Dropping names ...
Mary Coussons-Read, executive vice chancellor, Academic Affairs, and professor, Department of Psychology at UCCS, will discuss new research at Feb. 10’s Café Scientifique at UCCS. The focus will be on how stress affects the outcome of human pregnancy by altering maternal inflammatory and endocrine activity, and how these changes may ultimately impact behavioral and immunological development and health in offspring. Despite advanced health care, the rate of preterm birth in the United States remains high, and often occurs in otherwise healthy women who have no clear risk factors. The presentation, “The Psychoneuroimmunology of Pregnancy: Implications for Birth and Human Development,” will start at 6:30 p.m. at Clyde’s in the University Center, and is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Tom Huber, professor, Geography and Environmental Studies, thuber@uccs.edu.
Jody Tanabe, professor and vice chair of research in the Department of Radiology, School of Medicine, has been honored with the 2014 Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy of Radiology Research. Tanabe is one of 46 researchers selected to receive the award, which acknowledges the work of investigators who achieve scientific excellence while still being involved in clinical care. Her research focuses on using advanced neuroimaging methods to understand biological mechanisms of drug addiction.
Daniel (Danko) van der Laan, physics researcher at CU-Boulder (also of NIST) has received a patent for a high-temperature superconducting cable that provides flexible, high-current density power transmission. These cables have immediate applications in electrical grids and scientific and medical equipment; they may also enable better power transmission for military applications and in data centers. U.S. patent 8,938,278 (“Superconducting cables and methods of making the same”) was issued Jan. 20. This is the first U.S. patent to issue from a portfolio of related U.S. and international applications, and is the first patent awarded to van der Laan for his research at CU. This technology is being commercialized by a CU startup company, Advanced Conductor Technologies, founded by van der Laan. The company began filling its first commercial orders in 2014.
Casey Allen, assistant professor of Geography and Environmental Sciences and coordinator of Undergraduate Advising at CU Denver’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, co-edited a new book, “Geomorphological Fieldwork (Developments in Earth Surface Processes Vol. 18).” In addition, Allen authored a chapter and co-authored several others. Geomorphology is the study of landforms and the processes that shape them, and more broadly, the evolution of processes controlling the topography of any planet. The publisher notes this volume can be used as a student book for field-based university courses and postgraduate research requiring fieldwork or field schools.