Spring 16 UGAGS Magazine

The University of Georgia

Graduate School M A G A Z I N E

SPRING 2016

“I think that we are like stars. Something happens to burst us open; but when we burst open and think we are dying, we’re actually turning into a supernova.

And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before.”

— C . J OY B E L L C . , W R I T E R A N D P O E T

SPRING 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2 Renata Cumbee 8 Science Cafe 12 Michael Gene Thomas 20 Whitney Ingram 28 Danielle Jensen-Ryan 40 Tifton Event COVER PHOTO BY NANCY EVELYN; CYGNUS LOOP IMAGE BY NASA/CALTECH

©2016 by the University of Georgia. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without the written permission of the editor.

a m e s s a g e f ro m

S u z a n n e B a r b o u r, D e a n Greetings from the Graduate School!

I hope this message finds you well and that spring has sprung in your neck of the woods. Spring is in full bloom here in Athens and it is beautiful! I enjoy this time of year for many reasons, not the least of which is the blossoming of trees, resurgence of local animal life, and the general “rebirth” that is taking place all around me. Speaking of rebirth, we are seeing lots of changes and positive developments in our graduate programs. Among the most positive is the increasing participation of our graduate students in community service and outreach. This issue highlights several of our shining stars in this area. I’m sure you will enjoy the articles about Michael Thomas, a doctoral student in Financial Planning, who is using his expertise to educate and inform the underserved and Danielle Jensen-Ryan, a doctoral student in Anthropology who has launched a support group for BRCA-positive women. Please note the Iron Horse District Girl Scout Science Event, conceived of and coordinated by Jessica Stephens as an outreach activity to engage girls in science.

The magazine is undergoing a rebirth of its own. We strive to be environmentally responsible by using biodegradable, renewable, sustainable paper and inks in our production, yet recognize that even the most responsibly printed magazine taxes natural resources and has the potential to generate additional wastes. In recognition of this and the UGA signature research theme “Safeguarding and Sustaining Our World”, we will offer you the option of a digital version of the magazine beginning with the fall issue.

Digital distribution has numerous benefits: hot links embedded in the text can take you to supplementary information; digital readers receive the magazine immediately and there is no chance that the issue is missdelivered; the digital format reduces costs for printing and mailing, which in turn allows the Graduate School to allocate more resources to the creative and deserving students who are featured in our publication. We will be reaching out to you via various methods to learn your preferences regarding print or digital options. Please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GraduateSchoolMagazine. Or, using a digital device, scan the QR code appearing below and on the rear cover to access the digtal version of the magazine.

Also, be sure to download the ISSUU app (available at the App Store and Google Play) in order to best enjoy our digital magazine.

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TO WISH UPON A DISTANT STAR:

the FAR-SIGHTED

of RENATA CUMBEE

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY and physics are no longer rare, nor their work so obscured. American astronomer Vera (Cooper) Rubin was born in 1928. In the 1970s she observed that stars which were at the edges of galaxies moved faster than previously known. Her observations anticipated the invisible matter known as dark matter.

At age 87, Rubin continues her work at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

She is widely recognized for significant scientific contributions.

Astrophysicists at UGA count women among their numbers, like doctoral student Renata Cumbee. They may be walking a similar path toward scholarship and discoveries in deep space— while keeping their eye upon a distant star.

In Cumbee’s hometown of Cordesville, SC, the night sky was boundless. It turns out that her dreams were as well. Now she is bound for NASA to begin a postdoctoral Fellowship Program at Goddard Space Flight Center this fall.

As an historic bit of serendipity, the news of her fellowship broke upon the same day, February 11, as a team of astrophysicists confirmed the recorded sound of gravitational waves. The sound, called a “fleeting chirp”, was produced by two black holes a billion light years away. This enormous achievement validated Einstein’s final prediction in his general theory of relativity.

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Phillip Stancil, left, with Cumbee on the UGA campus. Her path as an astrophysicist has been much smoother thanks to UGA's collegial environment.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

enata Cumbee is a scientist, but one who can talk about astrophysics in poetic ways. “I wanted to study something intangible that you cannot touch,” she explains, drinking a cup of tea. Now approaching her final year of a doctoral program, Cumbee talks about her own particular pathway to the stars, so to speak. Cumbee says it is “so beautiful, that you can study something without holding it.”

She is hesitant at first; most of the precise research nomenclature is unfamiliar at best to a layperson. In order to make galactic calculations, the science of mathematics, physics, and astronomy are in play; none easily translated. To even become an astrophysicist, Cumbee joined a very select endeavor—a subset of science that is both demanding and exclusive. By some estimates, only 1,200-1,500 doctorates in physics are awarded each year. To become an astrophysicist, one first has to master mathematics and make complex calculations.

She was not born to mathematicians, nor born a child of privilege; Cumbee was a product of public schools and has had to work to earn her place in astrophysics. She had never met an actual scientist, but only watched them on television, when she began imagining what it would be like to be a scientist. By adolescence, she had set her sights on pursuing something very different from her young friends.

“By ninth grade I decided I was going to be a scientist.

Maybe an astronomer, or a molecular biologist, or Nano scientist.” This was a powerful dream for a kid in a small southern community. Cumbee’s first inspiration points were in history, archaeology and science, but all were vicarious ones.

Today, Cumbee sits in a busy café filling with students close to the UGA campus. Nearby, a small knot of education students are discussing literacy and the challenges of engaging young minds in literature. Yet Cumbee is among a coterie of women working at the intersection of physics and astronomy.

“I am an astrophysicist,” she says. “I study physics problems and apply them to astronomy—and I identify more with physicists because, I think, I enjoy the physics.” Later this year, she begins a fellowship at NASA, possibly related to her current studies in supernova remnants. (Her UGA research is on charge exchange emission in the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant.)

At UGA, a respected research institution, she is not alone and has found a collegial environment. Cumbee is one of several women graduate students working in physics and astronomy at UGA. Her advisor is Phillip Stancil, whom she describes in glowing terms. She discusses research travels to China and Japan presenting her work—her university mentors are supportive and accessible.

Vera Rubin, an American astronomer who established the presence of dark matter in galaxies.

Vera (née Cooper) Rubin (born July 23, 1928) is an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates.

She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted angular motion of galaxies and the observed motion, by studying galactic rotation curves. This phenomenon became known as the galaxy rotation problem.

Although initially met with skepticism, Rubin's results have been confirmed over the subsequent decades. Attempts to explain the galaxy rotation problem led to the theory of dark matter.

VIRTUAL MENTORS: COSMOS AND NOVA Before she became a first generation college student, many of Cumbee’s role models were the ones who demystified science on television programs, including Carl Sagan, host of Cosmos, or Brian Greene’s appearances on Nova. These, she says, were the first people to cause her to fall in love with science.

As a young girl, Cumbee was initially influenced by watching educational programs about science or archaeology and then discussing them at school. She discusses her life coming of age in Cordesville, SC, a community outside Charleston. Cordesville is a small community near a national park. “The town is 5,0007,000 people,” she says about her birth place. “But it recently got a sign that says ‘City’,” she smiles.

She remembers watching guest scientists on the Discovery channel discuss scientific matters. Cumbee also found an advocate in some early teachers where she attended public school in Moncks Corner. By the fourth grade, Cumbee was taking honors courses. “People started encouraging me to do well in school.”

Then, Cumbee had a female science teacher in her fifth grade. The teacher noticed that she enjoyed science.

“I know she told the next science teacher (in sixth grade) that I was a good student and interested.” Other teachers also encouraged her in subtle ways. “Mr. Laddie Jones is still teaching in Moncks Corner. I cannot pinpoint what he did, but he showed an interest in my doing what I wanted to do.”

But it was her ninth grade teacher who nudged her forward.

His name, she recalls, was “Mr. Sweeney.”

Sweeney identified Cumbee and another female as top students, both earning good marks. He noticed the boys often dominated in class, overshadowing the girls when they had the correct answers. The girls had hesitated, he noticed.

The teacher asked for Cumbee and her friend to cooperate with a social experiment in his classroom, one that wound up being revealing.

“Mr. Sweeney gave me and the other girl the correct answer to the (in class) experiment. But the boys elbowed us

out of the way.” The lesson was that his young charges should not back down, especially when they knew that they were right—Cumbee was mature enough to understand the value of what the teacher had shown them.

Further strengthening her interest was meeting celebrity scientist and commentator Neil deGrasse Tyson. “He came to a two-week camp for junior scholars in South Carolina, and gave a talk about being an astronomer,” recalls Cumbee. “I didn’t think too much about physics. I kind of wanted to do this theoretical part—astrophysics.”

Tyson became a champion for demystifying science and also for equal opportunities within STEM disciplines. Over a decade ago, while speaking at the National Academy of Sciences, Tyson himself was asked “whether genetic differences might keep women from working as scientists.”

Tyson replied that becoming an astrophysicist was “handsdown the path of most resistance through the forces ... of society.” He continued: “My life experience tells me, when you don’t find blacks in the sciences, when you don’t find women in the sciences, I know these forces are real and I had to survive them in order to get where I am today.”

Fortunately for Cumbee, by the time she was accepted into graduate studies at UGA, she joined a progressive department and was not elbowed out of the way. Her Georgia colleagues treat her well, she stresses.

But it is well-known that elsewhere, women have not found easy acceptance in the field of physics. Women did not gain admission to Ivy League astronomy programs (like Princeton’s) until as late as 1975. Many decades after Vera Rubin attempted to get a Harvard graduate school catalog, and failed, she was given an honorary doctorate by the same institution.

“There are a significant number of women in astronomy,” Cumbee says, “but not so many professors as compared to physics.” However, her life today at a large research institution is a very different experience than for a young student in the South, where only science teachers could support her dreams.

But perhaps lessons in early life have equipped Cumbee to deal with a future in a mentally demanding field—astrophysics.

“There are a significant number of women in astronomy, but not so many professors as compared to physics," says Cumbee. Her life today at a large research institution is a very different experience than for a young student in the South, where only science teachers could support her dreams.

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NASA AND THE EARLY WORKINGS OF THE UNIVERSE

A few questions for Renata Cumbee Q. Why not actually visit the stars?

A. “I wanted to be an astronaut as a wee little child, but it turns out they don’t actually study astronomy so much, so I lost interest. Going out in space is exciting, but they’re not really doing the theoretical work to understand space. It didn't help that I have asthma and am not in peak physical condition.”

Q. What opportunities have opened for you?

A. “I actually returned from the American Astronomical Society Meeting in Kissimmee, Fla. on Friday night, and then attended the Auburn Winter Workshop for Atomic Physics on Monday. I’m still trying to catch up.”

Q. What topic did you speak upon?

A. “I gave a talk titled, ‘The Velocity Dependence of X-ray Emission Due to Charge Exchange in the Cygnus Loop,’ and a poster titled: ‘Revobrational CO analysis in PDR models at the AAS meeting,' which are two completely different topics. At the winter workshop (which is more laid back) I presented a similar talk titled, ‘X-ray Emission Due to Charge Exchange in Supernova Remnants.’”

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Today, the inspirational Tyson is both a celebrity and astrophysicist associated with NASA. The four-letter acronym most school children and aspiring scientists know by the time of literacy, describes work within the firmament in vivid terms and evocative language. Astrophysics is the framework NASA employs for their most important endeavors. “The science goals of astrophysics are breathtaking: we seek to understand the universe and our place in it,” states NASA online. “We are starting to investigate the very moment of creation of the universe and are close to learning the full history of stars and galaxies. We are discovering how planetary systems form and how environments hospitable for life develop. And we will search for the signature of life on other worlds, perhaps to learn that we are not alone.”

NASA summarizes: Astrophysics works toward discovering the workings of the universe, its beginnings and evolution, and life on planets elsewhere. This is the promise of astrophysics: it is the promise of discovery.

Cumbee understands the promise of discovery in her research with atomic collisions.

“We do the calculations for the collision; this involves some quantum mechanics and it is just fascinating to me what we are looking at. We take the results and compare it to what we observe. So, we take these calculations and throw them into the observed spectrum. If it matches, we can say this collision is happening. Right now it hasn’t been proven to have happened outside our solar system. I think that the fact that we can get more details out of the physics makes it more interesting.”

And there is both inspiration and bewilderment to be found in the details. The arguments of physicists, it is said, are the sounds of progress.

Cumbee is inspired and influenced by books such as Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser. She discusses the title’s inspiration, which references entangled photons.

Late last year, John Gribbin reviewed Musser’s book, explaining how Einstein used the term “spooky action at a distance” to explain causality and entangled photons, which seem entangled even when far apart. “Poke one particle, in the right quantum-mechanical way, and the other particle jumps, instantly, even if it is on the other side of the universe.

Einstein did not mean the term as a compliment, and did not believe that the effect could be real. Alas for Einstein,

experiments based on the theoretical work of the physicist John Bell some 30 years ago proved that this entanglement is real.”

In the process of rebutting spooky action, physicists proved something which is called “local reality.” Yet, that, too, isn’t a term easily explained to nonscientists. But it is the terminology that is the working language of Cumbee and her colleagues.

“Local reality says that there is a real universe out there, even when we are not observing it,” Gribbin says. “The ‘local’ bit of the name says that these real objects can only affect one another by means of influences that travel at less than or equal to the speed of light. In entanglement experiments, however, ‘locality’ seems to be violated. Alternatively, there may not be a real world out there that exists independently of our measurements—‘reality’ may be what is being violated.”

And so it may take a brand new Neil deGrasse Tyson— perhaps even a young astrophysicist from Cordesville, SC—to interpret spooky action, and local reality, for a new generation of Discovery watchers.

As the mysteries of gravitational waves and the earliest moments of the universe further unfold this year, we will be watching, too. n

Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory A team of scientists announced that they had heard and recorded the sound of two black holes colliding a billion light years away, a fleeting chirp that fulfilled the last prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

That faint rising tone, physicists say, is the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time that Einstein predicted a century ago. It completes his vision of a universe in which space and time are interwoven and dynamic, able to stretch, shrink and jiggle. And it is a ringing confirmation of the nature of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape, which were the most foreboding (and unwelcome) part of his theory.

If replicated by future experiments, that simple chirp, which rose to the note of middle C before abruptly stopping, seems destined to take its place among the great sound bites of science, ranking with Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson—come here” and Sputnik’s first beeps from orbit.

Feb 11, 2016

“Astrophysics works toward discovering the workings of the universe, its beginnings and evolution, and life on planets elsewhere. This is the promise of astrophysics: it is the promise of discovery.” — NASA

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SCIENCE CAFÉ:

getting a

BANG

OUT OF SCIENCE

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

group of wide-ranging ages and backgrounds packed a campus auditorium on an inclement winter night this past February—to the delight of Science Café organizers and volunteers. The anticipated night-sky viewing with telescopes had to be cancelled due to the rains, but it did not dampen the enthused crowd who turned out.

The mixed group of townspeople gathered to hear a physicist, Loris Magnani, speaking on the subject of cosmology, the Big Bang theory, and the origins of the universe. Parents filed into a large room bringing young children, comprising an audience total of nearly 150 people. The parents settled in beside the middle-aged and collegeaged—a healthy mix of men and women of all ages equally eager to hear how, as Magnani explained, “The Big Bang theory is a model of how the universe works.”

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SCORE ONE FOR SCIENCE! The Big Bang Theory is premised upon a rapid series of extraordinary events (or, perhaps events that happen to be ordinary, according to some theorists) occurring nearly 14 billion years ago.

(See sidebar on The Big Bang Theory in Brief.)

Magnani, casually dressed in black, wrote Cosmology, Study of the Universe upon an old-fashioned blackboard. The audience leaned in attentively.

“Talking about the origins of the universe in 30 minutes is kind of ludicrous,” he began. “But at least it will give you an idea of the famous Big Bang theory.”

And that was just the kick-off for Magnani. There was a sensation of IQs being boosted, simply by association, as a physicist chats and scribbles diagrams about the cosmos. He highlighted brainteasing theories relative to the origin and nature of the cosmos. The

question you should ask, he suggested, is a salient one: "Does this theory lead to predictions that I can use?”

Magnani helpfully drew an illustration of theory, predictions and observations, explaining how cosmology is the branch of astronomy that deals with the universe as a whole.

He cited Olbers’ paradox, which was named after the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers. Olbers’ paradox is also called the “dark night sky paradox.” What is paradoxical about a darkened sky? Simply put, an infinite, static universe containing an infinite number of stars would suggest every line of sight would end in a star, creating a much brighter night sky.

(And, physicists say, when the cosmos was younger the night sky was formerly far brighter.)

Magnani said, “When you look at galaxies/night sky, there are only two stars. Everything else is a distant galaxy; the stars in our galaxy are in

THE BIG BANG THEORY IN BRIEF At present, the majority of astronomers accept the Big Bang

With this expansion also came rapid cooling, causing energy

Theory, believing that prior to the event the universe was

to change into particles of matter and antimatter. Some matter

contained within a minute bubble. (A bubble described as

survived in the form of quarks, that would go on to form more

thousands of times smaller than a pinhead.) According to

stable particles called protons and neutrons—and the universe

scientific websites, “It was hotter and denser” than anything

was now only one second old. As the temperature further

imaginable.

dropped (below 1 billion degrees Celsius) within the next three

Then it suddenly expanded. The known universe was born along with time, matter and space. Within a fraction of a

minutes, it cooled sufficiently to allow for protons and neutrons to come together, forming hydrogen and helium nuclei.

second, the universe grew from something smaller than a

Within the passage of 300,000 years, the universe cooled

single atom to larger than a galaxy. The universe’s expansion

further to about 3,000 degrees. Atomic nuclei could finally

continued at a fantastic rate, and continues to this day.

capture electrons to form atoms. The universe filled with clouds comprised of helium and hydrogen gas.

our neighborhood. The farther away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from you. What is that telling us about the universe?”

Theorists began scrambling to formulate explanations. A theory sitting there, Magnani explained, was Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the most general theory of motion. And then, he added, American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered the universe is not static, and that everything is moving.

“For a theory to be a good theory it must make predictions; these two theories establish that the universe is expanding.”

As the universe expands it dilutes, Magnani added, with the dispersion of energy. “In the past, the universe had bigger energy density; it was hotter. And as it expands it gets cooler.”

In 1964, two radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, were working for Bell Labs, in one of the world’s largest radio

astronomy departments. Penzias and Wilson discovered a “hiss” coming from outside our galaxy. Astronomers at Princeton (only 37 miles away) working on background radiation explained to the team what the hiss actually was.

“It was cosmic microwave background radiation. For their work, Penzias and Wilson won a Nobel Prize,” Magnani said. “Once cosmic radiation was found, the Big Bang Theory stood because it was the only predictor,” he explained.

Radiation—the source of the hiss— diluted and dispersed as the universe cooled down. The establishment of cosmic microwave background radiation was a breakthrough substantiating the Big Bang Theory. The Big Bang Theory itself has since expanded as well, with more knowledge unfolding into the present.

“Since then, there were two momentous discoveries,” Magnani added. The first is this: “Most of the

UGA physicist Loris Magnani explaining the origins of the universe to a packed crowd during a Science Café this year.

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UGA astronomer Loris Magnani writes on his home page: "The interstellar medium of the galaxy is the great reservoir from which stars are born and to which they return much of their mass."

matter in the universe is dark matter.”

The name is misleading, he explained.

“The ‘dark’ part says it doesn’t react with light at all. And, secondly, dark matter does not interact with normal matter. You infer this through gravity; we’re 99 percent convinced dark matter is out there.”

As for dark matter, Magnani says “In a very profound sense we don’t know much about it. But we are convinced it is there…a big change in the structure of the universe. The majority of matter you cannot see in the normal way.”

For the record, dark energy has nothing to do with dark matter, he explained. “It is a repulsive gravity. Dark energy pushes things apart. Dark energy doesn’t fit into the Big Bang Theory.”

(Magnani further explained that “You have to allow for dark matter. Einstein included a ‘fudge factor’ called the cosmological constant, which did that.”)

And yet, dark energy remains a scientific conundrum. “There are no theories that explain dark energy and why this profound mystery is pushing things apart,” he added.

An audience member asked, “If

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everything is moving away from us, we must be the center of everything?”

“No,” answered Magnani.

Using the metaphor of the universe as a fabric that gives and expands, he explained that there is no center. He referenced Hoyle’s relativistic theory, which states that dark matter expands the universe. He discussed spiral galaxies and the spinning of matter—moving much faster than it should according to preexisting ideas about gravitational laws.

“Dark matter, or ‘weird, exotic particles’ like neutrinos, don’t have an electromagnetic interaction.”

So, how is dark matter distributed?

Magnani offered a visual. “Think of a big, spiral galaxy.” (Galaxies formed, he says, where there is dark matter in the universe.) “Particle physics called it ‘inflation’. Like the Big Bang Theory from the 1980s, inflation is kind of a patch.”

The mysteries of the universe had to pause long after the half hour ended. Magnani remained afterward at the center of a crowd—answering enthusiastic question after question. He had touched something of profound

meaning. As the audience exited into the night, stars were absent in the swirl of mist and fog. The sky was appropriately dark.

The deepening universal mystery of everything would continue. n

For Further Research: UGA Origins Lecture Series: “Origin of the Universe,” by Loris Magnani www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1B-JerDhnQ NASA “Ask an Astrophysicist” www.imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/ask_an_astronomer. html

Time Begins

1

.

Boiling "soup" with electrons, quarks and other elementary particles.

Space cools off rapidly.

Quarks form protons and neutrons,

1027째C

108째C

2

.

Universe - superhot fog. Too hot protons and electrons hinder the emission of light.

Light elements created Deuterium, Lithium, Helium.

10,000C

3

.

Protons, Electrons, Neutrons combine and form atoms.

Primarily hydrogen and helium atoms.

-200째C

4.

Galaxy formation era.

Hydrogen and helium atoms begin to form giant clouds that will become galaxies and stars.

-270째C

5.

SHUTTERSTOCK

First dying stars produce heavy elements, which will turn into new stars and planets.

Sun - 4.6 Billion years old.

Solar system - 4.5 Billion years.

Universe - 13.8 Billion years.

Present Day

Big Bang Theory Phases The Big Bang Theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.

The model accounts for the fact that the universe expanded from a very high density and high-temperature state. Some estimates place this moment at approximately 13.8 billion years ago, which is considered the age of the universe.

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A FIDUCIARY ITH MI W SS N A IO M N A :

MICHAEL GENE THOMAS

A David and Goliath battle for financial equity for the poor is one fight he seriously plans to win.

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

o meet Michael Gene Thomas, whose warm, kindly smile and frequent laugh are signatures, is to meet an outwardly easygoing man. But inwardly, Thomas is a doctoral student in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, one driven to make a meaning in the lives of those with the least financial resources. He cares about ensuring that vulnerable populations have access to financial planning services—a resource that only the affluent usually enjoy.

For a money man like Thomas, this is a tall order but one he feels suited to deliver. His background (a 2005 degree in accountancy and two years working at a CPA firm) made for an easy transition into working in college admissions and later, as a financial aid planner, at LaGrange College.

What was glaringly obvious to him was that the true work of a college was transformation. For many of the students Thomas helped, he realized this meant transforming their relationships with their money. Credit cards and student debts were sometimes strangling. As students sank into debt, dreams became more of a distant reality.

Cold hard cash—and equally cold, sometimes hard, facts— are in order.

For many, straightening out financial relationships is as complicated, or more so, than untangling our interpersonal ones. According to the website Nerdwallet, the cost of living has consistently outstripped earnings for many. And worse, card holders often either don’t know their credit card debt or underreport it. Yet they write that in 2015, average household

00879-005zFinalGreen.tif

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FINANCIAL LITERACY is the ability to understand how money works in the world: how someone manages to earn or make it, how that person manages it, how he/she invests it and how that person donates it to help others.

debt was nearly $130,000—with $15,355 of it on credit cards.

Thomas takes an old-fashioned approach to a newfangled problem. That problem is, first and last, the problem of debt, which is the outcome of financial illiteracy. Most Americans have little or inadequate savings, let alone investment capital. He would change that, and thinks there is good reason to begin teaching the value of a dollar sooner than later. The “Millionaire Next Door” approach, wherein people deliberately live beneath their means, is one way of summarizing his financial philosophy.

Thomas, who drives a 10-year-old car (“I hope to get to 500,000 miles,” he declares) is serious about becoming such a millionaire. He tightens his belt—actually, he cinches it—and refuses to be drawn into impulsive buys, ones he might repent at leisure.

Admittedly, says Thomas, living below one’s means is not an easy sell. “My friends tease me about that car” he says. He simply ignores them.

Financial illiteracy is something which surfaces like many social dysfunctions, as almost organic. Too often, he says, it is denied or ignored by a social construction created to protect our images.

Thomas was born into a military family which taught him principles of self-discipline. “My father was a Marine, and I began school in Oahu.” The family moved to Jackson, NC before eventually moving to Gary, In. There, he fell in love with the game of baseball. While attending a Florida baseball camp during his junior year of high school he learned about LaGrange College. He decided to ultimately attend LaGrange and earned a degree in accounting there in 2005. Afterward, Thomas worked in a CPA firm for two years. Later, he was hired at LaGrange as an admissions counselor.

Thomas’s eventual experiences as an auditor, and as LaGrange’s director of affordability and family financial aid

planning, made him privy to deeper insights. Some of the students’ financial issues were especially worrying.

“I served in various roles at the college. I saw how vital each function was to transform the lives of the students it served. Going through those conversations, those vulnerable conversations, really hit home for me that the work I wanted to do has to happen far before that year and a half you really get to work with families.”

He felt he needed to initiate conversations about finances earlier—as in, well before a student began to apply to colleges.

He explains, “As an auditor, I felt isolated. And as a financial aid person, I felt we had a very short window of time to help families.” This led Thomas to apply to UGA’s financial planning program in the College of Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics.

Thomas had found his footing and became involved in professional initiatives within the College. “My biggest accomplishment was helping to create the first financial literacy summer camp for middle school students at UGA.” He had also launched a business, Modom Financial Services.

He describes Modom as based upon a different premise, aiming to financially empower the underserved, especially youth and couples.

“I don’t want to get to my finish line alone,” he says. His eyes are focused, determined. “The reason I am pursuing a financial planning degree is that I want to provide services to the underserved and to the (needy).” Thomas rejects a topdown social perspective. “I am not blessed because I have something someone else does not have.”

Complicating the work he does, he says that it doesn’t help that money and finance are so difficult to discuss.

We learn early on that money is one of society’s big taboo subjects, Thomas adds wryly. We don’t disclose financial information easily and too often only when we have no other

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An estimated 38 MILLION HOUSEHOLDS in the U.S. live paycheck to paycheck. BABY BOOMERS tend to do better when it comes to hanging on to their extra money. Adults aged 55 AND OLDER have a positive personal savings rate of about 13%. MILLENNIALS (adults 35 and under) have a personal savings rate of NEGATIVE 2%. Between high student loan debt and stagnating wages, saving anything at all proves to be impossible for many of them.

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MONEY MAN WITH A HEART: “I don’t have to lead,” says doctoral student Michael Thomas. “I can fill the gap. Despite how hard something is to put together, when something is done and is done really, really well, that is where I find happiness.”

“If you want to know something about somebody, look at their bank statements.”

choice, he says. This further insulates us from making realistic, healthier choices before we are at a crisis point.

As one popular book on personal finances says on the cover, being educated about our finances is a case of “Your Money or Your Life.” Debt and lack quickly strangle dreams and purpose. Life dreams become thwarted.

MONEY—A MORE LOADED SUBJECT THAN SEX? Why, precisely, is money such a psychologically loaded subject? Thomas smiles at the question thoughtfully before answering. He sits in a lobby near campus while nursing a coffee, discussing what he has learned through his various clients (both at Modom and the UGA programs he is involved with) struggling with money issues.

He wears a crisply laundered dress shirt and pants, but sports no logos. He is a man who has learned to practice what he preaches: Keep things simple. Live simply. He sighs, looking into his cup. Like Warren Buffett, the famous money man popularly known as the Oracle of Omaha, Thomas is also pragmatic and imminently kind.

Money and personal finance, he explains, are a complicated, loaded set of subjects.

“If somebody runs into money, (like a windfall) it emphasizes certain traits about them,” says Thomas. He shares what he has learned through Modom Financial Services, and the clients struggling with money issues he served both there and through the collegiate programs.

What he has learned in working through financial challenges doesn’t make him a seer, but it makes him privy to deeply held secrets and issues. “If they have an addiction problem it magnifies it…money magnifies personal qualities.

Whether we realize it or not, money is a genuine expression of whom we are.” Here, Thomas pauses for emphasis.

“If you want to know something about somebody, look at their bank statements,” he says seriously. He even suggests that couples might want to look at one another’s bank statements before they become too involved. “That would be revealing,” he says, arching a brow elaborating. In fact, he doesn’t talk about market fluctuations or how to beat inflation. He talks about things such as financial infidelity and trust issues—chief among other issues that entangle our financial truths.

“I’ve talked with couples in the past, but neither knows what the other is doing with their money. Money tells a story, another picture of our truer selves. There is a deep connection with who we are, intrinsically, and how we spend.”

Thomas firmly believes that you can tell a lot about a person if you observe how they spend their money. “If people went out and asked to see their bank statement you could learn a lot about that person…it should be explored a little.” His eyes widen. He is serious. Money, he stresses, is a serious subject.

“We’ll talk about sex, we’ll talk about drugs. Everything. But it—money—is very difficult; money is very personal. We will talk about sex before money.”

To know thyself, Thomas adds, you should begin with full self-disclosure with the intimates in your life. “A great question before dating or befriending someone would be: “What role does money play in your life?””

He has conversations with people he works with to explore where and how they spend their money. Thomas shares a hypothetical example of a lady who spends $600 a month on dog food, one who barely has her own needs

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BIG DEBT ON CAMPUS

2 3

STUDENT LOAN DEBT HAS NEARLY QUADRUPLED IN THE PAST 10 YEARS. $1,000

($ BILLIONS)

$750

$500

NEARLY TWO-THIRDS OF $250

MINORITY HOUSEHOLDS DON'T HAVE SAVINGS SET ASIDE

$0 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

FOR THE FUTURE.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

The amount of total student loan debt has soared in the past decade, shooting up from $240 billion at the start of 2003 to nearly $1 trillion today.

met. “From the outside looking in, the solution appears obvious—spend less on dog food. Problem solved! However, if the proper care is taken to explore the situation further, it is not unlikely that the planner will find there may be a deep emotional connection to that. In this scenario, we learn that the client has a special relationship with her dogs in the absence of family or social connection.” Asking her to not spend so much on dog food, he explains, is tantamount to telling a mother not to feed her children.

Thomas says people are burdened with unexpressed discomfort and expectations concerning money. Basically, money actually makes our worlds tilt off axle, especially if we cannot talk openly about it, he notes. When asked if he, himself, has a healthy relationship with money, Thomas weighs the question. He replies that he is constantly learning and evaluating himself, too.

“Getting your house in order isn’t a once and done…you keep altering it,” he explains.

“There are some things I’m working on… For me, my biggest thing is that I don’t take enough (financial) risk. I understand the markets. I talk about my money plan.” He frowns slightly. Perhaps he is too cautious, he wonders aloud.

“Too much of a saver?”

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THE ULTIMATE “EXIT” PLAN… But Thomas has had to sort through the financial issue of owning a home that is in a neighborhood with declining worth. In real estate terms, he is upside down—the property is losing rather than gaining in value—but he refuses to declare bankruptcy. Perhaps instead, he and his wife will consider a short sale—an alternative that he finds more ethical. He further discusses short sales, and the complicating notion of a house versus a home—something with lingering financial implications for an entire family. Thomas has gone so far as to stipulate that his children liquidate the family home when he dies. A home can become a burden to offspring, he says.

“I don’t want to pass the baton back to them,” he says, “and make them have to be (slowed) by us.”

Millennials have embraced an altogether different scenario of home ownership. Their affection for tiny houses (ones built upon an axle, sometimes repurposed from shipping containers, and therefore more affordable) have become part of a social movement. It is attractive to simplify one’s life and shrink a mortgage, Thomas notes. “We can use money as energy to do other things (than pay a mortgage)… these things can be more meaningful than buying a new pair of shoes or the latest iPhone.”

Thomas adds, “We live in a capitalist society; spend, spend, spend! And marketers are great at telling you things

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Personal Savings Rate

PERSONAL SAVINGS RATE TWO YEAR COMPARISON

WHAT IS THE PERSONAL SAVINGS RATE IN THE U.S.?

The personal savings rate is the average amount of earnings people in the U.S. are putting away for rainy days. Through the end of 2014, the rate was 4.4%, which is a steep decline from the 10.5% rate in 2012.

2014 4.4%

HOW MANY ADULTS LIVE PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK? An estimated 38 million households in the U.S. live hand to mouth, meaning they spend every penny of their paychecks. Surprisingly, twothirds of them earn a median income of $41,000, which puts them well above the federal poverty level. https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-american-savings-statistics.html

can make your life better. There are all these financial services that are free, and online; but they do not focus on the psychological message like, say, a Pepsi commercial will.”

In other words, we are not easily persuaded that financial freedom will make our life better in the same way we are convinced that being acquisitive will.

A HUMBLING LOSS AND THE AFTERMATH Psychological issues have been especially difficult for Thomas since November of 2015, when he had to face down tragedy within his family. His sister, Tiara Thomas, was murdered just before Thanksgiving, allegedly by her ex-boyfriend, leaving three young children behind. Thomas has since been trying to help his young niece and nephews navigate a nightmare while coping with his own sense of bereavement.

Thomas was close to his sister; he is deeply shaken and the grief is unspeakable. “Now I know there is nothing worse that can happen to me. Nothing that can make me feel as low,” he says quietly during the week before Christmas. Thomas says his emotions spill over into his work, leaving him less hesitant or concerned about small things. “I am now absolutely okay with risks, but they have to be calculated.”

His sister’s untimely, tragic death was gravely humbling.

“We still mean something even though we are but a small piece of the big whole,” he says thoughtful. The enormity of what he has experienced has changed him. “I think it is a breakthrough. At the end of the day, I am intentional about

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2012 10.5%

doing my very best, and if it doesn’t happen, guess what? I’m probably going to have another opportunity to do it better… everyday, we have an opportunity to do it better.”

Thomas, ordinarily an optimist, is finding a new philosophy to navigate through tragedy. His new philosophy, he has discovered, “is about living in the moment and relaxing into the grand experiment that our lives become. If something were to happen to me tomorrow, someone whom I might not have a great relationship with may decide to speak at my funeral… people will determine to remember me how they wish.”

An aunt, one who spent her life in the military, told Thomas to stay true to his convictions. “That was it,” he repeats softly. That straightforward advice became a sort of lodestar.

He is actively building his own legacy. Thomas volunteers with low income tax assistance and with the Athens work release program through UGA’s Aspire clinic. With the assistance of other UGA undergraduate students, Aspire provides six or seven sessions to the prisoners, designed to help them achieve more financial ability and prevent recidivism.

Thomas believes that in supporting prisoners’ access to services and benefits, it will make for a healthier transition to freedom. “There are so many ways to help people plan.”

After he completes his program, Thomas is leaning towards working with a local agency. One, he adds, that has a firm and strong commitment to service.

“For me, being in the doctoral program, and aspiring to do the kind of work I do to stay true to my convictions, is keeping me focused. Dr. Goetz and Dr. Palmer, members

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Thomas's volunteer interests

financial planning careers. Online

include UGA's Aspire clinic, a

Thomas writes, "Let's show people

service that provides nutrition

we care about them, and let's start

counseling at no cost, and Money

there."

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE UGA FINANCIAL HOUSING AND CONSUMER ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT

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http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/

secrets surrounding money,

aspire-clinic-trains-students-provides-free-

personal financial decision making,

nutrition-counseling-1114/

and investing. Thomas teaches students how to get the most out

http://www.georgiacenter.uga.edu/youth/

summer-academy/money-dawgs of their money and discover great MoneyDawgs-002.jpg MoneyDawgs-001.jpg

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To learn about ASPIRE: www.aspireclinic.org/about/about-aspire

MoneyDawgs-

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00856-123.dng of the multidisciplinary Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) team, were gracious enough to allow me to be a part of this project. The HMRE project, will impact a lot of lives. It takes into consideration relationship dynamics, communication, family, therapy, best practices, and the financial capability of this component, working together to create more stable families—emotionally, psychologically, and communicate better. That is the kind of work I want to be MoneyDawgs-008.jpg MoneyDawgs-007.jpg doing. How do we strengthen families?”

Thomas says absent that helping aspect, he would have simply completed his master’s degree and immersed himself in a new professional track. “If this hadn’t happened, I’m not sure I would have done a doctoral program.”

And so Thomas, even in the midst of personal grief, finds meaning in eliminating financial difficulty. He works with the 00856-142.dng poorest, the broke and broken, the imprisoned, and the most disenfranchised. “Love when it is inconvenient,” he adds softly.

Thomas writes this online, a sort of personal manifesto, MoneyDawgs-014.jpg which is a declaration MoneyDawgs-013.jpg of his integrity: “All people need is for somebody sitting across from them at that desk to care about them. Let’s show people we care about them, and let’s start there. Then we look at assumptions and race, and can be sensitive to how we talk to them. If we don’t care, you’ve just given me a script.” n

For Further Reading: Thomas’s friends have set up a fund for his surviving niece and nephews at: MoneyDawgs-017.JPG Gofundme.com/tiarathomas

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For additional information concerning the HMRE project: www.fcs.uga.edu/hdfs/hmre-news-reports

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d th an

W hit n

ram's Big Dr g n ea I m y e

of t h e

Sm itely all fin In

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS

e Beauty

No Small Matter:

PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

hen is the precise moment when someone decides to become a scientist?

Whitney Ingram, a UGA doctoral candidate in physics, remembers. She was a young girl of about eight years, living in Stone Mountain, Ga., when she picked up a National Geographic magazine. She flipped through, enjoying the photographs, and stopped at an article. Illustrating the article was a powerfully unnerving image. “I saw a piece about the sun expanding into a red giant and engulfing the Earth,” Ingram remembers.

Then Ingram read the article through. Her life wobbled on its axis.

Ingram was going to put the magazine away, but what she had read remained

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with her. In the narration of her life, this image, this article, this magazine, was going to change the arc of her future.

It was a potent photograph and for a young girl it had made an indelible imprint. “Reading that this was the fate of our planet, it really disturbed me and I couldn’t sleep. Though this would not happen for at least another billion years, the threat felt real. I had a lot of fear; what if it happened tomorrow, I thought to myself?”

The image of a dying sun stayed with Ingram.

“It was a vivid memory because of the fear attached to it.” What she wanted to know, was, exactly when was the sun going to explode? She laughs ironically as she tells it.

A fascination with science enabled

her to get answers to that and other vexing questions about the physical world. Her interest in science grew during her early experiences in DeKalb County. “I was heavily influenced in elementary and middle school. I attended Shadow Rock Elementary and Stephenson Middle School. They did offer after school science programs.”

Eventually she decided to become a scientist, or possibly an engineer. As often happens, her science interests were further fueled by studies at Stephenson High School in DeKalb County, Ingram says.

“I was interested in engineering and did a lot of science fair projects. It wasn’t until meeting my high school physics teacher, Mr. Billinghurst, that I developed an interest in physics. He

Whitney Ingram will graduate this December with a doctorate in physics. Ingram will be the first African-American woman to graduate with a degree in physics from the University of Georgia, and will join a small and distinguished coterie of minority women in her profession.

As of last year, there were approximately 89 PhDs in physics held by African-American women in the US, including living and deceased. By her estimate, there will be perhaps as many as 100 total by the date she graduates.

was really passionate about the subject.

When I took the class there was only three of us in advanced placement physics. I really enjoyed the way he taught the class, and he spoke in a way that was easy to understand and the hands-on experiments were really fun. He agreed to be my mentor and support me in a Science Olympiad.”

Ingram learned later that her physics teacher had actually deferred retirement for a year until she graduated.

After high school, Ingram was interested in biomedical engineering but decided to enter physics. The year was 2007 and she was then “deliberating between UGA and Berry College.” She chose UGA, receiving a HOPE Scholarship, and other financial awards. These included scholarships from Georgia Power Company’s Association of Blacks in Energy, Delta Sigma Theta Scholarship (Stone Mountain-Lithonia alumni chapter) and the Tuskegee Airmen scholarship.

During Ingram’s freshman year at UGA, she was a part of the minority undergraduate research program, the Peach State Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (PS-LSAMP). Her mentors at PS-LSAMP encouraged her to apply for the Graduate School’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) for additional financial support. It was during that time that Ingram met Angela

Jewell, an administrative manager in the Graduate School.

Jewell recalls their initial meeting in 2008. “In a given year, at different recruitment events, I probably meet 75-100 students that I actually engage with—we meet hundreds. Ingram was one I engaged with.” Jewell continued checking with Ingram periodically in order to discuss her progress towards entering the doctoral program. “When she went into her department, she was a little shy,” Jewell noticed.

“Over the last couple years, she has grown into this very strong and bold person,” she observes. “Another thing that stood out was how determined she was.” As part of the SURP program, Ingram was required to meet certain criterion, including creating a poster presentation, preparing a written presentation, and also giving an oral presentation. “Whitney did a wonderful job on all three,” Jewell says. “Whitney also stayed very connected with the Graduate School,” Jewell adds. “She will volunteer to serve on panels when we host events. She likes to help other students. It's amazing to see how she has grown.” She remained engaged with Ingram thereon.

“She is a friend and mentor and we have kept in touch,” Ingram says about Jewell.

Early on, Ingram also got to know

Nanotechnology is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular and supramolecular scale. It is common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" to refer to the broad range of research and applications whose common trait is size. Because of the variety of potential applications (including industrial and military), governments have invested billions of dollars in nanotechnology research. Until 2012, through its National Nanotechnology Initiative, the USA has invested 3.7 billion dollars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

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s

Tin y

g like a prism.

www.grad.uga.edu

gh t,

tin

22

end white li

ac

ph

sb e r e

NANOSPHERE LITHOGRAPHY

colors. This is why they look so colorful;

Then we can peel off the nanospheres

Whitney Ingram works inside a

they act like a prism,” Ingram explains.

after they are coated with metal, and

physics laboratory at UGA creating

“We use them as a mask or template

then use or study them.”

nanoparticles using a technique she

to create different nanodesigns. To

This process is called nanosphere

developed. “These are pieces of silicon

do this, we first coat our glass and

lithography. “If you Google this and

or glass coated with a monolayer

silicon pieces with the monolayer. (I

look at some of the images, you will

of nanospheres, so there are

created this technique, and am very

see scanning electron microscope

nanostructures on top of those chips.

proud if it! It took years to perfect).

(SEM) images of nanospheres

The nanospheres are arranged in a

After the samples are coated with the

closely arranged, and you will also

close-packed formation. Because

monolayer, we place them inside the

see nanopatterns that look like

the size of a sphere is so tiny, only

deposition chamber and coat them

nanotriangles.” Ingram adds that, “this

500nm in diameter, and are closely

with metal. The deposition system is

is specifically what I focus my thesis

arranged, they will bend white light

only used to coat materials, but masks

work on—those nanostructures."

and separate them into different

like these can give them 2D designs.

a key mentor within the physics department. “I did undergrad research since the summer of 2008 for the professor who is now my current PhD professor, Dr. Yiping Zhao.”

A succession of other awards and honors followed for Ingram while still an undergraduate. She earned a CURO summer fellowship, and the UGA physics department’s prestigious Linville L. Hendren Memorial Scholarship for outstanding proficiency in physics.

Ingram was well on the way to becoming a double dawg with a UGA doctorate. She completed a bachelor’s degree in physics in 2011 and continued working towards her doctorate.

As a graduate student she won a Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) fellowship and the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan scholarship in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In 2015, Whitney was awarded the Department of Energy’s Science Graduate Student Research (DOE-SCGSR) fellowship. Then, as an ultimate prize, she was chosen

last summer as one of 65 students to represent the US delegation to attend the Annual Nobel Laureate Conference in Lindau, Germany. Her lead professor, Zhao, had nominated her for the honor.

THE BEAUTY OF SCALE: NANOPARTICLES AND NANOTECHNOLOGIES Ingram had long since abandoned a fascination with the dying sun. Now she looks downwards toward the nanoscale versus looking upwards.

Or, as Ingram explains to fellow scientists or physicists: “I tell them, ‘You prefer to look up and I prefer to look down.’”

Rather than contemplating the imponderables of an infinite firmament, Ingram considers the science of the infinitely small: nanoparticles and nanostructures.

After Ingram earns her doctorate late this year, she has scarcely had time to determine where she will land next.

Logging Lab Time: Ingram has worked with her lead professor, Yiping Zhao, since becoming a UGA undergraduate.

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TIME OUT WITH WHITNEY INGRAM

Other Outlets?

What do you do for fun?

“When I have time I volunteer at

“If I do have any recreational time?

Because, I’m in the lab in the mornings and also go back at night.

The Daily Bread. (This is an Athens initiative to feed the homeless). Every Friday morning we cook breakfast;

I enjoy working out a lot. I go to the

everybody is so thankful there.

gym and take kick boxing. On rare

In South Carolina, my schedule is

occasions I like to travel.

different. I just enjoy driving around

“Movies are a rare treat. I saw the

the countryside. I like space and

Deadpool movie—it’s been a while— I’m not a big fan of the dystopian movies. I am a bit of a comic book fan.”

As for self-discipline?

I have to block that stuff (Facebook and YouTube) and so I have a daytime blocker so I won’t do it—the blocker will come up and say I shouldn’t be doing it.”

the country; there are lots of horses around Aiken. I am also a huge fan of National Public Radio, NPR. I enjoy listening to podcasts such as 'Science Friday', 'Radio Lab', 'Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me', 'This American Life' and so much more. I really enjoy listening to them during the long drives, like to the Savannah River national Lab."

Favorite song?

I’m a huge fan of Michael Jackson. I love the “Earth Song.”

She is doing developmental research in nanomaterials used for sensing applications. It is not easily visualized, but Ingram gives it a patient attempt.

“My research interest is in the field of nanotechnology,” says Ingram. “I design and study the properties of nanostructures with structures on a scale of about a one hundred to a thousand times smaller than the thickness of your eyelash. We use these to study how we can manipulate these into something useful. We make them, study them, and analyze them primarily for sensing applications.”

She explains there are other nanotechnology projects in Zhao’s research group in play, such as the study and application of nano-motors, which are useful in working with blood clots, or for detection of decomposing contaminates in water, known as photocatalysis.

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She has been conducting research at a government facility with a graduate student research team as part of her DOE fellowship. “I’m studying how to design and use nanostructures as sensors to quantitatively detect low concentrations of substances, such as water isotopes or water contaminants like dyes. My research is not only to develop and optimize the nanostructures for the best possible results, but their practical application towards real world problems.”

From June 2015 until May of this year, Ingram spent much of her time between UGA’s labs and the Savannah River National Laboratory (or SRNL) in Aiken, SC in the DOE’s Office of Science. Ingram has become familiar with the SRNL’s facilities and worked to develop her research and protocols while presenting to colleagues onsite.

“They work towards managing a safe and

secure environment for the storage of nuclear weapons and nuclear material, and alternative energy techniques such as hydrogen energy production,” she explained via a phone interview while working onsite at SRNL this year.

Ingram’s research goal at the SRNL is aimed at detecting nuclear material at much lower concentrations than with conventional methods using inexpensive techniques. “This is where nanostructures come into play. They can be cost effective and very simple to use as sensors,” she clarifies.

Ingram worked with SRNL principal investigator Simona Hunyadi Murph.

Murph is among SRNL’s youngest principal investigators.

She says Ingram had “the unique opportunity to become an expert in her field by applying state-of-the-art scientific techniques and practical, high-value, cost-effective solutions

™

develop technologies in conjunction with nuclear materials.

It had been a rapid rise for Ingram, now age 26, from being a kid growing up in the Atlanta suburbs to a doctoral student well on her way to a stellar career. But there was more that made her ascendance particularly special: Ingram was among an elite corps.

Very few women of color held doctorates in physics. And few college students in the entire world have the chance to attend a Nobel Laureate Meeting. (See sidebar.)

JEAN CHU WHITNEY INGRAM

to complex technical problems,” and mentored Ingram’s development of novel nano-materials at UGA. Murph writes in an email, “The cutting-edge nanomaterials produced at UGA by Whitney are being characterized and evaluated for their ability to promote surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of nuclear waste analytes present in aqueous environments.”

Back at UGA, Ingram worked with bulk materials in the creation of nanostructures used at SRNL. “The technique is called physical vapor deposition,” she explains.

Nanopatterns are prepared by placing substrates—glass or silicon chips— inside a large metal chamber containing a small bowl, or crucible. A large variety of materials can be placed into the chamber including gold, silver, and copper.

Ingram works primarily with silver.

She places the silver inside the crucible and melts it with an electron beam under very low pressure until it begins to melt and vaporize. As this occurs, Ingram manipulates substrate positions using motors within the chamber.

“When the material melts and begins to vaporize, we can design two and three-dimensional nanopatterns as the metal cools onto the substrate.”

Murph adds that this research work aligns with the University of Georgia, SRNL, and DOE’s mutual goals to support national defense, homeland security, and nuclear programs. Also, she says that Ingram’s research helps

IN THE COMPANY OF GIANTS AT LINDAU Last year, Zhao’s nomination of Ingram to attend the Nobel Laureate meeting was successful and Ingram was selected as one of 65 students in America. It was even more meaningful as she met fellow attendees. She made friends from all over the world, and hobnobbed with Nobel Prize winners.

“The conference is intense. You choose lectures delivered by the Laureates, and then have lunch; then, attend more discussions and dinner.

Besides meeting the Laureates, the best thing was meeting and having discussions with the other scholars from different parts of the world,” she says.

Lindau crystallized other things, intangibles. Ingram had found many supportive people among her UGA family, but she met others at the event that had not. “When these people talk,

Once every year, 30–40 Nobel Laureates convene at Lindau, Germany, to meet the next generation of leading scientists.

The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings foster the exchange of ideas among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines. http://www.lindau-nobel.org/about/

Top: Whitney Ingram with her lead professor, Yiping Zhao, who nominated her for the honor of attending the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting last year. Middle: Whitney Ingram with Dr. Steven Chu, 2009 Nobel Prize winner in Physics. Above: 2015 Nobel Laureates.

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Ingram met Angela Jewell, an administrative manager in the UGA Graduate School, in 2008.

“Over the last couple years, she has grown into this very strong and bold person. Another thing that stood out was how determined she was,” Jewell says. As part of the SURP program, Ingram was required to meet certain criterion, including creating a poster presentation, preparing a written presentation, and also giving an oral presentation. "Whitney did a wonderful job on all three,” Jewell says. "She is a friend and mentor and we have kept in touch,” Ingram says about Jewell.

they often had little support from their peers,” Ingram noted.

She is still processing how the Nobel Laureates and their messages affected her. “It made me realize I had to think bigger. They (the Nobel Laureates) wanted to be the ones to create something new. What challenges are people not taking on today, and yet, perhaps they are possible?”

Ingram says, “I came back with a broader sense that I can do something substantial. Maybe it won’t be easy—but just stay focused. It is what separated the Nobel Laureates from others.

Their stories were very interesting: one Laureate had dropped out of high school, and another actually built a specialized microscope in his home and published his results without the support of the University.” Eric Betzig went on to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.

She has research ideas she may explore after graduation. But for now, Ingram is working on designing and studying nanostructures, developing unique patterning techniques shaped by close nanospheres and nanopatterns.

“We can create a vast variety of patterns from these simple structures and also study their optical properties, noting how they interact with light. We can apply this knowledge towards developing sensors for low-concentration detection of select chemicals.”

Ingram explains that it is possible

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to change the nanostructure pretty easily. Each can have its own unique optical features. A scanning electron microscope, or SEM, and an atomic force microscope, or AFM, are needed to actually work with these minute structures.

“Here in Dr. Zhao’s lab is one of the few labs in the world that can do the fabrication, experimental and computational characterization, and application, of nanostructures—with just the facilities we have at UGA.” Ingram creates the nanopatterns in the lab back at UGA, where they have the specialized equipment needed. Ingram returns to SRNL with nanostructures she prepared in Athens.

Ingram says, “Nanopatterns are easily created. You can design anything you want given you have the right design features.” Right now, she says she is working towards that end, “more interested in pushing the envelope to create our design.” Ingram is refining her technique in working with a particular type of radioactive material.

“The field that I work in is called SERS. It is a technique that is highly sensitive. It can be used to detect small organisms, such as bacteria, viruses, organic contaminants, heavy metals, and more. I am more interested in tritium oxide; it is produced with plutonium devices. Because we deal with nuclear maintenance it is an abundant material. If that gets into the

water supply it is potentially dangerous, so detection techniques are important.

Eventually, I do want to move onto the detection of other nuclear material such as uranium and plutonium.”

Her research, Ingram stresses, falls “more on the fundamental side of how to make it better. The application of this is what I do at the Savannah River site.”

As an aside, Ingram mentions also working in the field of metamaterials.

These nanostructures interact with light in such a unique way they are studied and used for stealth technology.

“The theory was known since the 1960s,” she explains. “But now we have technologies to do it.” This veers into Harry Potter territory, and we discuss the famous cloak of invincibility the fiction popularized. But in fact, Ingram laughs, the possibility of objects being made invisible isn’t exactly the stuff of fiction.

“It is here and there are people doing research on it. It’s a popular and active field of research.”

Nanomaterials, nanostructures and metamaterials—they all may be so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. But these minute structures are of demonstrable use.

Post-Lindau, Ingram’s ambitions as a physicist have only grown bigger. n

At right: Whitney Ingram shown with Angela Jewell on campus.

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At age nine, Danielle Jensen-Ryan coped with becoming a caregiver to her ill mother. At age 34, her mother battled late stage colon cancer, and subsequently, developed late stage breast cancer by age 47. Jensen-Ryan’s childhood was shadowed by the specter of cancer. Now it had reared its head again—but it was not, she said firmly, going to stop her.

Fully Tested:

Danielle Jensen-Ryan and Her Fight

Against BRCA

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

ast October, Danielle Jensen-Ryan was at Lake Lanier Islands attending the Graduate School’s Emerging Leaders Program when she shared a defining experience: Jensen-Ryan carries an extremely rare genetic predisposition for cancer known as BRCA 1 and BRCA 2.

She openly discussed undergoing genetic testing and the aftermath.

What Jensen-Ryan did not add was that she had recently had an additional surgery related to BRCA 1 and 2. This was her first professional meeting post-surgery, and she was still dealing with the physical aftermath. But not anyone at Emerging Leaders would have guessed it. Jensen-Ryan was fully engaged in the weekend long seminar which is an intensive, physically active, and experiential workshop.

In November of 2011, Jensen-Ryan was a newcomer to Athens having relocated from the West with her husband, Jess. “We had just moved to Georgia and left everybody we knew in Wyoming,” she explains. She was in her third year of

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marriage and entering the first year of a doctoral program in environmental anthropology.

Her mother urged her to undergo genetic testing for the BRCA 1 and 2 genetic mutations.

The test results returned on October 27, 2011. It was only a little over a week until her 25th birthday. Jensen-Ryan received news that she tested positive for BRCA 1. “They immediately suggested a mammogram,” Jensen-Ryan recalls. She complied; the mammogram revealed an abnormality.

Just before Christmas, she had an ultrasound of the area in question. A biopsy was scheduled for January.

When Jensen-Ryan learned about her condition, she shared it with Margie Floyd, the Anthropology department’s graduate office coordinator.

“She immediately helped organize support for me,” she says. Jensen-Ryan was offered a graduate fellowship with online work, which meant she could manage to navigate both her classes and medical issues.

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39% OF WOMEN who inherit the BRCA 1 mutation are expected to develop ovarian cancer by age 70.

Source: Cancer.gov

“I remember meeting with my then advisor and asked if we could go outside to discuss it. My sunglasses would tint in the sun and no one could tell I was crying.” At this point, she had not known any of the people offering emotional and practical support for more than a few months.

“I love to work, and love hard work. That just came from my Wyoming background. I didn’t want it to be like, ‘Oh, poor Danielle, she got diagnosed with BRCA 1 and had to drop out.

‘I’m a fighter. Even facing adversity. There was no other way. I wanted my PhD!” Jensen-Ryan met with professor Laura German. “I grew a relationship with her from the first classes.” She decided to change her dissertation research focus and chose her for an advisor.

She underwent a total of 11 biopsies. “I was so overstressed.

I met with Dr. Steinhaus in Atlanta, and Dr. Cramer at the women’s clinic.” Although her biopsies were cancer free, the medical team set a date for her to undergo bilateral mastectomies for June 12 during her next summer break.

It was feared that cancer was a given if she wasn’t proactive about surgery.

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During the Christmas holidays, Jensen-Ryan and her husband made a difficult trip back to Wyoming. “I went home for Christmas. When I talked about it at first to people, I’d always break down and cry. My mom told everybody back home what was going on.”

She describes how she felt—completely exposed—and vulnerable. The news was still raw; it was difficult to handle sympathy without breaking down. “I’d go into the bank (back home) and I hadn’t told anybody about my BRCA 1 and yet all the ladies are telling me they are sorry. I remember walking out of the bank feeling terrible and telling my mom, ‘I don’t know if I want everybody to know.’ Now I embrace it! I remember my mom would tell everybody that she was going through cancer at the time she was ill. I got upset and asked her why she would do that. It wasn’t embarrassment—I wanted to cry because it was so hard.”

Her husband, Jess Jensen-Ryan, whom she had met as a college debate partner at the University of Wyoming, was not only an advocate but a best friend and her most trusted confidant.

The entire family discussed having preventative surgery, which would mean a bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction.

“My family’s freaking out, I’m freaking out. The family was split on what I should do.” Yet her husband remained supportive from the beginning. He had witnessed her mother’s cancer fight.

“He did not want me to go through chemo and radiation, and face the lasting effects of these treatments. He knew I could make it through the surgeries and come out on top.”

The couple talked it through, considering all aspects.

Jensen-Ryan relived her mother’s past experiences and her own childhood. She also felt the pang of how her decision would affect her and her husband. “I remember terribly intense conversations. I felt so guilty.”

There was also the stress of not having elective surgery then developing full blown breast cancer. “Jess and I said no thank you. We wanted the double mastectomy and reconstruction.

I had a really hard semester,” she says without a trace of selfpity. Her grandparents came from Wyoming to check on her. Then she decided to start a Facebook page and called it “Team Danielle.” She began drawing strength from a virtual community of supporters.

She still maintains a growing legion of online supporters.

“Check on Facebook,” Jensen-Ryan says. “I had over 150 people following me online. I kept it active in order to communicate with close friends and people from my hometown.”

After surgery in June, her family flocked to support her following nearly nine hours of surgery.

“My mom flew down. She stayed with us for three weeks.

Jess’s grandma flew down two weeks after that and stayed two weeks…they were wonderful. It was a lot longer recovery than I expected.”

Jensen-Ryan underwent additional implant surgeries and reconstruction. Her maternal grandmother returned to help her through reconstructive surgery. She began physical therapy to rebuild lost muscle. Immediately post-surgery, she could no longer steer her straight-drive pickup truck.

She returned to campus for a meeting with German, her advisor. Jensen-Ryan had to navigate the pain of driving and what it required.

“I got a traffic ticket that day,” she adds ruefully. “I still couldn’t wear the seat belt properly.” Her fellow graduate student, Francesca Judd, helped carry her books. “Francesca was my right hand. I couldn’t wear a backpack because I was

“BRCAn’t Stop Me was the idea of a woman who had BRCA” explains intrepid cancer patient advocate Danielle Jensen-Ryan.

She is advancing the idea with a supportive team she has dubbed “Team Danielle.” The support group was the idea of Mollie Smith, a Michigan college student.

still healing.” A physician arranged for her to get a handicapped sticker for easier access to her classes. She kept up with medical screenings and continued healing over the next two years.

“I didn’t feel I was really over the breast surgeries until the beginning of 2014. It took a long time to get back to myself.

Meanwhile, I got a blood test and transvaginal ultrasound every three months.” Her medical advisors were concerned about her added vulnerability to ovarian cancer. It was difficult to detect until it reaches stages two or three. “And even then,” Jensen-Ryan explains, “with all the screening, they only detect one in 10,000. So we met with counselors and with doctors and then decided we would settle on adoption.”

When something popped up on an ultrasound last year, the Jensen-Ryans decided upon a preemptive hysterectomy. “It

Jensen-Ryan decided to start a Facebook page called “Team Danielle.” She began drawing strength from a virtual community of supporters. “I had over 150 people following me online.

I kept it active in order to communicate with close friends and people from my hometown.”

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took the wind out of my sails for four months. Given I was so high risk there was no reason to take a chance. I didn’t want to pass on the BRCA 1 to children,” the couple mutually decided.

The hysterectomy date was set for July 29, 2015.

She began mental preparations with meditation exercises.

During the surgery, they had to also remove an infected appendix. Then she began hormones, as she entered into surgical menopause. But the recovery was harder than she had imagined.

And Jensen-Ryan, who was an old hand at conducting interviews and well-aware of the power of communication, decided something else was needed: “We need to have an open dialogue.”

By the fall of 2015, she was planning to further that dialogue and begin her own BRCA support group for college women (known as BRCAn’t Stop Me.) When she talked with new friends at Emerging Leaders, she openly discussed her medical experiences. She also shared that she was successfully moving towards completion of her doctorate despite all.

“I’ve gotten over $25,000 in funding; I just want to show that you can do it, even if you go through the hardest things imaginable.”

Jensen-Ryan attributes her perseverance and success to many important others. First, she speaks of her husband Jess, and his endless supportiveness and kindness. Then she mentions the pluck of her parents, Steve and Michele Jensen.

Their steadfastness as a couple has been a powerful example of grace under pressure.

She discusses numerous essential people on her medical team in Athens: “Dr. Gary Glasser at the University Health Center’s Women’s Clinic helped me tremendously through my ovarian surgery with referrals, decisions, hormone replacement therapy.” Her primary care doctor, Dr. Chadwick Palmer, at the Medical Clinic Red, “provided me with regular care and with care after my surgeries.”

Dr. Margaret Cramer (past head of the UHC Women's Clinic) garners highest praise. “I spoke with her just last week on the phone and she is a lovely person and was so helpful with my diagnosis and follow-up after my breast surgeries.

She also helped me apply for and receive a handicapped parking spot on campus for a semester because I was unable to carry a backpack­—she was very detail oriented and thought of all of my needs.”

There were many others, too, who were charter members of Team Danielle. “Lauren Richards, at the Loran Smith Cancer Center, helped me with counseling, both genetic, and with sessions before and during my breast and ovarian surgeries.

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Jensen-Ryan advances positive thinking at fundraising events for BRCAn't Stop Me. She intends to foster the spread of the organization to campuses nationwide.

She's absolutely amazing and has said the Center will support BRCAn't Stop Me in any way possible.”

The support of her professor and advisor, Laura German, was something that kept her on course, she insists.

Jensen-Ryan emails: “She helped me design two courses from home to take while I was unable to come to campus for class, cooked me meals, advocated on my behalf academically, etc. She is an AMAZING lady who I'm pretty sure saved my academic career and she was willing to work with me while I was recovering. “ “She is a remarkable young woman,” says German, “and juggled the impossible strains on her time and body through her own positive attitude, her sheer determination, and her remarkable ability to balance and pour energies in equal measure into work, health and (yes, even!) community service. Students with far more to be thankful for struggle with graduate school, and Danielle has advanced through her program of study with distinction despite the odds. If I helped her in this journey, it was in very small ways that may have gained significance through the unique circumstances surrounding them.”

And then there was Judd, a fellow graduate student. “This lady was my original cohort and was amazing at helping me through my journey,” says Jensen-Ryan. “She picked me up for our classes every Wednesday and Friday (because I was still only a second year at the time and had course work) and carried my books for me. She regularly brought me food and walked my dog, Tuni, for me. She is a godsend and also agreed to be the Vice President for BRCAn't Stop Me this semester.” n

What are BRCA 1 and BRCA 2?

A woman’s lifetime risk of developing

The statistics are alarming. Breast cancer

“Although in some families with BRCA 1

breast and/or ovarian cancer is

occurs in roughly 12 percent of the

mutations the lifetime risk of breast cancer

significantly higher if she inherits a

general population adds the CDC. “By

is as high as 85 percent on average this

harmful mutation known as BRCA 1 or

contrast, according to the most recent

risk seems to be in the range of 55 to 65

BRCA 2 agree medical research groups.

estimates, 55 to 65 percent of women

percent. For BRCA 2 mutations the risk

Genetic testing can identify the presence

who inherit a harmful BRCA 1 mutation

is lower, around 45 percent.”

and around 45 percent of women who

They add that breast cancers linked to

of the heritable gene defect best known as BRCA 1 and BRCA 2.

What is this?

“BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are human genes that produce tumor suppressor proteins.

These proteins help repair damaged DNA and, therefore, play a role in ensuring the stability of the cell’s genetic material,” reports the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga. While relatively rare, this mutation renders cancer-preventing (or tumor suppressor) proteins unable to help block abnormal growth in cells. The genes can be inherited from either parent. Those

inherit a harmful BRCA 2 mutation will develop breast cancer by age 70.”

BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutations also can occur in much younger women. n

According to the CDC, the harmful mutation can result in a potential for also developing ovarian cancer. “As a result, cells are more likely to develop additional genetic alterations that can lead to cancer.”

The CDC website adds that specific inherited mutations in BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are also with increased risks of several additional types of cancer and are responsible for nearly a quarter of all breast cancer cases.

who possess mutated copies of the

“A woman’s lifetime risk of developing

BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes have a higher

breast and/or ovarian cancer is greatly

lifetime risk of developing breast cancer.

increased if she inherits a harmful

The mutations potentially affect 5-10

mutation in BRCA 1 or BRCA 2.”

percent of breast cancer cases.

In the instance of ovarian cancer, as

How much does having a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2

many as 39 percent of women who

gene mutation increase a woman’s risk of

inherit a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutation

breast and ovarian cancer?

have a much higher risk of ovarian cancer

ABOUT 1 IN 8 U.S. women (about 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.

U.S. Breast Cancer Statistics | Breastcancer.org

than the general population.

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Jensen-Ryan says she “applied to Graduate School because I wanted to continue to contribute to the global effort to promote ecological sustainability and social justice through the integration of science and policy.�

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Talking Policy and Science:

How Danielle Jensen-Ryan Will Rope and Steer Social Action

he is cheerfully, politely, and dauntlessly willing to wade into difficulty. UGA graduate student Danielle Jensen-Ryan is unafraid of it.

Her upbringing made her resilient. Born and raised in Cheyenne, Wyoming, she enjoyed the brutal beauty of the untamed West. She speaks with pride about the native, inherent toughness of those who settled there. As a tyke, she was attending the world’s largest outdoor rodeo during Frontier Days before she could even walk.

She cut her research teeth working on controversial subject matter. Before entering UGA’s doctoral program in Environmental Anthropology, Jensen-Ryan focused upon the environmental and health impacts of uranium mining in her home state of Wyoming. During her graduate work at the University of Wyoming, she examined how underground miners and their families were affected by what was called “radiation cancer.”

She met with mining families and individuals who had experienced the aftermath of underground mining. It was emotionally difficult to survey over two dozen affected individuals, learning how they had coped with the harsh realities of sickness and, too often, death.

“The social activism in these local Wyoming communities was a piercing, emotional example of ways in which collective

action can influence state and federal laws, Jensen-Ryan explains. “I was able to work with local uranium miners, CEO’s of uranium companies, the head of the Wyoming Miner’s Association, and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality to develop recommendations for Wyoming’s legislature concerning uranium mining issues,” she says.

Since last fall, Jensen-Ryan employed her communication skills to address another environmental controversy in the Southeast: water policy. Using ethnographic interviews she met with stakeholders throughout the state of Georgia. Her dissertation work attempts to bridge environmental science and policy, seeking the common ground. She finds that “ethnography uncovers systematic cultural complexities and is particularly suited to research the ‘messiness’ of politics.”

“Without talking to individuals directly involved with water policy in Georgia, I would always be getting a secondhand interpretation of what occurred,” she explains. “This is what makes anthropology incredibly helpful when you are trying to figure out what is actually happening ‘on the ground,’ rather than what a publication, newspaper article, or, in my case, law, actually dictates.”

A WATER PLAN WITH MANY CROSSCURRENTS In 2008, Georgia passed the Statewide Water Plan.

Contributing to the need for such a plan were significant issues, such as salt water intrusion, decreased river flows, increased agricultural irrigation, local water system stresses, and a long list of additional concerns.

Jensen-Ryan asks, “Well, what happened next? Has this been effective? What occurred because of this plan? My research is interested in outcomes, but is also interested in how law comes into place as well. Especially regarding how and whether environmental science becomes policy.”

Her fieldwork took place over eight months. She examined three water policy case studies in the state of Georgia: the Comprehensive Statewide Water Policy, the

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Moratorium on Groundwater Withdrawals, and policy debates related to stream buffers or riparian zones.

Jensen-Ryan’s fieldwork has carved out a network of inter-related, yet different parties. “I started fieldwork in September 2015 and so far I have completed 75 one-on-one semi-structured interviews with key actors (most in-person, some on the phone).”

It was exhaustive. She crisscrossed the breadth of Georgia and conducted focus groups. She traveled to various stakeholder meetings, including 11 with Georgia’s Regional Water Council, distributing questionnaires at each of their meetings. The work is confidential, but she has questioned those within the Environmental Protection Division, USGS, River Basin Center, UGA scientists all over campus, Georgia Tech scientists, Carl Vinson Institute, Atlanta Regional Commission, Metro North Georgia Water Planning District, all of the Regional Water Councils, Georgia Green industry, GEFA, Midtown Atlanta, Metro Chamber of Commerce, Georgia House of Representatives, Georgia senators, members of the Department of Natural Resources, and various environmental consulting firms whose names she strictly protects.

“Also, I’ve spoken with several members of each of these groups so that I am not getting skewed info from one individual. It has been a huge project with very high-profile individuals partaking.”

Georgia enjoys abundant natural resources overall. With more than 50 inches of annual precipitation, 14 major river systems and seven highly productive groundwater aquifers, Jensen-Ryan explains that Georgia has abundant water resources.

Georgia's 14 Water Basins

HTTP://GEORGIASEAGRANT.UGA.EDU

“Yet, water problems exist throughout the state where demands fueled by population and economic growth creates pressure,” Jensen-Ryan explains.

Now, she is creating a paper to consolidate her dissertation research for the use of boundary organizations, policymakers, governmental organizations, and other interested parties. Jensen-Ryan explains how academic scientists, those working at the boundary of science and policy, (the environmental protection division, for example), and decision makers play very different roles.

What does she predict concerning the future of water administration?

“I have been asking each of my informants this question,” Jensen-Ryan replies. “So far, most of them are just focused

KIT FREEDMAN

Danielle Jensen-Ryan comes from sturdy frontier stock. (Her greatgrandmother, now in her late 90s, was born in a covered wagon in Colorado.) “I hope to utilize my years of experience advocating on behalf of social justice and environmental issues to translate into a career working together with other decision-makers to positively influence our country’s future for years to come.” Jensen-Ryan pictured on left after a Uranium Mine Flyover in Wyoming. photo from http://anthropology.uga.edu/index.php?/people/grad_students/jensen-ryan_danielle/

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HTTP://LAWPROFESSORS.TYPEPAD.COM

For decades, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have been battling over the ApalachicolaChattahoochee-Flint River system (the ACF, for short). The conflict is complicated, but in a nutshell, Atlanta relies on Lake Lanier, a reservoir on the upper Chattahoochee, as a major water supply; Alabama wants enough water to support barge traffic and provide power; and Florida wants adequate environmental flows to sustain the rich ecosystem of the Apalachicola River estuary and Apalachicola Bay. When drought strikes, as it recently did, those uses come into sharp conflict. The states have been trying for years to negotiate a settlement, but without success, and more recently have been playing what J.B. Ruhl aptly described as "three dimensional chess in the federal courts."

on the short-term and looking to how the Tri-state Water Wars will pan out. Also, most point toward a contested future which is similar to the one we have now in which development advocates and environmental groups are at odds.” But she concludes on a high note: “However, some of the facts are pointing to a wiser Georgia population regarding water and enhanced conservation and efficiency, both in Metro Atlanta and more rural Georgia.”

SCHOLARSHIP IN AID OF SOCIAL ACTION Among a long list of awards, she was selected as a participant for the Graduate School Emerging Leaders Program in 2015.

“Emerging Leaders has also been a significant highlight of my graduate experience,” she says.

“I have completed publications, presentations, assistantships, and research internships on various National Science Foundation projects during my graduate tenure at the University of Georgia. I have also prepared for a more applied career as I made significant inroads with those working at the forefront of environmental issues during my dissertation fieldwork.”

She was awarded a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for her dissertation work concerning the environmental sciencepolicy interface.

This year, Jensen-Ryan also took on advocacy of a much more personal matter: Students diagnosed with BRCA. She threw her energies into creating a student organization she named BRCAn’t Stop Me. “One final achievement of my graduate career has been

starting a chapter of the national student organization BRCAn’t Stop Me at the University of Georgia, in an effort for students on our campus to have additional support when diagnosed with hereditary cancer genetic disorders in college,” Jensen-Ryan says.

“After undergoing several surgeries in Atlanta to handle my 2011 BRCA 1 diagnosis, I knew I had to create a network of individuals able to support each other facing similar life altering genetic health diagnoses at the University of Georgia. Thankfully, the University of Georgia and our local Athens community have embraced this organization through partnerships with the University Health Center and the Loran Smith Cancer Center.”

Now, her eye is upon using her sense of activism to further science. “Given the growing divide between science and policy in the United States, exploring effective measures which can ultimately help create better science-based policy will be important as humanity faces increasingly intractable environmental problems,” she says.

Her interests in policy making have interested her in politics and government. It is also helpful that Jensen-Ryan has had a lifelong interest in the art of rhetoric and public debate.

“My ultimate lifelong goal is to run for political office.

My experience giving presentations, facilitating focus groups and conducting interviews, debating within numerous debate organizations, structuring publicly engaged academic work with local communities and state governments, and actively participating in leadership courses and training positions me to become a political leader.” n

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Scarcities and Conflict: Written in the Water merican scientists and

They wrote online:

Terms like sustainability are also widely

conservationists are

“We need to communicate the results

familiar—no science degree required.

conducting vital research concerning water policies. The ongoing struggle is to find common ground, and understanding, between the general public and policy makers that have a stake in their findings.

now more than ever. Society needs the results of our research; the public must understand the importance of water

According to Stanford University’s Hamilton Project, there is highest population growth within the nation’s driest states—and highest domestic use

management; and we need to justify

occurs within those same states.

the investment NSF and other funding

By some estimation, water scarcities and

Three years ago, something unusual

agencies are making in our research.”

warring over water rights may become

occurred in Boston. The workshop

How to communicate science and policy

was neither large, nor prestigious as workshops go. But it signaled a seachange of its own. The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, CUAHSI, who conduct a great deal of National Science Foundation-sponsored research, designed the unusual meeting. CUAHSI summoned together an assortment

underscored the meeting.

The idea of water wars—a cringe-worthy term for those who mediate better water management—once seemed incredible. But only a few years after public awareness has risen, especially for those living in water-strapped areas of the country, this is a term of growing

a defining issue of this century. Closer to home, they have been waged for some time. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, intra-state disputes over water usage have been ongoing since the early 1990s. In the late 1990s, agreements were developed to help regulate agreements among states sharing water basins. But some of those agreements, such as those negotiated

familiarity.

between Alabama, Florida, and Georgia,

It is plain-speak and attention-getting.

a tri-state area with a large stake in water

A water war is a term the public can

negotiations, have been hotly contested

easily understand, even if policy makers

since. Some of those agreements are

loathe it. By now, having cycled through

being contested and appealed to the

drought and water scarcity throughout

Supreme Court.

the United States and the world, we

Droughts, population shifts, and water-

understand it slightly better.

dependent industries take their toll.

Water is a precious, little-understood

Water usage by those up river challenge

asset. Whereas water scarcities were

those impacted down river. Stakeholders

once unknown, they are now sharply

must negotiate through hotly contested

familiar in this century. Many cities

rights to water, pitting essentials such

are used per day by

have imposed restrictions upon water

as drinking and agriculture versus green

an average American

usage given periodic or chronic drought

lawns and recreation.

cycles. Many cities have been forced

Two years ago, the Graduate School

to buy water from less-drought prone

Magazine reported on the tri-state water

municipalities; the access must be

issues in the winter 2014 edition. At that

brokered. Out West, the situation is

time, we reported on doctoral student

understood to be of utmost importance.

Shannon Boney, who worked with the

of filmmakers, environmentalists, and freelance journalists to serve as panelists.

400 GALLONS OF WATER family of four.

Source: www3.epa.gov/watersense/ pubs/indoor.html

38

of our water research to the public

www.grad.uga.edu

ACF Stakeholders Group—a consortium

the agreements at stake? Those stakes

representing the Apalachicola-

are particularly high when agreements

Chattahoochee-Flint basin. The ACF

for water rights are brokered.

impacts the three states of Alabama,

Enter anthropology doctoral student

Laura German, examines three water

Danielle Jensen-Ryan.

policy case studies in the state

Jensen-Ryan understands

of Georgia: (1) the 2008 Georgia

Florida and Georgia. Also, a separate negotiation was in play between Alabama and Georgia over the ACT, or the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa basin.

communicating science to a variety of audiences; she understands how good

EXAMINING WATER POLICY Jensen-Ryan’s project, under principal investigator and UGA anthropologist

Comprehensive Statewide Water Policy, (2) the 2012 Georgia Moratorium on Groundwater Withdrawals, and (3) policy

Negotiations among the stakeholders

science and good policy making suffer.

in this, of course, entail communication.

As a graduate student in Wyoming,

Stakeholders—a catch all term— include

she did field work concerning the

riparian zones.

the general public, governmental,

environmental impact of mining and

In each case, the creation and

educational and policy making figures,

uranium—another loaded subject.

implementation of water policies

Her current fieldwork in Georgia is part of

included variously affected organizations

as well as environmental stewards and volunteers.

debates related to stream buffers or

a National Science Foundation Doctoral

and scientists.

How policy matters are communicated

Dissertation Research Improvement Grant.

The National Science Foundation-

becomes particularly critical whenever

The grant supports her travels doing

funded project sponsored ethnographic

public agreements must be struck. And

ethnographic interviews with key actors

interviews undertaken by Jensen-Ryan

when the stakeholders represent a slew

involved with water policy. She hopes to

to determine “whether and how science

of varying interests, with assorted biases,

uncover best practices that bridge science

was integrated into each water policy

what happens to negotiations? And what

and policy. When she graduates next

and what boundary spanning processes

happens when they fail to understand

year, Jensen-Ryan hopes to continue with

affected the outcome. An analysis

or even accept the science underpinning

publicly engaged research.

of media accounts and secondary documents will more fully explain the factors which may have influenced whether and how science was integrated in each case study,” she explains.

n

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“These students conduct groundbreaking research, and it’s very hands-on research. They’re out in the field, out in the forests doing research,” West said. “To have this celebrated here, to give it a higher visibility in south Georgia and to have three deans and the provost in attendance tells us they take this very seriously.”

— J O E W E S T, A S S I S TA N T D E A N O F T H E U G A T I F TO N C A M P U S

BY CLINT THOMPSON

Graduate Research On Display At South Georgia Event TIFTON, Ga. — The University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES), Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Graduate School jointly hosted a graduate research event, focusing specifically on research conducted in south Georgia.

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The reception, held Thursday, March 17, at the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center, recognized 11 current students primarily from graduate programs in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and CAES, according to Lindsay Boring, director of the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center in Newton, Ga. "The objective was to emphasize the importance of graduate education in supporting the land-grant mission of the University of Georgia."

Boring added that the Jones Center jointly supports five of the students who participated.

All of the student-scientists presented their research projects and spoke with invited guests about their work.

Among them was Shannon Parrish, who is pursuing a master’s degree in crop and soil sciences from CAES. Her research focuses on cotton’s sustainability in Georgia.

“As a graduate student, being able to present research (that) you have worked on is always exciting. With each presentation, I look forward to educating others on the importance

of determining cotton’s sustainability to Georgia,” Parrish said. “I hope everyone I spoke to comes away from our encounter with an understanding of how vital cotton is to the state and the need for documenting the crop’s environmental footprint.”

Other UGA graduate students at the event and their areas of study include: Kiran Gadhave (CAES), studying plantvector-virus interactions.

Alex Jackson (Warnell School), studying the cultural and economic impact of quail hunting in south Georgia.

James Johnson (Warnell School and the Jones Ecological Research Center), studying the use of infrared cameras in estimating white-tailed deer population parameters and behavioral patterns.

Nicholas Marzolf (Odum School), studying the rapid expansion of an invasive snail and the implications for water quality in a novel ecosystem.

Cara McElroy (Odum School), studying wetland connectivity through amphibian ecology.

CLINT THOMPSON

Top row, left to right: UGA’s Wayne Hanna speaks with CAES dean Sam Pardue and Pamela Whitten, provost of UGA. UGA graduate student Kiran Gadhave poses for a picture with Joe West, assistant dean of the UGA Tifton Campus. UGA graduate student Shannon Parrish speaking to audience at the event. Suzanne Barbour, dean of the Graduate School.

Bottom row, left to right: Sam Pardue, dean of the UGA CAES. Nicholas Marzolf talks about his research with Jason Peake, director of academic programs at the UGA Tifton Campus.

Grace Melo (CAES), studying global changes in harvested area for corn, sugarcane and oilseeds. Is fuel production the main incentive?

Haley Ritger (Warnell School), studying the interactions between subcortical insects and longleaf pine physiology under various prescribed fire regimes.

Justin Shealey (CAES), studying chemical management of black shank disease in Georgia.

Luellen Swayzer (CAES), studying the evaluation of variations in zoysiagrass and centipedegrass.

Alicia Wilson (Warnell School), studying the impacts of extreme hightide events on sea turtle nesting along the Georgia barrier islands.

The event focused on research pertaining to forestry, natural resources, agriculture and grant-funded projects that are key in sustaining the economic health of south Georgia.

“I was excited about this opportunity to showcase the important

contributions of our graduate students to the land-grant mission.

They are uncovering molecular secrets, developing next-generation technologies and using cutting-edge approaches to disseminate their findings and empowering landowners, corporations and other stakeholders in south Georgia,” said Suzanne Barbour, dean of UGA’s Graduate School. “Their contributions to the land-grant mission, and thereby the economy of south Georgia, cannot be overestimated.”

Barbour was one of three UGA collegiate deans in attendance. She joined Sam Pardue of CAES and Dale Greene of the Warnell School. Also in attendance was Pamela Whitten, UGA senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, who discussed UGA’s Signature Research Themes and their relationship to the land-grant mission.

“We are excited to share the wide range of graduate field studies in natural resources and forestry that are focused on south Georgia,” Greene said. “It’s also a great opportunity to showcase the collaboration between the Warnell

School and CAES as well as welcoming Dean Pardue.”

This week marked Pardue’s first as the dean and director of CAES and his first visit to south Georgia as the new CAES dean. The UGA administrators’ attendance solidified the event’s importance, according to Joe West, assistant dean of the UGA Tifton Campus.

“These students conduct groundbreaking research, and it’s very handson research. They’re out in the field, out in the forests doing research,” West said. “To have this celebrated here, to give it a higher visibility in south Georgia and to have three deans and the provost in attendance tells us they take this very seriously.” n

For photos of the event, go to https://www. flickr.com/photos/ugacommunications/sets.

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Doctoral candidate Jessica Stephens organized a Girl Scout Science Event on April 23rd at the Georgia Botanical Gardens in Athens.

The Graduate School provided a grant, enabling 71 Daisys, Brownies, and Juniors to work with other graduate students who conducted experiments and led activities during the morning. In the afternoon, 13 Cadettes, Seniors and Ambassadors joined for more advanced scientific inquiries and experimentation. “The whole event is not only for them to get a slew of badges, but also introduce all the girls to women scientists and science and nature,” said Stephens.

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