Briefly Noted

SBS Professor Emerita NAOMI FRANKLIN passed away on December 24, 2021 in Salt Lake City. She was 92. Colleague Larry Okun, also emeritus, described Franklin as a “complex character, stubborn and sometimes irascible on the one hand and extraordinarily caring and generous on the other. … She was also a meticulous scientist, for example, uncovering, essentially single-handedly, significant insights about anti-termination in lambda phage that turned out to be of value in studies of HIV.” One of very few women STEM researchers at the University of Utah at the time of her arrival, she regularly extolled the essential nature of science to ameliorate or at least manage some of the world’s most intractable problems, including, among many others, bad air quality in the valley where she lived. Read the full appreciation of Dr. Franklin at biology.utah.edu

“I came to the U of U to be a doctor and was content with that decision and path until I took a plant physiology class from Leslie Sieburth,” says PATRICK NEWMAN, BA’03, of the SBS plant biologist who studies pathologies in Arabadopsis. “That course changed my perspective of biology, refocused my interests, and altered my career path—all of which I am extremely grateful for.” Following a stint with the Peace Corps, he returned to the U where he earned an MPA in 2010 and worked at Red Butte Garden for a decade. This was followed by his appointment as Executive Director of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX. Then in 2020, he was recruited to lead the merger of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT) and the Fort Worth Botanical Garden where his currently CEO and president.

At a time when women were discouraged from pursuing advanced degrees, ESTELLE DINA SHUSTER MARLOR, MA’57, who died in June 2021 at age 86, chose to attend graduate school in zoology and comparative anatomy at the U. She was the only woman graduate student in her department. Her master’s degree thesis was on “The Bats of Utah.” While taking a class in human anatomy, her assigned dissection partner was Russell Larry Marlor. Despite the decidedly non-romantic setting of working on a shared corpse (whom they named Blanche), Estelle and Russell married in 1959. After Russell’s graduation and US Navy commission, they shipped out together for adventures that took them all around the world. In addition to being a Navy wife she worked as a volunteer for community organizations, including local schools, the Red Cross, the Navy Relief Society and voter registration all while raising three daughters.

LOREN D. JENSEN, BS’60, MS’62, PhD ’65, a scientist who studied the Chesapeake Bay, died January 20. He was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2012 by the Department of Biology, now SBS. He was 84. The Salt Lake native joined the faculty of the department of geography and environmental engineering and the department of environmental health in the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in 1965. He worked on developing methodologies for aquatic ecological assessments of large volume surface water discharged by power plants and evaluated the measures used for protecting aquatic organisms potentially affected by toxic industrial discharges into surface waters. He also worked on the development of aquaculture as a mitigation response to large-scale regional water quality problems. In 1973, he founded Ecological Analysts, later EA.

“I was so excited to have been peed on by a titi monkey while walking to lab,” JULIE JUNG (pictured above) remembers of her time in the jungles of Panama doing field work as a graduate student. During the course of getting her doctorate at Boston University, she slowly grew into her role as a behavioral biologist. As winner of this year’s College of Science’s “Outstanding Post-Doc Award,” she has found a scientific home in the Michael Werner Lab studying the phenomenon of “phenotypic plasticity”—or how the same genotype produces distinct phenotypes depending on environmental conditions. The lab’s subject model is primarily nematodes. Jung’s NSF-funded research hopes to establish a general model of plasticity across diverse systems. The pivot from field work to bench work has been jarring, but only partially—as she and her lab members still get out to the Great Salt Lake to collect soil specimens.

“My best trait is the ability to hang out with people who are far more capable than I am,” says CHARLES SORENSON MD, FACS, in a 2020 interview. “I am not intimidated by working with people who are smarter than I am.” The former president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit regional healthcare system, and by some measurements the largest employer in Utah, must have been “hanging” with some pretty capable and smart people over the years . . . and vice versa. Now Emeritus CEO, the U Biology alumnus, HBA’74, has a long history at Intermountain as a urologic surgeon and physician leader. Today he serves as Founding Director of Intermountain Healthcare Leadership Institute. In 2009 President Barack Obama publicly acknowledged IHC, more than once, as a model of quality, low-cost, integrated patient care.

You can read more news and spotlights of SBS alumni at biology.utah.edu where you can also share your own updates as an alumni/friend. We want to hear from U! biology.utah.edu/alumni