Biology Alum receives 2025 U Honorary Doctorate

March 13, 2025

A three-time alum of the U, Samuelson worked as a rheumatologist, medical school dean and as the U’s vice president of health sciences. He left the university in 1993 to join the executive leadership team at Intermountain Healthcare. A year later, Samuelson was called to serve in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ First Quorum of the Seventy, before being named as BYU’s president, a job he held for a decade.

Samuelson's first degree from the U was in biology in 1966 before going on to graduate school at the U in psychology, culminating with an MD from the medical school.

“Honorary degrees are a recognition of exceptional human beings who have transformed the world in ways large and small,” said President Taylor Randall. “Cecil, Julie, King and Linda have invested their time, talents and financial support to causes that have changed our university, state and the world. We are so fortunate to have exceptional leaders who, through everyday acts and transformational investments, have changed individual lives, bolstered education and advanced culture. The legacy of their work will live on for years to come.”

Honorary degrees are awarded to individuals who have achieved distinction in academic pursuits, the arts, professions, business, government, civic affairs or in service to the university. The Honors Committee, which includes representatives from the faculty, student body and Board of Trustees, reviews nominations and then consults with an advisory group of faculty, staff and administrators for additional input. Finalists are presented to the university president, who then selects the recipients.

“This year’s honorary degree recipients personify selfless service in higher education, passionate advocacy, life-changing innovations and artistic creativity,” said Jamie Sorenson, chair of the Board of Trustees Honors Committee. “We are so pleased to recognize these exceptional individuals for the ways they have lived their lives and inspired future generations to live theirs.”

You can read more about the 2025 honorees in @TheU.

Tooth enamel helps reconstruct wildlife migrations

March 13, 2025

Teeth recovered from a beloved zoo elephant that died in 2008 are helping University of Utah geologists develop a method for tracking the movements of large herbivores across landscapes, even for animals now extinct, such as mastodons and mammoths.

Outlined in recently published findings, the technique analyzes isotope ratios of the element strontium (Sr), which accumulates in tooth enamel. For large plant-eating land mammals, the relative abundance of two strontium isotopes in teeth and tusks reflects where the creature may have roamed during its lifetime.

“Our study not only adds to our understanding of how tooth enamel records an animal’s Sr isotope exposure, but also helps to reconstruct animal migrations from Sr isotope analysis,” lead author Deming Yang said in a posting about the research. “It can be applied to studies of paleobiology, to answer how megaherbivores migrated in the past. It can also be applied to studies of modern conservation and forensics, to trace the origins of illegal ivory trade and other forms of wildlife trafficking.”

The star of the study is Misha, a female elephant acquired by Salt Lake City’s Hogle Zoo in 2005.

Chemically similar to calcium, strontium from the environment accumulates in highly mineralized tissues, such as animals’ bones and teeth.

“As animals eat and drink, they pick up this environmental signature and store it in their teeth, preserving a series of environmental exposures like historic archives,” Yang wrote. This is because the geology of different places presents different isotope signatures for 87-strontium/86-strontium [⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr] and those isotope ratios are reflected in plants and water.

“We use other elements, but in this case, we’re focusing on strontium, which has proven to be really useful because of its strong link to geology,” coauthor Gabe Bowen said. “Ultimately it comes down to where that element comes from, how the animal gets it into their body and from what sources.”

The isotope ⁸⁷Sr is radiogenic, meaning it is produced from the decay of another element, in this case rubidium, found next door to strontium on the Periodic Table, whose half-life exceeds 49 billion years, about 10 times the age of Earth. While ⁸⁷Sr increases over time, the abundance of other strontium isotopes remains fixed. Accordingly, isotope ratios are a proxy for the age of rocks and typically differ from place to place.

Coauthor Thure Cerling, a highly decorated distinguished U professor of both geology and biology, is a pioneer in the use of isotope analysis to shed light on ecological questions such as soil formation, animal physiology, wildlife ecology and climate change.

Read the entire story by Brian Maffly in @TheU.

Gamma ray observatory gets green light

March 12, 2025

The creation of the CTAO-ERIC will enable the observatory’s construction to advance rapidly and provide a framework for distributing its data worldwide, significantly accelerating its progress toward scientific discovery. On Feb. 13, 2025, the ERIC Council approved to immediately negotiate the establishment of Japan as a strategic partner and the United States, Brazil and Australia as third-party members.

Animation of a blue light beam breaking up into multiple particles and hits Earth's atmosphere, scattering across the globe.

“This field did not exist before 1989 when the first the gamma ray source was detected. At that point, we knew of four sources in the world,” said Dave Kieda, professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Utah and the CTAO spokesperson for the U.S. “The past 35 years, we went from detecting the first to now seeing several hundred. With CTAO, we’re going to see thousands. And the University of Utah is part of that legacy.”

The CTAO-ERIC was established with the international support of 11 countries and one intergovernmental organization that contributed to the technological development, construction and operation of the observatory. For Kieda, the new array will give astronomers an unprecedented view of the mysterious radiation he’s spent his career studying.

“Over the last decade, people have discovered that these high energy gamma rays are present in many, many types of very energetic astronomical phenomenon, but we don’t know much about where they come from,” Kieda said.

Read the full story by Lisa Potter in @ The U. Video above: Animation of a gamma ray hitting Earth’s atmosphere, creating the blue Cherenkov light that flashes for a billionth of a second.

Pace Yourself: Season 2 Episode 10

March 11, 2025

Listen Here:

Introduction:

Sherrá Watkins

Dr. Sherrá Watkins (she/her/hers) is the Associate Vice President for Student Health and Wellness at the University of Utah. A North Caroline native, she is responsible, since arriving at the U in 2022, for overseeing five departments: Student Health, the Center for Student Wellness, Campus Recreation Services, the University Counseling Center, and the Center for Disability and Access. You can read a first-person account of her background and expertise in Humans of the U. https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/human-of-the-u-sherra-watkins/

Resources:

Humans of the U: Sherrá Watkins

Transcript:

Hi, my name is David Pace, and this is Pace Yourself, a University of Utah College of Science podcast on Wellness.

Today my guest is Sherrá Watkins, associate vice president for student health and wellness here at the U where she oversees six departments: Student Health, Center for Student Wellness, Campus Recreation, the University Counseling Center, the Center for Disability and Access and Financial Wellness. Welcome.

Sherrá Watkins 0:31

Thank you. Good to be here. Good morning.

David Pace 0:33

It’s nice to have you here. So we are getting ready, it sounds like, to launch a health, wellness, resilience Initiative—1U. Let’s jump in right there. I guess that’s going to happen in May. Can you tell us a little bit about how that folds into the work that you’re doing in these six departments?

Healthy, Happy and Whole

Sherrá Watkins 0:54

Yes. So when I came in October of 2022 to Lori McDonald, who’s the Vice President over Student Affairs ,she decided that she wanted to realign the engagement of student affairs to create a culture of well-being here on the campus. In order to do that, she realigned the Departments for Student Affairs to be up under one area. That focused on students and the entire culture of the campus. But my particular position did not focus on faculty and staff. With the provost coming along last year in 2024, there were some conversations that had started with me during my campus tour of meeting all of the deans and the chairs, and I shared some of that feedback when I got to do my meet-and-greet with Mitzi. And there were some moving initiatives of how do we begin to focus that culture of care with faculty and staff?

David Pace 2:01

That’s Mitzi Montoya, the provost.

Sherrá Watkins 2:04

And so there was the new wave of that initial initiative creating the task force of the Well-Being and Resiliency Initiative. And so that task force was created, and we needed that task force to focus on faculty and staff, because my position just focuses on students. And so the task force was created with faculty liaisons and fellows, and then it was headed, as far as consultants, with myself and also the Chief Wellbeing Officer for U Health, Amy, Dr. Amy Locke.

And so based off of our expertise with Amy being over U Health and then myself being over the campus as a whole, but particularly the narrow focus of students, we provided our expertise on what does the simple term say organizational health and well-being look like? And with helping the task force begin to define what does wellbeing and wellness look like from an organizational standpoint for faculty and staff.

David Pace 3:09

So the task force included, if I’m not mistaken, stakeholders from the entire university community, including staff. So I asked that because that kind of answers the first question that I was thinking of, of bringing up, which is, since you’re with working with students how does that interface with faculty and staff? And I think you just answered that. Because this podcast actually began for staff, essentially. But of course, we want to appeal to the broader community as well, faculty and administration and so forth.

So that answers that question. That’s interesting. So can you tell us a little bit about this rollout? Is it formal or is it already happening?

Sherrá Watkins 3:57

It’s already happening. We started with just some conversations of what is currently happening on campus so that we don’t have to be redundant? And as I told the task force and I share with Keith Diaz Moore, who is leading out on this initiative, is that even in my work, I cannot focus on students without focusing on faculty and staff because they see the students every day. My staff that provide the services and resources for students, we receive the direct referrals from staff. We help train the faculty and staff because they also are what we call gatekeepers. They also see the symptoms. They also can triage for us. And so it goes hand-in-hand.

And we also know, most importantly, one of my infamous statements that I say is that healthy, happy, whole faculty and staff means healthy, happy, whole students. And so as we try to make sure in this task force, my biggest thing is that there has to be some alignment in the types of resources and also in terminology. We can’t have two separate definitions of well-being and wellness for how we defined it for students and have totally separate definitions of how we define it for faculty and staff.

And so when we talk about this broader slogan of what is a culture of well-being, yes, students and faculty and staff are different, but the terms need to have some alignment, meaning that if we’re all walking down this pathway to try to look at how we reach this overarching definition of what is well-being—which is the definition of what is the betterment of my health; how do I define that for who I am as identified gender, race, culture, my purpose; how do we define that for this entire campus? And how do we create the resources and the tools to make sure and ensure that everyone can get there based off of their own definition?

And so that has been what I have been trying to ensure that there is some alignment in that, regardless of if it’s students or faculty and staff. And so in our meetings that we’ve been having so far, it’s just looking at current literature and what are other campuses doing as far as other Big 12 universities who are already doing this type of work.

And then how do we make sure in this task force that we have both the research, the active innovations as far as what services and then also what is implementation look like to ensure, most importantly, what we’re hearing from faculty and staff is accountability.

If we’re getting feedback and we’re getting recommendations, faculty and staff want to hold us accountable for, If I give you information, how can we ensure it will be rolled out and I am heard?

David Pace 7:04

Yeah, it’s funny. It’s not funny, but it’s interesting that you bring this up because we had a survey that we distributed through the College of Science fairly recently about health and wellness, wellness in particular, which is kind of a more nebulous term, perhaps, I don’t know, we can maybe unpack that a little bit later. But one of the criticisms that we had of the College of Science—it’s always hard to get criticisms—is that, you know, you’re talking a lot about wellness, but when we get directives from administration, it seems like you’re not factoring that in at all, whether it’s, like, you have to have this survey in by noon and we got it at 6 a.m. So what is that all about?

You know, to be fair, we had to send it through the departments and they delayed sending it out, but the point is that they feel the need for accountability. Don’t just talk about wellness on a podcast. Ahem. But actually deploy it as you make specific requirements and requests or demands even of the staff. You know, because the staff, I think being one of them myself, sometimes the concern is that we are being overloaded with expectations that were not part of our job description to begin with.

And of course, that’s bound to happen in any job. I think right now, especially with the realignment of funds that are going to be distributed from the legislature and even nationally, some of the concerns that people have of higher education and somehow we’re in an ivory tower.

I don’t feel like I’m in an ivory tower. Do you?

Timing is Everything

Sherrá Watkins 8:53

I think it is more brownish at this point? But you make a valid point. And the point that you make is the same point that I tell faculty when it comes to assignments. You know, one of the biggest variables that we can change, what I call low-hanging fruit, is when we give assignments. If we can just push back the assignment deadline to 8:00 pm.. I know most of the faculty when I mentioned this, when I was going to do my meet-and-greet tour, they were like, We push it to midnight because we have students who have families and they work and we want to give them the most amount of time.

And I said that makes total sense. When you look at the current data, we have a variety of students. And my counter to that is that if we put all of the assignments on the syllabus ahead of time, and we give them the deadline that this will be due at 8:00, what we have seen in national research is that whether we put it at 8:00 PM or at midnight is that we get the same deliverables.

And deliverables is that we’re trying to push back and increase sleep hygiene because we know that in our current studies is that if we’re trying to increase sleep hygiene, increase better health overall and wellness is that one quick change in changing the time that we do for implementation for assignments is that we make that change and students are getting more sleep.

And so we have to begin to change our mindset of how we see ourselves as students and then what was done to us. We don’t necessarily have to keep that same type of paradigm. And so we make that small change because in our current study of the American College Health Assessment here for this university — not comparing ourselves to others — the average amount of sleep is five to six hours.

David Pace 10:59

Mm hmm. That’s not enough. Enough for me.

Sherrá Watkins 11:01

Well, you know, we’re not going to even talk about those because the is the basis.

Sherrá Watkins 11:06

This is for students. They have one for faculty as staff. I’m not going to make that number.

David Pace 11:10

Okay?

Sherrá Watkins 11:11

We’re not going to share that.

David Pace 11:12

So you use the term “hygiene”? Yes. Yeah. And I like that because it’s about, you know.

Sherrá Watkins 11:21

Routine.

David Pace 11:21

Routine. Yeah. So I get up in the morning and I have my hygiene routine, or we all do. Yeah. Brush our teeth and…

Sherrá Watkins 11:28

Hygiene means that is flexible. It can be balanced. It creates the nuance of it can change from season to season. My sleep hygiene in the summer versus the fall, daylight saving times, you know, that may be changing here in Utah. So we don’t know. It can vary. And as students and as adults, that gives us the ability to have privilege in some times and also the advantage to say I may need five or six hours for this time, but I know that I can flex it more and get what I really, truly need, which is seven to eight hours, maybe next week or in a couple of more months once I get past, you know, midterms or something like that.

David Pace 12:11

So I think it’s interesting that you’ve come up with a real concrete, simple solution to part of the problem, which is just change the deadline. What a concept.

Sherrá Watkins 12:25

That can also be reversed to faculty too, which is that if an administration wants certain feedback, certain information, deliver it in a timely manner and then give a timely deadline set too. So what we do for students, we should also do for faculty and staff.

David Pace 12:42

So we have a survey coming out pretty quick from your department, is that correct?

Sherrá Watkins 12:45

Yes.

David Pace 12:46

So you should look for that.

Sherrá Watkins 12:47

Yes. And so I made the recommendation to the task force is that we should have, again, alignment of what we deliver to students bi-annually, which is two surveys. The American College Health Association, we deliver for students the National College Health Assessment, which is a wellness assessment following one of your future questions, which looks at our nine dimensions of wellness. The pathways to get to be healthy, happy and whole.

And then we do want to just focus on mental health. So only looking at mental health questions from stigma and to your emotional health and well-being and then also access. And that is done by the JED National organization known as the Healthy Minds Survey. Sorry, I had a brain freeze—the Healthy Minds assessment.

And so they also have one for faculty and staff. That was my recommendation is that if our counterparts of the Big 12 and other universities and colleges are doing that with their faculty and staff, and we are also doing it with our students, now we can also have comparables. We can compare what a what are we seeing with our students and then what are we seeing with that faculty and staff.

There are some similar questions, but also some vastly different questions because of the populations. And now we can compare it to our constituents. What are other colleges that are 30,000-plus and even also 10,000 or less?

The Wellness Wheel

David Pace 14:20

Okay. Yeah. So, again, you’re trying to align all of this because we have tremendous resources here at the University of Utah. But we can get lost in the trees if we don’t understand how they do align or if they align.

So getting back to the dimensions of wellness. So this podcast has been operating on the National Institutes of Health’s eight dimensions. You’ve got nine. Yes. And so one that the one that we’re missing is cultural health. Can you unpack that a little bit for us? What does that mean? Because that will lead us to a couple of other questions.

Sherrá Watkins 14:58

Mean, I’m pretty sure when I came here, I must say that I was interviewing for the position and I went to different websites from the U. Health to School of Medicine to dentistry, and I saw six different dimensions. I mean, I was like, Oh, oh my goodness. And so being from North Carolina, I use the colloquialism I had to clutch all my pearls.

And so one of the ideas in bringing the task force that was already together, which was the task force. So if you did not know, we are officially as of August of last year, an officially a jade campus, which means that we focus on health equity, reducing stigma for mental health, and increase in access for all of our students, and if we are focusing on those three aspects, that means that we have to focus on the whole student. And focusing on the whole student means that that it is cultural. Cultural wellness is that we are looking at the whole student, and that means whether it’s gender, race, spirituality, and when we look at the whole population of our student campus, we have students that are international we have students of all different races.

Though most of our students, between 50 and 60% come from Utah, that is still a very much a melting pot. We have students who are immigrants. We have students who are first gen. And so looking at how do we build a sense of belonging on this campus, how do we ensure that all of our health and wellness resources are accessible and also can meet the needs of these different, various students?

And so, I believe that culture must be a very important factor. And one of the important dimensions of our wellness, wheel, as we say, are the dimensions of wellness. And so as we were focusing on JED, I put it back to the task force and not just from my opinion to say we’re looking at all the different campuses and universities, what is going to be our wellness wheel? We’ll support all the wellness worlds together and said, what is going to be our one wellness wheel for this campus? Are we going to include culture? Some universities also include a technology dimension also. And so this final wellness wheel that we have I’m leaning to did include culture. [see image of wheel above]

Navigating the dismantling of “DEI”

David Pace 17:15

Related to that then is and maybe this is beating a dead horse—is that impolitic to say that? — but okay, let’s just say that the state legislature just trashed the DEI initiative. I’ll be blunt about it. And it’s been traumatic for a lot of us because so much of what the university has been about is exactly what you were just talking about. Are we just changing the language around this or. I mean. I mean, I’m not knocking the language change or anything. We have to do what we have to do because we are funded by the state legislature. But how do we provide this accessibility while honoring the diversity, equity and inclusion that we no longer can formally do?

Is that a fair enough question? Is that a question that you are willing to answer?

Sherrá Watkins 18:10

I can definitely answer the question is. It’s a conversation that we’re having among our national organization is because we’re not the only state is the question that my staff immediately answered. And so, I would answer that in a couple of different ways. Number one, there were immediate carve-outs for health and wellness, okay?

David Pace 18:29

And so they weren’t touching that.

Sherrá Watkins 18:31

They weren’t they were not touching that. If it meant of how we are able to provide health and wellness services, there were carve-outs, and we made sure we worked with our legal team to ensure what that meant.

And so, if we were providing medical treatment or even up under the purview — because some people still don’t consider counseling, medical, let’s just say, it is still very much stigmatized—we make sure that we followed what the recommendation from the legislature means.

So what we had to do was for students who were receiving wellness coaching or mental health counseling, which fell upon the group or individual, those students had to follow all our written protocol.

So, if it was individual or group coaching or counseling, those students will be identified as receiving a treatment or a service. So that did not change. And so, the legislation did not touch any of those areas. However, those specific pieces that that it did affect is — let’s say we wanted to have a group that focused on women who were survivors of sexual assault — it’s still a medical treatment, and it can be a mental health group, but because it focuses just on women only, we had to make sure it fell under how do we categorize that as a medical group for mental health?

And so we had to follow certain rules to make sure that if it was publicized, that it also was identified as a medical treatment type of group. And so whether they fell under our counseling or a wellness, because I know you may be familiar with that victim survivor advocacy, which follows up under our Center for a Campus wellness, that is not mental health counseling, that falls under more of a coaching and support group.

And so, we still had to follow those guidelines making sure that we identify that this is a mental health support group that has an identified counselor or coach there for support. And then you have to follow a, what we call, a triage process to be able to be identified in that group for safety because we do not want those who may be identified as those who harm to be able to access those survivors in those groups.

And so, we just once again worked with our legal counsel to make sure that we provide supports and also precautions for those who are seeking those types of services to have those same types of protections.

When it comes to larger scope groups, like we have those who are in recovery. So we have like we call our healing teas and workshops: those types of groups are open to all. And so we still make sure that those are open.

And so that’s the first part of how we ask the question. The second way I would ask the question is the hard way that I had to tell my staff is that I’ve been in this field since 2004. My first background is in public health and my second background is that I’m a licensed clinician. And the hard way that I had to say it, because I had to say it to myself, was we have been doing this work without saying DEI. Since 2004 before it became popular.

David Pace 22:06

Oh, okay, This is not new.

Sherrá Watkins 22:09

This is not new. And so I remember before we actually started really focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion, those were not popular terms that we were taught in thiose intro classes and population health classes. And so, for some of those colleagues who are newer in the field, but in some of us who are not new, I said we need to go back to the basics. How do we still do the work without saying the words? And I said, I know it’s hard, and I say it for some of my staff, many of us may transition out because this is not what we signed up for. And as a leader, how can I help make sure that I support you in your transition? Because as a great leader, that’s what I’m supposed to do.

For those of us who still need to do the work, how can I support you in the midst of this transition? Because now I need to provide coaching and even counseling for some as we weather this storm. And then for those of us who are in that ambivalence period, how do we once again still do the work but also gain the footing of helping our students who are transitioning?

So we are similar, okay? But we don’t know how to be there to support the students because we’re still trying to determine like how we are navigating our own feelings. And we’ve got students who are coming to us, and they are just not okay.

And so, as a leader it is like helping to transition and do this work with three different categories of employees who are in, what we call in public health, going through various stages of change.

David Pace 23:48

Right?

Sherrá Watkins 23:49

That’s the hard part.

Learning from history

David Pace 23:50

So it sounds like you’re taking a more granular approach than to and maybe, you know, I like to think of myself as an optimist. So, I’d like to think that this conversation that we’re having will have some profoundly beneficial, generative outcomes.

Sherrá Watkins 24:07

I am optimistic. I think the one thing I have had great mentors throughout the course of my career, having worked at multiple medical schools, having done this work in public health and also as a clinician. I remember sitting with one of my mentors as this was coming down the pipeline —I saw it coming — and I remember sitting there, and I said something that was very blunt. So excuse me if this is coming off as offensive, but I remember sitting in one of my medical courses and learning about all of the systemic racism in the medical field, the Tuskgegee experiments and Henrietta Lacks, and I said to her, these types of stories that we learned in science and history have been pervasive in the medical field. And so what I have learned is that if we don’t learn from history, we will constantly repeat it. And I truly don’t think we learn from history. And so, coming back and circling these toxic topics of DEI again, I’m just not surprised.

And maybe that’s just me in, but I don’t think that we learn from it because I know Henrietta Lacks family just now really got their due diligence

Sherrá Watkins 28:24

Of everything. And so that’s what I mean when I tell my staff and as I work with my mentors, is that when we talk about systemic racism and historical trauma of how it has led to science, medical, population, health, we still have—before I got here, I was working in a medical school and this is what I taught in behavioral sciences—we still have medical students who believe that Black patients have thicker skin and therefore have a higher disproportion in belief of higher pain tolerance.

David Pace 29:02

Wow, that’s staggering.

People with disabilities

Sherrá Watkins 29:05

So we still we’re still here. Yeah. And so we still have work to do. And I am a believer that we can still do the work. My fear is that as we’re continuing to do the work, and we can’t say the term, is that people have to remember that when we’re talking about diversity, equity and inclusion, there has been a focus on gender, race, sexual orientation. And I just have to say that we cannot forget about the population who sometimes goes unseen, which is our students and our staff and faculty who have disabilities. And I think that has been left out of the conversation because one of the other reasons why I make sure that we include a culture is that within my first 90 days of being here, our students who are living with various forms of disability, that’s the student groups chronically us. And another student group called me on the carpet and said, We’re here and we haven’t been heard. They wanted a disability center just for them.

And so, these students are here, and there are faculty and staff who are here who have mental and physical disabilities, and their voices want to be heard, too. But in this conversation of DEI, there is a population that is a part of that that people are also forgetting, too.

Health Literacy | Health Navigation

David Pace 30:39

Yeah, that’s a very good reminder. We’re running out of time at this point. But I wanted to acknowledge the fact that we have boots-on-the ground services for students. I’m thinking of the Peer Well-Being Navigation Program. Do you want to talk about that for a brief moment? How does that work?

Sherrá Watkins 30:59

Yes, that is one of my babies. Coming from the hospital setting. I’ve been very all over the place. I come from population health, I’m working with patients, living with sickle cell and patients living with HIV. And I’ve always worked in multidisciplinary care. Being first gen [first generation college student] I remember coming to school and never have made a doctor’s appointment in my life and at one point didn’t even have health care. And as I talked to faculty and staff in my tour, there’s a belief that EDI is only focused on students that come from marginalized spaces and places. And my approach to is that it is not only focus on students who come from historically marginalized places, we also have to focus on, as I say, the full continuum of students. Students who come from historically marginalized places and students who come from privilege, both of those student [groups] on both of those continuums and students who are in the middle, many of them don’t know how to really navigate our health care system.

Not all of them know how to make a doctor’s appointment. Some of them do not know how to read a health insurance card. Not all of them know what a deductible is. And so how do we make sure from a very simple term, provide health literacy?

Health literacy is that they know how to make a doctor’s appointment, read a health insurance card, understand financial literacy, which means that they know how to open a bank account, know what it means to understand their financial aid, but also if they get a doctor’s bill, how that may impact whether they can stay in school or have to sometimes fall out.

All of that is health literacy. And so, health navigation, overall, I wanted to bring that here and create that same thing. So, if a student is lost and they have just a simple thought of I’m unwell, but I don’t know where to start. I wanted for them to have that understanding of at least know I at least know where to go. That is peer wellbeing navigation. Okay. If you don’t know what door to enter are, even as faculty and staff, a student comes to you and says, I don’t know where to go, but I know I’m unwell. And we typically always send them to the Dean of Students office, which is not always the best because they’re sometimes seen as punitive. Our peer wellness navigators are students have been trained as case managers and also navigators to say, let’s just have a conversation. Tell me what you’re going through, and I can help you to navigate options. And they will try an option with them. And if it doesn’t work, they will come back and follow up with them three to five times into. They find them the best access door and to get them started.

David Pace 33:48

So, you have a continuum of students, but you also have what I think you call on your website a continuum of care, which is, it kind of reminds me of the hidden curriculum that first generation students sometimes have. They don’t they don’t even know what the questions are they should be asking. And so this is an intervention for that.

Sherrá Watkins 34:10

It is sometimes what we as I don’t know that I know that I’m going to my annual doctor’s appointment and I have this list of questions, but which one do I ask first? And they say we only have 15 minutes, and we try to ask the rapid questions. It’s the same thing for us too.

David Pace 34:24

Right? So we were going to talk about your North Carolina background and the clutching all my pearls.

Sherrá Watkins 34:35

. . . barbecue and chill wine.

David Pace 34:37

Yeah, but we’ll have to hold off on that for another time. But I wanted to, I wanted to acknowledge that you come from a background that had its own challenges and, you know, that’s part of the South, which has its historical challenges as well. But having navigated that yourself, even without a mentor or a peer mentor, right?, that you’ve arrived at this place at the University of Utah, and we’re really excited to have you here. I know that’s it’s been a few years, but welcome.

So our guest today is Sherrá Watkins, and she is the associate vice president for student health and wellness here at the U. And we haven’t even talked about all six departments that you oversee — verything from recreation to counseling to, of course, disability and access and financial wellness.

So a lot of work is being done by you. And I want to personally thank you for being with us here this morning and all the best with the launch of the Health and Wellness Resilience Center Initiative.

Sherrá Watkins 35:51

Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me.

David Pace 35:53

Thank you.

New state-of-the-art mass spectrometer

March 10, 2025

The University of Utah’s Department of Geology & Geophysics has been awarded a million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to acquire state-of-the-art mass spectrometry instrumentation for measuring isotope ratios of heavier elements at the precision needed to perform cutting-edge research into Earth’s deep past.

Mass spectrometers have been making accurate and precise isotope ratio measurements of elements such as hydrogen (H), carbon (C) and oxygen (O) for many decades. Isotope ratio differences generally scale with mass, with isotope ratios of these lighter-mass elements exhibiting much larger differences than ratios for the heavier-mass elements. Large differences are easier to measure than small differences.

The instrument acquired through the NSF Major Research Instrumentation program is capable of determining very, very small isotope ratio differences. The instrument’s technical name is the Thermo Neoma “multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer,” or MC-ICP-MS for short. The instrument routinely makes accurate and precise isotope ratio measurements for magnesium (Mg), iron (Fe), strontium (Sr), molybdenum (Mo), mercury (Hg), thallium (Tl), lead (Pb), uranium (U), calcium (Ca), potassium (K) and many other heavy elements.

“There’s so many things you can do with it. We have a long list of scientists in our department and beyond who rely on isotope ratio data for their projects,” said Chad Ostrander, assistant professor of geology and principal investigator of the grant.

Joining Ostrander in applying for the grant are Diego Fernandez, Juan Carlos de Obeso and Sarah Lambart. Chris Anderson and Issaku Kohl also play instrumental roles in the project. The team’s interests cover many fields of research, tracking the selective movement of isotopes today and in the past from Earth’s interior to its surface, between seawater and the seafloor, from ocean to land and between land and life.

Read the entire story by Ethan Hood in @TheU.

Pearl Sandick named Interim Dean of the College of Science

March 7, 2025

Pearl Sandick

Sandick will begin working in this new role on March 15, 2025, and will continue to serve until a new dean is appointed. Montoya will work with the college before the end of the academic year to determine next steps and timing on a search process for a new dean.

Sandick, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has been associate dean for faculty and research in the U’s College of Science since 2022. She came to the U as an assistant professor in 2011 and is a theoretical particle physicist studying physics beyond the Standard Model, including possible explanations for the dark matter in the universe.

She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2008 and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Theory Group at the University of Texas at Austin before moving to Utah. She has been recognized for her teaching and mentoring work with a University of Utah Early Career Teaching Award, a University of Utah Distinguished Mentor Award and the Linda K. Amos Award for Distinguished Service to Women. She has also been recognized as a U Presidential Scholar.

“I appreciate Dr. Sandick’s willingness to take on this important role and to lead the College of Science during a period of growth and change for the U,” Montoya said. “She has proven to be an outstanding professor, administrator and mentor at the university, and I look forward to the contributions she will make as interim dean.”

Sandick’s move comes as current College of Science Dean Peter Trapa begins serving March 15 as the inaugural vice provost and senior dean of the Colleges and Schools of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS). In that role, he will provide strategic advancement and management of the College of Humanities, College of Science, College of Social and Behavioral Science and the School for Cultural & Social Transformation.

“It is with great confidence that I turn the leadership of the College of Science to Pearl Sandick as interim dean,” Trapa said. “She will extend the trajectory of excellence and history of innovation that defines Science at the U.”

The College of Science promotes the importance of basic and applied science and prepares graduates for impactful careers that will help address future challenges, locally, nationally and globally. The college consists of eight academic units and is home to the Science Research Initiative and the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy.

“I’m honored and humbled by the opportunity to serve as interim dean of the College of Science,” Sandick said. “After nearly 14 years in the college, I look forward to supporting our outstanding faculty, staff and students in this new capacity and at this critical moment, as we work together to advance student success, our academic programs and the frontiers of research and innovation.”

Convocation 2025

March 6, 2025

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE | COLLEGE OF MINES & Earth Sciences Convocation Events

Please check back regularly for updates to this page as new information becomes available.

Convocation Ceremony

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2025
Time: 8:00 AM
Location: Jon M. Huntsman Center

The College of Science convocation ceremony is not a ticketed event and there is no limit to the number of guests in attendance.

Convocation Reception

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2025
Time: Following the Convocation Ceremony
Location: Cleone Peterson Eccles Alumni House

University Commencement Ceremony

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2025
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Jon M. Huntsman Center

For more information, visit commencement.utah.edu

OTHER Important Information for Graduates

Grad Fair

Student graduation packs (gown, cap, etc.) will be available to purchase through the Campus Store starting March 1st. Preordered Grad Packs will be available for pick-up at the Grad Fair on March 27th - 29th, 2025 at the Main Campus Store.

For more information, visit store.utah.edu/student-graduation-information

Cord Pick Up

Dates: April 17 - 29, 2025

You will receive an email if you need to pick up a cord.

Sustainability Pledge

Graduating seniors are in an important position to help build a healthy, sustainable and just world. Pledge to aid in a sustainable future by taking the Sustainability Pledge, and you will receive a green cord to wear at commencement and convocation highlighting your commitment to a sustainable future.

Learn more and take the pledge at sustainability.utah.edu/graduating-sustainability-pledge

Complete the Next Step Survey

Whether you're an undergraduate, graduate student, leave your legacy by letting us know what you're doing after graduation. You'll receive a U Career Success Cord that will be available at the Advising Hive beginning on April 16.

Learn more and take the Next Step Survey.

This page will be updated regularly with additional information. Please check back for the latest details about graduation events.

‘Vast discovery’ of black holes in dwarf galaxies

March 5, 2025

This dual achievement not only expands scientists’ understanding of the black hole population in the universe but also sets the stage for further explorations the formation of the first black holes to form in the universe and their role in galaxy evolution.

With DESI’s early data, the team was able to obtain an unprecedented dataset that includes the spectra of 410,000 galaxies, including roughly 115,000 dwarf galaxies—small, diffuse galaxies containing thousands to several billions of stars and very little gas. This extensive set would allow Pucha and her team to explore the complex interplay between black hole evolution and dwarf galaxy evolution.

While astrophysicists are fairly confident that all massive galaxies, like our Milky Way, host black holes at their centers, the picture becomes unclear as you move toward the low-mass end of the spectrum. Finding black holes is a challenge on its own but identifying them in dwarf galaxies is even more difficult due to their small sizes and the limited ability of our current instruments to resolve the regions close to these objects. An actively feeding black hole, however, is easier to spot.

“When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus,” said Pucha. “This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies.”

The study is online as a pre-print ahead of publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Read the full story by Lisa Potter in @ The U.

Student Stories: Angelina Skedros (biology)

March 4, 2025

Skedros presenting her research in the Gagnon lab at the annual School of Biological Sciences retreat (2024)

With a family history of U graduates, spanning disciplines from English to medicine, I was eager to follow in their footsteps. Being part of the College of Science has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my academic journey. I began research in my freshman year through the Science Research Initiative (SRI) and later joined the Gagnon Lab through a more traditional route: approaching Professor Jamie Gagnon after a lecture to request an interview. As a researcher in this lab, I discovered my passion for cell, molecular and developmental biology. My research focuses on DNA, leveraging next generation sequencing technologies to investigate fundamental biological questions. Inspired by my work, I later enrolled in Genes, Development, and Evolution (BIOL 5510) with Professor Mike Shapiro, a course that strengthened my ability to critically analyze scientific literature and apply these skills across disciplines.

Oil, unnamed, 2022 – Angelina Skedros

Beyond research, my role as a College of Science Ambassador has allowed me to engage in science communication and outreach, making my research accessible to a broad audience. Through these experiences, I have developed a deep appreciation for the complexity of cellular processes — how a single cell gives rise to intricate biological systems remains one of the most fascinating questions in science.

After completing my undergraduate degree, I plan to enroll in a post-baccalaureate research program to further develop my skills and refine my research focus. This experience will support my long-term goal of pursuing a Ph.D. and contributing to the scientific community as a research scientist.

My advice to incoming freshmen: go after opportunities, take that interesting class, apply for scholarships, ask for that position. Do it! But also make time for fun. As a STEM student, I learned how to hip-hop, do reformer pilates and made time for backpacking in the desert and oil painting!

by Angelina “Gigi” Skedros

Gigi is a senior honors student from Salt Lake City majoring in biology, with minors in mathematics and chemistry. Do you have questions, ideas or suggestions for other U biology student stories? Contact Tanya Vickers, Communications Editor, School of Biological Sciences, at sbs-media@biology.utah.edu

A Climate Moon Shot Beneath Our Feet

March 3, 2025

Joseph Moore

In such a landscape, you remember that the planet’s hard exterior, where we spend our entire lives, is so thin that we call it a crust. Its superheated interior, meanwhile, burns with an estimated forty-four trillion watts of power. Milford was once a lead-, silver-, and gold-mining town, but when I visited the area on a sunny spring morning a scientist named Joseph Moore [research professor in civil and environmental engineering and adjunct professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah] was prospecting for something else: heat.

Heat mined from underground is called geothermal — “earth heat,” in ancient Greek — and can be used to produce steam, spin a turbine, and generate electricity. Until recently, humans have tended to harvest small quantities in the rare places where it surfaces, such as hot springs. Moore’s mission, as a geologist at the University of Utah and the project leader of the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), is to “develop the roadmap that is needed to build geothermal reservoirs anywhere in the world.” This road is long, and much of the map remains blank. The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons.

During my trip, Moore’s corps of consultants and roughnecks were drilling the fifth borehole of their experimental project. Their rig, armed with a diamond drill bit, towered like a rocket over the rural landscape; miles of solar panels and wind turbines receded into the distance. The hole, which would eventually be L-shaped, was five thousand feet deep, and the team had another five thousand to go, horizontally. But, before they could drill any farther, they needed to install a hundred-and-fifty-ton steel tube in the hole, using special heat-resistant cement to glue it into place. The tube was like a massive straw that was meant to transport hot water and steam from an artificial underground reservoir—without contaminating local groundwater or triggering earthquakes.

At 6:15P.M.on May 3rd, cement had started flowing into the hole. Four hours later, part of the cement folded in on itself. The next morning, the cement supply ran out; the men had miscalculated how much they needed. This brought the three-hundred-million-dollar operation to a maddening halt. Moore, in bluejeans and a FORGE-branded hard hat, called his supplier. The nearest batch of suitable cement was five hundred miles away, in Bakersfield, California. The truck would not arrive until after dark.

Right now, geothermal energy meets less than one per cent of humanity’s electricity and heating needs—a puny, almost irrelevant portion. Fossil fuels power about eighty per cent of human activity, pumping out carbon dioxide and short-circuiting our climate to catastrophic effect. Converts argue that geothermal checks three key boxes: it is carbon-free, available everywhere, and effectively unlimited. Crucially, it is also baseload, which means that, unlike solar panels or wind, it provides a constant flow of energy. Companies and governments have taken notice. “Over the last two years, I have watched this exponential spin-up of activity in geothermal,” Tony Pink, a drilling expert in Houston, told me, in 2023.

But there is a glaring risk of moon shots: often, they miss. “There’s basically zero chance that you’re going to develop a moon-shot technology and have it be commercial in five years, on a large-scale, worldwide,” Mark Jacobson, a Stanford engineering professor and the author of “No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air,” told me. That’s how long humanity has to lower emissions before climatic devastation, according to his calculations. “There’s a very decent chance you can do that with wind and solar,” he said. Perhaps, when resources and time are finite, trying and failing — or simply taking too long — could be worse than not trying at all.

Read the rest of the story by Brent Crane published in The New Yorkerhere. (Requires setting up an account for limited, trial access.)

Joseph Moore, featured in the story above, was recently honored by the Utah State Legislature for his lifetime of service and dedication to advancing geothermal energy. Read more here.

Cecil Samuelson: U Honorary Doctorate

Equal parts University of Utah and Brigham Young University, Cecil Samuelson has managed to bleed purple throughout his long career as a higher education leader and physician.

tooth enamel helps reconstruct wildlife migrations

Utah geologists show how strontium isotopes found in teeth or tusks reveal where large plant-eating animals have roamed.

Most powerful gamma ray observatory gets green light

At the start of the year, the European Commission established the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) as a European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC), furthering its mission to become the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy.

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