OSU Research Matters 2022

From the Desk of the Vice President for Research

Merriam-Webster’s first definition for the term transition is “a change or shift from one state, subject, place, etc. to another.”

This past year, life at OSU has been replete with transition! We have transitioned to a new university presidential administration that has undertaken the process of examining and articulating OSU’s strategic direction (more on that below). We have transitioned from conducting our research in the context of various pandemic-related restrictions into what some are calling the new normal (although much of it seems more new than normal). And we have seen valued colleagues depart OSU, as well as others join the team … all important transitions.

The second definition Merriam-Webster lists for transition is “something that links one state, subject, place, etc. to another; a connecting part or piece.”

At OSU, that connecting piece — the strand that runs constant amid all the change — is our land-grant mission with its three inextricably linked components of teaching, research, and outreach. Our overarching research strengths remain within and critical to our state’s industrial pillars (aerospace, energy and agriculture) and to the critical needs of our population (healthy people, healthy animals, healthy planet) and young people prepared to meet the challenges of citizenship and critical occupations in 21st century America and beyond.

When the current transitions settle in, I believe OSU will be revitalized and refocused on how to execute on our land-grant mission in new and exciting ways. But OSU as a whole — and our research enterprise in particular — will bear all the trademark characteristics of the Cowboy family legacy we have inherited. I think you will find the stories in this year’s OSU Research Matters magazine carry that legacy forward … into the new era we are creating together with all of OSU’s students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends.

Go Pokes!

Kenneth W. Sewell, Ph.D. Vice President for Research

President

Kayse Shrum, D.O.

Vice President for Research

Kenneth W. Sewell, Ph.D.

Editor Harrison Hill

Copy Editor

Jordan Bishop

Art Director

Dave Malec

Lead Design

Valerie Kisling, Paul V. Fleming

Contributing Writers

Jordan Bishop, Danielle Bellmer, Alisa

Boswell-Gore, Mack Burke, Gail Ellis, Mandy Gross, Harrison Hill, David Hillock, Rodney Holcomb, John Holden, Jeff Hopper, Katie Lacey, Shannon Rigsby, Bailey Sisk, Terry Tush, Deanne Vick, Kaylie Wehr

Photographers

allaboutstillwater.com, Andrea Borgarello World Bank, Danielle Bellmer, Jordan Bishop, Mack Burke, GCShutter/E+ via Getty Images, Kris Hanning, Rodney Holcomb, Todd Johnson, Jill Joyce, Kelly Kerr, Gary Lawson, Kateleigh Mills, James Manimala, NASA Langley Research Center, Jack Pashin, Phil Shockley, Spears School of Business, Studio Architecture, Terry Tush, Unmanned Systems Research Institute

OSU Research Matters is published annually by Oklahoma State University and is produced by the Office of the Vice President for Research.

For details about research highlighted in this magazine or reproduction permission, contact:

Office of the Vice President for Research 405.744.6501; vpr@okstate.edu research.okstate.edu

On the

Power

Frying

How Research Moves

Breaking down the research process at the university level

Although the concept of research is often associated with laboratory sciences, research at a comprehensive university like Oklahoma State takes place in virtually all disciplines.

Laboratory scientists conduct controlled experiments, field researchers study phenomena in natural settings and social scientists uncover the complex patterns of behavior in everything from economies to relationships.

Historians study, synthesize and make sense of events over time; artists devise new ways to experience the human condition; engineers solve problems to make things work in the physical world; and theoretical physicists devise models and explanations for how galaxies, stars, planets and invisible forces formed and sustain our universe. All of these creative endeavors — and many more — constitute research.

WHY DO RESEARCH?

Universities invest in research because of the three E’s: EXPERTISE , EXAMPLE and EXTENSION

EXPERTISE : The top experts in any discipline, even if they have a passion for teaching, want to keep pushing the boundaries of their fields. To recruit and retain accomplished academics to teach OSU students, we empower and support them to continue their research.

EXAMPLE : By learning from these top experts — not only in the classroom, but also in the laboratory, in the clinic, on the stage and in other real-life research contexts — OSU students are propelled into expertise of their own very early in their academic careers.

EXTENSION : Investing in research allows OSU the opportunity to make a public impact. At OSU, we take the latest knowledge and solutions developed by our experts and share that information directly with people in our communities who need those solutions the most. Advances in childhood nutrition get into the hands of school lunch programs and young parents. Advances in wheat varieties get into the fields of Oklahoma farmers. New understanding of economic stressors impact rural communities, gets into city council meetings and impacts policy decisions. At a land-grant university like OSU, we take our research directly to the public whenever possible.

FUNDING RESEARCH WITH GRANTS

There are some philanthropic people and foundations that provide outright gifts that OSU can use to fund research. But research grants are different. Most research grants come from federal or state agencies, although some can come from private foundations and even private individuals. Unlike gifts that might be designated for a particular theme or topic, research grants are tied to specific projects.

The grant process usually works something like this:

A funding agency — or private funder — publishes a description of the types of projects it would consider funding and a specific process for proposing a project for funding.

An OSU researcher (or team of researchers) learns of the funding opportunity and has a relevant project idea they would like to pursue.

The researcher then works with university support staff to prepare and submit a grant application, including a detailed budget for exactly how the funds would be spent to carry out the project.

If the funder selects the OSU application, then a grant is made to OSU (not to the researchers as individuals) to allow the researcher(s) to conduct the project.

The grant essentially becomes a contract between OSU and the funding agency. OSU as an institution is then responsible for ensuring the project is conducted consistent with expectations, usually including progress reports and final reports.

Research grants are extremely important to OSU, in that they help our researchers conduct projects that are impactful without overly taxing institutional resources. They provide critical opportunities to students (who are often employed by the grants), and they are key indicators that our faculty experts are developing their research capabilities in ways respected by the broader disciplines. However, contrary to common misconceptions, research grants do not financially “profit” the university. At best, research grants cover the costs of the projects they support.

DEVELOPING NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Sometimes, the problem being addressed by a research project is the need for a new tool or product that will be useful in a given industry. Other times, a researcher is trying to answer a very basic question and in doing so develops a new technology they realize could have a larger impact.

Either way, something is invented that has potential commercial value. When that happens in university research, we engage a technology commercialization process that proceeds as follows:

The researcher informs our commercialization team about the invention.

Every one of these steps can require resources. To keep the development moving forward, we often pursue federal technology development grants at early stages, or we take on private investors at later stages. At each step there is risk of failure. But OSU innovations taken all the way to successful market penetration have great benefit to everyone involved: consumers get a tool that adds value to their lives, investors get a return on their investments, and OSU receives licensing fees and royalties that we share with the inventors and then use to invest in new innovations.

Our team assesses the potential market for the invention (likely customers; competitors, etc.).

OSU protects the intellectual property via a patent, copyright or trade secret process.

It is a long journey from the beginning to the end of the research process. And at OSU, when one project is over, it is time to start another as our research is never truly finished. That tireless dedication to finding solutions to the world’s problems is what keeps the process always in motion.

Our team works with the researcher to document proof of concept and develop a functional prototype.

The technology is scaled up and taken to market … either by licensing it to an existing company in the sector or by establishing a start-up company that will hold a license to sell the technology.

Making Drone Dreams Come True

The future of package deliveries and taxis is closer than we think and may not be what we expect. In fact, it might be up in the air.

Part of that future might take place in Tulsa as Oklahoma State University’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) program continues to expand. OSU plans to work with the Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL) to develop a center for advanced air mobility in the city.

This center will allow them to invest in the exciting realm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), sometimes referred to as uncrewed because they operate with a computer program instead of a human pilot.

Dr. Jamey Jacob, director of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute (USRI), said the program’s recent efforts are focused on developing

technologies that help OSU serve its modern landgrant mission of benefiting the public.

“The next big leap is advanced transportation, where we use similar technology that allows people to move from one place to another in an inexpensive and efficient manner — this is referred to as Urban Air Mobility (UAM),” Jacob said. “That’s the longterm trajectory of this new technology, to be able to move anything from medical supplies to people needing emergency transport and then translating this to everyday use.”

OSU has been a leader in UAV technology since USRI’s formation in 2015. As the center has grown, it has continued to work with multiple companies, as well as state and federal research agencies, to develop innovative technologies.

“It could be anything from using drones to deliver medicine or critical supplies, providing better environmental monitoring for invasive species or pollution, inspecting energy infrastructure from wind turbines to oil and natural gas wells and pipelines, observing weather for improved forecasts, or even rapid response after a natural disaster, such as a tornado, flooding or wildfire,” Jacob said.

Daniel Plaisance, leader of TIL’s Advanced Aerial Mobility programs, said OSU’s advancements in air mobility are a key element, which made them a unique partner for TIL.

“While looking around the state, we saw OSU’s UAS program as a standout in terms of potential growth,” Plaisance said. “They’re really leaders in this nationally, we hear that a lot and recognize them. OSU and the leadership team’s commitment to this is a huge asset to our state.”

TIL is a nonprofit organization backed by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. After performing an analysis of Tulsa’s highest potential industries, it was determined that advanced air mobility is a focus that would excel based on location and resources.

Plaisance said the goal of the lab is to spur the growth of new industries within Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma.

“We really think it’s essential for the future health of the city and the state to invest in and partner with groups like OSU to really think about

where we can attract economic activity and then develop homegrown economic activity in the state,” Plaisance said.

The partnership between TIL and USRI will develop a center focusing around this concept, which will be known as the Launchpad. The facility will be within the Helmerich Research Center on the OSU-Tulsa campus.

“That builds upon all of our expertise in developing UAS technology,” Jacob said. “We’ll be able to provide a hub for both companies and researchers and students to develop and nurture concepts at the OSU-Tulsa campus and partner with them to get these to market.”

This collaboration is also in line for a substantial federal funding opportunity. Out of 529 applicants, the center was selected in the summer of 2022 as one of 60 to submit a phase two application. This gives the program a chance to receive $75 million in funding across several areas. The team is currently waiting on the results from the phase two competition.

Both organizations also plan to work with the Osage Nation to develop a flight test facility called Skyway 36. The project is focused on building a corridor to fly beyond the visual line of sight, allowing companies and researchers to test out new technology close to home.

“The Osage Nation, of course, has been a great partner and is extremely interested in this,” Plaisance said.

Advanced air mobility is an early-stage industry and is only going to grow, Jacob said.

“Developing this center has the potential to set OSU and Oklahoma apart,” he said.

Supporting OSU’s land-grant mission continues to remain at the forefront of partnerships like these.

“This technology will eventually change everyone’s lives,” Jacob said. “Just like the introduction of the smartphone over a decade ago and the automobile over a century ago, drones will be ubiquitous and be used for activities we haven’t even considered yet. Having this seed of impactful change germinate and bloom on the Oklahoma plains should make us all proud.”

“The next big leap is advanced transportation, where we use similar technology that allows people to move from one place to another in an inexpensive and efficient manner — this is referred to as urban air mobility.”

DR. JAMEY JACOB, DIRECTOR OF UNMANNED SYSTEMS RESEARCH INSTITUTE (USRI)

New Frontiers to Help Feed the World

Fostering innovation through precision agriculture research and outreach

The United Nations estimates the world’s population will hit nearly 10 billion by the year 2050. Will there be enough food to feed the growing global population?

Oklahoma State University is effecting change by building a new, state-of-the-art teaching, research and Extension facility for OSU Agriculture to help combat world hunger.

When OSU alumni Kayleen and Larry Ferguson announced a historic gift that launched the New Frontiers campaign to build a new facility and rebrand the Ferguson College of Agriculture, they were called to help feed the world, said Dr. Thomas Coon, vice president and dean of OSU Agriculture.

“The New Frontiers Agricultural Hall will change and modernize our research and the way we teach scientific subjects,” he said. “It all goes back to the premise of being a modern, landgrant institution. Research has the promise to change the way we grow food and care for the natural environment we rely on. It can transform

Oklahoma’s economy, fostering innovation that will feed a growing world population.”

The New Frontiers Agricultural Hall, expected to open in fall 2024, is being created with modern teaching methods in mind, utilizing flexible laboratory spaces to serve multiple disciplines and interactive classrooms to harness students’ energy along with the excitement of innovation.

The facility will strengthen the three pillars of the land-grant mission while addressing two key challenges: attracting and retaining scientific leaders; and equipping collaborative teams with state-of-the-art laboratory and field facilities.

“New Frontiers will help position faculty and students in facilities that will equip them with the skills, knowledge and the ability to work together to help solve world hunger,” Coon said. “It will transform our efforts to become even more collaborative, bringing all of OSU Agriculture’s expertise to bear on the challenges and opportunities facing the state of Oklahoma.”

The New Frontiers Agricultural Hall is expected to open in fall 2024.

One area OSU Agriculture is focusing on to help sustainably feed a growing global population is precision agriculture research and outreach.

The OSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences is a leader in the field of precision agriculture with the development and implementation of sensor technologies.

Dr. Brian Arnall, plant and soil sciences professor and OSU Extension specialist for precision nutrient management, focuses on applied precision agriculture.

He has been involved in sensor-based technologies, remote sensing and variable rate application for more than 10 years. His work focuses on providing information and tools to producers that will lead to improved nutrient management practices and increased profitability for Oklahoma production agriculture.

“As a collaborative effort, the International Society of Precision Agriculture worked toward a standardized definition of precision agriculture,” Arnall said.

In short, precision agriculture is using information and data to make better agronomic decisions.

When designing the New Frontiers Agricultural Hall, the OSU Agriculture team strived to provide new opportunities and expand upon current research programs, said Dr. Randy Raper, assistant vice president of facilities for OSU Agriculture.

“We asked ourselves what we can accomplish with New Frontiers that we are limited from in our existing building,” he said. “The New Frontiers Agricultural Hall will include more than 24,000 square feet of research laboratory spaces that will continue to foster precision agriculture or also referred to as digital agriculture.”

The Waits Family Digital Ag Lab, funded by Matt and Kristine Waits of Stillwater, is an interdisciplinary research hub on the third floor of the new facility that will support rapidly expanding initiatives in digital agriculture.

The lab will feature simulation modeling and remote sensing applications for agricultural research including soil fertility, agronomic management and more.

Dr. Phil Alderman, associate professor in the OSU Department of Plant and Soil Sciences,

investigates the interactions between weather, climate, soil, crop genetics and management on the current and future sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems.

“The biggest advantage of the New Frontiers Agricultural Hall is having a space that is specifically designed for these types of activities,” he said. “I’m really excited to see what kinds of innovative ideas and synergistic collaborations will spark from us all being in a shared space.”

In addition, the John Deere Huddle Room, funded by Greg and Kristen Hart of Tulsa and several John Deere employees and retirees, is located within the Waits Family Digital Ag Lab and will support the use of the lab.

The Geospatial Computer Teaching Lab, also located on the third floor, is a multipurpose computer classroom and laboratory that will support geospatial core curriculum in ecology and hydrology modeling and big data visualization and analysis for the OSU Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management.

Dr. Bryan Murray, natural resource ecology and management assistant professor, will oversee the use of the Geospatial Computer Teaching Lab. His research focuses on resilience in forests and plant communities, using geospatial technologies such as unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite imagery to study living natural resources.

“While geospatial technologies allow us to collect more data than ever before, someone needs to know what to do with all of that data,” he said. “In the New Frontiers Agricultural Hall, we will have state-of-the-art classrooms and labs where we can train future ag professionals in how to use new technologies and analyze data to make more informed decisions.”

In addition to plant and soil sciences and natural resource ecology and management, other departments including biosystems and agricultural engineering, biochemistry and molecular biology, and animal and food sciences will benefit from the collaborative efforts in these spaces.

“Many institutions are rallying around precision agriculture, including Oklahoma State,” Raper said. “The New Frontiers Agricultural Hall will provide the interdisciplinary research, teaching labs and collaborative spaces to continue to be a leader in precision agriculture.”

“When OSU alumni Kayleen and Larry Ferguson announced a historic gift that launched the New Frontiers campaign to build a new facility and rebrand the Ferguson College of Agriculture, they were called to help feed the world.”

DR. THOMAS COON, VICE PRESIDENT AND DEAN OF OSU AGRICULTURE

A Future Built on Energy

Visionary donations establish Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University

The future of American energy runs through Oklahoma State University.

On Dec. 15, 2021, legislators, business leaders, media members and OSU leadership flocked to Oklahoma City for a special announcement — one that would mean a bold re-imagining of what the future holds for OSU, the state, the nation and beyond.

“Today we are sitting in a state-of-the-art facility that was first built in 2016,” OSU President Kayse Shrum told the crowd. “And now, we’re proud to announce the long-term plan for the future of this building … the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University.”

Cheers erupted from the gallery while orange and white confetti rained down. Joined by Pistol Pete and the OSU Pom Squad, members of the Cowboy Marching Band launched into “The Waving Song.” It was a moment worthy of celebration, one engineered by a combined $50 million gift from the Harold Hamm Foundation and Continental Resources. Forecasting the future of energy is a challenge, but the Hamm Institute’s mission is clear: to educate the next generation of energy leaders, cementing Oklahoma’s legacy as a global energy leader.

The initial funding for the institute and project will be a gift of $50 million — $25 million from the

Harold Hamm Foundation and $25 million from Continental Resources. Shrum called the creation of the new institute a “watershed moment” that will amplify the power of research and industry.

“The generous gifts from Harold Hamm and Continental Resources to establish the Hamm Institute for American Energy will have a transformative impact on OSU and the energy sector worldwide. With a state-of-the art lab featuring wells drilled below the building, an auditorium, and classrooms, this building is fit for purpose,” Shrum said. “Mr. Hamm’s and Continental’s generosity will bring together the brightest minds and future energy sector leaders from around the world, all with a goal of solving one of society’s most pressing concerns. Together, we will change the trajectory of energy security in the United States.”

The Hamm Institute will be located in what was formerly known as OSU DISCOVERY, 300 NE 9th St. in the Oklahoma City Innovation District, and will become the primary and permanent occupant of the building. The Hamm Institute will become the center of all things American energy, hosting symposiums, authors, speakers, energy summits and global energy leadership conversations.

The building will eventually house the Oklahoma Hall of Energy Legends Interactive Museum, a public exhibit highlighting the history and storied legacy of Oklahoma’s great energy leaders.

A native Oklahoman, Hamm is recognized as a national leader and staunch advocate of America’s domestic oil and natural gas industry. He has spent over five and a half decades in the industry, from starting his own oil services business to founding energy exploration and production giant Continental Resources.

“I see the institute as a game changer — a place where the best and the brightest will come together to responsibly solve the world’s energy challenges,” Hamm said. “A third of the world lives in energy poverty. We need to fix that. And we need to make sure Americans will always have an abundance of reliable, affordable energy for generations to come.”

In acknowledgement of Continental’s contributions, the concourse and auditorium were renamed the Continental Resources Concourse and Continental Resources Auditorium. The program fund supporting the institute also will be named in recognition of Continental.

The announcement of the creation of the Hamm Institute came on the heels of another landmark announcement — the creation of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education — and just before yet another — the creation of the DOD Counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems) Center of Excellence (COE). In April, Kenneth

Wagner was appointed the inaugural executive director of the Hamm Institute for American Energy. With 23 years of experience in the energy industry, including serving as Oklahoma’s secretary of energy and environment, Wagner brings a high level of expertise to the role.

OSU Senior Vice President of Operations Jerome Loughridge said it all adds up to significant momentum for the university.

“This is another major milestone for OSU, which doubles as a milestone for our state and for society at large,” he said. “When we talk about the landgrant mission, what we’re really talking about is our ability, as an institution, to put research to work for Oklahoma. It means innovation, collaboration and finding solutions to real-world problems. Energy is a ubiquitous need, and OSU is perfectly positioned to be a leader in this space.

We amplify the power of research, and this new institute will be at the center of energy innovation in Oklahoma for decades to come.”

BUILDING A LEGACY OF INNOVATION

JULY 28, 2020

OSU announces technology collaboration with Baker Hughes and the donation of the Baker Hughes Energy Innovation Center located in the Innovation District east of downtown Oklahoma City.

OCT. 1, 2020

OSU Engineering students get first tour of new OSU facility.

DEC. 17, 2020

OSU unveils new name for facility: OSU DISCOVERY.

SUMMER 2021

OSU DISCOVERY plays host to STEM camps organized by the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology.

AUG. 18, 2021

OSU announces launch of Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education.

DEC. 15, 2021

The Harold Hamm Foundation and Continental Resources announce a combined $50 million gift to create the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University.

JAN. 31, 2022

Hamm Institute hosts launch announcement for new DOD CounterUAS (unmanned aerial systems) Center of Excellence (COE).

APRIL 26, 2022

Kenneth Wagner appointed inaugural executive director of the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University.

Above earth, Below space

OSU technology testing radiation in space

Around 100 kilometers above the Earth, outer space starts. And right on that edge — called the Kármán line — is where a growing interest in space tourism and a need for new research is beginning.

It’s also drawn the focus of Oklahoma State University researchers trying to understand how radiation works in the atmosphere and its impact on technology and people.

Dr. Eric Benton, a radiation physicist at OSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, is leading the research with his team at OSU and has a radiation detector set to fly on a Blue Origin rocket in 2023.

The flight will be suborbital — flying up between 100 to 120 kilometers (around 60-75 miles), Benton said. It’s a very short flight, only about 11 minutes, he added.

But while the flights are short, the radiation is considerably more intense than what a person will get on the ground, or while flying in a commercial jetliner. The duration of the flight means there isn’t much danger, but there is still a need to monitor radiation, Benton said.

“It is prudent and ethical to pay attention to it and to measure it,” he said. “If something very strange happens physiologically with somebody, then you can probably rule out radiation as being the culprit because you would have independent measurements saying that the radiation level was really low or well within expected limits.”

Outside of health and safety, radiation also plays a key role in the ever-advancing technology age.

“A lot of electronics are quite sensitive to radiation,” Benton said. “And they are getting more sensitive because they’re

A main part of the radiation detector is the tissue equivalent proportional counter, which measures radiation with the same sensitivity as human tissue.

shrinking the size of these electronics down. So they’ve got to pay attention to that.”

This detector was developed as part of a program called the AIRE Institute, which Benton started at OSU with a couple of colleagues.

“AIRE stands for atmospheric ionizing radiation environment,” he said. “And so, as the name says, we’re really interested in the radiation environment that’s found in the atmosphere, especially at higher altitudes.”

The institute is something that’s evolved out of work that all got started because of NASA EPSCoR, Benton said.

“NASA EPSCoR in Oklahoma and nationwide, but in Oklahoma especially for me, has been really generous in supporting our work,” Benton said. “In 2008, when we got our first NASA EPSCoR grant for this radiation detector technology — that really started this.”

Benton had performed space research before using other kinds of detectors called passive detectors that act like film. But as technology improved, there was a demand to be able to see the time radiation occurred as well, Benton said.

“That meant abandoning these passive radiation detectors and going for what is called active radiation detectors: electronic devices that store the data on a computer,” he said. “So it was really clear, this is where I had to go.”

It turns out that one of the people who developed this active technology

had retired to Stillwater and was working with a researcher named Stephen McKeever, who was in the physics department at OSU and later served as vice president of research from 2003-2013.

“And I realized that I need to learn how to do this. I need to learn this new technology, this is where my future is,” Benton said. “So, we started from scratch. I mean, similar detectors had been flown before, but they were very expensive. And it was pretty much proprietary technology. We had to reinvent the whole thing from scratch for ourselves. And the real major emphasis we put on it was to make it a lot cheaper.”

Most of what the team has worked on in the past has been space oriented, which would be at an altitude of around 400 kilometers. But now they are looking more toward the sky and not past it.

“With Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, they’re starting this whole idea of space tourism,” Benton said. “And we hope to be the radiation dosimetry providers for space tourism, and this is sort of our first shot at that.”

From a scientific point of view, very few measurements have ever been taken on these suborbital flights, Benton said.

“There’s lots of data from space and from aboard the space station, and before that from space shuttles and spacecraft like that, but up at these higher altitudes in the atmosphere, there’s practically none,” he said.

“We’re very interested in filling in that gap in our knowledge.”

The detector itself consists of several parts, but the main piece is called a tissue equivalent proportional counter.

“This is a spherical detector that is filled with low-pressure gas. And the tricky thing is that it’s a rather large sphere, maybe about two inches in diameter, but the gas is under very low pressure,” Benton said. “And the walls of the chamber are made of plastic, which is essentially the same as tissue — it’s carbon, oxygen and hydrogen — so the density is very similar to human tissue.”

This means the response of the detector to radiation, which is monitored on a computer, is very similar to that of what human tissue would be to that same radiation, which simplifies how the radiation is going to affect passengers and pilots quite a bit, Benton said.

And everything fits into a small container a little smaller than the size of a shoe box.

For the Blue Origin flight, the team has been assigned one of 36 lockers aboard the ship where they will not only mount their detector, but also plan to include more detectors from other organizations to compare data with.

The other detectors Benton and his team intend to include will be from a company called HERADO, based in Athens, Greece; the Solar and Terrestrial Physics Institute of Bulgaria; and the Nuclear Physics Institute of

This radiation detector, or dosimeter, was developed at the AIRE Institute at Oklahoma State University.

the Czech Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic.

“This all ties into something that’s called space weather,” Benton said. “There has been a growing appreciation amongst industry that things that are happening on the sun can have really adverse effects on our technology, or on health.”

The team is hoping to fill in this niche in the study of space weather that is just now getting new attention, Benton said.

Outside of their suborbital tests, Benton’s team is also preparing a detector to fly on a SpaceX rocket to be deployed on the International Space Station in 2023 and is working on detectors for lower-level balloon flights with OSU’s Unmanned Systems Research Institute.

From left: Martin Yang, Conner Heffernan, Dr. Eric Benton, Garrett Thornton and Tristen Lee.

“WITH BLUE ORIGIN AND VIRGIN GALACTIC, THEY’RE STARTING THIS WHOLE IDEA OF SPACE TOURISM. AND WE HOPE TO BE THE RADIATION DOSIMETRY PROVIDERS FOR SPACE TOURISM, AND THIS IS SORT OF OUR FIRST SHOT AT THAT.” Dr. Eric Benton

Animal Science Answers on Research

Picking the mind of OSU’s animal and food sciences department head

Dr. Richard Coffey has worked in a variety of research areas over the course of his academic and professional career.

While earning both a master’s degree and doctorate, his research focused largely on swine nutrition and covered the specific areas of protein sources for nursery pigs and the bioavailability of phosphorus in feedstuffs for swine.

Coffey was named the new head of the Oklahoma State University Department of Animal and Food Sciences in March 2022. Research Matters asked Coffey to reflect on his career thus far and what he hopes to accomplish at OSU.

The OSU Department of Animal and Food Sciences is well known nationally for its research discoveries as new projects address sustainability efforts, climate change awareness and water quality/ accessibility standards. How will you lead faculty into a new era of these research areas?

Without question, these will be important issues going forward, and it is important that animal and food sciences, along with other departments in the OSU Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, be on the leading edge of discovery and application research. These efforts will help our livestock producers continue to serve as leaders in natural resource stewardship.

As a department head, there are several ways to support faculty success in these areas. First, I can help make sure they have the

resources they need. Certainly, keeping our animal units viable for faculty research is key, and using some of the department’s discretionary funds to support related work and infrastructure can encourage faculty to carry out research that addresses these topics.

Also, I’m looking forward to connecting faculty with funding agencies that support work in these areas. Additionally, by developing relationships with other departments in OSU Agriculture, as well as with other institutions across the U.S. and the world, I can support faculty collaboration with other researchers to approach these important areas from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Six new faculty positions have been approved in Animal and Food Sciences. Will some of those new hires have research appointments? How will you prioritize their focus areas?

It is exciting to think about adding six new faculty positions to support the important work of the department, and conversations are currently underway to determine the highest priority needs for these positions.

With over 1,000 undergraduate students in the animal science major, there is clearly a need for additional full-time equivalent employees in teaching. However, it is also important that we identify the critical gaps in research expertise and target some effort in these areas. This will not only enhance the department’s research capabilities but also aid and expand our graduate student training capacity.

The Department of Animal and Food Sciences is the largest department in the Ferguson College of Agriculture. How will the unit capitalize on its size and strength to contribute to agricultural research?

Having such a large population of undergraduate students provides the department a great opportunity to expose many of these students to projects and potential careers involved in research. A great way to do this is through undergraduate research projects. This not only gives students knowledge of how to use scientific discoveries to solve important problems, but it also expands the research capabilities of the department.

Additionally, though students major in specific programs within the OSU Department of Animal and Food Sciences, they have a broad range of interests. This allows our advisors to assist students in identifying areas outside of the department for research opportunities.

A lot of OSU ag research involves multidisciplinary projects beyond single-focus issues. How does the Department of Animal and Food Sciences collaborate outside the Ferguson College of Agriculture with other departments across campus?

So many of the challenges confronting our livestock and food producers can only be addressed through multidisciplinary approaches. As an example, a sound environmental plan for a livestock operation will involve several different disciplines including:

Animal science to address nutritional/ feeding programs that meet animals’ dietary needs without excess nutrient excretion into the environment.

Veterinary medicine as animal health can impact efficiency of nutrient utilization.

Biosystems and agricultural engineering because animal housing and manure collection systems can impact the volume and type of nutrients applied to land.

Plant and soil sciences because crops, types of soil and cropping practices impact land application of manure.

Agricultural economics , as all practices associated with environmental management must allow the operation to remain economically sustainable.

Explain the role of OSU Extension in sharing agricultural research that advances Oklahoma and its residents.

I am a firm believer that the research we do ultimately should benefit our stakeholders — it needs to be tactics and strategies the citizens of Oklahoma can adopt to improve their quality of life. The beauty of the land-grant system is that Extension provides a direct link between the research that is being conducted and the stakeholders who can benefit from the research. State and regional Extension specialists, along with county Extension educators, provide education and demonstrations on the research that is developed at the university level and distributed to Oklahoma residents and beyond.

One of the real blessings during my 21 years as an Extension swine specialist was getting to work with producers and seeing them adopt the new technologies and management practices developed by researchers. I witnessed the positive impact these new ideas had on their operations and families.

Dr. Richard Coffey tours the OSU Swine Center with herd manager Jim Coakley. Coffey’s career has involved more than 20 years of swine research.

The Future of Farming

Researchers at OSU are studying how technology impacts agriculture

Improving the sustainability, efficiency and environmental impacts of crops, water and cattle requires precise decisions.

Researchers at Oklahoma State University are focused on how technology and science can aid in that process.

“The whole goal of precision ag is improving efficiencies — efficiencies of input and output — and to be more sustainable both economically and environmentally,” said Dr. Brian Arnall, professor and OSU Extension specialist. “The purpose of most precision ag technologies is to put the right amount of something in the right place at the right rate at the right time. We need data and information to do that, and that’s what precision ag is — using data and information to make management decisions.”

Arnall, a specialist in precision nutrient management, and his colleagues are trying to find better ways to identify what nutrients soil needs. They are especially focused on phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) fertilizers in soil, conducting their tests through soil testing with sensors and remote imagery.

The research began in the fall of 2022 with researchers applying P and K fertilizer strips on wheat and soybean fields to determine if there are technologies that do a good job of predicting crop needs.

But technological innovations in precision agriculture at OSU don’t stop with crop management. OSU and the Oklahoma Water Resources Center are working hand-in-hand to not only make cattle production more efficient but to also improve the health of Oklahoma’s water resources.

VIRTUAL FENCING

OSU researchers took their research on virtual fencing technology to the next level in the fall of 2022 with a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We’re looking at how managed grazing with virtual fencing can improve grazing distribution, pasture biodiversity and productivity, and wildlife and pollinator habitat,” said

Dr. Ryan Reuter, professor of range beef cattle nutrition in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences.

The technology was introduced in 2019 during a pilot project. There, researchers observed where a group of cattle liked to congregate for two weeks before implementing a virtual fence and exclusion zone on that spot for about 10 days. The experiment resulted in a 99% success rate at keeping cattle out of that zone.

The current phase of the research is studying the grazing habits of cattle in riparian zones — areas bordering bodies of surface water — and upland areas — land at a higher elevation.

The team hopes to learn how much time the cattle spend in areas preferred by researchers versus how often they move into areas researchers want them to avoid. The study will also show how virtual fencing improves the grasslands environment where cattle graze.

“We’ll have an exclusion zone around the riparian area so they can’t get down in the creek, and we will do some rotational grazing where we move cattle around the pasture to control their grazing patterns,” Reuter said. “We’re

going to look at whether the water runoff quality improves when we do that.”

IMPROVING DAM INFRASTRUCTURE

Many dams in Oklahoma are reaching the end of their planned life spans.

One year into a five-year project to improve dam infrastructure, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Oklahoma Water Resources Center scientists are adding some high-quality tech to their tool bag.

“These dams are still considered quite safe, but due to the number of these structures and their planned service life coming to an end, we need to be vigilant in monitoring them and develop cost-effective rehabilitation options so communities can continue to benefit from these structures for years to come,” said Sherry Hunt, supervisory civil engineer for the Hydraulic Engineering Research Unit (HERU) with the USDAAgricultural Research Service.

Oklahoma dams provide $90 million in annual benefits to residents, Hunt said.

“These dams are located on the upper tributaries of small watersheds

Oklahoma State University animal and food science graduate students Brittany Lippy and Addie Womack put new batteries into virtual fencing collars during a recollaring session.

and provide flood protection, rural and municipal water supplies, irrigation water, healthy ecosystems, and recreation and tourism,” Hunt said.

At HERU, researchers design miniature versions of these flood control structures made of natural earth materials and run water over them or through them to see how the dams hold up.

The USDA and OWRC partners are developing tools to assess dam erosion and stability. These tools include artificial intelligence, drones and smartphone applications that can predict future issues with earthen dams.

Another aspect of the project entails creating a cloud-based storage system for the sensor data collected and making it available to researchers and decision makers on a continuous basis. Researchers are also developing an app to go with the cloud system as a streamlined way of viewing the data.

THE OKLAHOMA WELL OWNER NETWORK PROGRAM

Oklahoma well owners are on their way to healthier drinking water thanks to the Oklahoma Well Owner Network (OWON) Program.

The program, led by the OWRC and OSU Extension, provides free residential well water testing and training to rural counties in Oklahoma.

“In 2018, we surveyed citizens across Oklahoma on what their biggest water resource concerns were,” said Dr. Kevin Wagner, OWRC director. “Consistently across the state, Oklahomans’ key concern was drinking water quality.”

To address this concern in rural Oklahoma, OWRC conducted a pilot program in Alfalfa, Pontotoc and Tillman counties in spring 2022 with the help of OSU environmental science students. Over 150 water samples were tested during the pilot program, and twothirds of participants said they planned to adopt annual well water testing.

Senior environmental science student Rayna Ellison said she conducted the research in her hometown during the pilot program. Then, in the summer of 2022, OWRC partnered with the OSU Rural Renewal Initiative to expand services to Greer, Tillman and Harmon counties, along

with training and teaching experience for Ellison. OWRC and OSU Extension hope to obtain additional funding to continue the program into 2023.

“The citizens who participated in the program were grateful to have access to water quality information, and they were coming back with questions on how to improve their water and began working to improve their wells in the weeks following the program,” Ellison said.

To participate, well owners in these counties submit a water sample from their private wells to their local OSU Extension office for testing. OWRC researchers then test the samples for nitrates, total dissolved solids (salts), pH levels and bacteria. The test results are relayed to the well owners through a one-hour, in-person educational program led by OSU students and OWRC staff.

“This program demonstrates OSU’s land-grant mission in the terms of Extension, ag research and education,” said Dr. Abu Mansaray, a research specialist with OWRC, who has been part of the planning and execution of the program. “We are reaching out to Oklahoma communities to help address a critical problem that is not covered by federal and state agencies.”

IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT RESEARCH

Knowing when crops need water can be difficult, but technology may help make those crucial decisions easier.

In collaboration with faculty, students from the OSU Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering recently completed a study to evaluate the effectiveness of common soil moisture sensors.

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board predicts that crop irrigation will make up 36% of the total water demands in 2060.

The goal was to determine the effectiveness of smart irrigation technologies — such as sensors and other WiFi-connected devices.

These sensors were designed to be affordable while still providing highly accurate readings. The sensors mount in the ground and connect to a data logger that sends their data to a cloud-based storage system.

To test the sensors, the team monitored soil moisture in cotton crops for two growing seasons. Researchers also collected soil samples and analyzed them for bulk density, soil moisture content, texture, salinity and soil moisture thresholds. This allowed for a comparison of the two methods.

“Specifically, we wanted to see what the water content was in those samples so we could compare them to the data being taken by the sensors,” said Mukesh Mehata, biosystems engineering graduate student. “By doing so, we could see how accurate the sensors are.”

The results showed that the sensors were effective in monitoring soil moisture at multiple root zone depths. However, their accuracy degraded rapidly as the clay content and salinity increased in the soil with as high as 30% error in these conditions. The main finding was that the sensors are effective when clay content and salinity are low, but site-specific calibration is required as those and other factors increase.

“We can’t ask producers to adopt technologies that are inaccurate and too expensive,” said Rio Bonham, a senior in biosystems engineering. “We feel confident a producer can put these in the ground, and with proper calibration, they are not going to over or under water their fields.”

CONTINUING INNOVATION

Continuously looking for ways to improve the efficiency and output of agricultural production through the use of technology will not stop there for OSU, according to Dr. Scott Senseman, associate vice president of OSU Ag Research.

“In my view, agriculture has always been more technical than it has been given credit for, but agriculture in 2022 is even more technical,” Senseman said. “The use of advanced genetics, along with management of crops using drone technology and the creation and analysis of large data sets is another realm of advancement in ag technology.

“Our land-grant university is right in the middle of technological advancements and helping our producers incorporate these advancements in their production systems.”

“Our land-grant university is right in the middle of technological advancements and helping our producers incorporate these advancements in their production systems.” DR. SCOTT SENSEMAN, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT OF OSU AG RESEARCH

From left: Max Bode, Abu Mansaray and Rocky Guy test well water samples from Oklahoma well owners.

Colossal Computing

OSU receives large NSF grant to build new supercomputer

Researchers at OSU recently were awarded a Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a new supercomputer.

This supercomputer will be funded by a $5.7 million grant, of which NSF will contribute $4 million and OSU will contribute $1.7 million. This award issued under the MRI mechanism is one of the largest granted to build a supercomputer.

Able to process immense amounts of data at once, this supercomputer, housed at the OSUStillwater campus, will be the largest in Oklahoma and several nearby states. The new technology will elevate the research capabilities of the state and the nation and make OSU the leader in supercomputing for the Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas (OAK) region.

“OSU has long provided high-performance research computing to our faculty and students, driving OSU accomplishments in big data analytics, genomics and other key arenas,” said Dr. Kenneth Sewell, OSU vice president for research. “The increased capabilities this grant will create allow us to expand our leadership to the entire region, multiplying our impact.”

OSU’s current supercomputer — Pete — serves over 1,600 users from various institutions in Oklahoma, but this new machine will be a leap forward in technological capabilities.

“This is a big moment for OSU and HPCC,” said Dr. Pratul Agarwal, assistant vice president of research cyber-infrastructure and the director of HPCC. “The new supercomputer will be powered by the latest generation computing hardware including GPUs (Graphics Processing Units). It is being designed to address the needs of researchers across the OAK region.”

This supercomputer will enable researchers to tackle tough problems in agriculture, human and animal health, and fundamental research as well as help in educating students, Agarwal said.

“The reason supercomputers are important is that a lot of new research discoveries are now being driven by data analysis,” Agarwal said. “The volume of data which has been collected is tremendous. And we need resources that can analyze this amount of data, which is beyond a laptop and even beyond a group of computers.”

Researchers also need a resource that can analyze the data as it’s being generated, Agarwal said.

“You don’t want to be in a situation where the data is being generated in a day, and it takes several months to process it, because then you keep on falling behind,” he added. “So you need the right scale of computing to be able to keep up with research and discoveries.”

Supercomputing also allows scientists to ask questions that cannot be answered by any kind of data collection or any kind of experiment. For example, modeling what happens to materials at extremely high temperatures, Agarwal said.

The OSU-led proposal was a joint effort between OSU, Arkansas State University, Wichita State University, Kansas State University, the University of Tulsa, the University of Central Oklahoma, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and the Great Plains Network.

Outside of providing the resource to the OAK region, OSU will also use the supercomputer to contribute to research through consortia such as Open Science Grid consortium (osg-htc.org/) and PATh (path-cc.io/)

Dr. Pratul Agarwal, assistant vice president of research cyberinfrastructure and the director of HPCC.

Sports card explosion holds promise for keeping kids engaged in math

When it comes to collecting sports cards, people often focus on the cards’ financial worth. And understandably so.

After all, when a small piece of cardboard that originally cost just dollars or even cents is suddenly worth more than a million bucks after the featured player rises to fame, it’s hard to ignore the kind of massive wealth that certain sports cards can command.

For instance, a 1952 Mickey Mantle card sold for a then-record US$5.2 million in January 2021. A 2003-2004 LeBron James card also sold for $5.2 million in April 2021.

The highest-selling sports card in history is one that features Honus Wagner, which sold for $6.6 million in August 2021.

As a business professor who focuses on sports, I would never knock the trading of sports cards as a way to make an extra buck or as a hobby, or even just to pocket a piece or two of sports memorabilia — or just for the nostalgia of it all. But as an educator, I see another purpose for sports cards that goes well beyond memorabilia and their monetary worth.

And that is, I believe sports cards — just like sports in general — can be integrated into the classroom as a way to stimulate students’ interest in math, probability, statistics and other related subjects they might otherwise dread.

This can be done at the college level, which I have done. But more importantly, I believe it should be done at the K-12 level as well. Integrating sports into the classroom is what math curriculum specialist Natalie Kautz of Rowan University and her colleague Michelle Kowalsky argue in a book about using pop culture to reach K-12 students.

“The rich variety of numbers generated by all types of sports, as well as connections to popular culture extensions, naturally provides opportunities for exploration in numerical literacy,” Kautz and Kowalksy wrote in a chapter about using sports as a way to foster numerical literacy

among students. “Using real sports data, students can perform operations and calculations, do statistical analyses, and create charts or graphs to enhance their learning of both basic and advanced operations.”

They go on to say that “nearly every concept taught in a K-12 mathematics curriculum” lends itself to a sport-based lesson of some sort.

RESURGENT INTEREST

Now is a particularly good time to use sports cards in the classroom. Trading cards have grown quite popular as of late due to the pandemic.

For example, in 2020, interest in sports card collecting grew as sports games were canceled due to COVID-19. Such a scenario may be slowly unfolding anew as new variants of the coronavirus have begun to cause officials to postpone or cancel sports contests once again in late 2021 going into 2022.

CARDS IN THE CLASSROOM

Using sports as a teaching tool is not an abstract concept for me. Back in 2017 and 2018 at Florida State University, I used baseball and basketball cards to teach a class about sports analytics, which is essentially the use of data analytics in the world of sports.

Sports analytics — which is expected to become a $3.44 billion industry globally by 2028 — is playing an increasingly vital role in sports. For instance, some colleges use it to recruit athletic talent. Professional sports teams, such as the Golden State Warriors, have used analytics as the “secret sauce to championship success.”

The class I taught attracted mostly sport management majors but was open to other students as well. And sports trading cards played a prominent role in my class.

For instance, to teach the Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball, which baseball analytics guru Bill James developed to estimate how many games

STORY JOHN HOLDEN, PH.D.

PHOTO

a team will win, I would have students “draft” players by randomly picking cards from packs. Then, using statistics from the same year for the selected players, I would have students tally the runs scored for the hitters and the runs allowed for the pitchers. Once students collect those two numbers, all that remains is putting them into the formula of Runs Scored squared divided by Runs Scored squared plus Runs Allowed squared. This formula then produces a winning percentage estimate.

Within the context of sports analytics, the idea is to show students that various statistics, when looked at collectively, can be used to predict certain outcomes. But such an exercise can also be used just to get students comfortable with statistics and using them in different ways.

Students have enjoyed seeing how their teams performed using something like a standings page that they might see on ESPN.

I did a similar exercise using packs of basketball cards I bought online. I would have students select a pack of cards and then rank the players using economics professor David Berri’s “Win Score” formula. The simple formula requires students to add a player’s points, rebounds and steals from one season together, then add half of their assists and half of their blocked shots. Students then subtract a player’s field goal attempts, turnovers and half of their free throw attempts — again, from the same season — along with half of the player’s personal fouls. This enables a person to develop a snapshot of a player’s performance. But it also shows students how they can use statistics to analyze a player’s performance in different ways.

AT ALL LEVELS

One of the best things about using sports cards is that they can be used at any grade level. For example, in preschool, you can use the cards to help kids learn and remember numbers by having them read the numbers on players’ jerseys.

In elementary school, students can use the information on the back of baseball cards to learn division. Simple exercises like dividing a player’s number of hits by their total number of times at bat produces the player’s batting average — a key statistic in baseball.

Sports trading cards lend themselves to all sorts of fun and lively lessons. For instance, in 2020, the Topps trading card company put forth a series of lessons that teachers could do using sports trading cards. In one lesson, the company invited teachers to ask students to find the average age of

five players in their card collection. Another lesson called for students to organize 10 cards based on a player’s weight from heaviest to lightest as fast as students could.

FLIPPING THE CARDS

The use of sports cards in the classroom could serve as a way to help maintain interest in math — a subject in which students’ skills have taken a hit during the pandemic. Interest in a subject is key for learning the subject and succeeding at it.

For all these reasons, instead of focusing on the photographs on the face of sports cards, I believe the time has come for educators to start making better use of the statistics on the backs of the cards. While the photos on the front tend to generate the most attention, the statistics on the back of the card provide multiple ways to engage students in math using a sport they love or an athlete that they admire.

Dr. John Holden, assistant professor of legal studies at Oklahoma State University wrote this story in partnership with The Conversation. The Conversation is a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to sharing research from experts like those on our faculty. Read more from our faculty by going to okla.st/theconversation

Dr. John Holden

Keeping the Skies Safe

OSU institute announces military partnership for counter-UAS research

Whether it’s amazing aerial photography or video; monitoring critical infrastructure such as bridges, buildings and pipelines; or simply as a means of entertainment for the whole family racing against opponents through obstacle courses, the role drones have in society continues to expand.

However, some researchers at Oklahoma State University are designing and developing technologies to keep our skies safe from those wishing to use drones for more nefarious reasons.

The Unmanned Systems Research Institute (USRI) at OSU has announced the formation of a Department of Defense Counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems) Center of Excellence (COE).

Created in partnership with the U.S. military and industry leaders, the center will elevate USRI’s capacity to develop state-of-the-art technology and a highly trained workforce equipped to sustain growth well into the future.

The newly formed COE will provide a collaborative environment to rapidly develop and test counter-UAS capabilities, as well as bolster the U.S. military’s ability to attract a skilled, security-cleared workforce to develop and test this technology.

“With the funding I was able to secure in this year’s [National Defense Authorization Act], Oklahoma State University has the great privilege to open the Counter UAS Center of Excellence, which will support counter-UAS activities across

The Counter-UAS Center of Excellence will provide researchers and industry and military partners a collaborative platform to design, produce and test new counter-UAS technologies.

our nation’s military,” said U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, who has been instrumental in the formation of the COE. “I am proud of all the work we’ve been able to accomplish together over the years and I look forward to seeing how OSU will bring about great change with the Center of Excellence.”

The center will have a formal grand opening in the fall, coinciding with a counter-UAS symposium being held at USRI’s offices in Oklahoma City. Although the center’s work will be performed predominantly at the EXCELSIOR lab on OSU’s Stillwater campus, the footprint of the center’s reach will extend to OSU’s facilities in Oklahoma City — such as the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University — and to the U.S. Army facilities at Fort Sill near Lawton, Oklahoma. Fort Sill has recently been selected to house the Joint Counter-UAS University to provide training across all branches of military for the U.S. USRI — housed in OSU’s College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology — will provide expertise on unmanned systems, autonomy, advanced materials and navigation solutions, as well as potential workforce candidates that will now have extensive, hands-on experience with systems and technologies developed through the COE.

“This goes back to OSU’s land-grant mission to not only support the needs of the citizens of the state, but to also assist both industry and other state and federal agencies,” said Dr. Jamey Jacob, USRI director and OSU professor. “This Center

of Excellence provides the capability to address the needs of the DOD at large by providing cutting edge counter-UAS solutions, more specifically for the Army — its training mission at Fort Sill and its Counter-UAS university— as well as provide for the safety and well-being of the United States.”

As the adoption of UAS technology becomes more common, the need for systems designed to counter these technologies continues to grow. The COE will provide OSU and the state of Oklahoma the opportunity to continue its growing leadership role in aerospace and UAS research.

EXCELSIOR, home to USRI, will be the hub for research conducted on OSU-Stillwater’s campus. However, other locations in Oklahoma City and at Fort Sill will be utilized, as well.

The Counter-UAS COE will provide an experienced and knowledgeable workforce capable of developing new technologies well into the future.

More Alike Than We Know

Vet med researcher seeks to reduce cardiovascular diseases by controlling nervous system activity

Issues with weight are a common point of discussion across the country, but people aren’t the only ones dealing with it.

Obesity is a common condition in both humans and animals that increases the risk of developing deadly diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease.

The Centers for Disease Control reported that obesity prevalence in the U.S. was at 42% in March 2020. Among pets, more than 53% of adult dogs and 55% of cats are classified as overweight or obese.

Dr. Madhan Subramanian, assistant professor in the physiological sciences department at Oklahoma State University’s College of Veterinary

Medicine, seeks to understand the effects obesity and aging have on the body and how to reduce the associated risks.

“Both obesity and aging cause an increased risk for cardiovascular disease,” Subramanian said. “We are trying to understand how obesity or aging affects your brain and in turn increases your risk for cardiovascular diseases. What we are trying to understand is applicable to both humans and animals.”

To understand these effects more clearly, Subramanian and his team are interested in evaluating the autonomic nervous system.

“The autonomic nervous system has two sides: a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system,” Subramanian said. “The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for the ‘flight or fight’ response in stressful situations. The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for controlling the body’s ability to relax or ‘rest and digest.’”

In conditions such as obesity, activity in the sympathetic nervous system is elevated.

“The brain controls the autonomic nervous system,” Subramanian said. “So, changes happening in the brain, such as oxidative stress or neuroinflammation, can lead to an overactive sympathetic nervous system. This puts more pressure on your blood vessels, leading to hypertension, which is high blood pressure, and this in turn stresses your heart, increasing your risk for cardiovascular diseases.”

Individuals who have pre-existing conditions or are of an advanced age are at a higher risk to develop complications from viruses, as many learned during the pandemic.

“COVID-19 affected mainly people with increased cardiovascular diseases who had preexisting conditions, like type 2 diabetes or obesity,” Subramanian said. “Similarly, it affected the aging population more than the healthy, young population. If we can find more ways to bring a healthy life span among these groups, that would be the best way to prevent any form of severe disease progression.”

Dr. Madhan Subramanian

Over the next five years, Subramanian aims to target sympathetic nervous system activity in hopes of regulating it.

“The sympathetic nervous system activity controls different end organs, such as the heart, kidneys and blood vessels,” Subramanian said. “If there are more ways to regulate sympathetic nervous system activity, then that would have tremendous translational potential both for humans and animals.”

Subramanian is working with biomedical engineers to develop a neuro-modulatory device that will aid in the control of sympathetic nervous system activity and in turn impact how it affects the end organs, reducing the risk of life-threatening cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Madhan Subramanian, assistant professor in the physiological sciences department at Oklahoma State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, seeks to understand the effects obesity and aging have on the body and how to reduce the associated risks.

“We are trying to understand how obesity or aging affects your brain and in turn increases your risk for cardiovascular diseases. What we are trying to understand is applicable to both humans and animals.”

DR. MADHAN SUBRAMANIAN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Easing Transition

Center for Immigrant Health and Education aims to help immigrants adjust to new life

While on a mission in Venezuela, Dr. Ron Cox experienced what many immigrants feel when they come to the United States, including both discrimination and rejection.

This experience was a driving force for Cox, professor in Oklahoma State University’s College of Education and Human Sciences, to create the Center for Immigrant Health and Education.

“I had hope for a bright future in my new home [Venezuela], yet I experienced discrimination and rejection from some people, and acceptance and friendship from others,” Cox said.

Upon his return to the United States, Cox found himself feeling the same sensations in reverse and saw a change in the way he viewed the place he called home. It was an abrupt realization that he was different, but so was the country he moved back to.

“I had become a stranger in my own land. What felt comfortable before, now felt odd, not bad necessarily, but odd. People didn’t intentionally make me feel like I didn’t belong, but there were little things that seemed slightly out of place,” Cox said.

This alien feeling pushed Cox toward other immigrants who better understood his feelings. The Center for Immigrant Health and Education was created to assist immigrants from all countries in adjusting to a life in a new place.

“The Center for Immigrant Health and Education brings together top

scholars in the field to discover factors leading to an enhanced quality of life for immigrant families, to elaborate effective psychosocial interventions and to prepare the next generation of scholars dedicated to immigrant health and education,” Cox said.

The Center for Immigrant Health and Education is attempting to preserve and learn about the culture of the immigrant children who are born between two worlds, Cox said. Researchers are also exploring the extent that Shared Language Erosion affects parent-child relationships as well as child health and educational outcomes.

“Shared Language Erosion is a phenomenon discovered by our researchers when second-generation immigrant children enter school and begin to lose the ability to speak and understand their heritage language,” Cox said. “Simultaneously, their parents’ English language skills only increase modestly creating the erosion.”

The center helps families by providing resources they need to become successful in a new country. Maritza Leon Cartagena, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, immigrated to the United States from Puerto Rico when she was 13. Cartagena has provided resources to the immigrant families in Oklahoma for over five years both at OSU and at Stillwater Public Schools.

“People immigrate to this country because they have a dream to better their lives and we as a community have the resources and ability to help them with this dream,” Cartagena said.

Cartagena works with immigrants who want to obtain their GED and improve their English skills. She has helped to set up classes at SPS to help children better their Spanish speaking skills. Cartagena said adults often come to the country with learned skills but don’t know how to apply those skills to the United States job market, often taking jobs they were never trained to do. They need help finding jobs they like and already have the skillset for.

“Whenever I talk to my students or their parents, I always remind them that they shouldn’t feel at a loss or held back because of a language barrier,” Cartagena said. “It is rewarding to see the light in their eyes when the resources keep getting provided.”

Because of the language barrier, parents find themselves feeling disconnected from their children, feeling as though their children are living in two different worlds and they are only in one of those worlds.

“I hear the words ‘I’m stuck’ almost every time I work with parents,” Cartagena said. “The parents need just as much help as the children.”

There has been little research validating the psychosocial tendencies of immigrants. Cox and Cartagena say immigrant children have an

Researchers at the Center for Immigrant Health and Education work to help people transition to the U.S. while maintaining their culture.

overarching fear of being deported that affects their performance at school.

“The research has found that the children will be more successful in school and have a better outlook on life if hope is high,” Cartagena said. “The greater the level of fear, the greater the chance the children will get involved in substance abuse and will have a worse relationship with their parents.”

The center is working to formulate goals and assist the parents and children on how to cope with this fear and increase their hope to help immigrant families have the most successful adaptation to the U.S. as possible.

“The Center for Immigrant Health and Education brings together top scholars in the field to discover factors leading to an enhanced quality of life for immigrant families, to elaborate effective psychosocial interventions and to prepare the next generation of scholars dedicated to immigrant health and education.”

DR. RON COX, FOUNDER OF CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT HEALTH AND EDUCATION

THE FUTURE ROCKS

OSU RESEARCHERS ARE

WORKING TO IDENTIFY AND MONITOR AREAS

WHERE CO2 COULD BE STORED INDEFINITELY

With a push to reduce emissions — especially carbon dioxide, a powerful heat-trapping gas — a group of researchers at Oklahoma State University and across the nation are looking at how CO2 could be captured and stored almost indefinitely, eliminating its impact on the environment.

That is exactly what Dr. Jack C. Pashin is focused on. An OSU professor and Devon Chair of Basin Research, he is on the forefront of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) research.

A GREENER FUTURE

One of Pashin’s main goals is looking at how to find and categorize areas underground that would be good storage spots for CO2 — usually, these come in the form of old natural gas sites or empty oil reservoirs, he said.

The process works because as CO2 is pumped underground, it is compressed by high pressures and is trapped in the space between rocks where the natural gas or oil is.

“The overarching goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Pashin said.

Those emissions are becoming a growing issue. Measured in parts per million (PPM), many scientists believe exceeding 430 PPM of CO2 would be detrimental to the planet, and that number is approaching.

“It was October 2013 when the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere exceeded 400 PPM,” said Dr. Camelia Knapp, department head in the Boone Pickens School of Geology. “That was kind of an extra eye opener.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean that fossil fuels have to go away.

“Overall, 84% of the world’s energy consumption comes from fossil fuels,” Knapp said. “You can’t really shut down that route, you know, and say, ‘We are going to use wind and solar and geothermal’ when we just don’t have those infrastructures in place to accommodate the demand.”

So the focus is instead on capturing the CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels and finding good areas underground where it can be stored.

“You can apply it to any number of things — this carbon capture method — the original goal was to apply it to coal-fired power plants,” Pashin

said. “Because that was the biggest emission source outside of the transportation sector. Other big sources include gas-fired power plants, refineries, cement plants and fertilizer plants. And there you can capture all of the CO2 you want, if you get any, you are going to get it all.”

Once it is captured, it could then be locked away underground.

Dr. Jack Pashin (second from left) leads a field trip to a monitoring well during a CO2 storage test in Alabama. Pashin and OSU’s team of researchers have led and participated in numerous exploration programs, storage tests, educational activities and outreach activities in the southeastern U.S.

“The Department of Energy’s goal on all of our projects is to ensure 99% storage security over 1,000 years,” Pashin said. “And that’s actually a very low bar, because we look at the oil and gas reservoirs and these formations trap these gases over geologic time — a lot more than 100 million years. So the seals are that good in the right spots.”

More than a hundred years ago, the oil boom brought forth a new way to power the world. Now, a greener future may come from those same wells.

FINDING THE “SARAN WRAP”

Finding the right spots is where Pashin’s main research comes in.

“Not everywhere is a good place to do this geologically,” he said. “So the key is finding the best spots. And once we find those spots, we have to really characterize all the details of what’s there.

“We also have to know if we inject some CO2 how it’s going to behave. Is it going to migrate? Where is it going to migrate? Can we control it? Is it going to stay in the area where we have the right to do it — where we have access?”

The other key part is monitoring it over time, Pashin said.

“When we inject a large volume of fluid, we increase the pressure in the subsurface, and we want to be able to detect that fluid,” he said. “And generally, we consider if there is a leak,

it’s too late, you want to get everything before there’s a leak.”

His team has all kinds of technologies they use to do that.

“To me, one of the most valuable things is what’s called an observation well where you drill a well into your injection zone, some distance from where you’re injecting, and you monitor the pressure and sample fluids,” Pashin said.

The wells are filled with all kinds of sampling tubes as well as pressure and temperature transducers, Pashin said. So what makes a good spot for storing CO2? Often the areas where oil and natural gas once were can now be used to offset their carbon impact.

“A good spot would have a lot of pore space; that is, a lot of open space in the rocks,” Pashin said. “It has to have good permeability. And the

other thing you need is a really good seal — something that effectively acts like Saran wrap that keeps the CO2 underground.”

The best materials are things like salt, shale or anhydrite, Pashin said.

“Those are just like Saran wrap,” he said. “We also want to know that there are no breaks, no fractures, or anything running through them. So the leakage is minimal, if not non-existent.”

The other benefit of storing CO2 in oil fields is it can also be used to extract more oil and natural gas, Pashin said. That offsets the cost — one of the main issues with capturing carbon.

“The CO2 dissolves in oil and makes the oil lighter and much more mobile,” Pashin said.

Generally, you get about 15% of the oil that’s in the ground when you just pump it out, he said.

“And then most fields, after a few years, go into what’s called water flood, where they inject water into the reservoir, and you generally get another 15% of the oil out of that,” Pashin said.

If you inject CO2 next, you get an additional 15%, he said. That is a big driver for storing carbon this way, he added.

“When you’re doing this at an oil reservoir, what you end up doing is you inject the CO2 and some of it stays in the ground, but part of it comes back up with more oil, because that’s what’s moving the oil,” Pashin said. “And then you recycle that CO2 and it goes back underground — it is a closed loop.”

Once the well is dry, the CO2 stays stored in the ground instead of being emitted into the atmosphere, Pashin said.

FROM THE BEGINNING

Pashin has studied carbon capture and storage since the early days in 1997. Pashin was working at the Geological Survey of Alabama when his project manager, Charlie Buyer, grabbed him and told him he had a life-changing idea.

Diagram showing compressibility of one metric ton of CO2 under subsurface conditions. Accordingly, a ton of CO2 taking 481 cubic meters in the atmosphere can be compressed to less than 1 cubic meter in at a depth > 1 km.

“He started talking about it, and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Whoa, this is really different.’ And then by the end of the conversation, ‘Yeah, I’ll probably be spending the rest of my career doing this,’” Pashin said.

“A lot of my experience has been on the geological side of things in terms of figuring out where the opportunities are to store CO2 safely in the subsurface. But also doing a lot of testing and things like that.”

One of Pashin’s areas of expertise is coal bed methane — natural gas that is extracted from coal underground — which also provides a large area for carbon storage.

“When I started this, nobody knew what they were doing. And the big thing for CO2 storage is the scale of it,” he said. “To go to a low emission system, you would have to double the pipeline infrastructure in the U.S., which is doable.”

Pashin is not alone in his work at OSU, though.

“I think we have a strong research presence in carbon capture, utilization and storage here in the geology school at OSU in particular,” Knapp said.

But there is also a focus on carbon capture and storage across the university, she added. From engineering researchers in the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology to business professors conducting data analytics in the Spears

School of Business — many faculty are focused on carbon capture and use, she said.

Pashin is also involved with the Southeastern Carbon Sequestration Partnership, which has been going on since 2004.

“It is a lot of organizations, universities, state geological surveys, utilities, consultants, you name it,” Pashin said. “And it’s essentially a program to develop the storage technology and implement it.”

The team at OSU hopes the research will grow and see an increase in federal funding, Knapp said. She hopes to see a growing awareness of what carbon capture and storage is among the public.

“People just think that buying electric cars is going to solve climate change,” she said “Where does that energy that charges the batteries come from? It’s mostly fossil fuels.

“I think it is all based on education in communities. And we do a lot on our side but the path forward has to come from policymakers and their constituents.”

Seismic profile showing oil and gas reservoirs (bright colors) and sealing strata in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (dark colors). These reservoirs are being evaluated by Dr. Jack Pashin and his students in the Boone Pickens School of Geology for their potential for enhanced oil recovery and CO2 storage to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr. Jack C. Pashin

Dr. Camelia Knapp

A Magnetic Connection

OSU partners with USA Rare Earth’s new Stillwater facility

Stillwater and Oklahoma State University have worked together in innovative harmony for years. Now, they are taking another leap forward.

The announcement that USA Rare Earth (USARE), the first rare earth and critical minerals processing facility in the United States, is coming to Stillwater means OSU has a new partner in its effort to make a positive impact on the state and the nation.

After a review of over 50 sites in multiple states, USARE chose Oklahoma and the City of Stillwater because they present a unique business, labor and operating environment for the company to develop the project.

But there was another significant factor for the company’s decision: proximity to a strong research university, OSU.

“OSU has what they’re looking for on two levels,” said Russell Hopper, senior licensing associate in OSU’s Office of Technology Commercialization. “One, we’ve got the scientific and engineering skills, capabilities and equipment to do what they need and two, Stillwater is a nice place to live.”

USARE is a U.S.-based company establishing a domestic supply chain for rare earth elements and neodymium permanent magnets, which are used in commercial and defense technologies, according to the company.

The process to make these magnets is complicated but OSU hopes its research and expertise can help the process, Hopper said.

“When they came to tour, I contacted physics and mechanical engineering, material science and chemistry to see who had research that would be applicable, based on the kind of interest they had. And we had a lot of interest,” he said.

The reaction USARE had to that tour was what OSU had hoped for.

“They were like, ‘Wow, OK, this is a world-class research institution,’” Hopper said. “‘And we may

not be doing what they need because nobody’s doing what they need right now, but we have the skills and capabilities to adapt to what they need.”

Both USARE and OSU hope to see the partnership grow over the coming years.

“We have been engaged with the leadership at USA Rare Earth for some time now, and I am convinced that OSU and USA Rare Earth will be great partners,” said Dr. Kenneth Sewell, OSU vice president for research. “From unique internship opportunities for our students to joint research efforts, our partnership is poised to generate mutual benefits on many levels.”

Bob Fredette, director of magnet operations at USARE and a recognized expert in magnet materials and processes, recently relocated to Stillwater to kick off the recommissioning and is excited to expand the company’s operations there, he said.

“Access to the Oklahoma State University system will allow for more extensive research and development around advanced materials and critical minerals, as well as the potential for specialized job opportunities in the community,” he said.

With operations in Florida, Colorado, Texas and now Oklahoma, USARE is currently developing the only heavy rare earths project in the Western Hemisphere at the Round Top minerals deposit in Texas — in a joint venture with Texas Minerals Resource Corporation.

At the new Stillwater facility, USARE is now recommissioning the only commercial-scale rare earth permanent magnet manufacturing equipment in the U.S.

“Currently, the United States, European Union, Japan and much of the developed world is largely reliant on China for critical rare earth element production,” said Thayer Smith, president of USA Rare Earth. “Our goal with this project is to advance U.S. manufacturing capacity.”

USA Rare Earth is developing a fully domestic mine-to-magnet supply chain, while the lithium at Round Top will also support the manufacture of battery electric vehicles, Smith said.

“We look forward to a long-lasting relationship with OSU to create an even more productive and innovative future for the state of Oklahoma,” Fredette said. “The exchange of ideas and transfer of expertise to the next generation of students and researchers provide for a uniquely collaborative environment in which to foster growth and progress in a highly specialized industry.”

State officials and representatives from the City of Stillwater and USA Rare Earth LLC celebrate the announcement on June 9 of the new facility in Stillwater. From left: Stillwater Chamber of Commerce CEO Justin Minges, Oklahoma Department of Commerce Director of Business Development Jennifer Springer, USARE CEO Thayer Smith, Gov. Kevin Stitt, Mayor Will Joyce, Deputy City Manager Melissa Reames, and Oklahoma Secretary of Energy and Environment Kenneth Wagner.

“Access to the Oklahoma State University system will allow for more extensive research and development around advanced materials and critical minerals, as well as the potential for specialized job opportunities in the community.”

BOB FREDETTE, DIRECTOR OF MAGNET OPERATIONS AT USARE

Facing Extinction

OSU research hopes to help endangered Monarch butterflies

Every spring and fall, millions of monarch butterflies make their annual migration, many flying over and visiting OSU’s campus, but that number is dwindling.

Monarch populations have been in decline for years, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) designated monarchs as endangered this year.

The IUCN estimates the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, although measuring can be difficult.

Despite the implications of the IUCN report, OSU integrative biology professor Kristen Baum said there is still hope.

“The report mentions that the population decline seems to have slowed or even stabilized over the past 10 years,” said Baum, who specializes in pollinator ecology and serves as associate dean for research for the College of Arts and Sciences. “There has been lots of effort to plant milkweed and nectar plants, restore habitat and manage habitat in ways that benefit monarchs. So hopefully, some of that’s making a difference.”

That effort really took off in the U.S. after a 2014 petition to list monarchs as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. However, in December 2020 the decision was made that listing the monarch was warranted but precluded.

“That meant that monarchs are at risk, but there are other species that they consider to have a higher risk and a higher priority at the present time,” Baum said. “The monarch is now a candidate species, meaning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reevaluates the status of monarchs annually to see how they are doing.”

The IUCN list is generally more expansive than the U.S Endangered Species Act, Baum said.

“For insects, there is a huge difference. Probably less than 20% of those on the IUCN list are included under the Endangered Species Act,” she said.

The

The new IUCN listing does not bring any more regulatory implications for the U.S., but the IUCN listing still serves a valuable purpose.

“It does place more emphasis and concern on monarchs,” Baum said. “Another important point about the IUCN listing is that it applies specifically to the migratory subspecies of the monarch butterfly.”

While there are nonmigratory populations in other locations — mainly outside the U.S. — there are two populations this listing impacts.

“The eastern migratory population moves through Oklahoma in the spring and in the fall from overwintering sites in central Mexico to breeding sites in the Upper Midwest and southern Canada. The western population breeds in states west of the Rocky Mountains and overwinters along the California coast,” Baum said.

Baum said there have been extensive efforts to aid monarch populations over the past decade, and future efforts have the potential to make a difference.

A decade ago, it was really hard to find native milkweed — the main food source for monarch caterpillars. Now, native milkweed plants beneficial to monarchs and other pollinators are more readily available.

Another area of focus is on providing nectar sources for the fall migration, Baum said.

“There are some ongoing projects where we’re trying to figure out where monarchs are fueling up,” she said. “So where are they accumulating all the lipids from nectar that are then going to allow them to survive the winter?”

Most of what Baum does in her lab focuses on pollinator responses to land use and management practices.

“We do research with prescribed fire, grazing, mowing regimes, crop production and other topics relevant to Oklahoma,” Baum said. “Usually management activities that support diverse grasslands end up by default creating good monarch habitats.”

“And it’s nice because habitat for other wildlife species, such as quail, intersects well with monarch habitat. So if you’re providing good habitat — what we should have in Oklahoma — usually that’s going to provide good pollinator resources as well.”

For Baum, habitat is really the first step and it solves a lot of other problems that affect the population, like parasites and disease, which are often more of a problem where monarchs tend to be more concentrated because there’s not more habitat available, Baum said.

“Habitat is really the biggest issue,” she said.

While the IUCN listing may not change regulations or any laws regarding monarchs in the U.S., Baum said the elevated attention to the problem is beneficial.

“I think anything that increases interest in monarchs is a good thing,” Baum said. “And then what’s good for monarchs is good for other pollinators and wildlife as well. Hopefully, it is a net benefit across the board.”

OSU integrative biology professor Dr. Kristen Baum

Changing the Narrative

OSU researchers are focused on changing how Native communities are seen

When studying health trends in a community, it’s easy to focus on the bad things and areas that need improvement.

While fixing those problem areas does work, Dr. Ashley Cole, an assistant professor in the Oklahoma State University Department of Psychology, is hoping to change how we look at health inequities and how research can lead to more effective help.

An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma and an OSU alumna, Cole has a unique connection to her research.

“I have some personal interest in helping Native American communities address health disparities and health inequities,” Cole said. “I love Oklahoma. I’m very biased, clearly.”

Cole has always been interested in trying to use her training and skill set to help address some of those health inequities, she said.

“Just being Native myself, being from Oklahoma, I’ve always had this desire to try to help our communities,” Cole said. “If you look at some of the national statistics, like from the CDC or from the World Health Organization, you see at first glance a lot of risks, you see a lot of pathology in Native communities, higher rates of substance use disorder, higher rates of smoking, higher rates of cancer, higher rates of suicide.”

However, these issues are not the only things that need to be highlighted, Cole said.

“One thing I’ve really learned more and more as I do this work is we do our communities a disservice by focusing only on what’s going wrong,” Cole said. “We don’t highlight or emphasize the strengths, the things communities are doing well, the resilience and the perseverance that a lot of Native American communities have.”

For many Native American communities, Cole points to the COVID-19 pandemic response as a prime example of things going right. Tribes in Oklahoma, and across the country, were some of the first to open up their vaccination clinics and

had some of the highest rates of vaccinations, Cole said.

“I think that the media often overlooks the strengths and resilience and thriving of Native American communities,” Cole said. “And so much of the research literature is focused on those deficits as well.”

Changing the narrative in that way is where Cole sees her work fitting in. Her research into Native American communities covers a broad range of health topics and disparity issues.

She is currently working on multiple studies, including an NIH-funded diversity supplement grant in partnership with Dr. Michael Businelle, director of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Health Promotion Research Center in Oklahoma City.

The project is a smoking cessation intervention study where adults self-enroll and then are given a smartphone, which provides quick tips and information on quitting smoking.

“My portion of the study is I follow up with the Native American participants who have finished out the intervention. And I follow up with qualitative interviews,” Cole said.

Cole hopes to be able to help improve later health intervention programs by better understanding what is working and what is not.

She is also working on a multi-site, grantfunded P20 project with Dr. Ashley Clawson, an OSU assistant professor; Dr. John Chaney, an OSU regents professor; and Dr. Kenneth Sewell, OSU vice president for research, as well as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and OU Health Sciences Center.

“P20 is a large grant mechanism. So, there are different aspects of the grant where part of it focuses on education and training, but there are also two other projects within the grant,” Cole said. “The one that Dr. Clawson is focusing on is an e-cigarette prevention program for pregnant women.

“The one that I’m on is with cancer survivors of the Cherokee Nation. And it’s looking at smoking

cessation in terms of people who have been diagnosed with cancer. Most of them are either in remission or their cancer care is ongoing.”

Cole is conducting qualitative interviews with those patients and with their providers to get more information about who in their care team has talked with them about quitting smoking.

“Some have cancers that may not be as closely linked with smoking,” Cole said. “So, with the risk of smoking we’re kind of wanting to see, if no one is really talking with them about quitting smoking, who would they like that to be? And what would they like it to look like out of their care team?”

Cole hopes to continue her partnership with Native communities, she said.

“I want to try to help focus on some of the strengths and some of the things we can learn from Native peoples and Native communities,” Cole said.

And she has already learned a lot.

“I would say there’s a lot of nuggets of information from my work,” Cole said. “And most of my studies are still ongoing. So it’s hard to say with certainty, but I think one thing is ways of being and relating with the world. That is something which comes up a lot.”

Many in westernized societies might call or think of it as practicing mindfulness, which has a lot of empirical evidence behind it, Cole said.

“But I think we can learn from Native communities who have been doing mindfulness practices but may not call it that,” she said. “Really, just having the kind of cultural humility and caring about their relationality not only amongst other people but also a respect for all things.”

Learn more about the research Cole is studying or get involved by visiting coleresearchlab.com

Dr. Ashley Cole

“One thing I’ve really learned more and more as I do this work is we do our communities a disservice by focusing only on what’s going wrong.”

DR. ASHLEY COLE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY

POWER QUIET

OSU researcher working to reduce noise by harvesting energy

Oklahoma State University metamaterials researcher Dr. James Manimala is forging new roads in acoustics.

His research has taken him all the way to NASA’s Langley Research Center, and has implications for reducing noise and harvesting it as energy.

When Manimala was growing up in India, his family lived next to an airport. He and his friends would ride their bikes to the perimeter, take a seat on the surrounding wall and watch

“My thought is how can we create metamaterial designs in a way that the output is greater than the sum of the parts,” he said. “Two plus two can actually be five or six. You use the confluence of design innovations and materials in order to maximize multi-physical utility for structures.”

As jets have grown in size, the noise they produce has changed. The Boeing 777 engine is as round in diameter as the entire fuselage of its smaller cousin, the 737. The larger engines make a much lower frequency noise, which is more difficult to mitigate. At some of the busiest airports, like London’s Heathrow, they have stringent noise requirements and airlines pay a heavy fine for exceeding late-night decibel levels.

“Conventional approaches to reducing noise have been almost thoroughly exploited,” Manimala said. “They’ve been tried and tested and refined so most of the conventional technologies are operating at about the same level they would have operated, say, a decade ago.”

In the front lip of a jet aircraft engine is an acoustic liner made up of a honeycomb of

OSU graduate student Will Kresl testing a thermoacoustic device in the normalincidence tube at NASA Langley.

The thermoacoustic test rig in OSU’s anechoic chamber. cavities. Air flows over the perforated sheet and tones responding to the cavities are diminished. Manimala likens it to blowing across the top of a pop bottle and creating a tone or resonance. When air flows over the perforated layer, the tones responding to the cavities are taken out of the equation.

But the room available to treat the noise is limited. Making larger liners will mean a heavier airplane. Manimala is using the study of metamaterials to reduce noise frequencies lower than 1000 hertz in the same amount of space.

“Metamaterials mean ‘beyond conventional materials,’ if you will,” he said. “With what we have been doing — we have the same space, but we have convoluted it. It all fits like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Rather than the honeycomb with straight hollowed cavities, 3D printing makes it possible to replace the straight cavities with curved and wavy cavities. The curvature means the frequencies respond as if it’s a much longer cavity, but with the same or lesser thickness than what’s currently in production.

Mixing materials also decreases noise. Combine foam in the cavities and it becomes the best of

DR. JAMES MANIMALA, OSU METAMATERIALS RESEARCHER

both worlds, Manimala said. Foams, like melamine found in markers, reduces noise at frequencies of about 1000 hertz and above. The curved cavities tackle the low frequencies. Add specific spacing and even more decibels are mitigated.

“The original inspiration is related to metamaterials. In this convolution of space is one of the primary ways in which you would address low-frequency sound,” he said. “Now, with 3D printing in the mix, manufacturing of substructures is more feasible. It’s possible in the future that more of these structures may be 3D printed. Intricate internal features are not difficult to obtain in practice.”

Manimala has had the opportunity to test the metamaterials-inspired acoustic liners at Langley Research Center in Virginia. He’s hoping the next test will be in a new direction — thermoacoustic metamaterials.

“Before flight testing is done, which is a pretty high-level test — you have to build up to that,” he said. “There are several levels of validation.

Now we might have a prototype that might go to the acoustics lab downstairs. Then we take it to Langley and test it there. Then we may have a prototype for one of the upcoming new aircraft designs.”

Manimala has a well-founded hope that a design may be included in a future aircraft design. OSU has relationships with several aviation companies, including Textron, the company that owns brands like Cessna and Beechcraft.

Textron has new designs in the works and a motivation to reduce cabin noise. They brought several designs for cabin noise mitigating blankets to OSU to test the treatments in the university’s anechoic-reverb chambers. The anechoic chamber is built with wire and foam, providing a soundproof room suitable for testing sound transmission through panels. Although it’s not directly related to Manimala’s research, he and his students benefit from participating.

“Testing is usually a summer event,” he said. “We may have five to 10 graduate and undergraduate students. We have lunch and dinner together. Students get to meet the engineers and learn what’s expected in the industry. It’s a good combination.”

Manimala and his students are also working on ways to take the annoying background noise and harvest energy from it.

“There is ambient noise almost everywhere in modern facilities,” Manimala said, gesturing to the exhaust system rumbling in the lab. “How would it be to use this to create something useful using acoustic energy? We have energy harvesting from many things: thermal energy harvesting, solar energy harvesting, chemical and vibrations. But harvesting electricity from sound is not as well researched. The conversion prospects are not that efficient.”

Earlier attempts have included what is structurally the opposite of a speaker. A membrane moved by sound energy is picked up by electromagnetic coils. The problem is the amount of acoustic energy required to move the membrane.

“We are not using a membrane. We are applying a metamaterials approach in the coiling of space in folded cavities,” he said. “We have what’s known as a stack. It’s a porous structure

Dr. James Manimala (right) and graduate student Will Kresl at the Liner Technology Facility at NASA Langley.

“We are living in fascinating times. As engineering requirements become more multifarious and demanding, structural materials have a greater need to be multifunctional in general. With new additive and hybrid fabrication processes reaching commercial maturity in recent times, technological breakthroughs such as thermoacoustic metamaterials are within grasp.”

— it’s like a block with a bunch of very precisely engineered holes. What’s interesting is, under the right circumstances, when you send sound waves through that, it sets up a thermal gradient between its two ends. One side gets hotter and one gets cooler. We had to do the test to believe it.”

The implications are enormous. Imagine a freeway with the roar of car engines underlaid by the hum of thousands of tires. Many dense metropolitan areas already have partitions to protect communities from the freeway noise. Manimala would like to embed acoustic energy harvesters into the partitions. This would allow for useable electric power to be harnessed via thermoacoustics without the need for any moving parts or expendables.

Manimala spent July testing thermoacoustic liner designs at Langley Research Center under its experiment conditions to see if results obtained in the labs at OSU hold up to more rigorous testing. The thermoacoustic liners are multifunctional structures that have the potential to simultaneously reduce noise, harvest power and provide a means for sensing, monitoring and control.

“The current investigation involves testing in NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Normal Incidence Tube and Grazing Flow Impedance Tube to explore development of a unified modeling tool to combine thermoacoustics, liner physics and energy harvesting,” said Dr. Douglas Nark, the technical point of contact on the Space Act Agreement between NASA and OSU. “In particular, this effort provides an excellent opportunity for NASA and Oklahoma State researchers to collaboratively leverage the testing capabilities of the NASA Langley Liner Technology Facility to understand, assess and design acoustic liners for multidisciplinary applications.”

Manimala and his graduate student, Will Kresl, are thrilled about the test results they have been seeing at Langley. They are finding that the earlier outcomes are validated, but there are also indications of new phenomena in the results with exciting device implications.

Manimala said what’s currently possible in the metamaterials realm is “somewhat astounding” because of the progress that’s been made in recent years. The acoustic applications have the potential to turn sound reduction into sound cloaking, rendering submarines invisible to sonar thanks to metamaterials.

“We are living in fascinating times,” he said. “As engineering requirements become more multifarious and demanding, structural materials have a greater need to be multifunctional in general. With new additive and hybrid fabrication processes reaching commercial maturity in recent times, technological breakthroughs such as thermoacoustic metamaterials are within grasp.”

OSU graduate student Will Kresl working on the grazing flow impedance tube at Langley.

From left: Dr. James Manimala (OSU), Dr. Doug Nark, Max Reid, Martha Brown, Brian Howerton, Will Kresl (OSU) and Mike Jones at the Liner Technology Facility at NASA Langley.

Alleviating Poverty

Spears Business professor published in prominent journal for his work with West African economic development

Growing up in West Africa, Dr. Harounan Kazianga saw firsthand the consequences of people in the region not being able to find consistent sources of income.

The Oklahoma State University professor still has family in Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire, the two neighboring West African countries he was raised in and travels back to regularly.

But when he makes the trip home, Kazianga has a dual purpose in mind: finding ways to help alleviate poverty in countries such as Burkina Faso, Niger, Senegal and other countries throughout West Africa.

The OSU Spears School of Business economics professor’s research has focused on

economic development for years but one of his most recent research projects is recognized for its impact in Niger, where the average monthly salary is $320, and it’s not uncommon for women to live on less than $1 a day.

The research paper that he co-authored with a handful of colleagues — Tackling psychosocial and capital constraints to alleviate poverty — is attracting international attention after getting published earlier this year in Nature, the leading international journal of science first published in 1869.

“Most of the papers that I’m writing are for development economists who are interested in Africa,” Kazianga said. “As a researcher, being

Women in Niger and other West African countries are benefiting from research that addresses psychological and social barriers in an attempt to help women living in poor households.

published in a scientific journal with a high impact factor that reaches a broader audience outside of economics is not a common occurrence.”

Kazianga and his co-authors, including a team of researchers from the World Bank, tackle the issue of poverty from a different angle than most have in the past. Policies that aim to reduce poverty often target economic interventions, but Kazianga and his colleagues decided to address psychological and social barriers in an attempt to help extremely poor households in Niger.

The researchers teamed up with the national cash transfer program of Niger’s government and used a clustered randomized control trial to document the effectiveness of multifaceted interventions designed to produce ways to generate income for women in poor households. They targeted 322 villages that were randomly assigned to one control and three treated groups. All households received monthly cash transfers.

The households from the treated groups received support for group formation and coaching, setting up saving groups, micro-entrepreneurship training and market access facilitation.

The groups also received one of three options: 1, a cash grant (capital arm); 2, psychological and social interventions, such as life-skill training and a community film screening to boost aspirations as well as address gender and social norms (psychosocial arm); or 3, both the cash grant and psychosocial interventions (full arm).

Women participating in the project saw their revenues increase by 49% to 102%, Kazianga said.

“It was an unexpected surprise to see those type of numbers,” he said. “When we first saw the numbers so large, we wanted to double check to make sure we were not making any mistakes. We were expecting some positive change, but it was an unexpected surprise to see this enormous change. That was really encouraging.”

Kazianga is pleased that the research is being lauded by the Niger government.

“It’s exciting that the government was really interested and reacted in a positive way,” he

said. “The government itself reacted positively to the results, and they were looking at it asking if it was something that they could use and implement. It’s not every time that you do some research and then the government wants to use it, right? So, we were very happy.”

Dr. Ramesh Sharda, vice dean for graduate programs and research in Spears Business, is proud of the work by Kazianga and the other researchers.

“Harounan and the colleagues’ work follow a rich tradition of conducting experiments to understand behavior changes to address global poverty,” Sharda said. “Work in this stream was recognized in 2019 with the Nobel Prize awarded to three economists — Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer. I am pleased that our colleague Professor Kazianga is extending that line of research. A publication in Nature is relatively uncommon for a business school professor, so we are especially proud of his publication.”

The OSU researcher is pleased that he’s helping to make a difference in West Africa but says there is still plenty of work to be completed.

“It’s a region that faces many challenges, but has limitless potential,” he said. “I grew up there and I’m fortunate to do my research in the region. I’ve seen an overall positive trend and the difference that sound research can make. There are ups and downs but overall it’s an upward trend that we see in the region. I think this paper illustrates neatly how researchers and policymakers can team up to help the most vulnerable people in the region seize some of the economic opportunities the region offers.”

Dr. Harounan Kazianga

“As a researcher, being published in a scientific journal with a high impact factor that reaches a broader audience outside of economics is not a common occurrence.”

DR. HAROUNAN KAZIANGA, ECONOMICS PROFESSOR SPEARS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

From left: Todd Vanderah, director, Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center; Frank Porreca, principal investigator, Center for Excellence in Addiction Studies; Michael Dake, senior VP, University of Arizona Health Sciences; Kayse Shrum, president, Oklahoma State University; Robert C. Robbins, president, University of Arizona; Johnny Stephens, president, OSU Center for Health Sciences; and Don Kyle, CEO, National Center for Wellness & Recovery.

Transformational Partnership

OSU-CHS, University of Arizona to revolutionize pain and addiction research

Since 1803 when morphine was first extracted from opium, opioids have been the standard by which medications to treat acute pain are measured.

Throughout most of the 20th century, health professionals acknowledged that long-term opioid therapy was associated with increased risk of addiction, increased disability and the lack of efficacy over time.

Despite this widely accepted theory, the medical use of opioids began to increase substantially during the 1990s leading to epidemic

levels of misuse, non-medical substance use and death from overdose.

Still today, few alternatives exist for the treatment of acute and chronic pain, leaving unmet medical needs and communities desperate for help.

In search of answers, researchers at the University of Arizona Health Sciences and Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences recently established an innovative partnership to discover and develop modern therapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain.

“We recognize that by combining forces, we are forming a wonderful partnership in the southwest region of the U.S. which has been impacted hard by the opioid crisis,” said Dr. Don Kyle, CEO of the National Center for Wellness and Recovery at OSU-CHS. “We are aligned in our mission, scientific approach and infrastructure that connects treatment physicians with basic scientists.”

The synergistic nature of the research required is perfectly modeled in the partnership between UArizona Health Sciences and OSU-CHS.

The University of Arizona Health Sciences Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center (CPAC) and National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded Center of Excellence for Addiction Studies (CEAS) bring together world-class laboratory spaces along with preclinical and clinical expertise that can promote development of novel, nonopioid therapies based on existing chemical entities from NCWR as well as new chemistry and biology that can be jointly pursued by the three academic groups.

“There is an undeniable link between opioids and pain, and the other crisis that exists in the U.S. is the pain crisis,” said Dr. Frank Porreca, a worldrenowned pain researcher, associate research director of CPAC and principal investigator of the CEAS grant.

“In America, more people live with chronic pain than with cancer, heart disease and diabetes combined. We don’t have medications for the treatment of this type of pain, which underscores the fact that we need to discover something that can help people who live with chronic pain,” Porreca said.

Answers could be found among more than 18,000 novel molecules representing decades of research conducted by scientists at Purdue Pharma. When Purdue ended its drug research program in 2015, the research and the molecules sat untouched until 2019 when Kyle suggested the molecules be made available to OSU’s NCWR.

“Many of the molecules are very raw chemical structures that have never been tested but are molecules we know will bind to one of the opiate

receptors,” said Dr. Todd Vanderah, director of the UArizona Health Sciences Comprehensive Pain and Addiction Center, professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology in the UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson and a BIO5 Institute member.

“In my role prior to joining OSU, we studied the 100 prior years of opioid-related chemistry literature and combined this with state-of-the-art pharmacological techniques and instrumentation, with an eye toward emerging mechanisms that held promise for separating opioid-strength pain relief from unwanted opioid effects,” said Kyle, a chemist and former vice president of discovery for Purdue Pharma.

“Ultimately, we designed new molecules that might at least serve as research tools but that might also become new drug candidates, and therefore would be valuable to advance the science of pain and addiction.”

NCWR also has access to nearly 50,000 human biosamples from patients enrolled in more than 20 Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials involving opioids and non-opioids. The center has begun collecting additional biosamples from patients suffering from addiction or who are in recovery and undergoing treatment at NCWR treatment centers in Oklahoma.

These unique assets, collected over more than two decades, enable research into risk factors, causes and potential treatments for addiction and chronic pain.

The goals of the UAHS and OSU-CHS research centers are also aligned with the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Longterm) Initiative.

“One of the beautiful things about our partnerships is that even without knowing what researchers like Dr. Porreca and Dr. Vanderah were studying, we already made molecules that bind to the various targets they’re interested in,” Kyle said. “We’re very excited to test those molecules and see if we can confirm what they suspect from their biology work using a molecule.”

“We recognize that by combining forces, we are forming a wonderful partnership in the southwest region of the U.S. which has been impacted hard by the opioid crisis.”

DR. DON KYLE, CEO OF THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR WELLNESS AND RECOVERY

Mistletoe – famous for stolen holiday kisses –is a parasite that steals water and nutrients from other plants

A parasitic plant with potentially poisonous berries might not sound like something that would boost your Christmas decorations to the next level. But, botanically speaking, that’s what mistletoe is.

There are some 1,300 species of this evergreen plant worldwide. They’re all parasitic or semiparasitic, meaning they can survive only on a host plant. Rather than being rooted in the ground, they live on the branches of other trees and shrubs.

Just two types are native to North America. Twelve species of the American mistletoe can be found distributed largely across the southern half of the U.S., mostly affecting deciduous trees in the East as well as some evergreens in the West. Sixteen species of the leafless dwarf mistletoe infect only trees in the pine family and are mostly found along the West Coast.

The American mistletoe, the one used at Christmas in the U.S., is in the genus Phoradendron, which means “thief of the tree” in Greek. It has green leaves and is capable of photosynthesis and so produces much of its own food. But American mistletoe also sucks water and other nutrients out of its host plant by sending rootlike structures called haustoria into the vascular tissue just under the bark of branches and twigs. These invading structures can live for many years inside a tree even if the mistletoe plant itself is removed.

Mistletoes are what botanists call dioecious, meaning these plants have separate male and female versions. The females produce the fruits, called berries, which are generally white, but can be pink or reddish depending on the species. Birds widely distribute the seeds after eating the berries. Seeds of some species can also be shot out of the fruit like a cannonball at up to 60 mph (100 kph) to a distance as far as 50 feet (15 meters). A sticky substance on the seeds helps them attach to any tree they land on until they germinate and begin to grow.

In general, mistletoe won’t kill a tree unless it is heavily infested. Even then the tree doesn’t usually die from the mistletoe; most often death is an indirect effect of attacks from diseases or insects that take advantage of the stressed tree. Mistletoe’s parasitic ways can cause significant economic damage to forests industrially harvested for lumber.

For a homeowner, though, it’s usually not necessary to control mistletoe – which is good, since getting rid of it can be difficult and takes patience and persistence. You can prune it out, being sure to get all those spreading haustoria under the host’s bark, or try chemical controls like the plant growth regulator ethephon.

Maybe you’ll want to trim a sprig to decorate with during Christmastime. One of the most common traditions associated with mistletoe, dating back at least to the 1700s, is that anyone lingering beneath it would welcome a holiday kiss. Here in my home state of Oklahoma, mistletoe is our state floral emblem, apparently because it was the only greenery available to put on graves during the particularly hard winter of 1889. In other parts of the world, mistletoe is considered to bestow life and fertility, serve as a peace offering and protect against poison.

About poison: Mistletoe has a reputation as a poisonous plant. While the European species Viscum album is reportedly toxic, American mistletoe is not deadly. Better to keep it away from little kids and pets, though, and if you are concerned, stick with artificial mistletoe for decorative purposes.

Mistletoe is an important part of the ecosystem in the places where it grows in North America. Lots of birds rely on mistletoe berries as a food source, as do elk, deer, squirrels, chipmunks and even porcupines, which will also eat the leaves when other fresh foliage is scarce. Tangled clumps of mistletoe, traditionally referred to as witches’ brooms, provide nesting sites for birds, including

spotted owls and Cooper’s hawks, and other animals. Three kinds of butterflies in the U.S. are entirely dependent on mistletoes. And it’s also an important nectar and pollen plant for honey bees and other native bees.

So this parasitic plant plays a valuable role in both ecosystems and human traditions. If it grows near you, enjoy it because you probably wouldn’t be able to completely get rid of it anyway. And at Christmastime, it just may come in handy.

David Hillock, associate extension specialist in horticulture and landscape architecture at Oklahoma State University wrote this story in partnership with The Conversation. The Conversation is a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to sharing research from experts like those on our faculty. Read more from our faculty by going to okla.st/theconversation

David Hillock, associate Extension specialist in horticulture and landscape architecture

OSU nutrition professor, students help Stillwater

An alarm jolts you out of the small twin bed as you are catching the little sleep that can be attained in the constantly alert life of being a firefighter.

You get dressed quickly as you have been trained to do, go out on the call and you put out the fire. Over and over, throughout your 48-hour shift. No matter what fire, the smoke inhalation takes a toll. The lack of sleep takes a toll. And obviously the stress of such a dangerous job takes a toll.

When you aren’t on a call and can hang around the firehouse, eating a snack or cooking some dinner for the crew, little do you know, your heart is taking a toll from that food, day in and day out.

Heart attacks have become the leading cause of death in firefighters in the line of duty, not only because of all the risks and stress associated with the job, but also the food at most firehouses. The average age firefighters die from a heart attack is 45, 20 years below the national average for the general U.S. male population, according to the American Journal of Cardiology.

Dr. Jill Joyce, an Oklahoma State University nutritional sciences professor, read about this troubling statistic and decided to do something about it.

“When you see heart attack, you think, ‘Well, it could be the job. Because that alarm goes off and their blood pressure goes through the roof, a sudden burst of having to go without any warm up or stretching on an adrenaline rush,” Joyce said. “I mean, it makes sense with the heat, fire, oxygen tanks, smoke. So maybe it is the job. And to an extent, it is.

“But if you look at the leading personal health problems for firefighters, it’s being overweight and obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So something’s got to be going on with their nutrition.”

She asked the firefighters to help her take pictures of the station kitchens to get an idea of what their food environment was. Joyce worked with several students using a tool called Photovoice to help assess the environment, as well.

“There’s a lot of refined grains, added sugar, sugar sweetened beverages, different kinds of sweets, fried foods, foods high in sodium. It’s your typical snack/dessert type foods,” Joyce said.

The project members started delivering healthier options to the four Stillwater Fire Department stations. The students would then log what foods were consumed and how the firefighters were responding to it.

The group brought different fruits, vegetables and snacks to the fire stations for the study.

They included mandarins, apples, bananas, lightly salted roasted almonds, carrots, broccoli, Greek yogurt dip, hummus and Nature Valley bars.

Joyce said she wanted to ensure she didn’t just tell firefighters not to eat the unhealthy options, though. But rather put them in cabinets or somewhere that they weren’t visible so they weren’t as tempted to eat them.

“I didn’t want to take away the unhealthy food because if I tell them they can’t eat something, what are they going to do? The minute I am gone, it’s going to come out of the woodwork,” Joyce said.

Instead, Joyce and her group used a psychological tool called behavioral economics to assist them in their nutrition study. The goal was to make the healthier foods more normal, attractive and convenient to the firefighters.

Kristen McClanahan, a doctoral student who was working on her undergraduate honors thesis at the time, said behavioral economics is a tool a lot of grocery stores and fast food companies use to promote their products. So, OSU’s project was to use it for healthier options.

“Basically, you just use gentle nudges,” McClanahan said. “For example, the size of your plate. The bigger your plate is, the more food you can put on it and the more you eat; the smaller your plate, the less we put on it and the less we eat.”

The study ran throughout the spring and the students said they began to see a change in the firefighters while also learning some crucial realworld experience for the nutritional field.

Ashton Greer, a nutritional sciences major, said she delivered snacks to SFD Station No. 4 twice a week. She then checked to see how much of that was eaten.

“This opportunity helped me as a grad student because it helped me realize how hard it can be for first responders to have a healthy lifestyle,” Greer said. “I think it would be very beneficial if first responders had someone who was responsible for getting them groceries and/or help them eat more

meals that are well balanced and that incorporate a variety of different foods.”

Bailey Golden, a biology premed major who is minoring in psychology and microbiology, said she was in charge of analyzing data behind the scenes so they could track the study’s progress.

“This has helped me in my degree program by being able to notice the impacts of nutrition and how the body can be impacted from it firsthand,” Golden said. “It has also allowed me to see that with a little guidance and motivation, actions can change if the person is willing to put in the effort, which is interesting in a psychology aspect.”

For Joyce, it was a successful study because she began to see a change in the firefighters’ overall well-being when she would chat with them. The fire stations also had members who are in charge of fitness for the different teams.

David Westfall, a 27-year veteran of the Stillwater Fire Department, is one of those fitness coordinators and said the OSU project was well received.

“I would say some of the guys try to eat somewhat healthy but then you have the other guys that have never really been exposed to that,” Westfall said. “So that was a great program for those types of people or just even the ones that do try to eat healthy, it was available to them at all times. It made it very beneficial for that.”

Mealtime at a fire station has always been an important bonding time and many firefighters are known for their cooking skills, so Joyce helped SFD in that aspect, too. She provided them with cookbooks that had healthier recipes and for shifts that the firefighters might have to eat out occasionally, Joyce gave them pamphlets with healthy options at the restaurants around Stillwater.

Westfall said that was a big help, since most of the older recipes that still circulated included unhealthy, carb-loaded entrees like tater tot casserole.

“Those recipes stay in stations and it’s tradition that you kind of just continue to make those things, but providing a recipe book with new fresh

“If you look at the leading personal health problems for firefighters, it’s being overweight and obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So something’s got to be going on with their nutrition.”

DR. JILL JOYCE, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NUTRITIONAL SCIENCES

ideas, innovative new recipes, that helped out a lot, healthier options using ground turkey,” Westfall said. “Just less fats and just basically healthier options of meals for guys to cook because we do try to cook several meals while we’re on shift.”

Although Westfall said he’s always eaten healthy, he said it was convenient to have those options around the fire station that he didn’t have to bring in.

“It was very convenient to already have those options in the stations and alleviated us having to go to the store to buy them,” Westfall said.

McClanahan said the most popular item she saw being consumed was the whole grain granola bars since they could just take them on the go.

As the spring semester wound down, the food project ended as well, but Westfall said he thinks a lot of the healthier habits are here to stay.

“There definitely hasn’t been an influx of new junk food really coming into the station,” Westfall said. “So even though that program discontinued, it seemed like it was definitely beneficial because it stuck, that lifestyle is kind of stuck with a lot of the guys.”

Joyce said getting to hear things like that from the firefighters meant her study was viable. Eating healthier can not only stop the risk for heart disease, but also cancer, which has a high rate among firefighters, too.

“It’s crazy how that’s literally all I’m doing is dropping off food. But the air has just changed,” Joyce said. “They’re health culture has changed. They’re thinking healthy.”

In terms of impact, Westfall said he could see the healthier habits that started at SFD because of the OSU study could also spread to the local communities by word of mouth. Joyce said there is even a possibility these options could work in other high-stress first responder positions in police, health care and the military.

In some ways, this was a passion project for her. Coming from law enforcement, fire and military families and married to a veteran, OSU academic advisor Tom Joyce, she wants to ensure first responders are taking care of themselves.

“It’s kind of the heart of our family, that we live for serving. I wanted to be in the military and I tried a few times to get in,” Joyce said. “So, I think I’m finally getting my chance to serve. We love it, these are our people.”

Dr. Jill Joyce has a long history of family with firefighting and military service. Her grandfather, John Gray (above center), was a captain in the Latrobe, Pennsylvania, volunteer fire department and served in the Navy during World War II. Her husband, Tom Joyce (below), is an academic advisor at OSU and was a captain in the Army Military Police Corps.

‘Upcycling’ promises to turn food waste into your next meal

How would you like to dig into a “recycled” snack? Or take a swig of juice with “reprocessed” ingredients made from other food byproducts? Without the right marketing, these don’t sound like the most appetizing options.

Enter “upcycling.” That’s the relatively recent term for the age-old concept of using low-valued foods or food processing byproducts to generate new food products. Time-honored examples of this concept include sausages made from meat scraps and jams or jellies made from overripe fruit. In many cases, this waste would have otherwise been used as animal feed or sent to the compost pile.

The Upcycled Food Association defines upcycled foods as those that “use ingredients that otherwise would not have gone to human consumption, are procured and produced using verifiable supply chains, and have a positive impact on the environment.” An official definition may allow manufacturers to market to a target audience and encourage consumers and food processors to consider upcycled products. The Association launched a new Upcycled Certification Standard in 2021. Soon enough you may notice an upcycled label on items at the grocery store.

Food waste is a monumental problem, and this nascent trend, with a buzzy new name designed to appeal to consumers, could help. As an economist and a food engineer, we’ve worked with food companies to minimize waste and find markets for underutilized or otherwise trashed food items. Here’s how upcycling works.

MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF FOOD GET WASTED

Globally, more than one-third of all current food production will be lost or wasted somewhere between the farm or ranch and the consumer’s garbage can. Food “losses” may be due to improper handling or storage conditions on the farm or in the food distribution process, whereas food “waste” often results from limited retail shelf life

or consumers simply not making use of perishable products before they spoil in the fridge.

Worldwide annual loss estimates for highly perishable crops, such as fruits and vegetables, exceed 20%, with certain leafy greens and tropical fruits exceeding 40%. In the U.S. alone, estimates of food loss and waste in recent years have ranged from $200 billion to $300 billion. Both the World Trade Organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization have increased emphasis on preventing food insecurity by minimizing food loss and food waste.

In addition to the financial impact, food waste also contributes to environmental problems. The FAO estimates that about 8% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to the carbon footprint of food loss and waste. Landfills generate greenhouse gas emissions, and recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates indicate food waste is the single largest contributor to landfill volume, making up more than a fifth of what ends up at the dump.

In addition, when food is wasted, all of the natural resources used to produce the food, including water, energy and land resources, are wasted.

PEELS, SHELLS AND PAST-THEIR-PRIME INGREDIENTS

From an economics standpoint, finding market outlets for otherwise wasted products makes sense, and the food industry recognizes that fact. Much of what’s left over as waste once a food is processed contains valuable nutritional components, even though it’s currently only used for animal feed or just thrown away. Fortunately, current laws require animal feed to be treated the same as human food, so many waste streams are already handled using sanitary practices and are safe for human consumption.

A number of economically viable upcycled products are currently on the market. Fruit

pomace — all the fibrous bits left after fruit juice production — bolsters the flavor and nutritional content of snack foods. Wheat middlings — everything left after milling that’s not flour — are added to breakfast cereals to increase the content of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Whey protein from cheese production increases the protein content of health bars and protein shakes.

There’s flour made from the pulp byproducts of soybean and almond milk production, which is sold as baking mixes or upcycled flours. There’s craft beer that uses surplus unsold bread as the fermentation substrate. One group collects and distributes second-tier produce before it goes bad. Other examples include pecan shell flour, dried vegetable peels as soup ingredients, and powders made from waste fruits and vegetables that can be added to beverages and snack bars.

With our colleagues here at the Robert M. Kerr Food and Agricultural Products Center at Oklahoma State, we’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of products that would be considered upcycled foods.

Ideas for new upcycled products come from researchers within our facility who identify a waste stream with untapped potential, or they originate with an entrepreneur who has a product idea. Either way, interdisciplinary teams here brainstorm ideas, create experimental prototypes and eventually conduct sensory evaluations

— addressing the look, taste, aroma or texture of a potential new product.

One recent example is the creation of a new snack chip from brewer’s spent grain, the solid waste generated in the beer-brewing industry. Another current project is the creation of Kpomo. Also known as Ponmo or Kanda in Nigeria, where it’s traditionally popular, this food is made from beef hide that’s been cleaned and precooked.

With any food product, consumer acceptance depends largely on taste, convenience and price. Moving forward, food processors will still need new products made from waste resources to make economic sense. But research has shown that the term “upcycled” as a proxy for environmental sustainability on a food label resonates with both millennials and baby boomers and can make them more likely to buy these products. Foods labeled “upcycled” await your shopping dollars now.

Dr. Rodney Holcomb, professor of agricultural economics and Dr. Danielle Bellmer, professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering at Oklahoma State University wrote this story in partnership with The Conversation. The Conversation is a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to sharing research from experts like those on our faculty. Read more from our faculty by going to okla.st/theconversation

Dr. Danielle Bellmer

Dr. Rodney Holcomb

Listen to the OSU Research Matters Show biweekly to get a look inside the work of Oklahoma State University faculty, staff and students. The show showcases the impact of OSU’s research on everyday life. Find out more or listen at okla.st/kosurm

Highlighting Student Research

Oklahoma State University hosts inaugural undergraduate research symposium

To understand where research at Oklahoma State University begins, you have to look at the very beginning of the academic journey. From freshmen to seniors, undergraduate research is a vital part of the ecosystem at OSU and this research was on full display at a series of studentfocused research symposiums culminating with the inaugural undergraduate research symposium this year.

On April 19, students filled the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center throughout the day as they presented their work on poster boards.

“The symposium was a reflection of the research conducted at a comprehensive, R1 institution,” said Dr. Christine Johnson, associate vice president for research. “We had students presenting their creative and research activities in disciplines such as architecture, English, languages and literature,

plant and soil sciences, chemistry and mechanical engineering.”

The event was held in conjunction with national Undergraduate Research Week, established by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, and celebrated at institutions across the country. More than 35 academic programs were represented in the student’s presentations.

“For several years now, the university’s undergraduate research committee has intended to host a campuswide undergraduate research symposium,” Johnson said.

Initially planned for April 2020, the event had to be postponed due to the pandemic. However, two years later, 180 students were able to highlight their research and discoveries.

On April 19, students filled the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center throughout the day as they presented their work on poster boards.

At the event, Dr. Kenneth Sewell, OSU vice president for research, spoke to the students and guests.

“I want to not only congratulate all of you who are here, but also all of the people who participated in the research symposium today because you might not have thought about it this way. But you all have made a transition that very few people have achieved in their lives,” Sewell said. “You remember when you were in the third grade, and you quit learning to read and started reading to learn? Since the third grade, you have been learning prepackaged knowledge that other people have provided to you … But you all have made the transition to now producing knowledge, generating discoveries and generating new ways of seeing the world.”

The symposium was an opportunity for all OSU undergraduates, regardless of academic major or stage in the research process, Johnson said.

“It was a chance to disseminate what they have learned through their research and creative activities to their peers, faculty and other members of the OSU community — as well as friends and family,” she said.

Dr. Jeanette Mendez, provost, also spoke at the event.

“Thank you so much for being here,” she said. “I am so proud of you all, I get to be a cheerleader in this. And I have to tell you, as a first-generation college student who knew nothing about research, it was transformative to my life.

“Watching you all at this point in your careers, I am in awe that you’re just getting up here so seamlessly, talking about research that is still probably a little unfamiliar to you — you’re being guided by remarkable faculty — you just spoke with competence and with ease. And so we’re just so proud of the research that you’re doing.”

For Latasha Taşci, coordinator of undergraduate research in the Office of Scholar Development and Undergraduate Research, seeing and hearing from the students in person was important.

“It was inspiring to hear how excited students were to present in person,” Taşci said. “Some students have been actively engaged in research for several years now, but have not yet had the opportunity to present in person.”

Involvement in undergraduate research equips students with a broad skill set, she added.

“It goes beyond skills used directly in their project and often includes life skills, as well,” Taşci said. “It encourages creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking. It empowers them by giving them confidence in themselves. They have the ability to do actual research that can have an impact, and that in itself is empowering.”

Members of the Freshman Research Scholars Program presented at their symposium on April 8 while the Wentz and Purdie Research Scholars Symposium was held on April 15. These are focused on participants of formal scholarship programs.

However, many of those scholars were also present at the campuswide Undergraduate Research Symposium, which was intended to highlight student research across campus.

The Undergraduate Research Committee has plans to grow the event in the coming years.

“Next year, we hope to have awards for Outstanding Faculty Mentoring of Undergraduates in Research,” Johnson said. “Drawing upon award guidelines and criteria from the National Council on Undergraduate Research, we envision multiple award recipients across our broad disciplinary categories.”

This symposium and others like it across the university continue to provide opportunities for students to grow, learn and demonstrate their expertise.

“These provide forums for students, faculty and the community to share in the research, scholarship and creative activity of our outstanding OSU students,” Johnson said. “It also offers the opportunity to examine the connections between research and instruction.”

“It was a chance to disseminate what they have learned through their research and creative activities to their peers, faculty and other members of the OSU community — as well as friends and family.”

DR. CHRISTINE JOHNSON, ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH

Research at Oklahoma State University starts the minute students step foot on campus. For 10 students, their careers are being accelerated through the Niblack Research Scholars program.

These undergraduates have been selected as Niblack Research Scholars for the 2022-23 school year, earning them an $8,000 scholarship and the opportunity to conduct research with faculty across campus.

Funded by Dr. John Niblack and his wife, Heidi, the Niblack Research Scholars program has been a key part of OSU’s undergraduate research success for 18 years. The program allows these students to perform cutting-edge research in various fields under the supervision of faculty mentors.

Niblack graduated from OSU in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and earned a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Illinois before becoming vice chairman of Pfizer Inc.

As a scientist for the international pharmaceutical giant, he was responsible for Pfizer’s Global Research and Development Division, where he directed research into drugs for viral illnesses, cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Niblack retired in 2002 and founded the Niblack Research Scholarship program in 2004.

In his opening remarks at last year’s Niblack student presentations, Niblack spoke about his work, how long research really takes — including the depth of

THE 2022-23 SCHOLARS, HOMETOWNS AND AREAS OF RESEARCH:

research behind the new COVID-19 vaccine — and the possibility of failure.

“My Ph.D. thesis was exactly a failed situation,” he said.

His thesis was supposed to be an expansion on work done by another student; however, that student had falsified data that sent Niblack in the wrong direction.

“It took me 18 months of failure, going to all kinds of experts and doing all kinds of things to finally convince myself that the guy had faked his data,” he said.

Niblack had to pivot his project, so he worked out another subproject involving much of the same research, he said.

“However, I made it, so don’t give up,” Niblack said.

Niblack Research Scholars’ Newest Class Mary Erdmann

Kaitlyn Cotton

Tulsa, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Samantha Stobbe Ponca City, Oklahoma Chemical Engineering

Charlie Vermeire Miles City, Montana, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The Colony, Texas, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Sarah Teeman Stillwater, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Rebecca Wilson Cave Springs, Arkansas, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics

Brinkli Abbitt

Oklahoma City, Chemical Engineering

Natalee Richardson Roff, Oklahoma Animal and Food Sciences

Sam Glenn Stillwater, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Rabeca Richardson Yukon, Oklahoma Integrative Biology

Cox Graduate Scholars

Two OSU students win Otto S. Cox Graduate Fellowships

At Oklahoma State University, the Otto S. Cox Graduate Fellowship for Genetic Research helps students stand out in the field of genetics research.

Students earn the annual fellowship by showcasing proven records of genetic inquiry and the potential to impact the discipline in the future.

This year, two OSU students won the fellowship, which provides a $1,000 stipend and recognition for pursuing challenging work in a rapidly evolving and critical research area.

“Since 2014, the Cox Fellowship for Genetics Research has been propelling the careers of young researchers in this critical domain,” said OSU Vice President for Research Kenneth Sewell.

Past recipients of the Cox Fellowship have gone on to study phenomena as diverse as the neurochemistry of the link between childhood adversity and addiction to the degradation of fish habitats, he said. Other alumni of this fellowship are continuing to pursue advanced degrees or have established laboratories at universities, government agencies or in the pharmaceutical industry.

“Clearly, the Cox Fellowship is having its intended positive impact,” Dr. Sewell said.

THIS YEAR’S RECIPIENTS:

Miruthula Tamil Selvan, doctoral candidate in veterinary biomedical sciences

Bryan Naidenov, doctoral candidate in biochemistry and molecular biology

Selvan’s research is focused on “Immunopathogenesis of the SARS CoV-2 delta variant in the feline model.”

“The project aims to identify the critical factors of immune dysfunction caused by delta variants in cats to predict disease development and

therapeutic outcomes in humans with COVID-19,” Selvan said. “This project also gives a better understanding of the route of infection, clinical signs and transmission potential in cats relative to humans.”

This will help researchers better understand the risk of transmission to cat owners, she said.

“I am fascinated by how animals play a crucial role/threat in disease transmission and sometimes part of the solution to the problem,” Selvan said.

Selvan was inspired by a book titled Spillover by David Quammen, which discusses the animal origins of emerging human diseases, she said.

“I enjoy the time with cats and Biosafety Level-3 work. I feel like the research work contributes some valuable insights that could benefit both human and animal welfare,” Selvan said.

Selvan hopes to use this award funding to attend conferences related to her work.

Naidenov’s research is concentrated on large-scale genomic analysis of the domestic Salmonella enterica bacterium population using algorithmic and computational methodologies.

“In particular, my work is motivated by the investigation of novel genetic population structure in the American Salmonella enterica population and its consequences on selective gene acquisition and functional antibiotic resistance gain,” Naidenov said.

Fifteen years ago, the cost of sequencing even a single genome was a huge barrier to entry, leaving scientists without the whole picture, Naidenov said.

“Now, with improvements to sequencing technologies, one might say our mountains of sequence data are too much for any one person to examine,” he said. “In computational genetics, we excitedly undertake this challenge by

standing at the intersection of statistics, mathematics, computer science and biology — borrowing from each to construct a clearer picture of the hidden code of life.”

The funds provided by this award will help cover travel expenses and registration costs for national and international conferences so that Naidenov can present his work as a poster or oral presentation, he said.

“I believe the active exchange of scientific ideas through oral communication is the best way to foster collaborations and drive innovation,” Naidenov said.

Miruthula Tamil Selvan

Bryan Naidenov

President’s Fellows

Three Oklahoma State University professors were named 2022 President’s Fellows Faculty Research Award recipients

Brian Elbing, Akhilesh Ramachandran and Shannon Spaulding each received $20,000 as part of the award.

DR. BRIAN ELBING

Dr. Elbing, an associate professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, researches the sounds from tornadoes that are below human hearing.

Humans can hear between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, and tornadoes appear to make sounds between 1 Hz and 10 Hz — the lower the frequency the stronger the tornado.

“Specifically, I am trying to determine the fluid mechanism responsible for this sound. Once we find that answer, we can reverse the process and know what is happening in the storm simply by listening to it,” Elbing said.

Elbing plans to fly high altitude balloons with special microphones for hearing these sounds in severe storms.

These funds from this award are being used to support a student to develop and fly specifically on stormy days, he said. The team has also purchased new sensors for the balloons as well as used the funding to support launches, recover the balloons after they land and analyze the data.

DR. AKHILESH RAMACHANDRAN

Dr. Ramachandran, an associate professor in the Oklahoma Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, researches the development of novel disease diagnostic methods.

“Recent technological advances have made genomic sequencing affordable for use in disease diagnostic applications,” Ramachandran said. “However, its widespread adoption for routine diagnostic applications faces several hurdles, including challenges related to analyzing big data.”

In collaboration with Dr. Sathya Aakur at the Department of Computer Science, Ramachandran’s goal is to develop and evaluate artificial intelligence and machine learning protocols to analyze data generated from clinical specimens for the presence of multiple pathogens and disease markers.

“The President’s Fellows award will be instrumental in helping advance the development of these next-generation disease diagnostic protocols and also pursue additional state and federal funding opportunities,” Ramachandran said.

people.

“I plan to use the award to study the ways in which our relations with others influence our empathic responses,” Spaulding said. “I am particularly interested in how empathy and trust get so tightly intertwined.”

This award will help extend Spaulding’s research into new and exciting topics at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and the philosophy of empathy.

“These funds will allow me to work on topics that I have long felt were interesting, under-explored, and, in our contemporary media environments, increasingly important,” she said.

Regents Distinguished Research Award

Oklahoma State University honored seven faculty members with the 2021 Regents Distinguished Research Award during the December 2021 University Awards Convocation. The award recipients must demonstrate a distinguished record of past and continuing excellence in research and be recognized nationally and internationally.

“Research excellence is the hallmark of a great land-grant university,” said Dr. Kenneth Sewell, OSU’s vice president for research. “These honorees are great examples of the amazing impact our faculty have on their disciplines and society at large, not to mention the transformative effect they have on their students here on campus.”

The Regents Distinguished Research Award program includes one award per college, except the College of Arts and Sciences which has two (one in the sciences and one in the arts/humanities disciplines).

DR. BRANT ADAMS , Professor of Music, College of Arts and Sciences

DR. DURSUN DELEN , Professor of Management Science and Information Systems, Spears School of Business

DR. JAMEY JACOB , Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology

DR. CLINTON JONES , Professor of Pathobiology, College of Veterinary Medicine

DR. THAD LEFFINGWELL , Professor of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences

DR. DANIEL LIN , Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences, College of Education and Human Sciences

DR. GAIL WILSON , Professor of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Ferguson College of Agriculture

From left: Dr. Daniel Lin, Dr. Brant Adams, Dr. Jamey Jacob, Dr. Clinton Jones, Dr. Dursun Delen, Dr. Thad Leffingwell and Dr. Gail Wilson.

ORANGE

IS THE ANSWER.

WHEN LIFE POSES QUESTIONS, WHERE CAN YOU GO FOR ANSWERS?

At Oklahoma State University, we turn to research for many of those solutions. From how to grow a better grain of wheat to solutions for advanced and emerging technologies, our top researchers solve society’s most pressing needs. Our ideas are as bold and bright as an Oklahoma sunrise. When the world asks the question, Orange is the Answer.