Betty Ashbaker
Education
P.E. Props: Physical education and coaching faculty Keven A. Prusak (BS ’86), Todd R. Pennington (BS ’91), and Susan Vincent Graser (BS ’92) won the Metzler-Freedman Exemplary Paper Award from theJournal of Teaching in Physical Education. Texty Award: D Quality Literacy Instruction for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, a textbook coauthored by counseling psychology associate professor Betty Young Ashbaker (PhD ’82), won a 2011 “Texty” from the Text and Academic Authors Association.
Engineering and Technology
Cosmic Circuits: Along with a team of students, engineering faculty Michael J. Wirthlin (BS ’92) and Brian D. Jensen (BS ’96) designed a circuit used on the NASA shuttle Endeavor. Career Boost: The National Science Foundation awarded chemical engineering assistant professor Thomas A. Knotts (BS ’01) a CAREER award. Get Pumped: Industrial-design student Emron J. Henry (’11) won a Bronze IDEA from the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards for his ReCoil Workout System.
Family Home, and Social Sciences
New Dean: Benjamin M. Ogles (BS ’85) replaced David B. Magleby as dean of the college. Fulbright in Finland: Political-science professor Earl H. Fry (BA ’71) won a Fulbright Bicentennial Chair in American Studies at the University of Helsinki.
Fine Arts and Communications
Google Doodle: An animation by visual arts assistant professor Ryan J. Woodward (BFA ’03) was featured as a “Google Doodle” to commemorate the 117th birthday of contemporary dance legend Martha Graham. Illustrators Honored: The works of illustration students Elisabeth A. Pulido (’11) and Tyler T. Carter (’11) were honored in a Society of Illustrators student competition.
Humanities
Spanish Cross: For his work in Spanish literature, education, and cultural history, Dean John R. Rosenberg (BA ’79) received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Civil Merit, an award bestowed on behalf of the king and government of Spain. Collaborative Art: English assistant professor Stephen B. Tuttle, music professor Steven L. Ricks (BM ’93), and photographer Edward Burtynsky combined words, music, and images in a multimedia experience performed in Amsterdam’s largest concert hall.
Kennedy Center
E.U. Papers: Papers by undergraduates Sead Osmani (’11) and Amelia Adams (BA ’10) were chosen for publication at the Ninth Annual Claremont–UC Undergraduate Research Conference. Adams won a trip to the European Union headquarters.
Law School
Newspaper Death: Associate professor RonNell Andersen Jones’ study exploring how the death of newspapers threatens U.S. democracy was published in the Washington & Lee Law Review. Banking on Industry: Associate professor Mehrsa Baradaran’s (BA ’02) research, published in the SMU Law Review, argues that Utah-chartered industrial loan companies could be a model for a reformed banking system.
Life Sciences
Joel Griffitts
Grand Grant: The National Science Foundation awarded assistant professor of microbiology and molecular biology Joel S. Griffitts a CAREER award. Alzheimer’s Genes: Assistant professor John“Keoni” S.K. Kauwe (BS ’99) is part of a consortium that has linked six genes to Alzheimer’s. The research appears in Nature Genetics. Published in Nature: Steven M. Johnson (BS ’94), assistant professor of molecular biology, coauthored a study that was published in Nature with a Stanford Nobel laureate on the human genome and why some gene therapies falter.
Marriott School
IT Trifecta: In a national competition sponsored by the Association of Information Technology Professionals, six BYU students captured three first-place, three second-place, one third-place, and two honorable-mention awards. Web Guru: Information-systems master’s student Saul S. Howard (BS ’07) won first place and $10,000 in the Crexendo Website Competition for his design that connects a digital streaming platform to network computers and Android phones.
Nursing
Top-Notch Publication: Two prestigious nursing journals, Oncology Nursing and Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, ranked an article on end-of-life care by BYU faculty Renea L. Beckstrand (BS ’83) and Lynn Clark Callister (BS ’64) fifth in the top 10 articles printed from June 2009 to May 2010.
Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Sweet 16: BYU mathletes placed 16th—their highest finish in 31 years—in the Putnam Mathematical Competition.
Religious Education
Firm Foundation: Law professor and BYU Studies editor John W. Welch (BA ’70) and Church history professor Susan Easton Black (BA ’66) are two of the authors featured in the new compilation A Firm Foundation, a book about the Restoration.
