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 From
the Dean
There
could be no better way to start
a new semester than with the news
that came last week: Funding for
the Bioscience Research Building
is in the Governor's budget. $55.8M
has been recommended by the Governor
for construction in FY05, with an
additional $12M equipment/operating
budget in FY06-07. The University
is contributing an additional $2M
to construction in order to include
the replacement of the large lecture
hall in the project. This is wonderful
news for the campus, and we are
deeply grateful to the Governor
and his staff for recommending this
project for funding at a time of
deep budget deficits. If funding
is approved by the legislature,
construction will begin in late
June or early July.
 Many
people worked long and hard to bring
us to this point. President Mote
spearheaded this project, and he
and his wife, Patsy, have been tireless
advocates. Provost Destler weighed
in at key moments, and Ross Stern,
the University's lobbyist in Annapolis,
spent countless hours in discussion
with key legislators and their staff.
Present and past local members of
our Board of Visitors—Wayne
Hockmeyer, Paul Fischer and Evan
Jones—as well as members of
the University of Maryland Foundation
Board lobbied hard on our behalf.
We also had the support of many
other Maryland community leaders,
too numerous to name, as well as
many members of the Maryland state
government. Several members of the
staff of Facilities Management were
enormously helpful in developing
the justifications and preparing
documents. Within the Dean's Office,
Bob Infantino, Vicki Levy and David
Dalo played key roles. Although
it's never over until it's over,
it's not too early to begin thanking
all of the people who have helped
us.
There
is further good news: The amount
budgeted for renovation of Wings
I and II of the Chemistry building
has been increased in the Governor's
five-year capital budget beyond
the amount initially requested by
the University.
We
are getting ready to kick off our
program to enhance tracks through
our undergraduate curriculum with
funding from our HHMI grant. Five
proposals, involving teams of faculty,
postdoctoral fellows and graduate
students, have been submitted and
are being reviewed. We anticipate
making funding announcements in
March. We will be recruiting postdoctoral
fellows who will contribute to this
program and who will work in the
laboratories of sponsoring faculty
members, and we will work with faculty
to place them.
Our
annual January cleanup was as productive
as ever, with roughly 40 refrigerators
and freezers and about 60 tons of
waste disappearing into dumpsters.
Thanks to everyone who makes this
event such a success each year.
Congratulations to the winners in
each department that showed the
most improvement: Dr. Galen Dively's
group (Entomology), Dr. Norman Hansen's
group (Chemistry and Biochemistry),
Dr. Catherine Carr's group (Biology),
and the soon-to-be-announced winners
in CBMG.
Our
strategic planning continues. I
am in the midst of a major rewrite
of the strategic plan that responds
to concerns raised in our discussions
in the fall and that incorporates
benchmarking data from our peer
institutions. The white papers are
back in the hands of the committees
developing them, together with the
comments from the Board of Visitors.
Our goal is to have them ready for
public discussion by mid-March.
 Todd
Cooke has agreed to spearhead the
development of the new biodiversity
course that will be required of
all Biological Sciences majors.
This is the last of the unanimous
recommendations of the 2001 blue
ribbon faculty committee on undergraduate
academic and advising programs that
has not yet been implemented. Todd
will be convening a small group
of faculty to assist him in this
task. The goal is to offer the course
for the first time in the spring
of 2005.
Let
me close by asking you all to remember
Millie Lindenberger and her family
in your thoughts and prayers. As
many of you know, Phil, her husband
of nearly 50 years, passed away
on January 30 after a six-month
battle with bone cancer. Millie
gave everything she had to give
to the College, and Phil was behind
her all the way. He will be greatly
missed.
February
6:
Last Day of Schedule Adjustment (Drop/Add)
March
21-28:
Spring Break
April
9:
Last Day to Drop with a "W"
May
11: Last
Day of Classes
May
20: Campus
Commencement. 7 p.m., Comcast Center.
More information: www.urhome.umd.edu/commencement/
May
21:
College of Life Sciences Commencement.
Details to come.
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-
For
gifts supporting JIFSAN: Kellogg Company
($10,000), H.J. Heinz Company ($10,000)
and McNeil Nutritionals ($5,000)
-
For
gifts supporting the Department of Entomology
General Fund in honor of Dr. Barbara
L. Thorne: W. Jay Nixon ($5,750) and
Mr. and Mrs. William W. White ($5,750)
-
For
gifts supporting Dr. Eugenie Clark's
research: Marie B. Culler ($5,000),
Patricia H. Shaw ($4,500), Mickey F.
Bower ($4,500), Alice O. McNulty ($2,250),
Virginia Kendall ($1,800), Judith Rubin
($1,800), Mary Jane Stoll ($900) and
Ruthann P. Sturtevant ($900)
-
Robert E. Menzer, for a $500 gift to
the MEES graduate student fund
-
David
S. Youngs, for a $500 gift to the Dean's
Fund
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Faculty
Recognition and In the News
Dr.
Norma Allewell, Dean, and Chemistry
and Biochemistry, received a 10-month,
$8,900 grant from Children's National
Medical Center for "N-acetylglutamate
Synthase: Structure, Function and
Defects."
In
a January 17 Science News article,
Dr. Gerald Borgia, Biology,
questions the assumptions made by
two English researchers regarding
how male bowerbirds feather their
nests to woo females.
Dr.
Eugenie Clark, Professor Emerita
in Biology, is profiled in a January
12 Library Weekly article,
which discusses her underwater research
with sharks and other life forms.
Her current projects include studying
tropical, sand-dwelling fishes—their
ecology, reproductive behavior and
territoriality—and researching
shark behavior at depths of up to
12,000 feet.
 Dr.
Michael Cummings, Biology and
Center for Bioinformatics and Computational
Biology, published the following article
in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences:
Mark
Welch, D. B., M. P. Cummings, D.
M. Hillis and M. Meselson. 2004.
Divergent gene copies in the asexual
class Bdelloidea (Rotifera) separated
before the bdelloid radiation or
within bdelloid families. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,
USA 101:1622-1625.
Dr.
James Dietz, Biology, received
a 3-year, $350,000 grant from NSF
for "Reproductive Skew in Cooperative
Breeding Primates."
Dr.
Galen Dively, Entomology, received
a 2-year, $67,000 grant from the University
of Toledo for "Effects of Coleopteran-Active
Bt. Corn on Targets." He also
received a 1-year, $9,600 grant from
the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization
Board for "Effects of Poncho
Seed Treatment on Soil Insects."
In
a January 29 Health Day News
article,
Dr. Norman Hansen, Chemistry
and Biochemistry, comments on the creation
of lantibiotics (currently used as preservatives
by the food industry). "It opens
the doors to making vast new numbers
of antibiotics," he says.
Dr.
William Lamp, Entomology, received
a 1.5-year, $20,900 grant from the
Nature Conservancy for "Ecological
Monitoring of the Jackson Lane Wetland."
 The
research of Dr. Steven Rokita,
Chemistry and Biochemistry, and former
postdoctoral associate Qibing Zhou
is featured in a February 2 Chemical
and Engineering News article
and was recently published in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers discovered "a
new way to alkylate single-stranded
DNAs in a sequence-specific manner,"
and the approach can be generalized
to many types of reagents and targets.
The information for the PNAS
paper is as follows:
Zhou,
Q., and Rokita, S. 2003. A general
strategy for target-promoted alkylation
in biological systems. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,
USA 100: 15452-15457.
Dr.
Jerry Wilkinson, Biology, received
a 3-year, $360,000 grant from NSF
titled "Genomic Conflict and
Reproductive Isolation."
Student
Affairs Staff Recognition
Welcome
to Ms. Sophia Franklin, a new
Advisor in the College of Life Sciences
Student Affairs Office. Sophia is
a graduate student.
Ms.
Wendy Loughlin, an Academic Advisor
in the Student Affairs Office, was
nominated for the 2002-2003 Advisor
of the Year Professional Advisor Award
by the Provost's Commission on Academic
Advising. The award recognizes outstanding
UM community members who provide excellent
advising services to students.
 The
College welcomes a new class of undergraduate
peer
mentors this spring: Dustin
Albert, Sarah Bui, Laura Cataldi,
Sarah Goldberg, Maura Iezzi, Ana Mehrnoush,
Shruti Naik and Kimberly Pytel.
They join current peer mentors James
Blair, Anne Colgrove, Tara De Siano,
Lindsey Garver, Katryana Hanley-Knutson,
Brad Hersh, Amy Lee, Jim Pineno, Jenny
Stitt, Talin Surabian, Meghan Vince
and Marie Ziesat. The peer
mentors staff the Information Resources
Center Monday through Friday, where
they are available to answer questions
concerning internships, semester planning
and scheduling issues. They also assist
the college in recruiting new undergraduates
and help with the New Student Welcome
and orientation programs. They are
a wonderful resource for our students.
For more information, contact Wendy
Loughlin (loughlin@umd.edu)
or Christine McCary (mccary@umd.edu).
Nobel
Laureate and County Executive to Address
Young Scientists at JSHS Symposium
Speeches
by a Nobel Laureate and the Montgomery
County Executive, as well as student
presentations, tours of University
of Maryland laboratories and a science
bowl, are highlights of the Maryland
Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
(JSHS) February 22 through 24. The
annual program recognizes the work
of talented youth and encourages their
continued interest in the sciences,
engineering and mathematics.
Dr.
William Phillips, Distinguished University
Professor and Nobel Laureate, will
deliver a keynote talk about "The
Coldest Stuff in the Universe."
Dr. Phillips won the 1997 Nobel Prize
in physics for developing ways to
cool and trap atoms with laser light.
 Students
will tour Life Sciences, Engineering
and CMPS laboratories to learn about
scientific equipment, robotics, human
evolution and experiments with geometry.
Tim Maugel, Director of the
Electron Microscopy Lab, will show
students the scanning electron microscope.
A representative from Entomology will
talk about "A Phylogenetic Analysis
of Human Evolution," and the
Chemistry and Biochemistry presentation
will introduce pupils to mass spectroscopy
and nuclear magnetic resonance. Student
exposure to the exciting research
taking place in campus laboratories
is one reason that participants are
interested in attending the University
of Maryland; more than 35% of the
2003 JSHS attendees later were admitted
to and/or enrolled at the university,
including the 2nd-place winner, Linda
Xu, who is now a Banneker Key
scholar majoring in Biological Sciences.
After
40 students present their papers,
the student winners and runners-up
will receive monetary prizes. At the
awards ceremony, Montgomery County
Executive Douglas Duncan will address
attendees. The students with the top
five papers are invited to go to the
JSHS National Symposium April 28-May
2 at Baltimore's Marriott Hunt Valley.
For
more information about the symposium,
see www.life.umd.edu/JSHS/symposium.html
or contact Dr. Amel Anderson (aanders@umd.edu),
Assistant Dean for Administration,
who is the Regional Director of JSHS.
New
Chemistry Lab Is Background for Discovery
Channel Pilot
Shortly after the holiday
break, one of our new organic chemistry
labs was transformed into the set for
a TV program, complete with lights,
camera and action. During the week of
January 5, lab room CHM 1326 became
the backdrop for a Discovery Channel
pilot called "Proof Positive—The
Evidence," a series that will explore
advances in forensic science. A crew
from Manchester, England, and New York,
and forensic experts from Virginia and
Bellingham, Washington, used our space
to prepare for and to film interviews
about cutting-edge software that shows
amazing detail in x-rays. Dr. Doug Arendt,
a retired Navy dental pathologist who
helped identify Pentagon victims of
9/11, demonstrated how the software
could help identify burned and exploded
pieces of pig skulls. (Pig skulls closely
resemble human skulls in many ways.)
The crew also filmed scenes at the University's
Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute (burning
skulls) and at the Virginia State Police
firing range (explosion of skulls).
Dr. Stephen Everett, Organic
Chemistry Laboratory Coordinator, worked
with the University Communications office
to coordinate the filming.
NSF
Grant Competition
The
goal of the "Training Opportunity:
Interdisciplinary Training for Undergraduates
in Biological and Mathematical Sciences
(UBM)" competition is "to
enhance undergraduate education and
training at the intersection of the
biological and mathematical sciences
and to better prepare undergraduate
biology or mathematics students to pursue
graduate study and careers in fields
that integrate the mathematical and
biological sciences." The deadline
is April 26, 2004. The program announcement
can be found at www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04546/nsf04546.pdf.
Funding
Alerts
List
of Funding Alerts - The list of funding
alerts is lengthy. You can find it on
the web at www.life.umd.edu/news-events/newsletter/fundinglist.html.
Community
of Science Database of Funding - If
you want information about the Community
of Science database of funding sources
go to the Office of Research Administration
and Advancement at www.umresearch.umd.edu/ORAA/.
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How
to Post Your News
If
you would like to share your accomplishments
or other news, please send a note (and
any accompanying photos)
to Meredith Brittain at
brittain@umd.edu. Issues are usually sent at the beginning
of each month.
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