RRVRC NewsWire

Aviation - "Flight Data Monitoring-General Aviation Safety Information" - $230,215

John Jay Miller has been named to the newly designated position of Special Assistant to the Vice President for Finance and Operations and Export Control Officer at the University of North Dakota. The announcement was made by Vice President for Research and Economic Development Phyllis E. Johnson and Vice President for Finance and Operations Alice Brekke. Mr. Miller assumed his new position at UND on A0pril 23rd, 2012.   Since May of 2011, he served in a temporary appointment at UND in Finance and Operations focusing on special projects.

Mr. Miller will work with faculty, staff and administration on export control compliance for UND and assist the Vice Presidents in other areas of University operations.  His office is located in the Office of Research Development and Compliance at Twamley Hall, room 105.  

Mr. Miller came to UND having spent 18 years serving as a municipal attorney with the cities of Lawrence and Olathe, Kansas. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Juris Doctor from the University of Kansas.   

--Phyllis E. Johnson, Vice President for Research and Economic Development

--Alice Brekke, Vice President for Finance and Operations

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) presented the new analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta using data from the agency's Dawn spacecraft. The May 10 news conference panel comprised scientists involved in the Dawn project, including UND Space Studies faculty member Vishnu Reddy, well-known for his research on asteroids and his discovery of an asteroid later named “North Dakota.” Reddy is a Dawn framing camera team member, currently working at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

Dawn has now provided a full picture of the body, showing that Vesta is the only known intact, layered planetary building block with an iron core surviving from the earliest days of the solar system. It therefore more closely resembles a small planet or the moon than other asteroids. The first published results from Dawn appear in six papers released by the journal Science today.

“Dawn’s visit to Vesta has confirmed our broad theories of this giant asteroid’s history, while also helping to fill in details it would have been impossible to know from afar,” said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator based at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “Dawn’s residence at Vesta of nearly a year has made Vesta’s planet-like qualities obvious and shown us our connection to that bright orb in our night sky.”

“We know a lot about the moon, but we’re only now coming up to speed on Vesta," said Reddy. “Comparing the two gives us two story lines for how these fraternal twins evolved in the early solar system.”

UND planetary geologist and Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Space Studies Mike Gaffey also is a member of the Dawn team.

Vesta’s geologic complexity is related to a process, known as “differentiation,” that segregated Vesta into a crust, mantle and core about 4.56 billion years ago, very close to the birth of the solar system itself. This history makes Vesta similar to terrestrial planets and our moon, which also are segregated into crust, mantle and core. In fact, Dawn has been able to confirm that Vesta has an iron core with a radius of about 110 kilometers, which proves that Vesta differentiated.

Launched in 2007, Dawn began its exploration of the approximately 330-mile-wide (530-kilometers) asteroid Vesta in mid-2011. The spacecraft's next assignment will be to study the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015.

Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

For more information about Dawn, visit www.nasa.gov/dawn.

-- Juan Miguel Pedraza, writer/editor, University Relations, 777-6571, juan.pedraza@und.edu.

North Dakota Lieutenant Governor Drew Wrigley toured the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), along with EERC Director Gerald Groenewold, EERC Associate Director for Business & Operations Tom Erickson, and EERC Associate Director for Marketing, Outreach, and Administrative Resources, Deb Haley....

A guest faculty lecture featuring Larisa Mikhaylova, Ph.D., of Lomonosov Moscow State University, is sponsored by the department of Space Studies as follows:

Topic: "Models of Space Future in Science Fiction of 2000-2012”

Date: Monday, May 21st

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Location: Ryan Hall, Room 111

About the Topic: Is international cooperation essential for the humankind movement into the Universe? What may be the goals of space exploration as seen by contemporary science fiction writers today, in the beginning of the 21st century? These questions will be approached from the perspective of comparative culture research on the basis of Russian and American new trends in literature and film.

About the Speaker: Larisa Mikhaylova (b. 1954) – Editor, literary critic and translator. Ph.D. (Moscow State University, 1982). Teaches World Literature of the 20th Century, History and Translation of Science Fiction and SF TV Series at MSU. Russian Society of American Culture Studies Academic Secretary. SF magazine Supernova. F&SF Chief Editor (www.snovasf.com). SFRA and SFWA member. Interests: drama, science fiction and gender aspects of culture. Translated into Russian fiction by many SF authors, among them Ursula Le Guin and Pat Cadigan.

~ Bev Fetter, Spaced Studies

Information Systems & Business Education - “A Logical Framework for Service Migration Based Survivability” - $372,596

College of Education and Human Development -“Elementary Education Resident Teacher Program” - $83,216

College of Education and Human Development - “Middle Level Resident Teacher Program” - $54,978

School of Law - Tribal Judicial Institute - “A Multi-Site Study of Tribal Youth Gang Activity” - $142,844

North Dakota Lieutenant Governor Drew Wrigley toured the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), along with EERC Director Gerald Groenewold, EERC Associate Director for Business & Operations Tom Erickson, and EERC Associate Director for Marketing, Outreach, and Administrative Resources, Deb Haley...

Timothy J. Cunningham, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at Drexel University College of Medicine, will present a seminar titled "Monitoring and inhibition of secreted phospholipase A2 as therapy for Multiple Sclerosis and other neurodegenerative disorders" on Friday, May 25 at 2:00pm in Rm. 3933 in the School of Medicine.

This seminar is sponsored by the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence Pathophysiological Signaling in Neurodegenerative Disorders and the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Therapeutics.  All are welcome to attend.

~ Deb Kroese, Pharmacology, Physiology & Therapeutics

Students in the animal sciences course, Lactation Biology Lab at NDSU, recently published two articles related to maternal methyl nutrition and health of offspring. Chung Park, professor of animal sciences, directs the students....

Several faculty members and students from NDSU's College of Human Development and Education received awards, published research-related articles or gave presentations at conferences. Several students also received awards....

Amy O'Connor, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of Communication at NDSU, and Laura Beauchamp, a former communication graduate student, will have their article, "America's Most Admired Companies: A Descriptive Analysis of CEO Corporate Social Responsibility Statements," published...

The College of Science and Mathematics at NDSU announced the recipients of prestigious annual awards....

Theresa Semmens, NDSU chief information technology security officer, presents at two national conferences this spring on topics related to IT security practices in higher education....

David Silkenat, assistant professor of historyand education at NDSU, received the North Caroliniana Society's annual book prize for his "Moments of Despair: Suicide, Divorce, and Debt in Civil War Era North Carolina."...

John K. Cox, professor and head of the history, philosophy and religious studies department, recently published a chapter, titled "A Socio-Cultural Profile of Croatia," in the book, "Balkans: Foreign Affairs, Politics and Socio-Cultures."...

William C. Marcil, chairman of Forum Communications Co., told an overflowing crowd at the Grand Forks Region EDC annual meeting May 10 he is committing $100,000 to spur the development of a economic strategic plan for the Red River Valley. … Continue reading →