Travel through Morrill Hall at the spring Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED) Open House from 3-5 p.m. Thursday, April 4, in Moscow. Faculty, students and staff will have the chance to meet ORED staff and learn about the multitude of services offered at the University of Idaho. There will be an opportunity to mingle with the offices of Sponsored Programs, Technology Transfer, Economic Development, Research and Faculty Development, Research Assurances, campus veterinarian, staff of the Integrated Research and Innovation Center, the Center for Advanced Energy Studies, Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, Aquaculture Research Institute, Idaho Geological Survey, Idaho Water Resources Research Institute, Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies, Northwest Knowledge Network and the Center for Modeling Complex Interactions. Enjoy tours of every floor, attendee favors, delectable desserts and a chance at raffle prizes. Join for an informative and fun afternoon on a journey through ORED.
Research and Faculty Development will present an introduction to Pivot training from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, in IRIC 105. Pivot is a searchable database of funding opportunities, calls for papers and researcher profiles. Pivot provides information from federal and local governments, private foundations and public organizations for a variety of activities, including research and travel, in all academic disciplines. Participants will learn how to create and customize their profile and how to conduct, track and save a funding search. The session is also available via Zoom.
College of Engineering assistant professor Min Xian earns funding toward portable detection device.
In Min Xian’s perfect world, the equipment needed for breast cancer detection will cost the medical community no more than what the average consumer pays for the latest and greatest iPhone. The University of Idaho College of Engineering assistant professor has been studying digital applications being developed to make breast cancer detection affordable and accessible. The latest technology uses a small scanning device that connects to your smart phone and uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to determine whether or not the scanned image is cancerous.
Under a $158,251 award from the Center for Modeling Complex Interactions, a multidisciplinary, collaborative research program housed at the U of I and funded by the National Institutes of Health, Xian has begun research into developing a more efficient algorithm for detection.
He also received a $12,570 award from the U of I Office of Research and Economic Development to purchase a portable scanning device to be used with the application.
“In developing countries, resources and access to medical doctors is limited,” said Min Xian, University of Idaho College of Engineering assistant professor. “They don’t have the techniques, and can’t afford the expenses.”
Applications like the ones Xian is studying would allow lesser trained individuals to provide the same level of medical expertise through an affordable and highly efficient form of artificial intelligence.
Although these applications currently exist, Xian said the technology still needs refinement, not to mention the time it will take to make the digital system acceptable to the public.
Breast cancer false positives cost the medical community greatly. Determining whether a tumor is malignant is difficult to do as a trained medical professional, so developing an artificial intelligence capable of limited error is no easy task.
His 19-person team consists of medical doctors and collaborators from the Utah School of Medicine, three other medical universities, two in China and one in India. The award will also fund a doctoral and one post-doctoral student.
“This kind of research isn’t done by a single person,” he said. “We need experts from a lot of different areas, not just computer science. We need medical doctors, we need statisticians.”
Spring means we’re nearing the end of the school year – and various award banquets and receptions. We’re proud that so many CMCI participants received awards this year.
2019 College of Science Staff, Faculty, and Graduate Student Awards
Nominations for the staff and faculty awards were made by members of the College of Science executive board, and nominations for the graduate student awards were made by each academic department or program.
Early Career Faculty Award: Chris Remien (Mathematics)
2019 College of Science Undergraduate Student Awards
Casey Beard – graduating with a major in Physics
Tawny Gonzalez – graduating with a major in Chemistry (Pre-Medical option)
John B. George Award
The outstanding graduating senior in the College of Science; given by the dean.
Tawny Gonzalez
University Awards for Excellence
The University Awards for Excellence recognize and encourage excellence in all forms at the academic level.
Excellence in Research and Creative Activity Award: Deb Stenkamp (Biological Sciences)
Outstanding Post-Doctoral Scholar/Fellow Award: James Van Leuven (CMCI)
Interdisciplinary Award: Flow Ventilators Team. Tao Xing* (Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering), Gordon Murdoch (Animal and Veterinary Science, College of Agricultural & Life Sciences), Gabriel Potirniche (Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering), Nathan Schiele (Biological Engineering, College of Engineering
Left to right: Dr. Gordon Murdoch, Dr. Tao Xing, Dr. Gabriel Potirniche, and Dr. Nathan Schiele. Dr. Xing is holding a 3D printed model for a human lung upper airway.
Congratulations to CMCI postdoc Aniruddha Belsare who will soon be joining the Boone and Crockett Quantitative Wildlife Center (QWC) in the Department of Fisheries & Wildlife at Michigan State University as a Research Associate. his work will focus on the development of quantitative tools to evaluate tne inform wildlife disease control and management, specifically chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer.
Aniruddha is looking forward to the opportunity to work with and mentor undergraduate and graduate students at QWC. “I’ve been impressed by the collaborative culture and the strong atmosphere of collegiality at the QWC,” he said.
He said that he will miss the small-town setting of Moscow and the scenic Palouse and his colleagues at the U of I.
At a small going-away reception, Aniruddha shared that he first arrived in Moscow on the weekend when the university was closed. But, wanting to see where he’d be working, he grabbed the address and asked Google to show him the way. He was so very, very disappointed when the directions kept taking him to warehouse-type buildings on the edge of campus. It wasn’t until later that he realized the address he was using – 875 Perimeter Drive – was the mailing address for the entire campus and not the physical location of his soon-to-be office. He was relieved and thrilled when he later discovered that the stunning IRIC was where he would actually be working.
CMCI will miss Aniruddha and his scientific contributions but wishes him well on his new adventures.
