Astronomers discover six new planets

Astronomer Steven Vogt and his collaborators, including alumnus Geoffrey Marcy, have discovered six new planets outside our solar system. In addition, the researchers have uncovered evidence suggesting that two previously discovered planets (depicted in the illustrations, above) have companions orbiting the same star. Photos:©Lynette Cook

The world's most prolific team of planet hunters has found six new planets orbiting nearby stars, bringing the total number of planets astronomers have detected outside the solar system to 29. The researchers also found evidence suggesting that two previously discovered planets have additional companions, said Steven Vogt, UCSC professor of astronomy and astrophysics.

Vogt and his colleagues, UCSC alumnus Geoffrey Marcy, now of UC Berkeley, Paul Butler of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., and Kevin Apps of the University of Sussex, England, made the discoveries using the "HIRES" spectrometer on the Keck I Telescope in Hawaii. Their findings will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The researchers have been using the facilities at the W. M. Keck Observatory for the past three years to conduct a survey of 500 nearby sunlike stars in search of planets. The project is supported by the NASA Origins Program, which has provided both funding and telescope time, and by the National Science Foundation.

The six new planets increase by about 25 percent the number of known "extrasolar" planets, giving astronomers a substantial amount of additional information about planetary systems, Vogt said. One of the planets, HD 192263, was also recently detected by Nuno Santos and collaborators in Geneva, Switzerland, who reported it while Vogt and his colleagues were preparing their paper.

Plans moving ahead on UCSC regional center

As the academic planning process gets under way to establish a UCSC regional

center in the Santa Clara Valley, faculty and administrators are working together to embrace the opportunities and address the challenges that face the campus as it seeks to become the "UC of Silicon Valley."

During an Academic Senate forum on the regional center in November, Executive Vice Chancellor and Campus Provost John Simpson announced the formation of an academic planning committee that will develop a framework for the academic activities associated with the center.

Plans for the new UCSC facility have progressed since the idea was first proposed by members of the Millennium Committee. Since then, a task force has assessed UCSC activities in the region with an eye toward building on strengths and satisfying unmet needs.

A regional center would augment and enhance the offerings of the main campus by providing research, teaching, and community service opportunities for UCSC faculty, students, and staff, while also raising UCSC's profile in the region. A site analysis is under way.

"In Silicon Valley, what we have to offer complements alliances and affiliations that will be valuable for faculty, researchers, and students," said Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood.

Adaptive optics center will be based at UCSC

UCSC has been selected to lead a multi-institutional partnership to advance the field of adaptive optics, which promises to revolutionize astronomy and vision science.

The National Science Foundation's governing body, the National Science Board, has approved a proposal to establish a Center for Adaptive Optics at UCSC. The multi-institutional center will coordinate the efforts of researchers across the country involved in the field of adaptive optics.

The Center for Adaptive Optics is one of five National Science Foundation science and technology centers approved this past year. NSF guidelines allow for commitments of up to $20 million over five years.

Town and Gown Chancellor Greenwood and representatives from the city of Santa Cruz came together in November to dedicate the University Town Center, above. The new five-story building is located in the heart of downtown Santa Cruz on the site of the former Ford's Department Store, which was destroyed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The new building provides space for UCSC programs as well as for private retailers and other businesses. Those from UCSC using the building include UCSC Extension. The top two floors provide 54 residential apartments for regularly enrolled UCSC students and students in extension's English. Photo: Barbara McKenna

Primitive flowering plants live at UCSC

At the international Botanical Congress in St. Louis last summer, a team of researchers presented genetic evidence that the most primitive living flowering plant is an obscure species called Amborella trichopoda. For botanists wanting to study Amborella, there is only one place in the U.S. that can provide specimen material: the UCSC Arboretum.

Amborella, a small shrub with tiny greenish-yellow flowers and red fruit, grows in the wild only on the South Pacific island of New Caledonia. Virginia and Todd Keeler-Wolf traveled to New Caledonia in 1975 when they were students at UCSC and, under founding Arboretum director Ray Collett's guidance, shipped back some samples of Amborella.

Photo: Tim Stephens

UCSC historian appointed to NEH

A UCSC historian is one of five people to be named by President Clinton to serve on the 26-member board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Pedro Castillo, an associate professor of history, was select-ed to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The national council advises NEH Chairman William Ferris on policies and programs and grant allocations. Members serve six-year terms.

Castillo is well prepared for his new duties, having served as a member of the California Council for the Humanities. Among his priorities as a council member will be to support research in nontraditional subject areas examining such issues as race, class, and gender.

Castillo is cofounder and a former director of UCSC's Chicano/Latino Research Center. His teaching and research focus on the history and politics of Mexican Americans in the United States.

His most recent book is The American Nation, a textbook on American history that has been adopted by a number of school districts for their junior high school curricula.

Alumna named state's professor of year

Julie glass, a mathematics instructor at California State University, Hayward, who received her master's degree and Ph.D. in mathematics from UCSC, has been named the 1999 California Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Glass, 32, has been an assistant professor at CSU Hayward since 1994. She hosts a cable television program devoted to college algebra, has authored math-oriented children's books, and is cofounder of a math and science day camp for school-age girls. She teaches two courses at CSU Hayward: introduction to proofs and math for business and social scientists.

Glass has appeared on two programs on the university's television station: Math on TV, a video course to help high school students prepare for math placement exams; and College Algebra, a course offered for credit.

Electrical engineer receives $625,000 Packard fellowship

Ali Shakouri (Photo: Victor Schiffrin)

For the sixth consecutive year, a UCSC researcher has garnered one of the nation's most prestigious honors for young faculty members: a David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, worth a total of $625,000.

Ali Shakouri, an assistant professor of electrical engineering in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, will receive $125,000 per year for the next five years to support his pioneering research on semiconductor physics and optical communication systems. The Packard Foundation awards these fellowships to young scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise and creativity.

Shakouri's research on the electrical, optical, and thermal properties of semiconductors has many potential applications, such as improving the performance of electronic devices, increasing the speed of fiber-optic networks, and developing novel devices with new functions and applications.

The Packard Fellowship program is intended to provide support for unusually creative science and engineering researchers early in their careers.

Ali Akbar Khan accepts UCSC post

Sarod master Ali Akbar Khan, considered to be one of the world's greatest living musicians, has been named distinguished adjunct professor of music at UC Santa Cruz. A "national living treasure" of India, Khan is regarded as the most accomplished interpreter of Indian classical music alive today. Khan accepted his UCSC appointment in September. His first formal activity with UCSC was a public concert in the Music Center Recital Hall in October. "We feel very privileged to have the opportunity of collaborating with such an extraordinary artist," said Edward Houghton, dean of the Arts Division. "Khansahib is not only an outstanding musician and dedicated teacher but also the heir and principal exemplar of a long and distinguished musical tradition. He will be a remarkable resource for our students and for our expanding programs in the arts and cultures of India."

"This is a very unique collaboration between the university and my college," Khan said. "I'm very happy we will be working together. In my family, the knowledge and tradition of this music is very important, and I want to be able to pass that on to future generations."

Photo: Lawson Knight

Marine center prepares for March opening

Students Birru Morgan and F. Blaine Rhobotham examine fish skulls in the center's teaching lab. (photo: Tim Stevens)

The seymour center at Long Marine Laboratory is buzzing with activity as the new public education center prepares for its grand opening in March. The installation of aquariums and exhibits is under way, staff have moved into the office space, and marine biology classes are using the facility's new teaching laboratory.

The Seymour Center will enable Long Marine Lab to greatly expand its popular public education programs. With exhibits focusing on the work of researchers at the Institute of Marine Sciences, which operates Long Marine Lab, the center will give schoolchildren and the general public a unique view into the workings of a world-class marine research laboratory.

"This is a very exciting time now that all the pieces are starting to come together," said Seymour Center director Julie Barrett Heffington.

Private donations funded nearly all of the project's $6.25 million cost, including a cornerstone contribution from H. Boyd Seymour Jr. of San Francisco. Seymour's gift of $2 million honors his father, Harry Boyd Seymour, and his grandfather, Arthur McArthur Seymour. Numerous other individuals and foundations made significant gifts.

The exhibits and aquariums at the Seymour Center will have a very different look and feel from those at other public aquariums, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The emphasis will be on scientists and how they study the ocean, Heffington said. The exhibit space will look something like a research laboratory, and interactive stations will provide "hands-on" experiences.

Academic Senate debates 'narratives'

Meeting in December, UCSC's Academic Senate postponed a vote on the campus's traditional Narrative Evaluation System (NES). The senate, voting 80­79, moved the matter to its Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) and Graduate Council for consideration.

The meeting was prompted by a petition signed by more than 170 members of the senate who recommended that the NES be replaced by the conventional UC grading system. "The Narrative Evaluation System has an honorable history, but times have changed and a new approach to grading is required," the petitioners said. The discussion over NES continued in January, as several campus forums on the matter were scheduled to take place.

George Brown, CEP chair, said a report on his committee's evaluation of the 35-year-old tradition would be forthcoming at the February 23 meeting of the senate..

UCSC leads effort to offer AP courses online

In an effort to reach out to California high school students who can't take advanced placement courses at their own school, UC Santa Cruz is leading a systemwide effort to make AP courses available online to students around the state.

Dozens of public high schools in the state offer no advanced placement (AP) courses at all, and many offer four or fewer AP courses, according to Elaine Wheeler, project director of UC's College Prep Initiative (UCCP). The goal of the program is to make AP course materials available to students who would otherwise have no access to them.

The UCSC-based distance learning project began in fall 1998 with a pilot effort that reached 64 students in 14 schools. In fall 1999, the program expanded to about 200 students in seven counties: San Diego, Imperial, Merced, Fresno, Santa Cruz, Mariposa, and Santa Clara. Francisco Hernandez, vice chancellor for student affairs at UCSC, came up with the idea of using the Internet to help fill the gap in course offerings at schools around the state. "This is an efficient and cost-effective way to deliver AP and college prep classes," said Hernandez, who continues to lead the proj-ect. "Other campuses are eager to sponsor similar programs, but UCSC has emerged as the systemwide leader."

UC President Richard C. Atkinson provides $400,000 a year in ongoing support, and the state legislature recently approved an additional $3 million for the one-time development of additional courses and $1 million in ongoing funds for implementation and dissemination on a broader scale.

The project has the potential to reach thousands of students around the state who would otherwise lack the opportunity to take AP classes. Those courses can boost a student's grade-point average and enhance his or her application when applying to the University of California.

In Memoriam

David A. Huffman, the founding faculty member of UCSC's Computer Science Department and a pioneer in the field, died at a Santa Cruz hospital in October after a ten-month battle with cancer. He was 74.

Huffman is probably best known for the development of the Huffman Coding Procedure, the result of a term paper he wrote while a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Huffman Codes" are used in nearly every application that involves the compression and transmission of digital data, such as fax machines, modems, computer networks, and high-definition television.

In 1967, he came to UCSC as the founding faculty member of the Computer Science Department. He played a major role in the development of the department's academic programs and the hiring of its faculty, and served as chair from 1970 to 1973. He retired in 1994, but remained active until recently as an emeritus professor, teaching information theory and signal analysis courses.

A memorial service for David Huffman took place on campus in October.

Photo: UCSC photo services

Alumni Association names award winners