The Associate Dean and the Dean of the College of Science are striving to make the lives of its 2012 graduates a little easier. On December 4, 2012 from 11:30 to 1:00pm, they will be in Research Hall’s Showcase, providing graduates the opportunity to obtain both of their signatures on thesis/dissertation signature pages at one time! In addition, they will even provide a free lunch to those in attendance. A few notes: 1. This event is only for master’s and doctoral students graduating in 2012 (even if you have already obtained their signatures). 2. To participate, it is necessary for you to RSVP to cosevent@gmu.edu by November 27th. Please provide your G number and any dietary restrictions in this email, as well. 3. It is not necessary for you to obtain the other required signatures on the signature page prior to this event. 4. We hope to see you there! Also- don’t forget about the University’s Winter Convocation! It will be held on December 20, 2012 at 1:00pm at the Patriot Center, we hope that you, your family, and your friends will come to celebrate your accomplishment! For more information, please click here.

COS students! Take a break before finals begin…  join us for a holiday drop in! When: Thursday, December 6th from 10:00am to 4:30pm Where: Planetary Hall, Room 103 What: Visit our office for light refreshments and holiday cheer! -Kindly bring one canned good that will be donated to charity on behalf of our college- We hope to see you there! 

The College of Science and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are sponsoring an International Symposium on Synergistic Approaches to Food and Water Security on October 17-19, 2012 at the Mason Inn. For more details visit the symposian web page: http://wamis.cos.gmu.edu/ISSAFWS/

Allison Macfarlane, associate professor in environmental science and policy, was confirmed last week by the U.S. Senate as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. President Barack Obama nominated Macfarlane for the position in late May. Macfarlane is a leading expert on nuclear policy and nuclear-waste disposal and has sat on National Academy of Sciences panels on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons issues. She received her PhD in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. A geologist by training, Macfarlane decided early on that she wanted to make a real impact on society, and so developed an interest in environmental policy. She is now well known for her expertise on the policies and issues surrounding using Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent geological repository for nuclear waste. Macfarlane’s co-edited book “Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste” was published by MIT Press in 2006. In a statement to the university community, Mason Provost Peter Stearns said, “Professor Allison Macfarlane’s knowledge of nuclear policy and nuclear waste issues make her an excellent choice to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I know that everyone at Mason joins me in congratulating Dr. Macfarlane on being confirmed by the U.S. Senate for this important position. We wish her every success in this endeavor.” In 2010, Macfarlane was one of 15 experts chosen by U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu to sit on a Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. The commission provided recommendations for developing a safe, long-term solution to managing the nation’s used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. Macfarlane plans to take a leave from her position at Mason to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Her appointment begins July 9.  

Crossing the Gulf Stream in a small sailboat can be both challenging and dangerous. The speed of the water can be as fast as or faster than the speed of the boat. It may even be flowing in the opposite direction, making navigation difficult and slowing down the boat. In competitive racing, where seconds make the difference between a win and a loss, losing speed is not what one wants.  

Thomas Lovejoy, University Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, was awarded the 21st annual Blue Planet Prize, the international environmental award sponsored by the Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan. The Blue Planet prizes are awarded to individuals or organizations each year that make outstanding achievements in scientific research and its application in helping to solve global environmental problems. Lovejoy accepted the award during a press conference in Rio de Janeiro on June 17, and will receive a prize of 50 million Yen (approximately $626,000).He received the award for pioneering work in biodiversity science and conservation, including how human-caused habitat fragmentation causes biodiversity loss. “It’s a pleasure to join in congratulating both our esteemed faculty member and the commitments to biodiversity which he so ably represents,” says Mason Provost Peter Stearns. “His work is a central part of our larger educational and research program on sustainability.” Lovejoy’s career spans multiple decades and includes many creative and important contributions to research on the severe impact of land use on biodiversity and ecosystems. He began his career in the mid-’60s, researching ecosystems in the Amazon rainforest. This led to the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, the largest long-term experiment in the history of landscape ecology. Now in its 33rd year, the project was responsible for showing that fragmentation of animal habitats is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity, along with climate change. Lovejoy was one of the first to point out that the Amazon rainforest was in crisis, and he was a pioneer in educating the public about this problem. His work in policy included the first published projection of global extinction rates. Lovejoy also developed “debt-for-nature swaps,” in which a portion of a nation’s foreign debt is forgiven in exchange for investments in conservation. Debt-for-nature swaps are now among the largest sources of financing to support international environmental projects. Lovejoy has been decorated twice by Brazil. In 2011, along with other environmentalists, he was awarded the first Joao Pedro Cardoso Medal of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, for his work worldwide in conservation and environmental policy. “I am delighted by the recognition of the importance of biological diversity. I am also humbled and honored to become a Blue Planet Prize laureate and thereby join so many distinguished laureates since the inception of the prize,” says Lovejoy. “Much of what I am being honored for was achieved in collaboration with others, so I salute and thank them for their help and inspiration.” Two Blue Planet Prizes are awarded each year, one to an individual and the other to an organization. The other recipients this year were William Rees (Canada) and Mathis Wackernagel (Switzerland) for their development and advancement of the Ecological Footprint, a comprehensive accounting system for comparing human demand on ecosystems to ecosystems’ capacity to self-renew.

Forget Tony, Oscar and Grammy. Mason Professor Patrick Gillevet’s work with high school students earned him a “Tommy” award from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST), which is ranked as one of the top public high schools in the nation. The Fairfax County high school gives the award to individuals or corporations that have helped science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education on a national level and shared that knowledge with TJHSST. Gillevet, an environmental science and policy professor, knows firsthand how essential mentors can be to aspiring scientists. “One of the watershed events of my life was when I helped a professor, while I was an undergraduate, set up his lab,” he says. “That really changed things for me. It was the one issue that made me go to graduate school. I know how important mentoring is.” The lead scientist for Mason’s biocomplexity and diversity group since 1996, Gillevet also is the director of Mason’s MicroBiome Analysis Center where he and his team of researchers are studying bacteria, viruses, fungi and protozoa within the human body. He’s guided 42 high school students and teachers since 1993, some of whom continued their research into college. High school students work with him for a semester in his lab on Mason’s Prince William Campus. Alexander Kim became fixated on a group of lobster-sized freshwater prawns while a senior at TJHSST in 2009. He wanted to explore genetic analysis on the prawns but thought he had little chance of doing so. That is, until he met Gillevet. “Regardless of the fact that his area of focus lay with microbial genetics rather than anything to do with prawns, Dr. Gillevet, without a moment of hesitation, opened to me the resources of his lab, his years of scientific wisdom, his boundless, good-natured patience, and a heartfelt desire to nurture a young researcher’s curiosity,” Kim says. “I can’t thank him enough for all those evenings he stayed far later than he ought to have while I finished DNA extractions, and those many times we spent poring through evolutionary trees and manuscript drafts and blurry PCR bands together.” Kim continues to study the jumbo crustaceans as part of his undergraduate thesis in organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, where he is a rising senior. “[Gillevet] really is all about doing good science,” says Lisa Lyle Wu, director of the Oceanography and Geophysical Systems Lab at TJHSST. “He wants to get right down to what the problem is. He pulls that out of the students. He is not only good as a researcher, but he’s good at communicating his research. The students are comfortable asking him questions.” Gillevet’s enthusiasm for the students’ work and generosity with his time and talent give budding scientists a chance to learn how a real lab works, Wu says. “They assume all the scientists know everything out there.” Not so, Gillevet says. “When students go into the lab, they see that the data in the textbook is somewhat soft. It’s not exact fact. It’s interpretation of data. It’s also good for them if they can get something done and turn it into a paper. Then they can see how research looks before publication. But really the issue is to expose them to research and see if this is what they want to do. There are a lot of students who realize this is not what they want to do.” The high school students aren’t the only ones learning; they’ve taught Gillevet. Gillevet and famed swan researcher William Sladen have worked together to study tundra swans, trumpeter swans and a hybrid of the two for a decade. For his part, Gillevet searched for the molecular markers that would identify tundra, trumpeter and the hybrid. Gillevet’s students used the latest technology to run “50 years of DNA genetic sequencing in an afternoon.” Their data showed the tundra, trumpeter and hybrid swans may be the same species, not separate ones, as Gillevet had surmised. At first, Gillevet says he thought the students made a mistake. “But the students weren’t messing up,” he says. “I was wrong, not the students. Their results were correct. My interpretation, my assumption, was wrong. This is one example where the mentor learns from the student.” It’s this kind of openness that makes Gillevet such a standout mentor, Wu adds. “The students are seeing that science is not a simple process,” she says. Gillevet also hones his teaching skills. At Mason, he typically works with graduate students. “It’s good for me to get the TJ students so I can step down and explain. You get these ‘aha!’ moments with kids — that’s the big thing.” Both Mason and TJHSST benefit from the mentorship. “They have some fantastic teachers there,” Gillevet says. “They can say that we’re helping them, but I have some high school students here who are better prepared to work in the lab than some graduate students.”  

Worried that tick bite means Lyme disease? Mason researchers can find the answer well before the bite victim begins to show symptoms. “If you are bit by a tick, you can’t be sure if you will get Lyme disease ― that is the biggest problem right now,” says Alessandra Luchini, research assistant professor for Mason’s Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), who was named one of Popular Science magazine’s “Brilliant 10” last year. Luchini and other Mason researchers are evaluating a new type of diagnostic test they developed for humans and their canine pals to pinpoint tiny signs of the bacteria that lead to Lyme disease. A study of the new type of test is underway. (Call 800-615-0418 ext. 202 for more information about participating.) The test soon could be available commercially through privately held Ceres Nanosciences Inc., which partnered with Mason to develop the test and plans to market it to doctor’s offices and veterinarian clinics. The Lyme disease test is just in time for what promises to be a bumper crop of ticks this spring and summer. The culprit is the blacklegged tick. It can carry the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which leads to Lyme disease. To make matters worse, nymphs ― about the size of the period at the end of this sentence ― can bite unnoticed until the standard first sign of Lyme disease, a bull’s-eye rash, appears. Joint and muscle aches, fatigue, fever, chills, headaches and swollen lymph nodes typically come next, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A dose of antibiotics usually kills the bacteria, but sometimes symptoms persist. Patients return to their doctor months and even years later, convinced they still have Lyme disease, says Lance Liotta, CAPMM co-director. Until now, there was no way of knowing definitively if the disease was still active or not, he says.  

Many major telescopes around the world are located in densely populated areas. Even Mason’s telescope, installed last year, is situated in the heart of Northern Virginia and only miles from the nation’s capital. With so much population, infrastructure and business, one may wonder how even the most powerful of telescopes can compete with the light pollution generated by all this activity. Enter the SKYMONITOR project. Mason has joined this international initiative that will help to track and map the brightness of the night sky around the world. Supported by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), the National Science Foundation and the Vatican Observatory, the project will provide continuous, long-term measurements on the state of the night sky. “There is an extended light-pollution problem as cities and suburbs grow,” says Harold Geller, associate professor in the School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences and Mason’s observatory director. “We are in a light-polluted area here in Northern Virginia, and it does affect what people can see in the night sky.” Bob Parks, executive director of IDA, says that “sky glow” has interfered with astronomers’ jobs to such a large extent that many of them are moving out of the continental United States. And the problem doesn’t just affect scientists. Wasted light contributes to economic issues and changes animal behavior, habitation and hunting patterns. “Light pollution is one of the few ecological issues that can easily be reversed, except that most people aren’t even aware of the problem,” Parks says.

It’s only a short elevator ride to the roof of Research Hall and the Astronomy Observatory, but Harold Geller fills the time with facts about the building’s construction, history of astronomy at Mason, and the excitement felt in the local community about the new thirty-two-inch diameter Ritchey-Chrétien telescope in the College of Science. The new scope is possibly the largest on-campus telescope of its kind at any university on the East Coast. Geller, observatory director and associate professor in the School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences, explains that this new telescope continues a tradition that started in 1975. Students back then first hand-built a six-inch refractor telescope, then a twelve-inch reflector telescope.The university’s commitment to physics, astronomy, and computational sciences has grown since the 1970s. About twenty-five graduate students are currently enrolled in the astronomy program, and another 1,500 students take astronomy classes each year.