Issue 2 n Volume 8 n Winter 2009 Members of the inaugural cohort of Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellows gather with Vice Provost for Graduate Education Patricia Gumport, MA ’82, MA ’86, PhD ’87 (center). Their doctoral research connects fields like marine ecology to engineering, neuroscience to education, and law to sociology. Full story, “Empowering Unbounded Inquiry,” on page 11. Photo: Rod Searcey The Stanford Challenge: Preserving Excellence The past months have brought dramatic changes to the time securing funding. We seek additional graduate fellowships economy, affecting institutions and people around the globe. to continue supporting the best young minds who will shape our Stanford has not been spared the impact of the downturn, and tomorrow. I would like to share with you how we are responding to the Those of you who attended Reunion Homecoming this fall shifting economic climate. witnessed firsthand that Stanford is in the midst of a significant The university began this challenging period in a relatively capital revitalization. The building projects under way will not healthy position, after several years of remarkable endowment only bring our laboratories and research and teaching equipment growth resulting from expert investment management and up to the leading edge of technology, but they also will offer robust support from the Stanford community. In the last few myriad spaces for the sort of cross-disciplinary interactions that Want to learn more about the months, the value of the endowment has declined significantly, are integral to our efforts to seek solutions and educate leaders exciting multidisciplinary work and we must be prepared for that trend to continue. In for the 21st century. The economic downturn requires us to going on at Stanford? addition, with increased pressure on the federal budget, we delay future planned projects, but facilities currently under anticipate further reductions in government funding for construction will go forward. Come to a Leading Matters event in a city near you. research. In the face of these realities, our priority as we enter Even as we look toward what we must accomplish in the months The four-year, round-the-world tour showcases the the second half of The Stanford Challenge will be to focus and years ahead, we also celebrate what your generosity has university’s efforts to address the challenges facing on our most precious resource: the people that define our enabled us to achieve to date. As the following pages exemplify, society and educate tomorrow’s leaders. excellence. we have fostered an environment that encourages risk taking In each location, alumni, parents, and friends are Every day here at Stanford, more than 16,000 outstanding and supports collaboration. We are underwriting world- treated to innovative media and thought-provoking faculty and students ask vital questions and seek solutions to changing research in human health, environmental sustainability, discussions with President Hennessy, distinguished the pressing issues of our time. Many, including our inaugural international affairs, K–12 education, and the arts and creativity. faculty, deans, and students. More than 2,100 Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship (SIGF) And we continue to advance basic discovery, which underlies people attended Leading Matters in 2008; see recipients, tackle problems at the intersection of fields. Like all innovation. of our students and faculty, these doctoral researchers aspire to “Stanford Gatherings” on pages 14 and 15 for I am particularly excited about a new research venture we have make a difference in the world. In so doing, they not only drive photos from the event held recently in Dallas. just launched: the Precourt Institute for Energy, a comprehensive our core mission but also embody the promise of the future. attack on the challenge of generating sustainable solutions to In 2009 Leading Matters will visit: In these uncertain times, we will redouble our efforts to protect escalating global demand for energy. This is exactly the sort of London ...................................................March 14 the strength of our faculty and maintain our commitment to problem to which Stanford scholars and students can contribute San Francisco .............................................. May 9 undergraduate and graduate students. Over the past decades, innovative answers. Stanford has built an extraordinary community of scholars and Denver ....................................................October 1 The Stanford Challenge positions the university to be a leader teachers throughout the university. To ensure enduring support New York ...........................................November 14 in important new areas and helps to ensure that we attract and for this critical resource, we must increase the number of retain the best minds. We remain committed In upcoming years, the tour will stop in: endowed professorships that honor and sustain our outstanding to these long-term goals and focused on faculty. When we announced dramatic enhancements to our 2010: Singapore; Taipei; Washington, D.C.; supporting the people who drive learning undergraduate financial aid program in February 2008, we Peninsula; Chicago; and Orange County and discovery. We hope we can count on knew that they would be expensive to implement but also your continued support in this endeavor. 2011: Mexico City, Houston, Boston, and Portland that our foundational commitment to need-blind admissions required the change. As you can imagine, demand for financial Visit leadingmatters.stanford.edu aid is only increasing as the economic situation evolves, putting for more information. an even greater burden on our limited scholarship funds. Adding to our scholarship endowment is absolutely necessary to meet our obligations. Graduate students are doubly affected by the financial downturn since they bear the brunt of declining John L. Hennessy federal research dollars. Young scholars in the humanities and social sciences and those whose work cuts across multiple President fields—like our SIGF recipients—have a particularly difficult thestanfordchallenge.stanford.edu Seeking Solutions: PRoGRESS HIGHLIGHTS: The Initiative on • Naming gift for the Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building Human Health • Initial seed funding to support Bio-X NeuroVentures and the Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiative Program • Graduate fellowships, including Bio-X Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowships in Human Health and fellowships in bioengineering • Launch of the Jill and John Freidenrich Center for Translational Research, the Ludwig Center for Cancer Stem Cell Research and Medicine, and the Canary Center for Cancer Early Detection SELECTED REMAINING PRIoRITIES: • Naming and key gifts for the bioengineering/chemical engineering building in the new Science and Engineering Quad • Endowed faculty support, including provostial chairs for Bio-X, the Bio-X directorship, and professorships in bioengineering • Additional graduate fellowships, including Bio-X Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowships in Human Health and fellowships in bioengineering • Additional support for the Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program and other sources of venture funding to allow for rapid response to new opportunities, including Bio-X NeuroVentures ABOVE: Associate Professor Karl Deisseroth uses light to stimulate neural circuits because it is precise and fast enough to keep up with the millisecond timing of the brain. PHOTO: Lee Abel RIGHT: This nerve cell is primed with a light-sensitive protein (shown as green). IMAGE: Courtesy of Kim Thompson, Viviana Gradinaru, Karl Deisseroth Novel Approaches to Neurological and Psychiatric Disease Slender beams of blue and yellow light in Karl Deisseroth’s lab “We’re using light and genetics as an incredibly fine tool to pull make worms stop in their tracks and mice turn in circles. One apart the complexity of the brain and direct brain circuits very day, such flashes of light may reverse the debilitating effects of precisely,” says Deisseroth. Parkinson’s disease and stroke, or counteract psychiatric illness. Firing neurons in a specific circuit more frequently and steadily Deisseroth’s expertise spans the fields of bioengineering, could alleviate the loss of fine motor control experienced by psychiatry, and behavioral sciences, giving him a distinctive set Parkinson’s patients or restore a depressed person’s positive of skills. He keenly sees the need for better tools to understand outlook. Extensions of the technology might also apply to cells in and fix the brain circuitry of distressed patients—and he the heart, muscles, and pancreas. possesses the engineering ability to do something about it. To rapidly incubate innovative technologies and ideas, The associate professor and his team have invented a method Bio-X NeuroVentures brings together researchers, engineers, for exciting or silencing specific brain cells in freely moving computational scientists, and clinicians from multiple disciplines. animals using light. The exceptionally promising field known This approach has proved vital to the overall Bio-X program as optogenetics is a key facet of Bio-X NeuroVentures, a new directed by Carla Shatz, professor of biological sciences and undertaking within Stanford’s interdisciplinary biosciences neurobiology. program led by Professor of Neurobiology Bill Newsome. The program’s goals—and its means for accomplishing them— Researchers aim to demystify the most complex organ