Recent Awards to SU Faculty and Staff
Seattle University Grant Announcement
October 22, 2010
J. McLean Sloughter, College of Science & Engineering
On behalf of Professor J. McLean Sloughter of the Department of Mathematics, Seattle University and the US Forest Service Stanislaus National Forest have entered into a collaborative agreement in which $35,000 will be available for the project titled “Creating a Spatially-Dependent Model for Probability of Jeffrey Pine Beetle-Caused Mortality in the Lake Tahoe Basin.” Professor Sloughter will conduct spatiotemporal statistical analysis of tree-level data taken on approximately 10,000 trees on 60 acres during a Jeffery pine beetle outbreak from 1992 – 1997 in the Lake Tahoe Basin. The analysis will produce spatially-dependant probability of tree mortality or similar models that will provide land managers with a quantified risk or likelihood of tree mortality based on the spatial location, and other significant independent variables, of trees attacked the prior year. Completion of this project will yield quantified, scientific information that will improve pest management efforts to mitigate the impacts of the Jeffery pine beetle on high-value trees designated form retention. Working on this project, Professor Sloughter will collaborate with Dr. Tamre Cardoso, Environmental Statistician with TerraStat Consulting Group, Seattle, Washington.
Best wishes to Professor Sloughter and Dr. Cardoso as they collaborate with the US Forest service experts in forest biology, ecology and pest management to work toward protecting the beauty and health of our forests.
Seattle University Grant Announcement
October 15, 2010
Colleen Montoya Barbano, Student Academic Services
Seattle University has been awarded a Congressionally-directed grant of $500,000 to support its Fostering Scholars Program serving current and former foster youth attending Seattle University. Under the directorship of Colleen Montoya Barbano of Student Academic Services, the Fostering Scholars Program will provide scholarships, year-round room and board, health insurance, individualized case management and mentorship, a program of cohort and leadership development, employment referrals, and access to tutoring, therapy and counseling as needed. The Fostering Scholars Program aims to improve the outcomes of foster care alumni through providing its participants access to higher education and the support they need to successfully earn their college degrees.
Seattle University Grant Announcement
October 14, 2010
Joanne Hughes Clark, College of Science & Engineering
A National Science Foundation grant for $77,500, titled “RUI – Stellar Populations in Nearby Galaxies,” has been awarded to Professor Joanne Hughes Clark of the Seattle University Physics Department. Professor Hughes Clark with her students and collaborators is using the Apache Point Observatory 3.5-m telescope and the CTIO 4-m telescope to digitally observe several nearby galaxies. All but one of these galaxies was discovered in the searches of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Professor Hughes Clark will guide the project involving imaging and later spectroscopy of the stars within these systems. The research relates to the formation and evolution of the Milky Way and its environment. A broader goal of the project is to understand the behavior of the dark matter halos surrounding dwarf galaxies as this relates to the mechanism of galaxy formation.
The Seattle University students will be directly involved in the image analysis of the astronomical data. The method also involves multi-wavelength photometry and spectroscopy of the stellar population in several dwarf galaxies. The group hopes to compare initial mass functions and star formation histories of these faint dwarf spheroidal systems. Professor Hughes Clark’s collaborators are astronomers at the University of Victoria (BC, Canada) and the University of Tasmania (Australia).
The Seattle University Physics Department is committed to making research such as reported here an integral part of the student learning experience.
For more research and creative activities of our faculty and staff mentioned in The Commons