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January 9 , 2006

This Month in Research Update:

OVPRANL News

University of Chicago names Donald Levy Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories
Donald Levy, the Albert A. Michelson Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry at the University of Chicago, has been appointed the University's Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories, President Robert Zimmer announced today. The appointment was effective Jan. 1.

As Vice President, Levy will work closely with President Zimmer, Provost Thomas Rosenbaum, Deans and the Directors of Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to advance research at the University and the laboratories.

"Don Levy has the intellectual standing as well as the administrative talents to take on this important role," Zimmer said. Levy succeeds Rosenbaum, who became Provost of the University on Jan. 1.

"While his responsibilities will enhance our work across the University, this is a particularly important time for our relationships with Argonne and Fermilab," Zimmer said. "The recent decisions by the U.S. Department of Energy to award the management contracts for these national laboratories to the University and our academic and management partners increase our oversight responsibilities, enhance our ability to contribute to the advancement of the laboratories, and offer new opportunities for significant research collaborations."

As Vice President, Levy will play an important role in representing the University and projecting its research accomplishments. He will have responsibility for promoting research activity and related matters of university wide policy, while supporting Deans with their sponsored research efforts. He also will oversee the Office of Technology and Intellectual Policy (UChicagoTech) and the Office for Partnerships and Technology.

Levy joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1967. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a former Chairman of the Chemistry Department, and he played an important leadership role in planning the new Gordon Center for Integrative Science. A physical chemist, Levy was a leader in developing and using supersonic jet cooling to study the structure of molecules.

Levy is editor of the Journal of Chemical Physics. His awards include the E. Bright Wilson Award in Spectroscopy and the Ellis Lippincott Award from the Optical Society of America. He received his B.A. from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Argonne, Fermilab and University share safety best practices
Last month, safety representatives from the Argonne, Fermilab and the University of Chicago met as a group for the first time to discuss the benefits of establishing regular communications for the purpose of looking across all institutions for best practices in support of continuous improvement.

Meeting participants touched upon several topics including training, lessons learned, sharing expertise, peer review and audits, metrics and emergency management and planning. The group intends to zero-in on these areas in future meetings. University representatives provided an overview of the safety programs at the University. The discussion included an exchange on program similarities and differences.

"The long term benefit of these discussions will be the shared knowledge," said Tim Tess Deputy Director EQO, Argonne. "In particular, we're hoping to learn from the University's experience in lab safety. We also want to make it as easy as possible for researchers to go from one institution to another without having to repeat safety training."

Similarly, the University is in the process of reviewing how to enhance the infrastructure that supports the University's overall training effort, which includes safety training. "Argonne has good experience here. Their processes are considered the gold standard and contain a lot of functionality that we could use in our own program," said Steven Beaudoin, Director, Safety, Environmental Affairs and Radiation Safety, University of Chicago.

"One of the advantages of the new contract [to manage Fermilab awarded to Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, a partnership between the University of Chicago and the Universities Research Association] is that it will help to strengthen the connection between our two labs," said William Griffing, Director, ES&H, Fermilab. "Given that Fermilab and Argonne are the closest labs in the DOE system [about 20 miles apart] it's natural that we'd look for ways to share resources. In times of tighter budgets, it's good to know there's a cadre of people that you can draw upon to help improve safety programs."

In the next meeting, the group hopes to include safety representatives from Northwestern University and the University of Illinois to increase possibilities for collaboration.

"The meeting was very positive," said Beaudoin. "I'm confident that that ideas discussed will go along way to strengthen all of our programs, which allow us to better serve the community for which we are responsible. The University is excited and looking forward to this ongoing exchange."

Research at Chicago website relaunched
Research at Chicago, an online repository of video interviews with University faculty highlighting research, has been relaunched. Improvements include a cleaner, more functional design and display of audio and video content; the ability to browse by category and search by keyword; and integration with Mind Online, the Alumni Association's audio and video repository. Changes also include integration with the News Office's Experts Guide, automatic podcast and vodcast generation, and an email sign up capability. Also, users can easily integrate Research at Chicago interviews into other websites and blogs, a Web 2.0 enhancement. Please visit Research at Chicago.

Research at Chicago is produced by the Chicago Media Initiatives Group for the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories, and in cooperation with the University News Office and a variety of University research centers.

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Events

Michael Turner to talk on trends in federal research funding in the sciences
On Wednesday, January 17 at 11:00 a.m., Dr. Michael Turner, Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, Depts. Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics, Enrico Fermi Inst., Kavli Inst. for Cosmological Physics (KICP), and the College, Chief Scientist and Director of Strategic Planning, Argonne National Laboratory and former Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, will share his perspectives on trends in federal research funding in the sciences. The discussion will explore how federal initiatives and priorities, such as the American Competitiveness Initiative, may impact grant seekers at various stages of their academic careers, shape the types of funding opportunities available, and inform strategies for securing support for basic research in a competitive environment. The talk will take place at Research Institutes, Room 480 (5640 S. Ellis Avenue). Junior Faculty, Research Associates and Research Administrators at the University as well as Argonne researchers are welcome to attend. This event is co-sponsored by University Research Administration and the Physical Sciences Division Mentoring Committee.

University January Event Highlights

University of Chicago Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration: Noon Monday, Jan. 8 through Monday, Jan. 15, Rockefeller Chapel, 1156 E. 59th St., http://mlk.uchicago.edu
2007 marks the 21st anniversary of the national holiday that honors Martin Luther King, Jr. Students, faculty, staff and community members are all invited to commemorate Dr. King's legacy from January 8 through January 15 in a week-long celebration of his life. The keynote address at this year's MLK Memorial Service will be delivered by Julian Bond, Chairman of the Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). For more information on Julian Bond, please visit http://www.apbspeakers.com. The MLK Memorial Service will be held noon to 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 15 in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 1156 E. 59th St. and will be followed by a reception from 1 to 3 p.m. at Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th St. For more information about the MLK events visit http://mlk.uchicago.edu.
The Department of Music: The Noontime Concert Series: 12:15 p.m. Thursdays, Jan. 4, 11, 18, Fulton Recital Hall, 1010 E. 59th St, Fourth floor, http://music.uchicago.edu
Each Thursday in January, the Department of Music will present performances by a number of musicians during the Noontime Concert Series. On Jan. 4, Classical guitarist James Baur will perform works by J.S. Bach, Ponce, Poulenc, Henze, Milhaud, and Mertz. On Jan. 11, pianists Svetlana Belsky and Jennifer Maxwell will present a concert of works for one piano, four hands: the Schubert Fantasy in F Minor, Barber's dance suite Souvenirs, and works by Debussy. Also, the series will present on Jan. 18, Piano Showcase, which will feature outstanding students in the piano program taking turns setting 88 keys in motion. All performances are free.
The Division of the Humanities: Poem Present: Reading by Clayton Eshleman: 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, Rosenwald Hall, 1101 E. 58th St., Room 405, (773) 702-8512
Clayton Eshleman has been translating Cesar Vallejo's poetry since 1958. He received the National Book Award in 1979 and the Landon Translation Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 2002 for various Vallejo translations. Now he has revised and assembled all of his work on Vallejo as The Complete Poetry of Cesar Vallejo. Clayton Eshleman is primarily a poet and 14 collections of his poetry have been published. This event is co-sponsored by The Center for Latin American Studies and the SAIC MFA Program. This event will take place in Rosenwald Hall, 1101 E. 58th St., Room 405.
Oriental Institute: Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing, Through Sunday, March 25, 2007, 1155 E. 58th St. (773) 702-9507, http://oi.uchicago.edu
A joint project of the Oriental Institute and the Palestine Heritage Center in Bethlehem, this presentation of beautifully detailed regional garments from Palestine explores how clothing helped forge identity in the era before globalization. It also shows the beauty, technical achievement, and tremendous diversity of the garments. In the days before globalization and the homogenization of culture though television and cinema, clothing was an important cultural marker that expressed not only geographic origin but also status. Until recent years, each region of Palestine had its own style of clothing for women characterized by distinctive patterns of embroidery, appliqués, sleeve design and accessories. Although men's clothing did not express as strong a regional identity, it too showed considerable diversity. The exhibit includes clothing from Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho, Hebron, Beir Saba' and Gaza. The materials are drawn from the permanent collection of the Oriental Institute Museum and from the Palestinian Heritage Center in Bethlehem.
Smart Museum of Art: Robert Heinecken: Magazines, Saturday, Dec.16 through Sunday, Mar. 11, 2007, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu
For over four decades, Robert Heinecken was an incisive observer of social and sexual politics. Although he rarely took pictures himself, Heinecken made use of photography by combining found photojournalistic and advertising images into new works. In the 1960s, he utilized this strategy in a provocative manner with a series of reconfigured magazines laden with highly-charged content. Heinecken would sometimes covertly put the changed magazines back into circulation. In his series Periodical #5, Heinecken took magazines such as Glamour and overprinted the images of fashion models with horrific images of young Vietnamese soldiers. Heinecken's images shocked newsstand consumers with his disruptive juxtapositions of fashion and violence, pop culture and politics. This exhibition gathers a rich selection of these magazine-based works, including pieces from the Smart Museum's collection and the artist's archive. The museum admission is free. For more information call (773) 702-0200.

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Research in the News

Stuart Rice appointed Dean of Toyota Technical Institute at Chicago
Stuart Rice, the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry at the University of Chicago, has been appointed to a three-year term as Dean of Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago.

Rice served as Dean of the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Chicago from 1981 to 1995. He also is a former member of the Argonne Board of Governors.

TTI at Chicago opened in 2003 in the University of Chicago Press Building on campus to provide graduate education in computer science. The institution was founded by Japan's Toyota Technological Institute, a small private engineering school with an endowment provided by the Toyota Motor Corporation.

TTI at Chicago is an independent computer science institute that has forged a close affiliation with the University of Chicago Computer Science Department. Graduate students at TTI at Chicago are eligible to take classes offered by the University and vice versa. Classes also are jointly offered by TTI at Chicago and the University's Computer Science Department.

New Chicago-Indiana computer network prepared to handle massive data flow from world's largest scientific experiment
Massive quantities of data will soon begin flowing from the largest scientific instrument ever built into an international network of computer centers, including one operated jointly by the University of Chicago and Indiana University. The first phase of the Chicago-Indiana center, formally known as the MidWest Tier 2 Center, is now up and running, crunching test data in preparation for the real thing. Full story.

Fact Sheet: University of Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory proposal for construction of rare isotope accelerator facility
Rare Isotope Accelerators: These sophisticated machines produce exotic atomic nuclei — the cores of atoms and the fuel of stars — that no longer exist in nature and that blink out of existence a tiny fraction of a second after their birth. These nuclei will open up new scientific territory in nuclear physics, astrophysics and nuclear medicine. There are fewer than 300 stable nuclei that are relatively easy to study. Scientists have obtained glimpses of another 3,000 nuclei, but they suspect that thousands more could be studied in a new accelerator. Full story.

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