College News

New Center for Science and Mathematics Building Project Under Way

The view in March across Area 52 - formerly the north wings of the science and math complex. Construction crews are now moving earth on the site where the new Center for Science and Mathematics will stand. The $119 million, 187,000-square-foot building was made possible by $110 million from voter-approved state education bonds and $18 million in private donations to Cal Poly. The effort to raise private support for the new center is largest public-private capital campaign in Cal Poly history. 
Learn More about the New Center
Read details on the center project | See photos and video links
Watch construction live anytime on CSM Webcam 1 or CSM Webcam 2

Congresswoman Capps Comes to Cal Poly for a Tour of STRIDE

U.S. Representative Lois Capps (center, in red) came to Cal Poly for a presentation about the STRIDE (Science through Translational Research in Diet and Exercise) center. STRIDE is dedicated to promoting healthy weight across the lifespan. Led by STRIDE Director Ann McDermott,  faculty and students from majors across the university are working to bring healthy living programs to Central Coast communities and beyond. STRIDE projects include an "A-Team" of Cal Poly undergrads taking health assessments and reporting health data on campus and in the community. STRIDE's "Pink and Dude Chefs" program sends Cal Poly students to teach healthy cooking lessons in after-school programs in disadvantaged areas — turning middle school students into healthy chefs for their families.
Read More about STRIDE
Visit the STRIDE Web site

Professor Urges Sacramento to Support Joint Fishing Research Projects

Fishermen and scientists are working together through SLOSEA (San Luis Obispo Science and Ecosystem Alliance), a Cal Poly project, to understand changes to marine resources that result from newly established marine protected areas (MPAs) off California. Their novel partnership deserves continued support, one of Cal Poly’s associate deans told legislators in Sacramento recently. Dean Wendt, associate dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Cal Poly and a professor at the university’s Center for Coastal Marine Sciences, testified recently before state legislators during the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture at the 18th Annual Fisheries Forum. At Cal Poly, Wendt co-directs the grant-funded California Collaborative Fisheries Research Program along with Rick Starr from Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. The program involves five harbor communities, more than 500 fishermen, and 15 recreational and commercial fishing boats based on the Central Coast.
More details on SLOSEA and the fishing partnership

Science in the Community

Cal Poly Studies Tsunami Surge, Ongoing Impacts on Central Coast

On the morning of March 11, a surge of water from the earthquake that struck Japan reached the Cal Poly Center for Coastal Marine Sciences’ Pier. Though the pier itself was ordered evacuated as a precaution, its instruments continued to record data. Center scientists were able to monitor what happened in Avila Beach as well Morro Bay, another site where Cal Poly maintains an extensive array of equipment for ocean monitoring.  The observatory in Morro Bay is maintained by the Center’s SLOSEA program (San Luis Obispo Science and Ecosystem Alliance). KCOY-12, the CBS News affiliate on the Central Coast, interviewed Cal Poly researchers and students about the tsunami monitoring and other Cal Poly marine science projects March 22.
Learn more about the initial tsunami impacts
Watch the news interviews about Cal Poly marine science

Monarch Alert Project Assisting Monterey Town's Butterfly Efforts

Fewer monarch butterflies are spending the winter in the Monterey County town of Pacific Grove, also known as "Butterfly Town USA." Cal Poly is helping the city find out why – and possibly bring them back. Cal Poly Biological Sciences Professor Francis Villablanca works with a team of Cal Poly students and volunteers to monitor 18 monarch overwintering sites in California through the privately-funded Cal Poly Monarch Project. The Pacific Grove sanctuary is one of the sites. Villablanca spoke recently at a Pacific Grove public meeting about the ongoing Cal Poly research and types of data yet to be gathered that could aid the Pacific Grove monarch sanctuary. The Cal Poly Monarch Project exists thanks to private support from philanthropist Helen Johnson.
More on the Monarch Alert Project and Pacific Grove

Cal Poly Technology Project in Guatemala Expands to Summer

Cal Poly and Guatemalan students and professors will together explore energy use, language and sustainable technologies in a new collaborative education program beginning this summer in the mountainous village of San Pablo, Tacana, in Guatemala. The summer study abroad program grew out of Physics Professor Pete Schwartz’s service learning, project-based classes. In those Appropriate Technology classes, Cal Poly students focus on developing simple, sustainable technologies intended to provide services and generate income in developing countries. The Cal Poly students have been working throughout the year with Guatemalan students in San Pablo to determine which projects could be implemented in the village and could lead to environmentally friendly income generating projects there.
Read more about the Guateca Project

National Science Teacher Association Spotlights COSAM STAR Program

Cal Poly's STAR (Science Teacher and Researcher) Program was recently recognized by the National Science Teacher Association. STAR is a summer research internship for aspiring science and mathematics teachers. The program is headquartered at CESaME, Cal Poly's' Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education. STAR is offered by the California State University system in partnership with the US Department of Energy national research laboratories, NSF, NASA, federal agencies, and private research organizations. Over the past four summers STAR has placed 157 teachers and credential candidates at 15 research sites in California, Colorado, Maryland, Tennessee, and Washington.
Visit the STAR Web site
Read story on the STAR Program and science teacher training on the NTSA News Web

Real World Research

Paper Strips Could Aid Health Care in the Developing World

A new chemistry professor and his students are working on bringing better health care to Africa and the rest of the developing world through tiny strips of paper. Chemistry Professor Andres Martinez and undergraduate students Kevin Schilling and Anna Lepore are working to imprint strips of paper with chemicals that could react to body fluids and turn colors in reaction to disease markers. Their goal is to find a way to create paper medical test strips that would not require refrigeration, trained lab techs, or sophisticated equipment so they could be used in primitive conditions in rural field clinics in developing nations around the world.
More about Professor Martinez and the diagnostic paper strips project

Center for Coastal Marine Sciences Looks at Antarctica, Palau

Researchers from Cal Poly’s Center for Coastal Marine Science spent much of March in Palau after returning from two months in Antarctica, all on grant-funded ocean research projects. Marine Biology Professor Mark Moline and Senior Research Scientist Ian Robbins used remotely operated mini-submarines in both projects. In Palau, the two studied ocean currents and how they interact with coral reef islands as part of a $370,000 grant from the Office of Naval Research. In Antarctica, their project was to use the remotes to collect data on ocean temperatures as part of a project studying how global warming is impacting penguin feeding grounds. The center now has an online blog with photos and descriptions of both research projects:
Cal Poly Remote Adventures
More on the Palau research | Read more on the Antarctica research

Ask About ALICE: Cal Poly Professor Explains
"Big Bang" Physics Experiment in Switzerland in Web Video

Wondering about the origins of the universe? At the CERN Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, Switzerland, Cal Poly Physics Professor Jennifer Klay is using ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) to recreate, on a smaller scale, what happened in the universe just after the “Big Bang” that created it all. In a newly posted video from the World Science Festival, Klay explains ALICE and the hadron collider. With the support of more than $500,000 in grants, Klay takes groups of undergraduate Cal Poly physics majors to Switzerland during the summer, where they help run the ALICE experiment at the collider. The collider is a giant underground scientific instrument that shoots subatomic particles against each other at millions of miles per hour, allowing researchers to gather data on what happens when they collide.
Get details and watch the video

Statistics, Kinesiology Professors Team Research Effort:
Lifestyle Intervention Prevents Excessive Pregnancy Weight Gain

Pregnant women avoid unhealthy weight gain and return to their normal weight post-delivery at much higher rates if they receive personalized nutrition and exercise monitoring and support throughout their pregnancy, according to a study led by Cal Poly Kinesiology Professor Suzanne Phelan. Phelan and Cal Poly Statistics Professor Andrew Schaffner collaborated on the study, which was published recently by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. In the “Fit for Delivery” study. "We found that preventing excessive weight gain during pregnancy is possible through a low-intensity lifestyle intervention that promotes frequent self-weighing, reducing fast food and soda consumption, and engaging in moderate physical activity at least five days a week,” Phelan said.
More on the study and its findings

What's That Tree? Find Out in Professor's Book

Cal Poly Biology Professor Matt Ritter has written a nationally recognized book about trees in California. "A Californian's Guide to the Trees Among Us" is a natural history and identification guide to native and cultivated urban and suburban trees, with beautiful photos, all new identification keys, and more. Ritter is speaking at book signings in San Luis Obispo and San Francisco in coming weeks.
More on Ritter and his new book

Today's Students

New Poly Rep Ashley Evonc

Ashlee Evonc is freshman Liberal Studies major who can’t wait to tell other students about Cal Poly and the College of Science and Mathematics. She's one of COSAM's new volunteer Poly Reps.

On her tours, she wants to convey what she’s found at the university in her freshman year. “Everyone here has been so welcoming and so open and friendly," she said. "I want to be one of the students who get people excited about Cal Poly.”
Read more about Evonc

COSAM Athletes Shine in Academics

Biology graduate student Rachel Clancy was named the Big West Player of the Year in Women's Basketball in March, after earning All-American Academic Honors. She's following in the footsteps of 1980s biology alumna and basketball standout Laura Beuhning.

Kinesiology and microbiology seniors Michael Anderson and James Chen of the Mustang football team and junior Wes Feighner of the men's soccer team also earned All-Academic Team honors at the close of the season.
Read more about COSAM Scholar Athletes

Alumni

Honored Alumnus: John T. McDevitt

John T. McDevitt (B.S., Chemistry, 1982) was recognized as the college's Honored Alumnus at Homecoming 2010. McDevitt is the Brown-Wiess Professor of Chemistry and Bioengineering at Rice University, where the McDevitt Research Group combines nanometer-sized molecular sensors with microchip-based technology to create devices that can rapidly analyze complex fluids. From this technology, his team has developed easy-to-use, low-cost devices to make laboratory services available in resource-poor countries and reduce health care costs in developed nations. He co-founded the company LabNow based on the microchip technology developed in his laboratories and serves as the scientific leader for several programs that target the release of these new medical micro-devices into real-world clinical practice.
Read more in Cal Poly Magazine | Read his McDevitt Research Group biography

Alumni By the Numbers

It may be the science. Or the environment. But a quick check of alumni on record with Cal Poly shows that most COSAM grads continue to call California home. And San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties are where most of them choose to live. Some key numbers from a search of COSAM alumni on record in 2011:

Alumni: Where Are You? Let us Know

Where are you, and what have you done with your COSAM degree? Drop us a line and let us know where you are, and how you use Learn By Doing in your career. E-mail us at cosam@calpoly.edu,and we'll include your brief update in our next e-newsletter.