Erica Corral, Ph.D., professor of materials science and engineering, uses a special furnace to study how nanoengineered materials perform at ultra-high temperatures. For Corral, the work is as much about the students as it is about the science. In her lab, she combines high-tech ideas with raw student talent to forge the innovations – and the professionals – who are fueling the industries of the future.
With 11 published books, Dr. Andrew Weil is known worldwide for his expertise in health and wellness. Here at the UA, he started the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, which focuses on three domains: education, clinical care and research. With an emphasis on education, the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine trains hundreds of physicians each year, teaching them to heal the whole person.
As the Earth gets hotter and dustier, ensuring that humanity has dependable sources of clean air and water will be essential. Distinguished Professor Eduardo Saez, Ph.D., a chemical engineer to the core, has a passion for tracking down such solutions. But with the heart of a teacher, he sees every challenge as an opportunity to instill that passion in the next generation of problem-solvers.
Want to know how they make drugs like Erythromycin? Or Tetracycline? Or Viagra? Learning about the art and science behind these processes is what organic chemistry is all about. According to Jon Njardarson, Ph.D., any effort to teach the subject must be engaging and artful. That vision comes through in his group’s new website and app launched in 2011.
Human papilloma virus: not a popular topic around the dinner table. But HPV, a sexually transmitted disease, causes multiple cancers, including most cases of cervical cancer. But now there is a vaccine. Should the states mandate its use? Or should the decision be kept inside the family? Maggie Pitts, Ph.D., is studying this uneasy and fascinating discussion.
Asteroid 1999 RQ36 passes near Earth every six years. Not only does it potentially house organic compounds that may have been the precursors to life; it could impact us in 2182. The OSIRIS-REx mission, sponsored by NASA and led by Dante Lauretta, Ph.D., aims to pay RQ36 a visit to learn more – and bring a sample back to Earth. Watch video.>>
Molly Hunter, Ph.D., professor of entomology, describes the subjects of her study as "elaborate and colorful and beautiful." Focusing her microscope lens on the sweet potato whitefly, Molly and her students explore enthralling worlds while creating knowledge that is contributing to more environmentally sound pest control. Watch video.>>
Brian Schmidt, Ph.D., class of 1989, has secured one of the top scientific honors on the planet as one of three recipients of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics. The award honors a discovery that has rocked our understanding of the cosmos: The universe is expanding at an ever-faster pace.
From the day he joined the UA planetary sciences faculty in 1973, Regents' Professor Michael Drake was a driving force in the world of space sciences. Today, we recognize his passing and honor his achievements, which include serving as principal investigator on the OSIRIS-REx mission, an $800 million effort now underway to retrieve a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth.
Emily Lea Connally, who graduated in May 2011 with her master’s degree in psychology from the University of Arizona, has an endless fascination with the brain that reaches back to her memories of growing up in rural New Mexico. After Harvard and the UA, she is now off to Oxford, where, as a Clarendon Scholar, she will pursue her Ph.D.
It was a tight 10-week timeline, but they did it. Through their one-semester course, ENGR 450/550, autonomous vehicle systems, 23 undergraduate and graduate students took two 7,500-pound trucks that didn't even run, and transformed them into autonomous robotic vehicles. Talk about industrious.
The Native American experience in Arizona is rich with history and tradition. Tribal libraries have long been capturing histories of elders and community members, and these collections represent valuable resources for their communities as well as the public. Now, Sandy Littletree and Jamie A. Lee of the UA Knowledge River program aim to use technology to better understand the value of these tribal resources.
What if we had a better understanding of the North American monsoon and how it affected the soil, invasive and native plants and fire cycles? The powerful winds that give rise to spectacular late summer storms in the desert southwest also drive changes in the region’s ecology. A team of UA researchers has won an NSF grant for almost $3 million to study the phenomenon.
After graduating from the University of Arizona with a degree in astronomy and physics in the 1990s, Adam Block became one of the world’s foremost astrophotographers. He captures spectacular images of distant galaxies, nebulae and dying stars and brings astronomy into terms laypeople can understand at the UA's Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter.
It will take 12 years, a collaborative team consisting of the UA’s Lunar and Planetary Lab, NASA and Lockheed Martin, and over $800 million dollars. In an historic mission dubbed OSIRIS-REx, researchers are once more headed skyward, this time to visit asteroid 1999 RQ36, scoop up a sample of its surface, and return that sample to Earth.
From the Shroud of Turin to the Dead Sea Scrolls, the UA Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory has had the honor of dating some of the most intriguing, most mysterious texts in history. Most recently, UA dating expert Greg Hodgins was brought in by Yale University to answer at least one of the many riddles locked within one of the most baffling books ever found: the Voynich Manuscript.
In 2006, it took a bold move for a new generation of medical students to choose to attend the brand new Phoenix Campus of the UA College of Medicine. Today, we celebrate the graduation of our first class of world-class doctors who are about to embark on their residencies and the most exciting moments of their careers. Their expertise spans the history of medical knowledge and puts the latest research into practice.
What does it take to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences? A pioneer of infrared astronomy, George Rieke credits the diverse and productive research environment in the UA's space sciences for his most recent honor and stellar research career.
When it comes to solving the challenges of today as well as driving the successes of tomorrow, the primary force at work is that human drive we call innovation. On March 29, 2011, Tucson and the UA celebrated the best ideas coming from our students and faculty.
Peppery and warm, bitter and reminiscent of orange and ginger, the spice known as turmeric possesses many faces. While it has been in the traditional medicinal lineup of India for centuries, Dr. Janet Funk, researcher at the UA College of Medicine and the BIO5 Institute, is working to unlock its secrets to treat arthritis, osteoporosis and more.