Princeton University 91 Prospect Avenue Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Research at Princeton

Contents

DISCOVERY Research at Princeton 2012

Research Briefs

Research Features

3

The Life of an Ethiopian Saint

5

The Princeton 20 Neuroscience Institute

6

The Edge 24  of Energy

Wildlife and Cows Can Be Partners, Not Enemies, in Search for Food On the Future of Princeton Mathematics

9

Princeton Psychologists Study Perceptions of Poverty

10

Storm of the Century May Become Storm of the Decade

13

Synchronizing Billions of Electrons in the Quest for Quantum Computers

Princeton Global 28 Health Research Beyond Numbers: Princeton's Versatile 32  High-Performance Computers

15

Princeton's 36 International Research

17

Sun on Earth: the Princeton Plasma 40  Physics Laboratory

Expedition Verifies the Extraterrestrial Nature of Quasicrystals Princeton Research Takes Asymmetry to Heart

19

The Forces Behind Lung Defects

About the Cover

Tree, by Zhen James Xiang 2012 Ph.D. in electrical engineering Second-place winner in Princeton's 2011 Art of Science competition

42

Faculty Honors

50

Dean for Research Annual Report

The algorithm used here recursively cuts an image into smaller rectangular pieces. For each cut, a larger rectangle is divided either horizontally or vertically into two equal

smaller rectangles. This results in a division of the input image into many rectangular pieces, similar to those shown, organized into a data structure called a dyadic tree.

Nondiscrimination Statement In compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other federal, state, and local laws, Princeton University does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, or veteran status in any phase of its employment process, in any phase of its admission or financial aid programs, or other aspects of its educational programs or activities. The vice provost for institutional equity and diversity is the individual

designated by the University to coordinate its efforts to comply with Title IX, Section 504 and other equal opportunity and affirmative action regulations and laws. Questions or concerns regarding Title IX, Section 504 or other aspects of Princeton’s equal opportunity or affirmative action programs should be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, Princeton University, 205 Nassau Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 or (609) 258-6110. Copyright © 2012 by The Trustees of Princeton University In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of All Nations 350020-12

Princeton University focuses emphatically on the education and training of future leaders, as well as on fundamental research that advances the understanding of our world and serves as the basis for new technologies that transform, translate and improve our lives. Our historical strengths in mathematics, physics, astronomy and climate science resonate ever more strongly with an increasing set of leading interdisciplinary programs in genomics, neuroscience, materials science, engineering, energy and computer science. Our work in the physical sciences is complemented by critical research in the social sciences and humanities. Of special delight to me as a particle physicist was the discovery last summer of the long-sought Higgs boson at CERN, the culmination of more than 20 years of theoretical and experimental work by generations of scientists around the world, prominently including many Princeton researchers, former students and Nobel Prize winners. We are privileged and honored to manage the nearby Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and to share researchers and resources with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Collaborations between these federally funded laboratories and Princeton enable major advances in realizing sustainable energy and understanding climate change. To set the scale, external funding for campus research — 83 percent provided by the federal government — has increased steadily over the past decade to approximately $192 million in expenditures in 2012, while PPPL received, roughly, an additional $90 million in expenditures this year. This federal funding needs to be preserved and strengthened to enable discoveries and bring to fruition their accompanying, often unanticipated, practical applications, which have the potential to improve the lives of our planet’s 7 billion people. Support for research in the social sciences and the humanities is also critical, and private foundations play a crucial role. For example, in 2012 the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded Princeton a $3.3 million grant to support the University’s Fellows in the Creative and Performing Arts program, which will bring innovative early- and mid-career artists to campus. Increasingly, interdisciplinary centers with centralized resources and facilities bring together leading minds from diverse scholarly backgrounds to create a research enterprise greater than the sum of its parts. A prominent new example is Princeton’s High-Performance Computing Research Center, featured on pages 3235, which provides sophisticated hardware and

computing power for all University researchers and enables new discoveries in climate science, astrophysics and many other fields. Princeton is proud to engage in technology transfers and partnerships with industry to translate federal investments into products and services for the betterment of all people and the environment. In fiscal year 2012, the University’s Office of Technology Licensing worked with 250 inventors across campus to produce 106 new invention disclosures, 139 patent applications, and manage an intellectual property portfolio that resulted in 31 issued patents and 27 licenses. Princeton’s royalty income has greatly increased over the past 10 years, placing us in the top group of American institutions. As proud as we are of this output, Princeton’s most important “products” remain the new knowledge we create and the brilliant young minds we train for careers in industry, government and academia.

A. J. Stewart Smith Dean for Research Class of 1909 Professor of Physics

RESEARCH BRIEFS Leonard Barkan

Michelangelo: A Life on Paper (Princeton University Press, 2010) Poems, grocery lists and other works provide fascinating insights into Michelangelo’s personality — at times introspective and melancholy, at other moments light-hearted and irreverent. In his book Michelangelo: A Life on Paper, Leonard Barkan, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Comparative Literature, explores the interplay of words and images on more than 200 of the artist’s personal drawings and writings.

“They are things he produced for his eyes only, or for the eyes of a very few people,” said Barkan, who traveled to Italy, England and France to examine hundreds of sheets of paper used by Michelangelo during his 75-year career. “They are doodles — verbal and visual doodles — and accidents of inspiration. They give us a sense of what was on his mind.”

Michelangelo: A Life on Paper (Image courtesy of Princeton University Press)

Sheldon Garon

Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves (Princeton University Press, 2011)

(Image courtesy of Princeton University Press)

2 RESEARCH BRIEFS

How important are government policies and institutions in encouraging savings? Very important. My book shows that people tend to save more when they are offered accessible, convenient and safe savings institutions. In the United States today, some 25 percent of lower-income households are “unbanked” — often because our banks charge them hefty fees and require high minimum balances. What’s the relationship between policy initiatives and cultural attitudes? While many love to talk about Japanese, Korean or German culture as being innately thrifty, I show how the various cultures of saving have been shaped and reshaped by states and institutions. “Moral suasion” campaigns, such as Americans and citizens of other countries experienced during the two World Wars, also have been influential in inculcating enduring habits of saving. Indeed, East Asian and European nations went beyond the United States in developing nationwide savings campaigns in peacetime as well.

The current economic situation in the United States and other countries puts into sharp relief the perils of “living beyond our means.” What would need to change for these dangers to be less severe in the future? My book concludes with several policy recommendations. First, improving small savers’ access to banks. Second, encouraging banks to offer small savers’ accounts. Then, possibly reviving postal savings both to improve access and save the U.S. Postal Service, as well as promoting youth saving in schools and banks, and revising tax laws to encourage low- and middleincome individuals to build assets. Then, we need better regulation of predatory lending, and, finally, we need to promote universal access to savings accounts in terms of democracy and “financial inclusion.” Sheldon Garon is Princeton’s Nissan Professor in Japanese Studies and professor of history and East Asian studies.

The life

of an

Ethiopian saint

The Ethiopian saint Walatta Petros scolded her fellow females for wasting time on manicures instead of praying. She argued forcefully with the male leaders of her country. And she helped drive Portuguese missionaries from Ethiopia in the 17th century, preserving one of the earliest forms of Christianity, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Today, Wendy Laura Belcher, assistant professor of African literature in the Department of Comparative Literature and African American Studies, is bringing to life the story of this Ethiopian Orthodox saint through the study of a 340-year-old parchment manuscript. The centuries-old tome resides in a monastery near Lake Tana, the site of some of Ethiopia’s most important religious libraries, where it is read by Ethiopian monks and priests but little examined by Westerners. In studying the manuscript, Belcher, who herself lived in Ethiopia as a child, has revealed a world of rich African literature that few outside scholarly circles knew existed. “Many people do not realize that Africa has a rich literature that stretches back for millennia,” Belcher said. “Walatta Petros’ story is one of the first biographies written about an African woman by an African author in an African language.” The manuscript portrays the life of Petros (1594-1643), a wealthy woman who deserted her husband to travel the country and preach against conversion to Roman Catholicism. Jesuit priests had arrived from Europe in the early 1500s and were attempting to convince

Ethiopians to give up their ancient form of Christianity, which they had adopted in the fourth century. The missionaries nearly succeeded, having swung the emperor to their side, but, partly due to the brave female saint mobilizing a large following of nonviolent resisters, the Jesuits were ousted in 1632. “I came across a reference to Jesuits calling the royal women ‘diabolical’ and blaming them for the failure to convert Ethiopians,” Belcher said. “At first I thought this was just misogyny. But it turns out the Jesuits were right. I found the story of Walatta Petros and these courageous women to be irresistible.” The survival of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church offers modern scholars a window into early forms of Christian worship, but Petros’ story also yields a glimpse of what life was like for Ethiopian women during this period. In 2011, Belcher spent a year in Ethiopia on a Fulbright fellowship researching ancient manuscripts illuminating the lives of Ethiopian royal women in Petros’ time.

“One of the really wonderful things about this book is that it is a story about women’s friendships,” Belcher said. “Women read to each other, they have fights with each other, they avoid their mothers-in-law — there are all sorts of wonderfully human moments in this text.” Belcher is working with Selamawit Mecca, an expert on Ethiopian female saints and an assistant professor of Ethiopian literature at Addis Ababa University, to clarify the meaning of the text, parts of which are confusing due most likely to scribal errors. Another collaborator, Michael Kleiner, a leading scholar of the ancient Ethiopian language G ’ z and its literature, is translating the book from G ’ z into English.

Above: Selamawit Mecca reads a manuscript about Ethiopian saint Walatta Petros at the monastery devoted to her. Left: Pages from a 19th-century copy of the book Gadla Walatta Petros (The Life and Struggles of Walatta Petros). On the left page, the saint receives her commission from Christ to start seven religious communities. (Images courtesy of Wendy Laura Belcher)

RESEARCH BRIEFS 3

Senior thesis research leads to potential cancer therapies For his senior thesis, Princeton molecular biology major Kristan Scott studied a mutant gene linked to colorectal cancer and to the cancer’s ability to resist chemotherapy. Scott helped find the ideal combination of cancer treatments that restored sensitivity to the drugs. This result suggests a potential new chemotherapeutic approach for treating certain cancers. Scott worked with thesis adviser Alison Gammie, a senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular Biology who oversees a lab with Professor of Molecular Biology Mark Rose. The Gammie lab focuses on the role of mismatchrepair protein mutations in the growth of cancer. These proteins act as a kind of biological spell-check to ensure that genes are free of errors. Scott focused his work on MSH2, a gene associated with hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer, which accounts for roughly 5 percent of all colorectal cancer cases. Mismatchrepair genes can experience mutations that make the MSH2 gene itself a mutant and can lead to colorectal and other cancers with a strong resistance to chemotherapy, Scott said.

Kristan Scott (right) prepares a sample of yeast cells with Alison Gammie in her lab. Scott examined how the mutations in MSH2 bestow that strong defense against chemotherapy. He worked with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin — frequently used to treat colorectal cancer — and a yeast strain developed by Tim Arlow, a doctoral student in Gammie’s lab. The yeast strain was sensitive to a spectrum of drugs, yet had the defective MSH2 gene. Thus, the researchers knew the yeast should be responding to the treatment and

could then better understand why cells with mutant MSH2 genes were resistant to cisplatin. Scott helped figure out that a combination of cisplatin and a cancer treatment called bortezomib restored the sensitivity of some defective yeast strains to chemotherapy, an important result that expanded on Arlow’s work, Gammie said. The work was funded by the New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research.

Lost and found:

Prokofiev’s score for Eugene Onegin A banned adaptation of an important novel-in-verse. A lost score with 44 parts. A wait of nearly 80 years. These are the challenging elements that came together for Princeton’s staging of the classic Russian tale Eugene Onegin. Simon Morrison, a professor of music, rediscovered composer Sergei Prokofiev’s lost score for the production in a Russian archive. The score was intended as incidental music for a stage adaptation by Russian writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky of Alexander Pushkin’s novel-in-verse. The stage production was halted and banned in 1936 by Josef Stalin’s Soviet regime. Morrison worked with other faculty members to bring the score to life at a four-day musical conference held at Princeton in February 2012. The productions included a symphony performance of the music by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and a theatrical

4 RESEARCH BRIEFS

performance of Krzhizhanovsky’s play. Morrison also worked with Caryl Emerson, the A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and Tim Vasen, a lecturer and acting director of the Program in Theater, to stage the project as well as use the text and music for academic purposes.

Thomas Christensen

Worse Than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplomacy in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2011)

Princeton music scholar Simon Morrison found Sergei Prokofiev’s lost score for a banned production of the Russian classic Eugene Onegin. (Image courtesy of Sergei Prokofiev Estate)

Wildlife&cows

can be partners, not enemies, in search for food

Princeton researchers are leading an effort to put to pasture the long-held convention of cattle ranching that wild animals compete with cows for food. Two studies offer the first experimental evidence that allowing cattle to graze on the same land as wild animals can result in healthier, meatier bovines by enhancing the cows’ diet. The findings suggest a new approach to raising cattle that could help spare wildlife from encroaching ranches, and produce more market-ready cows in less time. The reports stem from large-scale studies conducted in Kenya wherein cows shared grazing land with donkeys in one study and, for the other, grazed with a variety of wild herbivorous animals, including zebras, buffalo and elephants. The lead author on both papers was Wilfred Odadi, a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Daniel Rubenstein, the Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology and chair of Princeton’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Thomas Christensen explains how problems in alliance politics complicate coercive diplomacy in international relations and thereby make war more likely and peace accords harder to reach. Christensen is the William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War, and director of the China and the World Program in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. (Image courtesy of Princeton University Press)

Rubenstein and Odadi reported in the journal Evolutionary Ecology Research in August 2011 that cattle paired with donkeys gained 60 percent more weight than those left to graze only with other cows. The researchers proposed that the donkeys — which were chosen as tamer stand-ins for zebras and other wild horses — ate the rough upper-portion of grass that cows have difficulty digesting, leaving behind the lush lower vegetation on which cattle thrive. In a second study, Odadi and his co-authors reported in the journal Science in September 2011 that other grazers, especially zebras, did remove the dead-stem grass layer and that cattle indeed seemed to benefit from sharing land with wild animals. Cows in mixed grazing pastures took in a more nutritious diet and experienced greater daily weight gain — but this effect was limited to the wet season. Cattle competed with wild species for food in the dry months. Nonetheless, the studies help counter an enduring perception that wildlife is an inherent threat to the food supply of livestock, Rubenstein explained. These results could prove crucial to preserving animals that are increasingly threatened as the human demand for food drives the expansion of land used to raise cattle. Zebras and wild horses are especially vulnerable to the spread of pastures because of their abundance. “These experiments suggest that in certain cases cattle can actually experience considerable advantages in terms of growth when allowed to graze with other species,” Rubenstein said. Odadi has presented his findings to local farmers, but understands the difficulty of overturning long-held views about the livestock/wildlife competition. “The farmers we have presented these findings to are generally surprised that zebras and other wildlife can facilitate cattle,” Odadi said.

Wilfred Odadi (rear, in white hat), a postdoctoral research associate in Dan Rubenstein’s lab based at Kenya’s Mpala Research Center, was lead author on both Princeton papers. The project stemmed from the senior thesis of Meha Jain (front left), who earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 2007. Rubenstein conducted the experiment reported in Evolutionary Ecology Research with Odadi, who is based at Kenya’s Mpala Research Center — with which Princeton is a partner — and co-author Meha Jain, who earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 2007 and whose senior thesis was the basis of the project. The work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Keller Family Trust and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. For the second study, Odadi worked with ecology professor Truman Young of the University of California-Davis; Moses Karachi of Egerton University in Kenya; and Shaukat Abdulrazak, chief executive officer of the National Council for Science and Technology in Kenya. The study was supported by grants from the NSF, the National Geographic Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the International Foundation for Science.

RESEARCH BRIEFS 5

The future of Princeton As the Department of Mathematics’ first female chair, Sun-Yung Alice Chang has taken a personal interest and central role in attracting more women to the field. Chang, Princeton’s Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics, served as chair of the department from July 2009 to July 2012, and shared her vision of the future of mathematics at Princeton. What particular fields do Princeton’s mathematics faculty focus on and excel in? Many of our faculty members are leaders in their fields. We have strengths in analytic and algebraic number theory, algebraic and differential geometry, applied mathematics, dynamical systems, fluid dynamics, geometric partial differential equations, general relativity, and topology. In the early 1970s, our department was the world center for topology. Gradually, we became a center for analysis and lately the department, together with the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), is very strong in number theory and partial differential equations. Number theory is developing rapidly because of its close relationship to probability and computer science.

6 RESEARCH BRIEFS

mathematics

How do mathematicians contribute to work in other fields? There is a lot of interplay between math and other departments. It used to be that people would wonder about mathematical theories — “Why is this useful?” or “Why is this relevant?” — but now more and more mathematical theories are applied to other sciences. For example, I am a geometric analyst. I use analytic techniques to study problems in geometry, but the types of problems I study are related to problems in physics. The scarcity of women in mathematics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields has received a lot of attention in recent years. Do you think that women are still underrepresented and is the situation improving? There’s a continuous effort being made by the department and faculty to increase that number, but it’s a long-term problem. In 2011, we had 83 math majors, but among those, only 13 were women. There used to be an impression that women cannot do mathematics, and that the analytical

ability of men is stronger. Most people would agree that this simply is not true. I definitely feel that given the right environment to develop women can do as well as men in mathematics. What outreach does Princeton provide to draw more women to mathematics and help them excel? We have the Program for Women and Mathematics organized with IAS. We offer two weeks of intensive classes each summer, with each year focusing on a different topic. Women students from around the country at the advanced and undergraduate levels are selected to participate in this program. The lecturers and teaching assistants are usually female faculty from other top universities around the world. Students in our department also formed the Noetherian Ring club, named after the famous woman mathematician, Emmy Noether. This club provides a chance for women students and faculty to meet each other, and for each female math student to find a mentor.

Language expert explores the

art and science of translation

Translations never produce quite the same phrasing, feeling or meaning as the original, according to Princeton professor David Bellos. In his 2011 book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, Bellos, a professor in the departments of French and Italian and comparative literature, explored how people understand — or do not understand — each other in various situations and settings. Bellos charted the complex, fragile beehive of translators who keep the United Nations operating; explored the mental state involved in translating into and out of one’s native tongue; and delved into online translation — technology that actually dates back to

Cold War-era efforts by the United States to quickly unscramble Russian — among other topics. “There’s this idea that a translation is just not as good as the original,” said Bellos, director of the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. “Why does it annoy me so much? Well, a translation is different from the original. It can never be the same thing. But it’s not worse.” In the end, Bellos said, one must put faith in a translation. “A text and its translation are two different objects, and they always will be,” he said. “So we must grant the translator authority in a language we do not know. We don’t like to do that. But we have to come to terms with it.”

Study shows fallout of a Seeking to better understand the level of death and destruction that would result from a large meteorite striking the Earth, Princeton researchers developed a new model that can not only more accurately simulate the seismic fallout of such an impact, but also help reveal new information about the surface and interior of planets based on past collisions. The researchers created the first model to take into account Earth’s elliptical shape, surface features and ocean depths in simulations of how seismic waves generated by a meteorite collision would spread across and within the planet. Current projections rely on models of a featureless spherical world with nothing to disrupt the meteorite’s impact. The research was reported in the October 2011 issue of Geophysical Journal International. The researchers — based in the laboratory of Jeroen Tromp, the Blair Professor of Geology in Princeton’s Department of Geosciences — simulated the meteorite strike that caused the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, an impact 2 million times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb and widely thought to have triggered the mass extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The team’s rendering of the planet showed

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything emphasizes that translation is both an art and a science. (Image courtesy of Faber and Faber)

giant meteorite strike on Earth

that the impact’s seismic waves would be scattered and unfocused, resulting in less severe ground displacement, tsunamis, and seismic and volcanic activity than previously theorized. The simulations also could help researchers gain insight into the unseen surface and interior details of other planets and moons, the authors reported. The simulations can pinpoint the strength of the meteorite’s antipodal focus — the area of the globe opposite of the crater where the energy from the initial collision comes together like a second, smaller impact. The researchers found this point is determined by how the features and composition of the smitten orb direct and absorb the seismic waves. Scientists could identify the planet or moon’s characteristics by comparing a crater to the remnants of the antipodal point and calculating how the impact waves spread. Lead author Matthias Meschede of the University of Munich developed the model at Princeton through the University’s Visiting Student Research Collaborators program with co-authors Conor Myhrvold, who earned his bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 2011, and Tromp, who also is director of Princeton’s Institute for Computa-

tional Science and Engineering and a professor of applied and computational mathematics. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the German Academic Exchange Service.

The Princeton model, which takes into account the Earth’s shape and surface features, shows that the meteoritic impact thought responsible for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs would have led to less severe seismic and volcanic activity than previously thought. (Image courtesy of Conor Myhrvold)

RESEARCH BRIEFS 7

Princeton sound lab

pushes boundaries of realism

Edgar Choueiri creates illusions with sound. He can conjure a distant trumpet or a voice whispering in your ear, but there is nothing there. “[Author] Arthur C. Clarke said any technology, if sufficiently advanced, appears to be magic,” said Choueiri, a Princeton professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Choueiri’s BACCH™ system, which produces 3-D sound from a pair of ordinary speakers, can create the sound of a buzzing fly circling your head so realistic that the urge to swat is almost irresistible. The BACCH™ 3-D Sound technology is now available to consumers as a built-in feature of the Jambox™, a wireless speaker made by Jawbone, Inc. Choueiri is expanding his research with support from Sony Corp. During the three-year effort, his team will seek to push the boundaries of sound reproduction and create a sound space so realistic that it can be used as a basis for virtual reality. “Imagine sitting on a beach, plugging your earphones into your MP3 player and on top of the waves, you have a choir,” he said. “Or walking down the street and having your favorite band walking along with you.”

An expert in plasma physics, Choueiri’s primary research is on developing a high-powered plasma rocket system for future missions to Mars. The development of his sound lab was originally supported through the engineering school’s Project X funding, which is designed to allow faculty members to pursue unconventional ideas including those outside their primary field. “The substantial support that Edgar is now receiving from Sony exemplifies the surprising innovations that can emerge when experts are given the freedom to explore and cross disciplines,” said H. Vincent Poor, the dean of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

View a video about BACCHTM at tinyurl.com/cbsx9ts or scan this QR code.

Daniel Rodgers

Age of Fracture (Harvard University Press, 2011)

Daniel Rodgers, Princeton’s Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, offers a powerful reinterpretation of the ways in which the decades surrounding the 1980s changed America in his Bancroft Prize-winning book. Through a contagion of visions and metaphors, on both the intellectual right and the intellectual left, earlier notions of history and society that stressed solidity, collective institutions and social circumstances gave way to a more individualized human nature that emphasized choice, agency, performance and desire. (Image courtesy of Harvard University Press)

8 RESEARCH BRIEFS

Princeton psychologists study

perceptions of poverty

Despite negative stereotypes associated with poverty, people have very positive views of low-income people who are seen as striving to achieve, according to research by Ann Marie Russell, who earned her Ph.D. in Princeton’s Department of Psychology in 2012. She conducted the research as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellow under the guidance of her adviser Susan Fiske, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and a professor of public policy.

regardless of income and wealth. Those who were poor and worked hard were viewed more positively than people who were wealthy and worked hard. A second study in a non-student population confirmed her findings. “The extent to which people are seen to be striving or trying to improve their circumstances has a tremendous influence on how those people are viewed,”

Left: Ann Marie Russell Above: Hilary Bergsieker Her findings challenge existing studies indicating that people view low-income status as linked to personal failings such as laziness, low intelligence or an immoral lifestyle. The fact that so many middle class and wealthy people donate to charities serving low-income populations led Russell to explore whether attitudes toward the poor were more complex than previously documented. Russell asked Princeton students to evaluate scenarios describing fictional fellow students who were categorized as either low-income or affluent, and either hardworking or not hardworking. She found that participants viewed hardworking individuals more positively than non-hardworking individuals,

said Russell, who is the first person in her family to earn a graduate degree. Russell, now a Princeton postdoctoral research associate focusing on issues of educational access, is working on a film that examines the experiences of low-income first-generation students at elite universities. Sins of Omission People value hardworking individuals, whether rich or poor, but what happens to that regard if positive words like “hardworking” and “competent” are left out? When favorable descriptions are omitted, people often default to negative stereotypes, especially about people who have historically been

discriminated against, according to work by Hilary Bergsieker, who received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2012. Bergsieker, now an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waterloo in Canada, was mentored by Fiske and advised by Nicole Shelton, a professor of psychology. For example, when providing a reference for a job applicant, the use of terms such as “warm” and “personable,” combined with the omission of words such as “competent” and “hardworking,” often lead listeners to notice the absence of the positives and create unfavorable perceptions of the candidate. “When the negative domain is totally absent, listeners start to draw their own conclusions,” Bergsieker said. The work was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in June 2012, and was supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Bergsieker hopes her work will help people become aware of unconscious stereotyping. By examining ways in which stereotypes have gone underground, she said, we can begin to address lingering discriminatory practices and overcome discrimination along racial, ethnic and gender lines. “Sometimes you can not only ‘damn with faint praise’ but also with irrelevant praise,” Bergsieker said. “What you don’t say can be as powerful as what you do say.”

RESEARCH BRIEFS 9

Storm of the century may become storm of the decade As the Earth’s climate changes, the worst inundations from hurricanes and tropical storms could become far more common in low-lying coastal areas, a study from Princeton and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggests. The study found that regions such as the New York City metropolitan area that currently experience a disastrous flood every century could instead become submerged every one or two decades. The researchers reported in the journal Nature Climate Change in February 2012 that projected increases in sea level and storm intensity brought on by climate change would make devastating storm surges — the deadly and destructive mass of water pushed inland by large storms — more frequent. Using various global climate models, the team developed a simulation tool that can predict the severity of future flooding an area can expect. The researchers used New York City as a test case and found that with fiercer storms and a 3-foot rise in sea level due to climate change, “100-year floods” — a depth of roughly 5.7 feet above tide level that occurs roughly once a century — could more likely occur every three to 20 years. What today are New York City’s “500-year

Computer expert makes it

easy for the rest of us

Computer science professor Brian Kernighan has self-published a new book that distills his popular Princeton University class “Computers in Our World” into a couple hundred readable pages.

10 RESEARCH BRIEFS

floods” — or waters that reach more than 9 feet deep — could, with climate change, occur every 25 to 240 years, the researchers wrote. The research is not only the first to examine the future intensity of storm surges, but also the first to offer a tool for estimating an area’s vulnerability to future flooding, said co-author Michael Oppenheimer, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton. “As the world warms, risks will increase across a variety of fronts, and the threat to coastal infrastructure in the face of an already-rising sea level and potentially stronger hurricanes could be one of the most costly unless we are able to anticipate and reduce vulnerability,” Oppenheimer said. Lead author Ning Lin, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, said that knowing the frequency of storm surges may help urban and coastal planners design seawalls and other protective structures. Lin, who received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2010, began the project at Princeton then continued it as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT; the current report is based on her work at MIT. The study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Princeton Environmental Institute.

Projected increases in sea level and storm intensity brought on by climate change could make devastating storm surges more frequent. Using the New York City area as a model, the researchers found that floods experienced every century could instead occur every one or two decades. The worst simulated flood was a 15.5-foot (4.7-meter) storm surge at Manhattan’s Battery (black star) that stemmed from a high-intensity storm (black line) moving northeast and very close to the city. The colored contours represent the maximum surge height, from 0 (blue) to 5 (violet) meters. (Image courtesy of Ning Lin)

Detection of cosmic effect may bring

universe’s formation into sharper focus

(Image courtesy of Sundeep Das, University of California-Berkeley)

Brian Kernighan, a celebrity in the world of computer science, has written a new book hailed as essential reading for non-geeks. D is for Digital (selfpublished, 2011) explains computers in everyday language and is valuable to everyone from liberal arts majors to policymakers. Kernighan is renowned in his field for his 1978 book, The C Programming Language, which was central to the spread of the C programming language. Translated into 27 languages and a classic in the field, that book, however, was written strictly for computer programmers. With his new book, Kernighan aims to help all citizens understand more about computing so that they can form

The first observation of a cosmic effect theorized 40 years ago could provide astronomers with a more precise tool for understanding the forces behind the universe’s formation and growth, including the enigmatic phenomena of dark energy and dark matter. A large research team from two major astronomy surveys reported in July 2012 that scientists detected the movement of distant galaxy clusters via the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect, which has never before been seen. The work, which appeared in the July 23 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters, was initiated at Princeton University by lead author Nick Hand, Class of 2011, as part of his senior thesis. Proposed in 1972 by Russian physicists Rashid Sunyaev and Yakov Zel’dovich, the kSZ effect results when the hot gas in galaxy clusters distorts the cosmic microwave background radiation — which is the glow of the heat left over from the Big Bang — that fills our universe. Radiation passing through a galaxy cluster moving toward Earth appears hotter by a few millionths of a degree, while radiation passing through a cluster moving away appears slightly cooler (see illustration). Now that it has been detected, the kSZ effect could prove to be an exceptional tool for measuring the

velocity of objects in the distant universe, the researchers report. It could provide insight into the strength of the gravitational forces pulling on galaxy clusters and other bodies and on the still-hypothetical dark energy and dark matter in the universe. The effect also can be used to trace the location of atoms in the nearby universe, which can reveal how galaxies form. “One of the main advantages of the kSZ effect is that its magnitude is independent of a galaxy cluster’s distance from us, so we can measure the velocity of an object’s motion toward or away from Earth at much larger distances than we can now,” said Hand, who conducted the work with his senior thesis adviser David Spergel, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation and chair of astrophysical sciences at Princeton. The paper featured 58 collaborators from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, which is supported primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) project. BOSS is a part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III, which is supported by the NSF, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science and participating institutions.

more intelligent opinions about government policies on Internet privacy and wiser decisions about what they share on social media and how they use their cell phones. Kernighan, who earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1969, worked at Bell Labs for several decades and contributed to the development of Unix, a widely used computer operating system. He also is coauthor of the AWK and AMPL programming languages. Kernighan joined Princeton in 2000 as a professor of computer science.

RESEARCH BRIEFS 11

Synchronizing billons of electrons in the

quest for quantum computers

In the basement of Princeton’s Hoyt Laboratory, Alexei Tyryshkin clicked a computer mouse and sent a burst of microwaves washing across a silicon crystal suspended in a frozen cylinder of stainless steel. The waves pulsed across the crystal and, deep within it, billions of electrons started spinning at once. Synchronizing the movement of 100 billion infinitesimal particles is an impressive achievement on its own, but it also is a stride toward developing the technology for quantum computers. These powerful machines could be used to factor incredibly large numbers, break cryptographic codes or simulate the behavior of molecules. “Standard computers have come to their limit and cannot do some of the things we want,” said Tyryshkin, a research scientist in the Department of Electrical Engineering. “We are trying to find a different way of doing computing, using additional degrees of freedom involving quantum computing and things like spins.” A fundamental property of electrons, spin offers a path to developing a machine that would apply the realitybending rules of quantum mechanics

12 RESEARCH BRIEFS

to arrive at new and powerful ways to approach difficult mathematical problems. But maintaining control over particle spin for long enough to build a working computer has proven difficult. Until recently, the best attempts at such control lasted for only a fraction of a second. But the work by Tyryshkin and other Princeton researchers, led by Professor of Electrical Engineering Stephen Lyon, revealed a way to extend control over the spins of billions of electrons for up to ten seconds. The work, part of an international effort, was reported online in December 2011 in the journal Nature Materials, and was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. National Security Agency. The key to these results lay in the use of a highly purified sample of silicon, Lyon said. The experiment uses a small silicon chip the size of a pencil lead made almost entirely of a particular isotope of silicon, silicon-28. To achieve their results, the researchers suspended the sample of pure silicon inside a cylinder filled with liquid helium, and dropped the temperature to 2 degrees Kelvin (-455.8 degrees Fahrenheit, just above absolute zero).

They locked the cylinder between two doughnut-shaped rings about the size of pizza boxes that control the magnetic field around the sample. Tyryshkin’s mouse click sent microwaves through the silicon, and coordinated the spins of about 100 billion electrons. “Partly, it is an improvement in our measurements, but it is mainly the material,” Lyon said. “This is the purest sample we have ever used.”

The highly purified sample of silicon-28 used in the experiment led by Lyon has a very low magnetic signature at the atomic level, and therefore does not disrupt the spin of the electrons. Top: Electrical engineers Stephen Lyon (left) and Alexei Tyryshkin examine the casing that holds the silicon crystal they used to coordinate the spins of billions of electrons in work geared toward developing the technology for quantum computers.

Physicists spot

Higgs boson

In an announcement that received international attention, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) on July 4, 2012, said that physicists observed a new particle whose properties are consistent with the predicted Higgs boson, a particle much smaller than an atom that is theorized to be crucial to understanding the nature of the world around us. About 15 Princeton researchers are members of the international collaboration that has been hunting for the Higgs at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27-kilometer underground circular tunnel crossing the border of Switzerland and France. “A huge amount of work goes into making sure things are working properly,” said Daniel Marlow, the Evans Crawford 1911 Professor of Physics, who works on luminosity measurements — a key measure of how well the LHC is functioning — with his colleague Assistant Professor Valerie Halyo. Princeton physics professors

Christopher Tully and James Olsen are leading initiatives to evaluate signs of the Higgs particle. The Higgs particle and its corresponding Higgs force field are essential for explaining how particles have mass and how the universe evolved. “Without the Higgs, matter would not exist as we know it,” Tully said.

This simulation depicts a detection of the Higgs in the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment used by physicists working at the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider. (Image courtesy of CERN)

Crescent-shaped bacteria Nature is nothing if not green. It reduces, reuses and recycles whenever possible. Now Princeton researchers have discovered that bacteria can repurpose proteins used for cell growth into structural supports that maintain cell shape. “We’ve identified a bacterial species that appears to have stolen something that evolved for a regulatory purpose and started using it for a structural purpose,” said Zemer Gitai, an associate professor of molecular biology. “This discovery hints at a paradigm for how structures such as the cytoskeleton have evolved.” Gitai and his team found that a protein called CTP synthase — known to be crucial for producing the nucleic acid RNA that is essential for cell growth and energy — also keeps the cells of the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus in their distinctive crescent-roll shape. The researchers were among the first to discover that many of the

Support for Princeton particle physics research at the LHC comes from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The luminosity measurements and other infrastructure projects are funded by the DOE and the National Science Foundation.

reveal their secrets

Eventually, Gitai said, studies of how cells’ proteins are fixed in place rather cells create their own shapes and than free-floating inside the cell. CTP structures could aid our understanding synthase was one of the proteins they of self-assembly, a feat common in had expected to see located throughnature but very unlike how humans out the cell. build things. “We humans can learn The researchers observed that CTP synthase instead links up to form wispy, a lot from studying how the cell spider silk-like strings that are stocks of accomplishes this feat,” he said. premade enzymes. Gitai theorized that they are a cell’s way of storing the enzymes for times when the cell needs to make new RNA quickly. The researchers found that C. crescentus’ shape is due to shortened CTP synthase strings on one side of the cell, which force the normally straight bacterium to curl into a crescent. The research was published in the journal Nature Cell Biology in August 2010, and supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the Human Frontiers Science Inside the Caulobacter cell (green), CTP Synthase (red) Program and the Arnold and Mabel forms filaments that curve the normally straight cells. Beckman Foundation. (Image courtesy of Michael Ingerson-Mahar)

RESEARCH BRIEFS 13

Lasso peptides round up bacteria

Assistant Professor James Link and graduate student Jessica (Si Jia) Pan are developing peptide drugs that could treat antibioticresistant infections.

Princeton researchers are applying Darwinian evolution principles to naturally occurring antibacterial molecules to create novel antibiotics for the food and drug industries. Bacteria secrete antimicrobial peptides — short chains of amino acids — for defense against other species. James Link, an assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, is pioneering research on a class of such peptides that are lassoshaped, which makes them resistant to the body’s defense mechanisms and hence good drug candidates. “We’re understanding how these amazing structures are made by bacteria,” Link said. “Thermodynamically they shouldn’t exist.” Starting with one particular lasso peptide, Link and graduate student Jessica (Si Jia) Pan created a dozen variants with more antibiotic potency. The researchers used a method called directed evolution in which they create random mutations, test for desirable

Research on

race and inequality

By spanning the social sciences and the Americas in his research, Professor of Sociology Edward Telles is increasing our understanding of how race and inequality interact. Telles focuses his research on comparative studies of race across Latin America. Through Princeton’s Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America, which Telles leads and which is funded in part by the Ford Foundation, he surveys topics such as racial attitudes, inequality and health in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Among his more striking findings, Telles has noted that skin color is a better indicator than ethno-racial identity in understanding income and educational inequality in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico. In those countries, survey data based on ethno-racial identity suggested that blacks and people of mixed-race may no longer suffer discrimination. However, interviewers also recorded respondents’ skin color, and Telles found a strong correlation

14 RESEARCH BRIEFS

between skin color and income, occupation and education levels, with those with darker skin faring worse on measures of equality than those with lighter skin. “It’s not just a matter of what people call themselves, because these things are so fluid anyway. The more objective indicator is color,” Telles said. “They’re both aspects of race, but they work in different ways.”

Princeton University senior Genay Kirkpatrick (Class of 2012) was one of the students in Telles’ class “Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism in Latin America,” which offered a comparative study of how race is perceived throughout Latin America.

properties and repeat. They screened 20,000 variations of the peptide for the most promising molecules and found the most promising to be as potent as the antibacterial peptides used in the food industry to protect perishables. The researchers are now trying to beat harmful, adaptive bacteria such as Escherichia coli at their own game. “We’re trying to use directed evolution to find a peptide that can kill E. coli that are resistant to it,” Link said. “In the same way that bacteria evolve resistance, we can try to evolve peptides that overcome that resistance.” The work, which was published in the April 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Princeton’s Project X, which is designed to allow faculty members in the School of Engineering and Applied Science to pursue unconventional but promising research.

Expedition verifies the

extraterrestrial nature of quasicrystals

A rare and exotic mineral so unusual that it was thought impossible to exist came to Earth on a meteorite, according to an international team of scientists led by Princeton physics professor Paul Steinhardt. The mineral, called a quasicrystal, has an intricate internal structure quite different from conventional crystals, resulting in different physical properties, such as being harder than crystals made of similar elements. Although quasicrystals can be made in a laboratory, they were not thought to exist in nature until Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein Professor in Science, with Princeton senior research scholar Nan Yao and Luca Bindi of the Florence Natural History Museum in Italy, identified the first known natural quasicrystal in a sample from a storage box at the Italian museum. They published the finding in the journal Science in 2009. Steinhardt and Bindi then traced the origin of the sample to a remote corner of far eastern Russia where mineralogist Valery Kryachko had collected it in 1979. After arranging a collaborative agreement between Princeton and scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Ore Mineralogy, a team including Steinhardt, Bindi, Kryachko and scientists from Cornell University and the Smithsonian Institution made an expedition to the Koryak Mountains in Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to search for more quasicrystals. During 2011, they also examined the original

Model of a quasicrystal. (Image courtesy of Paul Steinhardt)

sample with the help of Princeton Professor of Geosciences Emeritus, Lincoln Hollister, as well as with collaborators at the California Institute of Technology and the Smithsonian Institution. The researchers concluded that the quasicrystal was originally from a meteorite, which they reported in January 2012 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In August 2012, Steinhardt and Bindi reported in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics that the Russia trip yielded new samples that have allowed the scientists to verify the crystals’ meteoritic origin. The expedition also showed that the quasicrystals arrived on Earth roughly 15,000 years ago during or after the last ice age, and most likely formed during the early days of the solar system, roughly 4.5 billion years ago, making them perhaps as old as the Earth itself. “The finding of these new samples confirms that quasicrystals can form in nature under astrophysical conditions,” Steinhardt said.

A vehicle fords a river in the northeastern part of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula during an expedition by a team of Princeton researchers and colleagues to the Koryak Mountains to search for quasicrystals. (Image courtesy of Paul Steinhardt)

Although quasicrystals are solid minerals that look quite normal on the outside, their inner structure makes them fascinating to scientists. A quasicrystal’s atoms can be arranged in ways that are not commonly found in crystals, such as the shape of a 20-sided icosahedron with the symmetry of a soccer ball. The concept of quasicrystals — along with the term — was first introduced in 1984 by Steinhardt and Dov Levine, both then at the University of Pennsylvania. The first synthetic quasicrystal, a combination of aluminum and manganese, was reported in 1984 by Israeli materials scientist Dan Shechtman and colleagues at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, a finding for which Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize. The samples they found have been accepted by the Meteoritical Society as evidence of a new meteorite called Khatyrka. The research was supported by NASA and the National Science Foundation’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers through a grant to the Princeton Center for Complex Materials and New York University.

RESEARCH BRIEFS 15

Graduate student Crisita Atienza conducts research on a catalyst with Paul Chirik, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry.

G. John Ikenberry

Iron replaces pricey metal You’ve heard the song about a girl with diamonds on the soles of her shoes, but did you know that you have platinum in your sneakers? It also can turn up in shampoo, denim jeans, envelope glue and even beer. The high-priced metal is an important industrial catalyst, but it is hard to remove from the final product and miniscule amounts are embedded within consumer products, costing manufacturers millions of dollars in lost platinum a year. Now chemist Paul Chirik, Princeton’s Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Chemistry, and his research team have found that they can replace platinum with a much more common substance — iron. The switch to iron could save money and benefit the environment through a reduction in mining precious metals. Chirik’s approach essentially coaxes iron into acting in a manner that is similar to pricier metals. Platinum can catalyze efficiently because it can transfer two electrons at a time between molecules during a chemical reaction. Iron, in contrast, typically transfers only one electron at a time. Because electrons like to travel in pairs, this one-electron transfer leaves the surrounding molecules with unpaired electrons, or free radicals, that react with other nearby molecules. As a result, iron can spur the creation of various chemical products other than the intended product. “The fundamental question is how do you take a metal that wants to do one-electron chemistry and shut that

16 RESEARCH BRIEFS

inclination off so that it does twoelectron chemistry,” Chirik said. The solution pioneered by Chirik and then-graduate student Aaron Tondreau, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, was to pack a bulky molecule that also engages in radical chemistry around the iron. Thus, both the iron and the surrounding molecule participate in radical chemistry, giving the net result of transferring two electrons. The team’s early results attracted the attention of Albany-based Momentive Performance Materials, which makes silicone for, among other things, envelope glue. In collaboration with Momentive scientists, Chirik’s team began to tinker with the size of the surrounding molecule on the iron. Through trial and error they found the supporting molecules that were just the right size needed to make silicone without making unwanted byproducts. They published the results in Science in February 2012. Chirik and Princeton graduate student Crisita Atienza are now working to make a hardier version of the catalyst. The reactions are elegantly simple, Chirik said. “It is just good oldfashioned chemistry that makes what you want,” he said. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton University Press, 2011) G. John Ikenberry, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, provides the most systematic statement yet about the theory and practice of the liberal international order. It is a forceful message for policymakers, scholars and general readers about why America must renegotiate its relationship with the rest of the world and pursue a more enlightened strategy — one of the liberal leviathan.

(Image courtesy of Princeton University Press)

Princeton research takes

asymmetry to heart Ask most people to draw a heart and they will make a symmetrical drawing with two equal sides. But the human heart is far from symmetrical. The right side is slightly smaller, built for pumping blood into the nearby lungs, while the left side is larger and made for propelling blood throughout the body. When defects in this asymmetric development occur, the result is often fatal. Congenital heart defects are the most common types of birth defects, affecting nearly 40,000 infants born in the United States each year. Jessica Rowland, a graduate student in Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology, is studying the genes that orchestrate this development of the two very different sides of the heart. What Rowland and her adviser, Rebecca Burdine, assistant professor of molecular biology, learn could aid our understanding of why heart defects occur and what we can do to prevent them. The researchers use zebrafish as a model organism because the fish reproduce quickly and it is easy to manipulate their genes — knocking out their activity, or, alternatively, turning up their expression — then observe the outcome. In a room reminiscent of a pet store, floor-to-ceiling aquariums provide homes

Rebecca Burdine (left), assistant professor of molecular biology, and graduate student Jessica Rowland use zebrafish to study why heart defects occur and what can be done to prevent them.

for roughly 15,000 of the silver-colored, half-inch-long fish. The heart starts out as two symmetric clumps of cells, one on each side of the body. During embryonic development, these cells come together in the middle of the embryo and fuse to create a structure called the cardiac cone. Cells on the left side of this cone are exposed to a set of events called the Nodal signaling pathway. In zebrafish, the Nodal gene is called southpaw, because it is expressed only on the left side of the heart. This gene orchestrates the process as the entire cone rotates, tilts and elongates into a tube that extends asymmetrically to the left to take shape as the heart. Rowland is exploring how expression of southpaw, specifically on the left, sets off other gene pathways that act downstream to cause the cells to migrate and elongate into the asymmetrically positioned tube. Rowland has a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship and the research is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

In a recent study, Rowland compared heart cells in which expression of the southpaw gene was either turned up or turned off. The researchers found that turning up southpaw expression led to the turning on of a handful of specific gene pathways. “Several of these pathways have to do with cell migration, which makes sense because the heart cells are moving to new locations,” Rowland said. The team is now exploring exactly how these pathways control heart cell migration and development.

RESEARCH BRIEFS 17

Spotlight on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

Unchecked climate change will likely almost completely wipe out the eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtle by the end of the century, according to researchers at GFDL and Princeton University.

Princeton researchers collaborate closely with researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), located about three miles from the University’s main campus at Princeton’s Forrestal Campus. GFDL is a leading research center in the development and use of mathematical models and computer simulations to improve our understanding and prediction of the behavior of the atmosphere, ocean and climate. GFDL efforts include hurricane research

and prediction, seasonal forecasting, and understanding and projecting climate change. In the July 2012 issue of Nature Climate Change, Vincent Saba, a research fishery biologist with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service based at GFDL and a visiting research collaborator in Princeton’s Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and colleagues reported that unchecked climate change will likely almost completely wipe out the eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtle (left) by the end of the century.

Focus on

Princeton’s Physical Sciences-Oncology Center Game theory could help researchers gain an understanding of the dynamics of cancerous-tumor evolution under stress, according to research published in the journal AIP Advances in March 2012 by researchers at Princeton and the University of California-San Francisco. To explore interactions of cells in a rapidly growing tumor, the researchers modeled non-cancerous cells as cooperators, which obey the rules of communal survival, and tumor cells as cheaters, which do not obey these rules. The researchers found that the simulation was most accurate when it included how the cells behave in localized regions of the tumor rather than the entire tumor. The researchers are affiliated with Princeton’s Physical SciencesOncology Center (PPS-OC), an interdisciplinary research center aimed at exploring the physical laws that govern the emergence and behavior of cancer. The center is led by Robert Austin, a professor of physics at Princeton, and includes collaborators at the University of California-San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, the University of California-Santa Cruz and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the PPS-OC operates within a collaborative

18 RESEARCH BRIEFS

network of 12 other physical sciences– oncology centers. In related work, Austin and colleagues reported in the journal Science in September 2011 the creation of a silicon-based microhabitat for studying the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. They constructed a plate containing tiny hexagon-shaped rooms connected by microscopic channels. Compared to conventional research flasks and dishes, the microhabitat is meant to more closely resemble the environment in living organisms. Austin and colleagues found that in this special habitat, bacteria evolved to be resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin much more quickly than did bacteria growing in flasks. The research could make it easier for scientists to study how bacteria evade drugs and how to prevent resistance from developing.

The design of the micro-environment allows bacteria (red and green) to squeeze through channels as they search for nutrients (LB) that flow into the chambers through tiny slits. When the antibiotic ciprofloxacin (CIPRO) is added, bacteria evolve resistance to the drug much more rapidly than they would in an open environment. (Image courtesy of Robert Austin)

The forces behind

lung defects

Jason Gleghorn put himself through school by working as an emergency medical technician. He’s now a Princeton postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biological engineering, but his days of suturing are far from over. Through the eyepieces of a microscope, Gleghorn operates on microfluidic chips the size of a U.S. dime. He sutures a glass cannula to the trachea of fetal mouse lungs the size of President Franklin Roosevelt’s ear on a dime. The fluid channels of this tiny model are about 100 microns wide — the width of a coarse human hair. As a member of Celeste Nelson’s research team, Gleghorn constructs these chips to simulate lung cavities. In a project started by undergraduate Jiyong Kwak (Class of 2009), the group is studying the forces that affect fetal lung development, in the hopes of developing new therapies for congenital lung defects, a leading cause of infant mortality. Nelson, an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, is focusing on contractile forces, or how cells pull on each other and their surroundings — the same types of forces that give our bodies shape. She is investigating the link between these physical forces and the biochemical signals that determine response to pressure, volume and flow. She

is trying to find the source of these biochemical signals with the goal of designing new medications that can treat lung defects. “You don’t combat high blood pressure by bleeding the patient,” Nelson said. “You find the source of high blood pressure and treat it with drugs.” The challenge lies in measuring and manipulating the mechanical forces that shape our lungs. The fetal lungs are 3-D, constantly changing and, because of their small scale, almost impossible to manipulate. What’s unusual about the lung, Nelson said, is that it is one of the few organs that functions in a completely different way before birth. Fetal lungs fill with amniotic fluid rather than pumping air. This development works fine unless something goes wrong. Problems arise due to genetic abnormalities and other causes, such as a reduction in amniotic fluid during pregnancy. A common defect in lung development is fetal pulmonary hypoplasia, which can be caused by congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a hole in the diaphragm. Doctors, unable to restore pressure in a fetus’ lungs, instead give mothers steroids to speed up lung development. These babies are often delivered prematurely, and may face lung problems later in life — a recent study found that fetal lung defects can lead

Celeste Nelson, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering, and Jason Gleghorn, postdoctoral research associate, are studying the link between mechanical processes in the body and biochemical signals.

“If we can understand how mechanical processes, such as the flow of amniotic fluid, help shape the development of the lungs, we can develop new therapies.” -Celeste Nelson Above: An immunofluorescence image of the surface of the lung of a bearded dragon embryo (Pogona vitticeps). Nuclei are stained red and the actin cytoskeleton is stained green. (Image courtesy of Celeste Nelson) to emphysema, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nelson hopes that her research, which is funded by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, will lead to better treatment options for fetuses as well as adults. “If we can understand how mechanical processes, such as the flow of amniotic fluid, help shape the development of the lungs, we can develop new therapies,” she said.

RESEARCH BRIEFS 19

The Princeton

Neuroscience I nstit ute

Decide Remember Forget Ignore COMMUNICATE Architectural rendering of the neuroscience facility and psychology building, Peretsman-Scully Hall. The complex is scheduled to open in mid-2013.

Researchers at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) are tackling some of the biggest mysteries of the human mind: Why we think and behave as we do, how we make decisions, how we choose what to ignore and remember, and how we can learn to forget. These abilities arise from our 100 billion brain cells, each of which communicates with about 10,000 other nerve cells. Discovering how these neural conversations give rise to a thought, a memory or a decision is the goal of Princeton neuroscientists. Some of these scientists come at the challenge by probing individual neurons, while others study the activity of entire brain regions. Only by understanding both the big picture and tiny details of neuronal function and communication can we begin to understand the complexity of the brain, said PNI co-directors, Jonathan Cohen, the Robert Bendheim and Lynn Bendheim Thoman Professor in Neuroscience, and David Tank, the Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology. These two scientists epitomize PNI’s approach to understanding the brain. Cohen looks at brain activity and constructs theories of how we guide attention, thought and action in accordance with our goals and intentions. Tank uses a microscope trained on living neurons to explore how networks of these cells orchestrate short-term memory and decision-making. “The institute successfully spans the different levels of analysis that we frankly need for understanding how the brain gives rise to thoughts, feelings and behaviors,” Cohen said. “This continuum of people with expertise in computation, mathematics, psychology, biology and related disciplines is what helps set the Princeton Neuroscience Institute apart,” Tank added. PNI was founded in 2005 and houses three centers (see box on page 22) as well as a program in computational neuroscience. The institute also oversees Princeton’s graduate program in neuroscience (see box on page 23) and will be moving to a newly built research facility in 2013. A new facility for PNI and a new home for the Department of Psychology are being built side-by-side with occupants slated to move into the new buildings in mid-2013. “Positioning the neuroscience and psychology buildings next to each other will facilitate interaction between researchers,” said Princeton Provost

Christopher Eisgruber, “and grow the outstanding quality of neuroscience and psychology research at Princeton.”

Decide

The interdisciplinary nature of Princeton neuroscience is what attracted Carlos Brody to PNI. Brody, an associate professor of molecular biology and PNI, is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. He focuses on developing computational models that explain the neural pathways behind behavior and cognition. One such model simulates decision-making behavior in the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain behind the forehead. Even when we make what seems like a simple decision, neurons are sending and receiving signals to and from thousands of other cells within their neural network.

so quickly that we are unaware of it. But sometimes the process happens slowly, like in the morning when it takes you several seconds to realize that your alarm clock is beeping and it is time to get out of bed. To test his computer model of how the brain tallies incoming information prior to making a decision, Brody trained laboratory rodents to respond to a series of sounds coming from the right or left side. To earn a reward, the rodents had to decide from which side the majority of sounds were coming, and then look in that direction. During the experiment, Brody and his team monitored the rodents’ brains to determine which neural networks in the prefrontal cortex were active. Their research, which is ongoing and is supported by HHMI and the Human Frontier Science Program, could shed light on how we create so-called “working memory,” the temporary store of information that is essential for making decisions and other cognitive functions.

Remember

Carlos Brody

“We are just at the beginning of understanding the brain, so we rely on model systems that can help us understand how the brain works,” Brody said. “It is the connections between neurons that make the brain work the way it does.” Brody and his team are using a computer model to explore a theory of decision-making wherein the brain tallies information little by little until it finally makes a decision. Usually this happens

The brain’s working memory is a central component not only of decision-making but also of navigation behavior. PNI co-director David Tank and his team are studying how networks of neurons create working memory in mice navigating a virtual maze. While navigating the maze, each mouse sees visual patterns it has learned to recognize as an indication to turn at an upcoming intersection in the maze. The animal must then hold the signal in memory until it reaches the turn. Tank and his colleagues discovered that during this task the neuron populations involved in storing the memory fire in distinctive sequences. The study was published in the journal Nature in April 2012 and was supported by the National Institutes of Health, including a National Institutes of Health Challenge Grant, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Tank’s research seeks to understand the neural dynamics underlying both working memory and decision-making, particularly when they work together.

NEUROSCIENCE 21

David Tank

Tank uses mathematical models and statistical data analyses to describe how the firing activity of neurons, linked together into neural circuits, causes memories to be held or lost and how they lead to decisions. “Studies such as this are aimed at understanding the basic principles of neural activity during memory and decisionmaking in the normal brain,” Tank said. “However, the work may in the future assist researchers in understanding how activity might be altered in brain disorders that involve deficits in working memory. Schizophrenia is one disorder thought to involve deficits in working memory.”

Forget

Our ability to recall previous experiences, while impressive, can weaken due to age or other factors. But assigning a timestamp to a memory, said Kenneth Norman, an associate professor of psychology and PNI, can help the brain retrieve important information when needed. Norman suspects that people categorize the “when” of a memory by storing additional information about what happened just before or just after the event. If you stopped for a cappuccino after class one day, for example, remembering the café could jog your memory of the lecture topic. With his students, Norman is developing computational theories of how timestamping works and testing these theories against experimental data. The work could lead to new techniques that enhance our ability to remember.

22 NEUROSCIENCE

“Using computers, we can build networks of neurons and test our theories of how the strength of the connections between those neurons change as a function of experience,” Norman said. “If we build a good model, these networks should ’remember’ in the same way that humans do.” Although memory is essential, forgetting also can be valuable. Methods for extinguishing bad memories could be of use in treating post-traumatic stress disorder. Norman is exploring the idea that bringing a memory partially to mind can weaken or extinguish it. “If you totally shut out a memory, then, according to our theory, it will come back just as strong as it was before,” Norman said of the research, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health. “Similarly, if you constantly relive the memory, it will get stronger. We hope to develop procedures for eliciting just the right level of memory.” Weak recall of a memory may be what helps the brain forget. To test this idea, Norman and his team are scanning brains of human volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which reveals active areas of the brain by measuring blood flow. A participant is asked to study several randomly generated pairings of words and photographs — for example, the word “nickel” paired with a photo of a man’s face — until the two concepts are linked in the participant’s mind. Then the researchers present the cue word nickel and ask the

participant to avoid thinking about the associated picture. The researchers look at the brain’s activity to see how much the picture of the man is coming to mind while participants try to avoid thinking about it. Results from this study show that, when the picture comes to mind moderately, this leads to forgetting the word-picture association.

Ignore

Just as forgetting unpleasant memories is useful for mental health, so is being able to ignore unwanted details when necessary. When hailing a cab in a major city, your brain can ignore hundreds of cars

Kenneth Norman

The Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) is home to three centers that cover the spectrum of neuroscientific research. • The Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics: Princeton’s newest center supports the development of new methods and instrumentation to characterize patterns of neural activity and connections in large populations of individual neurons during brain functions such as sensory perception, memory and decision-making. • The McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience: This center supports the general study of neural coding and dynamics in different behaviors, as well as how circuits in different brain areas work together in systems. Understanding this intermediate level of organization could yield vital information about neurological disorders such as autism and Alzheimer’s diseases. • The Scully Center for the Neuroscience of Mind and Behavior: Research in this center focuses on how the physical mechanisms of the brain give rise to language, emotions, problem-solving and decision-making. The center’s fMRI brain-imaging facilities, aided by enhanced analysis techniques developed by Princeton computer scientists, are allowing for novel correlations between brain activity and behavior, thoughts and actions.

while searching for one with a bright yellow paintjob. But when it is time to cross the street, you risk your life if you ignore even one of those hundreds of cars. “Our brains have a way to determine what is relevant for decision-making in any given scenario and what details can be ignored,” said Yael Niv, an assistant professor of psychology and PNI, who explores how the brain decides what is important. “If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to learn from our experiences because no two situations are exactly alike.” Niv created a computer game in which she could find out if players used a strategy of ignoring non-relevant information. The player views three pictures on a screen with each picture varying by color, pattern and shape. The goal of the game is to guess which feature, such as a triangle shape, is the one specified in advance by the computer game. After viewing the screen, the player makes a guess and receives a point if he or she chooses the picture that contains the correct feature. By viewing a series of screens and receiving feedback on guesses, the player can figure out that the triangle shape is the correct feature. After human volunteers played the game, the researchers created a computer model that described the typical player’s progress toward the correct answer. Previous models suggested that the player learns about all image features at once, slowly homing in on

the correct one. But Niv and PNI postdoctoral research fellow Robert Wilson found that the brain employs shortcuts that involve creating serial hypotheses involving single features, and testing and discarding each wrong hypothesis until the player deduces the correct answer. “When you choose a green triangle with polka dots you may be learning about green, about triangles and about polkadots,” Niv said. “But what our model shows is that human behavior is more consistent with the following description: You think in your head, ’maybe green is correct,’ so you choose the green polka-dotted triangle, and based on the feedback, you update whether you think green is correct. You basically learn nothing about triangles and polka dots because you were ignoring them.” These mental shortcuts are faster and require less memory than would be needed to explore the entire range of possibilities, Niv said. The work, which was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, was published in a January 2012 issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. “This ’structure learning’ — using experiences to learn what information to ignore in a specific task — is what allows animals and humans to learn so quickly,” Niv said. “Learning seems to depend on how we take a task and divide it into parts that are relevant and irrelevant, based on previous experiences.”

Communicate

PNI provides a framework for fostering

Yael Niv

communication between what once were largely separate areas of study. The task of understanding the cognitive brain brings together researchers from psychology, molecular biology and other disciplines. “The fields of neuroscience and psychology are increasingly complementary,” said Deborah Prentice, chair of Princeton’s Department of Psychology and the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs. “It used to be that experimentalists had a black box approach — you altered some experimental factors and you observed what came out the other side,” Prentice said. “Today’s neuroscience techniques allow us to finally look inside the black box.”

Neuroscience Boot Camp

When Princeton Neuroscience Institute researchers set out to create a neuroscience graduate program, they scrapped the introductory courses and lab classes. Instead, they created a single core course, affectionately known as neuroscience boot camp, which combines lectures, experiments and computational modeling into one course. “The topics range from molecular biology of the brain all the way to behavioral neuroscience,” said Carlos Brody, an associate professor of molecular biology and PNI who advises the graduate students. “In a single course, a student could go from patch-clamping an individual neuron to analyzing fMRI data of the entire brain’s reaction to a Charlie Chaplin film.”

“Some of the most exciting and challenging problems in molecular and cell biology are found in neuroscience,” said PNI researcher Lynn Enquist, the Henry L. Hillman Professor of Molecular Biology and chair of the Department of Molecular Biology. “Today, we are using high-resolution optical imaging in combination with powerful new tools in genetics, genomics and cell biology to produce a wealth of information about the brain.”

Further reading:

Wilson, Robert C. and Yael Niv. 2012. “Inferring Relevance in a Changing World.” Front. Hum. Neurosci., Vol. 5, Article #189. Harvey, Christopher D., Philip Coen and David W. Tank. 2012. “Choice-Specific Sequences in Parietal Cortex During a Virtual-Navigation Decision Task.” Nature. Vol. 484, no. 7392: 62-8.

NEUROSCIENCE 23

The Edge of

Princeton researchers are working at the edge of energy research to develop unconventional ways to power the future

24

Our thirst for energy comes at an environmental cost. Human beings have a profound effect on the planet, and the debate is no longer about whether we need to move away from carbon-based fuels, but when and how. Princeton researchers are looking for solutions at the edge of energy research. With this cheap, tough and flexible plastic sheet, any surface could become a charging station. You could charge your phone on the table while out to lunch, or by placing it on your desk or on your beach blanket. Entire walls or roofs could be covered with these large-area sheets. “Our prototype integrates the energy-harvesting device with power electronics,”said Naveen Verma, an assistant professor of electrical “With Princeton’s mix of engineers, scientists engineering who and social scientists, we are uniquely poised developed the to solve these complex energy problems.” technology with James Sturm, the -Emily Carter William and Edna Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, and Sigurd Wagner, a professor ment, conservation and environmental of electrical engineering. The project is protection. “With Princeton’s mix of enfunded by the National Science Foundagineers, scientists and social scientists, tion (NSF) and the U.S. Department of we are uniquely poised to solve these complex energy problems,” she said. Energy (DOE). Innovations from Princeton could The flexible sheets of solar cells, radically change how we produce and or photovoltaic cells, are already comconsume sustainable energy. For mercially available. What is new is the example, one group is developing a incorporation of the electronic composolar energy-driven charging station that nents for wireless transmission into the could recharge your cellphone anywhere. same technology, creating a path to a full Another group is tilting windmills on their charging system on one flexible sheet. sides to increase their efficiency, and another is attempting to mitigate the waste of combustion by turning carbon dioxide and water back into fuel. “The move toward a sustainable future requires truly innovative approaches with an emphasis on a range of fundamental investigations and applications,” said Emily Carter, the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy and the Environment and founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, which supports a vibrant program of research in energy develop-

Before now, flexible photovoltaic sheets needed to be wired to hard and inflexible integrated-circuit devices. Creating flexible electronics was a challenge because the devices are made from amorphous silicon, which is not nearly as efficient as the rigid crystalline silicon used in conventional electronics. Because amorphous silicon is inefficient at transmitting electricity, large plastic sheets will be needed to charge even small devices. Additionally, the engineers had to invent new circuit designs, said Verma, referring to the contributions of graduate students Liechao Huang, Yingzhe Hu, Warren Rieutort-Louis and Josue SanzRobinson. “We figured out how to build power inverters and amplifiers, and control circuits, all integrated with inductors and capacitors; these are all needed for wireless transmission,” Verma said.

Tilting windmills The arms of giant wind turbines in today’s commercial wind farms rotate around a horizontal axis. But the efficiency of wind farms could be greatly improved, Princeton researchers suggest, by redesigning the wind turbines so that they rotate on a vertical axis (though the blades themselves are horizontal). In a vertical axis turbine, the blades can be

Solar cell-ophane If you own a smartphone, chances are you’ve resorted to poaching electricity by recharging your phone at an outlet in a public place such as an airport, lecture hall, library or museum. A new technology developed in Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science could make it possible to charge your phone just by placing it on a surface covered with a special plastic lining. The flexible plastic lining is embedded with solar cells and electronic circuits that convert sunlight into a wireless power signal strong enough to charge a phone or laptop.

Solar charging station: Plastic sheets embedded with solar cells and flexible electronics are under development in the laboratory of Assistant Professor Naveen Verma and colleagues in Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. The sheets could have a range of applications including solar charging stations for electronic appliances. On the left, electronic components are sandwiched between two solar cells. On the right, a closeup view shows the structures needed for wireless transmission. (Image courtesy of Naveen Verma)

ENERGY 25

mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate student Tristen Hohman, while Martinelli and mechanical and aerospace engineering graduate student Mark Lohry are focused on the computational modeling of wind flow. Larger-scale testing will be conducted in Guangdong Province, China, using a prototype turbine with blades 26 meters long that was built by Hopewell Wind Power Ltd. A number of challenges remain in the development of vertical axis turbines. First, winds travel more slowly near the ground versus high in the air, thereby pushing the blade unevenly. Smits and Hohman are working to replicate these conditions in their wind tunnel. In addition, the interaction of the wind flow around the support structure may interfere with the blades by creating vibrations that in the long term will weaken the structure of the blade. Finally, the blade can stall, resulting in uneven electricity generation. This last challenge may be overcome by optimizing the shape of the blade.

Reverse gear — running combustion backward

Wind turbines that rotate around a vertical axis, as shown in this experimental turbine built by Hopewell Wind Power Ltd. in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, China, have the potential to be more efficient than conventional wind turbines, which rotate around a horizontal axis atop a fixed pole. (Image courtesy of Alexander Smits) supported in two locations rather than radiating from a single hub, so they can be built larger than current designs. “The larger the area swept by the blades, the more energy you can capture from a single turbine,” said Alexander Smits, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who is working on the project with Luigi Martinelli, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. Support for the project has been provided by Princeton’s Seibel Energy Challenge funded by the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Foundation, and Hopewell Wind Power Ltd., a subsidiary of Hopewell Holdings Ltd., a Chinese firm headed by Princeton alumnus Sir Gordon Wu, Class of 1958.

26 ENERGY

Another advantage is that vertical blades can turn regardless of wind direction. Conventional wind turbines are fixed and point primarily in one direction — the predominant wind direction — but they cannot reorient when the wind shifts. In contrast, wind coming from any direction can push the vertical axis blades. Because of their design, vertical axis turbines can be built taller than traditional designs and be more closely packed together. Using computer simulations and experimental models, Smits and Martinelli are studying fundamental fluid-dynamics aspects of wind-power generation and are working to optimize the design of these vertical axis turbines. Smits is testing small-scale prototypes in a wind tunnel assisted by

Although renewable resources such as solar power, wind energy and fusion are our future, society will continue to rely on the burning of fossil fuels for some time. But what if we could turn the resulting carbon dioxide back into fuel? This reverse combustion is the goal of Professor of Chemistry Andrew Bocarsly. His team is exploring ways to use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into fuels such as methanol, which can in turn be converted into gasoline. The technology is being commercialized by New Jersey-based Liquid Light, which was co-founded by Emily Cole, who earned her Ph.D. in 2009 in Bocarsly’s lab and now is exploring ways to scale up the technology. In the reverse combustion reaction, light drives the reaction of carbon dioxide and water in the presence of a catalyst and a semiconductor electrode to become methanol with the release of oxygen. The project has received funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFSOR), NSF and DOE. The collaboration between Liquid Light and the University was supported by the DOE Small Business Innovation Research program and the AFOSR Small Business Technology Transfer program.

One way to enhance the efficiency of this reaction is by improving the catalyst, but finding materials that efficiently drive the reaction is a challenge, said Princeton’s Emily Carter. She is carrying out theoretical calculations to identify new semiconductor electrodes that could improve the efficiency of reverse combustion. These electrodes are made from affordable elements such as iron and other metals that Carter, with funding from DOE and AFOSR, has already found have the potential to assist in the conversion of carbon dioxide to methanol.

“We aim to take the energy from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water and convert all three back into fuel,” Carter said. “It is really quite a trick to make that process run backwards.”

Wagner, Sigurd, James C. Sturm and Naveen Verma. 2012. “Integrated All-silicon Thin-film Power Electronics on Flexible Sheets for Ubiquitous Wireless Charging Stations based on Solar-energy Harvesting.” Symposium on VLSI Technology, Paper C23-3.

Further reading:

Cole, Emily B., Prasad S. Lakkaraju, David M. Rampulla, Amanda J. Morris, Esta Abelev and Andrew B. Bocarsly. 2010. “Using a Oneelectron Shuttle for the Multielectron Reduction of CO2 to Methanol: Kinetic, Mechanistic, and Structural Insights.” J. Am. Chem. Soc., Vol. 132, no. 33: 11539-51.

Emily Cole (right), who earned her Ph.D. in 2009 in Andrew Bocarsly's (left) lab, is director of chemistry at Liquid Light, a company she co-founded with Bocarsly to commercialize technology to convert carbon dioxide into fuels.

ENERGY 27

Princeton

GLOBAL HEALT H Research

In late 2010, cholera spread through the streams and rivers of Haiti, killing hundreds of people within weeks. Using maps of river networks and population centers, Princeton researchers and their collaborators created a mathematical model to predict where the disease would strike next and help aid workers get supplies ready for the next outbreak. The cholera project is just one example of how fundamental global health research at Princeton is helping to improve lives. “There are two things that set Princeton global health research apart from the rest,” said Adel Mahmoud, an expert in international health and a lecturer with the rank of professor of molecular biology and public policy in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. “One is the interdisciplinary nature, and the other is the depth of the scientific research — this is fundamental and mechanistic research.” This depth can be found in every type of international health research at Princeton. Some researchers work in laboratories, uncovering basic mechanisms of pathogen behavior. Some crunch numbers from huge datasets. Others are out in the field, documenting the medical and social impact of global health interventions through case studies and patients’ life stories. All are engaged in finding ways to critically assess what does and does not work in helping people live healthy lives. The researchers come from a variety of disciplines including anthropology, chemistry, economics, engineering, molecular biology, history, political science, ecology and evolution. “Princeton

28

is well-suited to study different dimensions of global health because we have a structure that lends itself to interdisciplinary study,” said Bryan Grenfell, the Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School. “Together we are producing a more realistic and improved science of global health, and training researchers to tackle the novel ecologies of disease and health in the context of globalization, technology access and enduring inequalities,” said João Biehl, co-director of Princeton’s Program in Global Health and Health Policy and the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Anthropology.

Interrupting cell talk Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator, leads a team studying how single bacterial cells talk to each other, work that could lead to the development of new antibiotics. “All our existing antibiotics kill bacteria,” Bassler said. “We come at the problem from a different direction: What if we could modify bacteria so that they cannot talk to each other, and therefore cannot perform the group behaviors required to successfully infect the host?”

Bassler’s research indicates that bacterial cells communicate with each other through the exchange of small molecules called autoinducers that enable the single-celled bacteria to act as a collective. “They allow bacteria to act like multicellular organisms,” Bassler said. For example, this cellto-cell communication helps bacteria know when to initiate infection. By exchanging autoinducers, bacteria take a headcount of their numbers. This process of “quorum sensing” can control bacterial activities such as the production of virulence factors needed for infecting hosts or making biofilms on surfaces. Bassler’s team has discovered a number of novel compounds that trick the bacteria that cause cholera into shutting down virulence, thus stopping the bacterial infection. The research was published in a June 2012 issue of the journal PLOS Pathogens. The work, which was supported by HHMI, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, could lead to new approaches to stopping cholera, a disease that afflicts roughly 200,000 people worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Predicting the next outbreak While Bassler works on potential treatments for cholera, civil and environmental engineering professor Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe is developing models capable of predicting where the deadly disease will go next. Primarily waterborne, cholera bacteria are excreted in feces and can survive in water for long periods of time. Weak sanitary conditions due to devastation from the 2010 Haiti earthquake, combined with rainfall washing bacteria into rivers and streams, make it likely that cholera will persist in Haiti for the next several years, said Rodríguez-Iturbe, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Predicting where the disease is headed next could save lives by giving health officials time to distribute electrolyte-replacement fluids and antibiotics while educating the population about preventing disease transmission. Rodríguez-Iturbe and his colleagues modeled the movement of the bacteria through river networks using data on the locations of reported cases as well as maps of Haiti’s river basins and rainfall climatology, plus scenarios of possible weather patterns and rainfall. They included factors to account for the movement of people between towns and the susceptibility of individuals based on previous cholera exposure. For the work, which was funded by the European Research Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation, Rodríguez-Iturbe worked with long-time collaborator Andrea Rinaldo, an ecohydrology professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in France. Earlier this year, Rodríguez-Iturbe and Rinaldo reviewed the success of the model in predicting the course of the outbreak. Writing in an April 2012 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers concluded that mathematical models of large-scale outbreaks are an essential component of future cholera epidemic control. They are now refining their predictions of where cholera will surface in Haiti through

2014 and improving their models of human mobility with the help of cellphone usage data. “The model does an outstanding job of predicting a second peak of the outbreak,” said Rodríguez-Iturbe. “It also allows us to try interventions and to predict how well they will work.” He and Rinaldo are planning a cooperative research project with Médicins Sans Frontières to explore using the model to predict disease cases in Haiti.

Nightlights reveal disease patterns Tracking disease outbreaks can be difficult in regions where transportation is limited, but one Princeton researcher found a way to do it from above. Nita Bharti, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology working in the lab of Professor Bryan Grenfell, led a project to use satellite images of nighttime lights to gauge the risk of a measles outbreak. Bharti and her co-authors used nighttime images of the three largest cities in the West African nation of Niger to correlate seasonal movement of human populations with the onset of

30 Oct 2010

20 Nov 2010

11 Dec 2011

01 Jan 2011

measles epidemics during the country’s dry season, roughly from September to May. Night-light data images taken between 2000 and 2004 by a U.S. Department of Defense satellite indicated where people were clustering by capturing the expansion and increasing brightness of lighted areas. In work supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the researchers compared those images to records from Niger’s Ministry of Health of measles cases from the same years. The team found that measles cases were most prevalent when a city’s lighted area was largest and brightest. Monitoring changes in nighttime lights can clearly indicate where and when a population is expanding and where an epidemic would most likely occur, and could help healthcare workers plan ways to combat outbreaks rather than just respond to them, Bharti said.The researchers reported the results in a December 2011 issue of the journal Science. “Once you establish the patterns of epidemics, you can adjust your intervention strategy,” she said.

Professor Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe creates maps such as this one to track the evolution of cumulative reported cholera cases in Haiti over time. The map reveals the spread of the disease mainly along the Artibonite River and the subsequent, fast outbreak in the most densely populated region of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. (Image courtesy of Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe)

24 Sep 2011

Cumulative Cases / km2 1,000

GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH 29

Policies that shape health Intervention strategies can save lives, but they can sometimes backfire. For example, overprescribing antibiotics has had lasting repercussions on the development of antibiotic resistance in some of the most deadly bacteria such as E. coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), according to research led by Ramanan Laxminarayan, a research scholar in the Princeton Environmental Institute and director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy in Washington, D.C. In a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases in July 2012, Laxminarayan and his co-authors looked at data on how antibiotic usage from 1999 to 2007 preceded development of antibiotic resistance in E. coli and MRSA. They found that the number of prescriptions for certain antibiotics correlated to the development of resistant bacteria roughly one month later. Support for the research came from Princeton’s Health Grand Challenges Program and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Although the study relied on prescribing patterns in the United States, Laxminarayan noted that antibiotic resistance has become a global problem and that studies like this one can help health officials set policies. “This research is an example of how economics and disease modeling can inform the design of policy in a way that has a direct impact on people’s lives,” said Laxminarayan.

The power of numbers Much of the global health research at Princeton takes place within the Center for Health and Wellbeing, an interdisciplinary unit in the Woodrow Wilson School, which seeks to foster research and teaching on multiple aspects of health and well-being in both developed and developing countries. The center’s director, Janet Currie, is a health economist who uses large datasets to uncover relationships that might otherwise be missed. Entries on birth certificates, disease registries

30 GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH

Edgar Lemos, a retired bus driver and former labor unionist in Porto Alegre, Brazil, filed a lawsuit to compel the government to pay for a medicine he needs to treat a neurological disorder. Lemos is one of the many patients that anthropology professor João Biehl and his colleagues and undergraduate students talked to while documenting the issues stemming from Brazil’s constitutional right to health.

and other records are typical sources for Currie, Princeton’s Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs. “My typical data set is millions of observations,” she said. Using these observations, Currie and economist Maya Rossin-Slater of Columbia University reported earlier this year that pregnant mothers who experience the stress of a hurricane or major tropical storm are at an elevated risk of giving birth to a child with health problems requiring immediate medical care, or suffering complications from labor and delivery. The study used more than 1.2 million birth records and found that mothers living within 30 kilometers of a hurricane’s path during their third trimester were 60 percent more likely to have a newborn with abnormal conditions such as requiring a respirator. The work, which was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was described in a working paper circulated in May 2012 by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The power of the story Princeton anthropologist João Biehl works at the level of the community and the individual in the poverty-stricken urban centers of Brazil to put a human face on the plight of people who have been abandoned by the health care system. Biehl listens to people and documents their experiences, and observes patients and communities over time to find out how health care interventions work or do not work for individuals, families and the population at large. “Many things cannot be captured by numbers,” said the Brazilian-born Biehl. “They have to be captured by other things — by life stories, by case studies.” Health care interventions vary greatly both between and within nations, depending on factors such as socioeconomic status and political institutions and commitments. For example, Brazil’s constitution grants all citizens the right to health. This constitutional right has enabled Brazilians to obtain free HIV/AIDS treatments. It also has given rise to a flood of lawsuits against the government by individuals seeking a variety of medicines

for a range of diseases, including rare genetic disorders, and a backlash of accusations that doctors and pharmaceutical companies are encouraging the practice for their own benefit. To find out if these charges were true, Biehl and his colleagues reviewed more than 1,000 access-to-treatment lawsuits filed in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Working with Human Rights Watch epidemiologist Joseph Amon, director of the organization’s health and human rights division, and with funding from the Ford Foundation and Princeton’s Health Grand Challenges Initiative, Biehl and his research team interviewed physicians, public counsels, judges, policymakers, patients and their families.

They discovered that, rather than the claims coming from well-to-do individuals seeking expensive brandname drugs, more than half of the cases were brought by very poor people using help from public defenders. About two-thirds of the requested drugs were already on government formularies and should have been available. The researchers published the results in the June 2012 issue of the journal Health and Human Rights. “We showed that economically disadvantaged individuals are leveraging public legal assistance and a receptive judicial system to hold the state accountable to its mandates and to have their medical needs met,” Biehl said.

Further reading:

Abbott, Collette, Benjamin Tiede, George Armah and Adel Mahmoud. 2012. “Evaluation of Cost-Effectiveness of Live Oral Pentavalent Reassortant Rotavirus Vaccine Introduction in Ghana.” Vaccine. Vol. 30: 2582-87. Biehl, João, Joseph J. Amon, Mariana P. Socal and Adriana Petryna. “Between the Court and the Clinic: Lawsuits for Medicines and the Right to Health in Brazil.” Health and Human Rights, Vol. 14, no. 1: 1-17. Bharti, Nina, Andrew J. Tatem, Matthew J. Ferrari, Rebecca F. Grais, Ali Djibo and Bryan T. Grenfell. 2011. “Explaining Seasonal Fluctuations of Measles in Niger Using Nighttime Lights Imagery,” Science. Vol. 334, no. 6061: 1424-27. Currie, Janet and Maya Rossin-Slater. 2012. “Weathering the Storm: Hurricanes and Birth Outcomes.” NBER Working Paper No. 18070. May 2012. JEL No. I12. Ng, Wai-Leung, Lark Perez, Jianping Cong, Martin F. Semmelhack and Bonnie L. Bassler. 2012. “Broad Spectrum Pro-Quorum-Sensing Molecules as Inhibitors of Virulence in Vibrios.” PLoS Pathog., Vol. 8, no. 6: e1002767. Rinaldo, Andrea, Enrico Bertuzzo, Lorenzo Mari, Lorenzo Righetto, Melanie Blokesch, Marino Gatto, Renato Casagrandi, Megan Murray, Silvan M. Vesenbeckh and Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe. 2012. “Reassessment of the 2010–2011 Haiti Cholera Outbreak and Rainfall-Driven Multiseason Projections.” PNAS, Vol. 109, no. 17: 6602-07. Sun, Lova, Eili Y. Klein and Ramanan Laxminarayan. 2012. “Seasonality and Temporal Correlation between Community Antibiotic Use and Resistance in the United States.” Clin. Infect. Dis. Vol. 55, no. 5: 687-94.

Senior thesis research in global health Rotavirus vaccination for children under 5 in Ghana would be a highly cost-effective public health intervention, according to a Princeton study published in the journal Vaccine in February 2012. First author Collette Abbott, a 2010 Princeton graduate, conducted the work as part of her senior thesis with Adel Mahmoud of Princeton and George Armah, an epidemiologist at the University of Ghana. With support from the Princeton Environmental Institute and other Princeton senior thesis support funds, Abbott (pictured above, right, with Frederick Asamoah, left, of the University of Ghana Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research) lived in the village of Agogo, Ghana, for two months, a move she said was crucial for her research. “If I had conducted the research from a library in the United States,” said Abbott, “then I would not have been able to fully explore the impact of the vaccine on Ghanaian children.”

GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH 31

Princeton’s Versatile High-Performance Computers

32

Three miles from the main campus, Princeton’s high-performance computers hum undisturbed, cranking out projections of what happens when a neutron star encounters a black hole — things don’t go well for the neutron star — working out how trees know when it is safe to put out their spring leaves, and designing drug candidates for treating inflammatory diseases. The assortment of projects these machines tackle is a testament to the role of “big data” in scientific research as well as to Princeton’s pioneering philosophy of making high-performance computers available to any University researcher in need of these powerful resources. “Princeton’s approach is really unique,” said Jeroen Tromp, the Blair Professor of Geology and director of the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (PICSciE), which oversees the new facility in conjunction with the University’s Office of Information Technology. “At most universities, researchers work department-by-department or individually to get the computing resources they need.” In November 2011, Princeton consolidated its silicon workforce — consisting of five high-performance clusters located in various locations around campus — in a state-of-the-art facility on Princeton’s Forrestal Campus. The facility is the centerpiece of Princeton’s innovative plan to provide robust computing resources to all faculty members and researchers.

Modeling the creation of gravitational waves They start as tsunamis out in space but by the time they reach Earth, gravitational waves are mere ripples. Predicted by Einstein, these waves have never been detected, but three observatories — in the United States, Japan and Germany — are actively seeking proof they exist. Physics professor Frans Pretorius uses the University’s high-performance computers to model the emergence of gravitational waves from their origins in the violent collisions of black holes and other extremely dense objects. With assistance from graduate student William East and former postdoctoral researcher Branson Stephens, now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Pretorius is using the computers to run simulations of these collisions and follow the resulting waves through time to see what they will look like by the time they reach Earth. Modeling these waves as they reach Earth could inform gravitational wavehunters what signatures to look for in otherwise noisy data, as the observatories are sensitive to a variety of other

disturbances, including natural seismic activity. “If we know what the waves coming from these collisions should look like, then we will know what to look for in the data collected at these observatories,” Pretorius said. Pretorius’ simulations reveal what can happen when a neutron star encounters a black hole. At first the neutron star and the black hole circle each other in a slow elliptical dance. As the neutron star succumbs to the pull of the black hole’s gravity, the dance speeds up and the two get closer and closer until the star falls into the black hole and is ripped apart. The result is a tremendous release of energy, Pretorius said. “It is like taking a tenth of the sun and converting it entirely into gravitational wave energy within a few milliseconds.” The work, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, was published in Astrophysical Journal Letters in July 2011. Modeling this process is computationally intensive. “We cannot just run one simulation to understand what is going on,” Pretorius said. “For example, we

These panels illustrate key phases of the interaction between a black hole and neutron star that may occur in eccentric collisions depending on how closely the black hole and neutron star approach each other on the initial encounter. Modeling work led by physics professor Frans Pretorius shows the motion of the two bodies whirling about one other, the neutron star being tidally stretched into long streams of matter, and finally the merger of the two, leaving behind a whirling disk of matter accreting into the black hole. (Image courtesy of Frans Pretorius)

RESEARCH COMPUTING 33

In this computer model of a central Massachusetts forest, different colors represent different tree species. David Medvigy, an assistant professor of geosciences, is exploring ways to incorporate trees into climate models to better understand the trees’ influence on carbon dioxide levels. (Image courtesy of David Medvigy)

need to vary the spin of the black hole, the mass ratio, the equation of state of the neutron star — there are a huge number of parameters that we need to explore.” Pretorius’ models of what this energy looks like by the time it reaches Earth will help gravitational-wave observatories in their search. And he said there is another perk of detecting gravitational waves — confirming the existence of black holes. “So far we have inferred that black holes exist,” Pretorius said, “but detecting gravitational waves would be the first real observation of them.”

Tracing trees’ carbon dioxide levels If black hole collisions seem out of this world, then the research of David Medvigy is something most of us can relate to — the climate. Medvigy, an assistant professor of geosciences, uses high-performance computers to model the Earth’s climate, and he has noted that many of these models are missing something big: trees. Because modeling the Earth’s climate is so complex, trees are often represented as a single species or as a single, gigantic leaf covering the landscape. Yet trees are significant carbon storage mechanisms, so depicting them accurately is important, Medvigy said. To address this issue, he set out to explore the effect of deciduous trees, which drop their leaves every winter and regrow them each spring, on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. “We all know that trees put out their leaves in springtime, and this new growth results in the uptake of carbon dioxide,”

34 RESEARCH COMPUTING

Medvigy said. “My objective was to write Medvigy and Jeong added their buddown an equation that would describe burst simulation to an existing climate leaf extension.” model created by Elena Shevliakova The timing of leaf extension, or spring and Sergey Malyshev, both affiliated budburst, determines when trees begin with Princeton’s Department of Ecology taking up carbon dioxide, which in turn and Evolutionary Biology and GFDL. influences how much carbon dioxide is The researchers found that their model taken up by trees each year. showed carbon uptake from deciduous Most models used temperature as the trees happening about 11 days earlier driver of budburst — when the weather than previous models — representing a turns warmer, the trees respond by put6 percent increase in the amount of ting out new leaves. But the models were carbon they took in during the year — not very good at predicting when this and that the model compared well to would occur, so Medvigy reasoned that actual tree behavior at forest sites there was another factor besides temacross the United States. The work was perature that was helping trees “decide” funded by NOAA and published in the that winter was over. Journal of Geophysical Research in By trying a number of parameters in March 2012. their computerized model, Medvigy and his colleagues found “My objective was to write down that, in addition to an equation that would describe temperature, trees also take into leaf extension.” account how many -David Medvigy cold days have Assistant Professor of Geosciences passed. By taking the cumulative number of cold days as a rough estimate of how far winter has Designing better drug candidates progressed, trees may be likely to avoid Princeton’s high-performance computexposing new, fragile leaves to frost by ers also provide new knowledge at the waiting until a certain number of cold microscopic level of the protein. These days have elapsed, the team found. complex molecules do most of the jobs The Princeton team included Su-Jong in the body, including providing structure Jeong, a postdoctoral researcher in the to cells, giving drugs access to cells Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sci- and forming antibodies that detect and ences, a collaboration between Princeton eliminate disease-causing microbes. and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics One thing all proteins have in common Laboratory (GFDL), a climate studies lab is that they are composed of bulky chains of amino acids. These amino acids fold located on Princeton’s Forrestal Campus and administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

ling inflammation in diseases such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, stroke and sepsis. The team, which included collaborators Dimitrios Morikis and his team at the University of California-Riverside, and Princeton chemical and biological engineering postdoctoral researcher Christopher Kieslich, used molecular-dynamics simulations — computer programs that mimic the physical movements of atoms and “This is an example of how computer molecules — modeling and optimization can lead to to create a 3-D model of a protein novel therapies that have the potential to structure called make a difference in patient treatment.” the C3a receptor, which sits on the -Christodoulos Floudas surface of human the Stephen C. Macaleer '63 Professor cells and plays in Engineering and Applied Science a critical role in regulating immune responses. Then former Princeton graduate students Meghan Bellows-PeFloudas’ early models were some of the first to depict amino acid chains as being terson, Class of 2011, and Ho Ki Fung, Class of 2008, designed short portions flexible rather than having fixed backbones. Using these models, it is possible of proteins called peptides that bind to the C3a receptor and either block or to predict, starting from only the amino enhance aspects of its activity. acid sequence, the structure of the folded 3-D protein. The computations can After synthesizing the predicted peptides, collaborators led by Peter Monk take a month of computer time. at the University of Sheffield Medical Floudas and his team are modeling School in England and Trent Woodruff protein structures that are known to be at the University of Queensland in important in governing certain immune Australia tested the peptides and showed system responses. Their work has the potential to lead to new routes of control- that they behaved as predicted in cells. upon themselves in ways more precise than the most elegant origami. Understanding how proteins fold could enable researchers to devise new treatments for a variety of diseases. Developing models of folding and designing new proteins is the research focus of Christodoulos Floudas, the Stephen C. Macaleer ’63 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton.

The team published their results in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. “This is an example of how computer modeling and optimization can lead to novel therapies that have the potential to make a difference in patient treatment,” Floudas said. Funding for Floudas’ work came from the National Institutes of Health, the NSF and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Further reading:

Bellows-Peterson, Meghan L., Ho Ki Fung, Christodoulos A. Floudas, Chris A. Kieslich, Li Zhang, Dimitrios Morikis, Kathryn J. Wareham, Peter N. Monk, Owen A. Hawksworth and Trent M. Woodruff. 2012. “De Novo Peptide Design with C3a Receptor Agonist and Antagonist Activities: Theoretical Predictions and Experimental Validation.” J. Med. Chem., Vol. 55, no. 9: 4159-68. Jeong, Su-Jong, David Medvigy, Elena Shevliakova and Sergei Malyshev. 2012. “Uncertainties in Terrestrial Carbon Budgets Related to Spring Phenology.” J. Geophys. Res., Vol. 117, G01030. Stephens, Branson C., William E. East and Frans Pretorius. 2011. “Eccentric Black HoleNeutron Star Mergers.” Astrophys. J., Lett. Vol., 737: L5.

Several diseases including stroke, heart attack and rheumatoid arthritis are believed to involve the C3a receptor, pictured left. Christodoulos Floudas, Princeton’s Stephen C. Macaleer ’63 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science, is using computer modeling to design potential drug molecules that interact with the C3a receptor. (Image courtesy of Christodoulos Floudas)

RESEARCH COMPUTING 35

Princeton’s International REseArCH Building relationships, sharing strengths, creating networks

High above the surfboards and beach umbrellas, a telescope on Hawaii’s tallest mountain is about to get a makeover. In collaboration with researchers from Japan, Taiwan, Brazil and France, Princeton astrophysicists are adding new instruments to the Japanese-run Subaru Telescope at Hawaii’s Mauna Kea observatory with the goal of surveying distant galaxies and expanding our knowledge of the universe. This collaboration among astrophysicists from select universities around the globe is one of four new Global Collaborative Networks at Princeton. These networks — two in anthropology, one in classics and one in astrophysical sciences — encourage Princeton researchers to engage with centers of learning worldwide. These initiatives complement the many informal collaborations among faculty members. The new programs create research opportunities for junior scholars such as postdoctoral researchers and graduate and undergraduate students at Princeton and its partner institutions. The centers are funded by the Princeton Global Collaborative Networks Fund and supported in part by Spanish bank Banco Santander and the University of São Paulo in Brazil. “At Princeton, ’going global’ means not only shipping Princeton researchers out into the world but also bringing the world to Princeton,” said Jeremy Adelman, director of the Council for International Teaching and Research and the Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor in Spanish Civilization and Culture. “Researchers from Princeton and our global partners will benefit from the ’coattail effect’ of bringing what they have learned back to the home institution.” The network program is one of several initiatives that strengthen the University’s relationships with exceptional research institutions around the world. Last year, Princeton began planning a new strategic partnership with the University of São Paulo, Latin America’s top-ranked university. The University also is launching long-term partnerships with renowned institutions in Japan and Germany.

This camera lens was added to the Subaru Telescope to enable a survey of the universe. (Image copyright: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan)

“We will be able to probe questions about dark matter and dark energy and make a 3-D map of the distant Universe.” -Michael Strauss Professor of Astrophysical Sciences

“Princeton places high value on interactions with leading scholars from around the globe and the intellectual achievements that arise from these collaborations,” said Provost Christopher Eisgruber. “We are in the process of strengthening ties that have tremendous benefits for the advancement of knowledge, both within our community of scholars and with scholars at other institutions.”

Observatory of Japan as well as researchers from other institutions in the United States, France, Taiwan and Brazil. The Princeton team is led by astrophysical sciences professor Michael Strauss; James Gunn, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Astronomy Emeritus; and Edwin Turner, a professor of astrophysical sciences. Also on the project are Robert Lupton, a senior research scientist, and Jenny Greene, an assistant professor, both in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences. SUMIRE With the camera and another In fall 2012 researchers obtained the first images from a new camera attached instrument called a spectrograph to be installed in the next few years, the to the Subaru Telescope. The camera research team will survey and catalogue is part of an international collaboration galaxies, stars, quasars and other called the Subaru Measurements of objects that populate the universe. Images and REdshifts, or SUMIRE “We will be able to probe questions (soo-mee-ray). about dark matter and dark energy and The SUMIRE network is a collaboration between Princeton and astrophysical make a 3-D map of the distant Universe,” scientists from the National Astronomical Strauss said.

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH 37

“We have such a wonderful opportunity to learn from our colleagues in research institutions in the regions where we study.” -Carolyn Rouse

Professor of anthropology and African American studies

Engaged anthropology Anthropologists are accustomed to working directly with the people and cultures they study, but academic researchers sometimes overlook a rich source of knowledge: the works of scholars who live in the region being studied. The engaged anthropology network aims to revolutionize this practice by learning from scholars around the world which research topics matter to them and how they define research ethics. The network will bring Princeton anthropologists together with scholars from South Africa, India, Brazil and Japan. The goal is to send students into the field with research questions and methods that are relevant and appropriate to the groups they are studying, and to connect students with anthropologists housed in international institutions. “We have such a wonderful opportunity to learn from our colleagues in research institutions in the regions where we study,” said Princeton professor of anthropology and African American studies Carolyn Rouse, who co-leads the network with anthropology professors John Borneman and Rena Lederman. “Yet too often we miss out on this resource. This effort is about getting researchers in the field to tell us what matters.”

38 INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH

Rouse said she noticed the need for input from regional scholars when setting up her own research project, which involves building a high school on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana. “University students conducting independent research abroad are not always aware of the concerns of the people they come to study,” Rouse said. “For example, students may think health is the most important issue. But in Ghana, agriculture, land, mining and now oil extraction are also critical issues.” The anthropology network of scholars will enable students to connect with regional scholars who will give them a greater sense of all the research possibilities, Rouse said. “If you really want to be able to listen, you have to put your expectations aside,” said Rouse, noting that some Western scholars will have to break out of their comfort zones. “If we make it easy for ourselves,” she said, “then we are not doing the work we need to do.”

Post-classicism Just as the monuments in our nation’s capital were inspired by the designs of ancient Greece and Rome, so have many cultures embraced ancient objects, texts and concepts for their own use. The exploration of how these ideals and artifacts have been received by later societies is called “reception studies.” The post-classicism network aims to move beyond the study of how classics were received to incorporate their importance for the present and future. To encourage new opportunities to shape this growing discipline, the network engages researchers in England, Germany, Italy and Australia with Princeton researchers led by Constanze Güthenke, associate professor of classics and Hellenic studies, and Brooke Holmes, the Elias Boudinot Bicentennial Preceptor and associate professor of classics. “This effort moves beyond a collection of individual or national case studies in reception studies to the question of what a global field of classics in the 21st century would be,” Güthenke said.

Race and citizenship in the Americas Brazil and the United States are both post-slavery societies, and both have striven to address racial segregation in different ways with mixed success. The race and citizenship in the Americas network aims to explore and compare the ways that these two nations, as well as other nations in the Caribbean and Latin America, have attempted to reverse the legacy of slavery. Through this network, researchers from the University of São Paulo will exchange ideas and knowledge with Princeton students led by Pedro Meira Monteiro, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures and João Biehl, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Anthropology. “We want to study the interface of race, citizenship and social mobility through a comparative perspective that will bring together Princeton and Brazilian scholars from a variety of intellectual traditions and diverse disciplinary perspectives,” Biehl said. “Our idea is to sustain these partnerships over time and to bring a collaborative critical perspective to the intellectual debates and concrete struggles over concepts of race and citizenship.” Above: A view of post-slavery society: The sorting of coffee beans was a laborious task usually given to young girls, as shown in this 1948 picture taken during field research by Stanley Stein, Princeton’s Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor in Spanish Civilization and Culture Emeritus, for his book Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850-1900. (Reissued by Princeton University Press in 1986)

Left: A post-classicism perspective: In this photograph of Athens taken between 1868 and 1875 by French photographer Félix Bonfils, the absence of people was intentional. Bonfils created commercial photographs meant to appeal to Western tourists, so his images reflect a noble and refined city, consistent with the vision of Greece as the foundation of Western civilization. The photograph shows the Arch of Hadrian with the Acropolis in the background. (Image courtesy of Princeton University Library Rare Books and Special Collections)

INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH 39

Sun on Earth: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

the

Each second, the sun makes 100 million times more energy than the entire world population consumes in a year. Harnessing the source of the sun’s power — fusion — would ensure a safe, clean and virtually limitless way to meet global electricity needs. Discovering how to produce fusion on Earth is the primary mission of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).

To achieve this goal, scientists at

PPPL have embarked on a $94 million

upgrade of its main fusion experiment, the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX). To be complete in 2014, the upgrade will make NSTX the most powerful experimental fusion device of its kind in the world. The upgrade “will provide a huge boost to all NSTX science missions and enhance U.S. fusion research capability,” said Stewart Prager, director of PPPL, which is managed by Princeton and located about three miles from the main campus. The makeover will boost all the principal capabilities of the NSTX, which began operating in 1999 (see text box on

40

page 41 for details on the NSTX upgrade). The revamped three-story-tall device, which is shaped like a cored apple and is known as a spherical tokamak, will heat charged gases, or plasma, to as high as 60 million degrees Celsius — six times hotter than the sun’s core — and confine the plasma in substantially strengthened magnetic fields. This will create conditions inside the machine that are similar to those required for fusion, which occurs when the atomic nuclei in plasma merge at extremely high temperatures and release a burst of energy. Producing a sustained fusion reaction that releases more energy than is needed to create the reaction is the ultimate goal of fusion research.

Work at PPPL also has moved ahead on many other fronts. In April 2012, PPPL physicists David Gates and Luis DelgadoAparicio proposed a solution to a critical barrier to producing fusion known as the density limit, which can prevent fusion reactors from operating at maximum efficiency. In a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Gates and Delgado-Aparicio theorized that the problem was caused by tiny bubblelike islands that erupt in the superhot plasma. These islands grow, leak heat and block power as the plasma becomes denser, and when the limit is reached the plasma spirals break apart into a

flash of light. The physicists hope to test their theory by injecting power directly into the islands to see if this will lead to higher density. If proven correct, the theory could bring researchers closer to developing fusion as a clean and abundant source of energy.

New collaborations The laboratory has joined forces with other research institutions in collaborative ventures during the past year. In March 2012, Princeton teamed up with Germany’s Max Planck Society to create an institute designed to accelerate progress in plasma-based research, including harnessing fusion and understanding solar storms. The new Max Planck Princeton Research Center for Plasma Physics will combine the resources of PPPL and the Princeton Department of Astrophysical Sciences with the Max Planck Society’s institutes for plasma physics, astrophysics and solar-system research. Researchers will collaborate from their current locations on projects that are crucial to both fusion and to astrophysical plasmas, which make up 99 percent of the visible universe. Working with Max Planck in a separate collaboration, PPPL scientists designed

barn door-sized components called “trim coils” for the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, an experimental fusion facility that the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics is building in Greifswald, Germany. The trim coils will help confine the plasma within a magnetic field shaped like a spiral wrapped around a circle. Researchers at PPPL also will conduct experiments on the stellarator, which, like the tokamak, is a major configuration for experimental fusion facilities. In another collaborative effort, PPPL scientists led by physicist Erik Gilson last fall designed and delivered a crucial component for a linear accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory based at the University of California-Berkeley. The copper-clad component resembles a spyglass and produces a plasma that focuses the accelerator beam down to a point that can heat a spot of foil to 30,000 degrees Celsius in less than a billionth of a second to create a substance called warm dense matter that researchers are eager to study. Gilson’s component completes the Berkeley Lab’s Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment-II, or NDCX-II, accelerator, and marks the third generation of plasma sources that Gilson has designed since 2001 for Berkeley Lab accelerators.

Scientists working under the leadership of PPPL also have developed a novel diagnostic instrument, called a reflectometer, for ITER, a 10-story tokamak that the United States, the European Union and five other countries are building in France as the next major step in harnessing fusion power. The goal of ITER is to produce a sustained fusion reaction by the late 2020s that will put out more energy than is needed to create it. ITER would serve as a bridge to such reactors, which energy experts expect to be in operation around 2050. The PPPL-led team designed the reflectometer to measure electron density in plasma, which must be maintained at an optimal level for fusion to take place. The new design departs from that of standard reflectometers by using a space-saving single antenna system to measure electron density instead of the dual-antennae system commonly used today. Scientists at the University of California-Los Angeles and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory fabricated the novel system and it is being tested at the Department of Energy’s DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics in San Diego. The results of these tests could bring researchers closer to creating and controlling the power of the sun and stars.

Probing new facets of fusion science Scientists at PPPL will focus on the following areas when the upgrade of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is complete.

• Confinement under heat: Higher temperatures reduce the rate at which plasma particles collide with one another inside the machine, which means that less plasma energy escapes magnetic confinement. Jonathan Menard, a principal research physicist and program director for the NSTX, said that if the upgrade can effectively control the hotter plasma, “we could achieve high fusion power in a pretty compact machine, and that could make machines cheaper in the future.” • Controlling electrical current: The upgrade will double the electric current that runs through the plasma and helps form the magnetic fields that confine it. Researchers will test new ways to sustain this current because future reactors will operate under conditions that could damage the coil, or solenoid, that delivers the current to the plasma. Eliminating the solenoid “is extremely important,” said Masayuki Ono, a principal research physicist who heads the NSTX department at PPPL. “If we can demonstrate that, we will have a very solid basis to design the next-step machine.”

Alba Castano, a lead radio frequency technician at PPPL, prepares radio frequency transmission systems for heating NSTX plasma. Previous page: An interior view of the lower portion of the NSTX vacuum vessel.

• Preventing plasma escape: Hot plasma particles that escape confinement can damage the tokamak’s interior surfaces, pump impurities into the plasma and shut down the fusion reaction. PPPL researchers coated parts of the existing NSTX with lithium, a metal that turns liquid when struck by stray particles and sponges up the impurities. But the enhanced NSTX could result in more escaping particles and PPPL researchers are seeking solutions. How PPPL scientists handle the increased power flux could serve as a model for ITER. PRINCETON PLASMA PHYSICS LABORATORY 41

FACULTY HONORS Memberships and Fellowships American Academy of Arts and Letters Elizabeth Diller, professor of architecture (2012) American Academy of Arts and Sciences Roland Benabou, the Theodore A. Wells ’29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs (2011) John Burgess, the John N. Woodhull Professor of Philosophy (2012) Stanley Corngold, professor of German and comparative literature emeritus (2011) Edward Felten, professor of computer science and public affairs (2011) Daniel Garber, the Stuart Professor of Philosophy (2011) Carol Greenhouse, the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Anthropology (2012) Igor Klebanov, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics (2012) David MacMillan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry (2012)

William Morgan, the Knox Taylor Professor of Geology Emeritus (2011) Athanassios Panagiotopoulos, the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering (2012) Ignacio Rodríguez-Iturbe, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2012) Thomas Romer, professor of politics and public affairs (2011) P. Adams Sitney, professor of visual arts in the Lewis Center for the Arts (2011) David Spergel, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation (2012) Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon ’69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2011) Keith Whittington, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics (2012)

Princeton economist Christopher Sims wins Nobel Prize in economics Princeton professor Christopher Sims was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in economics along with Thomas Sargent, a New York University economist and a visiting professor at Princeton at the time, for developing tools to analyze the effect of monetary policy on the economy. Sims, the John F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor of Economics, has been a faculty member at Princeton since 1999. Sims and Sargent were honored for their work in answering “questions regarding the causal relationship between economic policy and different macroeconomic variables such as GDP (gross domestic product), inflation, employment and investments,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted in announcing the award.

42 FACULTY HONORS

American Academy of Political and Social Science Alejandro Portes, the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology (2012) American Association for the Advancement of Science Pablo Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science; vice dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (2011) Bryan Grenfell, the Kathryn Briger and Sarah Fenton Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs (2011) William Russel, dean of the Graduate School and the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Chemical Engineering (2011) Alexander Smits, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2011) John Storey, professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics (2011) Ned Wingreen, the Howard A. Prior Professor in the Life Sciences (2011)

Princeton biologist Bonnie Bassler receives L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science award Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, was among five scientists worldwide selected to receive the 2012 For Women in Science Award presented by UNESCO and cosmetics company L’Oréal. The award, now in its 14th year, recognizes women whose work promotes the advancement of science. Bassler and her fellow honorees received their awards and a prize of $100,000 during a ceremony at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Bassler is the second Princeton recipient after President Shirley M. Tilghman, a renowned molecular biologist who received the award in 2002. Bassler has been a faculty member at the University since 1994 and is best known for her efforts to understand quorum sensing, the process by which bacteria communicate.

American Philosophical Society Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology (2012) Natalie Davis, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Emeritus (2011) Carol Greenhouse, the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Anthropology (2011) Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs (2011) Brent Shaw, the Andrew Fleming West Professor in Classics (2012) Christopher Sims, the John F. Sherrerd ’52 University Professor of Economics (2012) Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Bert G. Kerstetter ’66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs (2011)

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Eve Aschheim, lecturer in visual arts and the Lewis Center for the Arts (2012) Michael Gordin, professor of history (2011) Laura Landweber, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (2012) Melissa Lane, professor of politics (2012) Simon Morrison, professor of music (2011) Eldar Shafir, the William Stewart Tod Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs (2012)

National Academy of Engineering Christodoulos Floudas, the Stephen C. Macaleer ’63 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science (2011) Kai Li, the Paul M. Wythes ’55 P86 and Marcia R. Wythes P86 Professor in Computer Science (2012) Richard Miles, the Robert Porter Patterson Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2011) Alexander Smits, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2011) New York Academy of Medicine Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs (2012)

FACULTY HONORS 43

Four Princeton researchers receive inaugural Simons Investigators award

Clockwise from left: Frans Pretorius, Manjul Bhargava, Sanjeev Arora and Amit Singer Princeton University faculty members were selected in 2012 as four of 21 inaugural Simons Investigators, a prestigious program aimed at supporting research by mathematicians, theoretical physicists and theoretical computer scientists. Each faculty member will receive an initial five-year, $500,000 grant from the New York-based Simons Foundation, which is dedicated to advancing the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. Recipients of the award did not know they were being considered. The four Princeton awardees were: Manjul Bhargava, the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics, who was honored in mathematics for his work in the field of algebraic number theory and the geometry of numbers; Amit Singer, an associate professor of mathematics and the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics, who was honored in mathematics for contributions to a variety of problems in applied mathematics; Sanjeev Arora, the Charles C. Fitzmorris Professor in Computer Science, who was honored in computer science for his work in theoretical computer science; and Frans Pretorius, a professor of physics, who was honored in physics for seminal contributions to the numerical solution of the equations of general relativity. The award honors the foundation’s chairman, James Simons, a renowned mathematician and investment strategist whose work on measurements known as Chern-Simons invariants has been highly influential in theoretical physics.

44 FACULTY HONORS

National Academy of Sciences William Bialek, the John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics (2012) Pablo Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science; vice dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (2012) David Gabai, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of Mathematics (2011) John Groves, the Hugh Stott Taylor Chair of Chemistry (2012) Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs (2011) Nai Phuan Ong, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics (2012) Loren Pfeiffer, senior research scholar, electrical engineering (2011) H. Vincent Poor, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Michael Henry Strater University Professor of Electrical Engineering (2011) Simons Foundation Fellowships Michael Aizenman, professor of physics and mathematics (2011) Steven Gubser, professor of physics (2011) Janos Kollar, the Donner Professor of Science and professor of mathematics (2011) Elliot Lieb, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics (2011) Paul Steinhardt, the Albert Einstein Professor in Science (2011) Salvatore Torquato, professor of chemistry and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (2011) Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Philip Holmes, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2011) Naomi Leonard, the Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (2012) Robert Vanderbei, professor of operations research and financial engineering (2012) Turing Centenary Research Project: Turing Fellow Mark Braverman, assistant professor of computer science (2012)

National Distinctions for Early-Career Researchers Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship Gáspár Bakos, assistant professor of astrophysical sciences (2012) Sylvain Chassang, professor of economics and public affairs and Class of 1934 Preceptor in the Woodrow Wilson School (2011) Abigail Doyle, assistant professor of chemistry (2012) Michael Freedman, assistant professor of computer science (2011) Mala Murthy, assistant professor of molecular biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (2011) Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award Celeste Nelson, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering (2012)

DuPont Young Professor Award A. James Link, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering (2011) Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator Research Grant Mala Murthy, assistant professor of molecular biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (2011) McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience Mala Murthy, assistant professor of molecular biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute: McKnight Scholar (2012) Samuel Wang, associate professor of molecular biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute: Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award (2012)

National Geographic Emerging Explorer Iain Couzin, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology (2012) National Science Foundation CAREER Award Mala Murthy, assistant professor of molecular biology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (2011) Rodney Priestley, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering (2011) Philippe Rigollet, assistant professor of operations research and financial engineering (2011)

Princeton poet Tracy K. Smith wins Pulitzer Prize Tracy K. Smith, an assistant professor of creative writing in Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts, won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Life on Mars, which the prize committee called “a collection of bold, skillful poems, taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain.” The Pulitzer Prize for poetry recognizes a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. Life on Mars follows Smith’s 2007 collection, Duende, which won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, the only award for poetry in the United States given to support a poet’s second book, and the first Essence Literary Award for poetry, which recognizes the literary achievements of African Americans. The Body’s Question (2003) was her first published collection.

FACULTY HONORS 45

Princeton historian Peter Brown wins international Balzan Prize Peter Brown, Princeton’s Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History Emeritus, and senior historian, received the 2011 Balzan Prize for his research on ancient history, specifically the Greco-Roman world. Four Balzan Prizes are awarded annually to recognize scholars, scientists or artists who are internationally distinguished in their fields.

Prizes and Distinctions New York Academy of Sciences Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Bogdan Bernevig, the Eugene and Mary Wigner Assistant Professor in Theoretical Physics (2012)

American Academy of Arts and Sciences Daniel Kahneman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus: 2011 Talcott Parsons Prize

U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Rodney Priestley, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering (2012)

American Association for Cancer Research Yibin Kang, the Warner-Lambert/ Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology: 2012 Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Andrew Houck, associate professor of electrical engineering (2011) Hakan Türeci, assistant professor of electrical engineering (2011) U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator David Blei, associate professor of computer science (2011) William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Elizabeth Paluck, assistant professor of psychology and public affairs and the John Maclean Jr. Presidential University Preceptor (2012)

46 FACULTY HONORS

American Historical Association Michael Reynolds, associate professor of Near Eastern studies: 2011 George Louis Beer Prize American Institute of Chemical Engineers Lynn Loo, professor of chemical and biological engineering: 2012 Owens Corning Award Celeste Nelson, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering: 2011 Allan P. Colburn Award

American Philosophical Society William Chester Jordan, the DaytonStockton Professor of History: 2012 Henry Allen Moe Prize American Physical Society Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry: 2012 James C. McGroddy Prize in New Materials James Stone, professor of astrophysical sciences and applied and computational mathematics: 2011 Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics American Sociological Association Douglas Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs: 2012 Award for Public Understanding of Sociology Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Benjamin Elman, the Gordon Wu ’58 Professor of Chinese Studies and professor of East Asian studies and history: 2011 Distinguished Achievement Award

Astronomical Society of the Pacific Jeremiah Ostriker, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation Emeritus: 2011 Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal

Two Princeton researchers receive highest government award for science

Bancroft Prize Daniel Rodgers, the Henry Charles Lea Professor of History: Award for “Age of Fracture” (Harvard University Press, 2011) BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award Angus Deaton, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs: 2011 Award in Economics, Finance and Management Isaac Held, lecturer with the rank of professor in geosciences and atmospheric and oceanic sciences: 2011 Award in Climate Change Dan David Foundation David Botstein, the Anthony B. Evnin ’62 Professor of Genomics: 2012 Laureate, Genome Research

David Blei (left) and Michael Freedman Two Princeton professors have received the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.  David Blei and Michael Freedman, both in the Department of Computer Science, were honored by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy based on the recommendations of federal departments and agencies. Blei, an associate professor of computer science, was nominated by the U.S. Department of Defense for his work to create methods for computers to analyze huge collections of documents to find themes hidden within them. Freedman, an assistant professor of computer science, was nominated by the National Science Foundation for creating distributed systems that handle the scale, dynamism and critical importance of our emerging computing infrastructure. The annual award, established in 1996, is given to professionals in recognition of “innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach,” according to the White House.

FACULTY HONORS 47

Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation Chang-rae Lee, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts: 2011 Prize in Fiction Gruber Foundation and the International Astronomical Union: 2012 Gruber Cosmology Prize for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite project: Norman Jarosik, senior research physicist Lyman Page Jr., the Henry De Wolf Smyth Professor of Physics Kendrick Smith, postdoctoral research associate, astrophysical sciences David Spergel, the Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy on the Class of 1897 Foundation

Law and Society Association Carol Greenhouse, the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Anthropology: 2011 Harry J. Kalven Jr. Prize

Poets & Writers Inc. James Richardson, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts: 2011 Jackson Poetry Prize

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Steven Mackey, professor of music: 2011 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Zeev Dvir, assistant professor of computer science and mathematics: 2012 Dénes König Prize

National Academy of Sciences Paul Reider, lecturer in chemistry: 2011 Award for Chemistry in Service to Society Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology: 2011 Richard Lounsbery Award

Harold T. Shapiro receives National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal Harold T. Shapiro (left), Princeton president emeritus and a professor of economics and public affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, was awarded the 2012 National Academy of Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal for his efforts to promote public understanding of controversial and complex scientific issues. The medal is awarded annually to honor extraordinary use of science for the public good and is considered the academy’s most prestigious award.

48 FACULTY HONORS

Toni Morrison receives Presidential Medal of Freedom Toni Morrison, Nobel laureate and Princeton’s Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities Emeritus, was named by President Barack Obama as a 2012 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. The 13 recipients are individuals who have made “especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” according to the White House. The awards, which were inaugurated in 1945, were presented at a White House ceremony. Morrison joined Princeton in 1989 as a member of the creative writing program. She retired in 2006 and continues to write. She is the author of 10 novels, including Beloved, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988, as well as The Bluest Eye, Sula, Song of Solomon, Jazz and Home.

International Prizes and Distinctions Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Robert Cava, the Russell Wellman Moore Professor of Chemistry: 2012 Humboldt Research Award Australian Government Peter Singer, the Ira W. Decamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values: 2012 Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia British Academy Michael Cook, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Near Eastern Studies: 2011 Corresponding Fellow Canadian Historical Association Brent Shaw, the Andrew Fleming West Professor in Classics: 2012 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize

Chinese Academy of Sciences Stephen Chou, the Joseph C. Elgin Professor of Engineering: 2011 Einstein Professorship François Morel, the Albert G. Blanke, Jr., Professor of Geosciences: 2011 Einstein Professorship

Royal Society Bonnie Bassler, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology: 2012 Foreign Member David MacMillan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry: 2012 Fellow

International Society for Computational Biology Olga Troyanskaya, associate professor of computer science and the LewisSigler Institute for Integrative Genomics: 2011 Overton Prize

Society for Social Choice and Welfare Adam Meirowitz, the John Work Garrett Professor in Politics: 2012 Social Choice and Welfare Prize

Norwegian University of Science and Technology George Scherer, the William L. Knapp ’47 Professor of Civil Engineering and professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials: 2011 Lars Onsager Professorship

Toulouse Mathematics Institute Manjul Bhargava, the Brandon Fradd, Class of 1983, Professor of Mathematics: 2011 Fermat Prize for Mathematical Research Igor Rodnianski, professor of mathematics: 2011 Fermat Prize for Mathematical Research World Economic Forum Lynn Loo, professor of chemical and biological engineering: 2012 Young Global Leader

FACULTY HONORS 49

The Office of the Dean for Research supports Princeton’s mission to be one of the leading research universities in the world by uniting people, resources and opportunities for the creation, preservation and transmission of knowledge. The Dean for Research and the offices that report to the dean — Research and Project Administration, Corporate and Foundation Relations, Technology Licensing, Research Integrity and Assurance, and Laboratory Animal Resources — work together to steward and administer our thriving research enterprise. Additionally, the dean for research, with the advice of the University Research Board, is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies on sponsored research. Princeton’s research administration provides the environment and tools required for continued creativity and productivity. This environment includes guidance and oversight to ensure that research is conducted with the highest scientific and ethical standards; access to resources that enable researchers to compete effectively for research funding; development of relationships between the University and corporations and foundations; and

protection of the University’s intellectual property rights to make discoveries available to the public.

tory (PPPL), which is managed by the University (figure B). The number of research proposals submitted has grown by nearly 15 percent during the past five years from 924 in FY2008 to 1,061 in FY2012. Between FY2009 and FY2012, 84 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) awards resulted in $30 million to help further research and education at the University (not including PPPL). This funding enabled the creation of vigorous research programs that continue to thrive — despite the expiration of ARRA funding — due to the success of Princeton faculty in obtaining highly competitive awards.

Support for research Federal support for research is essential as a driver of innovation that benefits the national economy. The majority of the University’s research funding (83 percent) comes from federal agencies (see figure A). Another 14 percent comes from corporations and foundations, which are essential partners in funding endeavors that complement the federal investment in research. These include projects that combine research with education, projects that fill the gap between fundamental and applied research, and specific investigator-led projects. Sponsored research expenditures have grown steadily over the past 10 years from $138 million in 2003 to $192 million, excluding the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Labora-

Funding highlights include:

•The National Science Foundation

awarded $50 million to fund U.S. groups participating in the international Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration, one of two particle detectors at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organiza-

Figure A

Figure B

FY2012 Awards by Prime Sponsor*

FY2012 Sponsored Research Expenditures

National Institutes of Health

3% ($6 M) Other

(in millions of dollars) 2004

Princeton 142 71 PPPL

214



224

14%

($32 M)

5% ($12 M)

Industry

42%

($93 M) National Science Foundation

9% ($20 M)

2006

2008

Foundations

3% ($6 M) Other Federal Agencies 6% ($13 M) National Aeronautics and Space Administration

143 81

151 75

226





2010

10%

177 80

257

($23 M) Department of Defense

2012

8% ($18 M)



192 83



276

Department of Energy

*Awards as of September 20, 2012; all percentages rounded

50 Dean for research Annual report

All numbers rounded 50 100

0

150

200

250

300

tion for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva that discovered the Higgs boson as well as other new physics phenomena. Daniel Marlow, the Evans Crawford 1911 Professor of Physics, serves as the U.S. CMS Deputy Operations Program Manager.

2011 National Institutes of Health • The Energy and the Environment • AEarly Corporate Affiliates Program — led Independence Award, consist-

•The U.S. Department of Defense

awarded more than $1 million for the development of new theories and methods for evaluating “big data” generated from studies of the genome to understand biological regulatory networks. The awardee was John Storey, a professor of molecular biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics.

•The DOE provided nearly $1.5 million

for the development of a new class of high-efficiency, low-cost photovoltaic (solar) cells to James Sturm, the William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials.

by the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment in partnership with the Princeton Environmental Institute, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and the School of Architecture — enhances collaboration and promotes technology transfer between the University and its corporate partners. Three inaugural members were added in FY2012: PSEG at the Charter Member level, and Lockheed Martin and DuPont at the General Member level.

ing of $1.8 million, was given to associate research scholar Nicole Basta in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to fund her research on antibody persistence after conjugate meningococcal group A vaccination in Mali. Basta was one of only 10 recipients nationwide of the awards, which are intended to help exceptional scientists transition into independent careers.

Noteworthy foundation and corporate support in FY2012 includes:

he Andrew W. Mellon Foundation •Tawarded Princeton a $3.3 million

challenge grant to support the Fellows in the Creative and Performing Arts program, which will bring innovative early- to mid-career artists to campus and make the arts central to the undergraduate experience. The Mellon Foundation’s challenge grant has been matched through the gift of an anonymous alumnus.

• Sovereign Bank, part of Banco

Santander, signed a three-year, $1.5 million funding agreement to support international scholarly initiatives, enabling faculty and students to engage in a variety of educational experiences with institutions and scholars from around the globe.

Technology Transfer In FY2011, Princeton ranked fifth among American universities receiving royalty income, a fact that is even more impressive given the small scale of the University’s research enterprise in relation to other institutions earning similar revenues. Over the past decade, licensing income has increased dramatically (figure C). Princeton’s royalty income in FY2012 comes from research that led to the development of a cancer drug (Eli Lily & Co.’s Alimta®), a 3-D sound enhancement system (BACCH™ 3-D in Jawbone’s Jambox™ speaker) and organic light-emitting device technologies for smartphone screens (Universal Display Corp.), among others. In FY2012, the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) worked with 250 inventors from across campus on 106 newly disclosed inventions and 139 patent applications. OTL oversaw the issuance of 31 patents and the licensing of 27 technologies. Innovations developed at Princeton include those in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, ceramics and materials science, chemistry, computers and software, medical devices and diagnostics, and optoelectronics and electrical engineering. The University also supports the development of promising new technologies through its Intellectual Property Accelerator Fund, which awards funding of up to $100,000 to advance early-stage research to a point where it is attractive to commercial development.

Figure C

150

120

$127 M

120

$115 M

90

$96 M

90

60

$63 M

60

$48 M

38

Income U.S. Patents Issued Technologies Licensed

30 30

24

18

00

$2 M 2003

30 $35 M 26 $27 M 25 27 15 30

27 $13 M

33 32

38

41 33

31

32 27

19

20

$3 M 2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Dean for research Annual report 51

Dean for Research A. J. Stewart Smith Associate Dean Karla Ewalt Department Manager Annette Tate Communications and Outreach Strategist Catherine Zandonella Director, Corporate and Foundation Relations David Langiulli Director, Laboratory Animal Resources Laura Conour Director, Office of Research Integrity and Assurance Stuart Leland Director, Office of Research and Project Administration Jeffrey Friedland Director, Office of Technology Licensing John Ritter Research at Princeton www.princeton.edu/research [email protected] T 609-258-5500

Discovery: Research at Princeton is published by the Office of the Dean for Research in collaboration with the Office of Communications. Editor and producer Catherine Zandonella Graphic design Laryssa Kwoczak Matilda Luk Kyle McKernan Megan Peterson Contributing writers and editors Jennifer Altmann Ian Cahir Karin Dienst John Greenwald Isabel Henderson Paul Karr Morgan Kelly Ushma Patel Teresa Riordan Steven Schultz John Sullivan Photography Denise Applewhite Susan Damanska Bentley Drezner Torben Eskerod John Jameson Erin Keene Daniel Rubenstein Noah Sheldon Elle Starkman Volker Steger Paul Steinhardt Sofia Strauss Silvia Weyerbrock Brian Wilson Frank Wojciechowski Conan Wu Additional image from NASA

The staff of the Office of the Dean for Research supports Princeton University’s research activities by uniting people, resources and opportunities for the creation of knowledge. This picture was taken in front of the Frist Campus Center, constructed in 1909 as the Palmer Physical Laboratory. The entrance is flanked by statues of two of the nation’s greatest scientists, Benjamin Franklin, left, and Joseph Henry, right.

Contents

DISCOVERY Research at Princeton 2012

Research Briefs

Research Features

3

The Life of an Ethiopian Saint

5

The Princeton 20 Neuroscience Institute

6

The Edge 24  of Energy

Wildlife and Cows Can Be Partners, Not Enemies, in Search for Food On the Future of Princeton Mathematics

9

Princeton Psychologists Study Perceptions of Poverty

10

Storm of the Century May Become Storm of the Decade

13

Synchronizing Billions of Electrons in the Quest for Quantum Computers

Princeton Global 28 Health Research Beyond Numbers: Princeton's Versatile 32  High-Performance Computers

15

Princeton's 36 International Research

17

Sun on Earth: the Princeton Plasma 40  Physics Laboratory

Expedition Verifies the Extraterrestrial Nature of Quasicrystals Princeton Research Takes Asymmetry to Heart

19

The Forces Behind Lung Defects

About the Cover

Tree, by Zhen James Xiang 2012 Ph.D. in electrical engineering Second-place winner in Princeton's 2011 Art of Science competition

42

Faculty Honors

50

Dean for Research Annual Report

The algorithm used here recursively cuts an image into smaller rectangular pieces. For each cut, a larger rectangle is divided either horizontally or vertically into two equal

smaller rectangles. This results in a division of the input image into many rectangular pieces, similar to those shown, organized into a data structure called a dyadic tree.

Nondiscrimination Statement In compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and other federal, state, and local laws, Princeton University does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, or veteran status in any phase of its employment process, in any phase of its admission or financial aid programs, or other aspects of its educational programs or activities. The vice provost for institutional equity and diversity is the individual

designated by the University to coordinate its efforts to comply with Title IX, Section 504 and other equal opportunity and affirmative action regulations and laws. Questions or concerns regarding Title IX, Section 504 or other aspects of Princeton’s equal opportunity or affirmative action programs should be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, Princeton University, 205 Nassau Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544 or (609) 258-6110. Copyright © 2012 by The Trustees of Princeton University In the Nation’s Service and in the Service of All Nations 350020-12

Princeton University 91 Prospect Avenue Princeton, New Jersey 08540

Research at Princeton