2015 LEGISLATIVE SESSION RESULTS: SUCCESSES FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

2015 was a fantastic year for the University of Utah on the Hill. Thanks to the hard work of President Pershing and the persistent outreach of our university advocates, we were able to secure a 2 percent performance-based compensation increase and an appropriation for the increased cost of benefits. We are grateful to the governor and the legislature for recognizing how important higher education employees are to the long-term economic prosperity of the great state of Utah.

Click here for a detailed list of successes for the U, including significant legislation that impacts the university.

For more information about the university’s government relations, visit governmentrelations.utah.edu.

CANOPY RESEARCHER GOES OUT ON A (TREE) LIMB TO PROMOTE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE

When most people think of prominent women in science, Barbie doesn’t usually cross their minds. This is hardly surprising since Barbie has long been known for primping rather than for publishing. But the Barbie doll—one of the most popular dolls ever produced–remains an important role model for the behavior and appearance of young girls all over the world.

Barbie goes up a tree

That’s why Nalini Nadkarni, a canopy ecologist at the University of Utah, wanted to help reinvent Barbie as a symbol of strength, action and academic interests. So Nadkarni, who is nicknamed the “Queen of Forest Canopy Research,” created an alternative version of Barbie: “Treetop Barbie,” an (evidently) serious-minded canopy climbing researcher.

Read the full article on National Science Foundation’s website, here.

FOUR U FACULTY WIN GOVERNOR’S SCIENCE MEDALS
Awards for Coley, D’Ambrosio, Jorgensen and Weiss

The University of Utah, the state’s flagship research institution, today swept up half of the latest batch of Governor’s Medals for Science and Technology, with faculty members winning four of the eight awards.

The U’s winners are professors Phyllis “Lissy” Coley and Erik Jorgensen in biology, Troy D’Ambrosio in business and Ronald Weiss in pathology,

The Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology is Utah’s highest honor in STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The new awards are the 2014 medals even though they are just being announced.

Coley and Jorgensen won in the academia category, Weiss was honored in the industry-individual category and D’Ambrosio garnered a special recognition award.

For more information about the recipients and awards, click here.