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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 2001)
Professor earns ‘Outstanding Scientist’ honor ■ Geraldine Richmond received the distinction for her work on the properties of water surfaces By Brooke Ross Oregon Daily Emerald The Oregon Academy of Sciences recently named University chem istry professor Geraldine Richmond the Outstanding Scientist for 2001 for her research in studying water surfaces. Richmond. who has been a mem ber of the State Board of Higher Edu cation for more than a year, said her research provides a better under standing of the differences between properties on and below the surface of water. This information yields clues into how soaps work and what happens to water molecules when they interact with oil, she said. “It’s important to understand the properties on the surface of water because they interact with the world around you,” Richmond said. “There’s nothing more important in the world than water.” A research team of about a dozen graduate students helps Richmond carry out the complicated laser ex periments. Betsy Raymond, a graduate stu dent in physics, works in Rich mond’s lab and said she enjoys the way the professor gives the team members the freedom to come up with their own ideas. “Geraldine gives you a place to start, and then lets you go and de cide what you think the relevant problems are,” she said. The students do a lot of the hands-on work in studying water surfaces, Raymond said. The proce dure, vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy, begins by sending two differently colored laser beams into a dish of water. Raymond said the mixing of the two colors releases a completely new color, and the stu dents then study how the molecules in the new light vibrate. Raymond said examining the vi brations reveals how the molecules are aligned at the surface, allowing the scientists to examine the water at microscopic levels not normally visible to the naked eye. Raymond said one discovery Richmond and her team have made using the laser technique involves how soaps wodc when they interact with water and what happens to the water’s surface as more or less soap is added. “Soap has two parts,” she said. “One part of its molecule likes wa ter, and the other part doesn’t.” She said the part of the soap mol ecule that is hydrophobic grabs the dirt so the water-friendly part can wash it away. “That’s why dirt works in soaps,” Raymond said. Dave Walker, a graduate student, also works in Richmond’s lab. He is currently in the beginning stages of conducting a liquid interface exper iment to learn how oil reacts with water surfaces. But because he has recently joined the team, he has been doing several hours of computer simula tion work to prepare. “I’m the young one in the lab,” he said. He said the ultimate goal for the researchers is to examine and ex plain the microscopic effects of wa Katie Miller Emerald Geraldine Richmond examines an example of a model that aided her in her research. Richmond was recently named Outstanding Scientist for 2001. ter that normally could not be seen with the naked eye. “We want to make that connec tion with what we can and can’t see,” he said. Like Raymond, Walker also en joys working with Richmond. “She’s very flexible and very open to the ideas of the students,” Oregon Senate panel approves annual sessions measure By Brad Cain The Associated Press SALEM — The push by lawmak ers to have the Oregon Legislature meet in annual sessions, rather than every other year, advanced a step Thursday when a Senate panel supported placing the issue before Oregon voters. Republicans and Democrats alike say Oregon’s biennial system, dat ing back to 1858, no longer effec tively serves a state that has experi enced major growth and where state government has become a $12 billion enterprise. However, Bill Sizemore’s group, Oregon Taxpayers United, said it would oppose the move to annual sessions on grounds that it eventu ally could lead to having a full-time Legislature and bigger government. With little debate, members of the Senate Rules Committee voted to send the annual sessions meas ure, SJR12, to the full Senate for consideration. The measure, aimed at the May 2002 ballot, would authorize the Legislature to meet each January and limit to 150 the total number of days lawmakers could meet in a two-year period. Supporters of the move to annual sessions said the current every-oth er-year system no longer functions well in an age of term limits. Oregon’s 1992 term limits law prohibits people from serving more than six years in the House or eight in the Senate. Backers of SJR12 said the current biennial system results in unpro ductive, 11/2-year breaks between sessions for lawmakers who now can serve only a few terms before being forced into retirement. “I think people realize this process isn’t being managed as well as it could be,” said Sen. Randy Miller, R Lake Oswego. “The interims are a waste of time and with term limits there is a lot of turnover and a loss of continuity.” Term limits aside, other law makers argued that budgeting two years at a time as Oregon does is inefficient and requires a lot of guesswork about how the econo my will affect future revenue flowing into state coffers. Becky Miller, assistant director of Sizemore’s organization, said the anti-tax group thinks the move to annual sessions “would just mean they would be able to in crease our taxes and the burdens of government on people every year, instead of every other year.” Virtual Office Systems Inc. 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Laura Chamberlain, Kara Fallini, Cassie Keller, Melissa O’Connell, Laura Paz, Ross Ward, designers. he said. “She’s a good mentor.” Richmond said allowing her stu dents to think for themselves is her goal. “Their education is to initially take my idea and explore it,” she said. “Hopefully, by the time they leave, they’ll be asking their own questions and teaching me, which is what you hope for.”
