CAS News

Linda Watson, an Oklahoma State University professor in the Department of Plant Biology, Ecology, and Evolution, is one of five female scientists who have produced a comprehensive analysis of genomic-scale data to understand the historical biogeography of the Asteraceae, also known as the sunflower or daisy family. 

Watson, president of the Botanical Society of America, became interested in researching the diversity of the sunflower family when she was in graduate school. And throughout her career she has continued to study what is the largest family of flowering plants, and one that contains important crops, medicinal plants, garden ornamentals and weeds. 

At first glance, dance and science have nothing to do with one another. Yet Alannah Templon of Wichita, Kansas, has found ways to combine them.

“I have always loved dance and have always loved science,” she said. “Those are my two passions. One is more fun where the other I will make a career out of.”

The McKnight Center for the Performing Arts is collaborating with Carnegie Hall, the world-renowned musical institution, to engage Stillwater students with orchestral repertoire through hands-on music curriculum.

Throughout the school year, Stillwater Public School students have had the opportunity to learn how to sing and play a musical instrument in their classrooms through Link Up: The Orchestra Sings, a Carnegie Hall program. Their learning will culminate in two concerts with the Enid Symphony Orchestra at The McKnight Center. They will be March 25 after originally being postponed on Feb. 5 due to inclement weather.

The Oklahoma State University Symphony Orchestra is one of two groups chosen to perform at the 2020 College Orchestra Directors Association National Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. Some 300 groups represented by the College Orchestra Directors Association auditioned for this year’s event Feb. 6-8.

Symphony Director Dr. Thomas Taylor Dickey said he is proud to represent OSU’s flourishing music program and strives to showcase works by underrepresented composers. 

For Dr. Sabiha Parveen, it wasn’t so much a question of what she’d study, but rather how she’d go about it. 

“I have always been fascinated by the human brain and how we function as humans,” she said. “I had read about audiology and speech-language pathology in an educational magazine when I was in high school and was really inspired by the scope of the field.”

Valerie Freeman is a Communication Sciences and Disorders professor and director of the Sociophonetics Lab. She joined us to discuss several topics, including the Oklahoma accent, which other dialects it may come from, how it compares to other accents, and how people perceive it.

For Oklahoma State University Department of Psychology professors Jennifer Byrd-Craven and Jaimie Arona Krems, evolutionary approaches to social science are a serious matter worthy of their time as researchers. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a little fun with it as well.

The duo co-founded the Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis, or OCEAN, which hosts an annual conference called the Flyover State Scientists Integrating Evolution, or FOSSIL. OCEAN’s critical mass of social science researchers makes it one of fewer than five such centers in the entire U.S. where students receive training in and exposure to evolutionary approaches to cognition and behavior.

Will Joyce, a proud 2001 English alumnus, is a Stillwater native who became mayor in 2018. He is also General Counsel at InterWorks, a Stillwater-based technology consulting firm. He joined us to talk about how CAS has helped him succeed.

Dr. Kaladi Babu, a Regents Professor in the Department of Physics, received the Eminent Faculty Award during the University Awards Convocation on Dec. 11 in the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center.

Babu’s award recognizes the highest level of scholarly achievement at OSU. His research in theoretical high energy physics and particle physics phenomenology recently earned him the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Department of Energy and has garnered nearly $7 million in research grants.