Marissa Orr will use her NSF CAREER award to transform academic advising.

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Peach researchers get $1 million grant to better understand method for growing organic peaches in the Southeast.

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October 2016

Evolving cultures

It’s easy to get caught up in what we do day-to-day (or day-to-night-to-day) that we sometimes forget to step back and look at how, or why, we do what we do.

This month, I’m pleased to tell you a little bit about three initiatives that do just that. They are aimed at evolving our culture – our methods and motivations.

Women in STEM

In the next week, and for the next several years, you will hear more about an NSF ADVANCE grant for $3 million to increase the number of women in STEM fields.

Sez Atamturktur, in Civil Engineering, spent two years working with more than 50 people on campus to spearhead this grant, with the full support of our provost, Bob Jones.

Congratulations to Dr. Jones, Dr. Atamturktur and the many, many others who helped secure this grant.

At Clemson, the percentage of women in STEM fields is similar to that of many other universities. However, every university can, and should, strive to do more. Clemson’s goal for ADVANCE goes beyond increasing the number of women in STEM fields; it will help our culture evolve into one that embraces, values and actively seeks diversity and inclusion.

Research Safety

In September, Provost Jones created a task force to address the issue of research safety. This was in

response to an initiative of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, which called for all its members (Clemson is one of them) to dedicate time to improving the culture of safety in our laboratories, workshops and other facilities.

Once again, this goes beyond looking at quantifiable data to the more difficult, but equally important, goal of evolving our culture. Safety has to be integral to everything we do.

Tracy Arwood, assistant vice president for Research Compliance, is chairing the task force. She and her committee members will reach out to others across campus to gauge the perception of our research climate. They will identify ways to improve the climate and how we communicate about safety, and they will propose ways to keep us moving forward.

If you are contacted by the safety task force, please assist them at your earlier convenience.

Customer Service

Finally, we recently celebrate two events intended to improve our culture of research customer service. On Sept. 26 the Division of Research office sponsored a pizza party in recognition of Research Administrators’ Day, and on Oct. 7 we sponsored a social hour in our offices in the Strum Thurmond Institute.

The Division of Research, its offices and personnel, are here to help facilitate your work. We invite you to visit with us, and we will continue to do our best to serve you, our customers and constituents, in the most effective and appropriate ways possible. Let us know how we can help you.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

Current models used to predict the survival of species in a warming world might be off target, according to new research by Mike Sears in Biological Sciences that enlisted the help of dozens of spiny lizards in the New Mexico desert.

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September 2016

It’s been nearly eight months since I assumed the role of vice president for the division of research.

I knew coming in that my job would be a very large task.

But I underestimated how exciting this job can be when we share in achievements. I couldn’t have been prouder of Kerry Smith and Lesly Tamesvari in Biological Sciences, and their EPIC team, when they were awarded Clemson’s second COBRE grant to study deadly pathogens. Or of Stephen Foulger in Materials Science and Engineering when he received an EPSCoR grant, bringing advanced materials to bear on neurological disorders.

I was equally proud that Clemson combined the arts with science and engineering once again at Artisphere, showing Greenville and the surrounding area that art and science belong together, like it is in Todd Anderson’s work. Todd, an assistant professor of printmaking, records glaciers around the world. His work with collaborators to record the receding glaciers in Glacier National Park, in a project called The Last Glacier, is as striking as it is important.

For each primary investigator there are many more faculty members, lab managers, students and staff performing and facilitating research, collaborating across disciplines and across colleges and departments.

It is your hard work – collaborating, finding new opportunities for convergence – that led the Carnegie Foundation to recognize Clemson as an R1 university, among about 80 other universities with the “highest level of research activity.”

Getting R1 designation was an important milestone for Clemson; staying an R1 will take more of the hard work that has helped our research revenues from from an average of about $70 million during the first part of this decade to $109 million in 2016.

ClemsonForward, the University’s strategic plan, has four pillars: research, engagement, academic core and living. REAL. Each pillar is necessary, starting with research.

The work you do is real. It makes a real impact on our city, our region, South Carolina, the United States and the world.

The Division of Research newsletter will be sent monthly by my office. Soon we will have a website with much easier navigation. These are some of our efforts to communicate better — more clearly, with one voice, giving you information you need to know and highlighting our great work. We hope you enjoy the newsletter; I welcome your comments.

Go Tigers!

Tanju

Turtles have a reputation.

“They’re slow, they’re clumsy and the shell just gets in the way of everything.”

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Richard Pak, associate professor in Clemson’s psychology department, has been named director of the Clemson University Human Factors Institute.

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