Galápagos Letters

Galápagos Letters


by Nora Clayton, first published @ biology.utah.edu

January 17, 2022

Adventure Awaits

Getting ready for a field expedition is always an adventure. After packing, COVID testing, homework, buying supplies, planning travel, and coordinating a study, we are very ready to be on our way. Read More >

1

January 24, 2022

El Garrapatero

Our first day in the field we went to “El Garrapatero.” Meaning “Tick Eater,” both the site and its namesake, which happens to be a beach, are named after a common bird called an Ani. Read More >

2

January 31, 2022

Philornis Downsi

Philornis downsi is well known because its larvae are harmful to bird nestlings. The larvae suck blood, hence the “vampire” part of their name. Read More >

3

February 7, 2022

Lions, Iguanas, and Birds

People and wildlife share the space, which means you have to be careful not to step on an iguana or sit too close to a sea lion! Read More >

4

February 14, 2022

Field Observations

Readers should note that biologists, grad students, and intrigued 13-year-olds may stop frequently to observe things. Read More >

5

February 21, 2022

Galápagos Portraits

If it’s true that a picture paints a thousand words, you will have several thousand to read today! Read More >

6

February 28, 2022

Plumber’s Camera

We’re beginning to look inside the nests with a camera, taking notes on the contents of each. Read More >

7

March 7 2022

It’s a Small World

Every day, walking around town, to the beach, the station, or on our patio outside, our group constantly points out ants, carpenter bees, geckos, millipedes, katydids and grasshoppers. Read More >

8

March 14, 2022

Galápagos Penguins

We woke up early to get ready, and catch a bus to the dock on the other side of the island. The drive went through the highlands, where it was beginning to rain. Read More >

9

March 14, 2022

Old Town Quito

The city, full of people, is so different from Puerto Ayora. The streets are packed with shops and each big hill is covered in bright colorful buildings. Read More >

10

Originally published @ biology.utah.edu

April Christofferson

April Christofferson


April Christofferson

“I love the process of writing,” says April Christofferson, BS’73, “but I write because I’m trying to make a difference.”

The difference this Illinois native is talking about includes many of the most complex and conflicted issues of her adopted home in the American West, including wildlife and public lands management, tribal rights, and development. Most recently her passion as a writer has turned to the issue of more than 6,000 missing and endangered indigenous women in the country, many of them in the West.

Trapped ©2012

This year, the reissue of the first two books of her Judge Annie Peacock Series, Alpha Female and Trapped, by Burns & Lea Books–along with its shopping of them by publisher/agent Story Merchant for a television miniseries based on the characters’ adventures in Yellowstone National Park and beyond—speak to the enduring interest of her literary creations, characterized by deep-dive storytelling that started more than a quarter-century ago.

Growing up in Chicago, Christofferson came to love the West during summers visiting Yellowstone and her grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, where both parents had been raised, and later her paternal grandparents’ homes in Salt Lake City and Richmond, Utah. But the road she traveled to become a successful writer is a long and winding story in itself.

Edgewater ©1998

In many ways, it starts with Christofferson’s maternal grandfather, Floyd “Doc” Carroll, a rodeo champion and Wyoming state veterinarian who was inducted into the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Hall of Great Westerners in 1998. He was a stunt double for the famous movie cowboy Tom Mix. “My grandpa was such an influence,” says Christofferson. “I knew from when I was a little girl that I was going to live out West and be a vet.”

After receiving her undergraduate degree in biology from the U, Christofferson began a veterinary medicine program at the University of Illinois in Champaign. But after her first year, she realized she truly wanted to be back West.

“Throughout college, I worked at an animal hospital, but I was always upset—they would try not to tell me if someone was bringing in an animal to be euthanized, because I’d do anything I could to persuade them not to” if treatment were at all possible, she recounts in the alumni story by Marcia C. Dibble. “I realized I wasn’t really emotionally cut out to be a vet.”

The Protocol ©2000

Christofferson and her husband, Steve Leach—also a Utah graduate, BS’76, communication—quickly relocated to Coeur d’Alene, where April focused her love of animals on rescuing those in need. She began a series of odd jobs waitressing, loading UPS trucks, and working as a pharmaceutical rep, while determining what else she could channel her passion into next.

A friend began nudging her toward romance writing, telling her anecdotes about others who had made the transition from completely unrelated careers.

“I thought, I don’t have a creative bone in my body, but I had just turned 40, so I sat down and wrote a scene about it—and I just got hooked that day.”

Clinical Trial ©2001

It wasn’t a straight line between getting “hooked” on writing and publishing her first novel. Inspired by her oldest sister, Christofferson attended law school at nearby Gonzaga University in Spokane, where she graduated with a JD in 1983, followed by a stint as counsel at the Seattle-based entertainment company Miramar. But she continued to write, and for her first book, After the Dance, set in the entertainment industry with which she was then intimately familiar, the underlying issue was that of a family dealing with the death of a son from AIDS.

After the novel’s release by a small publisher in 1994, Christofferson swiftly got an agent and quit Miramar to write full time. After the release of her second book, Edgewater, she promptly signed a book deal with national publisher Forge Books.

Her next three novels, The ProtocolClinical Trial, and Patent to Kill, were all medical thrillers. She centered the plots of the second and third of these thrillers on the abuse of indigenous peoples, a theme first introduced into her work in Edgewater. Her next book, Buffalo Medicine, focused on the slaughter of bison that wander outside the boundaries of Yellowstone.

Patent to Kill ©2005

Following the publication of Buffalo Medicine, she started getting gratifying feedback that helped her see that her work was making that difference she had always hoped it would.

Alpha Female, the first in the series now being shopped for television, revolves around poaching (in this case, of wolves) and addresses the threat to national parks from drilling.

In addition to using her writing as a vehicle for educating readers, Christofferson currently devotes time to Footloose Montana, a grassroots nonprofit she helped found, which is dedicated to protecting all wildlife, including predator species. She presently serves on the advisory board.

Alpha Female ©2009

Now a resident of Bozeman, Montana, where her son  and  one of her two granddaughters live, Christofferson has a full life.  It includes regular visits to the Blackfeet Reservation, where her daughter and other granddaughter live, writing daily in a small but cozy outbuilding, hanging out with her kids/grand daughters and husband, and, of course, entertaining a herd of furry friends, currently featuring five cats and four dogs, including an “all heart” black lab. Always, there are animals nearby, a tribute to her original impulse to be a veterinarian, now turned to animal rescue with her husband, the executive director of an animal shelter in the town of Livingston, north of Yellowstone in the Absaroka Mountains.

Grizzly Justice ©2019

Christofferson’s most recent book Grizzly Justice is about a recently fired ranger who disappears into the backcountry, hell-bent on saving a wounded grizzly bear whose fate is all but certain: euthanasia. Her current project Wolf Killer is more than timely; it feels ripped from the headlines after Montana Governor Greg Gianforte was reported to have trapped and killed a collared Yellowstone wolf who had wandered 10 miles out of the protected space of the park. (Gianforte was given a written warning for failing to take the required trapping course).

Even though she had started drafting the manuscript before the incident, the wolf, who was named “Max,” became a cause celebre. The issue of wolf hunting in Montana and the American West is classic Christofferson fodder for the kinds of stories she excels at rendering.

Generously, she attributes the beginning of those stories in part to her undergraduate years in Salt Lake City. “I’m a big fan of the University of Utah,” says Christofferson, recalling the extra semester she spent after graduation working on the University Health campus, and her senior project in biology, when she had been studying the molting of snakes.

“I was obsessed with snakes,” she says. “I had 20 of them [Coluber constrictor foxii, commonly known as “blue racers”] in an aquarium in the greenhouse. I would go up there, weigh them, record my observations.” One day when she arrived, someone had left the aquarium open, “and there I was lying on the floor of the greenhouse, trying to catch snakes, with my husband helping me,” she says with a laugh.

We will have to wait to see if that story ends up in one of her books.

 

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu

This story is an excerpt and update of Marcia C. Dibble’s profile of Ms. Christofferson that appeared in the U’s Continuum, now Utah Magazine, in winter 2007-08.

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Faculty Fellow

Faculty Fellow Award


Priyam Patel receives Faculty Fellow Award from the University of Utah.

Priyam Patel, assistant professor of mathematics, has received a Faculty Fellow Award from the University of Utah.

Priyam Patel

Faculty Fellow Awards provide a semester of full release time from teaching and administrative tasks at full salary to tenure-line faculty for scholarly and creative projects. The funding can also be used to support pilot studies for external funding proposal submissions.

“Receiving this award is such an honor, and I am thankful for the time it will afford me to build on the momentum in my current research program,” said Patel.

Patel studies curves on surfaces, symmetries of surfaces, and objects called hyperbolic manifolds and their finite covering spaces. Surfaces come in two types: finite or infinite. Traditionally, finite-type surfaces have been studied more extensively; however, infinite-type surfaces are the focus of a quickly growing, new subfield of geometry and topology. One of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics is to classify the symmetries of infinite-type surfaces. Patel plans to use the award to further her research in this area.

In 2021, she received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, which is considered the most prestigious NSF award for faculty members early in their careers as researchers and educators.

Patel joined the Math Department in 2019.

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu

 

Charles Sorenson

Charles Sorenson


“My best trait is the ability to hang out with people who are far more capable than I am,” says Charles Sorenson, MD, FACS, in a 2020 interview. “I am not intimidated by working with people who are smarter than I am.”

The former president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare, the Salt Lake City-based nonprofit regional healthcare system, and by some measurements the largest employer in Utah, must have been “hanging” with some pretty capable and smart people over the years . . . and vice versa. Now Emeritus CEO, the U Biology alumnus, HBA’74, has a long history at Intermountain as a urologic surgeon and physician leader. Today he serves as Founding Director of Intermountain Healthcare Leadership Institute.

Charles Sorenson

The Salt Lake City native attended the University of Utah as a pre-med honors student with designs to go back east for professional school. Once he’d been accepted to Cornell Medical, he quickly learned that his undergraduate education had prepared him as well for graduate work “as Ivy League educations had done for my classmates. I’m particularly grateful for the extraordinary learning experiences I had through the Honors College,” he says.

He remembers his time as a student at what is now the School of Biological Sciences as a place with an “atmosphere of open dialogue, people who challenged my ideas and encouraged me to challenge theirs. Professors who genuinely cared about their students, some of whom became lasting mentors and models of professionalism and personal integrity.”

There were several U professors who were “remarkably engaging and committed.” But the one who had the most long-term influence on Sorenson was Homer R. Warner, MD, PhD former chair of the Dept of Biophysics and Bioengineering. In the honors class Warner taught there were just a handful of students, including Sorenson. “Homer was a brilliant, world-recognized innovator in the emerging field of computers in medicine. I ended up working in his lab for three years while going to school. He was an inspiring model of a dedicated physician scientist and also a leader who cared more about others than himself.” To Sorenson the doctor scientist remained a dear colleague, friend, and mentor until Warner passed away in 2012.

“I was a pretty good student,” says Sorenson in a Managed Healthcare interview, “and I wanted to go to medical school because it was the hardest thing I could think of doing, I always felt like doing hard things was good for me, and I always felt like this is what I always wanted to do.” The budding physician also had the example of his own father, a Salt Lake internist and of his mother, a nurse.

Sorenson’s penchant for leaning into “hard things” paid off. After Cornell, he returned to the U for his residency in general surgery and urology. Before his stint as CEO, Sorenson spent 11 years at Intermountain as executive vice president and chief operating officer.

During that time, he played a critical role in making clinical process improvements and developing Intermountain into an integrated delivery system. Beginning in the 90s, healthcare services nationwide were fragmenting and patients were no longer as much at the center of the equation as Sorenson believed they should be. To help remedy that, he teamed up to establish Intermountain Medical Group, an integrated practice of 1,500 physicians and advanced practice clinicians employed by the organization. Sorenson served as founding chair of the group’s board from 1994 to 1998.

Even after being coaxed into a full-time leadership role at Intermountain, Sorenson spent one day each week in surgical practice. That was fine with the board. They didn’t want him to go get an MBA; they wanted someone who understood clinical processes and frontline employees to further the organization’s mission.

Charles Sorenson

That approach was eventually recognized shortly after Sorenson stepped down as CEO when he was awarded the 2017 Distinguished Service Award from the University of Utah’s School of Medicine. The accolade is given to healthcare leaders who’ve made outstanding contributions to the school, the community, and the practice of medicine. At the time Ron Larkin, MD, a retired OB/GYN and former Intermountain trustee, said of Sorenson’s honor, “He has as much integrity as any person I’ve ever met. He’s completely always wanting to do the right thing. He’s got such great intellect and such great judgment. He does do the right thing.”

If it sounds like under the leadership of Sorenson Intermountain has been re-inventing American healthcare as a mission-driven, patient-centered and employee-happy enterprise, that’s because it was, so much so that in 2009 President Barack Obama held the system up, more than once, as a model of quality, low-cost, integrated patient care.

About that acknowledgement from the White House Sorenson said, “While it’s easy for all of us, who know Intermountain so well from the inside, to focus mostly on ways we can still improve, it’s important to step back from time to time and appreciate the progress we’ve made. The president’s comments are a tremendous validation of the extraordinary work of our people in every one of Intermountain’s facilities and services.”
It seems that Charles Sorenson is always deflecting what are arguably his accomplishments back to his loyal front-line workers—in fact to everyone who together makes “hard things” happen well and economically at Intermountain.

It’s called leadership, the execution of it and the training of others in it, something that Sorenson is deeply embedded in now as Director of the Healthcare Leadership Institute. Even the advent of the coronavirus pandemic could not stop him. “We transitioned our program at the … Institute from an intensive on-site two weeks for healthcare leaders to an all-virtual, three-month program. While we look forward to being able to return to our beautiful Institute with in-person programs, virtual sessions have been well received and highly rated by participants—so they’ll always be a component of our program.”

These days Sorenson has had more time to spend with his four adult children and his grandchildren. With his wife Sharee, he has spent time volunteering, including working with refugee families from Central Africa. He has served on the Board of Providence Health, a very large not-for-profit health system based in Seattle, since 2018. He also recently joined MEDI, the largest executive coaching firm in the nation dedicated exclusively to the healthcare industry as an executive coach.

With more time on his hands, he enjoys music, hiking and biking and catching up on his reading. Some recent favorites have included The Second Mountain by David Brooks, Churchill by Andrew Roberts, The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, Sea Stories by William McRaven, After by Dr. Bruce Greyson, and Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown.

In addition to modeling his notion of hanging out with people whom he believes are smarter than he, Charles Sorenson’s advice to students is trenchant as they navigate a world that can be taxing and at times even despairing:

  • Have the courage to embrace new ideas­—even if they initially seem to challenge your own ways of thinking. But be careful not to be dragged along by what seems fashionable today but is not based on sound logic or in the best long-term interests of society.
  • Never neglect your personal values—always striving to improve and raise those values to higher levels.
  • Be very careful about those with whom you spend your time— professionally and personally. We become, for better or for worse, like the people with whom we spend our days.
  • Learn to be a “forever learner,” and help others to do the same.
  • Be generous and be grateful. You’ll be the greatest beneficiary of the help and thanks you extend to others.
  • It is advice from a leader and a coach of health executives that stems from a lifetime of achievement . . .of doing “hard things.”

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu Photos by Jeffrey D Allred, Desert News

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Noriene Jee

Noriene Jee


Noriene Jee

Noriene Jee always dreamed of attending the U.

Born in Ogden, Utah, and raised in Davis County, Noriene Jee (BA’83 Mathematics) always knew she wanted to attend the U. While at Clearfield High, she made plans with a friend at Ogden High to apply to the university as roommates. Their plans worked—they both attended the U and are still close friends.

During her undergraduate years, Jee’s favorite math professor was the late Professor Emeritus William J. Coles, who taught a class in differential equations. “I really enjoyed the application aspect of differential equations,” said Jee. “Later I used the math he taught me during my work as a contractor for the Air Force.”

When she wasn’t attending classes or studying, Jee enjoyed skiing and playing golf.

After graduating from the U, Jee began her career working as a rate analyst for Mountain Fuel Supply, which became Questar Corporation (and was acquired by Dominion Energy in 2016). Eventually, she moved on to work as a reliability engineer for TRW Inc., a defense contractor.

While working at TRW she was able to earn a master's degree in statistics from Utah State University. When the defense industry took a downturn, Jee left the company and became a statistician for eight years for the Internal Revenue Service.

Later she returned to TRW, which was acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002. She worked for Northrop Grumman for 17 years as a quality engineer. With her background in statistics, she was promoted to a quality manager position. By the time she retired, she had served as the Northrop Grumman mission assurance manager for a major program for the Air Force.

Value of a Math Degree

She is grateful for her education at the U. “The mathematics degree gave me the tools and useful skills to work as a reliability engineer and statistician,” she said. “Earlier in my career, statisticians were not as common as they are now, and my education gave me the skills needed to get jobs that provided better opportunities.”

In looking back at her college years, Jee has a few observations. “I didn’t appreciate the value of a mathematics degree as an undergrad. I thought I needed to be an engineer or something that had a descriptive title that led to a job. I took longer than I needed to graduate because I changed my major from engineering to mathematics. I should have just started with the math curriculum. I believe students know the value of a math degree better now since there are so many jobs that require a mathematics or a STEM degree.”

Fortunately, Jee’s daughter listened to her mother and followed a different route. She graduated from the U in 2020 with a degree in mathematics and is currently in a master’s program at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. “People are impressed that my daughter’s University of Utah undergraduate degree gave her the path to go to Columbia,” said Jee.

Jee has two horses and she and her daughter love to go riding. For now, riding may have to wait since Jee is living in New York while her daughter studies at Columbia.

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ASBMB Fellow

2022 ASBMB Fellow


Vahe Bandarian

Vahe Bandarian, professor of chemistry, has been named a 2022 fellow of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB).

“Fellows are recognized for their contributions to the ASBMB, as well as meritorious efforts to advance the molecular life sciences through sustained outstanding accomplishments in areas such as scientific research, diversity, education, mentorship and service to the scientific community,” according to the ASBMB.

Bandarian’s research interests are “centered in developing molecular level understanding of biosynthesis of complex natural products.” Specifically, he and his colleagues have studied how queuosine, a component of transfer RNA, is synthesized and used by organisms. He also studies how enzymes participate in complex chemical reactions.

A nominator wrote that Bandarian’s career displays “example after example of newly discovered chemistry, newly discovered enzymes and biochemical mysteries solved.”

He serves on the Minority Affairs Committee, the Women in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Committee and the editorial board of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Bandarian is the second U faculty member to be named an ASBMB Fellow. Wesley Sundquist, distinguished professor of biochemistry, was a part of the inaugural class of fellows in 2021.

The fellows will be recognized in April at the 2022 ASBMB Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

 

Story originally published in @theU

Frontiers of Science

Frontiers of Science Lectures


The Frontiers of Science lecture series was established in 1967 by University of Utah alumnus and Physics Professor Peter Gibbs. By 1970, the University had hosted 10 Nobel laureates for public Frontiers lectures. By 1993, when Gibbs retired, the Frontiers organizers had hosted another 20 laureates. Today, Frontiers of Science is the longest continuously-running lecture series at the University of Utah.

UPCOMING LECTURES


DR. STEVEN CHU

 

Dr. Steven Chu

Tuesday, September 10, 2024, Nobel Laureate and Former U.S. Secretary of State Steven Chu will keynote the Frontiers of Science lecture series. The event will take place on the University of Utah campus.

VIDEO ARCHIVE


 

History


A Lecture Series Spanning Five Decades

 

The Frontiers of Science lecture series was established in 1967 by University of Utah alumnus and Physics Professor Peter Gibbs. Gibbs and his fellow physics faculty at the U sought to bring notable researchers from around the country to the University to discuss the current “frontiers” in physics research. The larger goal was to present public lectures that would attract attention to important developments in scientific research.

By 1970, the University had hosted 10 Nobel laureates for public Frontiers lectures. By 1993, when Gibbs retired, the Frontiers organizers had hosted another 20 laureates. Today, Frontiers of Science is the longest continuously-running lecture series at the University of Utah.

The first Frontiers event was presented by Peter Gibbs himself, who discussed “Einstein the Sociologist,” on April 1, 1967. Physics Professors David C. Evans, Grant R. Fowles and Jack W. Keuffel presented the remaining three lectures that year. In the meantime, the group worked on scheduling outstanding speakers for the following year.

Gibbs and colleagues made good on their promise to bring exceptional scientists to campus. During the 1968-69 academic year, eight lectures were held, including ones by C.N. Yang from the University of New York at Stony Brook (“Symmetry Principles in Physics”) and Murray Gell-Mann from the California Institute of Technology (“Elementary Particles”). Nobel laureates gave three of the eight presentations that academic year, and during 1969 as a whole, six of thirteen lectures were given by Nobel laureates. Topics included astronomy, mathematics, anthropology, politics and social issues.

Gibbs and the early FOS organizers were extremely adept at recruiting famous and soon-to-be-famous scientists. They also were keenly aware of the state of scientific research and the social climate of the time. President Nixon was in office, the Vietnam War was escalating and student protests were common on university campuses including the U of U. The United States had just put a man on the moon. Personal computers did not exist.

Through the 1970s as many as ten lectures were presented each academic year, but by 1980 the pace had slowed to a more manageable five or six per year. The FOS series had become immensely popular and the topics were broadened to include biology, chemistry, mathematics and the earth sciences.

In the early 1980s, FOS audiences were treated to firsthand accounts of the discovery of the structure of DNA by James D. Watson (“The Double Helix and Destiny,” 1981) and Francis H.C. Crick (“The Two DNA Revolutions,” 1984), the achievement for which they had received a Nobel Prize in 1962.

Many FOS speakers were not so famous or honored when they spoke here, but became so later in their career. For example, F. Sherwood Rowland spoke on “Man’s Threat to Stratospheric Ozone” in the 1978 academic year, and was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering studies on the destruction of ozone by chlorofluro- carbons which was his topic in 1978!

From 1994 to 1997, the Frontiers of Science series was complemented by the Davern/Gardner Laureateship. Dean T. Benny Rushing, Biology Professor K. Gordon Lark, and Emeritus Professor Boyer Jarvis wished to honor the memory of two former College of Science faculty members who made extraordinary administrative contributions to the University of Utah: Cedric “Ric” Davern and Pete D. Gardner.

Rushing, Lark and Jarvis secured a generous grant from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation to fund the Davern/Gardner Laureateship. The Laureateship allowed the College to bring a notable scientist to campus to deliver a public lecture and to interact with research teams and faculty that shared the invitee’s scientific interests. Dr. John Cairns gave the first lecture in November 1994. A total of six Davern/Gardner Laureateship lectures were presented until the grant was exhausted.

The history of venues for Frontiers of Science presentations is quite colorful. From 1967 to 1970, various rooms were used, including 103 North Physics, 200 Music Hall and Mark Greene Hall in the College of Business. By 1974, FOS events were often held in the Waldemer P. Read auditorium in Orson Spencer Hall. The Read auditorium featured stadium seating for about 400 people and was primarily used through the 1980s.

By 1990, the Fine Arts auditorium became the venue of choice because it was newer, larger, and had a better sound system. However, the lighting and sound controls were problematic and scheduling conflicts forced organizers to utilize the nearby Social Work auditorium on occasion.

In the meantime, the College of Science was constructing the Aline Wilmot Skaggs Biology Research Building (ASB) that included a beautiful 325-seat lecture auditorium and an adjoining 125-seat room complete with modern sound systems, digital video projectors and lighting. When ASB opened in 1997, the Frontiers series finally had a home within the College.

In 2003, the College of Mines and Earth Sciences joined with the College of Science to co-host FOS and increase the number of lectures devoted to aspects of geology, geophysics and meteorology. The effort was successful and a total of five presentations were scheduled, including Paul F. Hoffman, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Harvard University (“Snowball Earth: Testing the Limits of Global Climate Change,” 2003) and Peter B. deMenocal, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University (“Climate Shifts and the Collapse of Ancient Cultures,” 2004).

In March 2007, Professor Kerry A. Emanuel of MIT discussed the history and science of hurricanes, including how climate change may be influencing storm cycles around the world. He used stunning photos and graphics to explain how hurricanes work, what determines their energy and destructiveness, and the economic and social implications of our policies for dealing with the risks they pose.

In 2008, The 14th Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, Sir Arnold Wolfendale, graced Utah audiences with a superb presentation on “Time: From Harrison’s Clocks to the Possibility of New Physics.” Other international guests were Dr. Jennifer Graves, Distinguished Professor at La Trobe University, Australia, and Dr. Stefan Hell, Nobel laureate and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany.

Peter Gibbs: The Father of “Frontiers”

Physics Professor Pete Gibbs and his colleagues established the Frontiers of Science lecture series as a method to bring notable researchers from around the world to Utah to discuss the current “frontiers” in scientific research. The first Frontiers event was presented by Pete Gibbs himself, on April 1, 1967. During the following two years, nine of the twenty-one FoS lectures were given by current or future Nobel laureates.

The early success of Frontiers was largely due to Pete’s personal invitations, and also his family’s skill at hosting prominent scientists in their home near the University campus. The Gibbs family offered lodging, food, and world-class skiing, to sweeten the deal.

Pete Gibbs passed away on July 13, 2019 surrounded by family and friends. He was 94.

Frontiers of Science, now in its 52nd year, continues to be sponsored by the College of Science and the College of Mines and Earth Sciences. The list of speakers now includes some 280 distinguished scientists.

  


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