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Endowed title honors Willie Shaw

April 9th, 2013

David and Willie Shaw

The name WILLIE SHAW has held a special place in collegiate and professional football for decades. Now the former Stanford defensive coordinator will have his name permanently affixed to those who hold his former Stanford title. Last week, Stanford Athletics announced that its defensive coordinator position has been endowed, thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor.

“I was emotional when I heard that this endowed directorship was named in my father’s honor,” said current Cardinal Football Head Coach DAVID SHAW.” My dad coached here two separate times, and the thing to me that stands out more than anything is how he impacted the lives of the men he coached here. My entire life, I have heard from the guys he coached here in the ’70s and ’90s how the original Coach Shaw made such a profound impact upon their lives. My dad’s name being associated with the Stanford defensive coordinator to me is associating the position with toughness, intelligence, innovation and the spirit of mentoring young scholar-athletes.”

Derek Mason

One of those coaches that Willie Shaw groomed is DEREK MASON, who is in his fourth year coaching at Stanford and his third coordinating the defense. In 1995 Mason had an internship with the St. Louis Rams, where the elder Shaw was that team’s defensive coordinator. Mason will be the first Willie Shaw Director of Defense.

“The honor of being the Willie Shaw Director of Defense has special meaning to me because of how he has believed in and empowered me through a relationship of nearly two decades,” said Mason. “Coach Shaw has profoundly helped foster my growth and understanding in what it takes to lead young men with lessons that extend to, and far beyond, the field of play.”

Willie Shaw did two coaching stints on the Farm – from 1974 to 1976 and from 1989 to 1991. His career also included 15 years in the NFL as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach.

“It is hard to find the words to express how much I appreciate the Stanford experience which has changed my life and my family’s life for nearly 40 years now,” said the elder Shaw. “To be connected with Stanford Football into perpetuity like this is unbelievable. All of my associations and my family’s associations with Stanford have made us complete and blessed.”

Read the full story on the Athletics website.

Stanford chemistry students chosen to participate in Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates

April 8th, 2013

Every year, several science agencies work together to select a group of graduate students from around the world to convene for several days of meetings in Lindau, Germany, with all the living Nobel Laureates in their field. The discipline changes from year to year, and this year’s meetings, held from June 30 to July 5, will focus on chemistry, with 35 Nobel laureates and 625 students in attendance.

Among the students chosen to attend the 63rd Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates this summer will be three Stanford chemistry graduate students: DAPHNE CHE, STEPHEN FRIED and DIANE WU. Stanford Nobel laureates STEVEN CHU (physics, 1997) and BRIAN KOBILKA (chemistry, 2012) also are scheduled to attend.

Daphne Che

Stephen Fried

Che is a fourth-year graduate student in physical chemistry who works in Assistant Professor BIANXIAO CUI’s group, investigating the mechanism of axonal transport in neurons using fluorescence microscopy. Axonal transport is a fundamental and complex process linked to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease. A deeper understanding of the axonal transport mechanism could lead to the prevention and cure of neurodegenerative diseases.

Fried is a chemistry PhD candidate in the biophysical lab of Professor STEVEN BOXER. His research aims to understand what physically goes on inside an enzyme and figure out how it catalyzes chemical reactions at such mind-boggling speed. This could lead to a better understanding of what makes life possible at a molecular level, and inform how one might go about designing novel enzymes that carry out new biological functions. The latter will likely have significant consequences for medicine and the environment in the future.

Diane Wu

Wu is a third-year PhD student studying new materials for solar cells with Assistant Professor JENNIFER DIONNE and Associate Professor ALBERTO SALLEO, both of the Materials Science and Engineering Department. Photovoltaic cells can only collect light that is above a certain minimum threshold energy; any light below that threshold passes through the cell and is “wasted.” Wu is currently working on constructing a back electrode that will absorb this so-called below-band gap light, upconvert it to useful energy and then scatter this light back into the active layer of a solar cell. She also is interested in the synthesis of novel upconverters for photovoltaic applications.

—BJORN CAREY

Senior Alyssa Wisdom: Resilient every step of the way

April 2nd, 2013

Excerpted from the Athletics website.

Alyssa Wisdom, now a senior, competing in May 2011 in the Payton Jordan Invitational at the Cobb Track and Angell Field. Photo credit: Richard C. Ersted

Academics and athletics are cornerstones of the Stanford experience. But equally important to some scholar-athletes is a resource sometimes overlooked: Stanford Hospital. It’s what helped sell ALYSSA WISDOM and may have saved her life.

A senior from Coral Springs, Fla., Wisdom suffered from hypertension and a heart condition growing up and was easily fatigued. She saw dozens of doctors, but wasn’t properly diagnosed until she arrived at Stanford in 2010 to compete on the track and field team.

An accomplished sprinter, Wisdom came to the Farm seeking track success and answers to her health problems and found both.

As a freshman in 2010, Wisdom finished fourth in the 100 and seventh in the 200 in the Big Meet. But it would be the last time she sprinted for the Cardinal. Doctors diagnosed her with a rare condition called congenital hypertrophic cardiac myopathy, and said the strenuous training could lead to a stroke or heart attack.

“It was hard because freshman year you are going through so many changes,” she said. “To get everything thrown at me at once … it was a lot to deal with. I actually didn’t know where to start. My life had just fallen apart.”

So Wisdom did what she has always done: leaned on her mother, Yvet, a registered nurse, and older brother, George, for guidance and support.

As a senior in high school, Wisdom threw the shot put at the district meet—just to score points for her team—and wound up leading her team to victory with a winning toss of 32-3½. She had no plans to throw in college until doctors told her to stop sprinting.

“What I lack in size, I make up for in strength because I am very, very strong,” she laughed. “I may not have the size of other shot putters, but I’ve got the muscles.”

With encouragement and instruction from the Cardinal coaching staff, Wisdom improved quickly and won the shot put at the Big Meet in 2011 with an outdoor season-best throw of 48-3½. She also placed fourth in the hammer throw.

Last year, she recorded the fifth-best indoor showing in school history by putting the shot 50-8¾ in the MPSF Championships. During the outdoor season, Wisdom placed third in the Pac-12 Championships at 51-6½.

Continuing to refine her technique, she produced a personal-best 55-8¼ at the 2013 MPSF Indoors and qualified for her first NCAA Championships.

“Obviously, she is very gifted strength-wise, very explosive and very quick,” said MICHELLE EISENREICH, associate head coach and throws coach at Stanford. “I think the other thing that’s impressive is just her ability to focus in and make technical adjustments and changes. She’s really become a good student of the event.”

That’s not surprising considering Wisdom earned Pac-12 All-Academic second-team honors last year and was named to the USTFCCA All-Academic team. Wisdom is majoring in psychology and minoring in Italian.

“My concentration is mind, culture and society, which is multi-culturalism,” she said. “I’m doing lab research on how being from different backgrounds can be a positive thing.”

Wisdom, who will return to Stanford next year to complete a co-terminal degree in psychology and has one year of eligibility remaining, is making the most of her experience. She started working in a homeless shelter in Florida during grade school and returns every summer. Through Stanford, Wisdom has volunteered in Italy and India, the latter a two-month service for female abandonment through the Haas Center for Public Service.

“I love this institution,” said Wisdom. “I’ve gotten to explore all of my interests, and the resources at this school are unsurpassed. That’s the reason I’ve been able to go abroad and expand my research past the confines of my country’s borders. I’m pretty sure when I leave Stanford, I’m going to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector.”

It’s hard to imagine any scholar-athlete who appreciates Stanford more than Wisdom. She has given back as much as she has taken, proving resilient every step of the way.

“Sometimes you take an ideal path to get to your ultimate goal, and sometimes it’s very hard to see that things will work out in the end,” said Wisdom. “But they do.”

Read the full story by MARK SOLTAU on the Stanford Athletics website.

Stanford physicist Steven Kahn to head Large Telescope project

March 18th, 2013

Physics Professor STEVEN KAHN has been named director of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project. He will assume the post July 1 and will retain his affiliation with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford.

LSST is billed on its website as the “widest, fastest, deepest eye of the new digital age.” The project is currently in the final stages of its design and development. The telescope will be located in Chile.

By digitally imaging the sky for a decade, the LSST will drive advances in big-data science and computing and create opportunities for transformative education in science, technology and mathematics.

“Steve brings a unique blend of relevant management and scientific experience to this position. He will inherit a strong team and will lead LSST into the construction phase,” said WILLIAM SMITH, president of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), who made the announcement last week.

In this artist's rendition, the LSST primary mirror is seen through the slit of the dome at sunset. The LSST will carry out a deep, 10-year imaging survey in six broad optical bands over the main survey area of 18,000 square degrees. (Image credit: Todd Mason, Mason Productions Inc. / LSST Corp.)

DAVID MACFARLANE, director of SLAC Particle Physics and Astrophysics, and chair of the LSST Corporation board of directors, said, “Steve Kahn brings an outstanding breadth of scientific credentials in assuming the LSST director role, along with tremendous project leadership and management experience.” He added that Kahn is uniquely positioned with the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy to take on the directorship as the project makes the all-important transition to construction.

Read the full announcement from AURA.

Usua Amanam: High energy on and off the field

February 19th, 2013

USUA AMANAM is one of only a dozen or so undergraduates majoring in Energy Resources Engineering, a department in the School of Earth Sciences that examines energy production and conservation.

The Stanford senior whose interception with two minutes left in the 2013 Rose Bowl Game sealed Stanford’s 20-14 victory over Wisconsin earned hardware as the Defensive Player of the game. But he not only knows how to read a quarterback’s eyes, he knows how to infer the makeup of the subsurface by drilling an exploration well.

Amanam, whose first name is pronounced OOS wah, has a passion for football, and he dreams of playing in the NFL. “I’d love to make millions of dollars running around with a football in my hands,” he laughed.

But he’s been one of the smallest players on every one of his teams since the fourth grade, and at 5’10′ and 176 pounds, he’s a realist.

“There’s a low probability that an NFL career is going to happen for most college football players,” he said. “That’s the reason I chose Stanford. If the football route doesn’t work out, I’ll have a Stanford degree to fall back on.”

Amanam’s sheepskin from ERE will leave him well positioned for a job in the oil and gas industry, which doesn’t typically draw much interest from undergraduates, particularly ones with their eyes on a career in professional football. How is it that it calls to Amanam?

“My family is originally from Nigeria,” explained Amanam, who said his interest in oil was piqued by a 2007 article in National Geographic called “Curse of the Black Gold.”

“Oil was found in Nigeria in the late 1950s and the 1960s,” Amanam said, “and it was a way for a developing country like Nigeria to become truly relevant in the world today. The National Geographic writer basically detailed what Nigeria has gone through in terms of the oil industry and how it has caused more trouble and more strife than the good it was supposed to. Reading that article and understanding how much a properly working petroleum industry could really jump-start a country economically and socially is what attracted me to ERE.”

RICHARD NEVLE, director of undergraduate programs for the School of Earth Sciences, has known Amanam since both were at Bellarmine Prep in San Jose – Nevle as a science teacher and Amanam as an honors student.

“Usua was a rock star as a high school football player, a superstar,” Nevle said. “He has legs that are steel springs and he’s a very gifted sprinter.”

Stanford’s head football coach, David Shaw, was the team’s offensive coordinator when the Cardinal recruited Amanam.

“We get lots of mail and email about high school players, but we got a lot about Usua in particular,” Shaw said. “That he was bright and engaging as a student and that he was a dynamic football player as well. Everyone said he was the kind of kid who should go to Stanford.”

ROLAND HORNE, professor of energy resources engineering, says that after a sharp drop in oil prices in the mid-1980s and the massive Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1989, undergraduate interest in petroleum engineering evaporated. Over one 10-year stretch, Stanford did not award a single bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering.

In 2006, the School of Earth Sciences changed the name of its Department of Petroleum Engineering to Energy Resources Engineering, reflecting its expansion into research and embracing additional forms of energy, such as geothermal and renewables; a changing energy landscape; and society’s changing energy needs and environmental concerns.

“It sounds cliché,” Amanam said, “but what really interested me about ERE is I’ve always wanted to do something that carried a lot of weight and meant something, to do something that could change the world. My sophomore year, I took a class called Energy 101 from my current adviser, energy resources engineering Professor TONY KOVSCEK. It sparked my interest in understanding how the oil and gas industry affects everything we do in our life, socially, economically and culturally. It’s the linchpin to the world we live in today.”

Amanam’s passion for his academic calling is not lost on others. “I go to a lot of events to which I bring students as emissaries,” Nevle said. “Usua is very effective at communicating what the ERE major has to offer students in a personal and compelling way. He has a charisma about him, a stage presence. When he speaks, people want to listen.”

You can hear Amanam in his own words in a video produced in a partnership between the School of Earth Sciences and Athletics.

Read BRUCE ANDERSON‘s full profile of Amanam on the School of Earth Sciences website.

Stanford’s Gardner Center joins $30 million Mission District youth initiative

February 11th, 2013

The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at the Stanford Graduate School of Education recently announced that it was selected to play a key role in a major effort to break the cycle of poverty in San Francisco’s Mission District. It was chosen to do the research and evaluation on the efforts to be launched under a new $30 million federal “Promise Neighborhood” grant.

This is the latest in a series of community projects for the Gardner Center, which has a long history of conducting actionable research in San Francisco and other communities in the Bay Area and beyond. It has worked with San Francisco Unified School District, City College of San Francisco and other community groups and agencies in the Mission Promise Neighborhood initiative.

“The Gardner Center welcomes this opportunity to expand upon our work in San Francisco to strengthen conditions and experiences for children and families in the Mission,” said AMY GERSTEIN, executive director of the Gardner Center. “We look forward to working with the Mission Promise Neighborhood team, as well as all of the partners on this essential project.”

The $30 million grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Education in December to San Francisco’s Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA), which in turn brought in the Gardner Center as one of its partners.

The grant will allow MEDA to build a continuum of community services that bridge local nonprofits and public and private partners to work with kids and families to break the cycle of poverty and ensure every child can reach his or her full potential, from cradle to college to career.

The Gardner Center brings distinct research and evaluation expertise to the project. It has, for instance, developed a unique Youth Data Archive that draws longitudinal data from different sources that are often unable to share their data directly with each other. This approach enables research and analysis that reaches across a variety of sectors, from schools to city agencies and nonprofits.

“Children must be safe, healthy and supported by adults across an entire community to reach their fullest potential,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Against all odds, Promise Neighborhoods work to provide families and children with the support they need to help break the cycle of poverty that threatens too many of our nation’s communities.”

—JONATHAN RABINOVITZ, director of communications, Graduate School of Education

FabLab goes to Thailand

January 31st, 2013

Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra welcomes Paulo Blikstein at the opening of an education conference on Jan. 15 in Bangkok. (Photo credit: Suksapattana Foundation)

Stanford’s PAULO BLIKSTEIN received a warm welcome from Thailand’s Prime Minister YINGLUCK SHINAWATRA in Bangkok earlier this month to celebrate the opening of his latest educational FabLab.

Blikstein, assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), is at the forefront of a movement to improve the teaching of science, engineering and math by enabling students to use high-tech equipment – laser cutters, 3D printers, milling machines, robotics and other tools – to learn by making, creating and collaborating. The opening of the FabLab at the Darunsikkhalai School for Innovative Learning follows Blikstein’s launching of labs in Moscow and at the Castilleja School in Palo Alto, along with establishing one at Stanford.

“A FabLab is a very special place in a school,” Blikstein told a gathering of some 250 Thai education policy makers and teachers at the 1st Thailand Constructionism Symposium, which ran Jan. 15-17. “It is a disruptive space – an invention lab, but also a science lab, a robotics club and a place for people to hang out and make stuff.”

In addition to talks by Blikstein and the prime minister, the three-day symposium featured the official signing of a partnership between the GSE and leading educational institutions in Thailand, made possible by a $1.1 million grant from the Suksapattana Foundation. Along with the new FabLab, the agreement includes fellowships for Thai graduate students to study in the GSE’s Learning, Design and Technology Master’s Program and support for Stanford postdoctoral scholars to conduct research on how the Thai FabLab is helping students to learn.

Blikstein emphasized that the key to FabLab’s success in schools is research that measures what works and what doesn’t and how to develop appropriate lesson plans.

NEIL GERSHENFELD of the MIT Media Lab developed the idea of a FabLab in the early 2000s, mainly as a way to foster entrepreneurship and product design in communities. Blikstein was a graduate student at MIT at that time. Upon his arrival at Stanford in 2008, Blikstein was the first to propose the idea of using these technologies in K-12 schools to create a new kind of lab, with its own particular architecture, materials and curricula, all specially designed for schools and children.

“Many people thought that I was crazy at the time – putting a laser cutter and a 3D printer in the hands of a 12-year-old,” Blikstein said. But to date, young learners in Blikstein’s labs have made such devices as their own optical microscopes to study biological specimens, showers that turn themselves off to save energy and a prize-winning robotic flute that can play simple Bach melodies.

Blikstein said that he is now fielding requests from around the world to open new FabLabs.

“It’s about making school a place for ideas – sometimes unusual, amazing ideas that adults will never have,” he said. “We want children to come to school thinking, ‘What am I going to invent today?’ They need to understand that they can express themselves through science, math and engineering – and not only memorize formulas.”

—SANDY BARRON, a writer based in Thailand

In Stockholm, Nobel laureates acknowledge those who helped them along the way

December 11th, 2012

Last week, Stanford’s newest Nobel Prize winners, ALVIN ROTH and BRIAN KOBILKA, were in Stockholm for the culmination of the magical two months since their prizes were announced.

The Nobel festivities, which began last Wednesday, included lectures, interviews and symposia, a concert and the Nobel Prize Banquet.

In his lecture on Dec. 8, Kobilka, professor and chair of molecular and cellular physiology at the School of Medicine, explained his research on G-protein-coupled receptors. Kobilka shares his Nobel chemistry prize with ROBERT J. LEFKOWITZ, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Duke University Medical Center.

At the conclusion of his lecture, Kobilka thanked his wife, TONG SUN KOBILKA, a research associate in molecular and cellular physiology at Stanford, whom he described as a “colleague, friend, collaborator and great mother.”

“If you have read anything about me, you know that she is key to any success I’ve had,” he said. He also thanked the students and postdoctoral fellows in his lab and many of his colleagues, including BILL WEIS, a professor of structural biology at Stanford.

Roth, an economist and visiting professor who officially joins Stanford’s economics faculty in January, gave a banquet speech in addition to his Nobel lecture. Roth shares his Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with LLOYD SHAPLEY, professor emeritus of mathematics at UCLA.

“We all know the wonderful image popularized by Isaac Newton, of how he could see so far only because he stood on the shoulders of giants. That image describes well how my work has built on that of my predecessors, particularly Lloyd Shapley, with whom I share this prize, and the late DAVID GALE,” Roth said in his banquet speech.

“We need a different metaphor to capture how we benefit from our teachers, our contemporaries, our colleagues and coauthors and students. …

“My point is that in the midst of this beautiful celebration of scientific and literary accomplishment, let’s pause over dinner to remember one of the fundamental lessons of economics: that accomplishments are social as well as singular. Let’s revel in the memories not only of discovery and invention, but of all the sometimes illuminating, sometimes stressful, sometimes tedious, and sometimes thrilling human interactions that brought us here tonight, and will inspire and fortify us when we return to work.”

The Nobel website features videos of the lectures, photos and even the banquet menu. Visit https://nobelprize.org.

—ELAINE RAY

Hey! What about Stanford’s graduate students?

September 18th, 2012

Law School graduates at Commencement

Oh sure. The freshman undergraduates get all the attention—what with all that singing, dancing and yelling on opening day.

But don’t graduate students actually outnumber undergraduates at Stanford? What about them?

KEN HSU, assistant vice provost and director of the Graduate Life Office; ANDY HERNANDEZ, assistant dean of graduate life; and JOHN PEARSON, assistant vice provost and director of the Bechtel International Center, recently outlined graduate student numbers for colleagues in Student Affairs.

Here are some of the statistics for new graduate students:

Stanford anticipated welcoming 2,623 graduate students this fall. Since 2007, the number of new graduate students has increased 8.7 percent. This year, some students have been delayed by visa challenges, meaning the final number will likely increase.
Some 35 percent of the new graduate students will study in the School of Engineering.
Incoming graduate students at Stanford range in age from 18 to 62. The average age for students pursuing master’s degrees is 25.5, for doctoral students is 24.7 and for professional degree students is 25.8.
Men constitute 61 percent of new graduate students.
There are about 920 international students among Stanford graduate students from about 75 different countries. There are 21 countries represented by just one graduate student.
China, India, South Korea, Canada and Singapore are among the top countries of origin for Stanford graduate students.
In autumn 2012, there will be 240 families living in Escondido Village (EV), 100 of which are new.
In EV, there will be 266 children under the age of 5 and 18 teenagers. There will be more than 230 spouses and partners of graduate students living there.

This year marks the sixth anniversary of the New Graduate Student Orientation, coordinated by grad students FATIMA HUSSAIN, civil and environmental engineering; CATHY JAN, electrical engineering; and KAREN POWROZNIK, sociology. Events began Sunday, Sept. 16.

Powerhouse in the pool: Roy Perkins to compete in Paralympics 2012

August 22nd, 2012

Roy Perkins competed in the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing. He’s preparing to compete in London next week. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

It’s difficult to believe that ROY PERKINS, ’13, was once terrified of putting his face in the water and didn’t learn to swim until he was 12. Now he’s preparing to compete in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter freestyle events, 50-meter backstroke and 50-meter butterfly at the 2012 Paralympics, which begin next week. Born without hands or feet, Perkins comes to the Games a powerhouse: In Beijing he won his category’s gold in the 50-meter butterfly as well as bronze in the 100-meter freestyle.

Stanford magazine caught up the Earth systems major before he headed to London.

Read SAM SCOTT‘s interview on the Stanford magazine website.

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