Chapman Forward Magazine Vol. 2 by Chapman University

CHAPMAN FORWARD

Volume 2, Issue 1 A Research Publication of Chapman University

10 Collaborative artists help us ﬁnd our way through a world of change.

20 A son of Holocaust survivors works to restore looted legacies.

QUANTUM REVOLUTION Yakir Aharonov’s discoveries push the boundaries of physics and hold the promise of next-wave advances.

CHAPMAN FORWARD Daniele Struppa, Ph.D. President Thomas Piechota, Ph.D. Vice President for Research Jamie S. Ceman Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communication EDITOR Dennis Arp arp@chapman.edu

FEATURES 4 The big ideas of Yakir Aharonov continue to push the boundaries of quantum physics. 0 Collaborative artists Claudine Jaenichen and Lia Halloran 1 help us find our way in worlds full of change. 16 Cathery Yeh’s growing coalition of researchers and educators reimagines the mathematics classroom.

SENIOR WRITER Dawn Bonker bonker@chapman.edu

18 The most powerful X-rays on earth help Christopher Kim and his students gain insights at the atomic level.

PHOTOGRAPHY Justin Swindle

20 Holocaust survivor Michael Bazyler champions restitution for those whose legacies were looted.

DESIGN Ivy Montoya Viado

26 At the Thompson Policy Institute, research drives inclusive strategies that assist all kinds of learners.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Stace Dumoski, Brittany Hanson, Sari Harrar, Stephanie House, Heera Kang, Bethanie Le, Aaron Singh Project Management Kristina Venegas Editorial Assistant Catie Kovelman ’19 EDITORIAL OFFICE One University Drive, Orange, CA 92866-9911

28 Christopher Bader’s study of paranormal belief reveals a shift toward faith in the personal experience.

DEPARTMENTS 3 Notes From the Field

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Chapman Forward is published annually by Chapman University. © 2019 Chapman University. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Periodicals postage paid at Orange, Calif., and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Chapman Magazine One University Drive Orange, Calif. 92866-9911 We welcome your feedback on Chapman Forward. Please send comments to magazine@chapman.edu.

The mission of Chapman University is to provide personalized education of distinction that leads to inquiring, ethical and productive lives as global citizens.

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On the Cover: The theories of Yakir Aharonov are sparking a revolution in computing and communication, energizing his colleagues at Chapman’s Institute for Quantum Studies. Photo Getty Images

ACHIEVING NATIONAL RECOGNITION There are many milestones and metrics used to measure the growth of research and creative activity at universities. This past year, Chapman achieved the milestone of an R2 designation as part of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The promotion not only recognizes the University’s robust growth in research and scholarly and creative activity, but it opens doors to enhancements that will improve student experience and opportunities. This will help Chapman recruit top faculty and students, broaden and enhance competitiveness in research efforts, and attract new partnerships with the community to support economic development in the region. The R2 designation is part of a long-term plan and investments by Chapman to support research. Included is more than $20 million for major research equipment in facilities such as Keck Center for Science and Engineering and Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. In addition, during this past year Chapman has invested more than $6 million in institutional funds for research, scholarship and creative activities that allow faculty and students to explore new ideas and share their work at national meetings. Chapman’s 2018-2023 strategic plan also reflects the commitment to research. Significant progress has been made in the first year of the plan, including the establishment of the new Brain Institute, which received $7 million from the John Templeton Foundation and the Fetzer Institute. Among the other achievements are the launch of the new Fowler School of Engineering; Chapman’s first Rhodes Scholarship, earned by biochemistry and molecular biology major Vidal Arroyo ’19; and an International Circle of Excellence Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education for the inaugural issue of Chapman Forward magazine. The stories presented in this edition of Chapman Forward highlight just a few of the exciting areas where Chapman faculty and students are making a difference in the world and in our community. Many of these efforts are funded by outside sponsors such as federal, state and local nonprofits and foundations. These sponsors support diverse research projects that include groundbreaking work in quantum physics, collaborations in art and science, math education for diverse populations, field research on birds in Wisconsin, inclusive education for people with disabilities, and consideration of how California’s housing crisis affects the middle class. This 2019 issue of Chapman Forward provides a glimpse into the efforts that have helped Chapman achieve R2 status and create great experiences for our students. We invite you to join us as we highlight the many ways Chapman faculty and students explore boldly.

Thomas Piechota, Ph.D. Vice President for Research

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THE YEAR IN

RESEARCH It’s been another banner year for research and creative activity at Chapman University. Milestones abound – from the University’s elevation to R2 status, to the official launch of the Fowler School of Engineering; from biochemistry major and cancer researcher Vidal Arroyo ’19 earning Chapman’s first Rhodes Scholarship, to the Brain Institute building new partnerships as it considers age-old questions of consciousness and free will.

Here’s a capsule look at some of Chapman’s recent achievements.

Brain Institute Leads a Global Project This spring, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences (The Brain Institute) officially opened its doors. Validated by more than $7 million in funding, the Brain Institute is at the center of a global research project involving 17 universities, including Harvard, Yale, NYU, Duke, UCLA and University College London. In March, the Brain Institute hosted the second International Conference on the Neuroscience of Free Will, which drew 90 researchers from 40 universities.

$21.3 MILLION CU Elevated to R2 Status

Research Awards Rise

Last fall, Chapman earned an R2 designation in the update of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Achieving R2 status, or high research activity, places Chapman in the company of just 130 national universities.

Funding support from outside sponsors such as federal agencies and nonprofit foundations continues to validate the growing impact of research at Chapman. During the most recent fiscal year, research awards totaled $21.3 million, representing an increase of 107 percent over the previous year. Since 2016, the figure has more than quadrupled.

“This classiﬁcation demonstrates our commitment to connecting our students to professors who are also cutting-edge researchers.” Chapman Provost Glenn Pfeiffer, Ph.D.

DID YOU KNOW ? Chapman is among the top universities in the country, according to the latest rankings from U.S. News & World Report. For the first time, Chapman is ranked as a top-tier institution, an indication of its rising reputation, student profile, world-class faculty and growing research programs. Chapman is No. 125 in the National Universities group, a category that includes 399 of the leading private and public research universities across the U.S. The inaugural issue of Chapman Forward magazine earned an International Circle of Excellence Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

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NOTES FROM THE FIELD

THE PLUCKY DUCKLING Photos and video of the mallard duckling being raised by loon parents have been shared widely, making the unlikely family a media sensation. Photo by Linda Grenzer.

Confounding nature and researchers, adoptive loon parents take a resilient little mallard under their wings. BY STEPHANIE HOUSE

In a story worthy of Hans Christian Andersen, a pair of chickless loons have adopted an orphaned mallard duckling, puzzling even experienced researchers. Chapman University biologist Walter Piper has studied loons for 27 years, and he’s astonished. “No one’s ever seen this type of foster family before,” says Piper, Ph.D., who leads the Loon Project, which since 1993 has tracked and studied the migratory birds on more than 200 lakes in northern Wisconsin. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation. The unlikely adoption was first noticed in June by Loon Project volunteers, who closely monitor nests for signs of chicks. In this case, cracked eggshells led to the discovery that a mallard duckling had been adopted by loons whose own chick had died.

Since the duckling has imprinted on loons, there could be some confusion when it “goes back to being a mallard,” says Chapman biologist Walter Piper, who has studied the behavior of loons for 27 years.

Loons often adopt orphaned chicks of their own species, and there have been cases of loons taking in ducks such as spectacled eiders and goldeneyes, which exhibit behaviors similar to those of loons. But never mallards. Photos and video of the unlikely family quickly spread on the Web, making the parents and their chick multimedia darlings. Piper has been interviewed by reporters from TV networks, newspapers and online sites. “This discovery is fascinating because it is a ‘natural experiment’ that allows us to see how one species of bird responds when it is placed under the care of another, very different species,” Piper says.

In fact, loons sometimes attack and kill mallard ducklings. The two species don’t even share habits. While loons dive deep into lakes to forage for food, mallards feed by skimming the water’s surface. But this mallard duckling mimics Mom and Dad, earning the nickname “The Amazing Diving Duckling” as he reaches loon-like depths. He even eats fish – something a normal mallard duckling would never do. “This is a dramatic natural demonstration of behavioral flexibility or malleability in an animal,” Piper says in a National Audubon Society article. As the little mallard matures, it’s likely he will eventually find his own kind and assimilate, Piper says. However, since this duck imprinted on loons, there could be some confusion when he “goes back to being a mallard,” Piper adds. It’s possible the mallard might even try to mate with loons. “It would be very surprising if this duck were to form a notion that a loon was a suitable mate, but your guess is as good as mine,” Piper said in the Audubon piece. Meanwhile, Loon Project participants are eagerly documenting each new phase in the life of a mallard that clearly has imprinted on more than his parents. “I never wanted to fall in love with this duckling,” Piper writes on the Loon Project blog. “I thought that Daffy and Donald had ruined ducks for me forever. But this little guy’s plucky adaptability might just turn me around.”

Typically loons and mallards don’t get along.

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YAKIR AHARONOV NEVER STOPS THINKING – DEEPLY, IMAGINATIVELY, FEARLESSLY – ABOUT THE STRANGE, RICH AND OFTEN SHOCKING FOUNDATIONS OF THE UNIVERSE.

Photo by Dave Lauridsen

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THE AHARONOV EFFECT

By Sari Harrar

WHETHER COLLABORATING WITH RENOWNED COLLEAGUES OR BRAINSTORMING ON THE FLY, THE AWARD-WINNING PHYSICIST TURNS BIG IDEAS INTO QUANTUM BREAKTHROUGHS.

akir Aharonov never stops thinking – deeply, imaginatively, fearlessly – about the strange, rich and often shocking foundations of the universe. “I think in my sleep. I wake up with new answers every morning,” says the distinguished professor of theoretical physics and co-director of the Institute for Quantum Studies (IQS) at Chapman University. “Even while I’m talking to you right now, my mind continues to work on new ideas.” It’s a sunny summer morning. Aharonov has made time for a phone interview as he and a group of internationally prominent colleagues finish breakfast and drive to Chapman’s campus in Orange for a day of lively quantum conversation. A National Medal of Science winner, Aharonov has discovered dozens of fundamental physics effects, changing the quantum landscape, igniting controversies and winning converts along the way. Nobel Laureate and IQS member Sir Anthony Leggett, Ph.D., characterizes the work of Aharonov and the Institute as among the “major revolutions in the history of physics – and I mean really major revolutions like Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein.” Among Aharonov’s most significant discoveries: Time can flow backward. Subatomic particles are altered by distant forces. Blips of matter can be separated from their properties, much like Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat and its spooky grin. And two particles can – somehow – be linked across wide expanses of space. Mind-bending concepts, all. But Aharonov’s amazing discoveries are routinely proved correct by experimental physicists. (“This isn’t airy-fairy philosophy – these are real experiments,” Arizona State University cosmologist Paul Davies, Ph.D, told Discover



Yakir Aharonov's quantum contributions have earned him a host of awards, including the National Medal of Science in 2010 from President Barack Obama, who called him “one of the most influential figures in modern physics.”

magazine, admiringly, of Aharonov’s work.) And Aharonov’s ideas – particularly an important experimental technique called weak measurement -- are now deployed by other scientists every day to explore new corners of the quantum realm. “Yakir is arguably one of the very best theoretical quantum physicists alive,” says Chapman President Daniele Struppa, Ph.D, a professor of mathematics. “His impact in physics has been tremendous. What is extraordinary about Yakir is the fact that he has built on his most famous work – the Aharonov-Bohm Effect of 1959 – to make more and more exciting discoveries. He has reformulated quantum mechanics in a totally novel way, thus offering a new way to predict the singular behavior of quantum systems.” In general, physics research has yielded an array of societal benefits, from electricity to satellites and smartphones. Quantum theory provides a model of nature that explains how matter and energy behave at the atomic and subatomic levels. It has led to breakthroughs in electronics, lasers and computers. “We’re finding that this is a good time and we are in a good positon to make rapid progress in a number of important areas, including quantum sensing, which has applications for radar and detecting small gravitational fields,” says Matthew Leifer, Ph.D., co-director of the Institute for Quantum Studies. Thanks to his quantum contributions, the 87-year-old Aharonov, with a mop of silver-white hair and a penchant for cigars and punchline stories, has been short-listed for the Nobel Prize. That’s in addition to receiving the National Medal of Science in 2010 from President Barack Obama, who called him “one of the most influential figures in modern physics.” What’s more, Aharonov was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Wolf Prize in Physics, one of the most prestigious honors in the field. Aharonov’s full list of awards includes the Weizmann Prize, the Rothschild Award, the Israel Prize in Physics and the Hewlett-Packard Europhysics Prize.

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"WE ARE MAKING EXCITING NEW DISCOVERIES ALL THE TIME. THIS DRIVES ME TO KEEP GOING.” YAKIR AHARONOV, PH.D. Aharonov is so well known in his native Israel that the influential national newspaper Haaretz wishes him well on his birthday, Aug. 28. And some of his more than 200 published papers have been covered by popular-science magazines and daily newspapers, including Discover Magazine, New Scientist, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today. “Yakir has been making important discoveries for the last 65 years,” says Jeff Tollaksen, Ph.D, founder and co-director of the IQS. “People keep saying, ‘Oh come on, that one can’t be true,’ but his many discoveries have been verified in experiments over and over again. I don’t know of any other scientist with that kind of track record, especially one who’s asking the really big questions the way Yakir is. His team just keeps hitting home runs.”

LABORATORY OF THE MIND At Chapman, Aharonov’s influence is stretching further and further into the quantum world – and far into the future. He’s teaching a new generation of physicists at the Institute for Quantum Studies, and he collaborates with leading scientists from Chapman and around the globe. “Thirteen years ago, Chapman had no physics department. Today we have a department, the institute and we have attracted incredible faculty, visiting professors from around the world and students – undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs – because of Yakir,” Struppa says.“ Aharonov's influence on students can be profound, as it was for Taylor Lee Patti '17, now a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard. As a Chapman undergrad, Patti gave a talk on her research to the American Physical Society and guest-lectured at the Perimeter Institute. In addition, she and Aharonov co-authored a peer-reviewed paper on quantum foundations. Beyond Chapman, Aharonov’s big ideas have the potential for applications such as powerful quantum computers, super-sensitive sensors, stronger lasers and microscopes capable of discerning some of the universe’s tiniest objects. “Laboratories are using his ideas and developing new technologies with them,” Struppa says.

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Formerly a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University, the University of South Carolina and George Mason University, Aharonov joined the Chapman faculty in 2008. “I’ve found complete freedom to do whatever I like in physics and have people around me to discuss it with – including Jeff Tollaksen and Daniele Struppa,” he says. “I have a lot of encouragement to think about my foundational work. And through the Institute, I can share my ideas with scientists from all over the world. We are making exciting new discoveries all the time. This drives me to keep going.” July’s informal gathering of major physicists included Sandu Popescu, Ph.D., a pioneer of quantum information. “We brainstorm 20 hours a day for two weeks,” Tollaksen says. “It’s a very creative time.” In the room there’s always the theorist’s must-have equipment – a chalk board, which is preferable to a white board because it’s easier to erase, Tollaksen notes. “But we are not immersed in equations and numbers alone,” he says. “Yakir’s method is conducting thought experiments – the Gedankenexperiments famously used by Albert Einstein.” Aharonov used the technique extensively as a graduate student at the University of Bristol, England, where his advisor was the renowned theoretical physicist David Bohm, who had worked closely with Einstein. “Gedankenexperiments are the gold standard for making new discoveries,” Tollaksen explains. “We focus on a paradox, a point where two existing theories intersect but don’t seem to fit together. We use our intuition to come up with new ideas that are provable. The technique has fallen out of practice in science. One of our missions is to re-introduce it at Chapman and more widely. We believe this method can serve as a paradigm for teaching in general.”

“YAKIR HAS BEEN MAKING IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES FOR THE LAST 65 YEARS,” says Jeff Tollaksen, Ph.D., right, founder and co-director of the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman.

Photo by Dave Lauridsen

Over more than 65 years of research, Gedankenexperiments have yielded many important new discoveries for Aharonov. One of the most significant is the Aharonov-Bohm Effect, which found that particles can be affected by forces located far away. It’s hailed as one of the major quantum theory discoveries of the second half of the 20th century. Other complex discoveries named for Yakir and his collaborators include The Aharonov-Casher Effect (1984), the Aharonov-Anandan Geometric Phase (1987) and the Quantum Random Walk (1993).

THESE THEORIES AND IDEAS HAVE CAPTURED THE PUBLIC IMAGINATION AND CONTINUE TO INFLUENCE PHYSICS:

TWO -WAY TIME In a 1964 paper, Aharonov and colleagues showed that the future reaches back in time and meddles with the past. “We looked at two atoms, identical at the beginning but different at the end of the experiment,” Aharonov notes. “We theorized that the future tells us something new about the system earlier in time even if you can only find out that difference later in time.”

QUANTUM PIGEONS In 2014, Aharonov, Struppa, Tollaksen and others proved that if pigeons were the size of atoms, three could fit in two pigeonholes and never share the same space. Showing that the result of an experiment is not determined from the beginning raises the possibility that the future will influence the past. A 2016 paper from the team won the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences for best paper of the year.

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WEAK MEASUREMENT Quantum physicists have long lamented that the act of observing subatomic particles changes their behavior. In 1988, Aharonov and his team proposed essentially spying on them, with tiny “weak” measurements. The little glimpses made in the dark must be made thousands of times but add up to solid evidence that’s allowed physicists to study new aspects of the subatomic world. Weak measurements allowed researchers from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and at the University of Rochester to prove Aharonov’s discoveries concerning time.

THE CHESHIRE CAT In 2013, Aharonov, Popescu and others published a paper in the New Journal of Physics finding that a photon and one of its properties – polarization – can exist independently. They open the paper with a quote from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”: “All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone. “Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice, “but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”

THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION: A NEW ‘SPACE RACE’ IN DATA PROCESSING BY DENNIS ARP

SUPEROSCILLATION In collaboration with Struppa and others, Aharonov found in 1989 that low-energy light emits strong, high-energy waves of light if glimpsed through a tiny opening. “This has amazing potential for use in microscopy, where you would need very high-frequency light to distinguish between two atoms very close together,” Struppa says. “It’s very exciting. I still remember when Yakir first proposed it in my back yard after dinner with a group of mathematicians and physicists. We opened a bottle of good Scotch, Yakir puffed on his cigar and we brought out easels and white boards. Yakir has the unique ability to explain profound new concepts in simple, low-tech ways that allow others to contribute. And he has a way of reexplaining something, as you work on it for months or years, that looks at an idea from a slightly different angle every time so you start to see the shape of it. His mind is like a diamond – he cuts to the core of things without the dust of technical details you don’t need at first.”

BACK TO THE FUTURE? Meanwhile, in the car headed for Chapman on that summer morning, Aharonov is talking about the past, the present and the future. “I’ve been thinking big questions about time and the universe since I was a child, as all children do. I just never stopped, and my parents encouraged my work,” he says. Now, he finds himself turning more often to a question on the human scale. “If effects from the future determine what I do in the present, such as in the movie ‘Back to the Future,’ do I have free will?” he asks. “I believe we do. Nature protects freedom of choice. Einstein was troubled by the uncertainty he saw in physics and said God doesn’t play dice with the universe. I’ve asked instead why God would play dice – what is gained? We’re finding this uncertainty is what protects free will. Freedom of choice is at the core of things.”

Justin Dressel doesn’t exactly fit Justin Dressel, Ph.D. the profile of a revolutionary. But make no mistake, he wants Chapman University at the front lines of an emerging battleground in quantum technology. That’s because research in this realm could transform information processing, affecting critical areas of the economy and national security. Recent reports detail China’s ambitions for global leadership in quantum technology. A new “space race” is developing, and the United States is at risk of falling behind. “If the potential of this technology is realized and we aren’t leading the charge as a nation, it could have disastrous consequences for data security and the tech sector,” says Dressel, Ph.D., associate professor and program director for the physics faculty at Chapman. Congress is concerned enough that in December 2018 it funded the National Quantum Initiative (NQI), seeking to empower academic and industry research partnerships – “to bring us out of our caves to more explicitly work together,” Dressel says. Chapman is partnering with other Southern California institutions in hopes of answering this call to collaborate.

WHERE THEORY MEETS APPLICATION Dressel’s contribution is particularly important because his research straddles the worlds of quantum theory and experimentation and has received support from the Department of Defense. “Each group speaks a different language, so a certain amount of translation is required,” Dressel says. “I speak both languages, which greases the wheels for productive collaboration.” The working group, known for now as Quantum LA, includes schools such as USC, UCLA and Caltech. If the collaborative lands National Science Foundation funding, it will become one of just five or six such NSF-funded NQI centers nationally, Dressel says. Many hurdles remain, but the initiative’s goal is clear: to fully explore the potential of quantum technology to revolutionize communication, sensing and computing. This is a critical time, Dressel notes, because the speed of conventional computation has started to plateau. “We’ve miniaturized to the point where we can’t go much smaller – computer processors and transistors are bumping up against atomic scale,” he says. “We have to use the entire theory of quantum mechanics, not the simplified version we’ve used up to this point.” Quantum computing offers the potential for previously unattainable speed and for solving vexing problems, like simulating the structure of complex molecules. At the same time, quantum communication could reshape the world of data security. “What happens if a country can hack into any other government on the planet?” Dressel asks. “We had better be the first to develop counter technologies.”

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OF EARTH AND SKY WITH THEIR CREATIVE APPROACH TO COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS, GRAPHIC DESIGNER CLAUDINE JAENICHEN AND VISUAL ARTIST LIA HALLORAN HELP US FIND OUR WAY IN WORLDS FULL OF CHANGE.

Life is complicated. Thank goodness for humanities scholars, who help us make some sense of it all. Two Chapman University art professors take up that challenge in unique ways, deploying artistic talent and creativity – what some might call “soft skills” – to enlighten their fellow humans. Graphic artist and information designer Claudine Jaenichen applies artistic insights to disaster evacuation maps that aid a most human drive – survival in in the midst of earthly chaos. Meanwhile, studio artist Lia Halloran combines history with imagination to explore mysteries of science and the celestial sky. At the heart of their work is connection – the links and bridges they build between people and disciplines, helping us navigate our ever-changing world.

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DESIGN AND FIRECLEAR MAP PROVIDED BY CLAUDINE JAENICHEN

Photo by Jonathan Thorpe

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OF EARTH AND SKY

‘A MAP IN A DISASTER IS WORTH A BILLION WORDS.’ 12

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BY DAWN BONKER

IMAGINE YOURSELF

the emergency manager of a city with thousands of residents living in some of the country’s most fire-prone canyons and hills, where neighborhoods border chaparralcovered open spaces and the streets wend and wind like tangled spaghetti. Now consider preparing those folks for the day a brush fire threatens their safety and requires swift evacuations. An easy-to-read map might come in handy, yes? That’s the thinking of many California emergency managers, for whom such scenarios are real possibilities in an era when wildfire reaches into suburban communities. Increasingly, officials are turning to a Chapman University professor of graphic design for help with that specialized job. With a combination of design and research, Claudine Jaenichen creates specialized maps distilled to a central message – know your way out. It’s a branch of design called wayfinding. Emergency managers call it lifesaving. “Claudine is a hidden treasure in emergency management for a lot of us,” says Jordan Villwock, emergency operations coordinator for the Laguna Beach Police Department, just one of the agencies calling on an expertise that is not so hidden anymore. Jaenichen is recognized widely for bringing a singular vision to evacuation maps and disaster-preparedness materials. This year alone she gave a FEMA PrepTalk on effective communication in emergencies and presented visual communications recommendations to managers with the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. She also serves on the executive boards for the International Institute of Information Design and the Design Network for Emergency Management. Much of that attention grew out of a project that harnessed her humanities-based skills with the science of human behavior. In a collaboration with Steve Schandler, Ph.D., director of Chapman’s Cognitive Psychophysiology Lab, she tested and developed tsunami evacuation maps for California coast cities, supported by the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and packaged as TsunamiClear. Today those directional signs dot the California coast. Now Jaenichen is applying valuable lessons from that research to develop evacuation maps for communities living in wildfire zones. She titled it FireClear and deployed similar design sensibilities – thick directional arrows, removal of extraneous details and inclusion of only significant landmarks and preferred escape routes. The project also receives state support. The guide evokes the iconic London Underground map, with its clean and stylized route depictions. Naturally, the actual tracks twist and turn along their way, but that’s not essential information for riders who just need to see how to get from point A to point B. “You cannot place (the routes) over Google Maps. They will not match up. They’re more like a diagram,” Jaenichen says. Obviously, tsunamis and fires are different beasts, with unique challenges. Where tsunami tides are relatively predictable, fire patterns are more capricious.

Fire hazard maps in the city of Laguna Beach, such as the one at left, were too technical and failed to help residents understand their neighborhood’s threat level or identify the best evacuation routes. The bright orange redesign by graphic designer Claudine Jaenichen is an example of how she uses visual standards to create maps that communicate essential information. As emergency managers see it, the fire maps will be more useful before an emergency because they’ve been mailed to homes and help build risk awareness long before the first sparks fly. It’s not that the residents are unaware of their local roads, but they may not realize which ones the city has designated as the best routes leading to safety, she says. “This is really about building cognition and inviting the public to understand the region’s fire history. We want to let them know the potentially dire situation they can be in if they don't leave when they’re supposed to leave,” Jaenichen says. “Hopefully, they won’t delay.” Residents in the cities of Laguna Beach and Aliso Viejo already received the maps and informational brochures as part of outreach programs that also include a variety of awareness events. Mobile apps are also in the planning stages. Everyone in this work carries a grim reminder of the project’s urgent need. The 2018 Camp Fire in California’s Butte County tore through more than 153,000 acres and took 86 lives. In 2017, the inferno that swept through the Sonoma and Napa wine country cost 22 lives. “It’s so important,” says Villwock, whose city has seen major fires and evacuations, as well as floods and landslides. “A map in a disaster is worth a billion words.” Jaenichen hopes to receive funding to study the evacuation plans that were in place before and after the major California fires. She also wants to evaluate the messaging and understandability of FireClear. The academic in her itched to have user evidence in hand to fine-tune the maps, which was her process with TsunamiClear. But cities’ needs were urgent, she says. “Fire makes me so nervous. It’s crazy and organic,” she says. “But this is so relevant, and it’s prioritized nationally because it does the most damage. It occurs every year.”

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OF EARTH AND SKY

‘I WANT THERE TO BE SOME TRANSLATION AND EVOLUTION.’ 14

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BY DENNIS ARP

LIA HALLORAN USED TO TAKE THE SUN FOR GRANTED. Then she watched in awe as it revealed its secrets.

In 2017, the visual artist and Chapman University assistant professor of art traveled to rural Oregon to witness a solar eclipse. Even for Halloran, whose work is steeped in the mysteries of science, the experience overwhelmed. “It’s outside of language,” Halloran says. “The earth goes quiet and this shadow falls across you. You see the corona that was there all the time but you’ve never seen it before. You rethink this thing that’s around us all the time.” Interpreting such scientific wonders animates Halloran’s creative world. When her artistic interests tilt toward astrophysics, she partners with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Kip Thorne and her work evokes telescopic views into the heavens. When she starts taking flying lessons, she mounts GoPro cameras all over the plane to record her first solo flight and turn it into “Double Horizon,” an immersive three-channel video installation. When she draws inspiration from the sun, she enlists a handful of fellow explorers to reinvent a century-old process, creating huge cyanotype prints that pulse with energy and connect to a vein of scientific research too long ignored. On view through Nov. 22 at the University of Maryland Art Gallery, Halloran’s exhibition “The Same Sky Overarches Us All” exemplifies her collaborative and creative spirit. She uses those large-scale cyanotype prints to bring to light historic work by women astronomers. Halloran pays homage to the 19th-century women “computers” of the Harvard College Observatory with evocative images, some of which depict them in sky-blue silhouettes. Back in the day, women weren’t allowed at the telescope, but in back rooms they analyzed data that was collected on glass photographic plates. Halloran and her team combed through an archive of these plates, which serve as century-old snapshots of the night sky. “These women helped lay the foundation of astronomy, and I had never heard of them,” says Halloran, who was aided in her research by Chapman student Kayla Quinlan ’19. “It’s awesome to see how Lia interprets what’s on those glass plates and turns it into a work of art,” Quinlan says. “It’s not just about imitating what’s there, but understanding it.”

Large-scale cyanotype prints depict some of the artists and scientists with whom Lia Halloran collaborates. Together, the works are an homage to the Harvard Computers — the late-19thcentury women who worked at the Harvard Observatory under the direction of astronomer Edward Pickering and who once posed for a group photo in this hand-in-hand, paper-doll style. The silhouette at the far right is of Claudine Jaenichen, with Halloran next to her.

The exhibition unites Halloran’s large-scale cyanotypes with her “Double Horizon” video installation to “examine how perception, time and scale inform the human desire to understand the world and our emotional and psychological place within it,” Halloran says in the gallery description. It’s the artist’s largest museum show to date, highlighting a five-year project made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. For Garret Hill ’18, like Quinlan a studio assistant who first joined Halloran’s team while a student at Chapman, the project shows how to realize an outsized artistic vision. In addition to studio work, Hill did the video editing on “Double Horizon.” As the cyanotype-print process begins, Hill marvels as Halloran transforms translucent film into cosmic wonders with her brush strokes. Then he helps place the film between sheets of Plexiglas and photographically coated paper in preparation for exposure to the sun. Some of the resulting works are so big that it takes serious strategizing just to get them in and out of the studio. “We’re always working on the process, always learning, which keeps it exciting,” Hill says. “Lia is an incredible artist. It’s a privilege to help with these works.” Halloran is never afraid to explore expansive ideas, whether she is collaborating with students, scientists or fellow artists, including Chapman professors Claudine Jaenichen (graphic design) and Anna Leahy (poetry), who are frequent partners on multimedia projects. “I want my work to inspire curiosity,” Halloran says. “I want there to be some translation and evolution.” It’s a happy consequence that so many of her projects coax her into the warmth of collaboration and the light of our nearest star. In fact, Halloran’s new piece, for the Simons Foundation and the Flatiron Institute in New York, will depict the sun itself, reflecting research into historic solar drawings done from NASA scans at the Mount Wilson Observatory. “This work is essentially a solar selfie; we’re making an image of the sun printed by the sun,” Halloran says. “I had never thought of the sun as a subject of artwork. But then the thing that’s closest to you is often the thing you take for granted.”

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE | Thanks to a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Chapman assistant professor of art Lia Halloran has become an artist-in-residence as part of a

Caltech-Huntington Program in Visual Culture. Among other contributions, Halloran will conduct research at the Carnegie Institute, the Huntington Library and the Mount Wilson Observatory, then create a body of artwork that is drawn from the research.

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Cathery Yeh’s growing coalition of researchers and educators builds equity by reimagining the mathematics classroom.

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CHANGING + + MATH FOR

GOOD STORY BY HEERA KANG

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athery Yeh’s excitement is palpable as she addresses the room full of K-12 educators at the Better Together: California Teachers Summit. “We need to move away from fixing students to fixing the environment,” Yeh says. “We should be designing math classrooms with the idea that there is no norm. You’re going to have a diverse group. And what we know is that diversity is beautiful.” This keynote speech is just one of the many ways that Yeh, Ph.D. and Chapman University assistant professor in the Attallah College of Education, has advanced the movement to battle inequalities in education. Her primary vehicle for change: math. Why math? “Because mathematics holds power,” Yeh says. When we think back to our own school days, who do we remember as the smart kids? Most likely they’re the elite few who did the best in math. Yeh points out that high achievement in mathematics sets students on a course for success in academics and in life. “Math is power. Math carries status,” says Yeh. “We have to shift the way we teach it so every child can see how brilliant they are.” But Yeh noticed that powerful math experiences were not available to many students, disproportionately leaving out under-resourced communities, non-native English speakers and students with disabilities, for example. “Schools are more segregated than ever,” says Yeh, who taught elementary, dual-language classrooms in the Los Angeles urban core for 10 years. During that period she made over 300 home visits to immerse herself in the community and engage parents and guardians. In classrooms, students are often assigned labels — high, low, smart, struggling. The labels teachers assign to students, Yeh explains, affect student achievement more than any other teacher-student interaction factors in education. To address this inequality, Yeh designed a new math methods course for graduate students in the Attallah College of Educational Studies Teacher Education Program. Thanks to the support of Chapman’s Pedagogical Innovations Grant, the program involves a handson, community-based component taking Chapman students into local K-12 classrooms. Combined with scholarly research done in close collaboration with Yeh, the program is designed for maximum impact.

“In traditional math methods courses in teacher education programs, students learn about the math content, children’s mathematics thinking and how to teach—all at the university,” explains Yeh. “Our Chapman graduate students have opportunities to learn how to teach mathematics in school classrooms, with teachers and with groups of students. This kind of authentic learning will have a larger impact on our students and in our local schools.”

In 2017, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the world’s largest math education organization, published Yeh’s book, “Reimagining the Mathematics Classroom.” In it, she conveys the need for changing the way math is taught, building knowledge on what students already know rather than disenfranchising large swaths of students with rote learning that’s disconnected from the real world.

The foundational element of the methods course is designing what Yeh describes as “rich mathematical experiences” that leverage the knowledge base of all students, regardless of background, English language proficiency or ability status. The instruction is grounded in problem solving, reasoning, play, and, what Yeh argues is most important, real-world application.

After the book held 18 months on its bestseller list, NCTM asked Yeh to join the writing team of mathematics education leaders to write a new book titled “Catalyzing Change,” due out in April 2020. For this book, Yeh is collaborating with colleagues across three different universities to share research outcomes and provide schools and districts with proven models and methods to put into practice.

The math methods course builds on Yeh’s research in special education. She and her coprincipal investigator, Trisha Sugita, Ph.D., received Chapman’s Faculty Opportunity Grant to pioneer and conduct a preliminary evaluation of a technology-facilitated model to improve special education math instruction. Often special education teachers are given the district math textbook and told to teach students with a wide range of ability.

“Classroom instruction shouldn’t be designed to get students to only engage in rote calculations – there are calculators to do that,” says Yeh. “Rote memorization isn’t enough anymore.” Rather, the new generation of math students should be problem solvers, critical thinkers, and active participants in a diverse democracy – ready to use mathematics as a tool to make sense of our world’s pressing problems and create change, she says.

“The teachers tell me they can’t use the textbook because it doesn’t meet anyone’s needs,” says Yeh.

“We need a paradigm shift. Every child can problem solve. How can we support teachers in changing their classroom environment to build on each student’s strengths?”

The research team meets monthly with these teachers and co-teach in their classrooms, looking at the existing curriculum and building learning experiences based on the children’s current understanding. As an illustration, Yeh mentions Jason, 4, from one of these classrooms. One day, his teacher notices that Jason has neatly arranged the peas on his lunch plate in what look like 10 frames, a visual model for learning basic math facts. Jason points to the peas, beaming proudly, and says, “I made a group of 10 and a group of three. And it’s 13.” The teacher praises him for showing his math understanding. This could be chalked up to just another precocious shareworthy moment, but it’s noteworthy that Jason is diagnosed with autism and ADHD and is in a self-contained special education classroom. Yeh mentions another child who, for the first time in six years, is adding and subtracting using the tools and methods from this program. “Some of these students classified with a disability are outperforming their mainstream counterparts in math,” Yeh reports.

Graduate student Marissa Fierro demonstrates a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) activity incorporating basic counting skills with explorations on density and mass. The question: How much weight can aluminum-foil boats ﬂoat?

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KEG Lab researchers Manny Vejar, left, and Fernando Silva load a sample for analysis by the synchrotron, which uses the brightest, most powerful X-rays on earth to provide a view of structures at the atomic level.

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BEAM Story & Photos By

Dennis Arp

TIME

ur story starts with undergraduate students running sophisticated tests using beams of the brightest, most intense X-rays on earth. But don’t worry, this tale has a happy ending.

Students in the Kim Environmental Geochemistry (KEG) Lab at Chapman University are thoroughly prepared to meet the challenge of such a high-level research opportunity. Professor Christopher Kim, Ph.D., the principal investigator who leads the lab, is an internationally recognized environmental geochemist who studies the impact of metal contamination in natural settings. He’s been using the synchrotron radiation testing facility in Palo Alto, California, since his own undergrad days at Stanford University, which operates the lab. “With the synchrotron, we can probe the structure of our samples at the atomic level,” Kim explains. “We can identify trace concentrations of elements we’re interested in, and we can look at our samples in pretty much their native state. There’s no other instrument that can do what the synchrotron can, with this degree of resolution and detail.” KEG team student researchers learn fast that “beam time” is precious at the Department of Energy national lab. They ready their samples weeks before flying to Northern California so they can optimize an intensive 72-hour research window that opens to very few undergrads. After all, this is a facility three scientists have used for testing that led to Nobel Prize-winning breakthroughs. “You’re a student, and you’re at this national lab with other scientists, doing research and collecting data,” says Jessika Valenciano, who

Geochemistry students shine in the brightest rays of research.

manages the KEG Lab. “It’s the kind of opportunity that sets the Chapman research experience apart.” It’s common for new KEG Lab members to be intimidated when they first use the synchrotron. Who better to smooth the way than Kim? He is so widely recognized for his research that when environmental defense attorneys sought a judgment against a Swedish company that had shipped its mine waste to South America, they called on Kim as an expert witness. Closer to home, Kim’s research focuses on abandoned mines in California, where the same process that concentrated gold and other precious metals for miners to collect also concentrated arsenic and other hazardous metals. “It turns out these mine wastes that are left over from the Gold Rush are this large environmental legacy that we’re having to deal with as potential health issues,” Kim says. In support of Kim’s research, the KEG Lab receives funding from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Science Foundation, which has presented Kim with a CAREER award – the NSF’s most prestigious recognition in support of early-career faculty. For his part, Kim says that Chapman students will continue to play a vital role in the success of KEG Lab investigations. “I benefit because they come at these complex environmental geochemistry issues from different angles,” he says. “They benefit because they get the opportunity to own their research – to develop an intuition that shows they’re becoming real scientists.” As they gather data provided by the high-powered X-rays of the synchrotron, KEG lab students show they’re ready for next-level testing. “Sometimes the only way to confirm you can do the testing is for you to be tested yourself,” Valenciano says. “It’s empowering to have that opportunity to prove yourself.”

Student lab members such as Ryly Yee benefit from the beamline experience as they "develop an intuition that shows they're becoming real scientists," says principal investigator Christopher Kim, Ph.D.

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STOLEN JUSTICE T

wenty years after World War II ended, the shadow of atrocity still shrouded the young life of Michael Bazyler. The son of Polish and Russian Holocaust survivors who as teenagers fled the Nazis to Uzbekistan, Bazyler was 11 when his family immigrated to the United States as political refugees. For a spirited youngster starting over in a foreign land, the grip of history squeezed a bit too tightly. The Holocaust was “something I tried to stay away from when I was growing up,” Bazyler says. “It was like the air you breathe. When I saw someone with a tattoo on their arm, it was like everyone had one.” Over time, however, Bazyler came to embrace his connections to family and community. He found that the more he sought to apply his talents for persuasion, research and scholarship, the more he was drawn to international human rights law. As he saw new examples of genocide and mass theft in places like Rwanda, Syria and Iraq, how could he not take up the challenge of so much unfinished work?

In the 1990s, Bazyler began researching and writing about the mass theft of Jewish property in Nazi-occupied Europe. He also became vice president of The 1939 Society, an organization of Holocaust survivors, their children and supporters that promotes Holocaust education in partnership with the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Chapman. These days, Bazyler, JD, is a professor at Chapman’s Fowler School of Law who has testified before Congress on Holocaust restitution and has had his work cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. His book “Holocaust, Genocide, and the Law” won the National Jewish Book Award, and his new work, “Searching for Justice After the Holocaust,” chronicles a comprehensive research project he led, examining legislation passed by the 47 endorsing states of the 2009 Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets and Related Issues. The research project was commissioned by the European Shoah Legacy Institute and was presented in 2018 to the European Union.

BY DENNIS ARP PHOTOS BY JUSTIN SWINDLE

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The son of Holocaust survivors, law professor Michael Bazyler champions restitution for those whose legacies were looted.

Professor Michael Bazyler inspires young advocates such as Jade Stocks (JD ‘19), left, and Kaylee K. Sauvey (JD ‘18) to seek justice for victims of genocidal regimes. “I think it’s a goal of anyone who pursues higher education to try to make positive change in the world,” Sauvey says. CHAPMAN FORWARD

“Every genocide is not just about mass killing but mass theft. And the Nazis stole mercilessly from the Jews of Europe.”

The precedent set by the case has helped other genocide victims achieve justice. One case involved an Austrian Jewish emigre living in California who sought return of five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis and subsequently acquired by an Austrian state museum. The case became the basis of the 2015 film “Woman in Gold,” starring Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds. After years of legal wrangling, the woman, Maria Altmann, ultimately won return of the paintings, valued at tens of millions of dollars.

PRoFessoR MIcHaeL BaZYLeR

Though such rulings are hard-won and rare, the work continues, encouraging young advocates to fight for justice.

Bazyler’s scholarship reveals that a significant amount of the property stolen during the Holocaust has yet to be returned to its rightful owners, who are seeing the clock tick away on their chances for justice. Estimates are that almost half of the 200,000 remaining Holocaust survivors live in poverty. Evidence of the need for Bazyler’s research is all around. Recent news reports detail a high-profile case in which a Southern California federal judge allowed a Spanish museum to keep a $30 million Camille Pissarro painting looted by the Nazis, prolonging the 20-year bid for restitution by heirs of the Jewish woman originally victimized by the theft. Bazyler filed an amicus brief in the case. “Here we are 70 years later, and it’s astounding that these cases are not being resolved,” Bazyler says. “I always preface remarks about restitution by saying that the Holocaust was not about money or property – the Jews were not murdered because they had art. But every genocide is not just about mass killing but mass theft. And the Nazis stole mercilessly from the Jews of Europe.” Perhaps no one knows better than Bazyler the difficulty of achieving justice in decades-old cases where the trail of property ownership was trampled by regimes exercising untrammeled power. He was co-counsel in the precedentsetting 1990s case “Siderman v. Republic of Argentina,” involving a Jewish businessman who was tortured and had property seized during the “Dirty War” years. The case was mired in the Argentine courts when Bazyler and his legal team had a breakthrough. Because Argentina did business in the U.S., Bazyler proved that the U.S. courts had jurisdiction. Just before the case came to trial, it was settled. “The U.S. legal system is the main reason the possessors came to take this seriously,” Bazyler says. “The hero of this story is the U.S. legal system.”

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Kaylee K. Sauvey (JD ’18) was in her first year at the Fowler School of Law when she took a class with Bazyler, who then recruited her as a research assistant. Even now as she practices probate, trust and estate law, Sauvey does pro bono restitution work. She combs through lists released by the City of Warsaw, showing Holocaust-era properties eligible for restitution. She posts the information to a database maintained by the World Jewish Restitution Organization. The Warsaw bureaucracy mechanically follows the letter of Polish law, which says the dispossessed have six months after a posting to file a claim. But city officials actually hope their postings will go unnoticed, Bazyler says “They want the six months to expire so they can keep the property,” Bazyler laments. As a Fowler Law student, Sauvey would spend hours in the library, filling binders with restitution-related information for follow-up by Bazyler and others. “I came to law school fascinated with the subject, and then my professor happened to be this great expert,” Sauvey says. “I think it’s a goal of anyone who pursues higher education to try to make positive change in the world – to seek a measure of justice.” For Jade Stocks (JD ’19), the catalyst for involvement was a comparative law class taught by Bazyler. She found he was eager to support her research interest in Middle East restitution cases and their connection to foreign policy. Professor and student now share a research interest in a huge Jewish Iraqi archive recovered from Saddam Hussein’s palace during the Iraq War. The archive documents a time when Baghdad had a thriving Jewish population.

“Over the years, almost all were killed or left,” Stocks says. “It’s important research, from a historical, moral and legal point of view. It raises a lot of questions.” In addition to legal procedures and research techniques, Bazyler taught Stocks about resolve and resiliency, she says. And she isn’t the only one. “Professor Bazyler has inspired a lot of people who were probably already interested in social justice but now look at these issues in such a meaningful way that it really deepens that connection,” Stocks says. Across Bazyler’s 30 years of scholarship and research, the rewards are as voluminous as the dusty archives and case files he still scours. “I tell my students, ‘Look, if you want to go to a big firm and make lots of money, that opportunity is there. I started there. But you can also do pro bono work that can make your career as a lawyer so much more satisfying,’” Bazyler says. “I want my students to be fighters for justice.”

Opposite page: Art treasures looted by the Nazis during World War II were discovered in salt mines and hidden vaults, but many of the works have yet to be returned to victims or their heirs. In the photos shown here, paintings are examined by a U.S. soldier as well as generals Omar Bradley, George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Photos: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

“Professor Bazyler has inspired a lot of people who were probably already interested in social justice but now look at these issues in such a meaningful way that it really deepens that connection.” Jade Stocks (JD ’19) CHAPMAN FORWARD

DO WE CONTROL OUR ACTIONS? Chapman’s new Brain Institute pairs neuroscience with philosophy to pursue centuries-old questions of consciousness and free will. BY DENNIS ARP It’s a faculty biography on an institutional webpage–typically not a source for gripping prose. But here we find compelling passage into a scientist’s world. “You experience it to be within your power to stop reading this paragraph.” Stop reading? To the contrary: Lead on, Uri Maoz, Ph.D., psychologist and computational neuroscientist in Crean College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University. Maoz is a founding member of Chapman’s new Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences – the Brain Institute. “Apparently, you freely decided to continue. Perhaps you are curious how it will unfold.” Yes, curiosity definitely is growing as the intro to Maoz’s profile rolls on. “But you strongly sense that you could have done otherwise; you could have stopped reading (and you still can).” Welcome to the intriguing domain of Maoz and his Brain Institute colleagues, who seek to expand our understanding at the intersection of decision and action. How does the brain give rise to the conscious mind? Are humans endowed with conscious free will? Do we control our actions, or are we being controlled?

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Such questions “have an air of importance for our human identity,” says Amir Raz, Ph.D., director of the Brain Institute. Historically, these ponderings and explorations have been ceded to philosophers. The Brain Institute is leveraging the tools of neuroscience, including brain-imaging technology and computational modeling, to design experiments that bridge science and philosophy. The institute’s ambitious research program establishes a new field in the study of the brain – the neurophilosophy of free will. The program is validated by more than $7 million in funding, including $5.34 million from the John Templeton Foundation and $1.55 million from the Fetzer Institute. With an additional $150,000 coming from the Fetzer Memorial Trust, the funding total of $7.04 million represents Chapman’s largest nonfederal research grant to date. The support puts Chapman at the hub of a global research project involving 17 universities, including Charité Berlin in Germany, Monash University in Australia and Tel Aviv University in Israel, as well as Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, UCLA and Yale. As the project leader, Maoz also focuses on his own research, which explores volition, decision-making and moral choice. With a combination of techniques such as intracranial recordings, behavioral studies and theoretical modeling, he develops a computational account of volition, examining the decision-making processes that lead to voluntary action. His work has potential to affect legal decisions as well as the teaching and application of ethics. There are also economic and healthcare implications. “Studying this is important because it teaches us about processes in the brain and how things like volition come about,” Maoz said in an interview with Science magazine. “That has implications for the legal system, for example, which distinguishes between voluntary and involuntary actions. It may also have implications for motor disorders like Parkinson’s disease, where people have a hard time with self-initiated movements. If we understand more about how the brain produces self-initiated movements, we may be able to add another layer to the Parkinson’s

Uri Maoz, Ph.D. research. I would say the more we understand about the brain, the better we can do in many areas.” At Chapman, the Brain Institute has a research presence at both the main campus in Orange and at the Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. Topics of inquiry range from psychopathology to self-regulation through biofeedback. One experiment – metacognition in deliberate and arbitrary choices – explores how the timing of people’s judgment about their actions and intentions changes across the types of decisions being made. This experiment builds on the groundbreaking work done by physiologist Benjamin Libet in the 1980s. Libet found that the brain signaled a physical action before participants reported that they had even decided to move. With such research as groundwork, Maoz and his colleagues seek to distinguish between conscious and unconscious decisions, between the planned and the arbitrary, the authentic and the contrived. Perhaps you are still curious how it will all unfold. You are not alone. Maoz admits that as a scientist, he doesn’t know what is required to say that we have free will. But he can consider whether humans meet the requirement. “Do humans possess that? This is an empirical question,” he says. “It may be that I don’t have the technology to measure it, but that is at least an empirical question I could get at.”

THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE MISSING MANGROVES Mixing artificial intelligence with old-fashioned ingenuity, Professor Hesham El-Askary and his team put a coastal forest back on the map. BY BRITTANY HANSON What do you do when an intricate ecosystem of trees and roots disappears? This was the mystery presented to researcher Hesham El-Askary, Ph.D., a professor in Chapman University’s Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling & Observations. He was alerted to the missing mangroves by NASA and U.S. Geological Survey joint program Landsat satellite images of the Arabian Gulf’s Jubail conservation area. They showed startling discrepancies as to how much of the coastline was covered in native mangroves — trees that support diverse ecosystems and thrive in salty conditions. From 2000 to 2014, it looked like the entire forest had disappeared. It turns out that while Landsat images make it easy to recognize variations in topography, they are far less effective at revealing differences in vegetation. As researchers studied bird’s-eye views of the mangrove distribution area, the submerged mangroves were being confused with salt marshes and macro algae. This is where the artificial intelligence comes in. El-Askary and his team used programs known as the Submerged Mangrove Recognition Index (SMRI), the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Classification and Regression Trees (CART) to gain some clarity. The programs allowed researchers to sort through the visual density in satellite images and determine which part of the Jubail coastline was mangroves and which part was marsh, El-Askary says.

CART was 95% accurate in identifying mangroves, while the other programs achieved 90% accuracy. With this honor-rollworthy lineup of programs, El-Askary and his team were able to “find” the forest through its trees. The team’s findings directly support conservation efforts by the Environmental Protection Department of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company. The research will also be used by the Center for Environment and Water of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran. “Both are working closely with us on the preservation of these marine ecosystems,” says El-Askary. “Our mapping techniques will be key in establishing a better understanding of how they are affected.” Going forward, the Chapman team’s findings are likely to be applied wherever Mangrove forests are studied – especially to validate USGS datasets, since that information is generally considered a baseline for mangrove mapping and monitoring.

Professor Hesham El-Askary and Ph.D. student Wenzhao Li use computer technology to "find" mangrove forests that had been missing from satellite images.

Disappearing Trees You can find mangrove forests in 123 countries – most of them in tropical latitudes. The arid Middle East accounts for about 0.4% of global mangroves.

The team’s approach of combining traditional AI algorithms with knowledge-based expertise may also be applied to solve satellitedata issues in other areas of research, such as analyzing crop growth, planning cities and monitoring traffic patterns.

These coastal trees and shrubs play an important part in regulating climate by sequestering atmospheric carbon. They also help moderate extreme weather events such as cyclones and tsunamis.

And for the time being, mangrove forests of the world remain safely in sight.

About 90% of global mangroves are critically endangered. They are nearing extinction in as many as 26 countries.

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WHERE SPECIAL NEEDS BECOME DISTINCT POSSIBILITIES At the Thompson Policy Institute, research drives inclusive strategies that help all kinds of learners. BY DAWN BONKER

Stephen Hinkle didn’t always love a good joke or pun. Humor and its indirect meanings eluded the Chapman University Ph.D. student, who has autism. But these days he’s a bit of a jokester himself. In a quiet campus meeting room, he flips open his laptop to share a cartoon of a man lamenting the “monkey on his back.” Scrolling to a new image, Hinkle reveals a cartoon of a man with … a monkey literally on his back. Hinkle bursts into laughter. Yes, that second image is an example of how he used to think about idioms, puns and playful jests. He smiles now, but imagine him as a 5-yearold whose mother was told to institutionalize him. See him as a schoolboy who recoiled in a noisy cafeteria and thought that when he was told to avoid strangers it meant to retreat from anyone his parents hadn’t introduced him to already, including classmates. Childhood for him was a lonely slog, compounded by the constant struggle to decode metaphorical language and nuanced meanings. Still, he learned, although extra help would have eased the way. Today, the opportunity to provide the help he once needed is at the heart of Hinkle’s work as a highly sought-after motivational speaker and advocate for people with disabilities, special needs and different learning styles. People with disabilities have more potential than most educational systems provide, he says. Hinkle aims to show that with awareness and support, they can flourish and lead full lives. “Let their own talents guide them to what they become. Don’t put low expectations on people,” says Hinkle, who has spoken on the topics of autism, inclusive education and disability policy in 24 states and Australia. Now he brings that teaching skill set and mission of inclusion to Chapman’s Thompson Policy Institute (TPI), where he works as a graduate research assistant as he earns a Ph.D. in the Attallah College of Educational Studies. Founded in 2015 with support from

“Let their own talents guide them to what they become.” Stephen Hinkle, Chapman Ph.D. candidate

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the William & Nancy Thompson Family Foundation, the institute conducts research and training aimed at improving policies and programs serving children and adults with disabilities.

DISABILITY SUMMIT Like Hinkle, TPI advocates on students’ behalf, but chief among the institute’s tools is research. TPI researchers present many of their findings at their annual Disability Summit, a signature event held each spring on the Orange campus. The event brings together scholars, educators and policymakers for a daylong consideration of inclusive education. Among the findings presented at this year’s summit was a report by TPI researchers that revealed problems of equity in special education. In an analysis of data from California school districts, researchers found that black students with disabilities had lower rates of inclusion in regular classroom settings than their white peers with similar learning challenges. Additionally, they saw that services vary greatly by location. In essence, the bigger the district, the less likely students are included in general-education classrooms. TPI shares such insights with policymakers, educators and families with the ultimate goal of creating schools that are more inclusive so that people like Hinkle can thrive. The rewards are far-reaching, says Don Cardinal, Ph.D., professor and director of TPI and one of the study’ s authors. “Sameness is comfortable for most of us. So we seek those who look like us and talk like us. The entire diversity movement is rooted in the notion that each of us can be greater when we have regular access to those who are different from us, broadening our thinking and increasing our range of possibilities. Disability is no exception,” Cardinal says. Hinkle, 40, speaks to that theme as well – “If we were all the same it would make the world really boring.” And he points out distressing statistics, such as the 73 percent unemployment rate among people with disabilities.

A PERSONAL JOURNEY Hinkle’s personal experience through the educational system as an autistic individual shapes many of his talks. One of his favorite stories is how he developed his social skills, a challenge for many autistic individuals. His method makes particular sense for someone who earned a bachelor’s in computer science from San Diego State University and a master’s in special education from Northern Arizona University. He developed a novel social-skill strategy. It was like he was a Mac operating system learning to operate in Windows. “I went back through my life, analyzing all of the activities, from elementary school to grad school. If you were a beginner, what would you need to know, step by step?” he explains. Understandably, the list was long. There was the frustration he felt at a grade school assembly when he didn’t know when to laugh, clap or stay quiet. And there was the time in high school when he mistook talk of prom for a discussion about PROM – programmable read-only memory, a digital storage device. The process was so enlightening to him that he is considering making it the topic of his Ph.D. dissertation. Hinkle believes teaching behavioral and social skills is achievable and can expand opportunities for people who might otherwise be relegated to unskilled employment, despite intellectual strengths. He hopes to develop specific strategies to help teachers accomplish those goals.

Hinkle was not the only winner the day that acceptance notice went out, Cardinal says. “Many of us have been denied regular access to the Stephens of the world. We lived absent of this diversity. We lived a lie, thinking those around us represented the whole. Clearly, we lived a false reality, as many are still doing today,” Cardinal says. “Chapman students in the Ph.D. program, as well as faculty, have the opportunity to live the truth – to more deeply understand difference and thus themselves. Chapman will clearly be better having known Stephen and all those who will follow him.”

Motivational speaker Stephen Hinkle brings teaching skills and a mission of inclusion to Chapman’s Thompson Policy Institute (TPI), where he is a graduate research assistant.

With Hinkle as a role model, that time draws closer every day.

“I would like to see more people with disabilities not miss the boat,” he says.

RESEARCH AND TRAINING TPI also aims to expand opportunity, using research, training and partnerships with a variety of community groups that work with people with autism and other disabilities. Welcoming Ph.D. students like Hinkle into the fold is part of that mission as well, Cardinal says. In fact, TPI is the main reason Hinkle enrolled at Chapman. He was the keynote speaker at the Disability Summit in 2017 and in passing mentioned that he wanted to pursue a doctorate someday. Go for it and apply to Chapman, Cardinal said. So Hinkle did, and ultimately he received a full Presidential Fellowship.

We all benefit from “broadening our thinking and increasing our range of possibilities.” Don Cardinal, Ph.D., director of TPI.

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WHY IS PARANORMAL

BELIEF ON THE RISE? BY BRITTANY HANSON PHOTOS BY DENNIS ARP

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RESEARCH REVEALS A SIGNIFICANT SHIFT AWAY FROM STRUCTURED SYSTEMS TOWARD FAITH IN THE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

igfoot, aliens, ghosts and psychic abilities used to be the stuff of checkout-line tabloids and daytime TV. But now these, and many more beliefs like them, are securing a spot in the mainstream. A majority of Americans – 52% and rising – profess to having a paranormal belief or experience. Are belief systems becoming more “out there,” or does this rise in acceptance of the paranormal tell us something larger about a shift in how people come to develop their beliefs? This is the compound question Chapman University research professor Christopher Bader, Ph.D., sought to investigate in his book “Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture.” “Belief in the paranormal is no longer a fringe subject,” says Bader, who co-leads Chapman’s Institute for Religion, Economics and Society with professors Ann Gordon, Ph.D., and Edward Day, Ph.D. The three are principal investigators on the annual Chapman University Survey of American Fears. Bader has published widely on paranormal experiences, fear, sociology, deviance, criminology, the sociology of religion and education. He has embedded with Bigfoot hunts, talked with UFO encounter support groups and gone on and organized ghost hunts. The research for “Paranormal America” pulls information from five survey projects that involve Bader, drawing from a combined survey set of more than 4,000 respondents. The research shows that the trend toward paranormal beliefs and experiences embraces a broad pantheon of ideas. Some believers in the paranormal search the skies for unexplained lights, go on late-night hunts for ghosts or hike through North American woods in search of Bigfoot.

”Belief in the paranormal is no longer a fringe subject,“ says Christopher Bader, Ph.D., Chapman research professor and author of ”Paranormal America.“

Some believe in the lost city of Atlantis, demon possession, prophetic dreams, reiki, healing sounds, power crystals and tarot cards. The intensity of belief also varies widely.

THE PARANORMAL IS PERSONAL One commonality is that people don’t like it when others tell them what to believe, Bader says. “They’re hearing, ‘Here’s what God is, here’s what God wants, here’s what God says is right and wrong.’ If you walk into your church and you say, ‘I’m seeing a ghost,’ they can say, ‘No you didn’t,’ and that’s it,” Bader says. These days, Bader’s research reveals that people are less likely to let outside forces dictate their beliefs. The shift from institutional to personal belief structures could be one reason for the rise in the reports of paranormal experiences, he says. With the paranormal, Bader notes, things are extremely democratic, except as they affect atheists and the intensely religious. These groups are the least likely to report paranormal beliefs or experiences. “It’s because they’re convinced it’s something else,” Bader says. Each of these groups has a strictly bound belief system already in place, he adds. Research indicates that people tend to focus on a particular area of paranormal interest based less on what they know and more on what they feel or see. “The paranormal is about people who have experienced something,” says Bader. “The people who are the most into it are the people who have experienced it for themselves.”

SURVEY FINDINGS Professor Bader’s research shows that…

25% of Americans have read or researched the world of ghosts, hauntings and apparitions.

67.9%

of women respondents

63.3%

of male respondents

Report a belief in Atlantis.

MEN are more likely to connect with the paranormal via cryptozoology, or animals of folklore (Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabra).

59.1%

of women respondents

52.1%

of male respondents

Report a belief in haunted places.

WOMEN

are more drawn to New Age connections (psychics, mediums, astrology, ghost contact).

MARRIED = UNMARRIED Married and unmarried people are equally likely to chase Bigfoot.

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FACULTY NEWS

Concentrating the Power of Cancer-Killing Drugs BY DAWN BONKER

Kamaljit Kaur, Ph.D.

Pharmacy researcher Kamaljit Kaur engineers a targeted therapy that spares healthy cells.

Triple-negative breast cancer is a perfect storm of challenges for both patient and physician. It generally strikes women under 40, spreads beyond the breast and reoccurs after treatment. Unlike other varieties of cancer, it isn’t driven by hormones, so the one-two punch of chemotherapy partnered with newer therapies that target hormone-sensitive tumors isn’t an option. Hence, chemotherapy is the linchpin of treatment against this particularly aggressive disease, which strikes African American women and Latinas and carriers of BRCA gene mutations in disproportionate numbers. A scientist at Chapman University School of Pharmacy is working to improve how those powerful cancer-killing drugs reach their targets, potentially increasing survival rates for millions of women while easing the abysmal side effects of treatment. Her work is so promising that it earned a three-year, $400,000 grant from the NIH-National Cancer Institute on which Kamaljit Kaur is the principal investigator. “It’s a very simple idea, really. I’m not doing any fancy laser treatment or radiation. This is just using existing chemotherapy, but making it much better – many times better,” says Kaur, Ph.D., director of the Center for Targeted Drug Delivery and associate professor at Chapman.

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FACULTY NEWS In essence, Kaur has engineered a kind of molecular radar system and attached it to the therapeutic drugs. Working in her lab with sophisticated robotics and software, she reassembles selected peptides drawn from amino acids contained in larger proteins. The result is a cancer-cell-targeting (binding) peptide. When connected to medication molecules, this structure helps the chemotherapy agent travel intact until it meets cancer cells. That encounter triggers the peptide to attach to the cancer cells, unleashing the tumor-killing payload where it’s needed, rather than throughout the body. Sparing healthy cells the ravages of chemotherapy is just one reason targeted drug delivery systems like Kaur’s are a rising area of interest in cancer research. “These chemotherapy drugs are beautiful,” Kaur says. “They are very powerful, and their mechanisms of action are highly effective in combating cancer. However, when they are not targeted, they wreak havoc on ‘good’ cells, and that is the main problem of conventional chemotherapy. If these drugs can be targeted, they could be significantly more potent in fighting carcinogenic cells.” In the case of triple-negative breast cancer, targeted therapy could also allow for more intense treatment, often the key to battling this cancer. Many patients can’t tolerate elevated amounts of the potent drugs, though, so doctors are forced to reduce the level of treatment, which can lower cure rates or lead to the development of drug resistance, Kaur says. But if engineered peptides prove workable, the breakthrough could be transformational.

Working in her lab, Professor Kaur reassembles selected peptides drawn from amino acids contained in larger proteins. The result is a binding peptide that can attach to cancer cells, unleashing a tumor-killing payload where it's needed. Photo by Gerald Carter

“It is a win-win situation, if it works,” she says. Kaur and her collaborators at the City of Hope are still testing the engineered peptide-drug conjugates, also known as PDCs, in mice and say it’s too soon to report even early findings. But results Kaur published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry showed that PDCs prepared in her laboratory were four times more effective against drug-resistant cancer cells than the drug itself. That promising direction excites Kaur, who is hopeful such work will contribute to other areas of cancer research. The field captured her attention when she was in graduate school, and like so many people, family members have been touched by the disease. “Cancer is a very difficult problem to address, and I thought I should probably understand one form better, and then we can go to others,” she says. “So, I'm focusing on breast cancer to basically learn as much as I can. Then, my research can potentially be applied to any other cancer.”

“It’s a very simple idea, really. I’m not doing any fancy laser treatment or radiation. This is just using existing chemotherapy, but making it much better – many times better.” Kamaljit Kaur, Ph.D., director of the Center for Targeted Drug Delivery at Chapman.

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CALIFORNIA FEUDALISM: THE SQUEEZE ON THE MIDDLE CLASS This essay is excerpted from a research brief published by the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University. The full report is at chapman.edu/wilkinson/_files/Feudalism.pdf. BY JOEL KOTKIN AND MARSHALL TOPLANSKY

California was built by people dedicated to hard work, innovation, family and community. A large number came from other countries or poor backgrounds: sharecroppers from the South, campesinos from Mexico, people fleeing communism and poverty in Asia, escapees from Hitler’s Europe, or Okies and others fleeing the Dust Bowl. This proud legacy is threatened. California has now taken on an increasingly feudal cast, with a small but growing group of the ultra-rich, a diminishing middle class, and a large, rising segment of the population that is in or near poverty. Indeed, amid some of the greatest accumulations of wealth in history, California has emerged as a leader in poverty. Adjusted for costs, California’s overall poverty rate is the highest in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The most fundamental threat to the middle class in California lies with the state’s extremely high cost of living, which has largely been caused by unprecedented house price increases relative to household incomes. More than 80% of the higher cost of living in California is the result of higher housing costs.

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What is the impact of rising costs on everyday Californians? We set out to answer this question by looking at the real-world household finances of different groups within the state. Our Chapman University research team identified eight broad California “personas” that we can all relate to. We looked at diverse groups of people who vary by whether they live inland or on the coast, by age, by how many children they are raising, and by income level. Our goal was to answer a simple question: How much income do people have after paying taxes and the essential expenses required for a reasonably expected standard of living at their income level? The answers raise deep concerns about the sustainability of the California Dream. To a remarkable extent, Californians simply cannot afford the expenses necessary to support the standard of living expected at their income level. This has consequences that affect expenditures and lifestyle. Californians with above-average incomes might underfund their savings. Retirees might cut back on healthcare and transportation spending. Lower-income people might share housing costs with other households. Households with children might avoid costly childcare by relying on friends or relatives, or even leaving older children unsupervised. Many Californians turn to consumer debt to plug the gap. Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on non-mortgage debt shows that Californians have increased their percentage of after-tax income dedicated to consumer debt service to close to what it was at pre-recession levels. This has forced many people into lower standards of living and heavy borrowing to survive financially. We examined the pre-tax incomes, the spending habits necessary to support a reasonably expected standard of living, and the resulting hypothetical surpluses or deficits in eight cases, which we call personas. Our results are based on statistics published by broad data collection sources, such as the MIT Cost of Living Calculator and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Consumer Expenditure Survey. We also used secondary research on specific areas of expenditure from topic-specific

RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES

PERSONA

PRE-TAX INCOME PERCENTILE

2018 PRE-TAX HH INCOME

2018 HYPOTHETICAL SURPLUS (DEFICIT)

HOUSING,UTILITIES AND PROPERTY TAXES (IF OWN)

TRANSPORTATION

2018 HYPOTHETICAL SURPLUS/DEFICIT AS % OF AFTER-TAX INCOME

Upper Management and Professionals

99%

$500,000 +

$78,073 +

42%

27%

Mid-Level Executive

95%

$230,000

($1,523)

51%

12%

-1%

Jr. Executive or Professional

80%

$125,000

($8,838)

54%

11%

-10%

Recent Professional Degree

60%

$75,000

$10,039

45%

19%

Service Line Worker

40%

$47,000

($21,017)

60%

26%

-53%

Retirees Statewide

60%

$75,000

($7,463)

70%

13%

-12%

Experienced Manufacturing Worker

60%

$75,000

($15,757)

36%

17%

-26%

Agricultural or Service Worker

40%

$47,000

($11,358)

36%

26%

-29%

sources. Finally, we incorporated interviews with individuals and families about expense levels they are experiencing in the real world. We placed greater weight on these “real world” numbers. The accompanying chart shows the percentage of after-tax income each spending category represents for each of the different personas. Only two of the personas would have enough income for their expected standard of living: the upper 1%, and recent college graduates with professional degrees and without children to support. For our other personas, hypothetical spending exceeds after-tax income from 1% (for midlevel executives with $230,000 in pre-tax household incomes) to 53% for coastal service line workers. Six of the eight personas have negative hypothetical income, which can be as high as $21,017 for lower income coastal service workers.

Housing, not surprisingly, is the highest expense for all personas, ranging from 70% of after-tax income for retirees to 36% for lower income people who share household expenses with other families. Transportation is the next highest expense, as a percentage of aftertax income, for most others. Using our rough estimates, it appears that many Californians have a deficit every month relative to the expected standard of living. Many often simply “do without.” Increasingly little of California’s population is “living the dream;” even fewer are living it without financial anxiety.

Joel Kotkin is the RC Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University and the director of Chapman’s Center for Demographics and Policy. Marshall Toplansky is clinical assistant professor of management science at Chapman’s Argyros School of Business and Economics and research fellow at the Hoag Center for Real Estate and Finance.

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TAXES, GUNS AND SUICIDE: AN ECONOMIST’S UNEXPECTED JOURNEY This piece was first published in the Los Angeles Times. BY JAMES L. DOTI

The fascinating thing about economic research is that it moves in ways that often can’t be anticipated. Sometimes, your assumptions are upended. I was recently part of a research team that showed that people living in states with relatively high taxes tended over time to move to states with lower taxes. Case in point: The states with the highest rates of taxation — New Jersey, California and New York — also had the highest levels and rates of net outward migration. In the course of that research, I came across statistics that showed New Jersey, California and New York as having the three lowest rates of suicide. How could it be that the three states with the highest tax rates also had the lowest suicide rates? Perhaps higher taxes allowed for greater funding levels for suicide prevention or mental health programs. Or more likely, I thought, this was simply a spurious relationship and there was something else going on that explained suicide rates. But what was that “something else”? My eureka moment came when further research revealed that high-tax states like New Jersey, California and New York were among the lowest in rates of gun ownership. At the same time, states like Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming had something else in common besides low tax rates. They also had high rates of gun ownership. Half of all suicide deaths are caused by firearms. Over the last decade, the number of U.S. suicides by firearm has increased almost 20%, claiming the lives of nearly 22,000 Americans every year. Suicide is now the 10th leading cause of death in the U.S. So maybe the “something else” that explains the number of suicides is not the rate of taxation but the more intuitively plausible connection with gun ownership. To test that, I measured the correlation between the percentage of American adults over 18 who owned guns and the number of suicides per 100,000 individuals over 18 for all 50 states. That correlation was not only statistically significant but higher than the correlation between taxes and suicides.

James L. Doti, Ph.D., is an economics professor and president emeritus of Chapman University. He founded the Anderson Center for Economic Research in 1978 and continues to serve as one of its lead researchers and presenters of the University’s annual Economic Forecast.

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For example, 20% of adults in California own a gun, vs. Arizona’s 32%. Given the close relationship I measured for the correlation between gun ownership and suicide for all 50 states, it shouldn’t be surprising that California’s suicide rate of 10.5 per 100,000 individuals was lower than Arizona’s 18.2 per 100,000. I also found that the 12 states with the highest rates of gun ownership had an average suicide rate of 20 per 100,000 individuals. By contrast, the 12 states with the lowest rates of gun ownership had a significantly lower suicide rate of 12.3 per

RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES 100,000. Even more alarming was that the 12 states with the highest rates of gun ownership also had the highest teen suicide rate of 16.6 per 100,000 adolescents ages 15 to 19. That teen suicide rate is roughly double the 8.0 rate for the 12 states with the lowest rates of gun ownership. I also ran regression tests that suggested if tougher gun regulations were to push gun ownership from its current average of 33% of all adults over 18 to, say, a lower rate of 29%, the projected number of suicides would decline from the current average of 16.7 suicides per 100,000 individuals to 15.7 suicides per 100,000. Such a decrease would lead to about 3,000 fewer suicides nationwide a year.

GUN OWNERSHIP

CALIFORNIA

20%

10.5

32%

18.2

OF ADULTS

ARIZONA

OF ADULTS

It might be argued, though, that if guns weren’t around, suicidal people would find other ways to commit their act. But if this were the case, one would expect states with low rates of gun ownership to have higher rates of non-firearm suicide and vice versa. Such an inverse relationship, however, was not supported in the correlation and regression tests I conducted.

SUICIDE RATE*

*PER 100,000

SUICIDE RATE*

TEEN SUICIDE RATE*

When a gun is more readily available, there is a greater likelihood that it will be used to commit suicide. Other studies have shown that many suicide attempts are impulsive acts. That, in turn, suggests that if a gun is more accessible, it will be easier to act on impulse.

12 STATES W/ LOWEST GUN OWNERSHIP

12.3

What started out for me as a question about a seemingly inexplicable relationship between taxes and suicides eventually led to compelling findings about the relationship between guns and suicides.

12 STATES W/ HIGHEST GUN OWNERSHIP

16.6 *PER 100,000

”How could it be that the three states with the highest tax rates also had the lowest suicide rates? My eureka moment came when further research revealed that high-tax states like New Jersey, California and New York were among the lowest in rates of gun ownership.“ Jim Doti

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5 QUESTIONS

Quelling The Fears That Prevent Vaccination BY DAWN BONKER

Scientists, decades of authoritative research, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, generations of physicians and more than a few grandparents who remember the dangers of childhood diseases all agree on this fact — immunizations save lives. And yet, a U.S. measles outbreak that began this winter endures and is linked to a growing number of parents who reject vaccinations for their children. This fall, seasonal flu shots again will be offered at multiple locations, from supermarkets to work places, and yet only an estimated 37 percent of American adults will roll up their sleeves, despite the vaccine’s proven ability to prevent flu. What’s going on here? In a nutshell, it’s more about social science than medical science, says Jeff Goad, Pharm.D., professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the Chapman University School of Pharmacy. Goad is past president of the California Immunization Coalition, winner of 2019 APhA Immunization Champion Award for Outstanding Career Achievement and a frequent lecturer on vaccination awareness and education.

Why do people think they know better than what research has proved? We’ve had a mistrust of government that’s been percolating from the 1960s and on for a range of things, from supposed conspiracy theories to government cover-ups. It used to be that the media would investigate those kinds of stories and they’d be vetted, filtered and examined through a much more objective lens. Today there is no filter and there is no lens. The Internet can send you five different takes on the same story. It’s information overload for many people. The Centers for Disease Control becomes just one more voice. The cycle is so quick, the legitimate media sometimes get outpaced. People don’t know the difference between a CNN story and a parent blog.

How do health educators combat this trend? We think about it on a spectrum. You have the vaccine-compliant, who come in asking for vaccines and follow recommended guidelines. At the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the anti-vaccination groups. You’re going to make little to no headway with them. We actually try not to engage them. But what gets wrapped in the middle is what we call the vaccine-hesitant. That’s the group we need to work with. The vaccine-

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Since measles is highly contagious, even a small number of unvaccinated children can trigger an outbreak, says Chapman Professor Jeff Goad, Pharm.D., an immunization expert.

hesitant are moms and dads who’ve heard something on a talk show or read something on the Internet that makes them hesitant to vaccinate their child. But when you meet them where they are and present them with the facts, they usually choose vaccination. Fortunately, there are more people who get vaccinations for their children than not.

If most are vaccinated, why are unvaccinated children a problem? Since measles is highly contagious, even a small number of unvaccinated kids can set off an outbreak. For example, a child with measles will infect around 12 to 18 non-immune people, who can then infect 12 to 18 more, and on it goes. If you increase the number of vaccinated (considered immune), that child with measles just has less people to pass it on to, and eventually the disease runs its course before they can infect anyone else.

What educational approaches work well? I’ve worked with many different groups on this, from the Centers for Disease Control to the Immunization Action Coalition and lots of community-based groups. The universal theme is “fight fire with fire.” For example, since the anti-vaccine group uses personal stories to distort the facts, our immunization coalition created a series of videos of parents whose kids and other loved ones have been injured by the diseases that could have been prevented through immunization.

What makes this approach effective? It’s difficult to relate to just numbers. Anytime you’re talking numbers, you must have a story with it – something they can contextualize, otherwise the message is not going to stick. Telling people that the flu killed almost 80,000 people in the U.S. last year, as amazing as that sounds, is not as powerful as showing a story of a mom recalling when she lost her little girl to what she thought was a cold but turned out to be influenza.

FACULTY NEWS

$1.6M GRANT FUNDS STUDY OF CANCER - RELATED VIRUS BY DAWN BONKER

A professor at the Chapman University School of Pharmacy has received a $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, which can cause cancer and other diseases, particularly in transplant recipients and people with HIV infections. Jennifer E. Totonchy, Ph.D., will use the RO1 grant to better understand how the virus is transmitted, interacts with the human immune system and is affected by other factors. RO1-level grants are one of the NIH’s largest funding mechanisms, and they support significant health-related research for up to five years. This is the first Chapman - submitted R01 grant for the School of Pharmacy, which opened its doors to students just five years ago. “This is a testament to Jennifer’s scientific prowess and the incredible, dedicated work of her and her laboratory team and collaborators,” said Ron Jordan, Pharm.D., dean of the School of Pharmacy. The National Cancer Institute at the NIH is interested in the virus’ transmission paths because scientists do not yet understand how the virus causes cancer. So prevention is paramount, Totonchy says. “We’ve known about the virus for about 25 years, and we still do not know how it moves around in the human population. This research is based on the idea that if we know how this virus gets from person to person, we might be able to rationally design strategies to prevent that from happening and therefore prevent cancer from happening in the first place.” “Limiting the spread is the easier way of getting rid of the cancers that are associated with this virus,” she says.

Professor Jennifer E. Totonchy is studying how Kaposi sarcomaassociated herpesvirus is transmitted.

With this new grant, Totonchy will use a variety of cell types collected from human tonsils to identify factors that influence transmission of the virus. It also will build on her ongoing research into how the virus influences B cells in tonsil tissue. The research potentially holds other implications, too. Many scientists who study viruses suspect inflammation may help organisms gain a foothold, so the findings may add pieces to the inflammation puzzle, she says. “Inflamed tissue is probably pretty relevant to transmission,” Totonchy says. “There are epidemiological studies suggesting that for some reason this virus really does better in an inflamed context, which seems like it would have implications for the study of inflammation in general.”

”This is a testament to Jennifer’s scientific prowess and the incredible, dedicated work of her and her laboratory team and collaborators.” Ron Jordan, Pharm.D., dean of the School of Pharmacy.

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FACULTY NEWS CLIMATE PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS GRAND CHALLENGES INITIATIVE

hapman University researcher Carter Berry seeks to understand how diverse forests are faring in an unprecedented era of climate change. While many scientists are studying plant photosynthesis in hot, sunny conditions, Berry is looking at what happens when clouds predominate. The lecturer and postdoctoral fellow teaches in Chapman’s Grand Challenges Initiative, which assembles teams of undergraduate students to take on some of the most pressing problems of our time, from ensuring a cybersecure future to curing a neurodegenerative disease. To date, Grand Challenges Fellows have submitted more than 20 articles to peer-reviewed publications and have authored $750,000 in federal and foundation grant proposals. Berry’s research has yielded two well-received publications, including an August 2019 article in New Phytologist. Through the Grand Challenges Initiative, Berry has welcomed undergraduate students into his research project, which explores the fundamental ways plants function and take in carbon in low light and wet conditions. Among the participating students is biological sciences major Alex Drivas ’21, who has developed designs and 3D printed next-generation equipment to advance the research. “We want our students to learn from world-class scholars who are engaging in creative ways of thinking about our world,” says Greg Goldsmith, Ph.D., assistant professor of biological sciences and director of the Grand Challenges Initiative. “Carter is the perfect example of how mentors can empower students to use science, technology, engineering and mathematics to change the world around them.”

Biological sciences student Alex Drivas ’21, left, talks with Carter Berry, Ph.D., about equipment Drivas helped design to advance Berry’s plant research. Photo by Dennis Arp.

FEDERAL FUNDING RENEWED FOR LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT STUDY

aura Glynn, Ph.D., has received a five-year renewal of federal funding for her research on child development, maternal connection and mental health, with the grant support coming from the National Institute of Mental Health. About $3.9 million of an overall $15 million multi university grant, led by the University of California, Irvine, will go to support Glynn’s research, which includes postpartum depression and factors related to the mother-child bond. For nearly 20 years, Glynn, a professor of psychology at Chapman University, has been involved in a longitudinal study funded by a number of agencies, including the National Institute of Child and Human Development. Glynn leads Chapman’s Early Human and Lifespan Development Research Program.

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Children in the study range in age from early childhood to early adulthood. The second wave of the research will focus on mental health and anhedonia, which is the inability to experience pleasure from activities that are usually found enjoyable. Glynn’s research will utilize cutting-edge neuroimaging data and also examine epigenetics – changes in the structure of genetic expression that can occur when someone has been exposed to long-term or chronic stress. The overall goal of the long-term study is to understand how prenatal and early life experience influences lifespan mental health trajectories.

Laura Glynn, Ph.D. Photo by Challenge Roddie

FACULTY NEWS STUDENTS EXPLORE ISRAEL’S CONTEMPORARY DANCE SCENE

he world of dance grew a little bigger for Chapman University students during a 10-day summer travel course in Israel, where they immersed themselves in the nation’s vibrant modern dance culture.

The group was accompanied by the world-renowned Israeli dancer Ido Tadmor, who is a Presidential Fellow in Chapman’s College of Performing Arts. Tadmor teaches master classes, provides feedback to choreographers and develops original work for performances during his multiple visits to Chapman each year. "Israel is a world leader when it comes to contemporary dance,” said Julianne O’Brien, Department of Dance chair, who led the travel course along with Associate Professor Liz Maxwell. “We wanted to give our students the opportunity to learn from these emerging companies and performers.” After weeks of preparation that included in-depth reading on dance theory, the dancers traveled throughout Israel, taking in historic sites while also participating in daily classes and rehearsals with some of the top dance companies in the country, including Kibbutz Contemporary Dance, Batsheva and Vertigo Dance Company. “It was the most incredible opportunity to dive into the exciting things happening in modern dance in Israel,” said Sophia Barr ’21, a student participant. “We challenged ourselves daily with intense repertoire and movement exploration.” "Being in a place of such rich history and vibrance as Tel Aviv established a beautiful contrast,” said Maddie Miler ‘21. “It felt as if the city was encouraging the inner artist in me to grow and discover who I am as an individual."

Photo by Troy Nikolic.

World-renowned dancer and Chapman Presidential Fellow Ido Tadmor teaches master classes during his visits to campus. Recently he accompanied students on a travel course that explored the dance culture of his native Israel.

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BOOKSHELF ADVISING NIXON: THE WHITE HOUSE MEMOS OF PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (University of Kansas Press)

Lori Cox Han, Ph.D., professor of political science The copious memos produced by Buchanan, counseling President Richard Nixon on press relations, policy positions and political strategy, provide a remarkable look inside the workings of the Nixon White House – and a perspective on practices that forever changed presidential conduct and U.S. politics.

THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION AND THE MAKING OF MODERN PSYCHIATRY, 1840–1880 (The University of North Carolina Press)

Wendy Gonaver, Special Collections & Archives assistant in Leatherby Libraries Gonaver reveals how slavery inﬂuenced ideas about patient liberty as well as the proper relationship between caregiver and patient. The book fills an important gap in the historiography of mental health and race in the 19th century.

SENECA LAKE (The Wild Rose Press)

MICROCREDIT MELTDOWN: THE RISE AND FALL OF SOUTH SUDAN'S POST-CONFLICT MICROCREDIT SECTOR (Lexington Books)

Crystal Murphy, Ph.D., assistant professor of political science and director of M.A. in International Studies Program This account of the ambitious launch and premature downfall of the Southern Sudanese microcredit industry shows how the ideological and material constraints of the commercial microcredit paradigm were woefully misaligned with local socio-cultural realities.

Emily Heebner, lecturer on acting in the College of Performing Arts This young adult WWII novel tells the story of an unexpected romance as a teenager pursues a dream of attending college despite her grandparents' wishes that she stay home and get married.

THE MARKETING EDGE FOR FILMMAKERS: DEVELOPING A MARKETING MINDSET FROM CONCEPT THROUGH RELEASE (Routledge/Focal Press)

HUMANOMICS: MORAL SENTIMENTS AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (Cambridge University Press)

Vernon Smith, Ph.D., George L. Argyros Endowed Chair in Finance and Economics, and professor of economics and law; Bart J. Wilson, Ph.D., professor, Donald P. Kennedy Chair in Economics and Law, and director of the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy Smith and Wilson show how Adam Smith's model of sociality can re-humanize 21st-century economics by supporting it with sentiments, fellow feeling and a sense of propriety – the stuff of which human relationships are built.

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Russell Schwartz, associate professor of film; Katherine MacDonald Written for working and aspiring filmmakers, the book walks through every stage of the marketing process and illustrates how creative decisions at each stage impact the marketability of a film.

PRODUCTION DESIGN: VISUAL DESIGN FOR FILM AND TELEVISION (Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group/ Focal Press)

Peg McClellan, instructor of film The book covers three major areas, starting with an overview and the basics of job responsibilities, the artistic approach and the background which every Production Designer needs to be familiar with, and progressing to the mechanics of the role with a day-to-day breakdown of the job itself. McClellan takes readers through script analysis, team collaborations, the hierarchy of a production, hiring a team, the business elements, locations, studio facilities, handling change and everything in between.

MACHINE LEARNING AND DATA MINING IN AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY (Springer)

Editors: Hesham El-Askary, Professor of Remote Sensing and Earth System Science, Center of Excellence in Earth Systems Modeling and Observations; Aboul Ella Hassanien; Ashraf Darwish This work considers central problems in the health monitoring of artificial satellites. It also addresses telemetry data analytics and mining problems and focuses on security issues in telemetry data.

A REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT: PEDAGOGY OF WOMEN OF COLOR AND INDIGENEITY (Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers)

Lilia Monzó, Ph.D., associate professor of education This book serves as a call to radical educators and grassroots organizers to recognize the enormous historical legacy of women of color and indigeneity. It highlights a class struggle that is anti-racist, anti-sexist and against all forms of oppression.

BREAKING FREE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PETER MCLAREN, A RADICAL EDUCATOR (Myers Education Press) Peter McLaren, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies and co-director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project Illustrated by Miles Wilson (MFA ’19) This book chronicles McLaren’s cross-country climb up the educational ladder as a teacher steeped in the school system. Included are his encounters with various key players in history, from the Black Panthers to Timothy Leary.

PRE-EARTHQUAKE PROCESSES: A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO EARTHQUAKE PREDICTION STUDIES (John Wiley & Sons)

Dimitar Ouzounov, Ph.D., associate professor of physics; Sergey Pulinets; Katsumi Hattori; Patrick Taylor Published by the American Geophysical Union, this work explores different signals that have been recorded prior to some earthquakes and the extent to which they might be used for forecasting or prediction.

RESEARCH BY THE NUMBERS

Federal research expenditures

24% increase

Awards

212

171

$21.3 M

107% increase

$10.3 M

$4.06 M

Research expenditures (FY17 - FY18)

$5.62 M

38% increase

$14.1 M

$11.7 M

33% increase

Number of Proposals

Other Numbers of Note

348

Doctorate degrees (DPT, JD, Ph.D., Pharm.D.) conferred in 2018-2019.

28%

Percentage of students who work with a faculty member on a research project

Number of new faculty members in the Million Dollar Club, recognizing those who have received more than $1 million in external support for their research.

Number of individual awards in FY2019 greater than $1 million

$7M

Amount of the largest non-federal award granted to Chapman this past year, by the Fetzer Institute and the John Templeton Foundation.

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Chapman Forward Magazine Vol. 2

Articles inside

Christopher Bader’s study of paranormal belief reveals a shift toward faith in the personal experience

The big ideas of Yakir Aharonov continue to push the boundaries of quantum physics

Holocaust survivor Michael Bazyler champions restitution for those whose legacies were looted

The most powerful X-rays on earth help Christopher Kim and his students gain insights at the atomic level

Cathery Yeh’s growing coalition of researchers and educators reimagines the mathematics classroom

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At the Thompson Policy Institute, research drives inclusive strategies that assist all kinds of learners