Science and Research 2015 by Arizona Daily Sun

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Editor’s Notes

n less than two months following the release of this publication, the city of Flagstaff is poised to celebrate the opening of the Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s business accelerator. This accelerator will join the already successful incubator to allow small businesses and inventors a chance to take advantage of the facility’s wet and dry labs, an area for light manufacturing, office space and a conference room. It’s likely to help retention of upstarts similar to Flagship Biosciences, a company started locally with NACET’s help but relocated to Denver for better space and opportunities. While the business accelerator is not all about science and technology, it’s easy to imagine that this second phase of NACET will only help galvanize the science and research upand-coming businesses and give them a better chance of success. And, hopefully, the accelerator will allow them to grow the business without them having to leave for another community. The accelerator will cost $7.7 million to build, with a federal grant providing $4 million. The remainder will come from a city bond for $2.6 million to be repaid by tenant leases, $1

million from the Arizona Commerce Authority and $100,000 from Northern Arizona University. And it’s likely this will all be money well spent as a way to improve the economy and retention of innovative businesses and technologies. Along with the accelerator, the interest in NAU establishing a research park and connecting the important dots between education and the private sector is also an initiative on the horizon that could see Flagstaff’s sciences and innovations expand farther. And, it’s exciting to think that this is all built on the storied history of science in Flagstaff. One of those stories is getting big attention this year, as well, because the New Horizons Mission is arriving to Pluto in July. So, that has become our cover story. That story aside, please take the time to get to know some of the great science, research and projects happening as shared here to get a taste of the remarkable investigations and innovations that originate from our community.

Seth Muller Special Section Editor

Note: This special section is made possible through the generous underwriting support of the sponsors listed on the cover, who also contributed the editorial content for their respective enterprises. The space allotted to each of these enterprises is consistent with their sponsorship levels. The Cover Story and Special Feature are editorial stories written by the staff.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

SCIENCE RESEARCH 2015

Table of Contents 7

Eyes to the Sky

As it turns out, 2015 has been deemed â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Year of Pluto.â&#x20AC;? It arrives as the New Horizons Mission makes its way to the distant planet for a close-up flyby. We take a look at the significance of the mission and the history of Pluto.

4 10 11 18

The research park model Research parks have been around the better part of a century, but they have become more common and more robust during the last 20 years. Now, Northern Arizona University is closing in on a research park of its own, with the hope of bringing together the education, research and private sectors.

Gore Stemcity Northern Arizona University ECONA

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TO THE

Big Pluto year puts spotlight on Flagstaff’s beloved planet

By Seth Muller

n July, the New Horizons Mission will make its closest approach with Pluto as the first-ever spacecraft to visit the distant object in our Solar System. And Flagstaff is abuzz as the town where

Pluto was discovered 85 years ago in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. We take a look at the new mission and all of its implications as part of Lowell Observatory’s Year of Pluto. Around the press time for this publication, the team of the New Horizons Mission to Pluto readied for “Approach Phase 2,” where the spacecraft that is hurdling toward the dwarf planet was getting ready to take the first-ever spectral photos of the system that includes five moons. The phase was designed to be the second of three, and was initiating less than 100 days before the spacecraft’s closest approach to Pluto on July 15. “Currently, the best images (from New Horizons) show Pluto as barely resolved, as only a dot in the distance,” shared Alan Stern, principal investigator

for the mission. “But by the time Approach Phase 2 is over in June, you’ll be seeing images of Pluto (that will be) like nothing ever (taken) from any Earth-based system. This is the time when Pluto transforms from a planetary astronomer’s world — spied only through telescopes with just the slightest detail — to a planetary science target of the most capable flyby spacecraft ever sent on a first reconnaissance mission.” It’s exciting talk for Flagstaff, which, as everyone knows around here, is the town where Pluto was discovered. In the weeks ahead, scientists will learn more than they ever have about Pluto

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

and its makeup. And they expect a few surprises along the way. For this reason, Lowell Observatory has officially declared 2015 as the Year of Pluto, and it has planned events throughout the year as we learn more about this distant inhabitant. It will become the last of the nine designated planets to be visited by a spacecraft. And, as the New Missions literature notes, the first visit to a “double planet,” as technically Pluto and its moon Charon are both of notable mass and Charon is more than half as large as Pluto. It’s joined by four other moons— Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx. The latter two were discovered in 2011 and 2012. On the graphic posted by the New Horizons headquartering agency John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft was a sliver away from the Pluto and its moons. Pluto is about 35 times farther away from the sun than the Earth on average. This is measured in Astronomical Units. As New Horizons prepared to wake up earlier this year, it was 1.85 AUs away. As it turns out, one of Lowell’s

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

planetary astronomers, Will Grundy, is one of four team leaders working on New Horizons. He heads up the Surface Composition Team. As New Horizons approaches, it will be his team’s job to determine what really makes up the surface of Pluto. He oversees around a dozen individuals who will process and interpret the data as it comes in from the spacecraft. Another ten or so people will have peripheral involvement with the team. Grundy admitted that excitement was building as they approached the calendar year in which the closest approach would happen. The buildup up to the day would bring its own kind of energy, though he noted that the data would come in as a trickle and interpretation and discovery of what information is collected could happen over the course of months or years. These days of lead-up are tensionbuilding, as the team members wonder what they might find on the mission. Grundy said he does not like to impose his ideas on what he wants or expects to find, but rather would like to let the

observations reveal what they will. Still, he did note, “One kind of thing that would be fun to find is evidence that points to the climate of Pluto being different than it is now. So, let’s just say you saw sand dunes and you concluded the current environment would not be enough to blow up sand dunes. But you see them, so they’re fossilized dunes from a time when the atmosphere was much, much thicker. That’s something that would be pretty cool, as a forinstance. Another category of thing that would be a lot of fun is anything that’s happening now that’s big, such as a volcanic feature that’s erupting.” Whether these aspects show up in the images returned from New Horizons, Grundy is expecting one thing based on other encounters with planets of the solar system: surprises. “It’s the one thing that you can count on. Basically, every single time we had the first exploration of some world, you see some wild surprises. And what makes them fun is that you see something that’s whacky and you’re scratching your head.” He added, “Sooner or later someone stumbles onto the right answer. Sometimes that takes months or years. You get ideas from geology and chemistry and someone will say, ‘Ah-ha, I know what this is.’” The mission for New Horizons launched in January 2006. Then, an interesting thing happend on the way to the planet. The International Astronomical Union determined a new proposed definition for a planet that, in essence, demoted Pluto. This definition suggested Pluto was possibly not a planet, but rather another lesser celestial body known as a dwarf planet. This meant the Solar System had eight and not nine planets and Pluto became one of a number of planetoids. Some scientists noted that does not change the significance of Pluto, which, in this regard, could become considered the first-ever discovered dwarf planet. “I like two of the three planks from the IAU definition, which is that it is

round and it is not a star,” Grundy said of the planetary definition. “That’s good enough for me. A definition should be about the object itself and then you can add items to that, like it’s going around the sun or its free floating. I also like planet being a broad category and having different classes of planets such as rocky planets and gas giants—and there’d be plenty of room for small, icy planets, too.” As the mission approaches Pluto, the world seems to be watching. Pluto has been the subject of multiple magazine articles, studies and popular media attention. The Washington Post recently did a feature on Flagstaff as

a town that embraces its planet like a home sports team. It’s trending in the science world as well. “The scientific community is … excited about it and we’re starting to see more published papers on Pluto,” Grundy said. “It used to be a trickle of papers on Pluto, but now it’s a flood.” An added thrill of the mission is that it also is looking to travel beyond Pluto, and it might have more to share from the outer reaches of our Solar System. “If we happened to find the right object in the right place at the right time and we deflected the trajectory ever so slightly, we could have an encounter,”

Grundy said. “This (past) summer, we found at least one object (in the Kuiper Belt, a loose system of objects similar to the asteroid belt in the outer Solar System) we know we could get to and another we could probably get to, but it’s closer to our limit. Eventually, it would make sense to head for one of those.” He added, “The problem is the mission technically ends in 2017 and that encounter would be 2019. And so we would need to write a proposal to NASA to get an extended mission.” Whether the extension happens or not, it’s clear that new discoveries are waiting.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

NAU Research Has Local and Global Impact By the Office of Public Affairs and the Office of the Vice President for Research

In 2014, Northern Arizona University added “Nationally-recognized research excellence” as a key goal of its strategic plan, reﬂecting a renewed sense of the importance of the research mission of the university. While NAU remains focused on enhancing the knowledge economy—and thereby serving the citizens of—the region and the state, as a “high research” institution the university is also committed to making contributions in knowledge and innovation that are national and global in scope. These recent accomplishments by NAU faculty and students demonstrate a balance of research activity at NAU that has both local and global impact.

Professor’s interactive map guides relief to areas of need in Nepal

hen a disastrous earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, the shockwaves rattled Britton Shepardson’s pre-school memories of life there as the child of a humanitarian worker and a mathematician. Within hours, the influences of his family, his aptitude and academic training would coalesce into a much-needed tool for emergency relief work. The final result, after more than three days of “punching out code and debugging,” was a publicly accessible Google Maps platform for the America Nepal Medical Foundation to track community needs and the immediate effect of donor contributions. “The map provides a repository of information for workers in offices and in the field in Nepal,” said Shepardson, associate chair of anthropology at Northern Arizona University. “It also provides great value as a transparent means of giving confidence to donors that their generosity leads to effective results.” The project, which Shepardson has already handed off to the foundation for long-term use, traces its roots to his archaeological work on Easter Island. After years cataloging the iconic moai statues there, he created an interactive database to make the information more available to the public. He later realized an even greater need existed throughout the Pacific region to move information from paper archives to a publicly accessible digital format. But the complications of industry-standard geographic information systems software stood in the way. “I started to think what we really needed was a very user-friendly way to develop an interactive Google Map that can store multimedia data in

To access the interactive version of the map, please visit http://americanepalmedicalfoundation.com/home/earthquake/map-of-relief-work/

a way that is intuitive to the user and easy to update,” Shepardson said. Shepardson even conducted a tutorial on the NAU campus using the approach. “I had students pumping out their own interactive Google maps in 20 minutes,” he said. But the scale of the Nepal earthquake and the resulting relief effort introduced layers of complications. Shepardson said his parents, with long-time ties to the America Nepal Medical Foundation, made the connection that put his skills to work. Shepardson said the online tool, which may have applications far beyond its current use, will likely be used long after the Nepal earthquake has dropped from public attention. “The relief effort will go on for months or years,” Shepardson said. “These are not just crisis mode web pages. I hope to see them updated and used for a long time to come.” NAU Research Has Local and Global Impact - Continued on page 16

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

NAU’s Trilling Finds Multiple Ways To Get A Fix On

Near Earth Asteroids

By NAU’s Office of Public Affairs

or eons, ancient objects have slipped stealthily past Earth, their anonymity assured in the vastness of space. But now the clumps, chunks and misshapen islands of rock are being observed and measured within hours of their discovery, thanks to ingenuity, technology and the curiosity of David Trilling.

The United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, is just one of several being used by NAU’s David Trilling. (Image courtesy University of Arizona)

The rapid generation of data from asteroids is just one item in the field of view of the Northern Arizona University astronomer and his close collaborator, post-doctoral researcher Michael Mommert.

Trilling, on sabbatical in South Africa, has recently added three new NASA-funded funded projects to a constellation of research aimed at adding to our body of knowledge about the number and types of asteroids with orbits anywhere near Earth. Using the Spitzer Space Telescope—one of NASA’s Great Observatories and a familiar tool from earlier research—as well as telescopes in Hawaii, Mexico, and South Africa, Trilling and Mommert are chasing down the hidden details of the solar system’s most common and least understood objects.

Finding the unexpected The Spitzer project, with about $400,000 in funding, will target 597 asteroids over 710 hours of telescope time. Observations began in February. “We’re focusing on asteroids that are too faint to be seen any other way,” Trilling said. “Spitzer occupies a special niche because it really is the most sensitive telescope.” The infrared capabilities of the orbiting Spitzer allow him to measure diameter and albedo (reflectivity), which reveals valuable information about an asteroid’s composition. David Trilling

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The findings of this project, when combined with Trilling’s previous work and all other asteroid observations, will result in about 15 percent of all near Earth asteroids having been characterized.

“That’s a pretty big sample when just a few years ago it was much less than 1 percent,” Trilling said. But with the knowledge comes questions. “Every good science experiment I’ve ever been in ends up with a question like, ‘What are we looking at?’ ” Trilling said. “You never get the answer you expect. The compositions of these asteroids, especially the smaller ones, are all over the map. But I think that’s what’s exciting about what we’re doing. There’s a puzzle there we need to solve.” Doing so will offer a clearer picture of what’s out there and whether we should be concerned. “We want to know how many near Earth asteroids are about 50 meters in size,” Trilling said. “That’s about the size of the one that made Meteor Crater, so we’d like to know how many are out there and how much risk there is.”

Discovery-driven data Another NASA project that began in February, with more than $160,000 in funding, features a cross-border collaboration using telescopes in Hawaii and Mexico that allows a rapid response—an unusual attribute in the slowmoving world of astronomy. “What we’re observing are asteroids that were very recently discovered and are flying past Earth,” Trilling said. “There is only a short amount of time when they are bright enough to be seen by telescopes on Earth.” That time could be a week, or a few days, or even just a few hours. Trilling explained that when an asteroid is discovered, the information is entered into a database maintained by the International Astronomical Union. A custom software program written by Mommert queries the database for recent discoveries that meet certain criteria—a bright enough asteroid in

the right part of the sky—so that Trilling can study them. “Sometimes we can observe an asteroid the very same night it was discovered,” Trilling said. That’s where one element of the collaboration comes into play. Trilling has nightly access to the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope in Hawaii (of which the University of Arizona is a managing partner) and he doesn’t have to be there to use it. Instead, the telescope is operated by astronomers who use a queue system to direct the telescope to prioritized targets: essentially, as requests flow in, they are assigned a place in line. The system allows Trilling up to 150 observations per year.

“Sometimes we can observe an asteroid the very same night it was discovered.” “We were able to capitalize on that by proposing that every night, or every other night, they spend a little bit of time observing an asteroid,” Trilling said. “The person operating the queue can switch from my program to someone else’s in the middle of the night, so it works out very well.” The second part of the collaboration involves the National Astronomical Observatory telescope in San Pedro Martir, Baja California, Mexico, mounted with an optical and infrared camera built by an astronomer from Arizona State University. With recently gained access to that telescope, Trilling and Mommert have added 150 more observations to their list.

“The telescope in Mexico is fully robotic,” Trilling said. “We just send in our request and a computer does all the scheduling. We’ll get an email in the morning that says our asteroid has been observed and includes a web link to our data. It even automatically reprocesses the data to generate a picture. It’s just amazing.” Recently, Trilling has added three telescopes in South Africa to the growing list of asteroidobserving facilities. These three also can respond within a day, or even a few hours, to asteroids that are particularly interesting to observe. One of these three is the Southern African Large Telescope: its 11-meter mirror makes it the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.

Plug and play A third project, with nearly $390,000 in funding, involves refurbishing the Mid InfraRed Spectrometer and Imager, then using it on NASA’s InfraRed Telescope Facility in Hawaii to measure the diameter and albedo of asteroids with brief observation windows. Trilling said that at present the infrared camera on this telescope uses liquid helium and is difficult to operate, limiting its use to only three nights every six months. Trilling’s collaborators, hardware experts from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, will convert the camera to an electrical cooling system. “Basically, you can just plug it into the wall like a refrigerator and it stays cold,” Trilling said. “It will stay on the telescope all the time, so in the middle of the night I can get an hour to observe.” The observations, which will include about 750 near earth asteroids that are not being studied through any other telescopes, will take place through February 2019.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

Bringing NASA Research Home NAU’s NASA Space Grant Program opens new doors for research and employment By NAU’s Office of the Vice President for Research

“Although people immediately think “astronomy” when they hear about a program funded by NASA, in actuality NASA’s focus areas include environmental science and climate change, conditions under which life can exist, engineering and material science, educating and exciting students about STEM disciplines, and communicating science to the public, as well as astronomy and planetary science.” -Dr. Nadine Barlow, NAU/NASA Space Grant Program Director

hat do EN3 Professionals, W. L. Gore, Lowell Observatory, U.S. Geological Survey, Dell Perot, Shepard-Wesnitzer, Rooftop Solar, and the City of Flagstaff have in common? What about Raytheon, General Dynamics, Brookhaven Laboratory, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, the Naval Research Laboratory, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator? All employ former participants of Northern Arizona University’s NASA Space Grant programs. The goal of the NASA Space Grant Program is to “expand opportunities for Americans to understand and participate in NASA’s aeronautics and space projects by supporting and enhancing science and engineering education, research, and public outreach efforts.” NAU, as host to a Space Grant office, promotes this goal through programs for local students, visiting researchers, the greater Flagstaff community, and undergraduate students at

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

The Space Grant supports a number of undergraduate internships each year, resulting in a diverse array of projects and outcomes. Barlow explains, “Projects that we have supported in the Internship program include scientific research and engineering design projects, undergraduates working with Dr. Nadine Barlow, Director of the NASA Northern Arizona K-12 schools to enhance Space Grant program at NAU and Associate STEM learning among the students, archiving Chair for the Department of Physics and the history of USGS’s training of the Apollo Astronomy, explains the broad scope of the astronauts before they went to the Moon, and program, “Athough people immediately think informing the public about research being “astronomy” when they hear about a program conducted in Flagstaff through a science funded by NASA, in actuality NASA’s focus writing internship at the Arizona Daily Sun.” areas include environmental science and climate change, conditions under which life The NAU Space Grant program focuses can exist, engineering and material science, primarily on opportunities for undergraduate educating and exciting students about STEM students and leads the Arizona Space Grant disciplines, and communicating science to the Consortium outreach efforts to pre-college and public, as well as astronomy and planetary underrepresented groups. As Barlow explains, science.” “The NAU program is especially noted for work with the Native American communities the University. The implementation of the program takes on many forms, from hands-on research by undergraduates and their mentors, to community-based STEM outreach like the Flagstaff Festival of Science, which the NAU Space Grant program sponsors.

NAU/NASA Space Grant Recent Success Stories Jeﬀ Wheeler

2006 Space Grant Intern

Simon Kelow

2012 Space Grant Intern

Eric MacLennan

2010 Space Grant Intern

Jeff Wheeler is currently a Product Manager at PLEXSYS Interface Products in Camas, WA. Jeff was a 2006 Space Grant student while obtaining his Electrical Engineer degree. During Jeff ’s time at PLEXSYS he has worked as a software engineer and product manager. Jeff now manages a team of software engineers who develop and maintain the software for the AWACS Mission Crew training simulators for US Air Force and several international air forces. After graduating from NAU, Jeff utilized his degree working as both a Hardware and Software Engineer for WaferTech and Rockwell Collins before moving to PLEXSYS. While at Rockwell Collins, Jeff worked on Enhanced Vision System integration on Heads Up Displays for military and commercial air-frames.

In his sophomore year, looking for his first official research project, Simon applied and was accepted to the NASA Space grant at NAU. This acceptance opened up many opportunities for him, the key one being a summer research experience at the University of Chicago, allowing him to study experimental biophysics for a summer. After becoming more interested in biophysics, Simon applied to the NIH sponsored PREP program to gain one more year of research experience - specifically in computational biology. Simon ultimately accepted an offer to the University of Pennsylvania PhD program, where he uses molecular dynamics simulations to investigate properties of biological systems and hopes to apply these concept to basic research as well as clinical investigations.

Eric MacLennan is a PhD student in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, TN. After his Space Grant internship in 2010-2011 he was awarded a summer internship position at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, through the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. His REU experience led him to become interested in studying asteroids. After graduating NAU in 2012 he became a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Recently, he co-authored a paper entitled "Cohesive forces prevent the rotational breakup of rubble-pile asteroid (29075) 1950 DA", which was published in Nature.

in Northern Arizona. One example of this is the American Indian Mobile Education Resource (AIMER) program. The AIMER coordinator travels to Navajo and Hopi schools to conduct hands-on activities in astronomy, engineering, and environmental sustainability with the students, and often conducts a communitywide star party during the visit. The goals of the NAU NASA Space Grant Program successfully integrate with NAU’s tradition of high-quality undergraduate education, opportunities for Native American students, the prominence of undergraduate research experiences, and the overall emphasis on science and technology within the Flagstaff community.”

advanced degrees in STEM fields. While this may seem to be an expected outcome, Barlow points to the diversity of fields covered by the NASA program goals. “Students from every department within NAU’s College of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Sciences have participated in our Undergraduate Research Internship Program, and we have also had students from Communications, Political Science, Psychology, History, and Education work on projects in our program.”

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University), and 30 partner institutions (community colleges including CCC, institutions such as Lowell and USGS, organizations like the Prescott Astronomy Club, newspapers including the Arizona Daily Sun, and various industries around the state who help NAU achieve their Space Grant objectives).

While the Space Grant activities conducted by undergraduate students are a key component of the program, the future success of participants is also impressive. According to Barlow, 91% of tracked program participants now work in STEM-related careers, or are pursuing

Space Grant exists in every state as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. Each state has a Space Grant Consortium, consisting of member educational institutions and affiliate partners. Arizona was one of the first states to become part of the NASA Space Grant Program back in 1989. The Arizona Space Grant Consortium is composed of the lead institution (the University of Arizona), four member institutions (U of A, ASU, NAU, and

For more information about the ongoing activities of the NAU/NASA Space Grant, please visit www.spacegrant.nau.edu. To learn more about the Arizona Space Grant Consortium and to read more success stories about Space Grant interns, please visit spacegrant.arizona.edu.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

NAU Research Has Local and Global Impact - Continued from page 11

Unearthing Slave Artifacts in South Carolina

Sharon Moses, an assistant professor of anthropology and archaeology, and a group of NAU students are conducting an historical archaeology field school this month, looking for relics buried beneath former slave quarters to gain additional insights on religious practices among different ethnicities and cultures. The group will investigate the site of the Hume Plantation’s slave quarters on South Carolina’s Cat Island, specifically looking for items related to rituals and spirituality. “I’m investigating ritual practices where slaves placed ritual magic deposits beneath their cabin floors to protect themselves from their European masters and for curative purposes,” Moses said. The Hume Plantation is an artifact rich site with pre-historic and historic-period deposits from Native Americans, Europeans and Africans.

Along with the artifacts themselves, Moses is researching their frequency on the property and their locations. “I’m looking at how they are distributed throughout the slave quarter. There is a hierarchy among the slaves themselves

depending on how close they lived to the mansion, which is a typical layout pattern found among many plantations,” Moses said. Moses began research at the Hume Plantation in 2012 with permission from the wildlife center and the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. She works closely with slave descendants, providing insights on their ancestors. Moses also consulted with law enforcement as a forensic archaeologist in cases involving Hoodoo, which is still practiced by some people in the region.

Moses’ research has filled historical gaps for the south, beginning with trading between the first European Colonists and Native Americans, followed by enslavement of natives and African immigrants through emancipation. “I have this unbroken chain of historical events and interactions between different ethnic groups from the 17th century all the way up through post civil war,” Moses said. “What is coming up out of the ground is rounding up the other side of the story that did not get into the written chronicle.”

Sharon Moses digging up artifacts at the Hume Plantation with Tiny, a South Carolina slave descendant.

NAU Receives $4.1 Million NSF Grant To Study Threatened Southwestern White Pine Northern Arizona University has been awarded the largest forestry-related grant in the college’s history: $4.1 million to study the threatened southwestern white pine. “This project brings together a lot of issues facing the white pine and other tree species today; climate change and nonnative disease,” said Kristen Waring, associate professor of Forestry and principal investigator on the grant. The southwestern white pine, which grows in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

and Mexico, is threatened by white pine blister rust, a European disease introduced in the 1900s in Vancouver, Canada and on the east coast. The disease is spread by wind and had decimated the western white pine, sugar pine and white bark pine. The nonnative disease has reached eastern Arizona but has yet to travel to Flagstaff. Betsy Goodrich, who defended her doctoral dissertation at NAU in April, has been growing the white pines and studying the variation on the tree’s adaptive traits. “This

species does appear to have the adaptability to dry conditions, which is good in a changing climate and can help management of the species,” Goodrich said. Waring’s research will be important for land managers and agencies interested in preservation of wildlife, natural habitats and their ecosystems. “It is an innovative project, bringing in climate change, genetics and the white pine blister rust disease,” said Jim Allen, executive director of the School of Forestry.

Julie Baldwin brings expertise in HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse Prevention

Health Equity Researcher Returns to NAU

his fall, NAU welcomes a familiar face back to campus. Dr. Julie Baldwin served as a tenured faculty member at NAU with a joint appointment in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health from 1994-2004 before moving to the University of South Florida in 2005. Over ten years later, Baldwin returns to NAU to continue research in HIV/AIDS and substance abuse prevention, working closely with American Indian populations to conduct community-based participatory research. An enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Baldwin cites her own background as the driver behind the decision to dedicate her career to health equity research. She first came to Northern Arizona in 1990 to work on a five-year project funded by the NIH called the Native American Prevention Project against AIDS and Substance Abuse. “I just fell in love with Northern Arizona and really connected with the tribes and people here,” she says. For fifteen years, Baldwin worked with local tribal communities to design culturally relevant health programs for youth and families.

the program in Northern Arizona will require some adjustments; in particular, she hopes that she will be able increase participation of community scholars by hosting more workshops at communitybased agencies and weaving culturally and contexually appropriate information into the curriculum. Baldwin will lead efforts to create a Center for Health Equity Research at NAU. She sees the Center as an umbrella for existing and new programs for related issues, like the Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention and the Center for American Indian Resilience. “I am just amazed by how much these efforts have grown in the last ten years,” says Baldwin. “We have very dedicated and talented people here doing outstanding research; it’s just a matter of trying to connect people and coming up with a shared vision of what we want to do. I would love to see the Center provide the strategic planning, infrastructure, and support needed to come together for more transdisciplinary and collaborative research efforts to address health inequities.”

“It’s absolutely critical that we continue to strengthen our relationships with all tribal and local communities in this region.”

At USF, Baldwin served as PI and Co-PI of a number of federally-funded projects from agencies such as CDC and NIH. She is currently the Director of the Institute for Translational Research in Adolescent Behavioral Health, a research education training grant funded through the National Institute on Drug Abuse. This program trains graduate students and community scholars to develop, implement, and evaluate evidence-based interventions in community settings, focusing primarily on behavioral health issues among children and adolescents. Baldwin will continue to serve as one of the principal investigators of this grant as she transitions to NAU, and hopes to build a similar program in Northern Arizona. “I think there is a great need for something like this here, especially in the area of behavioral health,” Baldwin says. “I’d like to be able to work with some of our graduate programs at NAU and with community and tribal agencies.” She notes that replicating

Central to the success of the new Center is the involvement of community partners. “It’s absolutely critical that we continue to strengthen our relationships with all tribal and local communities in this region,” she says. The focus on equity will also be a central theme for the Center. “Although there are great needs and health disparities in Northern Arizona, there are also so many strengths,” says Baldwin. “I want to make sure that a strength-based perspective becomes a theme of this center. We want to emphasize resilience and not just a deficit model.” Baldwin is excited to return to NAU. “I’m very grateful to President Cheng, as well as several other senior administrators at NAU (such as Drs. Grabe, Huenneke, Trotter, Schulz, Bounds)—this opportunity is just incredible,” she says. “To be able to return to NAU at a time like this when people are very energized and excited about health research initiatives – is absolutely wonderful. Hopefully, our center will generate a lot of enthusiasm and interest in addressing health inequities in our local communities, as well as help early career faculty and students to get their start and build their research expertise. My family and I are so happy to be back.”

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

Lowell Observatory researchers have been pushing the envelope of astronomy since the nineteenth century. These trailblazers have taken advantage of the most advanced instruments of their time, from the Clark Telescope of yesteryear to Lowell’s Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT). This fusion of science and technology will allow our scientists to play a critical role in unraveling the mysteries of the Universe for decades to come. It all started with Percival Lowell, who in 1896 acquired one of the finest refracting telescopes ever built to facilitate his search for life on Mars. This effort stimulated further research programs that led to V.M. Slipher’s pioneering detection of the Universe in 1912 and Clyde Tombaugh’s discovery in 1930 of Pluto, a world near and dear to the heart of Flagstaff. One hundred twenty years later, we celebrate the reopening of the restored Clark Telescope while ushering in a new era of exploration with what our former Director Bob Millis called the “Swiss army knife of telescopes,” our beautiful new DCT.

Jeffrey Hall Director, Lowell Observatory

A Private Non-Profit Research Institution Committed to Excellence in Research & Education www.lowell.edu • 1400 W Mars Hill Rd, Flagstaff, AZ • (982) 774-3358 20

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

University of Nebraska Innovation Campus is one example of the kind of research park NAU is considering.

The

research park Flagstaff looks to connect education, science and the private sector.

model

ecently, the Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona,

or ECoNA, has studied ways to create a stronger connectivity to education, job opportunity and workforce

development to both sustain and grow this sector of the economy. For Flagstaff, this ability to educate or attract and retain people who are versed in biosciences has become a key to helping grow the biosciences sector. An example of this is informatics. Both the word and the concept have been around since 1957, and the German

word Informatik is translated in English as computer science. In the world of medical and biosciences, informatics has become more and more crucial. It deals with being able to have savvy skills and codewriting with computer systems in order to

By Seth Muller

process and interpret massive amounts of data that pour in by the terabyte when dealing with research in areas such as genomics. The need to address the workforce and retain these kinds of highly skilled and trained researchers is just one of many areas that ECoNA, with its partners and its key officers Rich Bowen and John Stigmon, has been working to address. Along these lines, ECoNA hosted a symposium at Northern Arizona University called “Envisioning the Future of Northern Arizona Bioscience” in late February at the 1899 Bar and Grill. The gathering brought together more than 60

community leaders and university staff to learn about the emerging opportunities to create partnerships between the university and private sector in the realm of biosciences — and to get more information about the research park concept. Research parks have been around the better part of a century, but they have become more common and more robust during the last 20 years. Since 2008 alone, the country has added 14 new research parks and 80 percent of the existing parks have expanded during that time, according to Mary Jukuri, research park planner with the development firm SmithGroupJJR. During her talk at the February conference, she said the granddaddy of research parks was Research Triangle in North Carolina. It’s centered among University of North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke University and covers 7,000 acres. First started in 1959, the North Carolina research park has expanded drastically over the years to ultimately include more than 190 companies,

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

John Stigmon

The symposium “Envisioning the Future of Northen Arizona Bioscience” was held at NAU in Feburary.

50,000 total employees and 10,000 contractors. It involves the secondlargest IBM operation in the world and hosts one of GlaxoSmithKline’s largest research and development centers. While Research Triangle is a behemoth of a place, Jukuri noted that dozens of other communities have adopted smaller-scale research parks that have a similar spirit. And those parks have become strong economic generators in their own right. Jukuri was joined at the conference by Andy Vazzano, also with SmithGroupJJR, who shared how research parks are often cited as an important element in the U.S. growing its economy and maintaining an edge

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

Rich Bowen

in the global marketplace. Vazzano noted that Flagstaff had a “wonderful ecosystem” with the university, major medical companies, Flagstaff Medical Center and other entities that could support a biosciences research center. Along with the research park concept, ECoNA has partnered with the Flinn Foundation, an Arizonabased organization working to grow the Biosciences sector. The two organizations produced a 2014 report called the Flagstaff Bioscience Tactical Plan. It follows up on a 2002, 10year plan known as the “Bioscience Roadmap Flagstaff” plan designed to elevate the presence and support of the bioscience sector.

The tactical plan calls for the development of “critical regional infrastructure and support systems.” Under that section, it discusses the NAU Research Park. It shares how NAU has set aside 50 acres on the southern edge of campus to “develop the park with future research buildings.” And it notes that “The Arizona Board of Regents set a goal for Northern Arizona University to double its research portfolio and expenditures.” This growth can tie in with the strength of the biosciences private sector in Flagstaff. Some of those companies are featured in this special section. They include but are not

limited to W.L. Gore and Associates, Protein Genomics, T-Gen, Pathogene, Northern Arizona Healthcare (Flagstaff Medical Center), SenesTech, Machine Solutions and a number of upstarts through the Northern Arizona Center for Emerging Technology. As shared by Bowen, the hope is to create a strong synergy between the university, the private sector and the marketplace to help grow Flagstaff’s economy in part by creating a strong biosciences sector. The key word with ECoNA is collaboration. “Without collaboration, we are not making progress as a community,” Bowen said. “We need to leverage ourselves and work together.”

Bringing the Electricity Grid into the Digital Age The energy industry is entering a new era. Gone are the days when all electricity was produced at large central power plants and distributed one-way over the grid to customers. Tomorrow’s customers will use electricity in new ways to power how they live, work and play. Customers will have more choices when it comes to their energy use – smart appliances, plug-in electric vehicles, rooftop solar panels and even the possibility of battery storage, making them active participants in this next generation of energy. The electricity grid is also a part of this new chapter. As a society, we need a modern, dynamic and reliable grid that ensures 24/7 service and enables new technologies entering the market. “We are looking forward to powering our customers’ energy choices, and partnering with them to ensure continued reliability for their homes and their neighbors,” said APS Smart Grid Manager, Jasdeep Singh.

BeneFits oF a ModeRn electRical gRid All of these programs and technologies are building a more modern, ﬂexible grid which leads to a variety of benefits: • Environmental - An advanced grid reduces emissions by integrating more renewable energy and enabling more eﬃcient use of resources and electricity. • Reliability - Smart technologies are diagnosing problems on the grid before they have a chance to impact customers, avoiding or reducing outages. • Economic - Technologies like advanced metering infrastructure help customers stay more informed about their energy use and actively manage their power consumption to save money on their bill.

enaBling a FutuRe oF custoMeR eneRgY choice

An advanced grid allows customers to install rooftop solar without compromising electric reliability for them or their neighbors, even on the cloudiest days. It supports energy management technologies that help customers use power more eﬃciently. It provides power for other game-changing technologies like battery storage and plug-in electric vehicles. According to APS, these exciting advances will allow customers to power their lives in new ways. “What will not change is APS’s responsibility to enable these options for customers and integrate these innovations into a safe, reliable and affordable electricity system,” said Scott Bordenkircher, Director of Transmission and Distribution Technology Innovation and Integration. “Together, we will power a brighter energy future for Arizona.”

Perhaps the most exciting advantage of being connected to a modern grid is customer empowerment to make energy choices.

Supplement to the Arizona Daily Sun

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SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

5/12/15 3:41 PM

Exploring High-Penetration Solar Power aPs invests in steM education at nau In order to power Arizona’s energy future, APS knows they will need qualified individuals who understand how these advanced technologies work together to serve customers’ needs. That is why the APS Foundation emphasizes science, technology, engineering and/ or mathematics (STEM) in their education funding. Last year, the APS Foundation donated more than $2.5 million to programs with a STEM focus, including $200,000 to Northern Arizona University through the APS STEM Focus Schools for the Future program. The purpose of the program is to expand the scientifically literate workforce in Arizona by developing school capacity to implement effective STEM education for today’s learners.

ReseaRching otheR advanced technologies Another ground-breaking initiative will explore the integration of solar and other consumer technologies with a demandbased rate. In collaboration with the Arizona Solar Deployment Alliance (ASDA) and other local solar installers, APS will work with 175 of their solar customers to

More than 32,000 APS customers have installed solar on their homes or businesses, and they continue to install solar at a record rate. This rate and scale of rooftop solar adoption requires utilities to keep pace with how they integrate it into the existing energy mix. APS has been on the cutting edge of finding new ways to maintain power reliability even with high concentrations of rooftop solar on the system. • Community Power Project Working in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy, APS is using the Community Power Project in Flagstaff to identify the grid changes and advancements necessary to enable more solar energy–while ensuring all their customers continue to receive reliable power. The project is equivalent to a 1.5-megawatt, interconnected renewable energy plant spread out along Highway 89A in Flagstaff. One third of the solar power comes from 125 customer rooftops, another third from an installation at Cromer Elementary School, and the rest from a utility-scale plant located in Doney Park. • APS Solar Partner Program APS recently launched the APS Solar Partner program in the Phoenix area to further research the effects of distributed energy on the grid.

install technologies like battery storage, load controllers and thermostat devices for use under a demand-charge rate structure. This will allow APS to see how these technologies affect customer power use. The Arizona installers will be installing more than just the solar panels, including an entire system of technology to maximize the use of solar that will make an

Through this program, they will install solar on the homes of 1,500 customers in targeted areas on the grid. This is a technical exercise to help take rooftop solar into the future by preparing the APS grid

impact on the grid. Customers

As with the APS Solar

will use this cutting-edge

Partner program, this unique

technology to have more

collaboration with ASDA is

control over their usage.

being closely watched by other

APS will use this pilot study to see how the technology mix can help reduce demand at the

utilities across the country trying to update their own rate structures. Like them, APS says they are committed to staying

right time of day, in the right

ahead of ever-changing customer

way, and be better prepared

technologies and ensuring their

to create a fair rate structure

system is prepared for what

that works for everyone.

lies ahead.

Information provided by Arizona Public Service.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

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5/12/15 3:41 PM

Smart Grid Snapshots Here are just a few of the advanced technologies APS is employing to modernize the grid: Fuses on the distribution system protect transformers from current surges and overloads. APS is installing new fuses called ELF Fuses, especially in their northern service territory. These contain the small explosion that occurs when a fuse blows, reducing the risk of fire.

APS HAS BEEN ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF FINDING NEW WAYS TO MAINTAIN POWER RELIABILITY EVEN WITH HIGH CONCENTRATIONS OF ROOFTOP SOLAR ON THE SYSTEM.

to handle the two-way ﬂow of energy

are taking the most responsible steps to

and more advanced communications

stay ahead of the curve and to prepare

between meters and solar equipment.

for what we believe is an extensive future

“Programs like this and the Community

for solar in Arizona,” said Marc Romito,

Power Project are examples of how we

APS Manager of Renewable Energy.

Catching problems before they can impact customers APS has a team of employees dedicated to using state-of-the-art equipment to catch issues on the grid before they affect reliability. These technologies can identify hotspots and other vulnerable areas on the system, enabling APS to fix equipment before it fails. Throughout 2014, this team identified 429 problem areas and avoided more than $2.2 million in costs.

1504090_AZ_DailySun_Insert_fl.indd 3

Communicating Fault Indicators (CFI) are devices that sense rapid changes in current. They provide real-time data to system operators for detecting and locating problems on the system and enable power to be restored faster. Having this information upfront will help operations personnel patrol a line more eﬃciently and enhance system reliability. APS can control Automated Switches remotely from its Distributions Operations Center, eliminating the need for field personnel to manually operate the switch. An automated switch allows operations to pick up, shed or move electricity without dispatching a troubleman. Integrated Volt/VAR Control (IVVC) is a software application with field hardware that continuously regulates the amount of power traveling through substations. It alerts operators when a line is experiencing abnormal voltage conditions (high or low) that will harm customer equipment such as motors and air conditioners. It also diagnoses low power quality, which reduces the need for peak generation. Transformers are one of the most critical elements in the proper functioning of the utility grid. New technologies such as APS’s transformer oil analysis and notification (TOAN) use advances in communications and sensing to monitor the health of transformers remotely, allowing APS to take proactive maintenance actions to prevent critical failures.

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

5/12/15 3:41 PM

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Take the next step. Call NACET.

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SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

TGen Disease Detectives The Translational Genomics Research Institute’s (TGen) Pathogen Genomics Division — TGen North — is an internationally known research center that has identified the causes of a number of infectious disease outbreaks. Led by Drs. Paul Keim and David Engelthaler, the TGen North team of scientists and data analysts unravel the DNA code of microbes to solve medical mysteries on a daily basis. Our recent accomplishments include: Fungal meningitis from injectable steroid TGen, working with the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, conducted a genomic epidemiologic investigation of an outbreak of fungal meningitis that affected hundreds of patients and killed dozens of people in 20 states in 2012. TGen findings confirmed the source of the fungus, Exserohilum, was from contaminated vials of injected back pain steroid. Federal prosecutors recently charged the owners with 25 counts of second-degree murder.

Disease Outbreaks in Transplant Patients Using the most advanced DNA analysis, TGen researchers determined that a deadly outbreak of Valley Fever in transplant recipients was caused by infected organs from a donor. Valley Fever is a desert soil fungus that causes serious respiratory infections. In another investigation, they determined that organ recipients with long-term MRSA (drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) superbug infections also got those infections from their transplanted organs.

Anthrax in Heroin Following a string of anthrax infections among heroin users in Scotland, Dr. Keim led a study to identify the source and nature of the anthrax bacteria from the outbreak. While the heroin was found to have originated in Afghanistan, it was determined that the anthrax came from Turkey, where the heroin moves via drug trade routes to Europe.

A New Fungus in the Pacific Northwest Dr. Engelthaler recently led a multi-national team of researchers from five continents on an investigation of the emergence of Cryptococcus gattii, a potentially lethal fungus, in the Pacific Northwest. Their results clearly indicate that the fungus emerged out of Brazil, and TGen North is helping develop new diagnostics tests and antifungal treatments.

VISIT US

www.tgennorth.org

LIKE US

facebook.com/helptgen

twitter.com/tgen

youtube.com/user/tgenvideo

DONATE

tgenfoundation.org

or call (602) 343-8411

SCIENCE & RESEARCH 2015

SEPT. 18-27

The Best 10 Days of the Year!

Scien ce in the Park

More than

90 FREE Activities!

PTEMBER 18, 7 PM E S AY, D I NASA’s FR

nd .a

•NAU AUDREY AU N O I T DIT OR NTA E IU S E M R P

bits , of Pluto i r FMC’ a h e Y x E s Fantastic Voyage New Horizons r y’s e o v i t t a c rv spacecraft is racing tera e n s I b O l l Lowe through space to take ay Archaeolo D gica us to Pluto … and ing r l e e S ite g in it’s all within reach: the s NAU’s Science & En mysterious dwarf planet, its unches a L n five moons and the vast twinkling Kuiper loo l entists in our Sch i a c B S r e ool Belt! New Horizons Mission Boss Weath s s w o Sh Alan Stern, Ph.D., will take kes i .. c H i d g e d a Gui us on the exciting journey to reveal M y r the latest on Pluto in the town Chemist Plus a BONUS Pre-Festival Event! where it was discovered 85 m Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition uc years ago! and the City of Flagstaff present: ots hm Rob Flagstaff Star Party ore Local astronomers will host your journey to the !

To find out more, email scifest@earthlink.net or visit www.scifest.org

SHOEMAKER K

Become a Friend of the Festival!

EY N OT E

Inspire, cultivate, and encourage the next generation of scientists:

constellations and guide you across Flagstaff’s famous dark skies!

Sept. 17-19, at Buffalo Park

Horsehead and Flame Nebulae: Russ Ruggles San Francisco Peaks: A. Kleinman

SUPERNOVA FRIENDS of the FESTIVAL