasizing highly collaborative research that solves global problems, spins out new companies, and produces opportunity for students through hands-on learning. Media Contact: David Stauth Source:Michael Olsen, 541-737-9327
Multimedia:Video of space shuttle move:
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageMobile LIDAR technology expanding rapidly
The rapidly expanding technology of mobile LIDAR could change the way we see, study and record the land forms around us, with multiple applications in science and industry.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Imagine driving down a road a few times and obtaining in an hour more data about the surrounding landscape than a crew of surveyors could obtain in months.
Such is the potential of mobile LIDAR, a powerful technology that’s only a few years old and promises to change the way we see, study and record the world around us. It will be applied in transportation, hydrology, forestry, virtual tourism and construction – and almost no one knows anything about it.
That may change with a new report on the uses and current technology of mobile LIDAR, which has just been completed and presented to the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. It will help more managers and experts understand, use and take advantage of this science.
The full exploitation of this remarkable technology, however, faces constraints. Too few experts are trained to use it, too few educational programs exist to teach it, mountains of data are produced that can swamp the computer capabilities of even large agencies, and lack of a consistent data management protocol clogs the sharing of information between systems.
“A lot of people and professionals still don’t even know what mobile LIDAR is or what it can do,” said Michael Olsen, an assistant professor of civil engineering at Oregon State University, and lead author of the new report. “And the technology is changing so fast it’s hard for anyone, even the experts, to keep up.
“When we get more people using mobile LIDAR and we work through some of the obstacles, it’s going to reduce costs, improve efficiency, change many professions and even help save lives,” Olsen said.
LIDAR, which stands for light detecting and ranging, has been used for 20 years, primarily in aerial mapping. Pulses of light up to one million times a second bounce back from whatever they hit, forming a highly detailed and precise map of the landscape. But mobile LIDAR used on the ground, with even more powerful computer systems, is still in its infancy and has only been commercially available for five years.
Mobile LIDAR, compared to its aerial counterpart, can provide 10 to 100 times more data points that hugely improve the resolution of an image. Moving even at highway speeds, a technician can obtain a remarkable, three-dimensional view of the nearby terrain.
Such technology could be used repeatedly in one area and give engineers a virtual picture of an unstable, slow-moving hillside. It could provide a detailed image of a forest, or an urban setting, or a near-perfect recording of surrounding geology. An image of a tangle of utility lines in a ditch, made just before they were backfilled and covered, would give construction workers 30 years later a 3-D map to guide them as they repaired a leaking pipe.
Mobile LIDAR may someday be a key to driverless automobiles, or used to create amazing visual images that will enhance “virtual tourism” and let anyone, anywhere, actually see what an area looks like as if they were standing there. The applications in surveying and for transportation engineering are compelling, and may change entire professions.
Just recently, mobile LIDAR was used to help the space shuttle Endeavour maneuver through city streets to reach its final home in Los Angeles.
Some of the newest applications, Olsen said, will have to wait until there are enough experts to exploit them. OSU operates one of the few programs in the nation to train students in both civil engineering and this evolving field of “geomatics,” and more jobs are available than there are people to fill them. Due to a partnership with Leica Geosystems and David Evans and Associates, OSU has sufficient hardware and software to maintain a variety of geomatics courses. But more educational programs are needed, Olsen said, and fully-trained and licensed professionals can make $100,000 or more annually.
Other nations, he said, including Canada, have made a much more aggressive commitment to using mobile LIDAR and training students in geomatics. It is critical for the U.S. to follow suit, Olsen said.
Collaborators on the new report included researchers from the University of Houston, Lidarnews.com, David Evans and Associates, Persi Consulting, and Innovative Data, Inc.
Boiler Plate: About the OSU College of Engineering: The OSU College of Engineering is among the nation’s largest and most productive engineering programs. In the past six years, the College has more than doubled its research expenditures to $27.5 million by emphasizing highly collaborative research that solves global problems, spins out new companies, and produces opportunity for students through hands-on learning. Media Contact: David Stauth Source:Michael Olsen, 541-737-9327
Multimedia:Video of space shuttle move:
Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageFormer CDC director Julie Gerberding to speak at OSU on April 3
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Julie Gerberding, the first woman to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will speak at Oregon State University on Wednesday, April 3, on “Becoming the Healthiest Nation.”
Her free public lecture, which is part of OSU’s Discovery Lecture Series, begins at 7 p.m. in LaSells Stewart Center.
In her talk, Gerberding will outline how the United States, while spending more on health care than any other nation, is far from being the healthiest country in the world. She advocates for private-public partnerships to improve health care and lower costs.
In 2005, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for her leadership of CDC during the growing threats of bioterrorism and SARS. Forbes magazine listed her among the 100 most powerful women in the world for four consecutive years.
Gerberding is now president of the vaccine division of pharmaceutical company, MERCK. During her tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from July of 2002 to January of 2009, CDC expanded its efforts in disaster preparedness, response to bioterrorism, preventing pandemics and addressing SARS and other emerging global health threats.
Her earlier career focused on preventing occupational HIV transmission. Gerberding has a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and is on the faculty of the University of California at San Francisco.
More information is available at: http://oregonstate.edu/urm/events/discovery
Boiler Plate: Generic OSU Boiler Plate Media Contact: Mark Floyd Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageFormer CDC director Julie Gerberding to speak at OSU on April 3
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Julie Gerberding, the first woman to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will speak at Oregon State University on Wednesday, April 3, on “Becoming the Healthiest Nation.”
Her free public lecture, which is part of OSU’s Discovery Lecture Series, begins at 7 p.m. in LaSells Stewart Center.
In her talk, Gerberding will outline how the United States, while spending more on health care than any other nation, is far from being the healthiest country in the world. She advocates for private-public partnerships to improve health care and lower costs.
In 2005, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world for her leadership of CDC during the growing threats of bioterrorism and SARS. Forbes magazine listed her among the 100 most powerful women in the world for four consecutive years.
Gerberding is now president of the vaccine division of pharmaceutical company, MERCK. During her tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from July of 2002 to January of 2009, CDC expanded its efforts in disaster preparedness, response to bioterrorism, preventing pandemics and addressing SARS and other emerging global health threats.
Her earlier career focused on preventing occupational HIV transmission. Gerberding has a medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and is on the faculty of the University of California at San Francisco.
More information is available at: http://oregonstate.edu/urm/events/discovery
Boiler Plate: Generic OSU Boiler Plate Media Contact: Mark Floyd Promote to OSU home page: Not Promote to the OSU home pageNew study questions the role of kinship in mass strandings of pilot whales
A new study published in the Journal of Heredity has found that pilot whales do not beach themselves because of family ties - a hypothesis that has grown in popularity in recent years.
NEWPORT, Ore. – Pilot whales that have died in mass strandings in New Zealand and Australia included many unrelated individuals at each event, a new study concludes, challenging a popular assumption that whales follow each other onto the beach and to almost certain death because of familial ties.
Using genetic samples from individuals in large strandings, scientists have determined that both related and unrelated individuals were scattered along the beaches – and that the bodies of mothers and young calves were often separated by large distances.
Results of the study are being published this week in the Journal of Heredity.
Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, said genetic identification showed that, in many cases, the mothers of calves were missing entirely from groups of whales that died in the stranding. This separation of mothers and calves suggests that strong kinship bonds are being disrupted prior to the actual stranding – potentially playing a role in causing the event.
“Observations of unusual social behavior by groups of whales prior to stranding support this explanation,” said Baker, who frequently advises the International Whaling Commission and is co-author of the Journal of Heredity article. The OSU cetacean expert is a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at the university’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore.
The mass stranding of pilot whales is common in New Zealand and Australia, involving several thousand deaths over the last few decades, according to Marc Oremus of the University of Auckland, who is lead author on the study. The researchers say their genetic analysis of 490 individual pilot whales from 12 different stranding events showed multiple maternal lineages among the victims in each stranding, and thus no correlation between kinship and the grouping of whales on the beach.
This challenges another popular hypothesis – that “care-giving behavior” directed at close maternal relatives may be responsible for the stranding of otherwise healthy whales, Oremus said.
“If kinship-based behavior was playing a causal role in strandings, we would expect that whales in a stranding event would be related to one another through descent from a common maternal ancestor, such as a grandmother or great-grandmother – and that close kin would be clustered on the beach,” Oremus said. “Neither of these was the case.”
Because of the separation of mothers and calves, or in some cases, the outright absence of mothers among the victims, the study has important implications for agencies and volunteers who work to save the stranded whales, Baker said.
“Rescue efforts aimed at ‘refloating’ stranded whales often focus on placing stranded calves with the nearest mature females, on the assumption that the closest adult female is the mother,” Baker pointed out. “Our results suggest that rescuers should be cautious when making difficult welfare decisions – such as the choice to rescue or euthanize a calf – based on this assumption alone.”
Long-finned pilot whales are the most common species to strand en masse worldwide, the researchers noted, and most of their beaching events are thought to be unrelated to human activity – unlike strandings of some other species. Both naval sonar and the noise of seismic exploration have been linked to the stranding of other species.
The phenomenon is not new. In fact, mass strandings of whales or dolphins were described by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago and were thought to have some kind of natural cause, Baker said, although it is unclear what that may be.
“It is usually assumed that environmental factors, such as weather or the pursuit of prey, brings pilot whales into shallow water where they become disoriented,” Baker said. “Our results suggest that some form of social disruption also contributes to the tendency to strand.”
“It could be mating interaction or competition with other pods of whales,” Baker said. “We just don’t know. But it is certainly something that warrants further investigation.”
The researchers hope their study will lead to better genetic sampling of more pilot whales and other stranded whale species, as well as the use of satellite tags to monitor the survival and behavior of whales that are helped back into the ocean.
“The causal mechanisms of these strandings remain an enigma,” Oremus said, “so the more avenues of research we can pursue before and after the whales beach themselves, the more likely we are to discover why it happens.”
The study was funded by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Australian Marine Mammal Centre, with support from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and the Australian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Baker’s work is supported by a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship for the study of dolphins around islands of the South Pacific.
Boiler Plate: Hatfield Marine Science Center Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Scott Baker, 541-272-0560
Marc Oremus, New Caledonia +649-83-74-81
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Promote to the OSU home pageNew study questions the role of kinship in mass strandings of pilot whales
A new study published in the Journal of Heredity has found that pilot whales do not beach themselves because of family ties - a hypothesis that has grown in popularity in recent years.
NEWPORT, Ore. – Pilot whales that have died in mass strandings in New Zealand and Australia included many unrelated individuals at each event, a new study concludes, challenging a popular assumption that whales follow each other onto the beach and to almost certain death because of familial ties.
Using genetic samples from individuals in large strandings, scientists have determined that both related and unrelated individuals were scattered along the beaches – and that the bodies of mothers and young calves were often separated by large distances.
Results of the study are being published this week in the Journal of Heredity.
Scott Baker, associate director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University, said genetic identification showed that, in many cases, the mothers of calves were missing entirely from groups of whales that died in the stranding. This separation of mothers and calves suggests that strong kinship bonds are being disrupted prior to the actual stranding – potentially playing a role in causing the event.
“Observations of unusual social behavior by groups of whales prior to stranding support this explanation,” said Baker, who frequently advises the International Whaling Commission and is co-author of the Journal of Heredity article. The OSU cetacean expert is a professor in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at the university’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Ore.
The mass stranding of pilot whales is common in New Zealand and Australia, involving several thousand deaths over the last few decades, according to Marc Oremus of the University of Auckland, who is lead author on the study. The researchers say their genetic analysis of 490 individual pilot whales from 12 different stranding events showed multiple maternal lineages among the victims in each stranding, and thus no correlation between kinship and the grouping of whales on the beach.
This challenges another popular hypothesis – that “care-giving behavior” directed at close maternal relatives may be responsible for the stranding of otherwise healthy whales, Oremus said.
“If kinship-based behavior was playing a causal role in strandings, we would expect that whales in a stranding event would be related to one another through descent from a common maternal ancestor, such as a grandmother or great-grandmother – and that close kin would be clustered on the beach,” Oremus said. “Neither of these was the case.”
Because of the separation of mothers and calves, or in some cases, the outright absence of mothers among the victims, the study has important implications for agencies and volunteers who work to save the stranded whales, Baker said.
“Rescue efforts aimed at ‘refloating’ stranded whales often focus on placing stranded calves with the nearest mature females, on the assumption that the closest adult female is the mother,” Baker pointed out. “Our results suggest that rescuers should be cautious when making difficult welfare decisions – such as the choice to rescue or euthanize a calf – based on this assumption alone.”
Long-finned pilot whales are the most common species to strand en masse worldwide, the researchers noted, and most of their beaching events are thought to be unrelated to human activity – unlike strandings of some other species. Both naval sonar and the noise of seismic exploration have been linked to the stranding of other species.
The phenomenon is not new. In fact, mass strandings of whales or dolphins were described by Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago and were thought to have some kind of natural cause, Baker said, although it is unclear what that may be.
“It is usually assumed that environmental factors, such as weather or the pursuit of prey, brings pilot whales into shallow water where they become disoriented,” Baker said. “Our results suggest that some form of social disruption also contributes to the tendency to strand.”
“It could be mating interaction or competition with other pods of whales,” Baker said. “We just don’t know. But it is certainly something that warrants further investigation.”
The researchers hope their study will lead to better genetic sampling of more pilot whales and other stranded whale species, as well as the use of satellite tags to monitor the survival and behavior of whales that are helped back into the ocean.
“The causal mechanisms of these strandings remain an enigma,” Oremus said, “so the more avenues of research we can pursue before and after the whales beach themselves, the more likely we are to discover why it happens.”
The study was funded by the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the Australian Marine Mammal Centre, with support from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and the Australian Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Baker’s work is supported by a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship for the study of dolphins around islands of the South Pacific.
Boiler Plate: Hatfield Marine Science Center Media Contact: Mark Floyd Source:Scott Baker, 541-272-0560
Marc Oremus, New Caledonia +649-83-74-81
Multimedia: Promote to OSU home page: Promote to the OSU home page
