College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences 2007-2008 Annual Report

The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (PAMS) experienced another year of marked growth and success. However, pressing budgetary issues are a limiting factor on our continued growth in some areas. This report highlights our achievements and challenges.

1.  Changes in Service Environment

PAMS continues to respond to the growing national challenge to increase the quantity, quality and diversity of students pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers. Meanwhile, we seek to increase our research in the strategic thrust areas of health, energy and environment. Both of these efforts are well aligned with the University’s strategic goals and address some of the most important challenges facing North Carolina, the nation and the world.

PAMS continues to serve the University by providing core science and mathematics instruction to students campus wide. The recent and planned growth of the University’s undergraduate enrollment will require resources for additional graduate students, temporary instructors and permanent teaching faculty.

The aggressive recruiting of our top faculty by peer institutions continues to threaten the sustainable growth of our graduate program and our research enterprise. Graduate enrollment in the College decreased slightly this year, due mostly to a decrease in the ability of some of our programs to provide adequate faculty advising and competitive student stipends.

The state has recently made substantial needed investments in the College of Engineering. A strong engineering program requires strong physical and mathematical sciences as its foundation. PAMS supports engineering through our substantial contributions in research partnerships and core instruction. To continue and enhance this support, we need a bold commitment from the University and a willingness to include our needs among its legislative priorities.

With recent and upcoming moves into renovated and/or expanded space in Riddick Hall, Jordan Hall, Cox Hall and Bureau of Mines, as well as the completion of the new Mathematics and Statistics Building, the overall quality of most of our teaching and research facilities is quite good. The one notable exception is the continuing need for a safe and modern research facility for the Department of Chemistry.

2. Compact Plan

We have moved aggressively to implement the initiatives laid out in our Compact Plan that will allow the College to move forward in research and graduate education while continuing to provide access and high quality in our core teaching across the University.

We hired 15 new tenure-track faculty members, many of whom support our compact initiatives in health, energy and environment. In health, we made hires in neurochemistry and biomedical statistics. In energy, we hired two physicists working in solar energy conversion. In environmental research, we hired a full professor in climate dynamics and a junior faculty member in environmental statistics.

We are attempting to enhance the productivity of our research faculty and our course offerings by filling a fraction of our faculty vacancies with career-path, special-rank faculty. These Teaching Assistant Professors (TAPs) are expert educators with significantly higher teaching loads than research active faculty. They are expected to keep abreast of innovation in postsecondary teaching and learning and to serve as infective agents for instructional improvement across the departments. We recently hired two TAPs in mathematics and have offers pending to two more in physics. If all offers are successful, we will have 12 TAPs by Fall 2008, with at least two in all but one department.

We continued our commitment to a scientifically competent workforce and society through programs such as The Science House and Scope Academy. Despite continued funding challenges, The Science House once again expanded its reach to K-12 students and teachers across the state. Scope Academy, one of the University’s premier public education outreach programs, helped unofficially kick off the Year of Energy last fall by hosting a lecture by alternative energy expert Dan Nocera.

3.  Diversity

According to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, NC State ranks 1st among U.S. predominantly white institutions (7th overall) in the number of African Americans receiving a bachelor’s in the physical sciences, 2nd among predominantly white institutions (6th overall) in the number of African Americans receiving a bachelor’s in mathematics/statistics, and 1st among all institutions in the number of African Americans receiving a masters in mathematics/statistics.

We continue to enhance our support of minority students through peer mentor programs and other services provided through the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Student Services and programs across the College.

The Science House continues providing K-12 programs aimed at girls and groups under-represented in the sciences. It collaborates with other organizations and historically black institutions on increasing the participation of students who belong to groups underrepresented in STEM disciplines. We also play a leadership role in the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Village, a living and learning community of female students in PAMS, CALS, CNR, Textiles, and Engineering. Last fall, WISE launched three new sophomore tracks and began a partnership to establish a chapter at the NC School of Science and Mathematics.

This year Department of Statistics hosted the second-ever Infinite Possibilities Conference. The conference, designed to promote careers in the mathematical and statistical sciences to women of color, attracted 220 participants to campus from 22 states.

4.  Instructional Program Advances

The College sponsored a day-long workshop, led by Richard Felder, Rebecca Brent, and some of our most successful teachers, on effective strategies for teaching large classes. We are moving forward with the development of a new interdisciplinary freshman course to pilot during the 2009-2010 academic year. The Department of Mathematics this year completed an external review of its educational programs. The department also launched a new undergraduate concentration and BS/MS program in Financial Mathematics.

The Department of Chemistry launched a revised undergraduate curriculum based on an external review and new guidelines from the American Chemical Society, while the Department of Physics finalized an action plan for its graduate program based on a recent review. It is of note that each graduate program review in recent years has identified faculty capacity and stipend level as major concerns. The College has made additional funds available to the departments to help raise stipend levels, but more support is needed.

All departments continue to evaluate, implement and—in some cases—develop the latest in high-quality instructional methods and technologies.

5.  Research

Funded research activity continues to be impressive, with about 78 percent of faculty leading externally funded programs totaling about $37 million—more than 90 percent of which is from federal sources, a key indicator of the quality of our faculty and programs.

Research highlights include:

Chemistry: Christian Melander discovered that adding tiny bits of gold to a failed HIV drug from the 1990s can rekindle the drug’s ability to stop the virus from invading the body’s immune system. Melander’s ongoing work on bacterial biofilms has powerful implications, ranging from energy efficiency to food safety.

Mathematical and Statistical Sciences: Montserrat Fuentes received nearly $2 million in new funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency to determine the connection between air pollution, asthma and cardiovascular disease. The National Science Foundation recently awarded a second five-year grant to the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI). Ralph Smith leads NC State’s role in this unique research partnership with Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS).

MEAS: Julia Clarke discovered two extinct penguin species that once reached the equatorial regions, including one that grew to five feet tall. Lian Xie is developing a model to be used by Olympic organizers to predict the winds for the Olympic sailing event in Qingdao this summer.

Physics: Stephen Reynolds and Kazimierz Borkowski discovered the youngest known supernova in the Milky Way. Estimated at a mere 140 years old, this supernova is at least 200 years younger than the next oldest known in our galaxy, and its discovery may pave the way to a greater understanding of exploding stars. A team led by Jerry Bernholc and Marco Buongiorno-Nardelli discovered that a commonly used polymer could be used in the development of ultra-fast rechargeable batteries.

6.  Extension

Faculty across the College provide outreach and extension service through classroom, club meetings and public agency presentations, demonstrations, field visits and consultations.

The Science House works to attract more students to STEM disciplines, and last year served more than 4,000 teachers and 28,000 students from across the state. In addition to teacher training programs, science demonstrations, student camps and other activities, it offers distance learning, and its Web site receives 2,000 hits per day. The Science House serves North Carolina through six offices, and has developed programs in several other states.

The State Climate Office (SCO) offers an important resource for public and private agencies, as well as individual citizens. SCO has served as an invaluable public resource in response to the record-setting drought that began in 2007. SCO staff gave more than 30 invited presentations and more than 100 media interviews in an effort to maintain public awareness of drought and water-supply issues.

7.  Faculty: Selected honors, awards and recognition

Chemistry: Eric Bigham: Board of Directors, American Chemical Society; Alexander Dieters: Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award

MEAS: Viney Aneja: 2007 North Carolina Award for Science; Ronald V. Fodor: 2008-09 Fulbright Scholar

Mathematics: H.T Banks: NC State Alumni Outstanding Research Award (only the second ever to win this award twice); Demetrio Labate: National Science Foundation CAREER Award; Robert Martin: NC State Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor; Jack Silverstein: Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics

Physics: David Aspnes and Chueng Ji: Outstanding Referees, American Physical Society; Raymond Fornes: NC State Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal; Stephen Reynolds: PAMS recipient, UNC Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching

Statistics: Marie Davidian: Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences; Sastry Pantula: President-elect, American Statistical Association; Bibhuti Bhattacharyya: North Carolina Order of the Long Leaf Pine

8.  Students

The College’s undergraduates continue to score among the University’s highest in high school GPA and SAT scores. The Fall 2007 entering class topped all colleges in average GPA and was a close second in percentage in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Our total Fall 2007 undergraduate population was 41.4 percent female and 7.5 percent African American, while the graduate population was 41.8 percent female and 4.2 percent African American.

Our students won an impressive array of scholarships, nationally competitive graduate fellowships and awards from professional societies—including 2008 Fulbright, Goldwater and Marshall awards. One of our undergraduate students, Benjamin Greve of the Department of Chemistry, also had the unique opportunity to present his research to the NC State Board of Trustees at their February 2008 meeting.

9.  Fund Raising

Development commitments of more than $11.5 million as of June 12 are on target for reaching this year’s annual goal by June 30. In addition, results of the Achieve! Campaign for NC State are expected to approach $70 million by year end, 40 percent above the public phase goal.

Significant achievements this year include completing a volunteer-driven fund raising project to endow the R.A. Fisher Distinguished Professorship in Statistics at $1 million as well as securing a commitment from Lord Corporation for a $1 million distinguished professorship in Chemistry. The College also secured a bequest commitment to endow the first named professorship in Physics at $500,000. In addition, The Science House received a $360,000 one-year grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation to provide essential infrastructure support of its six regional offices.

10.  Administration

Sharon Schulze was named director of The Science House. Len Pietrafesa, associate dean for external affairs, has entered phased retirement. Wandra Hill, assistant dean for student services in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, will retire Sept. 1.

11.  Recommendations and Concerns for the Future

Critical facilities needs: The University must address the critical need for safe and modern chemistry research space. Securing exclusive use of Riddick for the Department of Physics and rental costs for space on Centennial Campus are ongoing concerns.

Faculty recruitment and retention: Start-up costs for new faculty, especially in experimental fields, continue to present a major challenge for the College. Salaries, teaching loads and graduate student stipend levels are also concerns.

Sustained core funding: This is needed for mature outreach programs that have proven their value to the University, such as The Science House, Anderson Academy and State Climate Office.

12. Producing leaders for the state, nation and world

PAMS consistently produces graduates with the tools to become leaders in academics, industry and government. This year is no exception, as evidenced by Brian Clark. Clark, who graduated from NC State in May with a major in physics and a minor in mathematics, received a prestigious 2008 Marshall Scholarship. The North Carolina native was one of only 37 recipients from around the country. Clark will use his scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Cambridge, and ultimately aspires to a career that will allow him to impact science policy on the national level.

13. Creating educational innovation

The College has hired two new tenure-track faculty who specialize in disciplinary based educational research. One of these hires is in geosciences education research and the other is in statistics education research. Similar searches are ongoing or will begin soon in chemistry, physics and mathematics. These recruitments have been undertaken under the auspices of the program led by Robert Beichner and in close collaboration with him. Each hire will have proven expertise in post-secondary science education. Our goal is to have one or more such faculty in each of our five departments and to provide opportunities for collaboration among themselves and across campus. We also see opportunities for collaboration with our non-tenure track Teaching Assistant Professors (mentioned under the “Compact Plan” heading), whose introductory courses could serve as laboratories for their educational research.

14. Improving health and well being

The Center for Quantitative Sciences in Biomedicine (CQSB) was established officially last fall. CQSB already has made substantial progress in establishing a presence as a focal point for activities related to the role of the mathematical sciences in human health and in facilitating several specific research projects and partnerships. CQSB in the spring brought nearly 100 experts to campus for the Atlantic Coast Symposium on the Mathematical Sciences in Biology and Biomedicine and in the summer hosted NC State’s fifth Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics, which attempts to address the drastic shortage of students entering math and statistics careers that support health sciences research.

15. Fueling economic development

Building on a legacy that includes being the birthplace of SAS Institute and other highly successful endeavors, PAMS continues to be a University leader in the transfer of academic discovery to commercial application. Our faculty have generated 47 U.S. and foreign patents over the past five fiscal years, including 32 percent of NC State’s total patents for FY2008, through June 16.

16. Driving innovation in energy and the environment

As part of the Year of Energy activities, PAMS faculty have submitted more than $5 million worth of new energy-related proposals in the first four months of 2008. They are working with groups across campus to respond to the Department of Energy’s recent call for Energy Frontier Research Center proposals, as co-leads in inorganic and organic photovoltaics (OPV), and as partners in combustion and catalysis science. Jon Lindsey’s group recently has achieved success in OPVs, synthesizing novel porphyrinic materials that have the potential to absorb in the red and near infra-red, not just in the blue region, thereby utilizing a much larger portion of the solar photon spectrum.

Science House is playing a crucial support in the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Center proposal in the recent National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center competition. Progress Energy has funded PAMS undergraduate scholarships for energy research.