The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Sen. Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz.), who had served 30 years in the U.S. Senate. The program was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering.

This year the program awarded 271 scholarships for the 2013-14 academic year to undergraduate sophomores and juniors from the United States.

Dr. Kyle Zimmer, associate professor of biology who is St. Thomas’ Goldwater program chair, said, “The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program is a national competition that is extremely competitive, so it’s a real honor for these three students to be awarded scholarships and honorable mention.”

Augustin, an Eagan, Minn., native, is analyzing the promoter regions of the Rap1 genes, related to the Ras oncogene. He also has begun studying the cell-type specific expression of the Rap1 genes in various human cell types, comparing the expression regulation of these genes in both “normal” and cancerous cells. After he graduates, he plans to research in the field of cancer biology through either an M.D. or an M.D./Ph.D. program.

Annoni, an electrical engineering and physics major from White Bear Lake, Minn., said, “I am interested in automating medical diagnostics, especially pertaining to image acquisition and processing.” After graduation she plans to attend graduate school for biomedical engineering. “From there, I hope to be part of a research and development team in the medical industry,” she said.

Painter, a biology major from Rochester, Minn., has worked at the Mayo Clinic investigating the role of PD-1, a protein expressed on the surface of cells involved in T-cell interactions of the immune system, in ovarian cancer; currently, he works at St. Thomas to characterize the core promoter for the Rap1B gene and describe the regulation of Rap1B gene expression. His plans include research on “cancer immunology at the cellular level − looking at how cancers evade the immune system and how the immune system can be primed to respond specifically to growing tumors, pursuing a Ph.D. in immunology/cell biology and perform research in this field for a short time after receiving my doctorate,” and continuing his research while teaching as a university professor, he said.

The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,107 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. A total of 176 of the scholars are men, 95 are women, and virtually all intend to obtain a Ph.D. as their degree objective. Twenty-seven scholars are mathematics majors, 159 are science and related majors, 71 are majoring in engineering, and 14 are computer science majors. Many of the scholars have dual majors in a variety of mathematics, science, engineering, and computer disciplines.

The one- and two-year scholarships will cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board, up to a maximum of $7,500 per year.

Recent Goldwater scholars have been awarded 80 Rhodes Scholarships, 118 Marshall Awards, 110 Churchill Scholarships and numerous other distinguished fellowships. Since 1998, 21 St. Thomas students (including Augustin) have received Goldwater Scholarships.

Since 1989, the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation has awarded 6,550 scholarships worth approximately $40 million.

For more information about the Goldwater Scholarships, contact Zimmer (651) 962-5244.

What’s the next big technical innovation in the medical field? And where will it come from? Answers to these questions may be years away … or as close as Rochester, Minn.

Annually the Mayo Clinic in Rochester hosts each of Minnesota’s private colleges for its Mayo Innovation Scholars Program, in which each university sends a team – consisting of two science and two business undergraduates along with an MBA program student leader – to present recommendations concerning a medical innovation that they have been working on in collaboration with a Mayo Clinic physician or executive.

The University of St. Thomas team made its presentation March 7, represented by Ryan Augustin, Biochemistry; Andrea Paetznick, Marketing; Henry Pitera, Marketing; Cammey Young, Biology; and Laura Randgaard, graduate student, St. Catherine University. Randgaard, an administrative nurse, is in the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program at St. Catherine University.

Due to potential patent and copyright issues, details surrounding the team’s research cannot be revealed; however, as Augustin notes, “At Mayo, teams presented research regarding a wide range of innovative products – addressing important issues dealing with an aging population, surgery, global health and much more.”

Colleges were paired with physicians or executives who came up with various potential innovations. The St. Thomas team began working on its innovation in October 2012, meeting twice a month early on and then twice a week during spring semester 2013.

Although the formal program is completed, “We will stay in contact with our physician at Mayo to see where he takes our recommendations and if he could use our help in whatever direction he decides to proceed,” Augustin said.

According to the Mayo Clinic website: “MISP offers an opportunity for selected graduate students and undergraduate science and business students to research projects submitted by Mayo Clinic professionals through several Mayo Clinic departments, including Mayo Clinic Ventures, the College of Medicine, the Center for Innovation and Global Business Solutions. Now in its seventh year, MISP continues to be an innovative model for student experiential learning.”

The event, which will be held in the state Capitol’s rotunda, celebrates the research of Minnesota’s private college students. Thirty-seven students from 15 private colleges and universities will display and present 28 posters describing their research in various disciplines.

Sam Jensen and Julie Rech, both seniors, will represent St. Thomas at Scholars at the Capitol. Faculty advisers also are invited to participate.

The Minnesota Private College Council is the primary sponsor of the event. Each college selects and sends its own students to the event. Students will present to visitors in the rotunda from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Research Summaries

Assessing Estrogenic and Androgenic Activity of UV Filter Photoproducts

By Sam Jensen
Faculty advisers: Dr. Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt, Biology; Dr. Kristine Wammer, Chemistry

Previous research suggests that some UV filters commonly used as active ingredients in sunscreens may exhibit estrogenic or androgenic activity and produce photoproducts that are also potential endocrine disruptors. Here, UV filters were exposed to simulated sunlight to generate photoproduct mixtures and characterized by HPLC and LC-MS. Mixtures were screened for endocrine activity using two transcriptional assays. The endocrine activities of the samples were interpolated by a least-squares means procedure from a nonlinear sigmoidal dose response curve fit to the relative luminescence units of the estradiol/testosterone standards. Octyl methoxycinnamate (octinoxate) and a mixture of its photoproducts exhibited androgenic activity in vitro; one active photoproduct (4-methoxybenzaldehyde) has been identified. Octyl dimethyl para-aminobenzoic acid (padimate O) had no androgenic activity in vitro, whereas a mixture of its photoproducts was found to have activity. Utilizing flash chromatography, present work is focused on isolating and identifying the active photoproduct(s).

Great River Greening: Managing Environmental Data and Evaluating Restored Landscapes

By Julie Rech
Faculty adviser: Dr. Paul Lorah, Geography

As the significance of Earth’s natural landscapes gains increasing acknowledgment, many people are beginning to actively work toward making remedial environmental changes. With these efforts comes the question of how to measure a conservation project’s success. Great River Greening is a nonprofit organization promoting and leading volunteer and community-based restorative projects in Minnesota. It has been asking this question and is interested in understanding its projects’ successes. In partnership with this organization, field research was undertaken by studying its existing sites; further work was done in its office and at the University of St. Thomas GIS Lab, where the organization’s data was managed. Evaluations were collected, datasets were formatted and geodatabases were built. This project also had a marketing aspect, which yielded informational maps and graphics for the organization’s use. Ultimately, this project’s value will lie in its potential future use for evaluations of project sites and maps and for marketing.

Abstracts of all 28 of the research presentations can be viewed in the Scholars at the Capitol abstract booklet.

The Minnesota Private College Council (MPCC) represents 17 liberal arts colleges and universities with 60,000 students. These institutions award about 30 percent of the baccalaureate degrees in the state. The organization’s mission is to advocate for high-quality private higher education.

Editor’s note: The research of Sam Jensen and Julie Rech was conducted with assistance from the Grants and Research Office’s Young Scholars Grant Program, Community Based Research Grant Program and Student Travel Grant Program.

As senior biology majors, Schmura and Houserman are lead student researchers for “Team Turtle” in collaboration with Biology Department chair Tim Lewis, a wildlife ecologist whose research involves monitoring the turtle population at Lake Judy. Lewis believes field research is a necessary element to becoming a scientist, and he has been taking St. Thomas students into the field since 2009, when he came to the university.

“Learning science is a lot like learning a musical instrument,” Lewis said. “Somebody can talk to you about playing the French horn forever and you won’t learn how to play. You have to pick one up; you have to have somebody take you and mentor you through the process. It’s the same way in science. You need to go do it.”

Students such as Schmura and Houserman are treated like professionals in field-based research collaborations because their work is done at a professional, and often, publishable level.

“You get to experience the life of actual biologists and ecologists,” Schmura said. Houserman quickly agreed, adding, “There’s something about being out there with the organism you’re studying. In a lab you’re with your organism and you’re studying it, but you can’t see it interact the way it normally does. In field-based research, you’re playing in their ball field.”

In the College of Arts and Sciences, faculty and student collaborative research projects such as this occur in many departments. Much of the drive to foster undergraduate research comes from a faculty commitment to the St. Thomas mission statement, which calls for educating students to become “morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.” As well, a commitment to student-faculty collaborative research is one of the priorities listed in the vision statement of the College of Arts and Sciences. In focusing on these commitments, some St. Thomas science professors are placing an emphasis on research that surrounds one of Minnesota’s most precious resources: water.

Studying the Results of an Oil Pipeline Burst

One of the reasons geology professor Jennifer McGuire came to St. Thomas in 2008 was the interdisciplinary nature of the environmental science program. McGuire’s research focuses on examining what happens to chemicals when they are released into the natural environment, such as in an oil spill. With her student researchers, McGuire asks questions to determine where the chemicals will flow and how fast those chemicals might get into the drinking-water supply.

“For me, it’s really easy to get excited about the importance of clean drinking water,” McGuire said. “It’s fundamental to life. I’m obviously passionate about that, and it’s pretty easy to get students thinking that [working toward] access to clean and safe drinking water is an important contribution to society.”

McGuire believes it is her duty to foster a strong student connection to the environment. “Part of it is getting over this idea that what’s good for the environment is somehow a sacrifice you have to make,” she said. “I think we have to move away from this model that the environment is something that is external, outside of us. The environment is our parking lots. The environment is our backyards. It’s where we eat, and we are part of it.”

When McGuire takes her students just west of Bemidji, Minn., to the site of a 1979 oil pipeline burst, the students have the opportunity to work with her and with  professionals from all over the world.

“The students are thrilled to have this kind of opportunity,” McGuire said about the two-week, on-site stay. Here, students work with her to understand the types of chemical reactions that can happen when two separate water sources come together in an area affected with a crude oil spill. Students are able to look at points where an aquifer discharges and flows into a wetland. They test the changed chemistry of the water and help determine if there are any threats to local drinking water sources. When they are not working directly with McGuire, students are able to meet other professionals. The students’ help in the field is often in high demand, McGuire said. “It makes connections, gives them models for UST portfolios. It’s everything – connections and figuring out where your own interests lie.”

Analyzing Antibiotics in the Minnesota River

When professor Kris Wammer came to the St. Thomas Chemistry Department in 2005 she was excited to see the students’ enthusiasm in and out of the classroom. “All the work I do is involved with undergrads. That’s what I wanted to do – go to a school where I could do good, real research with undergraduate students,” Wammer said.

One of her current projects takes students off campus to Minnesota’s streams and ditches to analyze and understand what antibiotics are present in the water, and where they come from. A typical day in the field for Wammer’s students involves everything from going inside water treatment plants to leaning over the edge of a boat landing or standing in a freezing cold stream to collect water samples. Over the past few summers, Wammer and her students have found clear sources of both antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes affecting the Minnesota River. Because of these findings, next summer Wammer and her students will start examining drinking-water sources in the Mississippi River to determine whether there is a potential human health threat from similar antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant genes.

Wammer describes working with undergraduate researchers as not just “a professor-student thing.” Of her experience working with chemistry majors and environmental science majors, Wammer said, “When we’re out slopping in the mud, you get to really know each other.”

Determining the Effect of Contaminants on Turtles and Fish

Biology professor Kyle Zimmer came to St. Thomas in 2003 because he wanted to conduct research with undergraduate students. He said he had experienced working with undergraduates while getting his doctorate and he saw St. Thomas as a place that didn’t just say, “We value undergraduate research,” but actually supported it.

Zimmer’s research focuses on aquatic ecology. He and his students seek to understand how ecosystems work in shallow lakes and wetlands, and what humans are doing to influence “the smaller and shallow” water sources, such as ponds and swamps, all over Minnesota. Zimmer and his students are collaborating with other St. Thomas professors and their students: with Lewis and his team of turtle ecologists, with biology professor Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt and her fish physiology team, and with neuroscience professor Kurt Illig and his student team, which examines the health of the ecosystems in Minnesota waterways. The research explores how contaminants of watersheds might influence the biology and physiology of turtles and fish. When the water drains into Minnesota lakes and streams, contaminants in the water have the potential to make hostile impacts on the ecosystem, such as exposing fish and turtle populations to higher levels of environmental estrogens, which could result in reproductive changes. The end goal of this research collaboration is to develop strategies for reducing the effects of contaminants.

Zimmer believes that this research exemplifies the St. Thomas mission to educate students to work for the common good. “I personally feel that [when we] identify problems in the environment [and] try to come up with ways to manage and alleviate that, we make advances for the common good,” Zimmer said.

Connecting With the Community

Undergraduate research allows St. Thomas science programs to be more than an “ivory tower of learning,” Zimmer said. Each summer his students drive to outstate Minnesota in search of what most people would call a slough, and drag canoes out of the cattails and into the water. For the next eight hours they combat heat and everpresent mosquitoes, collecting samples and on occasion, answering questions from local farmers.

“A lot of times (students) will be standing by the side of the road, getting ready to push the boat out onto the lake and the farmer across the street will stop,” Zimmer said. “They get a chance to explain what they’re doing.”

“It’s really interesting running into the farmers around our lakes and having them ask us why we’re out there,” said Rachel Rockwell ’12, who has worked with Zimmer. Senior Christine Buelt agreed, saying that collecting water samples connects her to the research and the community affected by her findings. “We all take a personal interest [in the research] because we’ve been to these places,” Buelt said.

Buelt is interested in studying the intersection of ecology and environmental science as it is concerned with public health, and she hopes to go to graduate school. Rockwell plans to apply to pharmacy school. Both agree that they fell in love with research because of their fieldwork and community interactions. Of her project on the effect of bugs on the decomposition of plants in shallow lakes, Rockwell, said, “It was a really stinky job, but fun.”

Because their field research is current and practical, the students’ and professors’ main goal is to publish their research and get the information out to the public.

Research led by biology professor Dalma Martinovic-Weigelt takes her students to waste-water treatment plants in Minnesota. This research is part of a project sparked by a call from the Minnesota legislature to determine the effectiveness of waste-water treatment plants.

“Probably the most beautiful part about something like this is that your data is actually published and is part of a government report,” Martinovic-Weigelt said. “Those types of activities really grow that liberal arts student we hope to grow.”

Student researchers also grow when they are able to present their research at national and international conferences. Eight of Zimmer’s students attended the 2012 annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland, Ore. Two of his other students attended the 2012 annual meeting of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography in Lake Biwa, Japan.

Gaining More Than a Bullet Point on a Résumé

Undergraduate students are driven to field-based research projects for many reasons. Summer or year-round undergraduate research may appeal to many students applying to graduate or medical school. That extra bullet point on a résumé or project in the portfolio can do a lot for students, sometimes even landing them a spot in a graduate program. But talk to any of the St. Thomas students or faculty involved, and it becomes apparent that a student needs more than a desire to fill a résumé to become an undergraduate researcher.

Grant Schmura said his spot on “Team Turtle” was achieved by “annoying” his professor, Tim Lewis, on a regular basis. “There are so many other students who will do the same thing as you,” Schmura said. “You have to single yourself out. Always ask questions; that’s a big thing.”

Lewis looks for three things in student researchers: how smart they are, and how hard working and reliable they are. “Frankly the world is run by the hard-working people, and if they’re hard working and smart, it’s a killer combination,” Lewis said. “Brilliance never hurts, but brilliance alone is worthless.”

Lewis believes that research will benefit all students, regardless of what they plan to do after graduation. He lists problem solving as the most important skill a student gains in doing research because it is the first thing “everybody in the world” is looking for in an employee.

Schmura agrees. “If you don’t know what the answer is going to be, you have to figure it out yourself,” he said. “You leave school [and go] into the real world where there are no clear-cut answers.”

McGuire believes students transform into scientists when they begin to ask questions on their own. “[Then] everything is really curiosity driven,” she said. She also notes how lucky she is as a researcher to have a constant connection to the energy of the next generation of scientists.

Challenging the Next Generation

In the College of Arts and Sciences, there is no shortage of professor or student enthusiasm for going out and doing field-based research. Zimmer believes that by methodically “plowing through” the course material required to fully grasp the field-based research, students become independent thinkers and are transformed into young scientists.

“I tell students the goal for all faculty is not to produce people that are as good of scientists as we are. Because if we do that, then society is just status quo,” Zimmer said. “Our goal is to have them leave St. Thomas far better prepared, far more knowledgeable, far better citizens than [we] were at that age – to keep moving forward.”

Back out on Lake Judy, Lewis’ student Schmura and a few undergraduates moved forward in their research as they returned from checking the turtle basking traps. The researchers shed their life jackets, stowed their canoes and began examining the day’s turtle haul. After weighing, measuring and determining the sex of each turtle, Schmura attached a pit tag (used for tracking) to the turtle’s shell before returning it to the water.

Now it’s the turtle’s job to swim and the students’ job to dive back into their research.

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

I have spent much of the last 12 years teaching various topics in statistics, research methods and measurement to undergraduate and graduate students at St. Thomas and elsewhere. My students typically have been hard working and eager to learn. They came to class and took notes. They learned the steps of important processes. Their nodding heads indicated that they understood the material as it was being presented to them. And yet, these bright and capable students often had difficulty applying course material in novel or ambiguous but true-to-life contexts. Despite the clarity of my explanations or the number of times I demonstrated how to apply concepts and processes, students often didn’t know what to do with what they knew.

I came to understand that remembering and understanding are necessary, but not sufficient, for the kind of “knowing” that allows one to think critically and solve complex problems. This realization seemed particularly problematic, as it is precisely this type of“knowing” our students need now, in our increasingly technical and competitive world.

While this need for knowing exists in all disciplines, it may be especially urgent for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In 1996, the Advisory Committee to the National Science Foundation, responding to a call to improveundergraduate STEM education, published “Shaping the Future: New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology.” One of its recommendations called for faculty teaching undergraduate STEM courses to “build inquiry, a sense of wonder and the excitement of discovery, plus communication and teamwork, critical thinking, and lifelong learning skills into learning experiences.”

At St. Thomas, STEM faculty members have taken to heart the call to actively engage students through critical thinking and collaborative problem solving.

In spring 2010, Kris Wammer, associate professor of chemistry, organized a two-day workshop on the use of Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) in entry-level STEM courses. PLTL involves groups of six to 12 students who take the same course (e.g., Chemistry111) and work with trained peer-facilitators to address problems that facilitate conceptual understanding of course material and the development of problem-solving skills. The workshop was well attended by biology, chemistry, mathematics, computer and information sciences, geology, physics and engineering faculty. At its conclusion, faculty decided to initiate a PLTL program for students taking introductory STEM coursesat St. Thomas.

After an intense summer of planning, the PLTL program was ready to launch: A program structure consisting of a coordinator, four departmental liaisons and 16 to 20student peer-facilitators was agreed upon; shortterm funding to support a program coordinator and pay peer-facilitators for the 2010-2011 academic year was secured from the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Biology Department; discipline-specific peer-facilitators were recruited and trained; concept-focused, problem-based activities were developed by departmental liaisons for use by peer-facilitators in small-group sessions; formal PLTL program evaluation procedures were devised; and a name for the PLTL program was created: the STEM Learning Community (LC) Program.

In fall 2010, STEM LCs emphasizing collaboration, active learning, problem solving and critical thinking were introduced. Each semester since then, STEM LCs have been offered to about 300 chemistry students, 200 biology students, 130 calculus students and 90 statistics students, most of whom are first-year college students at St. Thomas. Between 180 and 240 students participate in the STEM LCs each semester.

Research on the use of collaborative learning strategies in undergraduate STEM education suggests that they are a highly effective strategy for promoting the kind of “knowing” that is expected of STEM professionals. Evaluation of the STEM LC programat St. Thomas indicates that benefits for participants and peer-facilitators are many: learning effective study skills; acquiring depth of understanding; gaining skills in collaboration; and developing confidence in problem-solving abilities. As one STEM LCparticipant noted, “I learned different ways of approaching a problem, and if I didn’t understand something, the group was able to help.” Another participant stated, “I study more efficiently and more often” as a result of this experience.

Mithra Marcus, clinical professor of chemistry, is excited by the impact of the STEM LC program on her students. She noted, “This program has helped my students think critically about course material rather than just focus on memorizing facts.” Such an emphasis has translated into improved learning outcomes for participants. Significantly higher exam scores have been achieved by LC participants in all of the courses in which LCs are offered. In the case of chemistry, STEM LC participants scored more than five points higher, on average, than their peers on a standardized, nationally normed chemistry examination.

Through my own involvement with the STEM LC program, I am reminded that my job is not to simply tell students what is important to know. If I truly want my students to beactive learners, critical thinkers and effective problem solvers, I must find ways for them to connect with one another and with the material in deep and meaningful ways. The STEM LC program appears to offer an effective strategy for doing just that.

Read more from CAS Spotlight

Andy Moy ’11 and his lab partner checked the growth of their experimental plants three times a week, making the greenhouse a regular part of their semester. Moy was testing the effects of simulated herbivory on growth rates and flower production on 16 otherwise identical plants. He removed half of each leaf of his experimental group, trimming each leaf a couple of times a week to simulate the feeding effects of animals such as white-tailed deer. And theirs was just one of the more than 100 student projects in the greenhouse when Moy took the introductory biology course. When asked about the value of that early hands-on experiment, he said it was a popular lab with students, and it taught him about how scientists do their research and write scholarly reports. Now Moy works collaboratively with Amy Verhoeven in her research lab, studying light-harvesting proteins in leaves. Moy is a good example of the link between experimental work in a class and research with a faculty mentor – the interplay of research scholarship and classes.

All students majoring in biology use our greenhouses – one on the south campus and the renovated one on north campus – for their research projects measuring plant growth under different testable conditions. Students in our non-majors conservation biology class also learn the basics of plant biology in our greenhouses. When you walk in our greenhouses, you see row after row of short, white, square boxes, each with a plant growing inside and the experimental conditions and the student researchers’ names scribbled on the outside. It looks like graffiti, but each tells the story of a project.

Preparing the next generation of critically thinking, morally responsible leaders in the sciences requires lab spaces of many kinds. The renovated greenhouse at the John R. Roach Center for the Liberal Arts (JRC) gives St. Thomas one more tool for teaching future scientists and helping to create a scientifically literate population.

A little over a decade ago St. Thomas opened the state-of-the art Owens Science Center, creating a place for programs, such as biology, to conduct nationally recognized research with undergraduates, to teach creative and investigative courses and to provide a space that enhances interactions with other programs. That was the plan, and it succeeded. Over the last decade, enrollments in the sciences and engineering have quadrupled, and declared science majors have doubled. Several new collaborative programs sprung up,including neuroscience, biochemistry and environmental science. In addition, the biology program collaborates with the health and human performance and teacher education programs; their students often use the greenhouses. A decade ago the biology introductory course for science majors had 157 students. Last fall, the course had 372 students. Biology outgrew its space years ago and it continues to seek creative ways to offer a program that is second to none and accommodates growth, which is where the renovated greenhouse comes in. The improved facility helps meet the needs of the introductory courses while supporting faculty-student collaborations.        

Student-Faculty ResearchStudents like Moy are doing research with faculty that is being funded by the top granting places in the country and published in top journals. Two St. Thomas biologists, Verhoeven and Simon Emms, received a substantial five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to examine the evolution of reproduction in the genus Clarkia, a western flowering annual plant. They and their team of St. Thomas students have used one of the three rooms of our Owens greenhouse for planting and pollinating thousands of plants, which is an exciting example of the kind of collaboration that has brought in more than $1 million dollars in outside grants over the last couple of years. Parts of this greenhouse research have been published in science journals, the effects of the labs in the introductory classes are part of pedagogical publications, and the impacts on student lives can be profound.

Albert Kertho is a senior biology major who will graduate in December. A native Ugandan, he grew up on a farm raising corn, cassavas, chickens and ducks. There, he became interested in improving agriculture to help reduce starvation. At St. Thomas he took a Plant Biology course two years ago from Verhoeven, and loved the subject. With her, he has used the greenhouse to research photosynthesis, studying proteins in the leaves of conifers (gymnosperms) and comparing them to flowering plants (angiosperms), such as pumpkins. Kertho said that a typical day of research involved harvesting and grinding leaves, extracting proteins, making gels, running gels and interpreting gels. He repeated that at least 50 times over the summer. Mentored research has taught him important biological techniques and shown him how to interact with other scientists professionally and through the journals. And it has opened his eyes to many opportunities, giving him the tools he will need when he returns to Uganda and helps improve its food situation.

Outgrowing One GreenhouseTeaching students in class is one of our core missions, but so is mentoring them in viable, current research. The Owens greenhouse facility was more than maxed out; what could we do? In retrospect, the answer seems self-evident.

Greenhouse manager Steve Trost suggested a return to the JRC greenhouse on Summit Avenue, which was abandoned when the Biology Department left JRC for Owens Science Center over a decade ago. At first, it was hard to see how that could work. When biology representatives first viewed the site, it was full of construction materials for the new athletic facility. There were holes in the plaster walls, a few light bulbs dangling from the ceiling and only memories of how it once was used. However, in Trost’s eyes there was also a clear vision of what the space could become and how it could help our introductory courses.

It would be impossible to list everyone who helped plan and develop the greenhouse, or to estimate the number of meetings, but even a short review gives a sense of the complexity of the work. Jerry Anderley and Jim Hoffman from St. Thomas’ Physical Plant managed the work. Kurt Dale of Anderson Dale Architects Inc. created the design, and Craig Larson of Opus Construction provided the project management to turn paper plans into bricks and mortar, or in this case, glass and steel. From all of that work grew one of the finest greenhouses in the Twin Cities.

Restored to its classic five-sided shape with new thermal glass, the greenhouse is more energy efficient than before its renovation. As you approach it from the outside, it looks relatively the same. The new windows, which are more transparent than previously, reveal a variety of luscious plants and flowers. Inside, however, everything is different. A greenhouse used for research is not just glass on a frame over some dirt with a handy hose. A modern greenhouse lab has to maintain preset temperatures and light for photosynthesis. It also must keep relative humidity to very demanding preset levels while recording the data for verification and be able to deliver precise amounts of water to plants through a trickle-feed system. Brick pavers allow for drainage and functionality. Small, wall-mounted computers control the environment. Automatic louvers release summer heat and floor vents chill the air. Overhead misters raise the relative humidity with a tropical-like fog. Large grow lights and other heaters supplement what passes for the sun during Minnesota winters.

Just getting to the inside of the greenhouse will take you through a completely renovated lab where plants can be prepared and managed. Vintage 1950’s lab benches were replaced with modern research lab tables. The space will support some upper level classes in botany as well as greenhouse functions, such as potting plants and treating disease.

My research lab occupies JRC’s lower level. While far from the rest of the Biology Department over in Owens Science Center, my lab does have easy access to the greenhouse and is adjacent to a loading area for field equipment. My students and I have been conducting research with painted turtles from a local lake. We are following their winter movements under the ice in a Twin-Cities metropolitan lake and in the spring will monitor the turtles’ nesting sites. The lab provides a great area for working on field equipment as well as for poring over data and preparing conference presentations.

A Community GardenTeaching and research are just two of the areas of the university’s mission. Service to others makes a third. Under the leadership of Adam Kay, Biology Department, and with the help and support of the campus Sustainability Committee and Biology Department faculty members Chester Wilson and Trost, St. Thomas opened a community garden last spring. The Stewardship Garden seeks to provide food for local food shelves where fresh garden produce is often hard to get. Last summer it provided more than 200 pounds of produce. Through that effort, several students will have opportunities to research the ecological principles of biodiversity as they apply to urban food plots. The renovated JRC greenhouse will support that effort by providing a place for seedlings and for some of the student research work.

This renovated greenhouse seems to have everything but a name. Campus development officers continue to seek people who want to partner with us in this challenging and gratifying form of education.

Neighbors walking along Summit Avenue and members of the St. Thomas community stop when they see me at the greenhouse to tell me how beautiful it is and how happy they are to see it restored to life with plants inside. Along with our Owens greenhouse, it helps us teach biology, conduct research on plants and provide food for the community. Not bad for a space smaller than most people’s homes.

Read more from CAS Spotlight

Why did you decide to attend St. Thomas? Bill Malevich [who later served as dean of students] was the admissions counselor who promoted St. Thomas at my high school college-fair. I was impressed with the way Bill took a real interest in me, how kind he was and how he seemed like he really cared. I thought, “If everyone else at St. Thomas is this nice, I need to go check this school out.”

My St. Thomas experience was one of inspiration and motivation to learn, study, develop and improve myself. The professors, both in the science fields and in the liberal arts and humanities, were extremely vital in this. My education at St. Thomas gave me the foundation to pursue a career in medicine that proved to be a fantastic mixture of science and human interaction.

St. Thomas was a major factor in grounding, focusing and developing me into the person I am today. It was at St. Thomas that I began to work hard for the sake of knowledge. It set the focus for my entire life.

Describe your journey to becoming a surgeon. In high school, I had worked at North Memorial Hospital as an orderly, and in my junior year of college, I was an ambulance attendant.

When I started at St. Thomas, I wondered whether I would study chemistry to become a chemist or a physician. That question was quickly answered. Dr. William Larson was the chair of the Chemistry Department and my faculty adviser. I was very impressed with him, as well as the entire Chemistry Department. I was heavily influenced by both Larson and Father Jerome Langford and the mix of arts and science classes I took. I knew that I wanted to give back and to help people. My professors opened my eyes and mind to the world and to the needs around me. They encouraged me to go into the medical field.

After St. Thomas, I attended medical school at the University of Minnesota and then had an internship at Baylor University Medical Center in Houston. My surgical residency training was done at Ramsey County Hospital (now known as Regions).

Now I’m a general and laparoscopic surgeon for Allina Health Systems in Forest Lake. My job is challenging, rewarding, interesting and worthwhile.

Why did you and your wife, Carol, endow a scholarship? A lack of students entering the medical profession means a lack of care in the future. I hope that the scholarship Carol and I have created will inspire students to persevere in their studies.

When my son Erik decided to attend St. Thomas, and I came back to campus, I saw that though the professors were different, the mission of the university was still the same as it was when I was in school 35 years earlier. We want the St. Thomas tradition to continue. The mission statement isn’t just printed; it’s practiced.

I have been very impressed with the student scholarship recipients. They are well rounded, intelligent students. I tell them, “If you do well at St. Thomas, you will do well at medical school.” I warn them not to go into medicine for money or prestige: “You go into medicine because somewhere in the depths of your being you know that this is what you are called to do. The rest will work itself out.”

You are helping to create a mentorship program for premed students at St. Thomas. Why? It is obvious that health care is going through times of change. With these changes, it may be more difficult to inspire young people to commit to the health care profession. My involvement in this mentorship program is intended to help professors in any way that I can to promote involvement in this field.

I want to augment the outstanding job that faculty are already doing. I am trying to recruit alumni from all health profession areas to provide student mentoring, lectureships, professional panels and roundtable discussions. I am hoping to draw a large scope of health professionals who are diverse in age, specialty and degree.

I am working with premed advisers Jill Manske (Biology Department) and Roxanne Prichard (Psychology Department); Marisa Kelly, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and student leaders to develop a formal program at St. Thomas.

You have been a member of the CAS Advisory Board since its inception three years ago. Why do you stay involved with your alma mater? I truly believe that the education I received at St. Thomas was more important than the education I received in medical school. St. Thomas strengthened my foundation and my core values. It made a real difference in my life.

I was honored to be asked to serve on the College of Arts and Sciences Advisory Board. It gave me the opportunity to interact and work closely with other outstanding board members to help set up various programs. It provided an opportunity to directly meet all the department heads in the College of Arts and Sciences, including fields such as art history, music, physics, neuroscience, geology and others.

This school has been here for 125 years; it makes me feel good to know that it will be here to help others long after I’m gone, still providing a quality education and living out its mission to “educate students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.” And how can you not support that?

If you are a health professional and are interested in joining the new prehealth professions mentor program, please contact Roxanne Prichard at jrprichard@stthomas.edu.

Read more from CAS Spotlight

Aaron Gassmann ’97 – corn pests entomologist

Each summer Midwesterners look forward to peeling back the green slender husks of fresh sweet corn to reveal an unblemished surface of yellow kernels. It isn’t by accident that the corn is so healthy. You might think that pesticides are the reason, and sometimes they are, but researchers like Aaron Gassmann are finding ways to preserve environmentally friendly crop varieties that rely on fewer pesticides.

Gassmann, an assistant professor in the Entomology Department at Iowa State University, researches transgenic crops, that is, plants that contain genes which have been artificially inserted. For example, transgenic corn contains genes originally found in bacteria, which makes the corn immune to some key insect pests.

“I study how we can prevent insect pests from becoming resistant to transgenic crops.These crops have revolutionized agriculture by reducing the amount of pesticides going into the earth, diminishing the exposure of farmers to harmful chemicals and decreasing the amount of work a farmer has to do,” Gassmann said.

Once a St. Thomas student who conducted research with Dr. Chester Wilson on the Northern Corn Root Worm, Gassmann now helps other university students develop their own master’s and Ph.D. research projects. “I like being presented with a problem and coming up with a road map on how it will be solved,” he said.

MaryAnn (Von Eschen) Fox ’88 – genetic counselor

It is devastating news when a couple finds out that their child will be born with a birth defect. That’s why MaryAnn Fox is there to help them.

“Dealing with a first diagnosis is always heartbreaking for the family,” said Fox, a genetic counselor since 1998 with United Hospital and Children’s Hospital and Clinics in St. Paul. “It’s still a loss for the family. It’s not what they were expecting.

“Families who find out a diagnosis before birth tend to be much better prepared after delivery than those who find out at birth,” Fox said. “The family has had the time to grieve for the baby they had been expecting and prepare for the baby they are expecting. Early diagnosis can lead to better care for the newborn.”

Through her guidance, Children’s Hospital started working with the Minnesota Department of Health to screen newborns for cystic fibrosis in 2006. The earlier that babies are diagnosed and treated, the better their prognosis.

Recently, Fox shared her expertise with St. Thomas freshmen. “As an undergrad, my fascination for genetics grew when I took Dr. Nancy Hartung’s genetics course,” she said. She visited Hartung’s seminar class on aging to talk about the predisposition of certain conditions, like heart disease.

Jim Jagodzinski ’53 – laboratory equipment salesman

As a St. Thomas undergraduate in the early ’50s, Jim Jagodzinski worked as a Biology Department lab assistant and in the “animal room” where rats, hamsters and frogs were kept. He was a biology major working under the guidance of professor John Giesen. Jagodzinski didn’t want to become a doctor, dentist or teacher, which were the main choices for biologists back then.

He found a career that he enjoyed, in sales, and spent the next 42 years selling laboratory equipment such as centrifuges, balances, spectrophotometers and microscopes to hospitals, industrial companies and universities. In 1969, he started his own company, North Central Instruments Inc., specializing in optics.

“I’ve met scientists and researchers from around the world,” he said. “The equipment and projects sometimes were complicated and required consultation.”

Helping his customers solve problems energized him. He helped 3M to make smoother magnetic film for television recordings, thus eliminating electronic interference.

When he retired, he sold the company to his 15 employees. “They’re doing great and they just got an order from St. Thomas not too long ago,” he smiled. “Every salesperson I hired and that the company still hires is a biologist. Biologists are bright people who are interested in science and that’s a requirement for consultative selling in technical fields.”

Maureen McDonnell ’93 – regulatory affairs specialist

Before college, Maureen McDonnell pictured herself treating the ailments of people’s pets as a veterinarian. But after doing research with Dr. Jennifer Cruise at St. Thomas to study rat liver cells and how they grow, her career aspirations shifted and she decided to go into research.

“The discovery process is exciting to me,” McDonnell said. “You don’t know what the answer will be when you start out in your research.”

Today McDonnell is a regulatory affairs specialist at Beckman Coulter, a biomedical-testing instruments manufacturer in Chaska, Minn.

“As people visit the doctor, they rely on their doctor’s diagnosis,” McDonnell explained. “That diagnosis is based on a panel of tests. Beckman Coulter sells instruments that do all kinds of tests.”

For example, its laboratory kits can test for different diseases, such as indicators of cancer or measurements of heart disease.

McDonnell works with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada, and the ministries of health in other countries to ensure that Beckman Coulter’s products are compliant with their regulations.

“As you work on any kit, you know that you or people you care about could be affected by this process when they go to the doctor. You want to make sure the product is going to work,” McDonnell said.

The wetlands that Minnesota is noted for are becoming fewer in number and lesser in quality, and the ducks that depend on the wetlands for habitat have declined along with them. More than 52 percent of the Minnesota’s original wetlands have been lost to development, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and one DNR Web site noted that 2005 was the “worst duck hunting season in recent memory.”

Friederichs found a way to do something about it, though, through a Collaborative Inquiry research project with biology assistant professor Dr. Kyle Zimmer. Friederichs’ project, part of a broader collaborative project with the DNR, is attempting to assess the quality of 70 wetlands in Grant and Pope counties in west-central Minnesota. The study is looking at why some shallow lakes remain turbid – green with algae – despite the presence of stocked predatory fish, which typically reduce algae via influences on the food chain. His research has uncovered some new data that has excited aquatic biologists.

Wetlands are not his only concern, however. In 2006 he took a field research class, taught by Zimmer and Dr. Anthony Steyermark, during January Term at sites in two national parks and a biological reserve in Costa Rica, to study leatherback turtles, an endangered species.

Both projects involved long hours in inhospitable environments and neither was easy, but they were solid preparation for the path Friederichs wants to follow.

“I plan to go into conservation biology in one form or another, and this was really good experience in that field, because that’s what this project (The Leatherback Trust) is trying to accomplish,” said Friederichs, who will graduate in May. “Playa Grande is the last large breeding beach in the Pacific. It’s the only one left. Humans have destroyed all the others.” He hopes to continue biology studies in graduate school.

Wetlands conservation
Friederichs’ wetlands research is part of a broader question asking what influences fish distribution in Minnesota’s shallow lakes. “Some wetlands have no fish, others have carp and bullheads, and others have a whole fleet of different fish species,” Zimmer said. “The reason we’re interested in doing this is some fish can have strong influences on the water quality of shallow lakes.”

While being exposed to the questions of the broader project through field and lab research, Friederichs took on an additional piece of that project by assessing the role of larval fish in maintaining turbid water – green water.

Friederichs’ project has turned up some unexpected results. “What Sam’s data is starting to show is that it’s not as simple as stocking a lot of predatory fish. That was a kind of working paradigm,” Zimmer said. “If you have a lot of minnows present, the old way of thinking is that if you just stock a ton of adult predatory fish you’d get clear water. Sam’s data shows that’s not always the case. That might happen once in awhile. When it doesn’t happen it’s likely being caused by levels of larval fish being way too high.”

“Aquatic biologists are really excited about it,” he added. “It really shows them a new way of thinking about how these lakes work.”

Results of the entire study are expected to be released later this year. “In the end, what they want to do is assess the effect of fish and agriculture on these wetlands, because Minnesota really has a problem with its wetlands right now, which in turn really affects the duck hunting,” Friederichs said.

Leatherback turtles
Friederichs returned to Costa Rica on his own as a volunteer in January 2007. The leatherback turtles are “amazing,” he said, weighing 600 to 900 pounds and measuring 5.5 to 6 feet in length.

Beach patrol – scouting at night for turtles laying eggs on the beach – is one of the many jobs that volunteers do for the Leatherback Trust (see The Leatherback Trust: www.leatherback.org). Patrol hours often stretch through the night to nearly sunrise.

On research
Despite attending college hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean, Friederichs is able to pursue both his interest in marine biology and his love of the outdoors. “Who would think that here in the middle of Minnesota you can be working on marine biology, and I found a way to do that,” he said. “Being outdoors and being out in the field, I found a way to do that all summer and get paid for it.”

And the education is top shelf. “Research is the best way to learn biology,” Zimmer concluded. “You still have to learn the facts and figures and theories, but you’re seeing it firsthand, and the other thing students learn is how difficult it is to do research.”