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TACOMA, Wash. – What can we learn from innovations at German multicultural schools? How do the grazing habits of male African gazelles affect their social status? Can we shed new light on medieval Christians’ understanding of the First Crusade?

It is a busy summer for University of Puget Sound professors who are researching these questions and others. Prestigious national grants awarded over the past academic year and enthusiastic student researchers are helping faculty members find some answers. Backing has come from the Fulbright Program, National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, Mazamas Foundation, Qatar National Research Fund, and The Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Andreas Madlung, professor of biology, was just awarded a two-year National Science Foundation research grant and will be exploring genetic mechanisms leading to flowering in a model oilseed plant. His study is based on the observation of an interesting, but abnormal, behavior in Swedish thale-cress. Normally the plant produces single flower spikes. But under certain light conditions, it produces multiple, compound flowers, essentially increasing overall flower and seed production. Madlung says an understanding of the genetic pathways controlling this flower development could be applied to efforts to enhance oil seed yield. Oil seed plants are commercially important for uses such as the production of biofuel.

David Tinsley, professor of German, was among 20 recipients of a Fulbright grant that took them to Baden-Württemberg, Germany, for two weeks in late June. Their focus was the reform of the German education system and immigration policies. The grantees met with scholars and state officials and visited high school, vocational, and university classes. “One of the highlights was to experience a passionate debate in an ethics class at a vocational school in which students from 10 different cultures discussed their experiences with integration and assimilation,” Tinsley said. The seminar was sponsored by the German-American Fulbright Commission and University of Tübingen.

Katherine Allen Smith, associate professor of history, received a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend to support an ongoing project that aims to shed new light on some of the most intensively studied texts from the medieval period: the Latin chronicles of the First Crusade. The project employs methodologies from two fields, crusades studies and the study of biblical exegesis (the critical interpretation of biblical texts), in an effort to reconstruct medieval Christians’ understanding of the First Crusade. This may show that Christians viewed the crusade as not only a key episode in human history, but, to some extent, as an event of huge theological, and even apocalyptic, significance.

Peter Wimberger, professor of biology and director of the Slater Museum of Natural History at Puget Sound, is funded by the Mazamas Foundation to continue an ongoing study of the evolution and ecology of iceworms. These tiny earthworm-like creatures, of about an inch long, live only in glaciers from Oregon to Alaska. They thrive at freezing point, and they are believed to eat bacteria, algae, and detritus on the ice. The worms even caught the attention of NASA, as they may teach us something about life on freezing planets. Wimberger and his students are collecting genetic data from populations around the volcanoes in the Three Sisters region in Oregon to infer the history of Pacific Northwest ice worms. They also are looking at the abundance and diversity of bacteria and algae in glacial snow and ice.

Kena Fox-Dobbs, assistant professor of geology, received part of a National Science Foundation grant awarded to University of Georgia.  Fox-Dobbs and two Puget Sound students went to Kenya for two weeks in June to capture Grant’s gazelles and to gather horn, hair, and fecal samples. The aim is to examine variations in the gazelles’ diet selection. Male gazelles that successfully defend a territory and lead a female herd tend to suffer more from parasite infections, in comparison to bachelor males. The researchers hope to discover if diet is one key to the male gazelles’ ability to tolerate high parasite burdens. If so, this tolerance would allow them to stay longer with the female herd and reproduce more successfully. Foraging behavior could therefore be one predictor of their mating status.

Andrew Gardner, associate professor in comparative sociology, is investigating migrant labor issues in Qatar, with funding from two research grants. The researchers hope the work might ultimately assist Middle Eastern countries in addressing politically sensitive issues that have led to social and personal inequities, and, in some instances, considerable suffering for migrant workers. Both projects are funded by the Qatar National Research Fund. The first, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, involves analyzing data from what is believed to be the first random survey of the large migrant worker population in the region. The second investigates Arab women’s image, identity, and role in the past and present, to explore possible connections that tie contemporary Arabia to the past.

Peter Hodum, visiting assistant professor in biology, is currently in Chile on a Fulbright Scholarship. The scholarship is focused on providing support for conservation efforts in Chile, and on helping to preserve endangered bird species, to restore habitats, and to develop community-based conservation and education efforts on the Juan Fernandez Islands and Mocha Island. As part of the project, Hodum is teaching courses on conservation biology at the Universidad de Concepción. These are the first such courses ever offered at the university. In July and August he is conducting field research and doing groundwork for greater community involvement.

D. Wade Hands, professor of economics, is conducting historical research at Duke University’s Paul Samuelson archives, funded by a project grant from The Institute for New Economic Thinking, a venture backed by George Soros. The inaugural grants, which were awarded to just 30 projects out of 500 submitted, were reported here in October 2010.

Other faculty members are continuing research work funded by earlier, multiyear awards. Chemistry professor Eric Scharrer is researching new liquid crystalline compounds, with funding from a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. Stacey Weiss, associate professor of biology, received a second year of funding from M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to study communication signals of female striped plateau lizards. Mark Martin, associate professor of biology, also is in a second year of research funded by M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. He is studying a gene from a fast-swimming bacterium that pursues, attacks, and invades other bacteria. The three professors’ work was reported here in May 2010.

Leslie Saucedo, associate professor of biology, is continuing genetic research in the field of cancer biology, funded by a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute, as reported here in August 2009.

Photos:  Top right: Kena Fox-Dobbs, Susan Olszewski ’11, and James Ray ’12 in Kenya with a leopard tortoise; top left: Heinz-Dieter Assmann at University of Tübingen speaks to Fulbright grantees; above right: Digging for iceworms, Peter Wimberger and Ali Garel '10 work on glacier; above left: Migrant workers in Bahrain; above right: Liquid crystal phase, research by Eric Scharrer

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