16 minute read
ALUMNI PROFILES
Ph.D. project by Jared Zeman ’19 could have major impact on heavy-duty engine emissions
Jared Zeman ’19, right, and his advisor at Marquette University, Dr. Adam Dempsey, stand next to an optical rapid compression machine. This machine is being used in the project to help them characterize the sooting tendencies of gasoline/ethanol fuel blends.
Advertisement
some day in the not-too-distant future, you see heavy-duty equipment that isn’t puffing out black clouds of soot, you may have Jared Zeman ’19 as one of the people to thank. Zeman, a Ph.D. candidate at Marquette University, is among a small team he’s helped cultivate that is working toward creating an ultra-low emission combustion engine that can be used in heavy-duty machinery. Their project is promising enough to earn a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Energy (DOE). A mathematics and physics double major at Ripon College, Zeman noted that his professors strongly supported him as he worked toward his engineering dreams. “Dr. Christina Othon, Dr. Brett Barwick, Dr. Andrea Young … and then Dr. Mackenzie Lamb were all very supportive in my desire to move on to the next level,” he says. “They really did lay the foundation for me to be able to succeed.” At Marquette, Zeman has worked closely with a professor to build up the school’s engine research lab so that it could develop a test cell for advanced combustion research. His master’s degree focused on creating the cell; now he and five other researchers hope it will help them make a huge technological leap. “Our lab’s goal is to target the use of alternative fuels in heavy-duty platforms,” Zeman says. “Alternative fuels can be easily implemented into passenger vehicles. … But this is a challenging thing to do when you consider the larger-scale engines, which typically rely on highly reactive fuels like diesel fuel or heavy fuel oils: your bulldozers, your semi trucks, your marine travel ships. … They’re also very pollutant rich.” While the market moves toward passenger vehicles powered by electricity, Zeman doesn’t see that as a viable option for heavy-duty applications such as bulldozers. “That’s the target: at a high level, implement renewable fuels into heavy-duty platforms that currently are criteria-pollutant rich” — meaning full of soot, unburned hydrocarbons and nitrous oxides.
If, In response, his team aims to create an engine that can burn different fuels and release almost no emissions. “The DOE is interested in this concept because it allows us to burn ethanol as well as other renewable fuel sources,” Zeman says, adding that another team at Marquette that he sometimes assists is working on a similar technology that would use methane. “Both of these projects utilize the same technology but are being used in drastically different manners. This is why this technology is so exciting: it is fuel-agnostic and extremely versatile.” Partnering with Zeman’s team are companies and organizations such as John Deere, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and ClearFlame Engine Technologies. In fact, Zeman says that ClearFlame expects to test this technology in a fully operational multicylinder John Deere engine near the end of their three-year project. Zeman becomes almost giddy explaining the work they’re doing. “I love doing this. I enjoy doing it,” he says. “... I think it’s really interesting that what I’m doing, especially very early on in my career, could be potentially a very large
— JARED ZEMAN ’19
contribution to reducing CO2 emissions and other criteria pollutants. It’s just the idea that there is a sense of being a game changer. It’s still very early, but … I’m doing cutting-edge research that might make a big impact.”
And he’s proud to be doing so as a Ripon College alumnus.
IAN STEPLETON ’98
ADJUNCT INSTRUCTOR OF JOURNALISM
Jared Zeman ’19 stands in the engine lab at Marquette University, where he’s helping develop a new technology that could enable heavy-duty engines to operate while emitting fewer pollutants.
First steps by Rachel Resop-Vatakis ’08 taken at Ripon toward studying HIV in Zambia
Without the flexibility and opportunities Rachel ResopVatakis ’08 discovered while studying at Ripon College, she might not be spending the next two years studying ways to help pregnant women living with HIV in Zambia.
“I was grateful for the opportunity to take courses in several areas of interest (global studies, language, women’s literature, biology and chemistry) during my first year at Ripon,” she says, explaining that her biology studies helped foster an interest in infectious diseases and led to summer research projects with professors such as Robert Wallace, professor emeritus of biology. “I found a love for the mystery, intellectual stimulation, hard work and discovery of biomedical research, and decided to pursue a research career.”
Resop-Vatakis is originally from nearby Berlin, Wisconsin, and went on to earn her Ph.D. from UCLA, followed by postdoctoral studies at UCLA and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Initially, she researched T-cell development in the context of HIV infection and later expanded on her HIV research with an increasing focus on public health. When it came time to move on to her next position, she applied to the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty Global Health Research Fellowship consortia, which supports global health researchers. Through Fogarty, she now is in the early days of a two-year grant-funded fellowship in Lukasa, Zambia, researching preterm birth in women living with HIV.
Though Lusaka is a fast-growing city, reliable, quality healthcare for expectant mothers is not accessible for all women both in Lusaka and throughout Zambia, Resop-Vatakis explains. “I will never forget my first tour of the maternity ward at University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka. ... Generally speaking, many women in Zambia do not have access to the World Health Organization-recommended number of antenatal care visits and those who do may experience a caliber of care that most women from my relatively privileged background in the United States would find unacceptable.”
This compounds the array of extra challenges that pregnant women living with HIV already face, such as a poorly understood increased risk for preterm birth. This is a problem that Resop-Vatakis is especially interested in learning more about, particularly in light of the quality of health care available there. “Greater understanding (of this problem) represents an opportunity for action, and potentially a tangible future improvement in the health and quality of life for women in Zambia and other vulnerable settings around the world,” she says.
Resop-Vatakis is hopeful that, by studying samples from pregnant women living with and without HIV who have experienced preterm birth, she may be able to identify clues regarding who may be at greatest risk for a preterm birth. She’s also collaborating on a large Gates Foundation-funded research project on anemia in pregnancy. This topic interests her in particular, given that she’s battled anemia at times herself.
What’s next? Resop-Vatakis is “open to various paths, but my overarching goal is to continue to learn as much as I can while here and then apply this knowledge and experience to future work in the realm of health advances for women in
— RACHEL RESOP-VATAKIS ’08
vulnerable settings,” she says. “This may be in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, the South of the United States, or many places around the world where improvements in healthcare for women and children are desperately needed.”
Resop-Vatakis received Ripon’s Distinguished Young Alumni Award in 2018.
IAN STEPLETON ’98
ADJUNCT INSTRUCTOR OF JOURNALISM
Rachel Resop-Vatakis ’08 stands outside University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, where she is researching preterm birth in women living with HIV. Her work there is part of a two-year fellowship funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty Global Health Research Fellowship consortia.
Best friends take kinship from hardwood at Ripon to hard coastal trail
“We are incredibly dirty, we are at the peak of our smelliness, it is the middle of another heat wave, we are sore, and we have never been happier. I only wish everyone could experience this type of fun, this feeling of physical and mental satisfaction, a feeling of pure bliss while being stripped of every human comfort we think we need to survive.”
— CHELSEA SORBO-WILLARD ’14
Technically, the path toward Canada begins at the trailhead of the Pacific Crest Trail at the U.S.-Mexico border. But for Chelsea Sorbo-Willard ’14 and her best friend Skye Gonyo ’12, it actually began at Ripon College.
They met while playing on the Red Hawks women’s basketball team; both played guard, both majored in sports management. Gonyo moved to Colorado for a time after graduation; Sorbo-Willard moved to Oregon. The distance could have driven their friendship apart, but it only grew, in part because of a love of hiking each discovered after Commencement.
“My interest in long-distance hiking began after graduation when I moved to the coast of Oregon,” Sorbo-Willard says. “Looking for something to fill my free time, I started hiking. A friend suggested I look into the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) if I was getting into backpacking, and I became obsessed quickly, reading everything I could get my hands on!”
Gonyo hadn’t considered the concept of thru-hiking — the process of hiking the complete length of a trail — but she was in.
“Chelsea is one friend I call when I want to travel around Wisconsin,” Gonyo says. “When Chelsea called me about the PCT, I was a little hesitant because of all the logistics that go into a trip of a lifetime. Ultimately, our shared interest is in adventure and I wasn’t missing the opportunity of a lifetime.”
The logistics were no joke. While neither took extra steps to condition themselves for their first thru-hike, they put countless hours into ensuring that they would have the supplies they needed along the trail when they’d need them. They mapped out their plan on a spreadsheet, with entries such as these:
• Mile 485.8 - Lake Hughes: Mail a resupply box. Miles until next stop: 72.7
• Mile 702.2 - Kennedy Meadows: Mail a bear box & new shoes; mail bear bag ahead to KM North. Miles until next stop: 86.7
• Mile 1906.6 - Shelter Cove Resort: Mail new shoes. Miles until next stop: 46
The planning, Sorbo-Willard knew, was vital: “I have read about the trail for years so the biggest focus was our resupply boxes. These boxes were sent to small towns along the trail filled with food and supplies for the next section of trail. … It was always exciting getting a resupply box because friends and family would put extra treats and notes to keep us going.”
The hike began May 7, 2021, at the Mexican border, and hiking continued, essentially every day, for nearly five months. Only small disruptions interrupted their journey; wildfires and trail closures in northern California and Oregon meant the friends had to skip some sections of the trail, but otherwise they completed the hike in one long trek.
Not that it was easy.
Sorbo-Willard recalls some of the hardships of desert hiking in her journal.
“To the Desert, Thanks for beating us up just enough to remind us how capable we are. Thanks for all the good times & the tough ones. I’ll miss waking up to your warm mornings. I’ll miss the smell of sagebrush as it hits our ankles. We appreciate how you always provided shade, water, and epic views just in time. We love you and we appreciate you. Every time I think I can’t go any more, the trail provides, just like magic. A hot springs in the middle of nowhere, a cold swimming hole, cake from a gender-reveal party, a visit from friends, a freshly stocked water cache, new trail friends, reuniting with our ‘tramily,’ exciting news from home, McDonald’s, a fiery sunset, the list goes on.”
Friendships were forged along the dusty trail, with everyone gaining new “trail names.” They hiked with a “trail family” that included a father/daughter duo from Tennessee (Bearquake and Cowboy), Pepperjack from Minnesota, Echo from South Carolina, and others. Chelsea became Crunchy Bean, and Skye was Purple Legs.
At one point, they ran into Timothy Olson, a hiker who would go on to set the record for the fastest thru-hike of the PCT in history at
opposite Chelsea Sorbo-Willard ’14,left, and Skye Gonyo ’12 make camp July 3, 2021, at Evolution Lake in California. “This day we climbed over Muir Pass to the famous Muir Hut, where we encountered hail and lightning and we raced to the top,” SorboWillard says. “We watched huge storms just miss us all day as we navigated a moon-like landscape. I jumped into Evolution Lake once we got camp set up and when I got out a rainbow stretched itself over camp. We passed a Ziplock bag of confetti cake mix, mixed with water around the tramily and watched the rainbow shift as the sun went down.”
Skye Gonyo ’12, left, and Chelsea Sorbo-Willard ’14 pause their hike of the Pacific Coast Trail just before climbing over Donahue Pass and descending into Yosemite National Park on July 10, 2021. “We were buzzing with excitement all morning knowing how close we were to Yosemite National Park, a bucket list destination for us both. We took a bus into the heart of the park the next day, renting bikes to cruise around and a soak in the sights,” Sorbo-Willard says. Chelsea Sorbo-Willard ’14, left, a “trail family” friend and Skye Gonyo ’12 leap for joy Sept. 19, 2021, as they close in on the end of their trek. After 135 days of hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, Sorbo-Willard and Gonyo were just 80 miles from the Canadian border at a town called Stehekin, Washington, known for its rugged beauty and massive cinnamon rolls. a blazing 51 days. Though clearly in a rush, he kindly stopped and snapped a photo with the friends, before running into history.
For Gonyo, it’s the people as much as the trail that she remembers. She recalls one day early in the trek when they hitchhiked into the desert town of Tehachapi, California, for lodgings and ran into hikers they knew. “When we walked in, there were tables put together in the center of the restaurant. Little did we know, there were going to be 30 of us eating all at once. … We enjoyed each other’s company for a few hours, exchanging trail stories and background stories.”
On the trail, the friends never knew what they’d encounter. Kearsarge Pass in the Sierras greeted the friends with hail and lightning, forcing them to run up some exposed switchbacks. Washington in September blessed the friends with splashes of yellow, red, orange and green (foliage), as well as cooler temperatures.
“The Cascade Range is overrun with wild blueberry and huckleberry bushes making it nearly impossible to hike more than an hour without stopping. Our fingers and tongues are always stained blue,” Sorbo-Willard wrote in her journal. “The berries are sweet and warm from the sun. We get lost in the fields and time slips away.”
Finally, on Sept. 24, 2021, they reached their destination far to the north, with pangs of excitement and regret.
Gonyo agrees: “I felt sad it ended, exhilarated to accomplish something so big. Emotionally, I was drained. Physically, I was fatigued and mentally exhausted. After all of that, the only thing I could think of is, ‘What’s the next challenge?’”
IAN STEPLETON ’98
ADJUNCT INSTRUCTOR OF JOURNALISM
Scott Boback ’91 finds a career through following his joy
anyone epitomizes the transformational power and adaptability of a Ripon College liberal arts education, it is Scott Boback ’91. Now a full professor of biology at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he took a circuitous route of getting there. Boback, originally from Barrington, Illinois, wasn’t particularly interested in going to college, but his parents assured him it would be a good thing to consider. A Ripon College representative at a college fair impressed him. After visiting other colleges, he knew Ripon was the place for him. “None of the other schools compared to Ripon,” he said. “I felt like it was home. These are my people.” He took his father’s advice: “Take classes you enjoy. That’s going to lead you to your profession.” “I grew up hunting and fishing with my dad from the age of 2,” Boback says. “I fell in love with nature. I wanted to be outside, walking around.” So he majored in biology. “I had no clue what that was going to lead me to,” he says. “But I fell in love with Ripon, fell in love with biology.” Although he says he was enthusiastic about school, he was just “coasting through.” His grades weren’t high enough to get into veterinary school or other graduate programs to which he applied. “It started sinking in: ‘You’ve got to figure this out.’ I loved school. I wanted to continue my studies. I applied to 13 graduate
If programs. I was accepted at one. So I went to the University of Northern Colorado, not knowing anything about graduate school.” There he was offered a paid position to teach laboratories. He discovered a passion for teaching. After graduation, he worked for the California Department of Justice for two years in the DNA Forensics Lab in Berkeley, California, then earned his Ph.D. from Auburn University and did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alabama. His love of teaching took him to Dickinson in 2007. “I wanted to do what my mentors at Ripon did,” he says. “I like the fact you can inspire people to look beyond the everyday. I love inspiring people to go outside and love nature. I still get excited about the basics of biology every day.” He teaches courses in ecology, evolution, vertebrate, natural history and physiology. He also is an active researcher, focusing on reptiles and amphibians, especially snakes. He has a lab of 75 boa constrictors on campus, and his work has been widely published in papers and the press. “I’m always grateful I went to a liberal arts college,” Boback says. “I’ve stayed in biology, and I’ve taught in biology. It’s part of laying a foundation.”
Scott Boback ’91
working in the field.
JAYE ALDERSON COLLEGE EDITOR
