Jerri Bartholomew is a marine biologist and salmon researcher, head of the Department of Microbiology as well as a passionate artist who has worked in glassmaking for more than 25 years. But as she explains, sometimes these worlds collide.

The result is beautiful collages of Pacific Northwest images that are at the core of her work in glass. With a color palette that is simple, with black and white photographs central, Bartholomew.

Drawing inspiration from science, Bartholomew combines photographic screen prints with more free-form imagery to create fused and cast glass pieces. This winter she exhibited glass pieces of iconic bridges of Portland in an OSU faculty exhibit in the Memorial Union.

Bartholomew’s work is sold at Western galleries and can also be found adorning the walls of the Memorial Union and other places across campus.

The College of Science has an extensive and deep research portfolio that is globally recognized, providing our students enriching and life-changing experiences working alongside leading scientists and researchers in the College.

Our Faculty and Researchers

Marine biologists Jane Lubchenco and Kirsten Grorud-Colvert are important voices in the international ocean conservation community. Lubchenco, who is the U.S. State Department’s science envoy on ocean policy issues and former NOAA Administrator, and integrative biology assistant professor, Grorud-Colvert, published a paper in the journal Science—one of the world’s top academic journals. The paper, “Making waves: The science and politics of ocean protection” calls for greater ocean protection to preserve fish stocks and to ensure the use of oceans in a sustainable fashion.

Thomas Sharpton, a professor in both microbiology and statistics, will present a Science Pub to clarify exactly what the microbiome is, how it is studied and why it is important to our everyday lives. Sharpton will also discuss how our understanding of the microbiome will ultimately facilitate important social and medical transformations.

This Science Pub event will be held April 11, 2016, from 6 - 8 pm at the Old World Deli, 341 SW 2nd St. in Corvallis.

Recent research has revealed that the human body is covered in a diverse array of microorganisms. Most of these bacteria, viruses and fungi are located in the gastrointestinal tract. This community is collectively referred to as the gut microbiome and plays an important role in human health: disease resistance, some cancers, cardiovascular disease and our mental state. Changes in the microbiome have been linked to acute and chronic diseases and can even affect behavior. These observations raise the issue of what it means to be human.

During a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco, Tom Sharpton developed new ways to analyze microbiome data.

“We take DNA from an entire consortium of cells that comprises the microbial community and sequence them all simultaneously. What we get is an alphabet soup,” he explains. “We use the computer to determine what DNA came from what organism.”

The Science Pub presentation is free and open to the public. Sponsors of Science Pub include OSU's Terra magazine, the Downtown Corvallis Association and the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

Check out upcoming Science Pubs.

The College of Science celebrated our 2016 Winter Teaching and Advising Awards with faculty, advisors and students on January 12. We recognized excellence in teaching and advising, both hallmarks of our College. We are deeply committed to the success of all our people—faculty, advisors, staff and of course, our students. We want everyone in our OneScience community to thrive, not just survive!

We welcomed special guests from the project, ESTEME@OSU (Enhancing STEM Education). This NSF-funded project seeks to build community and increase evidence-based instructional practices in introductory-level STEM courses, from large lecture classes to smaller studio workshops and laboratories. The College is actively involved in and a strong supporter of ESTEME@OSU.

Congratulations to all of our nominees and to our award winners. The award recipients exemplify deep commitment, skill, effectiveness, mentoring and impact in teaching and advising, which helps build strong leaders in science. They are truly transforming lives.

We especially congratulate our award winners: Jen Olarra, Chris Coffin, Oksana Ostroverkhova and Indira Rajagopal. You make us proud!

2016 Award nominees

Olaf Boedtker Award for Excellence in Academic Advising

Tasha Biesinger, Microbiology
Bill Bogley, Mathematics
Jen Olarra, Integrative Biology - winner
Chris Pastorek, Chemistry
Kari van Zee, Biochemistry & Biophysics

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching in Science, Undergraduate

Bill Bogley, Mathematics
Daniel Myles, Chemistry
Chris Coffin, Physics - winner
KC Walsh, Physics
Phil Watson, Chemistry

Loyd F. Carter Award for Outstanding and Inspirational Teaching in Science, Graduate

Ren Guo, Mathematics
Sandra Loesgen, Chemistry
Malcolm Lowry, Microbiology
Ethan Minot, Physics
Oksana Ostroverkhova, Physics - winner

Frederick H. Horne Award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching Science

Indira Rajagopal - winner

2016 Winter Awards ceremony and reception photos

The College of Science has an extensive and deep research portfolio that is globally recognized, providing our students enriching and life-changing experiences working alongside leading scientists and researchers in the College.

Our Faculty and Researchers

George Poinar, Jr., emeritus professor in the Department of Integrative Biology recently discovered the oldest-ever evidence of the bubonic plague that has been locked away in a 20-million-year-old flea trapped in amber. He also discovered the first-ever fossil of an extinct species of salamander revealing that salamanders once lived on an island in the Caribbean Sea, something previously not known.

Stephanie Green, the David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow in the Department of Integrative Biology, recently created quite a stir with her new study that suggests an outright ban on the common use of plastic “microbeads” from products that enter wastewater is the best way to protect water quality, wildlife, and resources used by people. The study was the number three science story in the world on September 18 on Google News.

The College of Science is proud to announce that Jerri Bartholomew has been appointed the Emile F. Pernot Distinguished Professor in the Department of Microbiology. She currently serves as Head of the Department of Microbiology in the Colleges of Science and Agricultural Sciences and as director of the J.L. Fryer Salmon Disease Laboratory, one of the only of its kind in the world dedicated to the study of organisms infectious for salmonids and other freshwater fish.

The Emile F. Pernot Distinguished Professorship in Microbiology was established with an estate gift of the late Mabel Pernot, the daughter of Emile Pernot who established the Microbiology Department at Oregon State more than a century ago. The award recognizes a professor in the Department of Microbiology who is a distinguished contributor to the field of microbiology science and who has a record of contributions to OSU’s education and research missions.

Bartholomew’s research focuses on the pathogens affecting the health of wild Pacific salmon populations, the effects of climate change on fish disease, parasite evolution and invasion as well as the evolution of the immune systems of fish. Her research program has attracted more than $12 million in grants and contracts, which has resulted in 84 peer-reviewed publications, 15 book chapters and an edited book. Funding for her research comes from various agencies, including the Bureau of Reclamation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Health and Oregon Sea Grant.

"I am proud of Dr. Bartholomew for receiving this tremendous recognition,” said Sastry G. Pantula, dean of the College of Science. “Professorships such as the Pernot Professorship allow us to honor and reward our best faculty members like Dr. Bartholomew. The strength of our College and of science rests on the strength of our faculty.”

With joint appointments in the College of Science and the College of Agricultural Sciences, Bartholomew has served on the Department of Microbiology faculty for 23 years. She has mentored six post-doctoral scholars as well as six Ph.D. and 15 master’s and 17 undergraduate research projects. Bartholomew also teaches Advances in Disease Ecology, Fish Diseases in Conservation Biology and Aquaculture, and offers a semi-annual Salmonid Disease Workshop for state and federal fishery biologists.

Demonstrating her outstanding leadership, Bartholomew helped organize the 7^th International Symposium on Aquatic Animal Health in Portland last year that attracted 300 fish health professionals from 26 countries.

Bartholomew is an OSU alumna, earning both her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Fisheries Science from the university.

A parasitic bacterium saps energy from corals. The bacterium is the first member of a newly identified genus, and was discovered during a study at the Caribbean staghorn coral microbiome by OSU microbiologist Rebecca Vega Thurber and her colleagues.

Localized efforts to save coral reefs not enough

Findings by researchers at Oregon State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara were published today in Scientific Reports. Ocean habitats are increasingly under human-caused stress in the forms of pollution and global warming.

Saving Atlantis

If your mental image of coral reefs is one of lifeless rocky outcrops on the ocean floor, “Saving Atlantis” will correct that misconception. If your mental image of marine scientists is one of unfeeling, robot-like observers recording data without any sort of emotional involvement, “Saving Atlantis” will correct that, too. Oregon State University’s first feature-length documentary tells the story of the rapid decline of coral reefs around the world through the eyes of the people who depend on them and the scientists who are fighting to save them.

The 76-minute film, which will have its premiere in three free screenings over the next week (see box on Page A2 for details), takes a deep dive into the topic with compelling underwater photography that gives viewers a virtual tour of reefs around the world in places like Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Polynesia, Hawaii and Australia. Narrated by actor Peter Coyote, the award-winning voice of several Ken Burns documentaries, “Saving Atlantis” describes the life cycle of corals, small colonial organisms that live in equatorial regions and gradually build up massive undersea structures that, in turn, provide habitat for up to 25 percent of all marine species.

The film lays out some of the major threats to reefs, from overfishing and pollution to climate change and ocean acidification, and makes the potential impacts of the problem personal through interviews with fishermen, schoolchildren, indigenous elders and others whose lives are intimately intertwined with these vanishing ecosystems. The project began a little over three years ago with a research grant awarded to OSU microbiologist Rebecca Vega Thurber, an associate professor who studies coral diseases. She brought in Oregon State Productions, the university’s filmmaking arm, to make several short online videos about her work.

But the pace of coral bleaching events around the world was accelerating rapidly, and the team decided to produce a single long-form film to call attention to the problem.

“You can engage someone much more deeply at an hour or an hour and a half — it becomes an event,” said David Baker, who wrote the script for “Saving Atlantis” and co-directed the film with Justin Smith. “That might help spread the word about the changes that are taking place.” The situation is dire, according to Vega Thurber, who notes that more than half the world’s coral reefs have already been lost, a quarter of all coral species are threatened with extinction and once-rare mass bleaching events have become an annual phenomenon. “In the 2016 bleaching event, one-fourth of the Great Barrier Reef was lost,” she said.

Vega Thurber has been studying coral reefs since 2005, but she’s been around them all her life. Her family is from the Dominican Republic, where reefs are part of the natural environment. But in the Caribbean, as in other equatorial waters around the world, reefs are in deep trouble. “I’ve seen their destruction over the past 30 years,” she said. ”I’m really passionate about discovering what’s driving that and finding ways to save them.”

That passion comes through loud and clear in “Saving Atlantis,” not only from Vega Thurber but from a number of other researchers interviewed by the filmmakers. The result is a tone of urgency not often heard from academics. As a scientist, Vega Thurber admits she was a little nervous about being perceived as biased, but she believes the threat facing coral reefs warrants a clear call to action.

“It is very, very hard to work on coral reefs right now and not be emotionally affected by it, because we’re seeing our places die,” she said. “We’re supposed to be objective, and our science is objective,” she added. “But we’re kind of at a precipice right now. If we don’t do something really quickly, scientists who study coral reefs may be out of a job real soon.” In addition to three free screenings around the state tied to OSU’s 150th anniversary celebration, the documentary is slated to screen at two film festivals. The filmmakers are also trying to get Oregon Public Broadcasting to air the movie and are hoping to land a distribution deal.

If those efforts are successful, it could lead to more full-length films from Oregon State Productions in the future. “We certainly hope so,” Smith said. “We’ve got some ideas floating around in our heads. If we could drum up the cash, we’d certainly do it.”

The College of Science celebrated our extraordinary scholarship students at our annual spring Scholarship Dessert. For the 2015-16 academic year, the College awarded scholarships of more than $700,000 to more than 250 students for merit, need and undergraduate research experiences. The Scholarship Dessert—a festive occasion—connects students, their families, advisors, faculty and many alumni/friends whose generous support funds these awards.

The celebrations continued throughout the day with a special lunch and dinner where students and alumni shared their own perspectives with each other about gratitude and the power of scholarships as well as the meaning and impact derived from investing in future leaders in science.

For a complete list of our scholarships, visit: science.oregonstate.edu/scholarships.

Please tag yourselves in the photos!

Science Scholarship Recipients

The College of Science is proud to congratulate the following faculty for receiving promotions and/or tenure this spring. A well deserved pat on the back for their excellent work!

Tremendous consideration goes into each promotion and tenure decision. The dean’s office, department chairs, promotions and tenure committee members, faculty, external reviewers, students who offer letters of support, and of course the individual faculty member spends many hours preparing, processing and reviewing the documentation. The process is extremely rigorous in order to award the best candidates for promotion and/or tenure.

Special thanks to our College of Science Promotions and Tenure Committee for devoting a significant time this spring engaged in the review process. Also, thanks to the provost and the University Promotions and Tenure Committee for their hard work in evaluating and supporting the outstanding accomplishments of our faculty.

Biochemistry & Biophysics Department

Lanelle Connolly has been promoted to Senior Faculty Research Assistant I of Biochemistry and Biophysics, effective July 1, 2015.

Dr. Indira Rajagopal has been promoted to Senior Instructor II of Biochemistry and Biophysics, effective July 1, 2015.

Chemistry Department

Dr. Christopher M. Beaudry has been promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry and granted indefinite tenure, effective September 16, 2015.

Dr. Ha Yeon (Paul) Cheong has been promoted to Associate Professor of Chemistry and granted indefinite tenure, effective September 16, 2015.

Dr. Jeff Walker has been promoted to Senior Instructor II of Chemistry, effective July 1, 2015.

Paula Joy Edwards Weiss has been promoted to Senior Instructor I of Chemistry, effective July 1, 2015.

Integrative Biology Department

Dr. Lesley Mae Blair has been promoted to Senior Instructor II of Integrative Biology, effective July 1, 2015.

Dr. Francis Chan has been promoted to Associate Professor, Senior Research of Integrative Biology, effective July 1, 2015.

Eileen Shin Yeu Chow has been promoted to Senior Faculty Research Assistant I of Integrative Biology, effective July 1, 2015.

Mark Lavery has been promoted to Senior Instructor II of Integrative Biology, effective July 1, 2015.

Dr. David Lytle has been promoted to Professor of Integrative Biology, effective September 16, 2015.

Mathematics Department

Dr. Christine Escher has been promoted to Professor of Mathematics, effective September 16, 2015.

Dr. Filix Maisch has been promoted to Senior Instructor I of Mathematics, effective September 16, 2015.

Microbiology Department

Dr. Linda Diane Bruslind has been promoted to Senior Instructor II of Microbiology, effective July 1, 2015.

Dr. Katharine Field has been promoted to Professor of Microbiology, effective July 1, 2015.

Statistics Department

Dr. Yanming Di has been promoted to Associate Professor in Statistics and granted indefinite tenure, effective September 16, 2015.

Dr. Alix Gitelman has been promoted to Professor of Statistics, effective September 16, 2015.

Keep up the excellent work!

Professor Stephen Giovannoni's latest research in Science magazine underscores the need to rethink the marine carbon cycle and factor in diverse lifestyles of microbes. Translating the biology of cells into processes at global scales can bring the conceptual framework of systems biology into bigger “ecosystems biology” framework.