Rick Spinrad (Photo: Karl Maasdam)

Oregon State’s vice president for research, Rick Spinrad, has been tapped to chair a federal committee on ocean observing systems. The 13 marine scientists, conservationists and industry stakeholders will advise the Integrated Ocean Observation System, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on data collection, management and technological innovation.

As a former research leader at NOAA and the U.S. Navy, Spinrad brings a unique perspective to the task. In addition, Oregon State’s central role in the $386 million Ocean Observing Initiative funded by the National Science Foundation puts him on the front lines of the mission. A fleet of undersea gliders and an array of moored observation platforms are being deployed by the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences.

“Most people are familiar with the value of weather observations — radar, rain gauges, and so on — in improving forecasts,” Spinrad notes. “We have a need for a similarly robust set of ocean observations to support a broad range of needs including fisheries, shipping and transportation, national security and protection from natural hazards. This committee is a major step toward focusing federal efforts toward this goal.”

Rick Spinrad (Photo: Karl Maasdam)

For me, the meeting stimulated important thoughts about scientific inquiry. If researchers save lives, are they “heroes”? One common concept of heroism refers to putting one’s life at risk for the safety of others. We think of a firefighter rescuing a child from a burning building or a soldier risking death to save a comrade. While scientists do not always take chances with life and limb in field and lab work, their efforts often save lives.

Remember polio? By the early 1950s, the epidemic had killed thousands and left many more paralyzed. Most victims were children. As a boy, I watched a neighbor move slowly, awkwardly, with great effort, using metal braces and crutches. I remember standing in line with my classmates to receive a revolutionary dose of precaution. Vaccines developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin eliminated new cases of polio from not only my community but from most countries and dramatically reduced its worldwide incidence. I name Salk and Sabin among my champions.

Design for Maximum Benefit

At Oregon State, I think of work by our Construction Engineering faculty, who focus on the safety of homes, buildings, roads, freeways and bridges. Rescuing someone from underneath rubble takes heroism, yet preventing disasters by thoughtful design and construction can also be heroic, with far-reaching benefits.

Illustration by Teresa Hall

Take our students in Engineers Without Borders. They have brought clean drinking water to communities in Central America and are working today in Africa to reduce the death rate from waterborne diseases and to improve quality of life.

Oregon State’s contributions to the understanding of tsunamis and earthquakes are widely heralded, yet between “events,” many of us don’t think about related issues: preservation of critical lifelines, such as key roads, airports and utility networks; seismic upgrades to buildings; and strategies to protect public safety during an event and to help a shattered region rebuild.

Maintaining public health is no less of a challenge. Researchers in our College of Pharmacy are developing new ways to prevent and treat infectious diseases. In the College of Public Health and Human Sciences, researchers address obesity, diabetes and cancer with sound science and with personal care.

Of the more than a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of research conducted at OSU, a large percentage aims to protect human life. In my book, that makes our researchers a band of heroes. So I add my humble definition to Joseph Campbell’s quote above: A hero is someone who dedicates his or her life to creating knowledge for a safer world.

Illustration by Teresa Hall

When Bill McKibben kicked off Oregon State University’s Discovery Lecture Series in November, the audience was savvy to his wake-up call regarding climate change. Nearly half of OSU research focuses on Earth systems science. Our scientists study the oceans, the atmosphere, water resources, agriculture and the social sciences. They have documented the signs of a changing climate and continue to refine our understanding of the Earth-ocean-atmosphere system.

McKibben’s concerns have been shared by many in our scientific community. OSU research, which produced one of the earliest atmospheric circulation computer models in the 1980s, confirms that disturbing trends are under way today in our forests, the Cascades and off our coastline. Tree species are showing signs of severe declines across the West. Sea level and maximum wave heights are rising. Ocean acidity has increased about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Soil moisture is decreasing across much of the world’s temperate food-growing regions.

To McKibben, founder of 350.org, a worldwide nonprofit focused on this issue, these changes are evidence of radical human behavior. Addressing them, he said, is an action that is conservative, based on the desire to conserve the planet as a place where human civilization has developed over thousands of years.

Practical Impacts

Our faculty are thinking creatively about how we can mitigate and adapt to these changes. When OSU researchers investigated the alarming decline of larval oyster production several years ago on the Oregon coast, they pinpointed ocean acidification as a causal factor. Their results helped two oyster-seed producers adapt by changing the way they pumped water into their tanks. Production rebounded. George Waldbusser, Burke Hales and Brian Haley in our College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and Chris Langdon at the Hatfield Marine Science Center are continuing to investigate the threshold at which oysters, clams and mussels are harmed by increased acidity.

In another example, Richard Waring, OSU professor emeritus, is leading an investigation of long-term forest trends. As tree species decline in their current locations, “connective corridors,” he says, would help them migrate to new areas.

OSU scientists play leading roles internationally. Philip Mote and Peter Clark are lead authors of the 2013 Climate Change Assessment being developed by the pre-eminent body on the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Mote directs the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, and Clark, a geoscientist, studies ice sheets, glaciers and abrupt climate change. OSU economist John Antle was a lead and contributing author on the 2003 and 2007 IPCC reports (as was Mote in 2007). I expect the 2013 report to not only increase global awareness but also to influence policy.

Day-to-day, guided by OSU’s new Research Agenda, we are enhancing our support of faculty and student research to make discoveries that have a positive impact on the world. We take seriously our responsibility to investigate what is changing in our climate and are striving to become wise to what that can mean for the future — in our own backyard as well as around the globe.

Illustration by Teresa Hall

After nearly 30 years, I’ve returned, criss-crossing the Quad, delighting in rhododendrons, sporting orange and black, ignoring rain. It’s great to feel the familiarity. It’s invigorating to be surrounded by progress.

Now I lead the research enterprise of the university that, early on, enticed me to inquire into real issues. When I was a New York high-schooler, OSU’s pre-college program invited me west, affording the opportunity to bunk in Sackett Hall and to explore Oregon’s coast, mountains and deserts through the state’s land grant university. I was awed by the role the environment plays in so much of what we do. Inspiration by top-notch teachers drew me back for graduate studies, where I found the focus on the “big picture” even stronger. Now I see more K-20 enrichment programs, and I’m personally committed to bringing youth to campus and to encouraging our undergrads to do real research.

Years ago, I considered the campus and Corvallis community just about complete, with close proximity to everything I needed. I wrote most of my thesis sitting at the Beanery! Yet I’m amazed at how much OSU has expanded. From my office, I’m watching a major renovation of picturesque Education Hall, with its huge rough-hewn stones. A short walk away, I visit the new Hallie Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families. The Linus Pauling Science Center, home to a national Center of Excellence for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, is almost complete, and ground was just broken for a $10 million animal science teaching and research pavilion. A new building for the College of Business is on the drawing boards.

The O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, which of course did not exist in my student days, has one of the world’s most sophisticated tsunami test facilities. And progress is not just bricks and mortar: programs are growing in stature and impact. Our 12-year-old Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is receiving national accolades, and accreditation of the College of Public Health and Human Sciences will enable us to lead new initiatives in health and wellness.

Richard Spinrad, Vice President for Research, Oregon State University

I studied with a wonderful oceanography professor, Ron Zaneveld, and with such legends as Wayne Burt, June Pattullo and John Byrne. I don’t have room to list our current faculty who are world-respected experts and great mentors. The pace of research was slower back in the ‘70s; students were expected to spend significant time in field work, which I did all over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Today’s students have the advantages of cruising via the Internet, of course, yet they still have fantastic experiences in the wide world.

Our research applications are exciting, and many may be of personal relevance to you, as they are to me. OSU prioritizes the health of people, our environment and our economy: improving the human “healthspan”; smart strategies for earthquake and tsunami preparedness; advances in wave energy and other carbon-free energy sources; innovations in manufacturing technologies.