Arizona State University

Arizona State University’s growing West campus has even more to brag about these days. It is one of Phoenix’s most recent honorees as a “Point of Pride.”

“This is wonderful recognition for ASU and the West campus,” says Elizabeth Langland, a university vice president and dean of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. “Everyone associated with the West campus has always recognized this setting as a special place to learn, as a place with world-class faculty, as a campus to be proud of.

“With this recognition, we continue to take our message to more people.”

Joining the West campus as a Phoenix Point of Pride are the Cutler-Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center and the Burton Barr Library – a trio of winners in a city contest held only once every four years.

The West campus was nominated in 2006 and was selected by the Phoenix Pride Commission as one of 10 finalists in December. Voting began in February and ended March 20. In addition to the three new Points of Pride, finalists were North Mountain Visitor Center, Chase Field, Royal Palms Resort and Spa, George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center, Cesar Chavez Park, Pioneer Living Museum, and Murphy Bridle Path.

The Phoenix Point of Pride program, created in 1991, recognizes a landmark or attraction unique to and located within Phoenix that evokes a sense of pride among area residents. Currently, there are 30 Points of Pride in the city.

In choosing the 300-acre home to four of ASU’s schools and colleges for Point of Pride consideration, the program’s commission noted the West campus’ creation by state legislature in 1984, its nearly 9,000-strong student body, and its location in northwest Phoenix where it serves as “the centerpiece of a burgeoning region of commerce, recreation, arts, and lifelong learning opportunities.”

Mark Ceser, an ASU alumnus who earned his B.A. in communications at the West campus in 1994, cast his vote for the campus, scheduled to celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2009. “My pride in the West campus is a direct result of my experience there. Faculty and staff are constantly involved in improving the community – not just through their teaching and the education of students, but through actual, meaningful partnerships with outside organizations and individuals.

“I’m proud of the friends I made and the mentors I had at ASU who are people who will remain with me for a lifetime.”

The campus, home to ASU’s New College, College of Human Services, College of Teacher Education and Leadership, and School of Global Management and Leadership, offers more than 40 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs and is a commanding and respected component of ASU’s multi-campus “New American University” vision.

“The West campus is the embodiment of (ASU) President Michael Crow’s focus on excellence, access and impact,” says Langland.

“We have an obligation and a responsibility to the community to provide access to higher education and to be responsive to the explosive growth of metropolitan Phoenix, which continues to move west.

“There is excellence in our academic programs and the expertise of our nationally and internationally recognized faculty, and through our countless local, regional and even international partnerships, our impact is both significant and lasting.”

In addition to academic prowess, the West campus has also earned a reputation for its facilities and amenities, including a meandering “Plant Walk” that features a wide variety of native flora, contemporary artwork by internationally recognized craftsmen, award-winning architecture, and lush landscaping patterned after Oxford University in England.

For more information about ASU’s West campus, visit www.west.asu.edu.

The landscape of the Mojave Desert in southwest Nevada has been celebrated for its beauty by artists, mined for its resources by industrialists and deployed by the military as a weapons test site. These days, it is being paved, plumbed, wired and landscaped by production home builders and resort developers as the urban edge of Las Vegas moves ever outward.

The urbanization of the Mojave outside Las Vegas is the theme of “Sites of Transition,” an exhibition of 60 photographs by Ralph Stern, an associate professor of architecture at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and Nicole Huber, an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Washington–Seattle.

The exhibition, sponsored by ASU’s Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory (PURL), will be on view through April 5 at the College of Design Gallery in Tempe.

Stern and Huber’s photographs accomplish an extraordinary feat, as they reveal the everyday, little-known world of one of the most famous – and most photographed – cities on the planet.

“In a generation, Las Vegas has transformed itself from a desert resort to an urban center,” says Stern. “Our photographs document a world beyond the casinos – a world of infrastructure and power grids, of trailer parks and planned communities, that is hard to reconcile with the famous spectacle of the Strip.”

While focusing on the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas, “Sites of Transition” holds up a not-so-distant mirror to Phoenix and the urbanization of the Sonoran Desert. In doing so, it prompts difficult questions about the market-driven transformations of fragile landscapes that many argue cannot sustain much development.

These questions will be explored in a symposium that PURL is sponsoring – in partnership with F.A.R. (Future Arts Research) @ ASU, the ASU School of Art and the ASU Art Museum – from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., April 5, at the ASU Art Museum. In addition to Stern and Huber, speakers include Matthew Coolidge, director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Land Use Interpretation; art writer Lucy Lippard, whose recent books include “The Lure of the Local”; and photographer Mark Klett, ASU Regents’ Professor, whose projects include “Third View: A Rephotographic Survey of the American West.”

The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the Web site www.design.asu.edu/purl/SitesSymposium.shtm or call PURL at (480) 727-9880.

Nancy Levinson, nancy.levinson@asu.edu
(480) 727-9890
PURL

One day soon, a biosensing nanodevice developed by ASU researcher Wayne Frasch may eliminate long lines at airport security checkpoints and revolutionize health screenings for diseases such as anthrax, cancer and antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Even more incredible than the device itself is the fact that it is based on the world’s tiniest rotary motor: a biological engine measured on the order of molecules.

Frasch works with the enzyme F1-adenosine triphosphatase, better known as F1- ATPase. This enzyme, just 10 to 12 nanometers in diameter, has an axle that spins and produces torque. This tiny wonder is part of a complex of proteins key to creating energy in all living things, including photosynthesis in plants. F1-ATPase breaks down adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to adenosine diphospahte (ADP), releasing energy.

Previous studies of its structure and characteristics have been the source of two Nobel Prizes awarded in 1979 and 1997.

It was through his own detailed study of the rotational mechanism of the F1-ATPase, which operates like a Wankel rotary engine, that Frasch conceived of a way to take this tiny biological powerhouse and couple it with science applications outside of the human body.

An article written by Frasch and his colleagues in the ASU School of Life Sciences details the technology that would allow this. Their publication “Single-molecule detection of DNA via sequence-specific links between F1-ATPase motors and gold nanorod sensors” recently was published in the journal Lab on a Chip and featured in the online journal Chemical Biology, which is produced by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

What Frasch and his colleagues show is that the enzyme can be armed with an optical probe (gold nanorod) and manipulated to emit a signal when it detects a single molecule of target DNA. This is achieved by anchoring a quiescent F1-ATPase motor to a surface. A single strand of a reference biotinylated DNA molecule is then attached to its axle.

The marker protein, biotin, on the DNA is known to bind specifically and tightly to the glycoprotein avidin, so an avidin-coated gold nanorod is then added. The avidin-nanorod attaches to the biotinylated DNA strand and forms a stable complex.

When a test solution containing a target piece of DNA is added, this DNA binds to the single complementary reference strand attached to the F1-ATPase. The DNA complex, suspended between the nanorod and the axle, forms a stiff bridge. Once ATP is added to the test solution, the F1-ATPase axle spins – and, with it, the attached (now double-stranded) DNA and nanorod. The whirling, nano-sized device emits a pulsing red signal that then can be detected with a microscope.

According to Frasch, the rotation discriminates fully assembled nanodevices from nonspecifically bound nanorods, resulting in a sensitivity limit of 1 zeptomole (600 molecules).

Simply put, if it’s not moving and flashing, it simply isn’t relevant.

Moreover, Frasch says, “Studies with the F1-ATPase in my laboratory show that since it can detect single DNA molecules, it far exceeds the detection limits of conventional PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology.”

Such a detection instrument based on the F1-ATPase enzyme would also be “faster and more portable,” he adds.

With support from Science Foundation Arizona (SFAz), Frasch will transfer his work from the bench to biotech, through establishment of a local company that uses the nano-sized F1-ATPase to produce a DNA detection instrument.

A prototype of the DNA detector already is in development. It is roughly the size of a small tissue box. Sampling would be as simple as taking a swab from an infected wound or a piece of baggage, dissolving it in a solution and placing a drop on a slide bearing reference F1-ATPases and their nanorods. Once in the instrument, red blinking signals emitted by rotating nanorods would let a computer know there’s trouble in a flash.

SFAz funding also has enabled Frasch to extend the method to do protein detection at the single molecule level. This is a novel approach because, unlike DNA, proteins can not be amplified artificially to improve the chances of detection.

“Rapid and sensitive biosensing of nucleic acids and proteins is vital for the identification of pathogenic agents of biomedical and bioterrorist importance,” says Frasch, who also is with the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “It also provides a new avenue through which to analyze genotypes and forensic evidence.”

The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University won more awards than any other school in the nation in the latest Broadcast Education Association (BEA) annual news reporting and interactive media contests.

Cronkite students won 13 awards, including two of the top honors given by the BEA: Best of Festival for the nation’s top college TV reporter, the highest award given to an individual student, and Best News Team. Cronkite students also swept the interactive multimedia group projects division of the BEA competition, taking first, second, third and honorable mention.

The BEA results mean that Cronkite students have finished first nationally in three major journalism competitions in the past year. The school was first last year in both the Hearst Journalism Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards.

“It’s a real testament to the quality of both our extraordinary students and the dedicated faculty who guide them,” said Dean Christopher Callahan.

Elias Johnson, who graduated in May 2007 and now reports for KDSM-TV, the FOX affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa, won the Best of Festival honor, the third year in a row that a Cronkite student has been named the nation’s best television reporter.

Johnson’s portfolio included stories about the rebuilding of New Orleans a year after the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and a story about a serial rapist in the city of Chandler. The story about the serial rapist also placed first in the TV Hard News Reporting category.

Johnson, from Manson, Iowa, will receive his award April 18 at the BEA’s annual meeting in Las Vegas.

The award for Best News Team is based on points generated in the broadcast news reporting and newscast categories. Those students were part of Cronkite NewsWatch, the school’s evening cable TV newscast led by News Director Mark Lodato and Cronkite News Service Director Sue Green, and the Blaze 1260 AM, the campus radio station led by Leah Miller Collins of the Cronkite staff.

There were nearly 400 entries in the broadcast competition.

In the interactive multimedia division, students took first place for a project they produced on the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix. The Web site was created by students in Assistant Professor Carol Schwalbe’s advanced online media class, using content generated by students in a depth reporting class taught by Assistant Dean Kristin Gilger and faculty associate Judy Nichols. Schwalbe’s classes also produced two other winning entries in the category.

The BEA is the professional association for professors, industry professionals and graduate students who are interested in teaching and research related to electronic media and multimedia enterprises. It has more than 1,400 members.

Following is a complete list of 2007 BEA Cronkite School winners:

Broadcast:Best News Team, Cronkite School

Best College Television Reporter, Elias Johnson

Best Television Newscast, second, Cronkite NewsWatchTV

Hard News Reporting, first, Elias Johnson, “Chandler Rapist”

TV Feature Reporting, third, Erika Taillole, “Fatty Breakfast”

TV Sports Anchor, second, Evan Doherty, Cronkite NewsWatch

TV Sports Reporting, first, Jason Snavely, “Sundogs Hockey”

TV Sports Reporting, second, Evan Doherty, “Practice Squads”

Radio Hard News Reporting, third, Martha Castaneda, “Pit Bull Attack”

Interactive Media:

First: Gila River Indian Community, designed by Lorelei Cretu

Second: The Business of Death, designed by Tiffany Tcheng

Third: Arizona State Fair, designed by Lorelei Cretu

Award of Merit: The Business of Immigration, produced by Ashley M. Biggers

A reminder to register now for Pat’s Run in Tempe (April 19) and San Jose (May 3).

Last year almost 15,000 runners, walkers, volunteers and spectators in Tempe and more than 5,000 runners, walkers, volunteers and spectators in San Jose participated in Pat’s Run, celebrating the life of American hero Pat Tillman. The 4.2 mile run/walk broke the attendance records, topping the total 14,000 participants in 2007.

The events also featured a .42 mile Kids Run, which had 1,000 participants in Tempe and 500 in San Jose.

Proceeds benefit the Pat Tillman Foundation and its youth leadership programs which promote positive action to benefit the community. Funds raised in both the Tempe Pat’s Run and San Jose Pat’s Run benefit the Leadership Through ActionTM program at ASU.

Ron McCoy’s fifth-year architecture students can see firsthand the efforts of their professor’s professional practice. As ASU university architect and School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA) professor, his students are a few minutes walk from many of McCoy’s most pressing projects. McCoy has been known in the College of Design as director of SALA, interim dean of the college and as one of the lucky few rolling around campus on a Segway. But McCoy’s ceaseless pace of overseeing the variety of large and small projects on behalf of the university has drawn more attention – specifically from the esteemed publication The Chronicle of HIgher Education’s “Chronicle Review.”

In the March 7, 2008 issue, Chronicle reporter Lawrence Biemiller recounts following McCoy around a typical day, full of the challenges of meeting and exceeding the pace of development around the “new American university” that ASU faculty, staff and students know well. The unflappable McCoy is focused on making a contribution to the quality of life for everyone on the ASU campus.

Biemiller notes that “He’s the one person at Arizona State who can look at all the puzzle pieces — the hodgepodge of existing structures and spaces, the flashy new buildings by different architecture firms, the lush new landscapes by various designers—and try to make sure they all come together into places that look and feel and work like campuses.”

McCoy was elevated to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in May 2007. He was one of 76 architects named to the college and joins an elite group of fewer than 2,600 of 81,000 members of the AIA have the distinction of being a fellow. The fellowship program was developed to elevate architects “who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession.”

See the Chronicle website at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i26/26b02201.htm to read the story.

The top ranked Sun Devils used a four run first inning and stellar bullpen work to sweep the USC Trojans 5-2 on Sunday afternoon in Tempe. 3,387 fans came out to Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark to witness Arizona State improve to 25-1 on the year, including a 3-0 mark in Pac-10 play. A total of 11,358 fans came out during the weekend to see ASU sweep the Trojans in a regular season Pac-10 series for the first time since 1998.

The Devils got on the board first when Petey Paramore blooped a ball to left field to score Jason Kipnis from third. Matt Newman made it 3-0 with a single to left that scored Brett Wallace and Petey Paramore. With Ryan Sontag on third, Marcel Champagnie hit a tapper to the pitcher that scored a run to push it to 4-0. USC got one back in the top of the second on a Hector Rabago solo homer that made it 4-1.

ASU would add to their lead in the third, when Raoul Torrez was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. The Trojans would cut it to 5-2 in the fourth, but neither team would score again the rest of the afternoon. Tommy Rafferty and Reyes Dorado came out of the Sun Devil bullpen and combined to shut down the Trojan offense. Stephen Sauer got the start for ASU, lasting three innings and allowing two runs.

Rafferty (5-0) picked up the win, his second of the series. He threw 3.1 innings, allowing three hits and striking out two. Dorado threw the final 2.1 innings, working out of a jam in the seventh and finishing out the game to pick up his first save. He struck out four and allowed only two hits.

Matt Newman and Marcel Champagnie each had two hits in the victory, with Newman picking up two RBI.

The Devils host Wofford for a two-game midweek series beginning Tuesday night. First pitch is scheduled for 7 p.m. from Winkles Field-Packard Stadium at Brock Ballpark.

With a phenomenal outing from starting pitcher Megan Elliott and a three-run home run from Jackie Vasquez, the No. 1 Sun Devil Softball team broke out the brooms Sunday afternoon to sweep their Pac-10 opening weekend for the first time since 2003 as they survived a grueling 13-inning game to take a 3-0 win from No. 5 Stanford. ASU is now 39-2 overall and 3-0 in Pac-10 play as Stanford falls to 32-5 and 0-3 in Pac-10. 

The match-up slated Stanford ace Missy Penna against the Sun Devil righty Megan Elliott. Elliott was amazing in the outing pulling out of jams in first, second and fifth inning allowing only five hits and striking out five in over nine innings of work while her defense excelled behind her turning two double plays with Rhiannon Baca as the backbone with two put outs and eight assists in the game.

Katie Burkhart entered the game after Elliott’s 137 pitch in the ninth where she cruised the Devils through four more innings. Penna threw a nearly flawless game as well, throwing over 210 pitches in the outing until a hit batter an error in the 13th ended up costing the Cardinal dearly as the exhausted Penna gave up a three-run home run to Jackie Vasquez off a full count for Vasquez’s second long ball of the season.

With the win, the Sun Devils clinched the series against Stanford as Head Coach Clint Myers has never lost a series to the Cardinal in his three year tenure. 

The Sun Devils will resume Pac-10 play next weekend as they head to the Pacific Northwest to take on the Oregon schools Friday April 4-6.

The No. 7 Arizona State University water polo team finished the weekend with a 4-0 record at the ASU Invitational Sunday as the Sun Devils, winners of six in a row for the second time this season, defeated No. 19 UC San Diego, 8-4, at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center in Tempe. The victory, which was fueled by solid defense from Caylinn Wallace and a record-breaking goal from Addison McGrath, raised the Sun Devils’ record to 17-9 on the year.

McGrath scored twice in the game to bring her season total to 64, the most in a single season in ASU history and one more than the previous total of 63 set by Rowie Webster in 2006. McGrath also raised her point total to 97 on the year, the most in program history and nine more than the previous mark she set last year at 88.

Kelly Phelps scored twice while Lauren Hayes, Katy Lawlor, Bonnie Miles and Amanda Stepp each scored once. Traci Aparicio, Katy Lawlor, Stepp and Nikki Unbehaun each added an assist in the game.

Defensively, Wallace, who recorded the 1,000th save of her career in the first game of the day, stopped nine shots to give her 268 on the year, the most in a single season. Wallace set the standard last year with 263 saves. Her defensive presence helped the Sun Devils limit opponents to an average of five goals per game on the weekend while leading the team to its second, six-game winning streak of 2008 following wins in the second through seventh contests of the year.

Head Coach Todd Clapper, who won the 150th game of his career earlier in the day, has guided the team to a 17-9 record, which is the most wins the team has produced in his tenure after 15 victories in 2006 and 14 in 2007. The win total is currently the second-most in a season for the Sun Devils, trailing only the 20-18 record the 2003 team posted. The Sun Devils have four more regular season games this year as well as several MPSF Championship games at the end of the season.

ASU returns to the road next Saturday for one MPSF game as the team will face No. 18 UC Santa Barbara at noon in Santa Barbara, Calif.

#19 UC San Diego at #7 Arizona State
Tempe, Ariz. • ASU Invitational
CSD - 0 - 0 - 2 - 2 = 4
ASU - 2 - 2 - 2 - 2 = 8

ASU Goals - McGrath 2, Phelps 2, Hayes, Lawlor, Miles, Stepp
ASU Saves - Wallace 9

How can a computer game contribute to sustainable development? Just ask Marco Janssen, associate director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity and an assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Computing and Informatics.

Janssen has earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his innovative work, which includes using group experiments with computer simulations to test how people share common resources—like forests, pastures and irrigation systems—and craft institutional rules governing those resources. The award is among the most prestigious for scientists and engineers early in their careers. It recognizes researchers and educators for their potential to be leaders in their areas of expertise.

In a typical experiment, recruited undergraduate students—who may interact only online—receive instructions and then kick back and enjoy a Pac-Man-type game in which they maneuver an avatar around the computer screen collecting renewable resources. They receive monetary rewards for the amounts consumed, but uncoordinated greedy behavior leads to a collapse of the resource and lower rewards for the students. Between the various rounds the students can use a chat room to coordinate their strategies.

“Using games can help make the experience fun and allows for ‘resources’ to be safely destroyed by the participants,” explains Janssen. “Also, it is difficult to observe in natural resource management how people develop rules, but in this scenario we can collect all online chat from the students and analyze it. It may help us determine why one group does better than another.”

He notes, “The goal is to get better formal models about society. We need realistic solutions to the problems we face, and we need to understand which institutions fit best in which cases. Ecology varies among locations and social organization doesn’t necessarily fit with the environment. Many naïve concepts are being used and that creates bad or inefficient outcomes.”

Janssen’s award will provide more than $400,000 over five years to help fund his research on institutional innovation in the governance of common resources. It will also be used to develop interactive sustainability games and educational material on computing in the social sciences for middle and high school students.

Though Janssen was trained as an applied mathematician, he has long been interested in environmental issues and has slanted his research in that direction since the early 1990s. Driven to produce research that has real-world applicability, he became frustrated with the boundaries of traditional disciplinary research and turned to the flexibility of intellectual fusion.

His work at ASU’s Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity allows him to meld his interests in ecology, mathematics, anthropology, economics and computing in pioneering endeavors. Janssen’s award is the second for the center, which officially launched earlier this year. J. Marty Anderies—assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainability—earned the center’s first National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work regarding resource degradation.

How can a computer game contribute to sustainable development? Just ask Marco Janssen, associate director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity and an assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Computing and Informatics.

Janssen has earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his innovative work, which includes using group experiments with computer simulations to test how people share common resources—like forests, pastures and irrigation systems—and craft institutional rules governing those resources. The award is among the most prestigious for scientists and engineers early in their careers. It recognizes researchers and educators for their potential to be leaders in their areas of expertise.

In a typical experiment, recruited undergraduate students—who may interact only online—receive instructions and then kick back and enjoy a Pac-Man-type game in which they maneuver an avatar around the computer screen collecting renewable resources. They receive monetary rewards for the amounts consumed, but uncoordinated greedy behavior leads to a collapse of the resource and lower rewards for the students. Between the various rounds the students can use a chat room to coordinate their strategies.

“Using games can help make the experience fun and allows for ‘resources’ to be safely destroyed by the participants,” explains Janssen. “Also, it is difficult to observe in natural resource management how people develop rules, but in this scenario we can collect all online chat from the students and analyze it. It may help us determine why one group does better than another.”

He notes, “The goal is to get better formal models about society. We need realistic solutions to the problems we face, and we need to understand which institutions fit best in which cases. Ecology varies among locations and social organization doesn’t necessarily fit with the environment. Many naïve concepts are being used and that creates bad or inefficient outcomes.”

Janssen’s award will provide more than $400,000 over five years to help fund his research on institutional innovation in the governance of common resources. It will also be used to develop interactive sustainability games and educational material on computing in the social sciences for middle and high school students.

Though Janssen was trained as an applied mathematician, he has long been interested in environmental issues and has slanted his research in that direction since the early 1990s. Driven to produce research that has real-world applicability, he became frustrated with the boundaries of traditional disciplinary research and turned to the flexibility of intellectual fusion.

His work at ASU’s Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity allows him to meld his interests in ecology, mathematics, anthropology, economics and computing in pioneering endeavors. Janssen’s award is the second for the center, which officially launched earlier this year. J. Marty Anderies—assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the School of Sustainability—earned the center’s first National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his work regarding resource degradation.

Four graduate students from Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration were honored with Outstanding Student Paper Awards for their presentations at the 2007 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting held in San Francisco.

Kevin Eagar, Kimberly Genareau, Nicholas Schmerr and Olaf Zielke were each recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters at the conference.

Eagar presented his paper "Receiver function imaging of upper mantle discontinuities beneath the Oregon High Lava Plains and surrounding regions" in the seismology section of the conference. He focused on natural-source seismic imaging of Earth’s crust and upper mantle.

"I’ve been going to AGU meetings for four years now, and this is the first award that I’ve won," says Eagar, also a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. "It really is an honor to have my work recognized by peers who I admire greatly. I appreciate the instruction and support from all of my past and present advisers, especially Matt Fouch and David James."

Associate Professor Matt Fouch, Eagar’s doctoral adviser, says, "I’m elated to see Kevin’s research recognized as some of the best student work at the AGU meeting. His initiative and dedication to develop new approaches for analyzing large seismic datasets are clearly valued by the scientific community. It’s also very impressive that four School of Earth and Space Exploration students brought home awards from this AGU meeting, which is one of the largest Earth-sciences meetings in the world. This achievement is yet another demonstration of the first-rate graduate students we have."

Genareau, who is [ch1] working on her doctorate in geological sciences, was awarded honorable mention through the MARGINS program, a National Science Foundation-funded initiative that seeks to facilitate outstanding interdisciplinary research on continental margins. Her AGU paper, presented in the volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology section, was "Constraining Pre-eruptive Pressure/Temperature Variations, Transition From Chamber to Conduit, and Crystal Growth Rates: a SIMS Examination of Plagioclase Phenocrysts." The judges said it was "one of the best student presentations. Novel, interesting topic. Excellent delivery."

Genareau’s research focuses on the geochemical analyses of volcanic phenocrysts in order to use small-scale geochemical changes to understand large-scale volcanic processes.

Schmerr, who is in his final year of his doctoral program, presented his paper "Upper mantle discontinuity topography from thermal and chemical heterogeneity" in the study of the Earth’s deep interior (SEDI) section. His talk was based partially on his publication in Science last October, and on his newer research.

Schmerr studies the deep Earth using seismic waves to image the structure, thermal state, and composition of the interior. He will be defending his dissertation this summer before heading off to Washington D.C. in the fall to become a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism.

"It’s awesome that AGU has highlighted Nick’s presentation with this award," says Ed Garnero, an associate professor and Schmerr’s advisor. "Nick’s research is a relatively new direction for me, and I must say, primarily developed and steered by his own hard work and curiosity. To see the community embrace the ideas he’s developed, in both this award and also his recent Science paper, is a testament to the wisdom and intuition Nick employs in his work. From his research, we now know that Earth’s upper mantle is far more complex in its chemistry than we once believed, and intimately related to the convection motions of the mantle rock."

Zielke, who focuses on numerical earthquake simulations,  is a fourth-year graduate student working toward his doctorate in geology and geophysics.

His paper "Effect of Fault Roughness on Scaling Relationships Among Earthquake Magnitude and Rupture Characteristics" was presented in the tectonophysics section.

Zielke is a third-year AGU presenter, but a first-time award-winner. "It’s a great feeling to be acknowledged in such a way, very motivating," he says. "Winning not only one but four of these awards shows how strong the graduate program of the School of Earth and Space Exploration is."

The Outstanding Student Paper Award winners will be recognized in an upcoming publication of Eos, the weekly newspaper of AGU.

AGU is a scientific society with more than 50,000 members. This year, student awards were given in 19 different focus groups and sections with about 160 student receiving awards.

Four graduate students from Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration were honored with Outstanding Student Paper Awards for their presentations at the 2007 American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting held in San Francisco.

Kevin Eagar, Kimberly Genareau, Nicholas Schmerr and Olaf Zielke were each recognized as among the best of a strong group of student presenters at the conference.

Eagar presented his paper "Receiver function imaging of upper mantle discontinuities beneath the Oregon High Lava Plains and surrounding regions" in the seismology section of the conference. He focused on natural-source seismic imaging of Earth’s crust and upper mantle.

"I’ve been going to AGU meetings for four years now, and this is the first award that I’ve won," says Eagar, also a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. "It really is an honor to have my work recognized by peers who I admire greatly. I appreciate the instruction and support from all of my past and present advisers, especially Matt Fouch and David James."

Associate Professor Matt Fouch, Eagar’s doctoral adviser, says, "I’m elated to see Kevin’s research recognized as some of the best student work at the AGU meeting. His initiative and dedication to develop new approaches for analyzing large seismic datasets are clearly valued by the scientific community. It’s also very impressive that four School of Earth and Space Exploration students brought home awards from this AGU meeting, which is one of the largest Earth-sciences meetings in the world. This achievement is yet another demonstration of the first-rate graduate students we have."

Genareau, who is [ch1] working on her doctorate in geological sciences, was awarded honorable mention through the MARGINS program, a National Science Foundation-funded initiative that seeks to facilitate outstanding interdisciplinary research on continental margins. Her AGU paper, presented in the volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology section, was "Constraining Pre-eruptive Pressure/Temperature Variations, Transition From Chamber to Conduit, and Crystal Growth Rates: a SIMS Examination of Plagioclase Phenocrysts." The judges said it was "one of the best student presentations. Novel, interesting topic. Excellent delivery."

Genareau’s research focuses on the geochemical analyses of volcanic phenocrysts in order to use small-scale geochemical changes to understand large-scale volcanic processes.

Schmerr, who is in his final year of his doctoral program, presented his paper "Upper mantle discontinuity topography from thermal and chemical heterogeneity" in the study of the Earth’s deep interior (SEDI) section. His talk was based partially on his publication in Science last October, and on his newer research.

Schmerr studies the deep Earth using seismic waves to image the structure, thermal state, and composition of the interior. He will be defending his dissertation this summer before heading off to Washington D.C. in the fall to become a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism.

"It’s awesome that AGU has highlighted Nick’s presentation with this award," says Ed Garnero, an associate professor and Schmerr’s advisor. "Nick’s research is a relatively new direction for me, and I must say, primarily developed and steered by his own hard work and curiosity. To see the community embrace the ideas he’s developed, in both this award and also his recent Science paper, is a testament to the wisdom and intuition Nick employs in his work. From his research, we now know that Earth’s upper mantle is far more complex in its chemistry than we once believed, and intimately related to the convection motions of the mantle rock."

Zielke, who focuses on numerical earthquake simulations,  is a fourth-year graduate student working toward his doctorate in geology and geophysics.

His paper "Effect of Fault Roughness on Scaling Relationships Among Earthquake Magnitude and Rupture Characteristics" was presented in the tectonophysics section.

Zielke is a third-year AGU presenter, but a first-time award-winner. "It’s a great feeling to be acknowledged in such a way, very motivating," he says. "Winning not only one but four of these awards shows how strong the graduate program of the School of Earth and Space Exploration is."

The Outstanding Student Paper Award winners will be recognized in an upcoming publication of Eos, the weekly newspaper of AGU.

AGU is a scientific society with more than 50,000 members. This year, student awards were given in 19 different focus groups and sections with about 160 student receiving awards.

ASU’s fall commencement ceremony marked a milestone for the School of Community Resources and Development and the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management (CNLM), as the first graduates of the new Masters of Nonprofit Studies (MNpS) program received their degrees.

Katherine Hoverson of Fargo, N.D., and Amber Martinez of Sierra Madre, Calif., were the first two graduates. They also were among the first students to enroll in the MNpS program, which launched in January 2007.

Hoverson and Martinez were determined to complete the program in one year, so they took evening classes, online classes, and summer classes to make the program work with their schedules.

The MNpS degree is designed to provide professionals in the nonprofit field, or those entering the field, with the technical skills to lead and manage nonprofit organizations. In its third semester, this rapidly growing program has 65 students enrolled, plus 40 more students seeking admission for the upcoming summer and fall semesters.

“We are delighted with the quality and overall diversity of the students in our new master’s degree program,” says Carlton Yoshioka, the school’s director of research and academic affairs. “We are in a search process for four new faculty members that will help us to meet this high demand for teaching and research in the burgeoning field of nonprofit and philanthropic studies.”

Hoverson, who launched her own nonprofit organization in 2005, “Unexpected Moments of Magic Foundation,” says the skills and the contacts she gained while in the MNpS program helped her succeed.

“When I first started my foundation, I didn’t know what I was doing because I had never run a nonprofit before,” she says. “And now I feel like I’m finally prepared to do the job that I’ve been trying to create for the last two years. I’m living my dream. I love it.”

Hoverson says the people she connected with in the program continue to support her to this day.

“They’re not only helping me through my education, but they’re literally helping my organization continue to grow and to blossom,” she says.
Martinez is the assistant director of Community Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees (COAR) and recently initiated and co-founded the Phoenix chapter of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network that is being supported, in part, by CNLM. Martinez says the program effectively prepared her and her fellow students for entering the nonprofit sector.

“The courses that they offered made us really well-rounded,” Martinez says. “We have a clear understanding of all of the different facets of nonprofit leadership and management that we would have to encounter to be effective leaders in the sector today.”

Martinez says the best part of the experience for her was forming relationships – both personal and professional – with the other students in the program.

“Everything’s been blossoming because we have each other to bounce ideas off of and give encouragement,” she says. “I think encouragement is the biggest part of it.”

“Nonprofit and philanthropy studies is clearly a field whose time has come, and ASU is in the national forefront in building this emerging discipline,” says Robert Ashcraft, the program lead for ASU’s nonprofit studies in the School of Community Resources and Development, as well as the director of CNLM. “It is encouraging that high-caliber students such as Kaytee and Amber are attracted to our program for the sort of high-quality content we provide. I am eager to see what difference these first two graduates will make in this world, as they embrace real-world issues and apply contemporary solutions to them as learned by studying in our program.”

For more information about the program, visit the Web site http://nonprofit.asu.edu.

ASU’s fall commencement ceremony marked a milestone for the School of Community Resources and Development and the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management (CNLM), as the first graduates of the new Masters of Nonprofit Studies (MNpS) program received their degrees.

Katherine Hoverson of Fargo, N.D., and Amber Martinez of Sierra Madre, Calif., were the first two graduates. They also were among the first students to enroll in the MNpS program, which launched in January 2007.

Hoverson and Martinez were determined to complete the program in one year, so they took evening classes, online classes, and summer classes to make the program work with their schedules.

The MNpS degree is designed to provide professionals in the nonprofit field, or those entering the field, with the technical skills to lead and manage nonprofit organizations. In its third semester, this rapidly growing program has 65 students enrolled, plus 40 more students seeking admission for the upcoming summer and fall semesters.

“We are delighted with the quality and overall diversity of the students in our new master’s degree program,” says Carlton Yoshioka, the school’s director of research and academic affairs. “We are in a search process for four new faculty members that will help us to meet this high demand for teaching and research in the burgeoning field of nonprofit and philanthropic studies.”

Hoverson, who launched her own nonprofit organization in 2005, “Unexpected Moments of Magic Foundation,” says the skills and the contacts she gained while in the MNpS program helped her succeed.

“When I first started my foundation, I didn’t know what I was doing because I had never run a nonprofit before,” she says. “And now I feel like I’m finally prepared to do the job that I’ve been trying to create for the last two years. I’m living my dream. I love it.”

Hoverson says the people she connected with in the program continue to support her to this day.

“They’re not only helping me through my education, but they’re literally helping my organization continue to grow and to blossom,” she says.
Martinez is the assistant director of Community Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees (COAR) and recently initiated and co-founded the Phoenix chapter of the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network that is being supported, in part, by CNLM. Martinez says the program effectively prepared her and her fellow students for entering the nonprofit sector.

“The courses that they offered made us really well-rounded,” Martinez says. “We have a clear understanding of all of the different facets of nonprofit leadership and management that we would have to encounter to be effective leaders in the sector today.”

Martinez says the best part of the experience for her was forming relationships – both personal and professional – with the other students in the program.

“Everything’s been blossoming because we have each other to bounce ideas off of and give encouragement,” she says. “I think encouragement is the biggest part of it.”

“Nonprofit and philanthropy studies is clearly a field whose time has come, and ASU is in the national forefront in building this emerging discipline,” says Robert Ashcraft, the program lead for ASU’s nonprofit studies in the School of Community Resources and Development, as well as the director of CNLM. “It is encouraging that high-caliber students such as Kaytee and Amber are attracted to our program for the sort of high-quality content we provide. I am eager to see what difference these first two graduates will make in this world, as they embrace real-world issues and apply contemporary solutions to them as learned by studying in our program.”

For more information about the program, visit the Web site http://nonprofit.asu.edu.