Inspiration Dissemination

Chemicals used in industrial processes still contaminate groundwater in thousands of sites across the US. Bioremediation uses naturally-occurring microbes to degrade these contaminants. Hannah Rolston, a fifth-year PhD student in Environmental Engineering and our guest tonight, discusses her efforts in using this process to remove a potential carcinogen called 1,4-dioxane. Please find us on social...

Our guest this evening is Katy Nalven, a 2nd year Masters student in the Marine Resources Management program, who is using a community based social marketing approach to ask people not only IF they know about the problem of plastics in oceans, but also seeks to understand HOW people think about this problem and what could be individual hurdles to decreasing plastic usage. Using a survey based appr...

Learning to crawl and walk affords children opportunities to explore their world. As such, early childhood mobility is intertwined with other formative childhood milestones, such as motor skill development and learning to negotiate social encounters. Samantha Ross investigates how children with mobility disabilities can be supported to ensure they have equitable access to play, exploration and soc...

Bone cancer is a devastating and difficult-to-treat disease in humans and dogs. As a Master’s student in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Marcus Weinman studies how canine bone cancer cells become resistant to chemotherapy. By studying the mechanism of resistance, it may become possible to identify new drug targets. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www.faceb...

This week’s guest Akash Kannegulla studies how light interacts with nanostructure metals for applications to advance display technology, as well as biosensing. Akash is a PhD candidate in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program with a focus in Materials and Devices in the Cheng Lab. He also has an award-winning start-up company, Wisedoc, which seeks to take the frustration out of f...

All around us, plants, fungi, and bacteria are waging chemical warfare against one another to deter grazing or kill competitors. Us humans exploit many of these chemicals, called secondary metabolites, for medicinal use. Our guest this week, Paige Mandelare, shares her research on isolating a new class of secondary metabolites from a marine fungus that show promise in fighting several cancer cell...

Our guest this week, Erin Abernethy PhD candidate from the department of Integrative Biology, is investigating the community structure (the number of species or individuals of each species) of freshwater aquatic invertebrates downstream of dams. These invertebrates have adapted to the native conditions of their river ecosystem, and major disturbances, such as a change in the flow of a river from a...

Connor Yates is a native Oregonian and a Robotics PhD student in the College of Engineering. He studies artificial intelligence and machine learning by giving robots a task to complete without instructions. Over thousands of iterations and learned group-behavior, robots can learn how to organically solve problems. Who knows, maybe they’ll learn how to put pants on both legs at a time. Please find...

Sarah Kelly is a MA candidate in the Environmental Arts and Humanities program in the College of Liberal Arts at OSU. Sarah is working with other researchers to provide a more holistic educational experience for high school students by connecting them with the forest though art, imagination, critical thinking and reflection. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www...

Sophie Wensman is a 2nd year PhD student examining the effects of ocean acidification on oyster health off the Oregon coast. Oysters are a multi-million dollar industry in Oregon and in 2007 there was a massive die-off in Netarts Bay that left growers scrambling to figure out the cause; Sophie sheds light on her ongoing research sites and ways to potentially keep the industry thriving. She is also...

Susan Rowe is a PhD candidate with the Graduate School's interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences program studying free-choice learning - or learning that occurs in informal environments. Specifically, Susan's research seeks to better quantify and understand how interacting with live animal exhibits at zoos and aquariums impacts visitors thoughts on conservation. Please find us on social media! Tw...

Grace Klinges just finished a diving expedition off the Coast of Papua New Guinea where a natural CO2 seep acidifies the reef and changes the ecosystem so much that fish avoid the area. Less than 60meters away the ocean chemistry returns to normal conditions and there is an incredible amount of reef diversity shows by colorful corals. Using this relatively small area that mimics future ocean acidi...

Terrah Owens from Animal and Rangeland Sciences studies threats to the western US native bird, Greater Sage Grouse. Specifically, Terrah compares Grouse populations in areas that have been burned by wildfire, areas where ravens have been removed, and areas of high fuel load from invasive annual grasses. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www.facebook.com/Inspirat...

Nicole Hams just finished her PhD in the College of Science through the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department studying the Otoferlin protein which is required for hearing which have been linked to hereditary deafness, affecting 360 million people globally. We also discussed what it means to be an underrepresented student in the STEM fields and how she was able to overcome those hurdles. Please fi...

Evan Hilberg from the College of Public Health and Human Sciences and the Department of Kinesiology, is investigating factors that influence physical activity of children in rural communities. Research focused on physical activity in children disproportionally centers around children in urban communities. Children in rural communities may have different limitations to physical activity. For exampl...

Using black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) a native tree to the western US, Ryan is working to reveal the genes responsible for making woody plants susceptible to fungal disease and those that give the fungus the ability to infect trees. The fungus of interest, Sphaerulina musiva, causes leaf spot and stem canker on cottonwood trees, the latter disease being more severe as it girdles the trees a...

As a History of Science PhD student in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, Andy Hahn studies how botanists and plant morphologists in the 20th century were influenced by Goethe, a famed German writer and naturalist during the 19th century. Although historians and philosophers have studied Goethe extensively, his influence on subsequent generations of botanists and plant morphologists...

Bjorn Kristensenfrom the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, studies the ethics behind cultured meat or clean meat. While the cost of your next hamburger may not weigh too heavily on your pocket, the quantity resources required to produce one pound of beef may surprise you. One pound of meat is fed by nearly 7 pounds of grain, 53 gallons of water, 70 square acres of land, and 1,000 BTU of...

By 2040, the world will also practically double electricity production from nuclear fission, and for good reason: nuclear power is a reliable source of carbon free energy. In the United States, for instance, about 60% of carbon free electricity is generated by nuclear power. Our guest, Dylan Addison, hopes to qualify the world’s first small modular nuclear reactor design. Dylan recently finished h...

Harrison Stierwalt a PhD student in Kinesiology, studies the cellular mechanisms of skeletal muscle physiology. Harrison and other members of the Translational Metabolism Research Laboratory, research the cause of skeletal muscle insulin resistance and how exercise acts against insulin resistance. Please find us on social media! Twitter: twitter.com/kbvrID facebook: www.facebook.com/InspirationDis...

Our guest this week, CEOAS Masters student Ben Lewis investigates how interactions between the atmosphere and sea ice in the Beaufort Sea (north of Alaska in the Canadian Archipelago) impact the formation of fractures. Utilizing satellite imagery compiled by the Geographical Information Network of Alaska from 1993 to 2013, Ben has conducted a qualitative analysis to determine the location and time...

Viticulture is the science, production, and study of grapes, and when growing grapes for wine both quantity and quality matter. One challenge facing farmers in the Willamette Valley is a plant pathogen: grape powdery mildew. This pathogen can live in a field year-round and emerges to infect grape leaves, flowers and fruits annually. Grape plants infected with powdery mildew suffer low berry yields...

Behrooz Mahasseni recently finished his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science where his research focused on how computers interpret video recordings. If you haven’t heard of machine learning, then it’s just a matter of time. These techniques are already involved in highly complex board games, advertising optimization, and especially self-driving cars. It’s difficult to say how impa...

As a master’s student in the Water Resources Graduate Program at Oregon State University, Carolyn Gombert is working to understand where cold water habitat is located along the Willamette River. More importantly, she is seeking to understand the riverine and geomorphic processes responsible for creating the fishes’ version of our air conditioned ice cream parlors. Please find us on social media! T...

Our guest this week, Tyler Schappe, studies interactions among plants and fungi in the Neotropical forests of Panama. Tyler is broadly interested in what drives the maintenance and diversity of fungal communities, and how this, in turn, can affect tree communities. Overall, Tyler’s results, along with other research, show that soil fungal communities are an integral component of the plant-soil rel...