SPRING 2025 EXPLORING OSU’S TUNNELS CUTE DOG SNIFFS OUT SCIENCE CLUES GO BEAVS! Six brag-worthy ways we’re making an impact with artificial intelligence. p. 32
After World War II, Jack Means, ’53, earned his pharmacy degree from OSU. From a Fred Meyer pharmacy in downtown Portland, he counseled everyone from office workers to mayors — and even Mr. Meyer himself. Jack got through OSU with help from the GI Bill; both he and his wife A.J. felt lucky to finish college without debt. But that’s no longer the case for most graduates. “Debt burdens them down, means they can’t get started with their life,” A.J. said. Now, thanks to a generous gift from the couple’s estate, a new scholarship will help pharmacy students launch their careers with reduced financial burden. You, too, can make a lasting impact at OSU through your will or trust. Contact me to learn how you can leave a legacy. Jennifer Milburn Office of Gift Planning | 541-231-7247 Gift.Planning@osufoundation.org Caring pharmacists who guide patients to health. A.J. Means and Jack Means, ’53
Spring2025 1 PHOTO BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 In Every Issue On the Cover The magazine of the Oregon State University Alumni Association C ON T E N T S F E A T U R E S ← Photos of cover model Digit by Karl Maasdam, ’93, with Adobe Photoshop additions by Davian-Lynn Hopkins. 2 PHOTO ESSAY 5 EDITOR’S LETTER 7 PUBLISHER’S LETTER 8 LETTERS 58 IN MEMORIAM 64 BACKSTORY SPRING 2025 THE QUAD VOICES P. 14 President Jayathi Murthy on how artificial intelligence will shape the university’s future; four Staters share words of encouragement and advice they carry from their OSU days. NEWS P. 1 7 New program aims to remove last financial barriers for highest-need Oregon students; Student Success Center opens at OSU-Cascades. RESEARCH P. 21 Meet a graduate student who trained her dogs to sniff out critical wildlife ecology data. CULTURE P. 25 In the steam tunnels beneath the Corvallis campus, myth and reality collide. SPORTS P. 29 How technology is helping studentathletes avoid injury and optimize performance. OUR COMMUNITY ALUMNI NEWS P. 49 Alumna Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to lead the Episcopal Church, reflects on a lifetime of change; updates from alumni across the globe. 44 Unconventional Journeys Four not-so-ordinary alumni and why they chose to study online. By Tyler Hansen 32 6 Things You Might Not Know About Oregon State and Artificial Intelligence Brag-worthy facts about Beavers and the technology changing our world.
2 OregonStater.org MOME N T S FASHIONED FROM HISTORY Tucked away on the second floor of Milam Hall, a surprising collection is bursting with 527 hats, 2,939 garments and decades’ worth of fashion history. Whether students are constructing corsets in the sewing lab or exploring late Victorian mourning dress, the Historic and Cultural Textile and Apparel Collection offers beautifully preserved examples of clothing and textiles from the 17th century onward for up-close viewing. During winter term, Jennifer Mower, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’12 — the collection’s
Spring 2025 3 PHOTOS BY KARL MAASDAM,’93 PHOTO ESSAY exhibited for the campus community, and the Corvallis Museum selects one group to show there. Started in the 1930s when home economics professors began donating fashion samples, the collection has taken on a life of its own. Now, with the two rooms overflowing, Mower must be strategic about what new items to add. Her dream is to remodel the space so there is more room for garments and more public display space. Learn how to see the collection and donate at beav.es/fashion. manager and a design instructor in the College of Business — asks students in her historic fashion class to pick a decade during the 20th century and curate a display based on items found within the apparel collection. Their work is then
CREDIT TK OREGON STATE’S DAY OF GIVING bit.ly/DPD25
Spring 2025 5 FROM THE EDITOR A MOMENT TO BE AMAZED In 2011, I got a chance to see one of the last space shuttle launches. A NASA program to harness the growing power of Twitter picked enthusiasts for special access to major space agency events in exchange for a continuous stream of tweets.Within days of getting my invitation, I’d bought a plane ticket and signed up to stay in a house with strangers I’d met on the internet. What happened next was an incredible experience made possible by social media. My housemates were NASA and European Space Agency engineers, science teachers and journalists. We toured sites like the awe-inspiring VAB — one of the largest buildings in the world — which held the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo missions to the moon.We met astronauts, scientists and celebrities, and posted photos by the iconic countdown clock. After a week of delays, I had to return to Oregon, but I was invited back to see the very last launch, Atlantis. Even three miles from the launchpad, the shock waves shook my whole body. I tweeted: “Beautiful, mind-bending: this tiny toy rises up on flames carrying humans inside, pierces the sky and disappears.” Back then, social media seemed to be pure connection — to people with shared interests, to high school and college friends you’d lost touch with, to an endless supply of cat videos. The trolls and bots and extremists hadn’t joined us in full force yet. All that’s to say that when it comes to technology, many of us have seen something that starts off great go sideways — because technology gets used by people, and people are complicated. So I realize that even with adorable robots on the cover, you may have had mixed feelings when you saw that this Stater delves into Oregon State’s impact on artificial intelligence. It’s true we don’t yet know all the challenges to come, but for the span of these pages, I invite you to set that aside and be amazed. Because AI — the engineering, the sheer intellectual creativity of it — is an extraordinary accomplishment, and Beavers have helped make it happen. From teaching robots to walk (and run!) to making chatbots that help doctors diagnose rare diseases, our researchers are already using AI to accomplish dazzling feats.And once the Jen-Hsun Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex is complete and they have access to one of the most powerful supercomputers in the nation, the acceleration of scientific discovery here is bound to be astonishing. Can we use this technology to find our way out of problems instead of just into new ones? That’s what our university is banking on. After talking with Oregon State scientists about their work, I’m willing to embrace the wonder. I hope you will be, too. Scholle McFarland Editor, Oregon Stater Spring 2025, Vol. 110, No. 2 PUBLISHERS John Valva, executive director, OSUAA; vice president of alumni relations, OSU Foundation Dan Jarman, ’88, chair, OSUAA Board of Directors EDI TOR Scholle McFarland DIGITAL & PRODUCTION MANAGER Travis Stanford GRADUATE ASSISTANT Cora Lassen ART DIRECTION & DESIGN Pentagram Austin, DJ Stout, Davian-Lynn Hopkins DESIGN CONSULTANT Teresa Hall, ’86 COPY EDITOR Charles Purdy ADDRESS CHANGES ForOregonState.org/Address LETTERS AND QUESTIONS OregonStater.org/Connect stater@osualum.com 877-678-2837 Oregon Stater 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center Corvallis, OR 97331 ADVERTISING Travis Stanford advertise@osualum.com 541-737-2786 ADVISORY COUNCIL Nicole “Nikki” Brown, ’04 Vicki Guinn, ’85 Tyler Hansen Colin Huber, ’10 Chris Johns, ’74 Jennifer Milburn, ’96 Elena Passarello Mike Rich, ’81 Lori Rush, ’78 Roger Werth, ’80 Oregon Stater (ISSN 0885-3258) is published three times a year by the Oregon State University Alumni Association in collaboration with the Oregon State University Foundation and Oregon State University. Content may be reprinted only by permission of the editor. ILLUSTRATION BY JOÃO FAZENDA
CREDIT TK The official Oregon State University license plate is here. Ride with pride — and help support Oregon State University. The new Beaver State license plate is available at DMV offices across the state. For more information, visit beav.es/license-plate. SHOW YOUR PRIDE ON YOUR RIDE!
Spring2025 7 FROM THE PUBLISHER OFF I CERS Chair, Dan Jarman, ’88 Vice Chair, Jonathan Riley, ’09 Treasurer, Bob Bluhm, ’82 MEMBERS Derek Abbey, ’99 Casey Anderson, ’14 Jay Boatwright, ’78 Sharada Bose, ’84, M.S. ’88 Eric Feldhusen, ’02 Colin Huber, ’10 Conrad Hurdle, ’96, MAT ’97 Kelley Kaiser, ’93, MPH ’99 Doug Kutella, ’98 Julie Lambert, ’85 Keith Leavitt, ’88 Holly McKinney, ’91 Lee Miller, ’80 Jayathi Murthy, OSU president, ex officio Victoria Thanh Nguyen, ’95, MAIS ’06 Candace Pierson-Charlton, ’73, Ed.M. ’02 Dola Popoola, student representative, ex officio Mary Power, ’90 Denver Pugh, ’97 Michele Rossolo, ’01 Shawn Scoville, OSU Foundation president and CEO, ex officio Dorian Smith, ’09, MAIS ’17 Syesha Holliman Thomas, ’02 Marcia Torres, ’01 Michael Whitten, ’12 ADDRESS 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center Corvallis, OR 97331 541-737-2351 osualum@osualum.com ForOregonState.org SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook: facebook.com/ oregonstatealum X: @oregonstatealum Instagram: @oregonstatealumni YouTube: @Oregon_Stater Sign up for the Beaver Lodge newsletter at ForOregonState.org/BeaverLodge NAVIGATING THE NEXT BIG THING ILLUSTRATION BY JOÃO FAZENDA I was seven when my family replaced our rotary dial with our first push-button telephone. My siblings and I endlessly pressed the lit numbers to hear the beeps. Some older brothers even held a contest to determine the fastest button-pusher in the household. We felt very modern. Some time later, our TV console with its rabbit-ear antenna was replaced by a sleek Zenith model with a remote control. Not only could we navigate six local channels — the new device also had a mute button. We would never have to listen to annoying commercials again. While in school, I shared a Royal typewriter with my seven siblings. During college, my part-time o ce job introduced me to IBM word processors — no more editing with messy Liquid Paper. IBM marketed its auto-save capabilities, but after losing 23 pages of my senior thesis, I learned to be skeptical when something sounded too good to be true. My father never quite mastered the remote control, and my mother’s Hotmail account outlived the brand. My parents have since passed away, but I would love to see their reaction to almost every American adult carrying a pocketsized, all-in-one computer, camera and phone. The rapid modernization of consumer tech over the past 50 years has been staggering. Those of us who’ve been around more than a handful of decades — and, honestly, even those of us who haven’t — have navigated lives filled with constant technological change. This issue’s cover story celebrates Oregon State’s significant role in the newest of these changes — artificial intelligence. AI is more than a trendy catchphrase. This technology that OSU alumni like Jensen Huang and faculty like Distinguished Professor Emeritus Thomas Dietterich have helped pioneer has the potential to deliver stunning analyses of vast amounts of data at unimaginable speeds, accelerating breakthroughs in research and development, automating workflows and processes, reducing human errors and eliminating repetitive tasks. I don’t know what changes AI has in store, but when I think about it in the context of our great university, I feel the same excitement I did when I held my first cellphone. What unyielding global problems will AI help our researchers solve? How will it position today’s students to achieve what we never imagined? The future is now. While I admit to some trepidation, I have never been so proud that Oregon Staters are leading the way. John Valva Publisher, Oregon Stater
8 OregonStater.org DAVID HERASIMTSCHUK/FRESHWATERS ILLUSTRATED L E T T E R S Thank you so much for the article [“Rewilding the Klamath”] about restoring the Klamath drainage. I graduated from the OSU College of Forestry a little over four decades ago and have spent most of my career deeply engaged in environmental, economic and social issues. The article literally brought tears to my eyes. I fully understand the monumental undertaking of the project. It was and is a truly historic (in human terms) undertaking that required the cooperation of many powerful interests. It’s not just about science and engineering; it’s about the emotional connection people have to the land, the challenges of navigating conflicting interests and the importance of recognizing the efforts of those working toward solutions. My deepest heartfelt thanks to those who made the Klamath project possible (on both sides of the fence, literally). It leaves me wondering … how many more decades will pass before we take a hard look at the Columbia? —JIM HURST, ’83 So happy to see the university involved in the removal of the dams on the Klamath River! Since I live 12 miles from the Oxbow Dam on the Snake River, on a ranch near Halfway, Oregon, I would hope that the same would be done on this river. Three dams were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and each made no allowance for the passage of fish. Hells Canyon Dam — the newest and an impenetrable wall — stopped the Snake dead in its tracks. Alas, these dams are too young to take down, but one can wish. Maybe in another 50 years. —TOM NASH, ’ 72 We just received your winter 2025 edition of the Oregon Stater and read it front-to-back. I think it must be the best one you have ever published — easy reading, informational and otherwise great. Thanks for your work to keep the Oregon Stater going. We pass it to two other grad families living in our retirement vilMAKING A SPLASH Our cover story on the rewilding of the Klamath River inspired many readers to write in and share their pride in OSU research. The story was also picked up in some unexpected places.A journalist writing about the project for a British magazine — 2024 was a record year for dam removal in Europe, too — saw the Stater on an alumni couple’s coffee table and reached out to one of the featured Oregon State scientists. We were also very excited to receive so many of your memories of Gill Coliseum. Keep them coming! KLAMATH RIVER • GILL COLISEUM ANNIVERSARY WINTER 2025 WINTER 2025 CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF GILL COLISEUM OSU’S HIDDEN GEM, THE MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING REWILDING THE KLAMATH OSU and the world’s largest dam removal and salmon recovery project. p. 30 202412_STATER_Winter2025.indd 1 11/11/24 1:21 PM
Spring 2025 9 DAVID BAKER “THE ARTICLE LITERALLY BROUGHT TEARS TO MY EYES …. MY DEEPEST HEARTFELT THANKS TO THOSE WHO MADE THE KLAMATH PROJECT POSSIBLE.” lage, and they love it to keep up a bit on old OSC. —RON, ’ 57, AND MILLIE AKERS, ’ 59 Wow — what a great edition! A won- derful lesson on the Klamath River dam project. Go salmon! And thanks for the Gill Coliseum memories. I was part of the turtle races, the den- ted trophy, the win over UCLA (stood right next to Walton when we stormed the floor) and many concerts. It was made even better by the article being written by a high school chum — Kip Carlson! —MARGARET CODY, ’ 74 In the article “Truth Tellers and Builders,” President Murthy is quoted as saying “we want to tell the whole story — the economic, sociological and other consequences that flow from these decisions” in reference to the dam removal project. However, in the article “Rewilding the Klamath” I see zero reference to the damage the project has done and is doing to local agriculture, fishing or business in general. —JOSEPH BAIN, ’86 The Klamath fisheries will be at critical survival levels until Mother Nature provides a 1964-intensity or stronger flood event to scour the colloidal suspension clay soils off the banks where the dams were located. Warren Buffett [CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns the power company that previously managed the dams] opted to allow the accumulated clays to wash to the ocean. Everything from the Collier I-5 rest area water system to the spawning beds have been fouled. I’ve lived and worked here for nearly 70 years. I was on the leave-the-dams-in side of the debate. The fish they tout as migrating up Jenny Creek were hauled up there in a truck by Cal Wild. —MARK JOHNSON, ’81 Editor’s note: Our story focused on the science and engineering emerging from the Klamath River, rather than on the controversy surrounding the dams’ removal, but we recognize that it’s been a hot-button issue, especially in the local community. Oregon State has a long history of supporting the Klamath River basin in managing complex water issues. We can’t confirm this writer’s claims, but we look forward to seeing what the numbers show after habitat restoration concludes. Gill Memories I attended Oregon State from 1955 to 1957 and clearly remember registering for classes at Gill Coliseum — an all-day job! I just missed being the first student the year OSC (as it was known then) topped 5,000 students; my memory is that I was No. 5003. There were no computers in those days, and students sat in Gill Coliseum bleachers and spent an hour or two filling out our “train tickets” — a long line of postcard-sized cards, attached by a perforated tear-off strip, with almost identical information for every class. The basketball floor was filled with tables for every class offered, and there were long lines of hopeful students. I dropped out in 1957 to attend a broadcast engineering school and spent 35 years in radio. I always wanted to go back and finish my degree. In 2020, I did just that at OSU-Cascades in Bend, graduating with a bachelor’s in liberal studies at age 85 — their oldest graduate! I love OSU, and I have fond memories of my time there, including in Gill Coliseum … mostly filling out “train tickets.” —ROBERT “BOB” O. WEED, ’ 22 During the 1981-82 season, the men’s basketball team was rated No. 1 in the national polls, and I saw them beat UCLA (along with just about ev- ↘ The newly exposed banks of the Klamath River began to green after being planted with native seeds.
10 OregonStater.org OSU ATHLETICS L E T T E R S eryone else) at Gill Coliseum. [The Beavs won their third consecutive conference title that year.] Anyone who was at the 1982 commencement must remember how things got off to a shaky start. Someone had been standing at the podium, acting like she was an official part of the ceremony.Aftermore than 3,000 graduates and a full house were finally seated, she announced, “I have something very important to say. This building is going to fall down, and we must all leave immediately!” It was like yelling “Fire!” As a structural engineer, I looked for any signs of impending collapse, still in my seat. Quickly, President MacVicar nudged her away from the microphone and, cool as a cucumber, said, “Anyone who was at the UCLA game knows this building isn’t going to fall down.” This enabled the graduation to proceed without further interruption. Incredibly enough, about an hour or so later, I was on stage, handed my diploma and photographed shaking President MacVicar’s hand. —JAN STRIBULA, ’82 Thank you for an excellent article regarding dam removal on the Klamath and your recap of Gill Coliseum history. My first experience with the coliseum was on a field trip from Lebanon, Oregon, for my fourth-grade Oregon history studies, to Horner Museum.This would have been the mid-1950s — my first out-of-town field trip and my first museum. Memorable, and I still mourn the removal of the museum from the coliseum basement. Next, as a transfer student from U of O in 1964, I experienced the wonder of class registration in the coliseum’s athletic court. Registration at U of O still involved going from building to building all about campus, often taking two or three days. OSU’s registration was a revelation! I had transferred to OSU because I married one of your basketball players — he was on the junior varsity team. We were pretty close to penniless — he was not on a “ride” — so our summer jobs and what little our parents could provide allowed us to afford a $55-per-month apartment with no car, no television and no telephone. One basketball-game evening, we had an out-of-town visitor. My usual practice was to go to the coliseum early and sit in the stands waiting for things to get started. (ID checkers weren’t there yet.) This I did, and I gave my ID card to our visitor so she could get in free. Looking nothing like me, she was caught! My ID card was confiscated, and we both were ejected! I spent the rest of the school year without a student ID. —WARRENE (BEYMER) GILL, ’65 I arrived as a freshman at Oregon State in 1963. Not long after, I heard there were all-school tryouts for the Oregon State basketball team. Yes, in 1963 Slats Gill himself was still the coach, and there were still the Rooks, but I couldn’t stay away. As a not-particularly-good high school player, I knew I had no chance, but what the heck, I laced up my Chuck Taylor sneakers and walked onto the court. This very court was home to the Final Four team of 1962-63, and there I was standing midcourt — knowing I was soon to be excused, but I was there. This was Gill! I never missed a basketball game in those heady days. When the hated Ducks came to town, a pregame introduction consisted of an OSU student dressed in duck hunting gear wandering to center court with a shotgun. As he fired blanks, about a half dozen dead ducks came falling from the sky as his buddy, hiding on that catwalk, hurled the waterfowl earthward. It was hilarious, and the student body went wild. During my senior year, I met and began dating Sheryl Rosvall. On our first date, we went to Gill to enjoy a concert featuring Petula Clark. The following fall term, Sheryl was selected to be on the Homecoming Court.They had a pageant to choose the queen at Gill Coliseum. There was a big crowd, as Homecoming was a big deal in those days, complete with house signs, floats, the bonfire and, of course, the coronation. When it was over, I was the happiest guy in Oregon, as there in the center of Gill Coliseum, my girl was crowned Homecoming Queen. She has now been Sheryl Rosvall Van Fleet for 54 wonderful years. —BRYON VAN FLEET, ’68, M.S. ’72 A lovely young Leontyne Price sang “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” in the mid-1950s in Gill Coliseum as part of the student-funded concert series. I’m still mesmerized remembering the sight and sound of her in an emerald green satin gown. She later toured Europe and the world singing and doing a lot of opera! —MARY ANN SARTAIN DUNN, ’ 58, M.S. ’62 I lived at Bloss Hall for three years, from 1972 to 1975, and remember going to Gill Coliseum many times for great basketball, arriving when the doors were opened at 4 p.m. to ↖ Steve Johnson, ’81, celebrates in Gill Coliseum after OSU’s 1980 Pac-10 championship win over Oregon.
Spring2025 11 TOASTER: DAVE MCFARLAND; PATCH: ALLEN SANDERSON save seats for the big games, notably with UCLA, USC and Oregon — exciting times to be a Beaver. —TOM SANDERS, ’ 76 I enjoyed Kip Carlson’s recent article on the 75th anniversary of Gill Coliseum. I retain so many fond memories: camping on the ramps for Orange Express tickets in the early to mid-1980s, Bill Cosby and George Burns, Huey Lewis and the News, Howard Jones, class registration en masse, fast walking across the stage to receive a diploma, student one-on-one basketball competitions at half-time of Pac-10 games, and watching my kids and their friends play hoops on the floor after Pac-12 games. I never get tired of returning to Gill, just as I did recently to watch the new-look Beaver Men’s Basketball team beat San Diego by 27 points. Thank you, Kip, for your continued good work on behalf of Beaver Nation! —TOM HOWARD, ’86 I enjoyed the article on memories of Gill Coliseum. As a 1963 graduate and, at the time, student body president, I particularly recall the October 1962 storm that blew half the roof o the building. The university president, James Jensen, asked me to meet him at the coliseum, where he surveyed the damage. There was about a foot of water on the floor. Jensen asked if I thought that the Homecoming dance should be canceled, and, of course, I agreed. I thought it was good of him to ask. One unfortunate memory about the coliseum is the moniker “Gill” for Slats Gill. Slats Gill would never bring any Black player on his teams. Tommy Prothro began integrating the (highly) successful football teams in the early ’60s, and the disparity was notable. —MIKE BURTON, ’63 Editor’s note: Mike isn’t alone in noting the racial makeup of Slats Gill’s basketball teams. In 2017, the university engaged scholars and the OSU community to consider renaming campus buildings with namesakes who may have held racist or exclusionary views. Following a deep research dive, it was determined that Gill had made attempts — though unsuccessful ones — to recruit more Black players. After conversations with university students, alumni and faculty, the Gill name remains. Learn more at beav.es/gill-name. Such Great Heights I read with interest the Backstory article about the OSU Mountain Club. I only wish the article had featured more of its history as the club and Outdoor Program, which grew out of the Mountain Club, have been an important part of many a student’s time at Oregon State. As a student at OSU (1982-1985) I worked at and led trips for the Outdoor Program. During a spring cleaning we located several scrapbooks from the Mountain Club which are now part of the OSU Special Collections. The scrapbooks highlighted not only trips and outings but also social events. I would be remiss not to mention that Oregon State produced not only outstanding climbers, but also some outstanding leaders in the outdoor world. Roger Robinson, ’76, was a Denali mountaineering ranger for almost 40 years and developed an approach to removing garbage and human waste from glaciers that is the standard today. Matt Hyde, ’85, in addition to holding executive positions at REI and West Marine, was a member of the board of directors for the Outdoor IndustryAssociation and theAccess Fund. —ALLEN SANDERSON, ’85 Send letters and comments by email to stater@osualum.com or fill out the form at OregonStater. org/connect. We edit for clarity, brevity and factual accuracy. Please try to limit your letters to 225 words or less. ↑ An OSU Mountain Club patch from the 1980s, shared by alumnus Allen Sanderson . “OREGON STATE PRODUCED NOT ONLY OUTSTANDING CLIMBERS BUT ALSO SOME OUTSTANDING LEADERS IN THE OUTDOOR WORLD.” KITCHEN MYSTERIES AND CAMPUS FOOD TRENDS Help us explore the weird and wonderful ways that food technology and trends have changed by sharing your memories for the next Stater food issue. Whether you favored a particular snack or beverage on game days, learned canning in the Home Economics Building or threw groovy fondue parties at your off-campus house, let us know! We’re particularly curious about vintage cooking tools — like this 1910s toaster from a Milam Hall storeroom — and your OSU stories about them. Email us at stater@osualum.com or write to Oregon Stater, OSU Alumni Association, 204 CH2M HILL Alumni Center, Corvallis, OR 97331. email to stater@osualum.com fill out the form at
CREDIT TK OSU, meet OCCU. OCCU is a proud supporter of Beaver Nation, helping fellow Beavers make Whether you’re in Corvallis to cheer on the Beavs or rooting for them from afar, OCCU can be your credit union. OCCU’s second Corvallis branch opens on Monroe Street in early summer, so we can more readily help success with products, services and insights to help them achieve their goals. In the meantime, stop by our location on NW 9th Street and say hello! OCCU is a member-owned, A credit union. People helping people. Our vision is toEnrich Lives and we do so every day by investing in our members, our local businesses and the communities we serve. OCCU is in Beaver Country Ready to join the credit union movement, Beaver Nation? Visit MyOCCU.org/CorvallisMonroe to learn more. ry Now open: 840 NW 9th St. Corvallis, OR 97330 Coming soon: 2001 NW Monroe Ave., Suite 108 Corvallis, OR 97330 You can also access your accounts and talk with a live, local video teller at our Beaver Store ATM. 268,000+ members strong $3 million+ in charitable giving from the OCCU Foundation 14 branches and counting to serve community members throughout Oregon
Spring2025 13 PHOTO BY DARRYL LAI T H E QUAD The first of the season’s blossoming trees painted campus with color on a clear March day. INSIDE VOICES P. 14 NEWS P. 17 RESEARCH P. 21 CULTURE P. 25 SPORTS P. 29
14 OregonStater.org KARL MAASDAM, ’93 VO I C E S ↑ President Murthy with Jensen and Lori Huang, OSU Foundation CEO Shawn Scoville, Dean of Engineering Scott Ashford, College of Engineering students and Digit last spring. Follow her on X at @OregonStatePres. DISRUPTION AND OPPORTUNITY PRESIDENT JAYATHI MURTHY ON HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL SHAPE OREGON STATE’S FUTURE. As told to Scholle McFarland The media tends to emphasize the scary aspects of AI, from it making artists and writers irrelevant to it fueling disinformation. They don’t talk a lot about what AI could do for science. How do you think AI is going to change OSU research? AI is going to be transformative. There’s no question about that in my mind, and I don’t consider it to be hype. At Oregon State, AI will be used to gain deeper insights, to drive new kinds of research and to drive the kind of work that we’re already doing — but to do it faster, to do it better, and to pull in more data. AI can supercharge the rate at which we work. Right now, that rate is determined by how quickly we can synthesize information. In the old days, you’d go to the library, and you’d read a bunch of articles and put in requests for books that needed to be found for you. That’s of course accelerated since the World Wide Web came along. But now with AI, there’s a way of not just searching but synthesizing human knowledge and making it available in a way that allows you to move much, much faster. The kind of research and the kind of results that took you years are possible in months. That is huge. That’s such an important point about searching versus synthesizing. Readers who haven’t experimented with AI yet might think of it as sort of a high-powered search engine. It’s much more than that. It’s going from data to information to knowledge and perhaps, eventually, even to wisdom. You brought up the idea that AI may make artists and writers irrelevant. I don’t know that I agree with that. It’s sort of like when photography came along, there were lots of people who said, “Gosh, why paint anymore?” But artists found a way to interact with that medium to create new things that at one point didn’t exist as art.And the same thing is going to happen here. Sure, there’ll be a certain kind of art that AI will make, but humans, because of their nature, because of their humanity, will interact with the things that AI makes. And there’ll be new modes of expression. What role will the new Jen-Hsun Huang and Lori Mills Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex play in integrating AI into the student experience at OSU? It’s given us a way of focusing on AI on campus. Otherwise, it would be a lot of people doing good things, but without a stake in the ground, without a way of pointing to something that is the heart of AI at the university. The building plays that symbolic role first and foremost. But there’s also a lot of stuff in the building. There is certainly the supercomputer, which provides capacity in a way that most universities in the country don’t have. OSU
Spring2025 15 CABRERA: COURTESY OF GEORGE CABRERA; TAN: CELIA MUTO; NGUYEN: JUAN CASIANO/LUMETRY MEDIA; MUNSON: PEG HERRING PRESIDENT Q + A PERSPECTIVES VICTORIA NGUYEN, ’95, MAIS ’06 Global Director, Inclusive Talent and Workforce Learning, Genesys Dr. Larry Roper, OSU’s former vice provost of student affairs, once challenged me: “Do you want to create the world you are a part of or let others shape it for you?” This profound question continues to guide my commitment to fostering inclusive practices. It’s also why I passionately support the OSU Alumni Association — helping ensure that Oregon State remains a welcoming, equitable space where future Beavers can grow and thrive. THE THINGS WE CARRY Q: WHAT’S A PIECE OF ADVICE OR ENCOURAGEMENT YOU RECEIVED WHILE AT OREGON STATE THAT YOU STILL REMEMBER TODAY? KENNETH MUNSON, ’74, M.S. ’80 Retired Global Director of Forestry Projects for International Paper There were two professors who inspired me during my time at OSU: Dr. Bob Tullock when I was an undergrad and Dr. Chet Youngberg when I was a grad student. Both were mentors before I knew what that meant. Both told me directly that I had potential well beyond my own self-assessment. The two-word summary I’ve carried around for over 50 years is “aim higher.” Now that I have a chance to mentor others, it’s a great privilege to keep the impact growing. TARI TAN, ’08 Assistant Dean of Educational Innovation and Scholarship, Harvard Medical School My closest mentors (and friends to this day) helped me navigate an undergraduate “identity crisis.” Their advice and encouragement to me — to thoughtfully reflect on my interests and priorities and to be willing to pivot and embrace change — was transformative to my life then and has been ever since. Their words continue to guide me through professional growth and evolution and to empower me to innovate solutions to the many unpredictable challenges in our world today. GEORGE CABRERA, ’68, ED.M. ’69, ED.M. ’72 Professor emeritus, Western Oregon University I still have the note that my advisor and mentor Dr. Ned Marksheffel in the School of Education gave me when I graduated so many years ago: “Best wishes for a most successful future, George. It has been a pleasure to see you develop. No doubt you’ll be a great teacher. I’ll be watching. And you can do it.” For 48 years, he was always with me and my students in our classroom, ensuring that I was doing my very best on their behalf. has always been really good at robotics, but robotics will increasingly have more and moreAI in it.All of the investments in robotics get folded into this AI vision. Then there’s all the other work that’s going to draw on AI — for example, the experimental infrastructure tied to use in semiconductors. That’s going to get rolled up in not only new generations of materials and semiconductors and processes, but also things like semiconductor design, which increasingly draws on AI. And students will get exposed to and get to participate in all these programs. Do you anticipate that the university will need to make policies for student use of AI? At this stage, I’d prefer to have guidelines rather than rigid policies. You’ve got to allow this to evolve. My hope is to go beyond constraint to really look for the creative. I can’t think of a community that is better suited to deal with this question than an academic campus.We will debate it.We’ll test it in the classroom. We will think it through in deep ways. From this, we will evolve guidelines and — as our understanding of AI use matures — we will know enough to make strong policies. Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about this spring? AI is disruptive, and there are so many other disruptions sweeping through our world right now. In a time of extreme change, finding your guiding light, finding your vision, finding your mission and holding true to your values is a very useful way of living your life. When we’re looking to make decisions at OSU, our focus must be on students, students, students. We are here to educate in the broadest possible way. Maintaining access, maximizing opportunity, building excellence — that’s our guiding light. Everything else follows. THIS INTERVIEW WAS EDITED FOR CLARITY AND LENGTH.
CREDIT TK See OSU AI and robots in action at explore.oregonstate.edu or scan the QR code. Imagine what you’d like a robot to do. We have. And it’s how we’re developing robots that can learn, adapt and function where people work and live. By integrating advances in artificial intelligence and robotics, Oregon State University is turning potential into reality. With one of the largest robotics programs in the U.S., and the only university with dedicated Ph.D. programs in both robotics and AI, faculty and students are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible — so our robots can do real work out in the real world. Including yours. Into your world. Image: Hello! OSU is using AI to design robots that are engaging and even fun to use in assisted living, home health and other applications.
Spring2025 17 PHOTO BY FLEET ARTERBURY BEND BEAVS’ NEW HANGOUT Student Success Center opens at OSU-Cascades. OSU-Cascades celebrated the opening of the Bend campus’s new Student Success Center this January. The building provides a central home for a variety of student services, from student clubs and organizations to academic advising and career development to student government. Built with sustainable mass timber, it includes spaces for socializing and for studying, a coffee shop, geothermal heating and cooling, a wood-burning masonry heater, regionally sourced Douglas fir siding and plenty of state-of-the-art tech. Students played a critical role in securing funding. Not only did they appeal to state legislators — in 2017, they also voted to increase student fees for the additional space and enhanced success services. This raised $5 million for the $20 million project. The building’s completion marks a major milestone in OSU-Cascades’ growth. To learn about what’s next, see beav.es/ bend-expansion. — Scholle McFarland NEWS
18 OregonStater.org BARBIE: MATTEL; SNOW DAY: DARRYL LAI; BASEBALL: JERRY ESPINOZA; MIGHTY BEAVS: KARL MAASDAM,’93 BEAVER BRAGS N EWS FOUR YEARS, ZERO DEBT NEW PROGRAM AIMS TO REMOVE LAST FINANCIAL BARRIERS FOR HIGHEST-NEED OREGON STUDENTS. By Cathleen Hockman-Wert Gerardo Vargas Miranda arrived at OSU this fall with a dream. “I’m excited to be the first engineer in my family — I think that’s really cool,” he said. “A lot of creativity goes into that job. I can see myself going to work and being happy about it every day.” He’s the first person in his family to go to college. He’s also breaking ground another way: Miranda was chosen for OSU’s first cohort of Finish in Four students. Finish in Four is a new program supporting the university’s aspirational goal of all students graduating in four years, without debt and with a job. It recognizes that Oregon’s college-going rate is far below the national average, and companies have a critical need for the kind of graduates OSU is known for: collaborative, innovative problem-solvers who hit the ground running. Increasing graduation rates is a multifaceted university-wide effort, and Finish in Four tops the list of ways alumni and friends can help. For many students, the biggest barrier to completing their degrees is financial, and sometimes the lack of what may seem like a small amount of money — $500 or $1,000 — can lead students to drop out. Finish in Four provides four-year “last dollar” scholarships for Oregon resident students with high financial need. This means the scholarships cover the gap between the full cost of attendance (including living expenses) after other forms of financial aid have been exhausted. “The 11 students in this year’s pilot cohort receive scholarships ranging from $6,000 to $15,000 — because what each of them needs to cover the full cost of attendance is different,” said Dorian Smith, ’09, MAIS ’17, who directs the program. “The Finish in Four program will be life-changing for these promising students, and I am grateful to our donor community for helping them thrive at OSU.” Beyond financial support, the Finish in Four program is working to help students develop a sense of connection at Oregon State and includes academic counseling, financial education and career guidance. Participants are expected to complete an experiential learning project during their college career and to earn $2,000 annually toward the cost of attendance. Miranda quickly found friends in a university program that supports migrant and seasonal farm workers and their children. “My parents weren’t able to go to college. I’m happy I’m making them proud right now,” he said. “The scholarship lifted a huge burden off their shoulders, and I’m going to make great use of it.” “I’M EXCITED TO BE THE FIRST ENGINEER IN MY FAMILY — I THINK THAT’S REALLY COOL.” 4 Oregon license plates now support university initiatives: the gray whale plate, bee plate, recently released Beaver plate and newly announced shark plate. Learn more at beav.es/OSU-plates. 41 PERCENT of all OSU classes in the 2023-24 academic year used low-cost or no-cost textbooks and course materials, saving students roughly $8 million. $11.9 MILLION was awarded to Oregon State by the U.S. Department of Defense to invent nanotechnology delivery methods for protecting troops from chemical and biological threats. No. 1 in the nation in NCAA Gymnastics both for All-Around and Balance Beam, Jade Carey is also, as of this March, the first Beaver to become a Barbie doll! o. 1
Spring 2025 19 PHOTO BY TRAVIS GILMOUR INSTAWORTHY When Kaylina Hernandez opened the email saying she had been selected for Finish in Four, she thought it sounded too good to be true. She hasn’t picked a major yet, but she’s considering fisheries and wildlife, natural resources, and environmental sciences. “My main drive is wanting to change the world for the better,” she said. “I know that’s kind of cheesy and everyone has those goals, but I’m really excited about it. The Finish in Four program and scholarship have made my life a whole lot easier.” In their first year, several Finish in Four students are involved with research. Darciel Mubikayi, who is interested in healthcare, works with a biomechanics project focused on people with limited mobility in their lower extremities. “I enjoy it,” he said. “Because of Finish in Four, I’m glad to be able to focus on things that can help me with my future.” Learn how you can get involved with Finish in Four: bit.ly/FinishFour. beaverbaseball Freshman Dax Whitney was named Perfect Game National Pitcher of the Week after a stellar showing in Surprise, Arizona. oregonstatealumni The inaugural Mighty Beavers Mixer celebrated OSU alumni who work for the university. oregonstate Students built snowmen in front of Weatherford Hall on a snowy February day in Corvallis. ↑ Gerardo Vargas Miranda.
20 OregonStater.org DRONE: ISTOCK/ VOLODYMYR KRASYUK 1. Trust Me: A Novel By Scott Nadelson, MA ’00 Spend 52 weekends with a newly divorced dad and his daughter at his remote cabin in the Cascade wilderness as they forage for mushrooms, confront menacing neighbors, find pleasure in small moments of wonder and cope with devastating loss. Both comic and heartbreaking, Trust Me explores the shifting landscapes around and within its characters. Nadelson won an Oregon Book Award in 2004. Learn more: bit.ly/nadelson. 2. Dear Future By Jennifer Richter, assistant professor, School of Writing, Literature and Film A poetry collection that searches for hope in a shaken world, these meditations on the anxiety of the present moment will remind you of the interconnectedness of our fragile lives. Richter won the 2024 Tenth Gate Prize for Dear Future, her third volume of poetry. Learn more: bit.ly/richter-poetry. 3. Born of Fire and Rain By M.L. Herring, professor emerita of science communication Experience anew the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest in this holistic book that weaves together scientific research, local history and memoir to explore an ecosystem from every angle. Herring wrote for and edited the award-winning research magazine Oregon’s Progress during her 18 years at OSU. Learn more: bit.ly/ml-herring. 4. A Rustic Cabin By Dennis Dauble, ’72, Ph.D. ’88 Award-winning outdoor writer Dauble chronicles his new life in the Umatilla River Canyon as he lives out his dream of fixing up a 1940s log cabin. This book about place, family and home will warm your heart — with plenty of practical life lessons along the way. Learn more: bit.ly/dennis-dauble. 1 2 4 3 BOOKS BY BEAVERS Dear Future WINNER OF THE TENTH GATE PRIZE Jennifer Richter B R I E F S B O O K S FUN BUILDS FORTITUDE Looking to increase your resilience in the face of trying times? The key may be cultivating a sense of openness, flexibility and fun. Research led by Xiangyou “Sharon” Shen, director of OSU’s Health, Environment and Leisure Research Lab, or HEAL, found that adults with high levels of playfulness showed stronger resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Highly playful people were just as realistic about COVID-19 risks and challenges,” Shen said, “but they excelled at ‘lemonading’ — creatively imagining and pursuing the positive, discovering ways to create moments of joy even in difficult circumstances.” A SPIFFED UP CORDLEY HALL Built in the 1950s and one of the biggest buildings on campus — housing faculty, labs and classrooms for both the College of Science and College of Agricultural Sciences — Cordley Hall used to be as dark, cramped and outdated as could be. But after a four-year renovation, what was once a series of windowless hallways lined with closed doors is now an energy efficient building interspersed with study areas, lounges and outside views. Labs have been completely updated, and large classrooms have been revamped to meet modern accessibility and acoustic standards. See the results at beav.es/Cordley. CAMPUS FLYOVER If you’re feeling homesick for Corvallis, take to the air for a sunny virtual tour via drone. Click, pan and reminisce in 360 degrees as you fly over the MU Quad, the Library Quad and more. Try it out at bit.ly/fly-corvallis. N EWS
Spring 2025 21 RESEARCH PHOTO BY KAYLA FRATT SMELLS LIKE SCIENCE How a student trained her dogs to sniff out critical ecology data. By Siobhan Murray Barley the border collie mix quivers, barely brea- thing. His handler, Oregon State doctoral student Kayla Fratt, whispers the magic word — “search” — and he speeds into the forest with his nose to the ground, moving methodically. When he catches a whiff of the scent he seeks, his nose hooks, as if magnetized to something upwind. His tail begins circling.When he gets close to the scent, his nose pinpoints the source while the rest of his body sidesteps like a crab. Barley drops to his belly, bracketing his discovery — wolf scat — between his paws. His eyes widen as Fratt rewards him with his beloved ball. continued
22 OregonStater.org TOP AND RIGHT: KAYLA FRATT; BOTTOM: TONI PROESCHOLDT Barley is a conservation detection dog, and while his life’s pursuit is earning his favorite toy, he’s also advancing science by locating wolf scat samples for Fratt’s doctoral research on Southeastern Alaska’s wolves. Fratt’s research is in collaboration with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Conservation detection dogs have risen in importance over the past few decades, after it became possible to use genetic fingerprinting to identify individual animals from scat samples. More recently, techniques like metabarcoding have also let scientists analyze animal droppings to gain detailed insights into diet, parasites and other ecological factors. Fratt’s advisor, Associate Professor Taal Levi, has been on the forefront of using this tool to solve fishery, wildlife ecology and conservation mysteries around the world. “Our lab does among the most fecal DNA metabarcoding in the world because, in addition to our landscape-scale projects, we process samples for researchers and multiple state, federal and tribal agencies,” Levi says. “One of the biggest reasons I was excited to join Taal’s lab is because it’s on the cutting edge of using fecal DNA to learn about animal species,” says Fratt, who started at Oregon State University in 2023. “In the lab I am learning from the best of the best about analysis of fecal DNA — that’s why I’m getting a Ph.D.” Fratt’s dissertation will also focus on the science of working with detection dogs, and she hopes it will improve how they’re trained and used in the field . ڿ PREVIOUS PAGE: Fratt, field technician Toni Proescholdt and Barley on a survey in Alaska. ↑ TOP: Alaska team members pick their way through the brush. BOTTOM: Fratt and Barley hot on a trail. RIGHT: Barley earns his beloved ball. The Levi Lab’s ongoing research on Alaskan wolves has documented the world’s first case of wolves living largely off of sea otters instead of their usual diet of deer. Fratt is expanding the research’s scope to study a group of Southeastern Alaskan islands that the Alexander Archipelago wolf subspecies swims between. She boats from island to island with Barley and her other dog, Niffler (any Harry Potter fans?), to collect wolf scat — they scored 779 samples in their first field season. Fratt tubes the scats, freezes them, and then takes them back to Corvallis to the lab to be thawed before she and technicians extract the DNA. So far, she sees signs of sea otter in the wolf scat she collects, which supports previous diet observations. continued
Spring 2025 23 TONI PROESCHOLDT R E S E AR C H WILDLIFE ECOLOGY “The fact that wolves have diversified their diet in the areas we’re studying suggests more resilience that may help the species persist long-term in the face of environmental change,” Levi says. As a keystone species, wolves play an outsized role in ecosystems, and changes to their diets influence a vast web of species. Fratt’s research will likely provide the first-ever wolf count on these islands, informing decisions on whether they merit protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game needs to know how many wolves live in this area to set regulations for how many wolves can be hunted. Limiting the quota is controversial in Alaskan communities because many hunters view wolves as competition for the deer that fill their freezers, in a state with the second-highest grocery prices in the country. The fall 2025 hunting season could be the first informed by Fratt’s work. Before starting her doctoral studies at Oregon State, Fratt was living out of a Sprinter van with Barley, Niffler and her cat, Norbert, on the long drive down the Pan-American Highway to Patagonia. Along the way, she found out she’d won a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Instead of heading south, she’d be getting her Ph.D. A former dog trainer who is passionate about conservation biology, Fratt first realized she wanted to spend her life training dogs to sniff out data for ecologists years ago, when she heard about dogs trained to detect Orca feces in Washington. Barley’s been by her side since 2017, when he was adopted from a shelter where he had been surrendered. As Fratt learned when she trained Barley, dogs like him have an insatiable obsession with play and a high drive for fetching toys — qualities that keep them motivated during long workdays but, too often, mean they’re rejected by families for being “too much dog.” Fratt cut her teeth working for a professional conservation detection dog company and co-founded a nonprofit, K9 Conservationists (k9conservationists.org). In 2020, she added Niffler to her pack. She and the dogs have hunted jaguar scat in Guatemala, as well as bird and bat carcasses on wind farms. She hopes to secure funding to expand her research to detect signs of puma recolonization in El Salvador. On a typical day of fieldwork in Alaska, Barley disembarks from a boat, scrambles over wet rocks and then proceeds to comb miles of thickly forested landscape, hopping over downed trees and splashing through muskeg. It’s demanding work for an 11-year-old dog, requiring Fratt to keep Barley on a rigorous regimen of physical therapy, preventative fitness, doggy yoga and rest under the guidance of a sports medicine veterinarian — as well as fluffy dog beds. “Barley is one injury away from retirement,” she says. As a result, this is Barley’s last big project. Then he’ll pass the torch to Niffler. “The worst part of this job is how deep this bond becomes and how much you grow to trust and work fluidly with a dog as your coworker, confidante and best friend, and then how comparatively short their careers and lives ultimately are,” Fratt says. “But I am so grateful for the time we’ve had together. I’m so grateful to routinely have the experience of him teaching me about the world — showing me something like how odor moves, something about the world that we cannot see but know is still true and exists.” ↗ Fratt and Barley with about 800 wolf scat samples ready to be shipped to OSU for genetic analysis. WHILE [BARLEY’S] LIFE’S PURSUIT IS EARNING HIS FAVORITE TOY, HE’S ALSO ADVANCING SCIENCE.
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