{"id":992,"date":"2013-03-11T10:21:44","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T18:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/?p=992"},"modified":"2013-03-11T10:21:44","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T18:21:44","slug":"oregon-state-names-distinguished-professors-for-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/2013\/03\/11\/oregon-state-names-distinguished-professors-for-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Oregon State names distinguished professors for 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Vinay Ramakrishnan<\/a><\/p>\n

The Daily Barometer<\/p>\n

\n

Published:\u00a0<\/strong>Wednesday, March 6, 2013<\/p>\n

Updated:\u00a0<\/strong>Wednesday, March 6, 2013 00:03<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"prof<\/a>Vinay Ramakrishnan | THE DAILY BAROMETER<\/p>\n

Dr. Joseph Beckman with research assistant professors Dr. Valery Voinov and Dr. Yuri Vasil\u2019ev in the Mass Spectrometry lab at OSU.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

This spring, Oregon State University will honor two professors as distinguished. Joseph Beckman, director of the Environmental Health Science Center, and Thomas\u00a0Diettreich, professor of computer science and a pioneer in the field of machine learning, will become distinguished professors, an honor they will continue to hold as long as they stay with OSU.<\/p>\n

Distinguished professor is the highest recognition given by the university to an active OSU faculty member.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe honor recognizes outstanding accomplishments as well as the potential to continue to excel in the future,\u201d said\u00a0Sabah\u00a0Randhawa, provost and executive vice president at OSU.<\/p>\n

Randhawa\u00a0has the final decision in terms of recognizing distinguished professors.<\/p>\n

Nominations are requested around campus and a small committee of faculty who hold the distinguished professor title evaluate nominations.<\/p>\n

Both Beckman and\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0felt honored to be named distinguished professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very nice honor,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cI have tremendous respect for those who have been selected as distinguished professors before, and know that many others deserve the recognition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are fortunate to have excellent faculty at OSU,\u201d\u00a0Randawa\u00a0added. \u201cDr.\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0and Dr. Beckman have outstanding credentials in their respective fields \u2014 Dr.\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0in artificial intelligence and Dr. Beckman in\u00a0neurodegenerativediseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dietterich\u00a0and Beckman both felt they were recognized as distinguished professors in large part due to contributions to their respective fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve made major contributions over many years in understanding the role of oxidative stress in human diseases,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cAlso, I\u2019ve been director of the Environmental Health Science Center for over a decade, a very important resource at OSU that\u2019s helped drive many new discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dietterich\u00a0cites his role as an innovator in the field of machine learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a graduate student, I was one of the first people to do research in this field,\u201d\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0said. \u201cI was one of the people to help grow machine learning as a scientific field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckman has been interested in researching the progression of\u00a0Amyotrophic\u00a0Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou\u00a0Gehrig\u2019s\u00a0disease, for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a key discovery about how the oxidant\u00a0peroxynitrite\u00a0underlies many different diseases,\u201d Beckman said. \u201cOf all the disease processes that\u00a0peroxynitrite\u00a0affects, I focused on ALS 20 years ago because of the discovery of a mutation in an antioxidant enzyme called\u00a0SOD1\u00a0that reacts with peroxynitrite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beckman\u2019s research also involves looking into the cause of the death of motor neurons in ALS.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve discovered, as a number of different investigators, that\u00a0astrocytes, support cells that surround motor neurons, can be activated and drive the death of motor neurons,\u201d Beckman said.<\/p>\n

As a pioneer in the field of machine learning,\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0was part of a group that founded the first journal in machine learning and was the first president of the international machine learning society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea of machine learning is to teach the computer by example to do particular things,\u201d\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0said. \u201cCameras that put a square around a person\u2019s face would be an example of the results of machine learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dietterich\u00a0and Beckman both work in research labs here at Oregon State University. Beckman works in the OSU mass spectrometry lab, helping develop and use new instrumentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are also synthesizing and testing new types of drugs in vitro to treat ALS here at OSU,\u201d Beckman said.<\/p>\n

Dietterich\u00a0runs a research group here at OSU, and is interested in a wide range of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI joke that I have research Attention Deficit Disorder,\u201d\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

His research group is currently working on three major projects, all involving the application of computer modeling.<\/p>\n

Dietterich\u00a0received an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Oberlin College in Ohio, a master\u2019s in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford, prior to coming to Oregon State in 1985.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy master\u2019s adviser at Urbana-Champaign named the field \u2018machine learning,\u2019\u201d\u00a0Dietterich\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Diettrich\u2019s\u00a0research group\u2019s major projects currently involve using computer modeling to look at a variety of topics, including bird behavior and migration, invasive species and managing wildfires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to build a computer scientific model to answer questions about bird behavior,\u201d\u00a0Diettrich\u00a0said. \u201cJoint with Jo\u00a0Albers\u00a0in the department of forest ecosystems and society, I\u2019m working on a project using computer modeling to control invasive species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diettrich\u2019s\u00a0third major research group project is about managing wildfires in Eastern Oregon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to use computer models to decide when a fire\u2019s ignited whether to fight it or to let it burn,\u201d\u00a0Diettrich\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Along with his research duties at Oregon State,\u00a0Diettrich\u00a0is the deputy director of the Institute for Computational Sustainability, based out of Cornell University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of computation sustainability is to apply novel computer science techniques to solve sustainability problems,\u201dDiettrich\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Beckman came to OSU in 2001 from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he advanced from his post doctorate position to being a full professor in the department of anesthesiology.<\/p>\n

He holds an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and a masters in population biology, both from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He holds a Ph.D. in botany from Duke University. After receiving his master\u2019s degree, he worked for a surgical hospital in Korea for the U.S. Army for two years.<\/p>\n

Besides acting as the chairman of the Environmental Health Science Center, Beckman is the Ava Helen\u00a0Pauling\u00a0Chair of the\u00a0Linus\u00a0Pauling\u00a0Institute. He is also a professor in the department of biochemistry and biophysics in the College of Science.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe is a valued colleague, a talented scientist and a wonderful mentor to our junior faculty, graduate students and undergraduates,\u201d said Vince\u00a0Remcho, interim dean of the College of Science. \u201cI am so pleased to count him among our distinguished science faculty. This designation brings great honor and much positive attention to the college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinay\u00a0Ramakrishnan, news reporter<\/p>\n

news@dailybarometer.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Vinay Ramakrishnan The Daily Barometer Published:\u00a0Wednesday, March 6, 2013 Updated:\u00a0Wednesday, March 6, 2013 00:03 Vinay Ramakrishnan | THE DAILY BAROMETER Dr. Joseph Beckman with research assistant professors Dr. Valery Voinov and Dr. Yuri Vasil\u2019ev in the Mass Spectrometry lab at OSU. This spring, Oregon State University will honor two professors as distinguished. Joseph Beckman, director… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}