The Mathematician
Ken Bromberg (MATH 1220)
Science has always been in Ken Bromberg’s life. His dad was a mathematician at GE Medical Systems and his mom was a lab scientist. However, time spent at the lab with his mother taught him that he disliked the application part of science along with cleaning equipment. What really appealed to Bromberg was math.
“I just like being able to sit down with a piece of paper and work things out,” Bromberg explained.
With simply pen, paper and your mind you can enter the world of math built by those before which continues to expand today. Bromberg enjoyed simplifying this world through rules.
There was a particular rule he liked that applies to the popular board game Dungeons and Dragons. The game uses die that range from 4 sides (tetrahedron) to 20 sides (dodecahedron). Euler’s method, defined as V – E + F = 2, describes that the vertices minus edges plus faces always equals two for any complex polyhedron, including the die used in the game. This simple rule highlights how math can expose the symmetry between objects that seem to lack it.
Math can do many things. It can describe change or how some things don’t change. Like the study of topology which examines which properties of shapes retain their form when you stretch, twist, or bend them. Math serves as a tool to discover the hidden patterns in our lives.
The Physicist
Kevin Davenport (PHYS 2220)
In his twenties, Kevin Davenport was not the physicist he is today. He worked in design, specifically with a program called “3ds Max”. Davenport worked with 3-d objects day after day. Eventually he thought, how does this object exist? Well, there is an entire field of study devoted to this question, it’s called physics.
At 30, he started his undergraduate degree at Salt Lake Community College and eventually finished his degree at the U, where he also completed his PhD. He mentioned that physics was fascinating to him because his entire reality was redefined. For example, during a graduate level course his professor Pearl Sandick, who is also the Interim Dean of the College of Science, mentioned casually that the statement “space exists” was debatable. Davenport recalls the gears viciously turning within his mind.
“The more I learn about physics, the more I realize none of us know anything about anything,” Davenport said.
This is part of Davenport’s philosophy, the action of not knowing something is a motivation rather than an impediment. At this point many of the low hanging fruits in physics, such as motion, electricity, and gravity, are largely described. But the work is never done. These days, we have moved onto dark matter and quantum computing which require advanced experiments and concepts. Inevitably while exploring these topics, we will come across a new frontier that requires examination. While many may shy away from that light, we can trust that physicists like Davenport will dive headfirst into the unknown.
The Ornithologist
Dale Clayton (BIOL 5350)
In high school, Dale Clayton completed a science fair project investigating relationships between parasites and birds. Little did he know that this project would evolve into his life’s work. Clayton’s research has been published in prestigious publications such as Nature, PLoS Biology and the Journal of Parasitology among many others.
“Every individual bird is its own ecosystem of parasites,” Clayton told me.
These parasites present unique challenges to birds. In order to manage parasites, birds preen, or groom themselves and other birds. Clayton’s work is trying to answer several questions. Is this behavior heritable? What environmental factors affect preening? How does preening relate to fitness? Among others. He examines these questions with his wife and colleague Sarah Bush.
It turns out that by watching the preening behavior of a Kestrel (a breed of small falcon) for about 60 minutes, you can predict to a fair degree of certainty whether or not the bird will survive the next two years. Clayton’s work shows that there are unseen layers to the world of birds with significant impacts.
In our lectures, we get exposed to this research. But we also get to learn about the diversity and evolution of birds. I now understand how birds descended from dinosaurs (and technically still are dinosaurs), Albatrosses can cover thousands of miles while barely flapping their wings, and migratory birds use quantum entanglement to sense Earth’s magnetic field. With birds, there is more to it than meets the eye. And the more you learn about birds, the more passionate you are about protecting them.
The Climate Scientist
William Anderegg (BIOL 3460)
Climate science is often associated with doom and gloom. The more you look into the data, the more it looks like hope is lost. But William Anderegg, who has devoted his life to the subject, is cautiously optimistic.
“I get optimistic when I am exposed to passionate students ready to kickstart their careers. I also get optimistic when I meet with people on the frontlines of climate solutions,” Anderegg told me.
What really gets Anderegg going is that low-emissions tech like wind, solar and batteries are not only becoming more efficient, but they are also significantly cheaper. This trend can lead us into a sustainable future that is also economically beneficial.
Of course, any sort of technology has some level of impact on the environment. Simply the action of mining critical materials achieves this. However, Anderegg likes to weigh these costs versus the benefits. In the past 100 years or so, we’ve already tried to make fossil fuels as clean as possible. Results have shown that this will not be sufficient to make an impact on our changing climate. But in regard to a resource like lithium, which is used in batteries, we are currently able to recycle it at a rate of 90%.
More than anything, Anderegg wants to be alive to see a future with net zero emissions. A future where the next generation can breathe cleaner air, interact with wildlife and live knowing that we solved one of the gravest dangers to humanity. This will take an unprecedented amount of coordination and investment, but it might just be an issue that brings the entire world together.