January 31, 2024

Inside This Issue

Features: Phenotyping faster; Novel tool helps pinpoint elusive hybrid barberry and map its spread.
Awards and Recognition: The Clinical and Translational Science Institute recently received more than $5.3 million to provide comprehensive career development support for early-career faculty at the U of M; and more.

Phenotyping faster

Julian Cooper walking in a field with the rover

A collaboration between U of M crop researchers and an ag-tech startup is bringing big data to small grains. Over the past three years, researchers used a solar-powered rover in the research fields in St. Paul and Crookston to take thousands of plant images to identify scab—a fungal disease that infects wheat and barley. This laid the groundwork for the next generation of rapid phenotyping technology using cell phone cameras.

Novel tool helps pinpoint elusive hybrid barberry and map its spread

U of M plant pathologists Jyoti Sharma and Pablo Olivera Firpo and team have developed a novel method to test for invasive hybrid barberry using DNA markers. Barberry is an invasive shrub that can carry rust fungi dangerous to wheat and small grain crops. Accurate identification through testing helps to map barberry distribution and may lead to better management and regulation of the species in Minnesota.

Awards and Recognition

The Clinical and Translational Science Institute recently received more than $5.3 million to provide comprehensive career development support for early-career faculty at the U of M; U in the News features highlights of University faculty and staff cited in the media.

Awards and Recognition

U-Wide News

Dear Minnesota: Karrie’s dream career

The U of M has affected Karrie’s life in many ways. Each day, surrounded by neuroscience topics and research, she can say “I love what I do!” She’s found her dream career in higher education that expands toward helping all Minnesotans. Read Karrie’s story, explore the Dear Minnesota series, and share your own story.

Apply for Campus Climate Micro-Grants

Applications are now open for Campus Climate Micro-Grants, sponsored by the Office for Equity and Diversity with support from the Office of the President. Faculty, staff, students, and affiliated organizations systemwide are encouraged to submit projects that align with OED’s mission to create a more inclusive and welcoming campus. Explore the program and eligibility criteria. Applications close March 7.

Funding opportunity: IonE Impact Goals

The Institute on the Environment (IonE) invites the U of M community and partners to respond to its Impact Goals RFP, open through March 12. IonE will award a minimum of four medium projects ($25,000-$50,000) and four large projects ($100,000-$200,000) that focus on an expanded array of priorities: adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity, clean energy, water and land, food systems, planetary health, environmental justice, natural capital, and decision support.

Announcing the CURA Community Action Research Grant request for proposals

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) invites proposals for its Community Action Research Grant program (formerly the Faculty Interactive Research Program). This program encourages University faculty to carry out public policy research projects about important regional issues in partnership with community groups, government agencies, or organizations in Minnesota with up to $45,000 in support per award. Learn more and apply by March 15.

Empowering women's health globally

Researcher and inventor Rahel Nardos is elevating the health of women in underserved communities. She presently supports a urogynecology training program in Ethiopia where she is teaching surgeons about pelvic reconstructive surgery, yet these surgeons do not have reliable access to a particular tool needed for the surgery. To solve this dilemma, Nardos designed a better tool and received funding from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute that will help her further refine the prototype.

A wolf’s life through an artist’s lens

A mosaic of a wolf made up of icon animals in its diet

Animal ecologist Joseph Bump uses art to communicate and improve our understanding of wolves. “If wolves cause conflict and some people hate wolves, how can we use science to help improve humanity’s relationship with wolves through better management?” Bump asks. One answer: graphic design and printmaking.

Keeping rural health care healthy

For more than four decades, one person has been at the heart of health care services for Douglas County and the Alexandria, MN, area. And she has no intention of retiring any time soon. Alumnus Margaret Kalina has spent her career advancing rural health care and is the director of patient services and chief nursing officer for Alomere Health in Alexandria.

Talking children’s dental health with U of M

Investing early in good dental care for children is an important part of lifelong, full-body health. In recognition of National Children’s Dental Health Month in February, Teresa Fong, a clinical associate professor in the U of M School of Dentistry, answers common questions about children’s oral health. See more editions of "Talking with U of M."

Feb. 2 - Catalyzing the Renaissance of American Mining to Enable the Energy Transition

Douglas Wicks, program director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), will deliver this seminar drawing from his focus at ARPA-E on waste-to-energy technologies and ARPA-E’s work in advancing high-potential energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. 1:30-2:15 p.m. via Zoom.

Crookston

Faculty participate in charrette workshop

Four U of M Crookston faculty recently participated in an assignment charrette workshop. Using a virtual format, business department faculty workshopped teaching assignments with several faculty members from the U of M Duluth’s Labovitz School of Business and Economics. Although faculty often solicit peer feedback on research papers, only recently has course design and assignments served as a focus for peer review.

Ten student-athletes earn NSIC Myles Brand All-Academic with Distinction award

The honor, named for the late NCAA President Myles Brand, is bestowed to Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) senior student-athletes who have a cumulative grade point average of 3.75 or higher. Each student will be recognized by the NSIC with a certificate of achievement and a wristwatch.

Duluth

The Blue Heron Wet Lab

From the Great Lakes to the Mariana Trench, microplastics can be found in every body of water on the planet. While the problem of plastic pollution is certainly not new, our knowledge about how these tiny plastics affect the environment is growing—thanks in part to pioneering research happening at U of M Duluth aboard the Blue Heron research vessel. Chemistry and biochemistry professor Elizabeth Minor and students set sail in July to look for microplastics in the depths of Lake Superior.

Feb. 5 - Sámi Day special guest artist Tomas Colbengtson

The Kathryn A. Martin Library, in partnership with the Sámi Cultural Center of North America, will present a Sámi Day celebration featuring guest presenter and Sámi artist Tomas Colbengtson. In his art, Colbengtson asks how colonial heritage has changed the lives and landscapes of the Sámi and other Indigenous peoples. 2 p.m., Kathryn A. Martin Library.

Morris

U of M Morris supports youth environmental education in Minnesota

When the director of the state’s largest environmental education competition, the Minnesota Envirothon, needed help crafting an issue scenario for the 2024 event, she turned to the sustainable energy and adaptation experts at U of M Morris.

Announcing the Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Liberal Arts

Artist, poet, accordionist, and filmmaker Mara Adamitz Scrupe is the Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Liberal Arts for the spring semester. Scrupe serves as dean and professor emerita, University of the Arts (Philadelphia). Scrupe will read from her new book Reap: a flora on Feb. 6, 7 p.m., Briggs Library.

Seeking faculty, staff, and student award nominations

Members of the campus community are invited to nominate students, staff, and faculty colleagues for a variety of campus awards by Feb. 9. See the complete list of awards and criteria for nominations.

Rochester

U of M Rochester receives Campus Prevention Network Seal of Prevention

U of M Rochester was recently awarded the Campus Prevention Network (CPN) Seal of Prevention, recognizing commitment to creating a safe, healthy, and inclusive campus for all. The CPN seal represents the highest standard for online prevention education, with a rigorous set of criteria to ensure awardees are making a measurable impact across the critical areas of sexual assault, alcohol and drug misuse, mental health, and diversity and inclusion.

The Kettle - BSHP alumni profile: Maria Cisneros Pito

Maria Cisneros Pito, a 2021 Bachelor of Science in Health Professions (BSHP) graduate, shares her passion for radiography and serving her patients in their most vulnerable and frightening times in the latest edition of UMR’s alumni magazine, The Kettle. Read more about how UMR helped her discover a career path in radiography and how the in-depth curriculum of UMR anatomy and physiology classes gave her a strong foundation for her career.

Twin Cities

Finding light in the darkness

As a psychology major at the U of M in the ’80s, Dan Reidenberg ’89 remembers watching a lifelong friend walk off toward Northrop one afternoon as Reidenberg walked toward Coffman Union. “Something’s not right,” the sophomore thought. Days later, the friend took his own life. Today Reidenberg, CEO and executive director of the Bloomington-based nonprofit Suicide Awareness Voices of Education (save.org), believes talking about suicide can encourage individuals to seek help.

The truth is out there

Jacob Haqq Misra standing in a field of bushes

The trouble with unidentified flying objects is that, even after all these years, the darned things remain unidentified. Are they from outer space? China? The center of the Earth? For those who are frustrated by this lack of knowledge, Jacob Haqq-Misra ’05, a director and senior research investigator at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, has a message: Those are the wrong questions. Instead of asking what those unidentified objects in the sky are, we should first be asking how we might go about studying them.