National Science Foundation Videos

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine included two women. It's a sign of growing success for female scientists. But the National Science Foundation reports that women still make up only 33 percent of all people in science. That's especially true in the hard disciplines, such as the study of radioactive elements.

Current issues affecting labor unions and workers in Ohio and Central Ohio, with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) District 1199 President Becky Williams, and Ohio AFL-CIO President and Ohio Association of Public School Employees Executive Director Joseph Rugola. Recorded September 8, 2009.

The University of Washington has received a grant intended to draw more minorities into technical fields. The $2.6 million award is from the National Science Foundation.

A long term bird research project is pecking some holes in the conventional wisdom about the environmental effects of suburban sprawl. This work is happening on the fringes of greater Seattle. In some cases, researchers found new subdivisions supported more bird life than the forests they replaced.

"May Day" - Sara Teasdale, "The Moontower" - Spy For Hire; Geeknotes: LA Pod Pics; Open Mic Stage: "Sit Back and Relax" - DLF, "It Is Not Always May" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Effortlessly" - The Simple Carnival, "Groove Machine" - Chris Harper, "No Time" - Mujaji, "Los Iguanos" - Los Musicos de Jose, "Maybe" - Rachel Kann; Map Room: Espresso Book Machine, Fungal Compound With Anti Cancer Activity, Scientists Discover Northern Lights Caused By Electrical Tornadoes, ‘Lunar Oasis’ - Growing Flowers and Vegetables on the Moon; Venue Verite: "Sunshine," "6 Under the Ground" - Coamhim; Music Bed: "Im Garten der Schneekugel" - Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

"May Day" - Sara Teasdale, "The Moontower" - Spy For Hire; Geeknotes: LA Pod Pics; Open Mic Stage: "Sit Back and Relax" - DLF, "It Is Not Always May" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Effortlessly" - The Simple Carnival, "Groove Machine" - Chris Harper, "No Time" - Mujaji, "Los Iguanos" - Los Musicos de Jose, "Maybe" - Rachel Kann; Map Room: Espresso Book Machine, Fungal Compound With Anti Cancer Activity, Scientists Discover Northern Lights Caused By Electrical Tornadoes, ‘Lunar Oasis’ - Growing Flowers and Vegetables on the Moon; Venue Verite: "Sunshine," "6 Under the Ground" - Coamhim; Music Bed: "Im Garten der Schneekugel" - Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

"May Day" - Sara Teasdale, "The Moontower" - Spy For Hire; Geeknotes: LA Pod Pics; Open Mic Stage: "Sit Back and Relax" - DLF, "It Is Not Always May" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Effortlessly" - The Simple Carnival, "Groove Machine" - Chris Harper, "No Time" - Mujaji, "Los Iguanos" - Los Musicos de Jose, "Maybe" - Rachel Kann; Map Room: Espresso Book Machine, Fungal Compound With Anti Cancer Activity, Scientists Discover Northern Lights Caused By Electrical Tornadoes, ‘Lunar Oasis’ - Growing Flowers and Vegetables on the Moon; Venue Verite: "Sunshine," "6 Under the Ground" - Coamhim; Music Bed: "Im Garten der Schneekugel" - Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

"May Day" - Sara Teasdale, "The Moontower" - Spy For Hire; Geeknotes: LA Pod Pics; Open Mic Stage: "Sit Back and Relax" - DLF, "It Is Not Always May" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Effortlessly" - The Simple Carnival, "Groove Machine" - Chris Harper, "No Time" - Mujaji, "Los Iguanos" - Los Musicos de Jose, "Maybe" - Rachel Kann; Map Room: Espresso Book Machine, Fungal Compound With Anti Cancer Activity, Scientists Discover Northern Lights Caused By Electrical Tornadoes, ‘Lunar Oasis’ - Growing Flowers and Vegetables on the Moon; Venue Verite: "Sunshine," "6 Under the Ground" - Coamhim; Music Bed: "Im Garten der Schneekugel" - Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

"May Day" - Sara Teasdale, "The Moontower" - Spy For Hire; Geeknotes: LA Pod Pics; Open Mic Stage: "Sit Back and Relax" - DLF, "It Is Not Always May" - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Effortlessly" - The Simple Carnival, "Groove Machine" - Chris Harper, "No Time" - Mujaji, "Los Iguanos" - Los Musicos de Jose, "Maybe" - Rachel Kann; Map Room: Espresso Book Machine, Fungal Compound With Anti Cancer Activity, Scientists Discover Northern Lights Caused By Electrical Tornadoes, ‘Lunar Oasis’ - Growing Flowers and Vegetables on the Moon; Venue Verite: "Sunshine," "6 Under the Ground" - Coamhim; Music Bed: "Im Garten der Schneekugel" - Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

William Wulf Professor William Wulf addressed the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society on Friday, March 13, 2009, on the topic, Responsible Citizenship in a Technological Democracy. His lecture addressed the importance of science and technology education in promoting an informed citizenry. William Wulf is the AT&T Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. From 1988 to 1990, Dr. Wulf served as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation, where he headed the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). Dr. Wulf is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the ACM, the IEEE, and the AAAS. In 1968 Dr. Wulf received the first Computer Science Ph.D. ever awarded at the University of Virginia.

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center is a recently funded National Science Foundation (NSF) â Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Regional Center hosted by City College of San Francisco (CCSF). MPICT's mission is to coordinate, promote and improve the quality and availability of ICT education in a region consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. Current Regional Partners include: Ohlone College , Santa Rosa Junior College , Cabrillo College and Foothill College. We've had a great relationship with Pierre, James and CCSF and were fortunate to get them on camera to talk about MPICT at the 2008 SAME-TEC Conference. MPICT is off to a great start under the leadership and direction of Pierre and James. Contact them for more information at www.mpict.org

Bio-Link is an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Center for Biotechnology that originated in late 1998 with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The Center is located on the campus of City College of San Francisco with office space at the University of California, San Francisco. Regional Bio-Link Centers across the country are located in Seattle, WA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Austin, TX; Madison, WI; Graham, NC; and Portsmouth, NH. At the SAME-TEC conference this past July, I had the opportunity to interview Bio-Link Director Dr Elaine Johnson. In the interview Elaine discusses the work the Bio-Link Center and Regional Centers are doing to bring students the knowledge and skills essential to the field as well as the ability to continue with more advanced education in math, science and engineering. My undergraduate background is in Microbiology so I've always had an interest in biotechnology and related fields. If you are faculty and considering starting a biotechnology program or maybe a student thinking about a biotechnology career, you will find her interview very interesting. Elaine and her Center's work are outstanding! You can get more information on Elaine and Bio-Link here.

Earlier this month I wrote about how the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (NCTT, focusing on information and communications technologies) collaborated with sister NSF Advanced Technology Education Centers of Excellence Maricopa Advanced Technology Education Center (MATEC, focusing on semi-conductor, automated manufacturing and electronics) and OP-TEC (focusing on optics and photonics) to sponsor the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, Texas. SAME-TEC has a long history, starting in 1994 with the vision of David Hata at Portland Community College and continuing to grow and evolve under the leadership and direction of Mike Lesiecki and his team at MATEC. This year the conference had over 350 attendees. At the conference we did a number of video interviews and John Reynolds, our multimedia specialist, has been hard at work editing them. We've now got another one posted - an interview with David Hata - the Godfather of SAME-TEC. David discusses the original grant he wrote to the National Science Foundation to launch SAME-TEC and the evolution of the conference.

The OP-TEC Advanced Technological Education Center was launched in August 2006 with funding from the National Science Foundation. Under the direction of Dan Hull, the Center engages a consortium of two-year colleges, high schools, universities, national laboratories, industry partners, and professional societies. The participating entities have committed to join forces in creating a secondary-to-postsecondary âpipelineâ of highly qualified and strongly motivated students and empowering community colleges to meet the urgent need for technicians in optics and photonics. OP-TEC serves two types of one- and two-year postsecondary programs: Those devoted to lasers, optics, and photonics technology; andThose devoted to technologies that are enabled by optics and photonics. OP-TEC is building support through curriculum, instructional materials, assessment, faculty development, recruiting, and support for institutional reform. OP-TEC will serve as a national clearinghouse for teaching materials; encourage more schools and colleges to offer programs, courses, and career information; and help high school teachers and community and technical college faculty members develop programs and labs to teach technical content. The project has four goals: Serve as a national resource center for optics and photonics education and training.Create, assemble, align, and distribute coordinated curriculum materials designed to support optics, laser, and photonics education in high schools, two-year colleges, and retraining of adult workers.Support established and new photonics education programs in high schools, community and technical colleges, universities, and professional societies.Provide education and training for administrators, counselors, high school teachers, and community college faculty members to prepare them to: design new photonics technology programs that meet their local needs;infuse photonics into programs in photonics-enabled technologies; andteach optics, photonics, and lasers using curriculum materials distributed by OP-TEC. OP-TEC is establishing a national infrastructure for developing and supporting widely disseminated educational programs in cutting-edge, high-demand technologies that require photonics. That infrastructure encompasses both the secondary and postsecondary levels and will involve collaboration between educators and industry personnel. Dan and his team are doing excellent work. In July I had the chance to interview him (on his birthday!) at the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, TX. You can get more information on the OP-TEC National Center located in Waco, TX here.

Bunker Hill Community College Professor Paula Velluto has received National Science Foundation funding to create a model computer forensics program. The project is a regional collaboration of Middlesex Community College, Bristol Community College, Bunker Hill Community College, Northern Essex Community College and the University of Massachusetts Boston to meet the regional need of law enforcement for trained computer forensics (CF) technicians. The programs uniquely combine the disciplines of Information Technology and Criminal Justice and are tailored to the needs of each institution. The CFATE NSF project focuses on achieving three goals: To create computer forensics programs that align with law enforcement, public safety, private industry and homeland security needs to ensure consistent, current and flexible training. CFATE works with local/regional law enforcement agencies and industries to determine the needed skill set. Faculty workshops are being conducted to facilitate integration of CJ and IT into courses and expedite curriculum development on a consortium wide basis. CF experts work with the colleges to ensure that materials are rich in real world content. UMass Boston is developing baccalaureate programs that accept community college graduates and provide them with career pathways. In addition, CFATE is developing stand-alone courses and programs for IT professionals and CJ practitioners. To offer regional professional development opportunities for educators to develop expertise needed for teaching these programs. In addition to workshops on CJ and IT integration, extensive workshops on CF and the use of state-of-the-art software are being offered. Curriculum development workshops emphasize learner-centered pedagogy that give students needed skills. CF experts work individually with faculty and mentor them as they deliver CF courses. To expand the capacity in the region to attract students from diverse backgrounds to CF programs at each institution and support them in gaining employment in related positions. CFATE is creating recruitment materials such as CDs, brochures, and interactive websites to reach local schools and local and regional community organizations. This is combined with targeted personal outreach to schools and organizations. I've know Paula for many years and have always been so impressed with her technical knowledge, experience, vision and (especially) the way she works with her students. Paula is one of the best and last month I had the opportunity to interview her at the SAME-TEC 2008 Conference in Austin, TX. You can get more information on the CFATE rogram at Bunker Hill Community College here. The project website at CFATE.ORG will also be up shortly.

The deadly collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minnesota was merely one example of America's troubled concrete-and-steel underpinnings. But as we discover in excerpts from PM's "Bridges to the Future" summit with the National Science Foundation, its replacement may also be illustrative--of high-tech solutions for the next generation of infrastructure. Plus, Mike Allen proposes a plug-in car with an onboard micro-generator, Barbara Peterson finds out why in-flight Wi-Fi might be more important than cellphones at 30,000 ft., and we meet a parachute tester who puts Point Break to shame.