SMU Research, Volume 13 Office of Public Affairs
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Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar SMU Research Magazine Office of Research and Graduate Studies 2006 SMU Research, Volume 13 Office of Public Affairs Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.smu.edu/research_magazine Recommended Citation Office of Public Affairs, "SMU Research, Volume 13" (2006). SMU Research Magazine. 1. https://scholar.smu.edu/research_magazine/1 This document is brought to you for free and open access by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at SMU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in SMU Research Magazine by an authorized administrator of SMU Scholar. For more information, please visit http://digitalrepository.smu.edu. Message from the Dean Research Strengthens Ouest for the Best SMURasaarch www.smu.edu/newsinfo/research SMU &much is pmduced annually by rhe Office of PubHc Affijn for the Office of Research and Graduate Studies of Southern Methodist Universiry. Please send correspondence ro Office of Research and am pleased to report that we have had a very busy and productive Graduate Studies, SMU, PO Box 750240, Dallas TX 75275-0240, or call 2 14-768-4345. E-mail: [email protected] year in the Office of Research and Graduate Studies. We have provid Ofnca of Public Affairs Swan White ed important funds to support the work of SMU faculty and graduate E<Hror Sherry Myres students; we have put in place measures to increase funding for exter Creative Director VictoriaOa.ry nal research; we have welcomed aboard a new Ph.D. program in Designer Hillsman S. Jackson English; and we have continued to patent and market the significant Photographer Contributors: Lisa Castello, Meredith Dickenson, Nancy George. fmdings of the University's researchers. Kristine lmherr, Gary Shuln, Karhleen 1ibberts, Tory Winkelman, Deborah Wormser Patricia Ann LaSalle Research, which long has been a major SMU priority, was given fresh Associate Vice President for Public Affalrs emphasis by the goal of President R. Gerald Turner and the Board of omca or Rasaarcb and Graduate Studies Phyllis Payne Trustees to make SMU a top 50 university. One of the key measures of that Barbara Phillips LurySmirh status is the quality and quantity of research, the amount of research funding University Officers for our faculty, and the number of Ph.D. students we graduate each year. R. Gerald Turner President Thomas W. Tunks As a result, the upcoming Centennial Campaign, SMU's plan for the lmerim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Thomas E. Barry future, places research, grants, and the quality of graduate programs at the Vice President for Executive Affairs S. Leon Bennett very center of the University's goals for the next decade, which will celebrate General Counsel, Vice President for Legal Affairs and Govcrnmem Relations. and Secretary the founding ofSMU in 1911 and its opening in 1915. James E. CasweU Vice President for Student Affairs Bead E. Cheves One attribute I always have admired about our University- among Vice President for Development and External Affairs O;ma Gibson many - is the ongoing desire to improve, to set measurable goals, and Vice President for Business and Finance Elizaberh C. Williams achieve measurable results. "Getting better and better" at what we do is Universicy Treasurer SMU's mission; it is a challenge and a delight to be part of that experience. Academic Deans John B. Amnasio Dedman School of Law I am honored to invite you to join us on this remarkable journey. Please Carole Brandt Meadows School of rhe Acts sign up, for the results will be well worth witnessing. SMU, already a fine William B. Lawerenct: Perkins School ofTheology university, is moving to another level, and we are delighted to have your sup Gmian M. McCombs Central Universiry Libraries port and company on the trip. jasper Neel Dedman CoUege ofHumanicies and Sciences Please accept my warmest welcome to another issue - the 13th, I am Alben W. Nierrti Jr. Cox School of Business proud to say - of SMU Research magazine. Geolfrq C. Orsak School of Engineering Robcn A. Patterson R. Hal Williams School of Education and Human Development R. Hal Williams Dean, Research and Graduate Studies Research and Graduate Studies CopyrightC 2006 Southern Methodist Unive.rsicy will not discriminate in any employment practice, education program, or educational activicy on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, or veteran starus. SMU's commitment to equal opportunity includes nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 06201.506 Research News SMU Site Archiving Of New Laser Center The Digital Age MU has joined the University of exas Instruments Inc. and the integrat Virginia and the University the Jack Kilby family have ed circuit, the ofMichigan as a site in the made two major gifts to the commercial transistor, SNational Science Foundation TUniversity, creating the Historic the electronic calculator, the single-chip Industry/University Cooperative Research TI Archives and the Jack St. Clair Kilby microprocessor, early digital watches, and early Center for Lasers and Plasmas for Advanced Archives at SMU. The collection will be cata cell phone technologies. Manufacturing. The center's mission is to loged and stored at DeGolyer Library. In 2008 the SMU School of Engineering, develop the science, engineering and tech "The TI archives tell the story of the with the DeGolyer Library and the Library of nology base for laser and plasma processing company responsible for many inventions that Congress, will host a yearlong celebration of ofmaterials, devices, and systems for we take for granted in our everyday lives," says the 50th anniversary of the birth of the digital advanced manufacturing. The following Central University Library Dean and Director age with Jack Kilby's Nobel Prize-winning companies and agencies are members of Gillian McCombs. invention of the integrated circuit. Symposia SMU's Center for Lasers and Plasmas: Included in the two collections is the and exhibits will examine the many ways in Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, world's richest history in technology and engi which technology and engineers have shaped Halliburton Service Energy, General neering. Among the items are numerous firsts: the modern world. Motors, and the Army Research Laboratory. Radovan Kovacevic, the Herman Brown Professor ofMechanical Engineering at SMU, will serve as the center's director. For more information: www.smu.edu/cul/annotations/Annotations-8-l.pdf omen in Gadsden, Alabama, may achieve many things on par Representatives. Another factor is incumbency. with men, but election to the U.S. House of Representatives will The study also found that in the past three redis Wnot be one of them. Gadsden is the worst place for women run tricting cycles, women candidates have done bet ning for Congress; New York City ranks as the best place, according to a ter at getting elected to Congress, although not all new study by Dennis Simon, SMU professor of political science, and equally. Democratic women candidates have an Barbara Palmer, a scholar with the Women and Politics Institute at easier time running for Congress than their American University. Republican female counterparts. In addition, by Why is it taking so long for women to be elected in greater numbers using demographic data from 2002 and 2004, Simon and Palmer also assess to Congress when they've achieved so much in other spheres of American the political fortunes of women in some of the key 2006 Congressional races. life? To answer that question, Simon and Palmer searched for clues to the "Palmer and Simon masterfully scour modern history for the smoking political gender gap. Working from data that includes all elections to the gun behind why women continue to be hindered in their quest for integra U.S. House of Representatives in all 435 Congressional districts from 1956 tion into Congress," says Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fl). through 2004, they found that upscale, urban, and diverse Congressional The study appears in the book Breaking the Political Glass Ceiling: districts are more women-friendly, while rural, Southern, and traditional Women and Congressional Elections (Routledge, 2006); available on districts are the least friendly to women. www.amazon.com. To learn how the other 435 Congressional districts fare Since 1916 only 203 women have been elected to the U.S. House of for women, go to www.politicsandwomen.com. 2 SMU Rasaarcb 2006 Dallasau sThe Mi sing Lizard Li k hen an amateur fossil hunter picked professional collections for study. Using Turner's up a handful of unusual fossilized fossil, housed at the Dallas Museum of Natural venebra at a suburban Dallas con History and the Texas Memorial Museum at Wstruction site in 1988, he could not the University ofTexas at Austin, Polcyn and have guessed that 16 years later his find would Bell pieced rogether Dal!asaurus' anaromy and lead scientists to rethink the evolution of a group an understanding of its natural history and rela ssociate Professor of of extinct, ocean-dwelling lizards. tionship with other mosasaurs. Anthropology Michael Last year researchers in SMU's Depan Dallasaurus sits at the base of a major AAdler has been named ment of Geological Sciences determined that branch of mosasaur evolution. It retained com executive director of SMU·in·Taos, the 92-million-year-old fossil belongs to a plete limbs, hands, and feet suitable for walking overseeing its programs, budget 3-foot-long swimming lizard that fills a signi£- on land, while the limbs of later mosasaurs and personnel. evolved into flippers, relegating them to life in Adler, who studies the the ocean. Dal!asaurus lived during a time of Pueblo cultures and peoples of globally warm temperatures and sea levels as the Southwest, has directed the much as 250 meters higher than today. During Archaeological Field School at that period, the Dallas area lay at the floor of a SMU·in-Taos since 1991.