Brian Larkins became UNL’s first associate vice chancellor for life sciences in July. He leads the Life Sciences Initiative, a priority effort to create a comprehensive and collaborative life sciences program. A leading plant scientist, molecular biology pioneer and National Academy of Sciences member, Larkins holds the John F. Davidson, Ph.D., and Marian J. Fuller, Ph.D., Chair in Life Sciences.

Kevin Lee, physics and astronomy, won the 2012 David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching, bestowed by the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Julia Schleck, English, received a fellowship to pursue research at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., where she will work on her latest book project, The Genres of Early Capitalism.

Kwame Dawes, English, received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Dawes is working on the poem cycle August: A Quintet, based on the work of playwright August Wilson, who is credited with illustrating the African American experience in the 20th century.

Terry Klopfenstein, animal science, received the American Feed Industry Association’s New Frontiers in Animal Nutrition Award from the Federation of Animal Science Societies and the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame Industry Award, two of the animal science profession’s highest honors.

Eight UNL faculty and staff members received the 2012 Holling Family Awards for Teaching Excellence in Agriculture and Natural Resources. Recipients are:

• Senior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award: Erin Blankenship, statistics; Charles Burr, West Central Research and Extension Center; Randy Pryor, Southeast Research and Extension Center; and Jerry Volesky, West Central Research and Extension Center.
• Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award: Lindsay Chichester, Southeast Research and Extension Center, and Matthew Spangler, animal science.
• Teaching Assistant Teaching Excellence Award: Kim Cluff, biological systems engineering, and Pamela Fellers, statistics.

Emeriti faculty Allen Blezek, agricultural leadership, education and communication, and Roger Mandigo, animal science and food science and technology, were inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement.

The University of Nebraska bestowed its highest honors for research, teaching and engagement on three UNL faculty members:

• Carolyn Pope Edwards, child, youth and family studies and psychology, received the 2012 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Award for her contributions to cultural anthropology, moral development in psychology and early childhood education. She is coordinator of the university’s new Buffett Early Childhood Institute, which aims to improve the academic success of children from birth to age 8, especially those at risk.
• Tiffany Heng-Moss, entomology, earned the 2012 Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award for building successful distance education programs and incorporating active learning into her courses. In addition to teaching UNL courses, Heng-Moss is involved in numerous K-12 outreach programs.
• Chris Calkins, animal science, received the 2012 Innovation, Development and Engagement Award. His muscle profiling research led to development of the flat iron steak, a major boost to beef producers and processors.

Ravi Sohi, associate dean of the College of Business Administration, was awarded the 2012 Louis W. Stern Award from the American Marketing Association for his Journal of Marketing article, “The Role of Relational Knowledge Stores in Interfirm Partnering,” originally published in 2004. Sohi was honored for conducting research that has stood the test of time.

Sam Allgood, economics, was appointed chair of the American Economic Association’s Committee on Economic Education.

Glenn Nierman, associate director of the School of Music, is president-elect of the National Association for Music Education for 2012-2014.

Lily Wang, architectural engineering, received two honors from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers in 2012: the ASHRAE Distinguished Service Award and the ASHRAE Ralph G. Nevins Physiology and Human Environment Award.

Paul Barnes, piano, performed a tribute to composer Philip Glass at New York City’s Lincoln Center. The spring recital featured Barnes’ transcriptions of some of Glass’ notable pieces.

Peter Mayeux, broadcasting professor emeritus, was inducted into the Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

I Am a Man, a novel by Joe Starita, news-editorial, was featured during National Book Month at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Anna Shavers, law, was appointed to the state’s Human Trafficking Task Force and is co-chair of the subcommittee on research. Part of the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, the task force investigates and studies human trafficking, methods for advertising and the effects on individuals coerced to participate in human trafficking.

Christal Sheppard, law, joined the editorial board of the journal Biotechnology Law Report.

Cho Wing “Solomon” To, mechanical & materials engineering, was named a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Prem S. Paul

With your help, we made important strides this year in laying groundwork for future research success at UNL.

Discussions and feedback from faculty and administrators shaped the new UNL Research and Economic Development Growth Initiative. This will guide our efforts over the next five years to enhance research, scholarship and creative activity. column breakSpecifically, our goals are to:

• Enhance the quality of research and increase total research expenditures to $300 million, with at least half of this coming from federal agencies.
• Increase the academic stature of UNL and double the number of faculty receiving prestigious national awards and memberships in honorary societies.
• Increase the number of faculty working with the private sector translating research into innovations and job creation.

Fulfilling these goals will bolster UNL’s stature and reputation, create more opportunities for our students and expand faculty recognition. Most important, UNL will be better positioned to solve problems facing our society and to strengthen our economy.

Now we’re taking steps to ensure that we meet our goals. Working together, I’m confident we’ll succeed. We’re launching several promising initiatives and making progress on others:

• Construction begins this fall on Nebraska Innovation Campus, which is central to UNL’s commitment to expanding public-private research partnerships. NIC, NUtech Ventures and UNL Industry Relations are working closely to help faculty connect with private partners in a variety of ways.
• We’re building a unique research collaboration with Nebraska Athletics that promises to expand understanding of the brain and concussions, enhance health and performance research, involve faculty campuswide and create a national model for such research. Our office and Nebraska Athletics hosted a retreat in August to explore ideas for this partnership, which includes the proposed Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior to be housed in the East Stadium addition. Read the retreat report and learn more elsewhere in this newsletter.
• We’ve launched a Social and Behavioral Science Research Initiative to further strengthen multidisciplinary research in this area. First steps include a survey of our campuswide social and behavioral science strengths and a workshop during the upcoming UNL Research Fair.
• We’re strengthening our defense-related research as part of a broader strategy to meet our goals. UNL will play a major role in the University of Nebraska’s new National Strategic Research Initiative.

We’ll share more information about these and other initiatives and collaborations in the coming months.

Ultimately, our success depends on great ideas for enhancing our research. We want to hear yours. Please contact any of my colleagues or me with your ideas for strengthening UNL’s research stature or to discuss how we can better serve you in achieving your research goals.

Kurt Preston

Kurt Preston and Regina Werum will soon join UNL as associate vice chancellors for research.

“We are pleased and excited to have attracted individuals with their expertise, enthusiasm and energy for our associate vice chancellor positions,” said Prem S. Paul, vice chancellor for research and economic development. “They will play important leadership roles in helping UNL achieve its research and economic development growth goals.”

column breakPreston begins his duties in mid-November as associate vice chancellor for research focused on physical sciences and other defense-fundable projects. UNL is working to increase defense-related research funding as part of its broader goal of reaching $300 million in research expenditures by 2017, with at least half coming from federal agencies.

Since 2005, Preston has been division chief of the U.S. Army Research Office in Durham, N.C., where he oversees the University Research Initiative Program and directs the Environmental Science Basic Research Program. As a program manager from 2002 to 2005, he led the office’s review process for funding basic research proposals in engineering and physical, information and life sciences. Earlier, Preston held several U.S. Army leadership roles related to environment, safety and health.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Georgia, master’s and doctoral degrees in civil engineering from Purdue University and a Juris Doctor from North Carolina Central University.

Regina Werum

Werum arrives in January to assume campuswide responsibilities for research development, growth and compliance. She succeeds Deb Hamernik, who has served as interim vice chancellor for research since June 2011. Hamernik will return to her responsibilities as associate dean in IANR’s Agricultural Research Division in January.

Werum comes to UNL from Emory University where she is an associate professor of sociology and co-directed the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Graduate Teaching Fellowship Program for five years. From 2010 through July 2012, she took leave from Emory to serve as program director for sociology in the National Science Foundation’s Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in language/arts from Hope College, and a master’s in sociology and doctorate in sociology and American studies, both from Indiana University.

Physicist Evgeny Tsymbal’s team in front of Holland Computing Center’s supercomputers. From left, Tsymbal, Yong Wang, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., and J.D. Burton.

Complex, data-intensive research depends on massive computing horsepower. At the University of Nebraska, Holland Computing Center provides this resource.

The center’s supercomputers typically hum behind the scenes to support a wide range of research projects. The center shared the spotlight this summer when three diverse UNL research teams published results from research enabled by the center.

• When an international team of physicists announced in July that they had observed a new particle that matches the long-theorized Higgs boson, UNL’s experimental high-energy physics team had reason to celebrate. The UNL team and the university’s facilities have long played an important role in the world’s largest physics experiment. The Higgs hunt taps supercomputers worldwide, including Holland’s, to crunch vast amounts of data. UNL is one of seven U.S. Compact Muon Solenoid Tier-2 sites, analyzing data for the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Physicist Ken Bloom is the U.S. CMS Tier-2 coordinator and is co-primary investigator on UNL’s part of the project with physicist Aaron Dominguez and computer scientist David Swanson, Holland Computing Center director. Bloom is also deputy program manager for U.S. CMS software and computing. A UNL news release outlined the team’s work.
• Xiao Cheng Zeng, Ameritas University Professor of Chemistry, and colleagues published two major papers this summer based on research supported by the Holland Computing Center’s resources. In August, a team of scientists including Zeng and postdoc Hui Li published their discovery of a new form of matter that can dent diamonds in the journal Science. The UNL team’s computational work included more than 500,000 hours of Holland’s computing power. In July, Zeng and an international team created a unique synthetic nanotube that is the first to mimic nature’s potassium ion channel. They reported their findings in Nature Communications. Again, Zeng’s team used Holland Computing Center for their computations.
• In September, physicist Evgeny Tsymbal, a Charles Bessey professor and director of UNL’s Materials Research Science and Education Center, and colleagues were part of an international team that announced their discovery of a new class of materials that could be useful in developing new ways of creating computer memory. They reported their findings in Nature Communications. Using the Holland Computing Center, Tsymbal’s team performed computations that modeled the atomic structure and electronic properties of these materials. Their work was critical to understanding the mechanism responsible for the materials’ important properties.

Holland Computing Center has facilities at UNL’s Schorr Center and the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha. Its supercomputing resources are available to any faculty member in the University of Nebraska system. Visit the center’s website to learn more about the center’s services and how to set up an account. For more information, contact David Swanson at (402) 472-5006 or visit the center’s facilities in person at 118 Schorr Center at UNL or 158E PKI  in Omaha.

The 12th Research Fair is a campuswide celebration of research, scholarship and creativity. The biannual event also is an opportunity to explore UNL’s research priorities in greater depth and learn from national experts.

Events are free to the public, but some require registration. Visit the Research Fair website for the latest schedule and registration forms.

The Research Fair is sponsored by the Office of Research and Economic Development in cooperation with the Office of Postdoctoral Studies.

The fair kicks off Nov. 7 with the Faculty Recognition Breakfast, an occasion to celebrate faculty successes from the past year. Registration and a buffet breakfast begin at 8 a.m., with a program at 8:30 a.m.

Following breakfast, the day’s sessions are divided into two tracks: the Enhancing Research Excellence in Social and Behavioral Sciences Workshop and Professional Skills Development for Postdocs.

The social and behavioral sciences workshop, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center with breakout sessions in the Nebraska Union, begins with an overview of UNL’s new Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Initiative. The initiative’s aim is to bring together faculty with diverse expertise to form large-scale collaborations with the goal of enhancing UNL’s research excellence and competitiveness for external funding.

Topics and speakers include “The Challenge of Providing Research Services in the Changing World of the Social and Behavioral Sciences,” Kurt Johnson, director of the Survey Research Center, Pennsylvania State University; “Creating, Nurturing and Growing the Iowa Social Science Research Center,” Kevin Leicht, chair of the Department of Sociology, University of Iowa; and a presentation by L. Rowell Huesmann, director of the Institute for Social Research Center for Group Dynamics, University of Michigan.

The workshop also includes a luncheon and breakout sessions. Walk-in registration begins at 9:30 a.m.

The postdoc sessions, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Nebraska Union, include “Hope is Not a Plan: Career Development Workshop for Scientists,” a presentation by Keith Micoli, postdoctoral program director, New York University School of Medicine. Micoli also will give a keynote address, “Reshaping Postdoctoral Training in the 21st Century,” during the postdoc/principal investigator awards luncheon. Registration for both events is required. Walk-in registration begins at 9 a.m.

NSF Day at UNL, Nov. 8 from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Nebraska Union, is an opportunity for those interested in seeking NSF funding to learn about its mission, priorities and budget. Presenters will discuss NSF’s proposal and merit review processes and outline NSF’s cross-disciplinary programs. Speakers include representatives from the seven NSF directorates, the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Office of Integrative Activities.

Advance registration for NSF Day at UNL is due to NSF by Nov. 1. Because the event is part of Research Fair, the registration fee will be waived for UNL faculty, staff and students. Visit the NSF Day website to register and view the agenda.

More than 100 UNL faculty, athletics staff and private partners discussed ways to expand this growing and unique research collaboration during an Aug. 23 retreat, “Building Research Collaborations: UNL Athletics and Research,” at Memorial Stadium. Nebraska Athletics and the UNL Office of Research and Economic Development hosted the event.

A report on the retreat is available on the athletics and research website. Also online are presentations from the retreat.

Prem S. Paul and Tom Osborne

column breakNebraska Athletics and the Office of Research and Economic Development teamed to incorporate research space in the East Stadium addition to Memorial Stadium. It will be home to the proposed Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior, which will use cutting-edge imaging technology to better understand the biological underpinnings of behavior and performance. It also will house the Nebraska Athletic Performance Lab, which will focus on areas critical to increased performance and health, including technology, nutrition, psychology and learning. The stadium expansion will be completed in 2013.

Tom Osborne, Nebraska Athletics director; Prem Paul, vice chancellor for research and economic development; psychology professor Dennis Molfese, director of the proposed new Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior; and Doak Ostergard, outreach director for Nebraska Athletics, outlined the background, opportunities, programs and facilities that support this growing collaboration.

The partnership provides “a bridge between athletics and academics,” Osborne said. “This will be a unique facility not duplicated anywhere else.”

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman shared his vision for this unique partnership.

Dennis Molfese

“I’m very excited about the prospects here,” Perlman told retreat participants. “When you start collaboration, you never know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if linkages will be vague, but when you put a lot of good people who are comparable together, you do know that good things will happen. I think that’s the real power of this enterprise.”

A panel of faculty members discussed UNL research strengths and potential areas for collaboration through the partnership. The retreat wrapped up with discussions of opportunities, challenges and next steps.

The retreat was an important first step in sharing ideas and exploring how best to move forward, organizers said.

It’s a daunting, yet exhilarating, challenge for researchers addressing this major global issue.

During the fall Nebraska Lecture Nov. 1, internationally known UNL small grains breeder P. Stephen Baenziger will explain the challenges of feeding the world, possibilities for expanding food production and science’s role in solving these problems.

The free public lecture, “The Joy of Applied Science While Feeding the World,” will be at 3:30 p.m. in the Nebraska Union auditorium, 1400 R St., with a reception following. A live webcast (3:30 p.m. CDT) will be available at research.unl.edu. An archived video will be available for later viewing about a week after the event.

“Applied science can successfully blend the concept of scientific discovery to create a better world by addressing a major problem,” he said.

Baenziger is the first faculty member to hold the Nebraska Wheat Growers Presidential Chair, an endowed professorship provided through a partnership between NUtech Ventures and Bayer CropScience. He leads UNL’s widely known wheat breeding program and research to develop cutting-edge wheat breeding technologies and varieties. He also serves on the International Rice Research Institute’s board of trustees.

The Nebraska Lectures, which feature distinguished UNL faculty, are designed for general audiences and provide insights about some of the university’s leading research, scholarly and creative activity. Baenziger’s lecture is sponsored by the UNL Research Council, Office of the Chancellor and the Office of Research and Economic Development.

The initiative, known as REDGI, was developed by faculty and administrators in consultation with the Office of Research and Economic Development through a series of forums and meetings earlier this year.

The REDGI plan outlines goals, metrics and action steps for achieving the 2017 campuswide goals that Chancellor Harvey Perlman outlined in his 2011 State of the University Address. The key goals are to:

• Enhance the quality of research and increase total research expenditures to $300 million, with at least half of this coming from federal agencies.
• Increase the academic stature of UNL and double the number of faculty receiving prestigious national awards and memberships in honorary societies.
• Increase the number of faculty working with the private sector translating research into innovations and job creation.

More information is available on the REDGI website, which will feature updates on REDGI’s progress as the initiative unfolds.

The Office of Research and Economic Development is providing this service to make it easier for faculty to build interdisciplinary research teams. It’s part of a broader effort to support interdisciplinary research, expand research opportunities and help faculty successfully compete for external funding.

The directory contains profiles of selected faculty at each NU campus, including information on their research publications, and internal and external collaborators. Known as SciVal Experts, the directory is populated by Elsevier, a publisher of scientific journals.

For more information contact Noah Clayton, project manager, Office of Research and Economic Development, (402) 472-8031.

The goal of NSF’s MRI program is to improve the quality and scope of research and training in science and engineering by providing shared instrumentation that typically is too costly or cannot be supported through other NSF programs. UNL can submit up to three full proposals to NSF: two in the equipment acquisition category, and one in the equipment development category. UNL’s internal competition will select the top pre-proposals for further development into full proposals for submission to NSF. The full proposals are due to NSF on Jan. 24, 2013.

Visit the Limited Submissions website for more information about the selection process for internal competitions and to complete the Notification of Intent to Submit form. Full details about the MRI competition are available here.

For more information contact Noah Clayton, project manager, Office of Research and Economic Development, (402) 472-8031.