State of the U

Research & Scholarly Activity
Kathryn Rand and Steven Light, codirectors of UND’s Institute for the Study of Tribal Gaming Law and Policy, have been widely quoted in such sources as the New York Times and the Miami Herald, indicating clearly that the institute is considered to be an authoritative source of matters concerned with tribal gaming law and policy. NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft, managed by UND, returned to the United States on August 11, 2007, after a successful mission in Costa Rica. The mission’s purpose was to study tropical convection, cloud formation, and the implication of these for climate change. It coordinated observations from three aircraft (the DC-8 being the primary aircraft) and various satellites, and multiple ground measurements. Approximately 300 scientists and support personnel were in San Jose, Costa Rica, for this mission termed TC-4. President Kupchella and George Seielstad visited the mission and flew on one flight August 8. UND’s Airborne and Environmental Research Observational Camera (AeroCam) was flown on a UND aircraft as a multi-spectral aerial digital imaging system capable of acquiring data in four visible and near-infrared bands. Applications range from vegetative analysis for research, agriculture, or natural resource applications to disaster/ rapid response. The end-users of AeroCam information include farmers, ranchers, graduate students, crop consultants, and soil scientists. UND’s AgCam, a sensor that can monitor the health of vegetation was recently named the number one priority for a space shuttle launch for September 2008. Research at the University of North Dakota generated record levels of external awards and expenditures for fiscal year 2007. Sponsored program awards reached a level of $100.2 million as of June 30. UND’s Strategic Plan 2, Building on Excellence, set a goal for an increase in externally supported research and development, and other externally funded activity, to the level of $100 million annually by 2007. Congratulations to all who helped achieve this goal.	Research grant contract awards reached an all-time high of $89.2 million in fiscal year 2007. At the end of the fiscal year, the University’s research portfolio included $317 million in total ongoing and committed accounts. University researchers submitted a record 967 proposals to external agencies, requesting some $350 million during this past year. During fiscal year 2007, UND received a record 729 grant and contract awards. The Energy & Environmental Research Center led UND units in awards received with a record funding of $37.2 million — an increase of 15 percent over fiscal year 2006 levels. Other leading units included the School of Medicine and Health Sciences with $16.7 million, followed by the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences with $10.9 million. Commercialization efforts to develop inventions and technology stemming from UND research is beginning to move ahead by building infrastructure and forming business alliances through the UND Research Foundation. The Foundation received $300,000 in commercialization revenue and $4 million in funding for its Center of Excellence in Life Sciences and Advanced Technology research and commercialization facility. The facility will play a key role in the future in driving economic impact with UND’s partners. Recently, the State Commission on Centers of Excellence approved funding for both the Biomedical Devices program in the School of Engineering and Mines and the Unmanned Aircraft System program in the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. Marsha Gragert, associate professor of nursing, contributed to the volume, Vulnerable Older Adults, the American Journal of Nursing’s Book of the Year for 2006. She co-authored Part Two of the book having to do with aging prisoners.
The Energy & Environmental Research Center continues to generate wide interest in its Waffle® concept for utilizing existing structures and features (roads, ditches, wetlands, etc.) to manage water runoff and ease flooding.
Juana Moreno is a principal investigator on a grant awarded by the National Science Foundation to support an international education and research partnership.	NASA’s DC-8 research jet, managed by UND, was the primary aircraft in a project in Costa Rica to study tropical convection, cloud formation, and the impact of these on climate change.
Conducting research on neurodegenerative diseases through the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) are, from left, Othman Ghribi, Brij Singh, principal investigator Jonathan Geiger, John Watt, Thad Rosenberger, and Saobo Lei. The center recently received a $10.1 million, five-year renewal of its grant from the National Institutes of Health for its project, “Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Pathophysiological Signaling in Neurodegenerative Diseases.”
The National Institutes of Health recently ranked our College of Nursing 11th among the country’s top 100 nursing programs in terms of research funding. The College of Nursing was awarded a three-year grant totaling nearly $760,000 from the Health Resources and Services Administration to address mental health issues facing North Dakotans. The grant will fund the Advanced Public/Community Health Clinical Nurse Specialist program, focusing on adult and family nursing. The project’s director is Eleanor Yurkovich. The Energy & Environmental Research Center submitted 305 proposals this past year requesting more than $138 million in external funding. Since the time of this report, about 70 percent of the EERC’s proposals have been funded. Since 1987, the Energy & Environmental Research Center has established working relationships with nearly 1,000 clients in all 50 states and 49 foreign countries. Enerjisa Enerji Uretum A.S., a large electric utility company based in Istanbul, Turkey, was added as a client during 2007. Both the Energy & Environmental Research Center and the Department of Chemical Engineering are engaged in developing new biofuels made from vegetable oils. EERC received a $5 million award from the U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop bio jet fuels. The Energy & Environmental Research Center is deeply engaged in the effort to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through a carbon dioxide sequestration project funded over several years to a total of $67 million. Juana Moreno, assistant professor of physics, is a principal investigator on a grant awarded by the National Science Foundation for $2.5 million to support an international education and research partnership involving seven other universities and laboratories, including other parts of the United States (University of Cincinnati, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, as well as universities in Germany and Switzerland). Approximately 20 U.S. doctoral students from UND and the University of Cincinnati will spend six to 12 months in Europe with partners in the collaborative.	Timothy Young, associate professor of physics, and Ron Marsh, associate professor of computer science, have traveled to prime sites around the world for viewing and posting solar and lunar eclipse events on the Internet. North Dakota Heal Thyself, by John W. Vennes (professor emeritus of microbiology and immunology) and Patrick A. McGuire and published by the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, was named the most notable document published in North Dakota in 2005-06. The book is a candidate for the American Library Association’s Most Notable Documents list. UND’s Neuropsychiatric Research Institute received funding from the Otto Bremer Foundation and from the Dakota Medical Foundation for a project designed to train colleagues to provide more effective treatment for children who are victims of trauma, particularly from abuse and neglect. The School of Medicine and Health Sciences, through a $370,000 grant, is engaged in a project with nurse practitioners and physician assistants to look at best ways to maintain high-quality care in their practices. Don Sens, professor of pathology in UND’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, received a $1.4 million grant for the study of bladder cancer. Colin Combs, associate professor of physiology, pharmacology, and therapeutics, received a $700,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health for the study of Alzheimer’s disease. The UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences received a renewal of its $10.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue the study of various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. Van Doze, associate professor of physiology, pharmacology and therapeutics; Sally Pyle, director of the Honors Program and associate professor of biology; and Bull Bennett of the North Dakota Association of Tribal Colleges, received a three-year $280,000 National Science Foundation grant to establish a 10-week summer neurosciences research program at UND for undergraduates from rural or tribal colleges.
Neville Forlemu is one of several students from Cameroon who have come to UND to pursue a doctorate in chemistry. His work on computer modeling of enzymes resulted in a cover story in the international scientific journal Biopolymers.
Art professor Patrick Luber has been studying how the landscapes depicted in classic View-MasterTM stereo reels helped develop a national sense of identity, especially from the 1930s to the 1950s. The North Dakota Humanities Council presented the 2006 Larry Remele Memorial Fellowship to Luber.	North Dakota’s first educational rockets were designed, built and launched by a team of students, faculty, and volunteers, led by astrophysicist Tim Young. The project is sponsored in part by the NASA-funded North Dakota Space Grant Consortium.
Kirsten Dauphinais, assistant professor of law, was selected to present at the firstever East African conference on legal writing pedagogy held in Nairobi, Kenya. Chemistry doctoral student Neville Forlemu’s research in theoretical predictions of protein-protein interactions resulted in a cover story in the international journal Biopolymers. Ann Reed, assistant professor of anthropology, was able to return to her field site in West Africa to embark on a new ethnographic research project in conjunction with Ghana’s 50th anniversary of independence. In the past year, Frank Cuozzo, assistant professor of anthropology, had seven peer-reviewed publications and made a presentation at the International Congress of Prosimians 2007 at Ithala, South Africa. In February 2007, Phoebe Stubblefield, assistant professor of anthropology, was funded by the National Science Foundation for her proposal, “Using a Crime Lab Model to Enhance Undergraduate Instruction.”	During July 2007, Director of Libraries Wilbur Stolt joined Gregory Gordon, assistant professor of law, on a trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to review records and files related to the “Red Terror” during the Derge Regime. The Department of Aviation was awarded more than $3 million for various new research projects during the year, including studies of human factors, vision systems, runway lighting, and unmanned aircraft systems. Pablo de Leon, research associate in the area of extra-vehicular activities and space suit design, and a group of researchers from the Argentina Association for Space Technology designed and built an educational satellite named Pehuensat-1, launched by India in January of last year. The College of Education and Human Development and the College of Arts and Sciences collaborated on a $1.4 million grant from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction to strengthen the content knowledge and teaching skills of teachers of mathematics, science, and engineering.