The Fulbright Program is a prestigious international exchange initiative that awards about 1,100 grants to American scholars each year. Funded by the U.S. government, Fulbright Scholars are chosen based on their leadership and academic merits and their abilities to teach, conduct research, and contribute to solutions for shared international concerns.

Wanda Costen, associate professor in Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant for the 2013 –2014 academic year. She is studying gender inequality, specifically the social closure barriers that prevent women’s upward career mobility, in the resort industry in Jamaica. In addition to her research, Costen is teaching in the Department of Management Studies within the Mona School of Business and Management at the University of West Indies –Mona. Upon her return, Costen plans to write a book explaining how the barriers to women’s career progression are socially constructed.

Scott Frey, professor of sociology and co-director of the Center for the Study of Social Justice, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant for the fall term of 2013. He is studying the adverse environmental, health, and socioeconomic consequences of pesticide use under export-focused rice production in Vietnam. In addition to his research, Frey is lecturing at the Vietnam National University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City on issues related to the environment and development. Frey is currently working on a book examining how and why hazardous products and wastes are displaced to the peripheral zones of the world economy.

Rebecca Klenk, lecturer in interdisciplinary programs and affiliated faculty member with the Anthropology Department and the Disaster, Displacement, and Human Rights Program, has been awarded a Fulbright grant for the spring term of 2014. She will lecture and work with graduate students in the Anthropology Department at the University of Delhi in India. Along with teaching, she will develop new research on global educational restructuring, and collaborate with colleagues in India to plan a project on community experiences of, and educational responses to, Himalayan climate change.

Timothy Young, a professor in the Forest Products Center at the Institute of Agriculture, also received an award for the fall term. Young is in Austria conducting research on cross-laminated timber and teaching graduate courses in design of experiments and statistical process control at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences.

Melanie Eldridge, formerly a research assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology,  received an award to carry out a research project in Brazil for the fall term of 2013. She recently accepted a position at another university.

Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given approximately 310,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists, and scientists the opportunity to study, teach, and conduct research; exchange ideas; and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. The Fulbright US Scholar Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a division of the Institute of International Education.

For more information, visit the Fulbright program’s website.

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CONTACT:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Stacy Clark, a research forester with the US Forest Service, will present “American Chestnut Restoration: Can We Bring Back the Mighty Giant?”

The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

The presentations begin at noon on Fridays in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena. Each presentation is forty minutes long and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Science Forum presentations are free and open to the public.

The American chestnut was one of the most widely distributed and important tree species in eastern North America until decimated in the early part of the twentieth century by an exotic fungus from Asia, the chestnut blight.

“Planting trees that have been bred for blight resistance using Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima) has led to some important discoveries,” Clark said. “The return of the American chestnut into forests of the eastern United States will face challenges from native and nonnative plants, animals, insects, and diseases, in addition to the chestnut blight.”

Future Science Forums will feature a variety of topics:

• October 11: Chad Duty, group leader of Deposition and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussing “3D Printing: The Next Generation of Manufacturing”
• October 25: Kasey Krouse, urban forester for the city of Knoxville, presenting “Knoxville Urban Forestry—Year One”
• November 1: Gerry Dinkins, curator of malacology and natural history at the McClung Museum, discussing “Rediscovery of the Nearly Extinct Alabama Lampmussel in the Emory River”
• November 8: Devin White, senior research scientist of geocomputation Oak Ridge National Laboratory and assistant professor of anthropology, discussing “Archaeological Discoveries from Space”
• November 15: Phil Colclough, director of animal collections and conservation at Knoxville Zoological Gardens, discussing “Eastern Hellbender Conservation and the New Role of Zoos”
• November 22: Nathan Schmidt, assistant professor of microbiology, discussing “Infection with the Malaria Parasite: Malaria Is Only Half the Problem”

The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest, an initiative to raise awareness of UT’s research, scholarship, and creative activity.

For more information, visit scienceforum.utk.edu.

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CONTACT:

Amanda Womac (Amanda@HellbenderPress.org)

Mark Littmann (865-974-8156, littmann@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

The first lecture will feature UT professors Erin Darby and Robert Darby, who will talk about their recent archaeological excavations at ‘Ayn Gharandal, Jordan.

The 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. event will be in the McClung Museum’s auditorium.

Robert Darby, a lecturer in art history in the UT School of Art, and Erin Darby, an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies, direct the ‘Ayn Gharandal archaeological project that has uncovered rare new details about an ancient Roman fort in southern Jordan.

The lecture series invites scholars from around the world to present the latest archaeological discoveries. It is free and open to the public.

Upcoming lectures this fall include the following:

• November 7: “Cultural Interaction and Reaction in the Courtly Art of the Hellenistic World” by Kristen Seaman, Kennesaw State University, Georgia
• November 19: “The Neolithic Alepotrypa Cave: Past Findings and Present Research” by Anastasia Papathanasiou, Greek Archaeological Service.

The McClung Museum is located at 1327 Circle Park Drive. It is open Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Free parking is available on Circle Park Drive in front of the museum.

The Archaeological Institute of America is North America’s oldest and largest archaeological organization. The East Tennessee Society was founded in 1973 as the local chapter of the organization and aims to promote the knowledge, study of, and interest in archaeology and related subjects.

For more information about the McClung Museum and its collections and exhibits, visit the website.

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CONTACT:

Erin Darby (865-974-6977, edarby1@utk.edu)

Catherine Shteynberg (865-974-6921, cshteynb@utk.edu)

Annette Engel, the Jones Associate Professor of Aqueous Geochemistry in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, at UT has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant for $794,000 to lead a research group to learn more about these clams, called lucinids, and the role they play in the ecosystem. The project is part of the NSF’s Dimensions of Biodiversity program.

Findings could have implications for the recovery and management of fast-disappearing coastal environments.

Engel will collaborate with Laurie Anderson at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and Barbara Campbell at Clemson University on the project over the next five years, with a total project budget of $1.6 million.

Lucinids play a key role in detoxifying coastal environments for other creatures such as fish, crabs, and manatees. They do this through a process called chemosymbiosis, a form of symbiosis in which a bacterium provides chemically derived energy and nutrients to a higher organism. Lucinids have bacteria that live within their gills and allows them to convert toxic compounds such as hydrogen sulfide—a neurotoxin to humans—into less toxic versions such as sulfate.

“These clams show us how chemosymbiosis, a unique evolutionary adaptation, is very important to life on earth,” said Engel. “The lucinids clean up environments for other animals and allow them to live. Yet little is known about their chemosymbioses and how they are affected by environmental changes.”

Lucinids’ symbiotic relationship also has allowed them to survive millions of years of extinctions and disturbances. Researchers will tap into a 400-million-year-old fossil record of the lucinids’ past to reconstruct environments and relationships over time. They will collect modern-day lucinid data from biomes in Florida, California, and the Bahamas with varying degrees of disturbance.

Their findings will uncover the genetic, taxonomic, and functional diversity of modern lucinid chemosymbioses and ways to identify the distinctive features of lucinid-bacteria biodiversity through the past. The goals are to be able to predict future lucinid evolutionary adaptations and help save or recover seagrass beds being lost at tremendous rates due to climate change, pollution, sea level rise, and other disruptions.

“Environmental managers are working to save these lands, yet they do not know about all the living beings in the ecosystems,” said Engel. “We will look at how the effect of human activities is changing water chemistry, how this change in water is impacting the clams and how this change is impacting the whole ecosystem.”

This project will train graduate and undergraduate students in interdisciplinary research; involve students underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and provide mentoring and outreach to the public on the topics of symbiosis and biodiversity.

The Dimensions of Biodiversity awards are supported by NSF’s Directorates for Biological Sciences and Geosciences along with NASA, which co-funds projects that use state-of-the-art remote sensing technologies. To learn more the program, visit http://1.usa.gov/1bMi7Bn.

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CONTACT:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

A novel method developed at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis at UT helps determine which patients will benefit from transplantation.

The topic of the underreported dangers of overdosing on acetaminophen has received ample attention following recent in-depth investigation by the radio program “This American Life” and public-interest journalism organization ProPublica.

There is a chemical antidote to acetaminophen poisoning, but it is effective only if administered within eight hours of an overdose. If liver damage is severe enough and the antidote is not administered early enough, the only lifesaving treatment is liver transplantation.

However, determining which patients need a transplant and which will recover is a major challenge in treating patients with acetaminophen overdose.

Chris Remien, a postdoctoral researcher at NIMBioS, and his research partners have developed a novel method to determine which patients will benefit from liver transplant in these instances. Rather than relying on purely statistical methods, Remien’s method is based on a dynamic model of acetaminophen metabolism and cellular damage.

In addition to making predictions on the need for a transplant, the model also defines a limit to how much acetaminophen someone can take over time before it causes liver damage.

“There is a simple threshold in the model because of how the liver processes acetaminophen, so that there is either very little liver damage or rapid damage, which may explain why patients who chronically overuse acetaminophen can eventually develop rapid liver damage,” Remien said.

The model has shown promise in a set of fifty-three patients from the University of Utah, but it still needs to be validated in a larger multicenter study before it can be used by physicians.

“We are currently collecting more data and collaborating with other groups in order to validate our method,” Remien said.

Collaborating on the project are Norman Sussman, associate professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, and Fred Adler, professor of mathematics and biology at the University of Utah.

For more information about Remien’s model, view a video of his seminar talk at bit.ly/186aQbr.

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences.

To learn more, visit nimbios.org.

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CONTACT:

Catherine Crawley (865-974-9350, ccrawley@nimbios.org)

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

The book, Low Impact Development: Opportunities for the PlanET Region, was prepared for the City of Knoxville and the Plan East Tennessee (PlanET) Consortium, a regional planning initiative supported by a grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It addresses Anderson, Blount, Loudon, Knox and Union Counties.

For three years, faculty and graduate students of the UT College of Architecture and Design conducted research and created design solutions in collaboration with PlanET. The publication encourages communities to embrace low-impact development in watershed planning, community design, and site development. This means addressing stormwater issues at their source by reintroducing natural hydrologic functions and biological processes into developed landscapes. The Knoxville County Metropolitan Planning Commission funded publication of the research.

View the publication online.

“In East Tennessee, water is a resource that defines the landscape and sustains the region economically, socially, and environmentally,” said Brad Collett, an associate professor of landscape architecture and plant sciences. He co-authored the publication with lecturer Valerie Friedmann and program alumna Wyn Miller. “Precipitation, streams, rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater are all part of an interconnected system. As the East Tennessee population grows, the health of the region’s water resources, such as that for drinking, industry, recreation, and tourism, will face increasing challenges.”

The health of water resources is threatened by the amount and quality of the stormwater runoff in urban and rural watersheds, each of which is affected by prevailing development patterns, activities on developed properties, and existing infrastructure, Collett said.

Through the impact avoidance, minimization, and management methods outlined in the publication, East Tennessee communities can learn how to promote and protect the health of the region’s shared water resources. The research demonstrates water management solutions for existing and new development in rural, urban, and residential areas.

“By implementing ‘green’ stormwater infrastructure, developed landscapes can perform as part of the solution to water resource challenges and help communities meet new stormwater management regulations by reducing, cleaning, retaining, and infiltrating runoff,” Collett said.

Low-impact development practices also present an opportunity for stormwater management systems to become an aesthetically pleasing part of a landscape instead of a buried function. According to Collett, developers around the country are reaping savings by using similar approaches.

The research was made possible through the coursework of landscape architecture graduate students. They investigated and designed for regional growth through grayfield redevelopment and low-impact alternatives to managing stormwater runoff and re-introducing natural water cycle processes on developed sites in Knoxville’s First Creek/White’s Creek Watershed. Several of the projects received awards in 2012 from the American Society of Landscape Architects Tennessee Chapter.

The UT Landscape Architecture Program is the only accredited landscape architecture program in Tennessee. It is a partnership between the College of Architecture and Design and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources. The program’s commitment to PlanET is valued at $1 million, an estimate based on students’ time, facilities, and faculty resources dedicated to the project through six graduate-level studio courses.

To learn more about PlanET and UT’s involvement, visit PlanET’s website. Information about the UT Landscape Architecture is available on its website.

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CONTACT:

Kiki Roeder (865-974-6713, kroeder@utk.edu)

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lola.alapo@tennessee.edu)

The two-year award from DOT Research and Innovative Technology Administration is one of 10 granted to regional university transportation centers. The money will advance U.S. technology and expertise in the many modes and disciplines that comprise transportation through research, education and technology transfer.

STC members include UT as the lead institution along with the University of Kentucky, the University of South Florida, the University of Central Florida, the University of Alabama, the University of Alabama Birmingham, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, North Carolina A&T State University, and Clemson University.

The consortium’s research will focus on the Secretary of Transportation’s strategic goal of improving public health and safety by reducing transportation-related fatalities and injuries.

“The consortium’s theme is comprehensive transportation safety,” said Steve Richards, consortium director. “This grant allows us to improve the safety of all transportation modes in the Southeast through a program of research, education, and technology transfer.”

“Safety must be a fundamental objective of our national and regional transportation systems,” said Dave Clarke, center director. “However, statistics reveal that our region’s surface transportation systems, individually and collectively, face unsurpassed safety challenges. We continue to work to achieve comprehensive transportation safety related to moving people and goods through our region.”

Research findings will be communicated to officials and policymakers for consideration through research symposia, workshops, and publications. The funding also will support graduate students at all participating universities to develop the next generation of safety leaders as well as address critical issues related to the shrinking transportation work force.

“As a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for twenty-six years in the House of Representatives, I know the importance of this research,” said US Representative John Duncan, Jr. “It will affect every American in the years to come as we take on the huge challenge of strengthening and modernizing our nation’s transportation infrastructure.”

Additional support came from Tennessee’s Department of Transportation, a long-standing STC partner. In this competition, TDOT Commissioner John Schroer pledged $500,000 to help match the federal funding.

Established in 1972, the UT Center for Transportation Research promotes and facilitates transportation research, education and public service activities at UT. The center’s research and advocacy led to child passenger restraint laws, which Tennessee was the first state in the nation to adopt. This work led to many additional state traffic safety laws, such as the adult occupant protection law. To learn more, visit ctr.utk.edu.

To learn more about the Southeastern Transportation Center, visit stc.utk.edu.

The goals of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration are to provide a critical transportation knowledge base outside the US DOT and to address vital workforce needs for the next generation of transportation leaders. For more information, visit www.rita.dot.gov.

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CONTACT:

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Lissa Gay (865-974-8760, lissa@utk.edu)

Tricia Hepner, associate professor of anthropology and co-director of the college’s new Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights program, will present “Anthropology as a Tool for Improving the Human Condition.”

Now in its twenty-fourth season, the Pregame Showcase—sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences—gives fans the chance to hear from esteemed UT faculty prior to each gridiron matchup. This week’s showcase will be held at 10:21 a.m. in the Carolyn P. Brown University Center Ballroom (Room 213).

Free and open to the public, the showcase will feature a thirty-minute presentation and a fifteen-minute question-and-answer session followed by a brief reception. Door prizes will be awarded.

Through the new DDHR program, faculty and students are developing collaborative methods to analyze crises, from coal ash spills and refugee flows to mass grave excavations and postwar reconstruction. Hepner will talk about some of the work she’s done, as well as some of the work done by her colleagues and students.

“Anthropology is a very diverse discipline, encompassing human biology and culture in the past and present,” Hepner said. “DDHR unites cultural anthropology, archaeology, and biological anthropology to generate new insights into pressing global problems.”

In addition to teaching and co-directing the DDHR program, Hepner is vice chair of the college’s Africana Studies program. She authored the book Soldiers, Martyrs, Traitors and Exiles: Political Conflict in Eritrea and the Diaspora, co-edited two books and wrote several journal articles and book chapters.

Here’s the lineup for the rest of the season:

October 5—”Tick Tock: Sleep Across the Lifespan and the Role of the Internal Clock.” Theresa Lee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a biopsychologist who has researched the importance of sleep and the internal clock, will talk about research that explains how sleep patterns vary across a lifetime and what is “normal.”

October 19—”Haunted Bangkok: Angry Spirits, Buddhist Power, and Popular Media in Thailand.” Rachelle Scott, associate professor of religious studies, will talk about the role of ghosts and other supernatural beings in Theravada Buddhism and how these stories continue to impart ethical lessons to Buddhists across Asia and around the world.

November 9—”Making the Cuts: Austerity Policies and Their Social Implications.” Jon Shefner, head of the Department of Sociology, will look at the effects of spending cuts, tax hikes, and other measures governments use to reduce their budget deficits during adverse economic conditions.

November 23—”Simulations of Solutions: Solving Problems Through Scientific Computing.” Steven Wise, associate professor of mathematics, will discuss the evolution of scientific computing and look at the challenges that lie ahead, including how we might—and might not—be able to solve some of our biggest problems with the help of computers.

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CONTACT:

Lynn Champion (865-974-2992, champion@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

The award is part of the DOE’s 2013 Nuclear Energy University Programs initiative which is awarding $42 million to thirty-eight American universities and colleges for nuclear energy research and development projects focused on innovative solutions.

A proposal by Steven Skutnik, assistant professor in nuclear engineering, was awarded $755,000 to develop new capabilities for a fuel cycle simulator called CYCLUS by building on an Oak Ridge National Laboratory software package for nuclear fuel modeling called ORIGEN.

The resulting tool, called a flexible reactor analysis module, will allow scientists to assess the relative benefits of different choices for managing spent nuclear fuel such as directly disposing of it, storing it for extended periods of time, or reprocessing it to recover materials for reuse as fuel in a reactor.

Many countries choose to chemically reprocess their used nuclear fuel, which can extract more energy out of fuel and reduce the total long-lived waste. However, the United States has a long-standing policy in which used nuclear fuel is designated for direct disposal. Recently, a plan to dispose of spent fuel at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been scrapped, leaving the nation without a long-term home for the radioactive material.

Thus, the DOE is investigating several alternative fuel cycle strategies. Skutnik’s project will help assess how different fuel cycle choices influence factors such as the demand for raw resources, nuclear waste management, and nuclear facility designs.

“We will look at more kinds of fuel cycles by mapping out what the fuel will look like,” said Skutnik. “So, we can look at the effect of irradiating fuel for longer times—which is like squeezing just a little more juice out of an orange—or new reactor types or even speculative fuel cycles, such as those based on reactors which use long-lived waste products from current reactors as fuel for future reactors. Using these tools opens up a lot more doors in terms of both sensitivity and the kinds of scenarios we can look at.”

The goal is to help the public and policymakers understand the impacts and trade-offs of various nuclear fuel cycle options.

“If we’re going to consider significant changes to policies which impact the nuclear fuel cycle, it’s helpful to have tools to tell us what we can expect the impacts are going to be,” said Skutnik.

Collaborating institutions are ORNL and National Nuclear Laboratory in the United Kingdom.

The NEUPs support multifaceted projects to develop breakthroughs for the US nuclear energy industry. Universities lead the three-year projects, working in collaboration with the nuclear industry, national laboratories, and international partners.

For more information on the specific awards, visit www.neup.gov.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Kim Cowart (865-974-0686, kcowart@utk.edu)

To read more about the research, visit the NIMBioS website.

To view an animation of the distribution, visit tiny.utk.edu/polities.

Hap McSween, Chancellor’s Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, will present “Exploring the Asteroid Vesta: NASA’s Dawn Mission.”

The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

The presentations begin at noon on Fridays in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena. Each presentation is forty minutes long and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Science Forum presentations are free and open to the public.

“The Dawn spacecraft has completed its orbital investigation of asteroid Vesta and is now enroute to asteroid Ceres,” McSween said. “These are the two most massive asteroids, and their properties provide an interesting view of the diversity of planetary building blocks.”

Dawn’s asteroid-mapping mission aims to shed light on the evolution of the solar system by studying these huge space rocks. Vesta is the solar system’s brightest asteroid, and Ceres is the largest and is considered to be a dwarf planet.

McSween is the co-investigator for NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft mission, the Mars Exploration Rovers and the Dawn spacecraft. He had an asteroid named for him by the International Astronomical Union, 5223 McSween.

McSween has been a UT faculty member for thirty-six years and has been name the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences’ best teacher seven times. UT awarded him the Alexander Prize, which recognizes excellence in teaching and research, and the College of Arts and Sciences College Marshal, the highest college honor bestowed upon a faculty member. He is also this year’s Southeastern Conference Professor of the Year.

Future Science Forums will feature:

• October 4: Stacy Clark, research forester with the US Forest Service, discussing “American Chestnut Restoration: Can We Bring Back the Mighty Giant?”

• October 11: Chad Duty, group leader of Deposition Science and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussing “3D Printing: The Next Generation of Manufacturing”

• October 25: Kasey Krouse, urban forester for the city of Knoxville, presenting “Knoxville Urban Forestry—Year One”

• November 1: Gerry Dinkins, curator of malacology and natural history at the McClung Museum, discussing “Rediscovery of the Nearly Extinct Alabama Lampmussel in the Emory River”

• November 8: Devin White, senior research scientist of geocomputation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and assistant professor of anthropology, discussing “Archaeological Discoveries from Space”

• November 15: Phil Colclough, director of animal collections and conservation at Knoxville Zoological Gardens, discussing “Eastern Hellbender Conservation and the New Role of Zoos”

• November 22: Nathan Schmidt, assistant professor of microbiology, discussing “Infection with the Malaria Parasite: Malaria Is Only Half the Problem”

The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest, an initiative to raise awareness of UT’s research, scholarship, and creative activity. For more information, visit the Science Forum website.

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C O N T A C T :

Amanda Womac (Amanda@HellbenderPress.org)

Mark Littmann (865-974-8156, littmann@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

Jill Mikucki, assistant professor of microbiology, will present “Antarctica: Exploring Ecosystems Below Half a Mile of Ice,” on Friday, September 20.

The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

The presentations begin at noon on Fridays in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena. Each presentation is forty minutes long and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Science Forum presentations are free and open to the public.

“Ice covers 10 percent of continental landmass on the planet, making subglacial environments an important, yet poorly understood, component of the Earth system,” says Mikucki. “Subglacial aquatic environments serve as analogs for past global glaciation events.”

She focuses her research primarily on the interactions between microbes and their environment, and how the impact of microbial metabolism is detectable on an ecosystem scale.

Mikucki will discuss her research in Antarctica and highlight her experiences as part of the Willans Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) team, which collected water and sediment samples from a subglacial lake in January—an exciting first in Antarctic exploration.

Mikucki boasts numerous trips to Antarctica and plans to return in November to continue her research and exploration of the Antarctic subglacial aquatic system beneath Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica and the mysterious Blood Falls subglacial ecosystem in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

Future Science Forums will feature a variety of topics:

• September 27: Hap McSween, Chancellor’s professor of earth and planetary sciences, presenting “Exploring the Asteroid Vesta: NASA’s Dawn Mission”
• October 4: Stacy Clark, research forester with U.S. Forest Service, discussing “American Chestnut Restoration: Can We Bring Back the Mighty Giant?”
• October 11: Chad Duty, leader of the Deposition Science and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussing “3D Printing: The Next Generation of Manufacturing”
• October 25: Kasey Krouse, urban forester for the city of Knoxville, presenting “Knoxville Urban Forestry—Year One”
• November 1: Gerry Dinkins, curator of malacology and natural history at the McClung Museum, discussing “Rediscovery of the Nearly Extinct Alabama Lampmussel in the Emory River”
• November 8: Devin White, senior research scientist of geocomputation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and assistant professor of anthropology, discussing “Archaeological Discoveries from Space”
• November 15: Phil Colclough, director of animal collections and conservation at Knoxville Zoological Gardens, discussing “Eastern Hellbender Conservation and the New Role of Zoos”
• November 22: Nathan Schmidt, assistant professor of microbiology, discussing “Infection with the Malaria Parasite: Malaria Is Only Half the Problem”

The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research and presented by Quest. For more information, visit the Science Forum website.

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C O N T A C T :

Amanda Womac (Amanda@HellbenderPress.org)

Mark Littmann (865-974-8156, littmann@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

The upgrade will also significantly improve a wide range of big data and other science data flows for the university and for national science and engineering research communities supported by OIT and JICS. The BLAST project is supported by UT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the National Science Foundation.

To read the entire story, visit the NICS website.

“Letters to the Earth: Songs and Poems of Conservation” will feature Jesse Graves, Marilyn Kallet, Jeff Daniel Marion, Linda Parsons Marion, R. B. Morris, and Arthur Smith. They are all either UT faculty, staff, or alumni.

The 3:00 p.m. event, sponsored by Ijams and the City of Knoxville, is a prelude to the Centennial Conservation Expo at Chilhowee Park in October.

“Our poems forge connections among ourselves and others, between us and the environment that we seek to conserve,” said Kallet, director of the UT Creative Writing Program. “All share in caring for the natural world that is endangered. Poetry is a way of gardening, giving a chance to protect the green shoots that peek through the rubble.”

Ijams is located at 2915 Island Home Avenue in South Knoxville.

Dennis Hopkins, vice president of DENSO Manufacturing Tennessee, Inc. (second from right), presents the check for $50,000 to Matthew Mench (second from left). They are joined by MABE Research Assistant Professor David “Butch” Irick (left) and Wayne Davis, dean of the College of Engineering, (right).

The Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering’s rolling hybrid vehicle laboratory has received a boost. Denso North American Foundation has donated $50,000 to the lab. The hybrid vehicle laboratory helps faculty prepare students for high-tech jobs in the industry with hands-on design experience. Matthew Mench, department head, said as a local employer and international leader in advanced automotive technology, Denso’s continual support of the department’s programs are critical for their success. For more information, visit the College of Engineering website.

William A. Thomas, Hudnall Professor Emeritus of Geology at the University of Kentucky and visiting scientist at the Geological Survey of Alabama, will present “Eastern North American through Two Supercontinent Cycles.” The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the McClung Museum. The event is free and open to the public.

Thomas will go through 750 million years of geologic processes that resulted in the landscape of today, such as the breakup of supercontinents, the creation of mountains, the erosion and deposition of sediment-producing limestone and shale, and the shaping of the ridges, valleys, and mountains.

McClung Museum’s fiftieth anniversary lecture series brings worldwide experts to speak on topics related to the museum’s collections and exhibitions, which include archaeology, ancient Egypt, decorative arts, the Battle of Fort Sanders, geology, and fossils.

Upcoming lectures feature:

• Chris Rainier, National Geographic photographer, on September 22
• Salima Ikram, Egyptologist and mummy expert, October15
• Marc Spencer, vertebrate paleontologist and dinosaur specialist, on October 27.

The McClung Museum, 1327 Circle Park Drive, is open Monday through Saturday 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., and admission is free. Free two-hour museum parking passes are available from the parking information building at the entrance to Circle Park Drive. Parking passes are not needed on the weekends.

For more information about the McClung Museum and its collections and exhibits, visit the website.

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CONTACTS:

Catherine Shteynberg (865-974-6921, cshteynb@utk.edu)

Christina Selk (865-974-2143, cselk@utk.edu)

They also are more likely to lose their jobs and their firms are more likely to experience dramatic declines in value during market downturns, the research shows.

The study, conducted by Andy Puckett, UT associate professor of finance, along with Lee Biggerstaff, a UT doctoral candidate, and David Cicero from the University of Alabama, focuses on the tone at the top in companies, and indicates that a CEO’s ethics and character drive an organization’s culture.

It was recently published as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, an American private nonprofit research organization.

The study examined CEOs who personally benefited from options backdating—manipulating the date of a stock option given to executives to reflect a lower price and make them more valuable, maximizing the CEO’s eventual payout. This comes at the detriment of shareholders and taxpayers.

The study showed that the firms led by these CEOs were more likely to overstate their profitability and engage in less profitable acquisition strategies.

Puckett and the co-authors sampled more than 3,700 firms from 1992 to 2009 and classified 249 CEOs as systematic options backdaters—those with at least 30 percent of activity and at least two events that were classified as backdated.

The study found that while suspect CEOs were able to hide their true character during periods of economic expansion, they were more likely to lose their jobs during the ensuing market correction.

“It is comforting to know that ethics matter, and that in due time the character of unethical executives is revealed to the marketplace,” Puckett said.

Researchers investigated corporate activities during the five-year period before and after a suspect CEO arrived at the firm. They found the prevalence of corporate misbehavior increased significantly following the CEO’s arrival. Results from the study are concentrated in firms that hired their suspect CEOs from the outside.

“Our study highlights that an executive’s ethical stature should be an important characteristic for boards to consider when hiring a new chief executive,” Puckett said.

The study is under a third round of revision at the Journal of Financial Economics.

To read the working paper, visit the National Bureau of Economic Research’s website.

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CONTACTS:

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

Andy Puckett (865-974-3611, pucketta@utk.edu)

Amy Howard, architect and director of development, and James Rose, adjunct assistant professor and interim director of the Institute for Smart Structures, will present “The UT Solar House—A Prototype for Zero-Energy Living,” on Friday, September 13.

The Science Forum is a weekly brown-bag lunch series that allows professors and area scientists to discuss their research with the general public in a conversational presentation.

The presentations begin at noon on Fridays in Room C-D of Thompson-Boling Arena. Attendees can bring lunch or purchase it at the arena. Each presentation is forty minutes long and is followed by a question-and-answer session. Science Forum presentations are free and open to the public.

More than 200 UT students and faculty across nine academic disciplines designed the Living Light house for the Solar Decathlon.

UT placed eighth overall in the decathlon and claimed high-standing marks in several categories, including first in energy production, third in engineering, third in hot-water production, third in energy-efficient appliances, and fifth in architecture.

Here’s a look at other upcoming Science Forums:

• September 20: Jill Mikucki, assistant professor of microbiology, presenting “Antarctica: Exploring Ecosystems Below Half a Mile of Ice.”

• September 27: Hap McSween, Chancellor’s Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, presenting “Exploring the Asteroid Vesta: NASA’s Dawn Mission.”

• October 4: Stacy Clark, research forester with the US Forest Service, discussing “American Chestnut Restoration: Can We Bring Back the Mighty Giant?”

• October 11: Chad Duty, group leader of Deposition Science and Technology Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, discussing “3D Printing: The Next Generation of Manufacturing.”

• October 25: Kasey Krouse, urban forester for the city of Knoxville, presenting “Knoxville Urban Forestry—Year One.”

• November 1: Gerry Dinkins, curator of malacology and natural history at the McClung Museum, discussing “Rediscovery of the Nearly Extinct Alabama Lampmussel in the Emory River.”

• November 8: Devin White, senior research scientist of geocomputation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and assistant professor of anthropology, discussing “Archaeological Discoveries from Space.”

• November 15: Phil Colclough, director of animal collections and conservation at Knoxville Zoological Gardens, discussing “Eastern Hellbender Conservation and the New Role of Zoos.”

• November 22: Nathan Schmidt, assistant professor of microbiology, discussing “Infection with the Malaria Parasite: Malaria is Only Half the Problem.”

The Science Forum is sponsored by the UT Office of Research and Quest, an initiative to raise awareness of UT’s research, scholarship, and creative activity.

For more information, visit the Science Forum website.

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C O N T A C T :

Amanda Womac (Amanda@HellbenderPress.org)

Mark Littmann (865-974-8156, littmann@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

Called 3552 Don Quixote, the body is the third largest near-Earth object—mostly rocky bodies, or asteroids, that orbit the Sun in the vicinity of Earth. About 5 percent of near-Earth objects are thought to be “dead” comets that have shed all the water and carbon dioxide in the form of ice that give them their coma—a cloud surrounding the comet nucleus—and tail.

This image displays Don Quixote’s orbit.

The team found that Don Quixote is neither. It is, in fact, an active comet, thus likely containing water ice and not just rocks. The finding will be presented at the European Planetary Science Congress 2013 in London today, Sept. 10. The discovery could hold implications for the origin of water on Earth.

“Don Quixote has always been recognized as an oddball,” said Emery. “Its orbit brings it close to Earth, but also takes it way out past Jupiter. Such a vast orbit is similar to a comet’s, not an asteroid’s, which tend to be more circular—so people thought it was one that had shed all its ice deposits.”

Using the Spitzer Space Telescope operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology under contract with NASA, the team—led by Michael Mommert of Northern Arizona University—reexamined images of Don Quixote from 2009 when it was in the part of its orbit closest to the Sun, and found it had a coma and a faint tail.

Emery also reexamined images from 2004, when it was at its farthest distance from the sun, and determined that the surface is composed of silicate dust, which is similar to comet dust. He also determined that Don Quixote did not have a coma or tail at this distance, which is common for comets because they need the sun’s radiation to form the coma and the sun’s charged particles to form the tail. The researchers also confirmed Don Quixote’s size and the low, comet-like reflectivity of its surface.

“The power of the Spitzer telescope allowed us to spot the coma and tail, which was not possible using optical telescopes on the ground,” said Emery. “We now think this body contains a lot of ice, including carbon dioxide and/or carbon monoxide ice, rather than just being rocky.”

This discovery implies that carbon dioxide and water ice might be present within other near-Earth asteroids, as well. It also may have implications for the origins of water on Earth as comets may be the source of at least some of it, and the amount on Don Quixote represents about 100 billion tons of water—roughly the same amount that can be found in Lake Tahoe.

The project was funded by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope project and the German Research Foundation. Co-authors are Joseph Hora and Howard Smith, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Alan Harris, German Aerospace Center; William Reach, Universities Space Research Association; Cristina Thomas, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Michael Mueller, Space Research Organization Netherlands ; Dale Cruikshank, NASA Ames Research Center; David Trilling, Northern Arizona University; and Marco Delbo’, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)