Frontiers spr2010

BY U C O L L E G E O F P H YS I C A L & M AT H E M AT I C A L S C I E N C E S > S P R I N G / S U M M E R 2 0 10

FRONTIERS ASSUME A SPHERICAL COW > BIG THINGS, SMALL PACKAGES: HAS THE “BIG C” MET ITS MATCH? > BUBBLE BATH MATH >

> DEAN’S MESSAGE

OVER THE PAST DECADE, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences has made a strong commitment to promoting mentored undergraduate research. Support from many friends of the college has helped to fund research projects that pair students with a faculty mentor one-on-one to conduct important scientific and mathematical research and gain a wealth of invaluable first-hand experience.

These opportunities are often unavailable to students at other universities until they reach the graduate level; however, we believe our undergraduates receive a more comprehensive scientific education at BYU because of these research experiences. As a result, we find our students are well prepared to move on to graduate school or take a job in industry and excel immediately, due to the hands-on knowledge they have gained during their time here.

None of these great things would be possible without the gracious support of the BYU community-our alumni, donors, and friends of the college. Through their selfless sacrifice, we are able to provide a first-class education to many students from around the world-a shining group of individuals who will one day touch every part of the globe through their influence.

As a testament to this bright future, we recently held our 24th annual Spring Research Conference in March. The conference featured about 350 students (over half of them undergraduates), presenting the findings of their original research from the past year to an audience comprised of faculty, staff, family, friends, and community members, as well as students from local high schools who joined us for the event.

The conference was not only a wonderful chance for us to showcase the work being performed here at BYU by our faculty mentors and their students, it also provided an opportunity for the students to gain valuable experience presenting and explaining

BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES SCOTT D. SOMMERFELDT, Dean THOMAS W. SEDERBERG, Associate Dean BART J. KOWALLIS, Associate Dean E. DANIEL JOHNSON, Assistant Dean

their research to an outside audience, ultimately preparing them for their future endeavors.

In this issue of Frontiers, we highlight three research projects and several students, all of whom have been involved in mentored research projects. From Adam Woolley’s work developing early cancer detection techniques to better understanding the Earth’s interior in Bill Keach and John McBride’s 3-D Visualization Lab to Gary Lawlor’s bubble research, we are proud of the projects and the excellent work being performed by our faculty members and students. These kinds of educational opportunities are part of the unique BYU experience, and we’re thrilled to be able to continue providing such experiences to our students, while simultaneously promoting the mindset of cutting-edge scientific achievement that sets our college apart.

We hope you enjoy this issue of Frontiers. As always, we would love to hear from you. If you have any feedback you would like to share with us about Frontiers or about you and your current activities, feel free to send us an email at college@cpms.byu.edu.

With best wishes,

Scott Sommerfeldt, Dean

DEPARTMENT CHAIRS PAUL FARNSWORTH, Chemistry & Biochemistry PARRIS K. EGBERT, Computer Sciences SCOTT M. RITTER, Geological Sciences TYLER J. JARVIS, Mathematics STEVEN R. WILLIAMS, Mathematics Education ROSS L. SPENCER, Physics & Astronomy DEL T. SCOTT, Statistics

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

CONTACT INFORMATION LYNN PATTEN, Executive Secretary 801-422-4022, lynn_ patten@byu.edu BRENT C. HALL, LDS Philanthropies 801-422-4501, brenth@byu.edu

CONTENTS > 1

FEATURES

2

ASSUME A SPHERICAL COW USING SEISMIC IMAGING TO SEE WHAT’S BELOW THE EARTH’S SURFACE.

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BIG THINGS, SMALL PACKAGES: HAS THE “BIG C” MET ITS MATCH? CUTTING-EDGE MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY WITH POTENTIAL TO CHANGE THE WAY WE ASSESS CANCER RISK.

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BUBBLE BATH MATH MATHEMATICS EDUCATION FACULTY AND S T U D E N T S U S E M E TACA L I B R AT I O N TO SOLVE MULTIPLE-BUBBLE PROBLEMS.

DEPARTMENTS FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGE

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THOMAS MURRAY, LAB COATS AND BALANCE SHEETS

9

ALUMNI NEWS CINDY SNOW AND SUSAN ALLEN, THE FIRST LADIES OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

STUDENT NEWS

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FACULTY NEWS

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COLLEGE NEWS

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FRONTIERS PRODUCTION BART J. KOWALLIS, Editorial Director OSTLER JAMESON PUBLISHING, Custom Publisher GREGORY H. TAGGART, Managing Editor JANET O. TAGGART, Creative Director OJPublishing@gmail.com

CONTRIBUTORS Gregory Hal Taggart, Mary Kathleen Eyring, Katharine Lyman.

PHOTOGRAPHY College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences; BYU Photo; Mark A. Philbrick; Kenny Crookston; Personal Collections of Sue Allen, Rebecca Dorff, Brent Hall, Bill Keach, Bart J. Kowallis, J. Ward Moody, Jamie LaPierre, and Cindy Snow.

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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WARNING: PARENTS MAY NOT WANT TO LET THEIR CHILDREN READ THIS ARTICLE. CHILDREN WHO DO MAY DECIDE TO SKIP CLASSES TO SPEND MORE TIME HONING THEIR VIDEO GAMING SKILLS IN PREPARATION FOR A CAREER AS A PETROLEUM ENGINEER. IN FACT, ACCORDING TO BILL KEACH, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR IN THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY AT BYU, “IF YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT VIDEO GAMES THAT USE 3-D VISUALIZATION, YOU PROBABLY HAVE THE RIGHT SKILLS TO DO DEEP WATER OIL EXPLORATION.” WELL, IT’S A LITTLE MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT, BUT KEACH IS SERIOUS WHEN HE SAYS THAT VIDEO GAMING SKILLS ARE TRANSFERABLE TO THE WORLD OF HYDROCARBON EXPLORATION. You see, when Keach was at Cornell, working on his master’s degree in geophysics, he used paper and colored pencils to create, then interpret, visuals of the varying thickness of the earth’s many subsurface layers.

“With colored pencils, I’d spend about 80 percent of my time creating the visual and 20 percent of my time thinking about what was going on between the different reflections of the layers,” he says. “Now, video gaming technology allows me to spend 90 percent of my time thinking.”

Keach-who splits his time between BYU and the Energy and Geoscience Institute at the University of Utah-is passionate about seismic imaging and 3-D visualization. He employs several technologies that video gamers use, including bump technology, texturing, and high end graphics cards that make video games run faster. However, instead of manipulating Halo character Master Chief and his companion Contana, Keach uses the technology to locate hydrocarbons buried deep beneath the earth’s surface, map fault zones, or track the burrowing tortoise. “John McBride and I are basically trying to use sound waves to image what’s below the surface of the earth,” Keach explains (see sidebar).

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

>3 SEISMIC IMAGING & 3-D VISUALIZATION

WE ARE TRYING TO GIVE STUDENTS THE ABILITY TO VISUALIZE AND FIND ANSWERS TO THINGS WE’VE NEVER UNDERSTOOD BEFORE In physics, there’s an old joke: assume a spherical cow-if you want to model a cow. In Keach’s work, he often assumes the earth is flat, which of course it isn’t. The earth is all bumps and valleys on the surface, fissures and layers underneath, each layer a sort of sound filter. Some filters slow sound down; others speed it up. “So the idea is that we send known sound waves down to bounce off the different layers,” he explains. “We record the reflected waves that return to the surface. The alterations in the waves tell us about the types of rocks we can’t see.”

Imagine a sonogram. As the doctor waves a wand over a mother’s midriff, sound waves bounce off different layers or organs in her body, and a tiny baby appears on screen. With seismic reflection imaging, Keach and his students lay cables over the ground with little microphones called geophones attached at, say, 10- or 50-foot intervals. They then create sound waves by hitting the ground with a sledgehammer or drilling a hole in the ground and dropping a small explosive charge into it. Or they might use a Vibroseis truck to vibrate the ground via a large metal plate (see sidebar). “The truck uses hydraulics to lift it off the ground, pressing the plate into the ground,” Keach continues.

“Then we send a set of vibrations or sound waves through the plate into the ground. Depending on how we string the cables, we’ll get 2or 3-dimensional images of the subsurface of the earth-anywhere from a couple of thousand to 30 thousand feet down.”

From there, it’s a matter of rinse and repeat-laying and re-laying cables and geophones until they have images of what is under the surface of as much as 100 square miles or more. And the payoff?

Keach recently worked with some people in the Uinta Basin, shooting a 3-D subsurface survey of about 27 square miles of a potential oil field. Normally, oil companies expect an average of 3 out of 10 wells to produce. “Sixteen out of the 16 wells they drilled there were successful,” Keach says. “It was that predictive.”

In addition to helping discover more oil and fault zones, visualization also comes in handy in the classroom. Keach helped develop the technology and enjoys using it in his teaching. In fact,

(above) The grey and yellow area is the top of a geologic formation in the southern Uinta basin that was once at the earth’s surface and now sits about 6,000 feet below. The red-yellow area is an ancient stream channel. The blue vertical lines are oil wells drilled into the formation. Before seismic imaging, only two of the wells found the hydrocarbon-filled channel. (opposite page) The ocean floor off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island. In the lower left, stream channels flow from lower left to upper right. In the center, a fault runs from upper left to lower right. The dark circular areas in the upper right are buried volcanoes.

BYU has a visualization lab, a room with 14 different stations-each with two monitors-as well as a stereo screen for interactive 3-D. “I’m trying to give students the ability to visualize and find answers to things we’ve never understood before,” he says. To explain what he means, Keach points to a visual of a fault zone on his laptop. The visual shows some flat faults near the top and some big, vertical faults to the south. “Why do I have two different types of breakage that are literally just miles apart?” he asks. “That’s a great science question, one we could never envision before. Now we can see it as a system, as the whole elephant and not just the trunk.” If you’ve assumed a spherical elephant, that is. >

BYU geology professor John McBride was working on his PhD at Cornell when he met Bill Keach. They have worked together on and off ever since. “John is really good at acquiring the data and processing it, understanding the science-that’s his forte,” Keach says. “I’m really good at interpretation and visualization.”

Among other projects, Professor McBride uses seismic imaging in Illinois to identify subsurface layers where it might be safe to inject and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). He has also developed (left) Dr. John McBride and student Riley Brinkerhoff in front of a Vibroseis truck on North Temple Drive, near ground penetrating radar or GPR technology- the Provo Temple. (right) With his ground penetrating radar attached to the frame of a jogging stroller, McBride imaged the Smith family cemetery and some archeological sites in Nauvoo up to 10 feet below the surface. basically a small antenna that emanates high frequency light waves-scientists can roll over the ground in a 3-wheeled cart. “You can see 2 to10 feet beneath the surface with it,” Keach says.

“Last year we used it to image the Smith family cemetery and some archaeological sites in Nauvoo.”

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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BIG THINGS, SMALL PACKAGES:

HAS THE “BIG C” MET ITS MATCH? THE EARLIER CANCER IS DETECTED, THE BETTER. THAT SAID, THE EARLY DETECTION OF CANCER IS A COMPLEX PUZZLE, A PUZZLE THAT HAS CONFOUNDED SOME OF THE CANCER SCIENCE COMMUNITY’S MOST QUALIFIED RESEARCHERS. CERTAIN TYPES OF CANCER ARE ALMOST AS DIFFICULT TO DETECT AS THE Y ARE TO TREAT. A PERSON WITH LIVER CANCER, FOR EXAMPLE, OFTEN DOESN’T REALIZE IT UNTIL THE CANCER MANIFESTS ITSELF AS A SERIOUS ILLNESS, LONG AFTER IT HAS TAKEN HOLD. MOREOVER, CURRENT METHODS OF DETECTING CANCER ARE OFTEN EXPENSIVE, TIME CONSUMING, AND INVASIVE. THAT MAY CHANGE-AND SOON. FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

>5 Several years ago, Professor Adam Woolley of BYU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and some of his students began researching a device-a microchip-that could detect biomarkers, certain proteins or other molecules that suggest an increased risk of cancer. They designed and tested a model device that detects a marker called alpha-fetoprotein at levels that indicate a heightened liver cancer risk. Because that cancer is aggressive but incredibly hard

health and well-being, Woolley can only smile. “I’ve been at BYU 9 1⁄2 years now, and it’s certainly been a great decade so far.”

He is quick to give credit to others who have contributed to this research that is positioned to have a substantial impact on cancer diagnosis. A large part of that credit goes to Yang. His contributions were “remarkable,” Woolley says. A PhD candidate at BYU, Yang has been “one of the main drivers” on the project, according to Woolley, who praises his “persistence, ingenuity, and hard THIS SMALL, INEXPENSIVE, EASY-TO-USE INSTRUMENT HAS work” and says that when Yang leaves BYU, he will be well prepared for additional research opportunities and may well leave his mark on the future of clinical diagnostics. “He THE WAY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS ASSESS CANCER RISK does a fabulous job of coming up with creative ideas, trying things, and getting stuff to work,” Woolley says. to spot, Professor Woolley says, “having the ability to detect liver Though in this case, a graduate student helped to propel the cancer before the symptoms are present is considered a huge research forward, many students-undergraduate and graduateadvantage.” And that is just one of the benefits of a microchip that is made of inexpensive plastic, can be mass-produced, and requires only a tiny sample of blood to provide a viable test result. Simply stated: this small, inexpensive, easy-to-use instrument has huge potential to change the way medical professionals assess cancer risk.

With a grant from the National Institutes of Health in 2006, Woolley and his students began researching and designing their sophisticated device. The basic idea, Woolley says, was to make a microfluidic instrument-a miniaturized system that resembles a computer circuit and channels chemicals rather than electronsand run liquid through it. The microchip has an “affinity column” primed with a molecule to selectively identify its match from the complex liquid mixture. Once the microchip captures a matching molecule from the liquid, it discards the rest of the solution and moves the match to a different part of the device that purifies and quantifies the target molecule. If the target molecule is one associated with cancer and the liquid that runs through the plastic instrument PhD candidate Weichun Yang is pursuing additional applications for the microfluidic is a small blood sample, researchers can then answer two questions: instrument Woolley developed, working with him to analyze a panel of four cancerrelated proteins.

Does the blood contain a molecule associated with cancer? If so, how much of the particular marker molecule for cancer is present in the have been actively involved in Professor Woolley’s research projects over the years. “Both in our department and in my lab, we have a blood sample?

In the early stages of research, Woolley’s group made a model lot of undergraduates who are working on significant research mixture-a cocktail of proteins and water-to test the microchip’s projects,” he says. “We really try to get interested students involved capability. But in the past year, Weichun Yang, a graduate student in our research.” And while his research findings often have a in the group, pushed the research forward by running blood serum life beyond his lab, Woolley keeps his focus closer to home. “As a through the device and accurately detected alpha-fetoprotein in the scientist, my main focus is on the research-my first love is actually blood. In fact, the instrument detects this cancer marker protein so doing the fundamental science and giving students valuable research effectively, it can pick up levels at well below the diagnostic thresholds experiences.” Cancer patients in the future may live to say thank that signal serious risk. And since the hardware and the microchip you as a result. > itself can be configured to test for any cancer, as long as there’s some kind of molecular marker for it, Woolley’s group is now exploring the possibility of scaling the device to be able to detect more than one marker.

Woolley envisions a doctor’s office where, someday, a test for biomarkers of certain types of cancer could be part of a routine visit to the doctor-and the results could be obtained almost immediately a nd on-site. His research sug gests t hat t hese tests cou ld be administered inexpensively and conveniently enough to make this not just a distant possibility, but a likelihood. Having created a project with the potential to effect such positive changes in peoples’

HUGE POTENTIAL TO CHANGE

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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Why do soap bubbles stick together? Better yet, why are they always round?

Why not square or some other shape? If you’ve ever taken a bubble bath or blown soap bubbles into the air, those questions may have crossed your mind.

Wonder no more. A team of faculty and students in BYU’s Departments of Mathematics and Mathematics Education has got your back. Using a new research technique called metacalibration, they’re out to answer your questions- and they’ve achieved incredible results.

Gary Lawlor, professor of Mathematics Education, became interested in the so-called double bubble at Princeton in 1989 when he was doing doctoral research. His research topic was a more geometric form of your bubble-bath question: How can we prove that two spherical bubbles joined together is the most efficient way (i.e., uses the least surface area) to enclose two separate bodies of air?

Several mathematicians were already working on this question, using a method called the calculus of variations. Lawlor, however, decided to go a different direction. “I had a favorite approach that was evolving at that time, and I wanted to use my approach instead.”

Referred to as decoupling-a method of solving complex problems involving dependent variables-Lawlor’s approach took longer than he expected. In fact, he spent 19 years trying to solve the problem before his first breakthrough. He remembers one episode in 2006. He had gotten hold of a state-of-the-art, eight-processor computer, and he and Drew Johnson, an undergraduate, ran their problem on that computer, all day and all night, for eight days. “If I had tried to do this on my original computer, it would literally have taken a century,” Lawlor says. In spite of the increased processing speed, the eight-day run “yielded nothing!”

Lawlor finally finished his double bubble proof in 2008, fifteen years after his counterparts had proven theirs, using calculus of variations. Then his research took a surprising turn. He had proven the double bubble within two dimensions (R 2). His next task was to find a proof that would work for three dimensions (R3). Variational

Dr. Gary Lawlor and undergraduate Donald Sampson (see Maybe It’s Time for Math Metaphors in Fall 2009/Winter 2010 issue) are now hard at work trying to prove the triple-bubble conjecture, using metacalibration.

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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Students working with Dr. Lawlor demonstrated that tetrahedral (left) and cubical (right) shapes are surface-area-minimizing, using metacalibration. In the left photo, student Donald Sampson creates a bubble in a soap film spanning a tetrahedral frame. With student Rebecca Dorff (below), he proved that the shape in the right photo had the least surface area among all bubble and soap film combinations on a cubical frame.

mathematicians completed their R 3 proof ten years after their initial double bubble success. For a time, Professor Lawlor worried his proof would take at least as long. Then on July 8th, 2009, after a year of unsuccessful research, he decided to shift gears. “I had been looking for this magical proof for R3. I decided that what I needed to

have had a paper accepted for publication, submitted another for publication, and have two more under review. They also made two presentations in January 2010. “You have to get people interested in this before it will spread. It’s been interesting to see how that has worked,” Dilts says.

the things we do in pure math may be esoteric right now, but they’ll be useful in 20 years do was buckle down and just grind out some partial results, instead of trying to hit a home run again,” he says.

The next day, he drove to work, parked his car, and sat in the parking lot for fifteen minutes—thinking. And then it came to him. “There was the idea for what I needed to finish the double bubble proof!” he says. In short order, he finished writing his proof for R 3 double bubbles and realized that he had just done in one year what had taken variational mathematicians ten years to do.

His research took off. In December 2009-just five months laterhe proved the efficiency of the double bubble in R n-a proof that had taken variational method mathematicians seven years to do. “You can sort of see the learning curve,” Lawlor says. “It took 19 years to get anything, then it all started to come out.”

Today, Lawlor is working with a team of three undergraduate math students to prove the efficiency of the triple bubble in R 3, and their prospects are bright. “It has been said that the triple bubble could take over one hundred years to solve. We’re hoping for three years!” says Donald Sampson, a member of the student team.

Sampson, along with undergraduates James Dilts and Becca Dorff, started working with Lawlor in late summer 2008 because they too were drawn to the multiple bubble problem. As they worked, they realized that current research methods were insufficient for their needs, so with Lawlor, they developed a new form of decoupling called metacalibration. Now, they have become the experts on a technique that promises to speed multiple bubble research along to a happy end.

Because metacalibration is still so new, the three students are working to inform other mathematicians about the technique.

This semester, they are teaching a weekly seminar on metacalibration to some of the math faculty and a few graduate students. They also

The students are also writing a book about metacalibration that they hope to publish through the American Mathematical Society.

The idea for the book came when Dilts first signed on to Lawlor’s research team, and they realized just how complex it was to teach metacalibration techniques to a newcomer. “People outside of BYU are starting to learn about this and realize its importance,” Dorff says, explaining that their book will allow other professors and students to use the new technique.

So, has all this work been worth it? After all, bubble problems are pure math and don’t have practical application in the real world— yet. Professor Lawlor and his team are not concerned. “The things we do in pure math may be esoteric right now, but they’ll be useful in 20 years,” Dilts says. Besides, double and triple bubbles are now less of a mystery, and mathematicians can turn their attention to a more pressing question: What is the least amount of hot water required to bathe the typical teenager? >

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

8 > FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGE

LAB COATS AND BALANCE SHEETS Thomas Murray

A member of the College Volunteer Leadership Council and of the Professional Development subcommittee, Thomas Murray coordinated the new Business Practices Seminar and gave four lectures in the seminar on product liability, technology readiness, venture capital, and corporate politics.

PAY IT FORWARD. A professor extends a helping hand to a student and so impresses the student that, later in life, he or she reaches out to other students. So it is with Thomas Murray. As a chemistry student at BYU in the 1970s, he took physics three times and always withdrew because he had trouble understanding the concepts. Enter Dr. John J. Merrill. “His Study Guide for General Physics helped me understand physics,” Murray says. “Without his help, I would not have become a chemist or a nuclear engineer, let alone an expert in rocket and turbine propulsion technology.”

Murray went on to earn a master’s degree in nuclear and chemical engineering from the University of Utah. From there he began a brief career in coal and nuclear power generation, working first in coalfired plants for what is now Rocky Mountain Power, then moving to boiling-water and pressurized-water reactors with Pacific Gas and Electric. “However, I really wanted to work with space reactors,” he says. “So I started calling around.”

Soon he had his dream job, at Boeing. But about six months later, they made a corporate decision to get out of the space reactor arena, and Murray moved to Boeing Military Airplanes where he worked on supersonic and hypersonic propulsion. Three years later, he was working on space reactors again with Boeing Aerospace. After a short stint there, he joined Boeing’s aviation accident analysis group where he analyzed virtually every major commercial airplane accident since 1959. Ten years after that he was working in propulsion again, this time on the commercial side. Along the way, he earned a degree in

public health and biostatistics from the University of Washington and became a parttime advisor on health benefits to Boeing’s human resources department. In short, he has been a busy man since he left BYU. Now it’s payback time. Murray is currently the College Volunteer Leadership Council ’s point man on a new business practices seminar the College offered for the first time Winter semester. “The Dean came to the CVLC and said, ‘is there something we could do to help students prepare for careers in the business world?” Murray explains. In conference with the College, CVLC members developed a list of topics the seminar might cover. “There are actually about 20 potential topics, but we can’t fit them all in a one-semester, once-a-week class,” Murray says.

This semester the class covered subjects as varied as business presentations, project planning, teamwork, and budgeting. To teach the seminar, the College invited Melissa Wallentine, Sheli Sillito Walker, and Janet Tanner from the Marriot School

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

and Ernie Nielsen from BYU’s Office of Information Technology. Murray taught sessions on product liability and technology readiness. Was the time well spent? Murray thinks so. “Ernie Nielsen’s presentation on project management was so good, I summarized my notes and sent them to my former boss at Boeing to help new engineers grasp the key actions of project managers.” Do the students agree? “At the end of the semester, we’ll look at student evaluations and do a critical review,” Murray continues. “I’m impressed that the Dean’s office is willing to ask the hard questions. They want to ensure the students’ time is well spent.” Murray wants to make sure their lives are. >

ALUMNI NEWS > 9

FIRST LADIES OF COMPUTER SCIENCE IN THOSE DAYS, the computer was in the basement of the Smoot Building. In those days, computers were the size of rooms and had names like Univac. In those days, a major in computer science was little more than a hope and a dream. And in those days, Cindy Snow and Susan Allen decided to become computer programmers.

“They finalized approval for the major in April or May of my junior year,” Allen explains. “Bernard Daines and, I think, somebody else got a degree that year.”

Cindy Snow, shown here as a student in 1970, was a math major at BY U unt i l t he Col lege approved t he new computer science major.

A year later, Allen and Snow became the first women to graduate from BYU with a degree in computer science-cum laude no less. When Allen found her first programming job in Boston after graduating in 1971, she discovered how unusual that was. “New England Life hired six of us that year out of 96 applicants, and I was the first person they had ever hired who had actually done programming or had a degree in computer science.”

Snow graduated from the program the same year and took a job on the opposite coast with Hughes Aircraft and began work on a Department of Defense project,

programming the operating system that targeted and fired torpedoes on the SSN-688 submarines. “Not in my wildest imagination would I have thought I’d be programming submarines,” Snow says, savoring the memory. “I was just enthralled; it was such fun studying in this field.”

Interestingly, both Snow and Allen studied computer science at the suggestion of their fathers. Snow started out as a math major, but when BYU approved the new major, her father-an accountant-told her to “’Jump! Go right into it,’” Snow remembers.

“He probably saw the handwriting on the wall and said, ‘You do everything you can in

computers.’” Allen, a self-described math and science nerd, received similar encouragement from her dentist father who arranged for her to spend the day with one of his patients who was a programmer at Lockheed. “What she did looked interesting, so I signed up to take a FORTRAN class the fall of my sophomore year and fell in love with it. I had a ball.”

Their decisions in those early days led to exciting careers and opportunities. Snow, who later earned a masters degree in computer science, magna cum laude, worked on a variety of Department of Defense projects and taught at Boise State and BYU

Snow went on to careers at Hughes Aircraft and Intel, while also putting her computer talents to work on behalf of elementary schools in Boise, Idaho and the Heber Valley Young Women Camp.

Sue Allen claims she graduated from BYU with a split personality. She wanted to use her education, but she also wanted to raise her family. Thirty-five years later, she can say, “I’ve been able to do both.”

Throughout her career, Sue Allen has been actively involved in the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto. Last fall, she taught Cyber Safety to virtually every 6th to 8th grade class in the district.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 >

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10 > ALUMNI NEWS > CONTINUED FROM PAGE 9

while she raised her family. Working at Intel, her team created the award-winning antivirus product everyone now knows as Norton Antivirus. Next she developed the successful User Experience Group, defining, designing, testing, and coding user interfaces for 11 Intel divisions, an effort motivated by her belief that “we need to remember who our customers are and what is best for them.”

After Allen’s husband finished school in Boston, they moved to Palo Alto where she began working for Four-Phase Systems, a spin off of Fairchild and the company that developed one of the first minicomputers.

With the adoption of her oldest daughter, she quit and became a stay-at-home mom.

Well, “quit” may be overstating the case.

Over the next 23 years, she programmed a Z80 mini computer to keep the books for her father’s business; helped write the first electronic database membership system for her stake; became the go-to computer gal for the PTA, school-board candidates, and school bond elections; and assisted in the computer lab at her children’s school. Then in 1997, she went back to work and participated in the transformation of the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto, a city some called “the epitome of the digital divide.” “When we started in 2001 only 25 percent of the kids had a computer at home and only a quarter of those

Allen spends much of her time in the Ravenswood School District, providing technology support to teachers in their classrooms.

Active in her community and her church, Cindy Snow has presented published presentations on keeping children safe on the Internet and served on the PTA. She currently serves as the Stake Relief Society President in the BYU 8th Stake.

were connected to the Internet—through dial up,” Allen explains. “Last spring we did another survey of 4th through 8th grade students and 72 percent had computers at home with Internet access and another 17 percent had just a computer.”

Both Snow and Allen recently served missions, Snow with her husband as mission president in Seoul, Korea, Allen with her husband at the Institute in Hamburg, Germany. There’s little doubt that their computer skills came in handy there as well.

Would they recommend other women follow in their steps? Absolutely. “If a woman wants to stay in the workplace their whole life, it’s a fabulous career,” Snow says.

“If they want to go in and out of the workplace, it’s the best career you can have. It’s so flexible.” Allen agrees, particularly if you have a nose for puzzles. “To be a programmer, you don’t always have to remember higher math like partial differential equations,” she says. “If you like puzzles, you will like being a programmer.” >

COLLEGE VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP COUNCIL: GIVING BACK Current members of the College Volunteer Leadership Council or CVLC are actively engaged on one or more of the council’s three standing committees, each of which is pursuing initiatives to improve the college and better serve its students. It’s their way of giving back. > ������ ������ ��������� ���������

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FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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STUDENT NEWS > 11 1

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1 > WHEN YOU WANT SOMETHING DONE RIGHT . . .

Think of this as a letter of recommendation. “These days, when there are problems at the ROVOR site, I send Cameron Pace and Richard Pearson down unattended to fix it. They’re the most prepared students for graduate work in astronomy I’ve worked with in six years. I’ll cry real tears when they graduate.” That’s Dr. J. Ward Moody, director of ROVOR, a project that employs a low budget, low-maintenance, computercontrolled telescope to study the universe.

Among other things, Pace and Pearson moved the new telescope to Delta, Utah; operated and trouble-shot it for 10 months; and then conducted two research projects, one to monitor a high-energy blazar called Mrk501, another to improve the accuracy of standard stars used to monitor blazarsblazing quasi-stellar objects associated with black holes.

2 > AS OLD AS THOSE HILLS Thanks to Richard Bradshaw, a senior in geology, we now have a better idea of how old some dinosaur bones are. Bradshaw used a laser ablation ICPMS at Washington State University to determine the ages of tiny zircon crystals extracted from altered volcanic ash beds found in central Utah’s dinosaurbearing Morrison Formation. According to Bradshaw’s mentor, Professor Bart Kowallis, these are the first reliable ages ever obtained f rom t he lower par t of t he Morr ison Formation and better constrain the age of dinosaur bones found there. Bradshaw presented his research at national meetings of the Geological Society of America and is preparing his research for publication.

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3 > SECOND TO JUST ONE Just the title of his paper should have assured him first place, but physics student David Krueger had to settle for second place in “Best Student Paper in Musical Acoustics” at the 157th national meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in May. “Acoustic and vibrometry analysis of beating in a large Balinese gamelan gong” presents the results of his capstone project, done under the direction of Dr. Kent Gee and in collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw, director of the gamelan ensemble in the School of Music. Krueger will be first author on the paper when it is submitted to Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

4 > WHO’S TO BLAME? Working with statistics professors William Christensen and Shane Reese, recent graduate Basil Williams spent the past year identifying pollution sources and their contribution to overall pollution. They used meteorological data and pollution concentration measurements to pinpoint factories and other pollution sources, a difficult task when multiple sources emit similar amounts of the same chemical. Applying rigorous statistical methods, they identified both the pollution sources and how significant the sources were. Williams presented the research at two professional statistics conferences, and the team is preparing results for publication in the Annals of Applied Statistics.

5 > VERY EDUCATED GUESSING Jamie LaPierre, a senior in biochemistry, spent the last year doing research with Dr. Evan Johnson of the Department of Statistics. Their research focused on zinc

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1 > (left to right) Cameron Pace, Richard Pearson, and Professor J. Ward Moody. 2 > Student David Krueger and the subject of his research, a Balinese gamelan gong. 4 > Jamie LaPierre (right) with his lab partner Jeremiah Keyes.

fingers, a family of proteins responsible for gene expression. By studying the common structures of these proteins and comparing the binding tendencies of each sub-unit of the protein to DNA, Johnson and LaPierre built a model that predicts where a protein will bind on the DNA sequence. To test the prediction, LaPierre developed a computer program that reads in a protein sequence, then identifies all possible zinc fingers in the protein. The code then assigns a probability to each subunit, essentially predicting how readily it will bind to DNA. Once he works the bugs out of his program, LaPierre plans on validating its results in the wet lab. “In other words, he’ll make sure each protein binds to the same DNA sequences the computer model predicted,” Evans explains.

6 > THEY MAY LOOK LIKE HOLLOWED-OUT PUMPKINS Chemistry major Brent Allred will work in the FBI labs in Quantico when he graduates this year, possibly because while he did research in Dr. David Dearden’s lab he learned a variety of data analysis programs, including Preditor, Midas Swift, and Igor.

Allred’s undergraduate research centered on disk-shaped molecules named cucurbiturils, so-called because of their resemblance to a carved-out pumpkin. According to Allred, “Curcurbiturils are only now being examined for possible applications.” >

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

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1 > EXCEPTIONAL CONCEPTUAL MODELER David Embley, a professor in the Department of Computer Science, is a 2009 ER Fellow and recipient of the Peter P. Chen Award. Both of these honors were bestowed at the International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, an annual meeting of the entity-relationship (ER) modeling community.

The Chen Award honors one person for his or her exceptional contributions to the field of conceptual modeling, the process of abstracting and classifying real-world objects of a selected part of reality into constructs that can be represented in a computerized information system. A committee of five members selects a nominee, using five criteria-research, service, education, contribution to practice, and international reputation. The vote for Embley was unanimous.

2 > GOOD, BETTER . . .

Myron G. Best, retired professor of geology, received the Lehi F. Hintze Award, Monday, November 9, 2009, from the Utah Geological Association. The association gives this annual award, named in honor of another retired BYU geology professor, in recognition of outstanding contributions to the understanding of Utah’s geology. In addition, a Theme Session (Magmatism from the Mesozoic to the Present in the Great Basin and Colorado Plateaus) at the May 2009 meeting of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Geological Society of America was dedicated to Professor Best as a tribute to his career at Brigham Young University.

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3 > STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT During the recent Annual Joint Statistical Meetings held in Washington D.C., William F. Christensen, a professor in the Brigham Young University Department of Statistics, was presented the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Award by the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistics and the Environment.

1 > David Embly. 2 > Myron G. Best, portrait and out in the field. 3 > William F. Christensen. 4 > Gus Hart.

5 > Paul Farnsworth. 6 > Michael Dorff.

4 > AN INNOVATIVE FELLOW The Division of Materials Research of the National Science Foundation recognized Professor Gus Hart, of the BYU Physics Department, as an American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow in 2009. The Division recognizes those whose endeavors are transformative, have the potential for high impact, and demonstrate outstanding, and often unique, broader impacts. The award, based on Professor Hart’s previous and ongoing accomplishments, is for five years at $120,000 per year.

6 > IMPRESSIVE MENTOR Michael Dorff, a professor in the Department of Mathematics, has received a prestigious teaching award from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). The Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award is given to college and university professors for distinguished teaching of mathematics. According to an MAA release, recipients’ excellence in teaching begins in, but is not limited to, the classroom. The MAA cites Dorff’s work as an undergraduate mentor as a “most impressive accomplishment.” He has led a program for many years that has brought undergraduate students to BYU from across the country to participate in mathematical research that they would otherwise be unable to perform at their own institutions. >

5 > TWO AWARDS, ONE PROFESSOR Dr. Paul Farnsworth, of the Department of Chemistry, recently received the Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Applied Spectrometry (SAS). The Society formally presented the award at the 2009 Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 20. The award was primarily in recognition of his 12 years of service as editor of Applied Spectroscopy, a journal published by the SAS. In addition to serving as the journal’s editor since 1997, he has sat on several national committees and chaired the local Intermountain section of

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

the Society. In addition, Dr. Farnsworth received the Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Research and Creative Arts Award, a University award honoring faculty members for their outstanding research and creative accomplishments.

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1 > LOOK WHAT I’VE DONE! On March 20, the College hosted its 24th annual Spring Research Conference, an event that gives BYU undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to share findings from their research with the campus community. The conference includes each of the College’s seven departments and features about 350 student presentations. According to Jani Radebaugh, assistant professor in the Department of Geological Sciences, “students who present at the Spring Research Conference benefit greatly from preparing and presenting their research to their professors and peers.” That’s not all, she says. “To present research before graduate school is unusual.” Associate Dean Thomas Sederberg, director of the Spring Research Conference, adds that “learning to solve problems and present results in front of a critical audience are valuable skills in graduate school and in the workplace.

Students who learn to think and present themselves well have a distinct advantage.”

2 > UNDERNEATH IT ALL Just north of the Eyring Science Center, buried beneath the lawn, sits one of BYU’s best-kept secrets. The Underground Lab has been there since 1968, a large, almost gymsized room with makeshift walls separating labs and offices and bare pipes running across the ceiling-until recently. Now students and faculty engage in electron microscopy and magnetic speckle spectroscopy, carbon nanotube research, even high-intensity laser physics and quantum optics in space fit for, well, their above-ground colleagues. From the basics-two new restrooms replace one tiny unisex restroom-to the sublime-a

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sky-light illuminates a comfortable student commons study area-to the essentialeight enclosed, well-lighted labs where serious research and mentoring takes place-the Underground Lab is a secret no more. It’s a place where serious research and mentoring happen. See for yourself.

3 > ELITE SPECTROMETRY UC Berkeley has one. So does Florida State.

Now the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has a 9.4 Tesla FTICR mass spectrometer too, a gift from Livermore National Laboratory. BYU is now part of a small fraternity of universities capable of a high level of mass spectrometry, a process that determines the elemental composition of a sample or molecule. Using this expensive instrument-they cost $1.3 million newscientists like chemist David Dearden and biochemist John Prince ionize chemical compounds to generate charged molecules or molecular fragments then measure their mass-to-charge ratios. Such measurements help identify cancer and other diseases early.

“We will probably use the 9.4 in PChem Lab and in Instrumental Analysis, classes that involve many undergrads,” Dearden says.

4 > BEST OF THE BEST: THE 2010 COLLEGE AWARDS On the evening of January 28, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences met in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom to honor some of the many faculty and staff who help make the college an outstanding place to work and study. The Outstanding Staff/Administrative Employee Award went to Darlene Willey, Assistant Director in the College Advisement Center for, among other things,

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1 > Student presenters at last year’s Spring Research Conference. 4a > Associate Dea ns Bar t Kowa l l is and Thomas Sederberg congratulate Darlene Willey.

4b > Shane Reese. 4c > Jeff Humpherys,. 4d > Eric Christiansen. 4e > Michael Ware.

creating and implementing systems that track student academic performance. Professor Shane Reese received the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award for faculty with 3-10 years at BYU. Reese received student ratings of 7.5 and 7.6 over the last two years in his Stat 221 course (over 1,000 students gave him a perfect 8) even though the Daily Universe reports that students consider Stat 221 one of the five most difficult GE courses. The Faculty Young Scholar Award (3-10 years of service) went to Professor Jeff Humpherys, an outstanding researcher in the Department of Mathematics. Though he has published a number of peer-reviewed papers, the quality of his work is what stands out. For example, two years ago he found an efficient algorithm for computing the Evans function- a problem that had eluded the best efforts of many of the best researchers. At BYU he has mentored at least 30 undergraduates and 4 graduate students- an accomplishment unusual in mathematics. Eric Christiansen of the Department of Geological Sciences received the Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award for those with 10 or more years at BYU. He teaches courses ranging from Geology 101 to 600-level graduate courses and co-authored two popular textbooks in the geological sciences. Finally, the Distinguished Citizenship Award went to Professor Michael Ware from the Department of Physics and Astronomy for his untiring efforts over the past several years in the remodeling of the Underground Lab. >

FRONTIERS > BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES > SPRING/SUMMER 2010

BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

FRO N T I E R S BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY, N181 ESC, PROVO, UT 84602

OF MIC E A N D MEN AND TH E M IR AC LE O F ANNUA L F U ND DONAT ION S Thanks in part to those who support the BYU Annual

presented recently at an international conference in San

Fund, biochemistry major Amanda Barringer received two

Diego, and Amanda walked away with the Outstanding

scholarships that blessed her life—and might bless many more.

Research Poster Award.

The scholarships allowed the Montana native to continue

Amanda expresses appreciation for her scholarships: “I am

her BYU education. Amanda was invited to intern at the

grateful for those who support me. Their examples inspire me

McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls, where she

to give back as well.”

helped analyze the effects of mouse proteins on frontal

We invite your support of scholarships. To give online, go

temporal dementia, research that could lead to an effective

to give.byu.edu. And please remember to designate your gift to

model for treating Alzheimer’s disease. Her work was

the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

E V E RY GIFT MATTERS To discuss helping the college with a special gift, contact Brent Hall at 801-422-4501 or brenth@byu.edu.