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Winter 2018

Gold mettle man

Poles planted and ready, Sean Halsted ’92 waits at the starting gate for the 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race. It’s March 2018 at the PyeongChang Winter Games and he’s wearing the signature red cap and striped jersey of the U.S. Paralympic team.

Behind sunglasses, Halsted glances at the grandstand filled with thousands of cheering fans, colorful flags, and jangling cowbells. Cameras point in every direction and he catches a glimpse of himself on the jumbotron. Though the Air Force veteran has competed all over the world, the enormity of the event is overwhelming. His eyes turn back to the countdown clock where seconds creep by until … » More …

Winter 2018

Bison

The day the bison herd swam across the river says it all.

About 80 of the legendary mammals, known for hardiness and stubbornness, decided to cross the half-mile wide Pend Oreille River in 1994—bulls, cows, and even calves—and all survived the crossing, recalls Ray Entz, natural resources director of the Kalispel Tribe of Indians in northeast Washington.

That same rugged strength of the wooly North American bovines—whether you call them bison or buffalo—helped the entire resilient species survive. Although bison are now the national mammal of the United States, they once balanced on the cliff of extinction … » More …

Winter 2018

Superbugs

A woman lies dying in a hospital bed in an acute care facility in Nevada. She has a common infection induced by a common bacterium, Klebsiella pneumoniae. But she’s untreatable: her infection is resistant to all 26 of the antibacterial drugs available in the United States capable of treating the bacterium. The infection spreads further, which causes her blood pressure to drop precipitously until she finally succumbs to septic shock.

While death by “superbugs” is still fairly rare, the World Health Organization warns that, if bacteria keep evolving drug resistance at the rate they have been, such bugs will globally cause 10 million deaths per … » More …

Travis Keatley (Photo Roger Werth/The Daily News)

Winter 2018

On the straight, tall, and narrow

The straight, long rows of tall and thin loblolly pine grow very fast in the South’s flat lands, especially compared to the slow-growing Douglas fir on steep Pacific Northwest slopes.

It’s just one of many differences that Travis Keatley (’99 Forest Mgmt.) has witnessed as he manages more than seven million acres of timber across 11 states for Weyerhaeuser.

As vice president of southern timberlands for the timber, land, and forest products company, Keatley works out of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and travels from Florida to Virginia to Louisiana, and all states in between, as he oversees Weyerhaeuser’s … » More …

Carolina Parada (Photo Raymond Yuen/Nvidia Corporation)

Winter 2018

Making artificial intelligence smart

It’s not a simple thing to get a car to see what we see.

“The world is very complex. That’s what makes vision for self-driving cars a challenge. There are millions of scenarios and millions of contexts,” says Carolina Parada (’04, ’06 MS Elec. Eng.) from her home in Boulder, Colorado.

A senior manager for Nvidia, a company probably best known in the video gaming community for its top-shelf graphics cards but with a strong presence in the machine learning market, Parada and her team are working on machine perception, a key piece of getting self-driving cars safely on the
… » More …

Winter 2018

A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost

Virginia F. Smith ’97 PhD Biochem.

Clemson University Press: 2018

“Art,” said the Roman philosopher Cicero, “is born of the observation and investigation of nature.”

He said this two millennia before the arrival of Robert Frost, the New England poet who smuggled personal, subtle, and often dark themes into a vast, accessible, and popular body of work rooted largely in the natural world. As Virginia Smith notes in her fastidious A Scientific Companion to Robert Frost, … » More …

Winter 2018

From the horse’s mouth

When an international archaeology team needed to understand how an ancient civilization cared for its horses, they turned to Scott Bender ’95, a veterinarian with the Navajo Nation in Arizona.

Bender will be the first to admit that his career didn’t turn out like he expected—in fact, unforeseen twists are among his favorite parts. This particular turn got him involved in a research project that has changed our understanding of a pivotal point in human history: the emergence of horse domestication for war and transportation.

It started with a surprise phone call. Archaeologist William Taylor was examining horses exhumed from ancient … » More …

Winter 2018

Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands

Jim Compton

WSU Press: 2017

Descending a great bluff towering above an endless sea of black in early 1873, the militiamen clench their rifles tighter as they wade into a thick gray fog among southern Oregon lava beds. A deafening crack and the flash of gunpowder pierces the dense mist. War paint-clad Modoc snipers poke their muzzles out between cracks in the blackened rock and fire unseen upon their adversaries. The bewildered U.S. troops search frantically through the … » More …

WSUAA 2018–19 President Ashley MacMillan ’05

Winter 2018

WSUAA’s 40by20

Recently, the WSU Alumni Association announced its plan to achieve 40,000 members by 2020. The WSUAA calls its membership drive “40by20.” At a time when other alumni associations across the country are shrinking, Washington State Magazine wanted to know more about the association’s bold plan. Editor Larry Clark asked WSUAA 2018–19 President Ashley MacMillan ’05 about 40by20.

Larry: Hi, Ashley. Can you tell me a little more about the 40by20 membership drive? What is it, exactly?

Ashley: Over the summer, the WSUAA reached 32,608 members—an incredible new record for our organization. We decided to set a new goal for 40,000 members, … » More …

Winter 2018

Class notes

1960s

Al (’66 Civ. Eng.) and Sandee Kirkwood (’65 Speech & Hearing Sci.) received a Philanthropists of the Year award for their services to Clark County. The Kirkwoods met at WSU their freshman year and married when they were juniors. The couple has worked with several organizations in Clark County including the Boys and Girls Club of Southwest Washington and Clark County Food Bank.

Gordon Davis (’68 Ag., ’69 Ag. Ed.) received the Ruby C. McSwain Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the National Agricultural Alumni Development Association. A longtime agricultural educator at the high school and university level, Davis coached intercollegiate meats judging teams, including two … » More …