Natural Sciences

UO scientists rewrite eruption history of Oregon’s South Sister

EARTH SCIENCES - Graduate student Annika Dechert at the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences and a team of researchers are working on studying the eruption history of South Sister volcano in the Oregon Cascades. The results of the study will inform the way the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory draws up hazards maps for Central Oregon and help shape the way scientists think about other similar volcanoes. The research team published their latest findings in August in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

UO ecologists secure $2 million to boost soil health of Oregon hazelnut farms

BIOLOGY, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES - Ecologists from the University of Oregon have designed a soil health management system to strengthen the long-term vitality of the state’s hazelnut industry. Oregon produces 99 percent of the nation’s hazelnuts, but the escalation of global extreme heat, which brings dry soil and scalded plants, threatens the agricultural productivity of the region.

At the eye of the storm

MULTIDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE PROGRAM - When Clark Honors College and CAS senior Erin Morrison set out to witness the historic launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission in Florida in mid-October, she had no idea she’d also be facing a Category-5 hurricane. Morrison was there to be with Carol Paty, an earth sciences professor with the College of Arts and Sciences, who worked with a team of scientists to create some of the tools to help Europa Clipper study a moon 1.8 billion miles away.

Student-created app helps travelers stay connected and save money

COMPUTER SCIENCE - In a course where innovation meets real-world challenges, three computer science students took their classroom project beyond the grade book and put it into the hands of global travelers. Over the summer, computer science majors Adrian Heider, Raj Gill and Manu Shukla developed and launched a fully functional app: Constella, an iOS application aimed at reducing the cost of international phone plans.

Space probe carrying UO research takes off for Jupiter moon

EARTH SCIENCES - Carol Paty, a comparative planetologist in the College of Arts and Sciences helped develop one of the scientific instruments aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper, which blasted off Oct. 14, on the world’s first mission to conduct a detailed study of Jupiter's moon Europa. Paty, an Earth sciences professor, is a member of the research teams behind two of the nine scientific instruments the spacecraft will use to confirm and measure what scientists strongly suspect is a vast sea of salty water buried under a sheet of ice enveloping the moon’s surface.

Creating a Future Forward CAS

Higher ed faces big challenges, but Tykeson Dean of Arts and Sciences Chris Poulsen is ready to meet them with a forward-thinking plan to establish CAS as a leader and innovator. Read how Poulsen views the state of higher education and how a new strategy will work to make the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences a place where students can receive a high-quality liberal arts education while also preparing them for a 21st century work place.

Glowing Implants, Created Serendipitously

CHEMISTRY AND BIOCHEMISTRY - Bioengineers and chemists design fluorescent 3D-printed structures with potential medical applications. The discovery emerged from a collaboration between Paul Dalton’s engineering lab in the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact and Ramesh Jasti’s lab in the chemistry and biochemistry department in the UO’s College of Arts and Sciences. The researchers describe their findings in a paper published this summer in the journal Small.

Family efforts lead to a new professorship honoring Professor Michael Posner

PSYCHOLOGY - Michael Posner, professor emerit in psychology, has had a career filled with accomplishments. He's received numerous honorary degrees, awards, and the National Medal of Science presented by President Barack Obama in 2009. Now the Posner family is establishing The Dr. Michael Posner Psychology Professorship in Cognition and Neuroscience to support a tenured professor or associate professor in strengthening the college’s contributions to cognition and neuroscience.