The Univers i ty of Georgia

SchoolM A G A Z I N E

GraduateWinter 2011

WINTER 2011 CONTENTS1 Letter from the Dean 2UGA’s First Historic Preservationist, Donna Butler 8 Kausar Samli: Global Nomad

and Intellectual Adventurer 18KyungHee Kim’s CreativeMission 26Daniel Streicker Fights Rabies 30An IDEAL

Science Project

“The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.” —Peter Diamandis, scientist

message from

D e a n Mau re e n G r a s s o

Comedian Sid Caesar joked that

whoever invented the first wheel was

smart, but the person who invented

the other three was a genius. I have a

deep sense that inspired thinkers

look closely at innovation surrounding

them. Our job at the Graduate School

is to be sure that we create the

greatest possible intellectual talent

pool. Like you, our graduate students and faculty are innovative members of a

growing intellectual academy.

Thank you for having responded to our appeals. I am so proud of you, our

graduate alumni, joining me in the effort to elevate graduate education. The

reputations of our programs strengthen as we attract increasingly gifted

students. You have made it easier for graduate students to afford an education

at a critical time.

Our Graduate School is where knowledge passes from one generation to

the next—where we construct the other three wheels. Here, advances in science

and technology are made that drive a global economy. We nurture interdiscipli-

nary research and competitiveness—read about the NIH grant that was made for

those very reasons.

It may seem to you that we are constantly asking for money. I am not

embarrassed by this because graduate students always need our help. For

example, the youngman featured in our cover story, Kausar Samli, who is working

on a PhD in biochemistry at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, asked

for our help to attend Singularity University in Silicon Valley last summer. As you

will see in the article, this proved to be an invaluable experience for him. Because

of your generosity, we were able to respond positively to his request.

We have sent out a record number of emails, letters, and copies of our

magazine this year. We are making this effort in order to expand our constituency

to include every single graduate alumnus/alumna. We are also reaching out to

corporations, foundations, and government agencies. For us to attain the level

of the top public research universities in the United States, we must have your

help. Please stop for a minute and consider how graduate education affects your

lives: from new start-up companies that create jobs to the preparation of K-12

teachers; from groundbreaking scientific research that benefits our daily lives to

the promotion of public health initiatives. I could go on and on, but you

understand where I’m going with this.

Please continue to help us. We enclose an envelope in each issue of the

Graduate School Magazine to make it convenient for our alumni and friends to

support our students. Tear out that envelope; write that check; do what you can to

support the institution that made your success possible. Say “Yes!” to the Graduate

School. Say “Yes!” to UGA. Your children and grandchildren will thank you.We are

today creating the world they will inherit. Be generous in your support.

MAUREEN GRASSO

Dean

Front Cover: A summer at Singularity University

coalesced Samli's thinking about technologies

in a new millennium. He holds a “printed” mask

of his face. Photo by Nancy Evelyn.

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS

PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

n a steaming Savannah morning, Donna Butler rushes around the historic Harper Fowlkes home, green eyes roving as the grand antebellum

house is readied for visitors just before the clock strikes 10 a.m. These visitors are paying tourists gathering at the bottom of circular steps,

who will be as warmly received as personal guests.

Heel strikes echo off the gray and white Georgia marble hallway as Butler crosses the airy passageway. A staff member begins a guided tour, and

Butler checks that her faithful companion, a dog named Belle, minds her Southern manners and remains politely outside on the four-columned porch.

It is a rarity that this historic property manages

to actually feel like a real home. A pleasant

ambiguity. Somehow, the proudly pedigreed

Greek Revival house, built in 1842, does that.

Not even the grandeur of a three-story

stairway or an oculus at the top causes visitors

to shrink back in amazement—this is a house

that was occupied by a loving few who used

the house as a home until it was donated to

the Society of the Cincinnati, America’s oldest

political organization and fraternity. (George

Washington was the first president. Alexander

Hamilton was the second.)

“You can sit down on the sofa,” a

cheerful docent urges. “Go ahead!” Film

producer and actor Robert Redford was

especially delighted that the house was so

accessible when they used it as an important

film set last year. Redford’s crew was

respectful, staffers say, taking great care to

treat the property and contents cautiously and

properly. The docent, Pat Moore, helpfully

adds, “It has survived over a century—and it

will probably survive another.”

The Harper Fowlkes House’s executive

director, Donna Butler, was the very first

student to receive a graduate degree in

historic preservation at the University of

Georgia in 1985. She even earned it during an

historic year: UGA’s bicentennial.

She stood out in the crowd, too. “I was

the only graduate (of the new program) that

year,” she says with an easy laugh.

Butler, who remains involved with the

University of Georgia’s historic preservation

program, invites graduate students to the

HISTORIC PRESERVATIONIST DONNA BUTLER

O

aVelvet willbehind the

Velvet Ropesn

2

house each fall, along with professor John C.

Waters. Waters, the director of graduate

studies in historic preservation in the College

of Environment and Design, remains a mentor

and friend.

“In the end, Donna epitomized my

often-repeated description of the type of

student we look for, (1) they have a passion

for preservation; (2) they are not disturbed by

the word ‘no’ and; (3) they know how to turn

a ‘no’ situation into a ‘yes,’” says Waters. “So,

she is an inspiration and I never get tired of

telling people what they can do through

citation of her example.”

Waters wrote a personal aside to Butler:

“You have actually inspired me by providing,

through your own efforts, an excellent

example of what an individual can do when

they commit themselves to a course of action

and have the determination to follow through

on that commitment.”

He continued his praise, adding, “That

statement applied to you brings back

memories of how you were able to tailor your

MHP studies to complete them when your

husband graduated from law school and even

completed your thesis and incorporated a trip

to California for a wedding in that last quarter

without missing a beat. Then, your decision to

utilize your thesis topic as a springboard for

work as a property appraiser which quickly led

you to the point of being the go-to person for

appraisal of the value of historic properties for

easement donations was an example of how

you can create your own job when there

appear to be no opportunities within a

community.”

Waters added a footnote: “And, actually,

you would be surprised how many students

have been inspired, or dared, to repeat your

performance!”

Like the woman who acquired the

Harper Fowlkes house, Alida Harper, Butler

has a passion for restoration. There the

semblance ends. Harper, who once ran a tea

room in the Olde Pink House (still in

operation on Reynolds Square) purchased

what was then called the Champion-McAlpin

House in 1939 and moved there with her

mother. For many years, Harper remained

single. She later married one of her tenants

and became Alida Harper Fowlkes. After her

death, the house itself bore her name alone,

although technically it is the Champion-

McAlpin-Harper-Fowlkes House.

Butler initially studied journalism as a

UGA undergraduate. She credits this for the

ease with which she later slipped into a new

profession. “I thought it would be a good

general degree—and it has helped in the

writing of (historic) appraisals. They’re very

detailed.”

Before attending UGA Graduate School,

Butler worked in Atlanta in advertising. “Then,

I went to France to learn French and have an

adventure.” On return, she married a Duke

graduate named Malcom Butler, who was

about to enter UGA’s law school.

She chose to return to UGA to Graduate

School, entering a brand new program in

historic preservation. Butler blazed through

3UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

her studies. While completing her thesis, she

interviewed an appraiser about how historic

properties are assessed.

“I asked him to hire me on the spot, and

he said ‘Yes!’” Butler recalls. She had

something different to offer the job.

“I wrote a thesis based upon studying

easement holding organizations in the

Southeast.” Wittingly or not, she launched a

preservation career before the thesis was

finished.

“I was sure I was going to practice

historic preservation in the private sector. I

wanted to make some money and travel to

Charleston. I just wanted to be able to go

there,” Butler recalls. For the next 20 years, she

worked as a real estate appraiser with the

specialized task of appraising historic

properties. It was a difficult, demanding job,

leading Butler to unexpected places, including

battlegrounds, but Butler loved the research it

required. She also enjoyed being a pioneering

new professional. As her expertise grew, so did

opportunities.

“There weren’t that many people doing

it.” Butler frowns, thinking. “There was one

woman out of D.C., Judith Reynolds, who

wrote a book on the appraisal of preservation

easements. She referred me to do an appraisal

of a Frank Lloyd Wright estate in Yemassee,

South Carolina.” Wright named the coastal

estate “Auldbrass.”

Butler smiles brightly. “Google that

property; I did that!”

In 1985, Butler’s growing knowledge of

architecture first led her to Auldbrass, a

massive low country estate. Here she

undertook an historic appraisal of epic

proportions. The appraisal was essential to

getting the property included in the National

Register of Historic Places.

“I did that entire appraisal and mostly

learned on the job,” Butler says. “I had this

boss, David Chapman, and read a lot of

appraisals, and wrote ones he was involved in.

When I started this Frank Lloyd Wright thing,

I had my doubts. But he said, ‘You can do this!’

Sadly for me, he has since died.”

And so, Butler labored and did research

for nearly 100 days. The property, which had

passed from private to corporate hands and

then back to a group of hunters, was in danger.

“It took me three months to do the Auldbrass

property…I had to almost make a new

language. I had to look at it as shelter; I

considered it as art.”

Appraising Wright properties “sent me

on a big adventure,” Butler says. It also landed

her on a prestigious board devoted to

conservingWright-related properties. This led

to yet another professional adventure.

“There was an entity preserving Frank

Lloyd Wright properties. I started a database

of Wright sales and ended up on the Frank

Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. It’s for

people with a love of architecture.”

Yet love of architecture could only get

Butler so far. It was her due diligence—tireless

research and record work—that made her a

name in preservation circles.

Butler called the property to the

attentions of another Wright devotee, film

producer Joel Silver. Silver had already

4

The Society of the Cincinnati’s history andmembership do the house proud. Yet thereis a subtle irony: its membership is comprisedsolely of males. Specifically, members mustbe male descendants of officers of theContinental Army, Navy, and its Frenchcounterparts. As such, this is the oldestfraternity in the United States.

restored another Wright property on the West

Coast. In 1987, Silver renovated Auldbrass. To

this day, he allows Butler to hold an annual

fundraiser at Auldbrass to benefit the

Conservancy.

Another of her well-connected clients is

Frank Lloyd Wright’s grandson, Tom Wright,

who has a house in Maryland. “He lives in his

Wright-designed house with his beautiful

Japanese wife,” says Butler.

She has visited and consulted on many

Frank Lloyd Wright properties. Due to

successful ventures like Auldbrass, Butler went

on to do a fundraiser in Carmel, California, at

the Walker House, another Wright design she

had long admired.

She continues occasional Frank Lloyd

Wright consultations, even as she oversees the

iconic Harper Fowlkes House. “I sell them the

data and tell them how to use it. I do it with

owners of Wright buildings in conjunction

with local appraisers.”

LIFTING THE VELVET ROPES

The perks of preservation-related work are

deeper than superficial access. Sometimes

when Butler appraises properties she gets to

live there. The sense of history can be

haunting, especially when she has spent time

at battle sites.

Butler did one appraisal in Mississippi

where the Battle of Vicksburg was fought. “I

got to stay in General Pemberton’s

headquarters while there.” Immersion lends

another dimension, she explains.

As for appraising historic properties, it

remains a highly specialized, difficult pursuit,

an uncrowded field.

“Appraisers are generally not interested,”

Butler explains. Nor are they often qualified.

She did the appraisal of Martin Luther King,

Jr.’s childhood church in Atlanta as it was being

valued for acquisition by the National Park

Service. She met with the congregation and

told them “I’m not going to let the Park

Service take advantage of you!”

“It’s so hard when you can’t find good

comparable properties. When I went to Atlanta

to appraise MLK’s church, Ebenezer Baptist,

they threw the doors wide open. People helped

me because they said ‘This is an impossible

thing to do!’ I would just nod and smile and nod

and smile. That’s part of the fun for me.

“I thought it was comical—I have heard

‘You can’t!’ all the time and I thought, ‘Yes, I

can! And it was in 1986. I was 29 or 30 yrs old.”

Butler’s old professor, Waters, continues

an annual trek to see his protégé.

“He brings a group down to the Harper

Fowlkes house each year and I meet them. I

see them in the fall,” she says. The group

includes “graduate students, law students and

everybody.”

Law students?

“Yes!” Butler explains how law studies

have launched impressive historic preservation

careers. She offers a fellow UGA alum, Mark

McDonald, as a prime example.

“Mark McDonald took his intro

preservation class when in law school at UGA,

and ended up being the director of Historic

Savannah for 10 years. He’s an attorney who

got interested in historic preservation and now

Mark’s the head of the Georgia Trust.”

Preservation work is a lot like jumping

aboard a ride without a destination in clear

sight. For years, Butler says she was

“tangentially involved” with the Harper

Fowlkes House. This shifted in 1999. The

executive director of the property at the time

was approaching the age of 80, and wished to

slow down. Butler volunteered to lend a hand,

and worked with the property’s gardens and

expansions. She was put in charge of the

gardens and formed a volunteer committee.

Her work included creating an historically

sympathetic exterior building with a professional

kitchen and meeting space. The time spent at

Harper Fowlkes was absorbing and seductive.

Meanwhile, she continued her consulting

engagements, doing historic appraisals, while

putting in time at the house as she could.

Butler says it was natural for her to

become more immersed in the activities of the

house, as the former director lacked the stamina

required to take it through to its next phase as a

more public space. The Society wished for the

property to become available as a public

meeting place, a wedding and event destination.

The additional income would help support

further restoration and ensure its future.

In 2004 Butler moved with her two

daughters to the heart of historic Savannah

into a cheerful turquoise clapboard house with

yellow shutters, dating to the year 1852.

“My house was in the closing shot of the

film, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,”

6

Paying it Forward...Butler annually invites John C. Waters and historicpreservation students to the Harper Fowlkes House.

Butler says. The historic antebellum home,

formerly owned by a law group, was mere

blocks away from the Harper Fowlkes House,

which faces Orleans Square.

Soon after moving downtown, Butler

was asked to consider becoming executive

director at Harper Fowlkes, but she resisted.

Her resistance slowly dissolved, as she loved

the fine property, the place, and the

opportunity. Also, tradition demanded that

the house be directed by a woman. Since Alida

Harper Fowlkes, a self-taught preservationist,

set her cap to purchase the house, it has

largely been overseen by women.

Fortunately, after the house became

headquarters to the Society of the Cincinnati

in 1985, it steadily raised its public profile. It

has enjoyed extensive rejuvenation since being

bequeathed to the Society. The house was

more recently featured in Robert Redford’s

period film The Conspirator, which is timed for

release in the spring of 2011.

The filmwas screened during the Savannah

Film Festival in November of 2010. “It’s about

the conviction ofMary Surrat, the first woman to

be executed in the United States,” says Butler.

Filmproduction rentals are lucrative, she explains,

and historic properties demand infusions of cash

to remain viable and strong.

Butler offers the house as a preservation-

ist learning tool to the general public, but also

specifically to UGA graduate students. Butler

exposes them to some of the finest of

antebellum architecture at Harper Fowlkes

House. The house, designed by Irish architect

Charles B. Clusky, features a mansard roof,

stuccoed and scored brick facade and a

Temple of the Wind portico. Inside the fine

house, faux painted walls and ceilings mimic

grained wood. Period mirrors, original

furnishings and bronze lights are all preserved.

Savannah’s historic district is the largest in

the United States. The Harper Fowlkes house is

surely among Savannah’s greatest beauties.

TWENTY FIVE YEARS LATER

Today, conservators and preservationist

professionals are au courant. It was not the case

when Butler completed her graduate studies

in the 1980s.

“I remember talking to a woman about

getting a graduate degree in preservation. She

discouraged doing it unless I knew exactly

what I was going to do with it. I am a big

believer in college. I wanted to do what I

loved, and I valued this—learning to learn. I am

glad I didn’t listen to her.”

She inculcates this idea in her two

daughters. Her youngest is considering

colleges, and Butler hopes UGA will be high

on the list. But it is a long way from Savannah

to Athens; Butler knows this journey well, as

her older daughter is completing her senior

year there and will graduate in 2011. For now,

she hopes her daughter is enjoying the

process without a narrow view to the end

goal. Like history, the end point of education

unfolds and reveals itself of its own volition.

“Graduate school should especially be

that way; I always tell my daughters how I

loved graduate study.”

For further information:

The Harper Fowlkes House is located at 230

Barnard Street onOrleans Square. It is open for

toursWednesday-Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Guided tours are offered every 45 minutes or

by appointment.

For additional background see: www.harper

fowlkeshouse.com or phone: 912-234-2180.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION, THE SOCIETY OFTHE CINCINNATI IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA AND

ALIDA HARPER FOWLKES

“Alida was a visionary and a preservationist,” says Donna Butler, who directs the Harper Fowlkes

House. By the time Alida Harper purchased the pre-Civil War house in 1939, the house had stood

in the shade of stately magnolia trees overlooking the Orleans Square for almost a century. The

house sold for the Depression-era bargain price of $9,000. Although a bargain, Harper, a single,

working woman, was forced to take in boarders in order to meet the costs of upkeep. One of those

boarders, Hunter McGuire Fowlkes became Alida Harper’s husband, but predeceased her by

many years.

She occupied the home until her death in the mid 1980s.

Fowlkes was also an antiques collector and based an antiques shop in one of her renovated

properties. She became as tireless in her zeal to save Savannah’s historic district as another famous

Savannah resident, fellow antiques dealer and preservationist Jim Williams. (Jim Williams and his

historic home at 430 Whitaker Street, the Mercer Williams House, were made equally famous by

the John Berendt book,Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and the film by that name.)

According to published reports, Alida Harper Fowlkes joined the Society for the Preservation

of Savannah Landmarks while still managing a tea room (known as the Olde Pink House on East

Congress Street, which she is also credited with saving. The owner at the time had reportedly

threatened to demolish the house, which faces Reynolds Square. That property survives today as a

popular Savannah restaurant.) And so, Fowlkes's work as a preservationist even preceded her

purchase and ownership of the Harper Fowlkes home, formerly known as the Champion-McAlpin

House. According to Morgan Harrison, who wrote a master’s thesis on Fowlkes, the dedicated

restorationist went on to improve a total of 11 historic Savannah properties.

Ironically enough, Fowlkes died in 1985, the same year that Donna Butler earned the first

degree in historic preservation at UGA. At Fowlkes’ death, she entrusted her lifelong home to the

Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Georgia. The bequest was made to honor her father,

William Edward Harper.

Hereafter, the bequeathed home was known as the Champion-McAlpin-Harper-Fowlkes

House, usually shortened to the Harper Fowlkes House. The Society immediately began

improvements to preserve both the interior and exterior. The mechanical systems were redone.

Once again, the resourceful woman had found a way to secure the home’s future.

7UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

G

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his year, Samli’s adventuring took him to a revolutionary new

campus in Silicon Valley. Samli’s summer was spent in California

attending the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity

University, SU, which is hosted at NASA’s Ames Research Center, where

geniuses, gadgetry, gumption and gazillionaires mixed it up for some

Singularity-styled problem solving.

At SU, the curricula concerns artificial intelligence and robotics,

biotechnology and bioinformatics, nanotechnology, networks and

computing systems, space and physical sciences, medicine and

neuroscience, policy, law and ethics, future studies and forecasting,

energy and environmental systems, finance, entrepreneurship and

economics. In essence, the curriculum concerns the future, which is

being ushered fast and hard, driven by exponential advances in

technologies. Some at SU believe technological advances are on track to

reach a critical point with great consequence by the year 2045. They call

this the Singularity, which inspired the university’s name. However, SU

prefers to focus upon the near future and its immediate, undisputed

challenges. Those challenges are news-making ones: drought, water

shortage, energy challenges, poverty, health and pollution, says Peter

Diamandis in SU’s literature. Diamandis is a physician and is best known

as an inventor, rather than an academic.

“Going into the program, my object was transformation, and that

transformation is in process,” says Samli. “We see the trajectory of

problems and technologies and identify their future intersection where

the solutions and opportunities are created. That is the biggest thing the

program did for us. How do you look three, four, five years down the

road? You have to shoot for a target based upon tomorrow’s

technologies.”

Samli knows: he’s spent a summer submerged within what Walt

Disney might have called Future World. Disney himself couldn’t have

designed a better setting for SU.

T

Kausar Samli has experienced ancientcultures where education and scientificadvances are regarded differently, evensuspiciously. “As my global perspective hasmatured and broadened over the years, I'vefocused on technology and how it influencescommunities,” he says.

Singularity University focused Samli’sthinking about technologies in a newmillennium. “We’re eroding culture andcommunities; we cannot quantify this. WhenI came across Singularity’s program, Irecognized this is where we need to be.How do we look at global solutions? How dowe think about technology consideringglobal matters?”

Meet Kausar Samli, SingularityUniversity Alum and UGA DoctoralStudent: A Global Nomad andSingularity University ThinkerBY CYNTHIA ADAMS

PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

POINT OF EMBARKMENT Intellectual adventure offers millions of departures daily: Travelers leave their comfort zones for destinations

unknown. Many lose unwanted baggage en route to the unfamiliar; some find themselves transported to a foreign outpost, a discovery place.

Social science suggests that the journey outside our point of reference, the “comfort zone” most of us inhabit, allows us to map a new

perspective. Neurologists say this kind of discomfiture is good for us. It can even stimulate the growth of neural pathways inside the brain, making us

smarter, more resilient and adaptive—a quantum shift.

So can cross-cultural exposures make for a more integrative or innovative scholar? Research indicates it does. This bodes well for international

students like Kausar Samli, a University of Georgia doctoral student who crosses continents to slake an intellectual thirst for mental refreshment.

“When I came across Singularity’s program, I recognizedthis is where we need to be. How do we look at globalsolutions? How do we think about technology consideringglobal matters?” —Kausar Samli

10

educational experience of the future, say

supporters like Maureen Grasso, dean of the

UGA Graduate School.

“There are academicians within the

Academy who are talking about the fact that

the educational model is changing,” notes

Grasso. She says it was exciting to send a

promising UGA doctoral student like Kausar

Samli to such a dynamic experience. Inspired

and challenged by the world’s most progressive

thinkers, SU engenders a sea-change in future

leaders, researchers and educators. It provides

themwith an entirely new skill set—turning the

top-down model on its head.

To do that, SU chooses a particular mix

of gender, skills, education, leadership

potential and exposures.

Samli recognizes that the experience of a

different educational model such as SU’s was

life changing. The sheer intensity and

innovative nature of the Singularity-designed

curricula created something unanticipated.

Tackling nearly impossible things, en masse,

for hours on end, led to a collective sense of

possibilities and a surprising sense of mental

refreshment. It also led to a new community

among the SU scholars, Samli says.

“Once you are part of the SU

community, you are part of the SU family,” he

adds. “At SU you are a family member the day

you get there. A lot of that is because they

screen you very thoroughly—they pin you. It’s

a very different way.”

The momentum isn’t lost when the 10-

week program ends. Singularity graduates blog

online with problems and ideas. Team

members continue working on their chosen

projects in one of five core areas, which

include water, food, energy, space and

Upcycling, after they leave Singularity

University and resume their respective

graduate work. Before leaving campus last

summer, SU reunions were planned in the

United States and in Paris over Thanksgiving.

Created by Congress in 1939, the Ames

Research Center occupies 500 acres at Moffett

Field. This area, better known as Silicon Valley, is

the locus for one third of the nation’s

technology companies. It is also closely affiliated

with many of the most forward-thinking

scientists and research institutions in the world.

Some former SU students who attended the

inaugural session last year have reportedly

settled in nearby Cupertino, California, to

continue their work and maintain access to the

resources open to them nearby.

SU is also founded upon the premise that

interdisciplinary approaches make for

achievements far greater than the sum of an

isolated discipline. Thus far, that premise seems

to work—thousands of accomplished applicants

vie for fewer than 100 seats each SU session.

“In 2009, Singularity University did their

first graduate studies program,” Samli says.

“There were more than 1,200 applicants.”

Their visionary curriculum reflects the

Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program has the goal of assembling experts andstudents from widely divergent backgrounds. The students who attended SU came from 35countries, and ranged in age from a 19-year-old PhD student to a 51-year-old. Thisdivergence was precisely what they sought in creating what the co-founders, Ray Kurzweiland Peter Diamandis, call “an unparalleled convergence learning environment. We alsochallenge our students with our 10 to the 9th Team Projects, asking them how they canpositively affect the lives of a billion people within 10 years.”

KAUSA

RN.SA

MLI

“The pairing of high-tech tools with innovation underscores one SU ideal. The other piece ofthe dynamic at SU emphasizes employing these advancements in benefiting humankind.”

—Kausar Samli

11

NASA/Ames Congressional initiative to

further research and development. Barry is

both an MD and PhD. (Diamandis holds an

MD and an honorary doctorate.)

The SU campus has a relationship with

Google, who also leased property at the Ames

Research Park in a joint initiative with NASA.

Larry Page, a Google co-founder, interacts

with SU’s participants. Samli met Page while

attending SU.

“Google, ePlanet Ventures, Autodesk,

the Ewing Marion Kaufmann Foundation and

Nokia are SU’s corporate founders,” says

Samli. “In addition to Page, I met Jeff Kowalski

(CTO, Autodesk); Shehzad Naqvi (Silicon

Valley Managing Director, ePlanet Ventures);

and Bo Fishback (Vice President of

Entrepreneurship, Kaufmann Foundation).

Nokia signed on as a corporate founder in

October 2010, after I left SU.”

X Prize, the private foundation Diamandis

created, is devoted to “radical breakthroughs

for the benefit of humanity” according to their

website. X Prize offers innovators financial

incentives and offers awards. Diamandis, who

earned advanced degrees from MIT and

Harvard, is known for daring feats of

technological entrepreneurship. He has, among

other businesses, developed space flight and

zero gravity experiences for private citizens.

The NASA setting for SU is prime real

estate for such a luminous gathering. It makes a

fitting launching pad for big ideas—and an

excellent landing spot for international scholars

like Samli. Samli’s perspective, both before and

beyond SU, is enriched by multiple exposures.

He trains a wide lens upon problems.

“Growing up in such a multicultural

environment, one of the things I’m intrigued

by is how do communities and cultures and

societies look at technology. How do they

accept it and reject it? Why do they believe

what they have come to believe?” Samli asks.

Influenced by his mechanical engineer

A SCHOLAR’S BEGINNINGS:

POSSESSING CURIOSITY, A PASSPORT

AND A PASSION FOR STUDY

Kausar Samli had a rite of passage to adulthood

that taught him opportunity must be earned.

He describes descending from a family of

humble beginnings who valued scholarship and

also practicality. “So preserving and using

resources in an efficient manner has always

been impressed,” he explains.

He has logged thousands of miles from

early life in an Indian village to the University

of Georgia and Singularity University in the

new millennium. Samli was born in India

during his parents’ vacation. He was raised in

Saudi Arabia and educated at the United

States Consulate, and sent to an American

boarding school as a 13-year-old. Along the

way, Samli became a “third culture kid,” and

punched his ticket for a life of exploration.

OUT WEST, NOBEL LAUREATES,

GRADUATE STUDENTS, BRAINIACS

AND SPACEMEN GATHER TO SAVE

THE WORLD

In the interest of full disclosure, Singularity

University isn’t a traditional university at all.

The summer program for exceptional

graduate students is a futuristic creation with

a dazzling infusion of intellectual star power.

SU is also an intellectual think-tank, the

brainchild of futurist Kurzweil and Diamandis,

who is also the founder of X Prize. Kurzweil

and Diamandis partnered in the pursuit of a

better future world at a time of epochal

change. BBC Focusmagazine calls Kurzweil “the

Singularity University chancellor on the future

of technology.”

Where else but at SU would an astronaut

head up faculty matters? Dan Barry is a former

NASA astronaut and Singularity’s faculty head.

SU, based on NASA’s Ames campus, fulfills a

UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

“At SU, the scholars set to work in earnest on urgent projects of global concern. They alsoworked with access to people of scientific and technological renown. This focus differed fromtraditional approaches—it is the interdisciplinary model others will embrace.”

—Dean Maureen Grasso

A third culture kid, or TCK, is a termcoined by American sociologist Ruth Hill

Useem. TCKs are born to adventure. The

term “third culture kid” describes those

like Samli who matured and were

educated outside their birth cultures. Such

children were uprooted from their birth

country, subsequently evolving within

various influences and cultures. TCKs are

usually multilingual and multicultural.

(Samli speaks several languages.) TCK’s

develop an acceptance and affinity for

other cultures.

Being a TCK served Samli especially

well when he applied to attend Singularity

University with thinkers, inventors,

innovators and scholars drawn from a

multitude of ethnicities and cultures. Here,

SU’s Diamandis, and co-founder and

futurist, Raymond Kurzweil, gathered an

international assemblage to concern

themselves with solutions for the

betterment of the world. Shoulder-to-

shoulder, students, billionaires, inventors

and Nobel Laureates sought solutions to

some of the world’s great questions.

Without doubt, there were many TCKs

among the nationalities represented at SU.

12

“My experience reinvigorated my determination to finish my PhD work. What was reinforcedwas, to have a lasting, global impact, you have to have a depth of expertise and knowledgeyou translate on a global scale.” —Kausar Samli

father, who grew up in a small Indian village

with inadequate water supply, Samli says

such awareness was an enormous influence in

his studies.

“Water has always been a very big issue,”

Samli says. “My parents are from India. To this

day, there is a lack of clean running water in

the town my family came from. Municipal

water supply is lacking. Most residents drink

water from wells they’ve drilled down into the

aquifer…which is running low.”

Samli has not only pursued high

educational goals, but also philanthropic and

social ones.

CHANGE MAKING AND

TRANSFORMATION

Samli, intensely analytical, is also affable. He

talks fast and smiles easily. As an adolescent,

he recalls experiencing the inevitable identity

crisis. Perhaps cultures themselves go through

a parallel upheaval, he wonders.

He is given to interdisciplinary thinking.

Samli studied philosophy and theology as well

as science and found himself “attracted to the

possibility of enacting global change through

people, interactions, and projects such as SU,”

Samli explains.

Graduate students attending Singularity

are set to work on team projects of their own

choosing—that is, five ambitious team projects,

concerning such topic areas as waste

(Upcycle), energy, food, water and space.

Samli was pegged as team leader for the

project he chose, working with waste and

recycling issues, on a project called Upcycle.

“Upcycling allows maximizing the re-use

of products in a closed-loop manufacturing

process and positively impacts the

environment by minimizing waste, reducing

the demand for natural resource mining, and

returning materials with higher environmental

value,” says Samli.

13UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

“Upcycling seeks to convert trash into

useful products—amore ambitious concept than

mere recycling. The Upcycle aim is zero waste.

Samli says, “Of all the team projects,

Upcycle was the one that had to look at water,

food, energy and space junk—waste in space.

The university selected these projects knowing

they had overlap.”

During a webinar in September, Kurzweil

described how SU’s students bring academic

and entrepreneurial thinking to bear upon

these and other topics of global concern.

Afterward, student teams develop a

commercial or nonprofit idea that can be

implemented for broad application. The design

challenge for the 10 to the 9th Team Projects is

to develop a solution to positively impact a

billion people over 10 years. In preparation for

the team work, Kurzweil says, students initially

received an overview for the first phase of the

program, in something like an intellectual boot

camp that runs for long hours.

In the early phase of nonstop work,

Kurzweil says graduate students from various

disciplines “are getting a cutting edge

understanding of robotics, space, environ-

mental systems, etc.” SU students give it more

than the old college try. SU demands students

give it the new college try.

Attendees see and hear the very people

devising the brave new world of the future.

The students get to query and pitch their ideas

to luminaries—gaining the networking

opportunity of a lifetime. In the process of

matriculating at SU, students interact with

innovators and inventors of products like the

Segway’s Dean Kamen, as well as Nobel

Laureates. (Though the Segway is well known,

Kamen is hardly a gadgeteer. He created

innovations like a mobile dialysis machine and

an all-terrain wheelchair.)

Students at SU heard from 160 such

people during SU lectures, says Samli. Many

famous name presenters were in the field of

“Basic research is at the core of discovery,”says Samli. Steeped in the sciences, he alsohas a strong grounding in philosophical andtheological studies, as well as multiculturalexperiences on three continents.

14

information technologies. However, a range of

scientific notables were on hand. Samli recalls

being given the chance to question Nobel

Laureate Daniel Kammen.

Kammen, who works at Berkley, is a

climate advisor to the Obama administration.

“Dan was just appointed as the World Banks’

Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable

Energy and Energy Efficiency,” Samli adds.

Samli is still awestruck by Kammen making

himself available to students, saying, “that is

the type of access you don’t normally have.”

Access is one of SU’s greatest benefits—

the internal network, Samli says, is

unprecedented. He mentions with awe in his

voice, “I met Dr. Larry Brilliant, who was on the

team that eradicated smallpox.” Samli keeps

Brilliant’s business card on his UGA desk like a

talisman. The traditional lecture structure is

complemented by the vast human network

of SU.

Samli believes such an integrative

approach is SU’s brilliant advantage. “This

teaches us the history of the past but also

future studies and forecasting, not just

technologies but challenges.” Students also

received an experientially charged education:

They experienced zero gravity, visited a

robotics research lab, and made a three

dimensional mask of their own faces on a

three dimensional printer. The mask, which

Samli also keeps on his desk, is an ABS polymer.

“High-end versions of the printer can do

rapid prototyping,” says Samli. “Printers are

being developed that mix and integrate up to

eight different materials.” Maker Bot produces

printers for as little as $1,000, he adds, though

higher end ones like the Dimension uPrint 3D

printer are $15,000.

“Manufacturing dynamic changes with

this,” Samli says, cupping the stunning

polymer mask of his face in his hand. “If you

unleash tools (such as this) imagine what that

will do. It will spur innovation and creativity.”

The ultimate intent of the 10 weeks is as

much humanistic as it is intellectual, Kurzweil

explains. SU’s core purpose is that of changing

the world for the better. Diamandis and his X-

Prize foundation supported the same premise

before he paired up with Kurzweil. He

founded an International Space University in

1987. Kurzweil and Diamandis are committed,

according to hundreds of press accounts, to

supporting creativity and humanism alike.

SOLVING THE WORLD'S BIG

PROBLEMS AT SU

SU’s graduate summer program is an

intense, highly selective one. Chosen

students, entrepreneurs and experts

attempt to “understand and facilitate the

development of exponentially advancing

technologies” for the greater good. The

underlying matrix of the shared experience

is that of intellectual discovery.

“Ask yourself, how are you going to

positively affect the lives of a billion

people?” asked Larry Brilliant, president

of Skoll Global Threats Fund.

“If I were a student, this is where I

would want to be,” says Larry Page,

founder of Google, about SU. There’s a

lot to digest in the curriculum before

setting out to do what a British journalist

called “saving the world.” The first week

at SU addresses an overview of the fields

of endeavor the assembled scholars will

study. (“What has been tried? What has

worked? What is the primary challenge?

What technology is needed?”)

The second, third, fourth and fifth

weeks look at the impact of exponential

technologies. (“Students learn all about

the fields in exponential growth and

strive to understand what is in the lab

today. Where are we heading for the

next 5-10 years?”)

By the sixth week, SU students

consider what changes can be put into

action in addressing grand challenges.

Kausar Samli first learned about Singularity University in 2009 as a UGA

graduate student. He applied, along with 1,200 others, for the inaugural

session. “I was chosen as one of 50,” Samli says.

“When I came across Singularity’s program, I recognized this is

where we need to be. How do we look at global solutions? How do we

think about technology considering global matters?” Samli asks. “As my

global perspective has matured and broadened over the years, I’ve

focused on technology and how it influences community.”

But the program was new, and couldn’t accommodate all that were

admitted. Samli was wait-listed and attended in 2010 instead. He joined

80 graduate students representing 35 countries. (The BBC reported that

the 80 students in the 2010 session held 180 degrees, with more than

half of them heading start-up companies.)

Two UGA alums, Susan Fonseca-Klein and Bruce Klein, are

founding architects of SU. Samli explains that SU’s educational premise

15UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

shifts from drilling down to drilling wide. During traditional graduate

study, the approach is to drill deeply within one’s discipline. SU turns that

model upside down. Members of academia, or the Academy, feel this is

the future wave, saysMaureenGrasso, dean of the UGAGraduate School.

“What this young man, Samli, did was to find applications for

entrepreneurship and applied his discipline. That is what is so interesting

about Singularity University’s intense seminar,” Grasso notes.

SU students explored interdisciplinary approaches that best

leveraged rapidly accelerating technologies to address real world needs.

Samli received a partial scholarship from SU and financial assistance from

UGA’s Graduate School, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the Complex

Carbohydrate Research Center, Glycosensors & Diagnostics, LLC and his

PhD advisor, Robert Woods.

“Innovators in education are acknowledging how quantum leaps of technology are going todemand educational changes. We are talking about this very thing—shifting from drillingdown within one discipline, the way education has traditionally worked, to approaches thatreach across disciplines, weaving broader, lateral views.” —Dean Maureen Grasso

SINGULARITY UNIVERSITY: TURNING THE LEARNING MODEL UPSIDE DOWN

16

Kurzweil says Singularity is “hoping to

solve problems that seem unsolvable.” The

resulting team assignments at SU seek viable

solutions for the incredibly complex. Meeting

the world’s food, water and resource needs,

are on their targeted to-do list, among others.

And, Kurzweil adds, they are seeking to

accomplish their goals expeditiously and

affordably.

Following immersion in topics including

such things as commercial space flight,

artificial intelligence initiatives, nanotechnolo-

gies and water desalination, students then

choose teams focused upon what Kurzweil

calls “10 to the 9th projects.” Teams working

on 10 to the 9th Team Projects are charged

with finding realistic solutions for the potential

benefit of a billion people within a decade.

The project areas assigned to SU

students included: food, water, energy, space,

and Upcycle. At first, Samli wanted to work

with the water team. “Upcycle and water were

my first choices.” He is keenly aware that water

is one of the defining geopolitical issues of this

century.

Yet Samli quickly shifted gears after one

week. He decidedwaste issueswere fundamental

to resolving water issues. Samli moved over to

the Upcycle team, addressing waste.

Chosen as his team’s leader, Samli made

a tightly-scripted, seven-minute presentation

at the session’s end to an SU audience

including venture capitalists. He says the

audience included billionaires, inventors and

Nobel Laureates. The presentation he gave

was videotaped and used in a web cast.

“Translational research asks, ‘How can I manipulate the natural biochemical system to dosomething that can be application-oriented?’” Samli says his experience last summer atSingularity University imparted a greater comfort with the process of broad intellectualand self discovery.

Samli’s PhD advisor, Robert J. Woods,

came to SU for a visit during Samli’s tenure

there. Woods lent his research assistant strong

support to attend the program.

Woods, a professor of biochemistry and

molecular biology in UGA’s Complex

Carbohydrate Research Center, is also chair of

computational glycosciences in the School of

Chemistry at the National University of Ireland

in Galway.

THIRD CULTURE KIDS: AT HOME

WITH THE INTERFACE OF CULTURES

Samli’s adult perspective is shaped by the

blended influences of the ancient and the

futuristic. “I left home when I was 13,” he says,

“but the story begins well before that.”

“The caliber of the faculty and students I met at SU was remarkable, in termsof their enthusiasm, their diversity, and the broadness and depth of theirknowledge and individual experience. It is an intellectual environment that isnot constrained by the mundane, fostering blue-sky thinking in order tostimulate innovative solutions to global issues.” —Robert J. Woods, PhD, FRSC

THE FASTEST, MOST ADVANCED 4G NETWORK IN AMERICA

He describes himself today as a global

nomad, who shares an affinity withmany world

cultures. “My background is varied,” Samli says.

“Part of this is [essential to understanding] the

type of person I am.”

Samli has studied and worked in places as

diverse as Saudi Arabia, India, Ireland, Texas,

and Arizona. Today, his extended family

resides in Texas, Oklahoma, Washington,

Toronto, Paris and Delhi.

Third culture kids can also be intellectu-

ally restless, hence Samli’s reference to himself

as a nomad. “Change is something I almost

run after,” Samli explains. “In some ways, I

need that. This is connected to my

professional development.”

TCKs such as Samli are well suited to life

on a shrinking planet. Given their ease in

moving across cultures, they do not become

ethnocentric adults, but become global

citizens. “All of my siblings grew up as third

culture kids….We had a hybrid culture,” he

says. “These ‘TCK’ children find that home for

them is at the interface of these communities.”

A year ago, Samli found home at the

University of Georgia studying at the Center

for Complex Carbohydrate Research. Prior to

this, he attended graduate school in Arizona

and abroad. Last summer, when another portal

opened, it synthesized all aspects of Samli’s

intellectual and emotional education. That

door was SU.

For Further Information:

www.ksamli.myweb.uga.edu

www.singularityu.org

www.glycam.ccrc.uga.edu (Robert Woods'

research site)

www.ccrc.uga.edu (CCRC website)

www.bmb.uga.edu (Dept of Biochemistry

andMolecular Biology)

www.arc.nasa.gov (NASAAmesResearchCenter)

www.kurzweilai.net/singularity-university-

webinar-today-sneak-preview

www.progressivetimes.wordpress.com/2010

/02/17/recycling-vs-upcycling-what-is-the-

difference/

G

17UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

18

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS

PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

�Creativity inCrisis?

For Expert Kyung Hee Kim, Creativity Flowers in America as aByproduct of Crisis

n a simple green and white card, Kyung Hee Kim’s academic

credentials are crisply, simply arranged. She is an educational

psychologist. She works at the nation’s second oldest

university—The College ofWilliam &Mary—in one of our nation’s oldest

cities. Both town and university date to the 1600s.

Yet Kim is very much a modern woman of this time. She is a tiny,

youthful woman with glossy, shoulder length hair, and shining dark eyes.

She settles behind her desk, wearing a tasteful black suit with silk shirt,

radiating the poised authority of someone seasoned, older. Assorted

awards from national and international organizations lining the walls

betray the fact that Kim has been working in her field far longer than

seems possible. Kim, at 43, looks a decade younger. But she has now

earned two doctorates and raised two children. A daughter, Onyu

(Harmony) Lee, is a freshman at Northwestern University. Her son

Jiseok (Ji) Lee is a ninth grader.

When Newsweek broke a story on Kim’s work in the July 19, 2010

edition, the headline screamed, “The Creativity Crisis.” The subhead

intoned: “For the first time, research shows that American creativity is

declining. What went wrong—and how can we fix it?”

Kim published findings using E. Paul Torrance’s creativity scoring

system, developed 50 years ago at UGA. The study of children and

adults weighed nearly 300,000 individual scores. Seven pages in

Newsweek dedicated to Kim’s work captured media attention, raising

alarms in the U.S., and heckling abroad. A British newspaper trumpeted,

“New Study Says America is Losing its Innovative Edge.”

Ouch, thought Kim. Not what she intended, at all.

Kim swivels in her chair and says with great candor she turned

down a request to appear on The Charlie Rose Show. Primetime Charlie

Rose, the interviewer of world-renowned politicians, writers, actors—

everybody who is anybody in pop culture—also wanted time with Kim.

The thing was, Kim didn’t want time with another interviewer. Why

would she refuse Rose? She was succinct.

“I believe everybody is creative.” She adds, “I don’t believe in finger

pointing.”

It took a while for her to appreciate just how much of a slap-down

the Newsweek headline was, especially given Americans still lay claim to

the world’s creativity franchise. The news that American creativity was

SHE SPRINGS UP from her standard-issue swivel office chair as the door swings open. Then Kyung Hee Kim warmly hugs a guest from UGA—

a place that became a haven for her a decade ago—as if a little bit of Athens could be absorbed in that exchange. Athens’ dust might as well be fairy

dust, as far as Kim is concerned.

“Athens—I felt like it was my home. When I went to Athens in the College of Education, there were a lot of yellow flowers called forsythia. It looked

like my home. It’s similar to Korea.” At UGA, Kim earned (her second) doctorate in educational psychology in 2005. “I got full

support, academically and mentally.”

This is Kim’s story. It is as much about a journey of personal freedom as it is about creativity. As Kim says, quoting

a poet, “If I accept you as you are, then I make you worse. If I see you as the person I know you are capable of being,

then I make you better.”

O

19UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

Kyung Hee Kim is a headline-making researcher at thenation’s second oldest university, the College ofWilliam& Mary. She credits UGA with handing her the keys todrive her own future for the first time, sinceimmigrating to America from a small Korean village.

Since publishing a much-acclaimed research pieceon creativity last summer, Kim’s phone has not stoppedringing. National and international media continue topursue prized interviews with the UGA alum. Althoughshe’s highly sought after, Kim shies away from themedia. The persistent attention disquieted her. Yet Kimgranted an interview with The Graduate School Magazine,

even as she was barraged with requests fromunanticipated sources.

slipping and had been for over 50 years left readers either defensive or

deeply alarmed. Kim grew upset at a reporter’s insistence she isolate the

culprit. She was forced to begin screening media calls.

“People asked me how we can foster children having more

creativity,” Kim says.

She points out there’s no single, simple answer, or handy sound

bite that satisfies this question. Parent education is needed, she says.

“Parent education must be mandatory for every single parent,” Kim

believes, for parents can smother the spark that burns in all children.

“I have been in this country for only 10 years. I haven’t been here

long enough to criticize. That is not what my research is about. I don’t

study politics. I just want to help creative people, and children who are

creative, so that parents don’t kill their creativity and their lives become

miserable. I just want to help those people, but no reporter has been

interested in that so far,” she stresses.

THE CREATIVITY OBSESSION

“She is a member of the Center for Gifted Education and teaches

research methodology classes,” says Bruce Bracken, a William & Mary

colleague and fellow UGA alum. “She is a rising star at the College,

coming to us with a mature, well-developed line of research, which is

unusual for assistant professors. Her research has already brought

considerable attention to us through her Newsweek citations, as well as

her other notable research (e.g., meta-analyses) and presentations.”

“The term ‘creativity’ is understood by everyone,” says Tracy L.

Cross, executive director of the Center for Gifted Education at William

& Mary. Perhaps, Cross says, that’s why the public’s so interested, he

writes in an email.

“Of course, that means that there are nearly an infinite number of

tacit definitions operating. Moreover, most people enjoy talent domains

such as art and in those domains one can easily tell when they are

witnessing something that they cannot do themselves. So, creativity is in

everyone’s world from the practical arts to the high arts. It makes sense

that so many people are interested in it.”

And interested they were. As a scientist, colleague, friend and

parent, Kim said 500 emails daily filled her inbox since that headline and

others like it broke. The emails carried entreating subject lines, and Kim

remained under siege to give interviews months later. Kim sighs,

swiveling away from a PC screen that pings with incoming email alerts,

that she could longer do her research.

“Finger pointing,” she says, her eyes blazing. “Whose fault is that?

It focuses on blaming people and I don’t want to do that. Also, they

21UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

don’t know. People don’t appreciate their air right now; it’s just there. I

came from a different culture and then I came to America.” Here, the air

allowed her to breathe as a free thinker.

She wants the blame-game to cease. “I believe it is the land of

opportunity. Even if they want to blame, I don’t blame—I want to thank

the country, and the American people!”

As days wore on after the research became public, panicked

parents accosted Kim, asking if their child, or they themselves, were

uncreative. “Parents think I’m a fortune teller,” Kim says. “They’re

sending me their children’s drawings. I’m getting questions whenever I

go outside. Restaurant owners, they even ask me. They want to know

about their own creativity!”

Americans are panicked at the news that we are either growingmore

dumb or less creative or both. Kim isn’t happy about that response, either,

and gestures with a stop sign by holding up her hand. America, she says

seriously, is where she found opportunity and personal freedom.

“Being creative is being mentally healthy,” Kim asserts. “Since I

came here, I let out my creative energies. I’m healthier; I’m happier and

more independent.” With an intake of breath, Kim gathers herself.

“This country has saved my life! It’s the best country on earth!” she

explodes. “You know that. Don’t you?” Since leaving Korea for the

United States 10 years ago, Kim has become devotedly American. She

tells how she was once bound by a traditional culture in which family and

village elders held complete sway. “There is no other place on earth like

the United States. No other country. Compared to any other country in

the world, it is the best.”

On this point, Kim is adamant. To know how great her clarity, one

must go with Kim to the journey that has made this known. But Kim

warms to the creativity topic slowly. First, she reveals how she jump-

started her own creative life, and, finally, how she wound up at the

epicenter of a creativity maelstrom.

A PHD, WIFE AND MOTHER, ONCE HOPELESSLYCAUGHT IN A WEB OF TRADITION…

Kim is a native of Bugye-myon, Gunwi-gun, which she compares to a

province, in Kyungsangpook, which she further explains, is like a state, in

the country of Korea.

“It is really deep South. Remote countryside. Mountainous—a small

village,” Kim explains. Village elders weighed in on all matters, along with

family. When Kim, the second of four children, was identified as a

promising student, her relatives discouraged her attending school, saying

it might make her disobedient. Her parents finally relented, allowing Kim

“Parents think I’m a fortune teller. “They’re sending me their children’s drawings. I’m gettingquestions whenever I go outside. Restaurant owners, they even ask me. They want to knowabout their own creativity!” —Kyung Hee Kim

to become the first female person from the town of Bugye to go to high

school and, with a full scholarship, college.

“They were right,” Kim smiles ruefully. “I became disobedient.”

Every other girl went to work in a local sock factory.

“Most people were and are very Confucian, but my parents were

and are Christian, and Christianity was brought to my country by a lot of

missionaries from the U.S. who taught my parents that girls and boys

should be treated equally.”

She met her husband in college. He became a dentist known as Dr.

Lee, and she was an educator teaching in a Korean high school. Lee was

accomplished, kind, and a member of the Korean upper class—and also

subject to caste imperatives. “You don’t marry the man, you marry the

family,” Kim notes.

Though Kim became rich and possessed an education herself, once

installed in the upper caste via marriage, she was trapped within

centuries of ancient traditions. Her modern ambitions were unwelcome

in her new social place.

“Three years, you are mute; three years, deaf; three years blind. For

nine years, you suffer,” Kim says about traditional Korean marriage. “I did

anything I could for my husband’s family and his parents. What my

parents told me to do, I did.” She took up knitting and art as distractions,

but her hopelessness grew deeper.

Kim was devalued by her in-laws, and pressured to produce an heir

for her high-born husband. When she gave birth to a daughter instead,

she was chided and punished by her in-laws. Kim says only a male heir,

to carry on the Lee’s bloodline, was acceptable.

She dreamed of sheltering her daughter from the dominant Asian

gender bias, and to use her own education. For a while, Kim continued

teaching until forced to quit. Public employment of a wealthy wife was

indication of financial inadequacy. “It was embarrassing to them—my in-

laws,” Kim says. “Viewed by them as suggesting that my husband was not

being substantial enough.”

Kim lost her work and her identity, explaining, “After that, I didn’t

want to live there.” She looked for and found a temporary exit from the

Lee family’s control: self-improvement was acceptable.

“It looks fancy,” Kim says with a tight smile. She moved with her

daughter to Seoul City to attend graduate school. “She didn’t see her

dad,” Kim recalls, and her daughter cried out for him at night.

Yet Kim persevered towards earning a doctorate. She had a second

pregnancy, also a girl, which terminated. Thereafter, Kim’s father visited

her in Seoul, bearing expensive Chinese herbs he hoped might produce

a male heir, thereby restoring harmony within Kim’s new family. She

reluctantly followed her father’s wishes, bowing low to the East at

sunrise, and swallowing the roots and herbs as her father entreated.

“He paid a lot of money, so I could have a boy,” she says. “In Asia,

the blood line is all important.”

Kim gave birth to a son in the fall of 1995, and the formerly hostile

mother-in-law, now appeased, bowed low to her. Ostensibly, peace was

restored in the Lee household. Kim’s husband encouraged her to spend

money, and she redecorated their house, filling it with a grand piano and

expensive symbols of wealth.

Increasingly despondent, Kim withdrew. “I didn’t have any hope,

any future,” she says. “I felt like a marionette, controlled by my culture.”

She sought psychiatric help. “He said that there was only one thing I

could do. Open my heart. He told me to open my heart, but he didn’t

tell me how.”

Instead, Kim opened her mind wide; one idea contained a flicker

22

Kim at age 14 with her Korean teacher, Mr. Cho.

“Mr. Cho convinced my parents to send me to an academic high school instead of the factorythat made socks. On May 15, Teacher's Day, I used to call him and talk. But, on May 15, 2001,I called from Florida, USA, to Korea, and found from his wife that he had passed away a monthbefore. That day was one of my saddest days in my life."—Kyung Hee Kim

of hope. “Maybe I can go to America,” she thought. “Why America? I

was an English teacher, and America is land of freedom and land of

opportunity, right?”

She told her husband’s family that “an important male son, who

was the first born of their first born, needed to master English.” But the

Lees balked at this. She pressed the case with the support of her kindly

husband. “Especially for a valuable grandson, speaking English before

puberty was really important.” Aided by her husband, Kim forged ahead.

“In June of 2000, I decided to come here, and then I started to get a

visa.” On August 1, two months later, she chose San Diego as her new

destination.

“There are a lot of Asian people there, so I wouldn’t look

different,” Kim decided. She found an apartment on the Internet for

herself and two small children in La Jolla, Ca. They arrived in California

August 8, 2000, without any preparation, she recalls.

In Korea, where she earned her first doctorate in education, Kim

was taught to read and write English, but not to speak it. She felt paralytic

at first, relying upon the kindness of strangers to communicate in buying

groceries and pay bills. Paying debts by check was unheard of to her.

She was bilked out of thousands of dollars by a new “friend” when

the family settled briefly outside San Diego. “If you want to go to Korea

and buy a house and open your own business, no way. But here, if you

work hard, you can do anything. Of course, there is racism. I know it very

well. There are people who think if you cannot speak fluently, you are

ignorant. But it is still better than any country for foreigners.”

Badly shaken by the theft, Kim packed up the family and retreated

to Tampa, Florida. “Okay,” she amends. “There were people who took

advantage of me and were bad, but this is the most accepting country in

the world. It is the land of opportunity and of freedom.”

She came to the States “to run away from her culture” and was

never tempted to return to Korea. Even so, Kim had recurring nightmares

and felt desperately lonely when her marriage ended amicably.

Yet there was something else on her mind. Kim was obsessed with

creativity and how it is nurtured. In Korea, Kim’s creativity was treated as

an aberration. She returned to academics to occupy herself with her

husband’s support. At the University of South Florida, or USF, she met a

professor from Ghana named Kofi Marfo, who became a mentor. Kim

aced USF graduate classes, some of which she had already taken en route

to her doctorate in education. She became known as “Miss Statistics”

after signing up for beginning, intermediate and advanced statistics all at

once. “They thought I was brilliant,” she jokes.

Very quickly, Marfo told Kim where her future lay—to the north of

Florida in a small Georgia town. “He kicked me out and told me I had to

go to the University of Georgia because Dr. Torrance was there.” What

Kim truly wanted to know was why she was so different from her fellow

Koreans. At the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development,

Marfo believed Kim might find answers, and a renewed focus.

“I never, ever thought I could study in a foreign culture. This is not

my country. I didn’t intend to have another PhD,” she wondered. Athens

that spring was in full bloom. The yellow forsythia, reminded Kim of

Korea’s physical beauty. She decided to take courses and resettle the

children in Athens, a safe, smaller town she loved at first sight.

Then a vitally important thing happened to Kim. She met Bonnie

Cramond, a professor of educational psychology and then the director

of the Torrance Center. There was an immediate sense of connection,

and an appreciation for one another.

“Kyung Hee Kim came to see me before applying to UGA. I could

see that she was looking for something that she had not found at the

other universities she had attended. She was very open, something I am

not used to seeing in students at that stage,” says Bonnie Cramond,

professor of educational psychology and instructional technology.

“Bonnie Cramond saved my life,” Kim says gratefully. “She was

different from anybody in the world. She accepted differences. Being

different is being deficient to others. She values differences.” Cramond

recognized Kim’s differences as an indication of her gifts.

“Most people are trained to believe that students who are different

are problematic, but I know that it is also a sign of creativity. So, I took a

chance and agreed to be her advisor, and it was one of the best professional

decisions I made. She has really helped me as much or more than I have

helped her, and that is the basis of a true mentorship," says Cramond.

23UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

“The gifted are of three kinds: One, high intelligence and low creativity;two, high creativity and low intelligence; three, high intelligence andhigh creativity. A person can possess the third type, although it’sunusual. But it’s extremely rare; if you are innovative you try to collectpeople who are adaptive. If you are adaptive, you work for innovativepeople.” —Kyung Hee Kim

For the first time in Kim’s life, she found external validation and

affirmation in being original, which she used to think of as being

negative. Her life took a radical shift. The nightmares she had suffered

ended.

“I saw I was different, but it is good, and I can use that!” she

exclaims. So Kim began to research Asian culture, Confucianism, and

their characteristics. “Risk-taking, open-minded, nonconformist, being a

minority, persistent, sometimes very introverted and sometimes very

extroverted, feminine but masculine. To Bonnie, everything was okay. I

could talk about anything!”

Cramond guided Kim, whose life flourished and opened as UGA

faculty recognized and nurtured her talents. “Fostering creativity is

everywhere,” she says. “I wanted to do parent education, and that was

my first dissertation.” She connected psychology with culture and

creativity and forged a new path.

“Before I used to think, why am I different? I could have been a

perfect wife, or a happy wife, but I couldn’t fit in. Since I met Bonnie, I

thought, ‘I am different, I should not try to fit in…why should I care why

other people like me or accept me?’”

Kim earned a second doctorate at UGA. She discovered a new

identity, along with a new adopted family, at UGA. Inspired by Torrance’s

work, and especially by Cramond's personal attentions to her, she knew

she would repay their kindnesses with others.

COMING HOME…

Kim’s office is in a new building on theW&M campus which abuts historic

Williamsburg. The place is a singular confluence of the past and future.

Williamsburg is toW&Mwhat Athens is to UGA; except, Athens is

a shrine to the South’s liveliest musical scene, whereas Williamsburg is a

shrine to democracy. Old line Rockefeller money has infused

Williamsburg with museum-quality relevance. Some of W&M’s pre-

Revolutionary campus looks like the backdrop for a Ken Burns

documentary. (In fact, an HBO biopic on John Adams was filmed here.)

Photogenic W&M straddles the line between town and gown,

managing the admirable balancing act of museum-quality spiffiness and

academic relevance. Kim’s presence on campus speaks to just how

relevant: her academic star remains high, and is rising.

24

Kim’s research was inspired by the work of UGAprofessor E. Paul Torrance, which began some 50years ago. Since Torrance’s death, his formerstudent and colleague, Bonnie Cramond, alsocontinues his work. Kim prizes photographs andletters from both professors and emulates theirstudent-focused approach.

Bracken muses, “it is nice to have a young UGA colleague joining

the faculty as I am edging ever closer to retirement myself. It is also

wonderful having a colleague who was fortunate enough to get to know

Dr. Torrance—I had the pleasure to serve as his graduate assistant in the

late ‘70s.”

Now Kim, a thoroughly modern academic, burns with twin

purposes: carrying on her UGA mentors’ work in creativity and

honoring the host country that she has adopted as her emotional and

creative home. As for creativity, this is the buzzword that keeps the

media’s attention focused on the professor. What supports creativity is

at the core of her ongoing research and the starting place of everything

that has happened to her professionally.

“The gifted are of three kinds: one, high intelligence and low

creativity; two, high creativity and low intelligence; three, high

intelligence and high creativity,” Kim explains. A person can possess the

third type, although it’s unusual. “But it’s extremely rare; if you are

innovative, you try to collect people who are adaptive. If you are

adaptive, you work for innovative people.” Kim’s phone rings often and

her email notification continues pinging, but she remains focused on

identifying the “markers” of creativity.

Kim stresses that relevance is not on the top of the list when it

comes to creativity markers. Divergence and convergence are. This is

what UGA’s Torrance set out to prove decades ago. Divergences and

convergences—that is the sort of language through which Kim’s work is

revealed. It has found a new audience as America’s creativity appears to

be in a free fall. This has made Kim a reluctant interviewee.

RELUCTANT TO GIVE SOUND BITES

Setting the record straight when reporters abandon objectivity in favor

of a screaming headline, or a false conjecture, is as time consuming as

giving interviews, so Kim is beginning to think there is just no winning in

the media chase. So she quit trying.

When we spoke, she had just given an interview to U.S. News and

World Report, but only after some serious prodding from higher ups. Kim

really, really dislikes interviews, she says.

Here’s the real reason why. Kim is neither petulant nor intellectu-

ally arrogant. She came to the States for the freedom she craved, and

found it. Now, Kim says she simply loves America. And she doesn’t want

to disparage it or assign blame for America’s plunging creativity scores.

“No finger pointing,” Kim says firmly.

“I want to do research and help creative people who cannot fit in,”

Kim says. This is her chosen work.

“Bonnie Cramond was Paul Torrance’s favorite student. So she is

like this for me (I was one of her favorites). Now I have students, one at

Michigan State University, and other at the University of Virginia and

several here to mentor.” She pauses and counts. “Actually, nine

students—four females and five males.”

Kim calls these students and offers support. She invites them to

dinners, shares holidays, and remains in close touch, as long as they need.

“Because of my connections, emotional attachment, I am

continuing Torrance’s work.” Her colleague, Bracken, says admiringly

that Kim “is very high-energy, actively involved, and intellectually curious

beyond her years in education. I am certain she will make significant

contributions to the field throughout her career and will rise to a level

of recognition reserved for the few.”

For further information:

www.wm.edu/news/stories/2010/out-of-context-faculty-inform-the-

media007.php

25UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

“Before I used to think, why am I different? I could have

been a perfect wife, or a happy wife, but I couldn’t fit in.

Since I met Bonnie, I thought, ‘I am different, I should not

try to fit in…why should I care why other people like me or

accept me?’”—Kyung Hee Kim

G

bats took him deep into the Amazon, to locales far away from faxes,

modems, computers and cellular connectivity. His scientific sleuthing

seems straight out of an adventure drama, one for which Streicker seems

well equipped. He is not a stranger to this work, having first begun it

while attending the University of Virginia.

“At UVA, I worked with Amy Pedersen and Janis Antonovics on the

transmission of parasites in wild, small-mammal communities. After that,

I worked briefly as an intern at the Consortium for Conservation

Medicine, where I studied parasites of endangered lizards with Dr. Peter

Daszak. Next, I worked in the CDC rabies lab with Dr. Charles Rupprecht

for two years as an Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellow,” says Streicker.

“As a child I was fascinated by animals, but bats held no special

place in my heart until I started studying them at the CDC. Basically, I was

really interested in how differences in the behavior or life history of

species might influence the transmission of their diseases.”

But bats have an extreme ick factor, which Streicker is immune to,

apparently, in the interest of clear-headed science. To wit:

“Bats present a unique case study for these types of questions

aniel Streicker is one part Indiana Jones, one part academic,

and 100 percent intrepid. Endangered lizards, parasites and

vampire bats plunge him into adventurous research sites as

far flung as South America.

Vampire bats? The very mention of vampire bats conjures a few

centuries worth of folklore, superstition and very bad Bela Lugosi movies.

But we learned a real vampire bat-stalking researcher doesn’t bother

wearing necklaces of garlic, nor carrying a wooden stake. Just. In. Case.

Streicker is a doctoral student in the University of Georgia’s Odum

School of Ecology, whose adventures recently included leading a rabies

research team. The journal Science published the results this past

summer. The research, co-authored with scientists from the University

of Tennessee, Western Michigan University, and the U.S. Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention, provides a window into how rabies is

transmitted across different species.

Tracking patterns of disease transmission has led Streicker from

mountains in the eastern U.S., to live animal markets in China, and to

remote, low-tech villages in Peru. Streicker’s recent work with vampire

26

D

because their communities are so diverse, both taxonomically and

ecologically. For example, if you pick two random bats flying around at

night, one might live as a solitary individual and migrate thousands of

kilometers every year and the second might live in a colony of tens of

thousands and hibernate within a few miles of where you caught it.

These differences could have profound effects on disease

transmission, but there are few systems where it would be possible to

study them because most single taxonomic groups lack the diversity that

is present within bats. After working with South American bats, I have

gained an even broader perspective on bats, especially their critical

functions in ecosystems for seed dispersal, pollination and insect control.”

Mere coincidence? You be the judge. Streicker is originally from

Richmond, Virginia, and attended the University of Virginia as an

undergraduate. (Note to reader: Famously gothic writer Edgar Allen Poe

also attended UVA.) The Graduate School Magazine recently posed some

burning questions to Streicker.

Graduate School Magazine: “Rabies” is one of those emotionally loaded

words. It evokes terrifying scenes like the (fictional) one in To Kill a

Mockingbird when Atticus Finch is forced to shoot a rabid dog. In the

South, rabies is synonymous with "mad dogs." However, your research

looked at bats, specifically cross-transmission. Why bats?

Streicker: Vaccination of dogs and cats in the 1950s really changed the

face of rabies in theUnited States. Now, the vastmajority of rabies cases are

diagnosed in wild animals. Of the wild animal species that are commonly

found to have rabies, bats emerged somewhat unexpectedly as the primary

source of human rabies infections acquired in the U.S., and they are now

themost frequently tested wild animal species. It is also important to note

that bats have been associated in recent years with the emergence of

several other deadly human viruses, including SARS and Ebola; but studies

of the transmission of viruses or any other infectious diseases within bat

communities are few.

The public health importance of bat rabies and the existence of an

efficient surveillance network comprised of state and local public health

Vaccination of dogs and cats in the 1950s really changed the face of rabies in the United States. Now, the vast majority of rabies cases

are diagnosed in wild animals. Of the wild animal species that are commonly found to have rabies, bats emerged somewhat unexpectedly

as the primary source of human rabies infections acquired in the U.S., and they are now the most frequently tested wild animal species.

27UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

28

laboratories across the U.S. allowed us to

assemble an unprecedented dataset for a

wildlife disease. This dataset was comprised of

hundreds of viruses from many different bat

species from geographically widespread

regions of the country across a 10-year period.

We chose to focus the research on cross-

species transmission because it is the most

important mechanism by which new diseases

emerge in both humans and wildlife, but

surprisingly little is known about how often it

happens in nature, between which species it

happens and whether transmission is likely to

lead to a single isolated case or the next

pandemic. In short, we saw the bat and rabies

as a tractable system to address critical basic

questions about how viruses emerge, while

contributing to our understanding of an

important zoonotic disease.

Graduate School Magazine: Your database was

enormous. What did the rabies study reveal

about transmission?

Streicker: First, we found that cross-species

transmission is actually a surprisingly common

event in the North American bat community,

but one that from the virus’s perspective is

almost always doomed to failure–most cross-

species transmissions fail to establish ongoing

infections in the recipient species. Second,

when we examined which species were most

likely to infect each other, we found that the

most important factor was not the ecological

or geographic overlap of species, but rather

how closely related the bat species were. In

essence, the virus is much more likely to be

transmitted between closely related bat

species than distantly related bat species and

once that initial transmission happens,

permanent viral establishment is much more

likely between close relatives. These results

suggest that the biological or ecological

similarity of closely related species effectively

reduces the barriers that viruses must traverse

in order to emerge in new species. At least for

the bat rabies system, these results predict that

the most likely source of a new virus for a bat

is not its ecological neighbor, but its

evolutionary relative.

Graduate School Magazine: Can you tell us

something about how you used gene

sequencing?

Streicker: Sequencing of both bat DNA and

rabies virus RNA was absolutely critical to the

success of this study. Bats can be difficult to

identify to species based on morphology

alone and we didn’t always have the complete

specimen to verify that the initial species iden-

tification was correct. Obviously, if you don’t

know what species you are dealing with, you

can’t say much about cross-species

transmission, so we sequenced the DNA of

the bats to confirm their species identities.

Our use of molecular sequence data from

rabies virus was a totally novel way to quantify

cross-species transmission. This represents a

substantial advantage over historical methods

to quantify cross-species transmission because

of the declining cost of producing genetic

sequence data and the growth of surveillance

programs for wildlife diseases, which will

produce more datasets like ours in the near

future. My co-authors and I think that this

framework holds great promise for describing

the frequency of cross-species transmission in

a variety of natural systems, many of which,

like rabies, have important implications for

human and animal health.

Graduate School Magazine: You subsequently

co-authored the paper on cross-species

transmission of rabies that published in Science

magazine last August. Were any of your

fellow researchers doctoral students?

Streicker: When the project was initiated,

one of my co-authors, Amy Turmelle, was a

graduate student at the University of

Tennessee-Knoxville who was also doing her

dissertation research in the CDC Rabies

Laboratory; however, Amy graduated before

the paper came out and is now a post-

doctoral fellow in the CDC Rabies Laboratory.

Graduate School Magazine: Exterminators

warn that bats can gain entry to home attics via

unsealed louvers. Should the general public be

concerned about bats as a public safety issue?

Streicker: Bats are reservoirs of rabies

throughout the country, so contacts between

bats and humans should be minimized. The

rabies risk that bats pose to the general public is

typically very low; however, if bats are entering

the living space of a house this risk is heightened,

particularly when the household includes young

children or other people who might not

recognize or report contact with a bat.

If bat bites are detected and post-

exposure treatment is initiated in a timely

manner, the risk of developing rabies is almost

non-existent; however, rabies is a fatal disease

when left untreated, either through ignorance

of the risk associated with a bite or through

failure to recognize a bite.

Graduate School Magazine: Through a grant

recently awarded by the National Science

Foundation, your work continues with

vampire bats in Peru in conjunction with the

Peruvian Ministries of Health and Agriculture

and the University of San Marcos. Does the

old vampire and bat folklore only serve to

trivialize a serious issue? Does this intrigue or

irritate you?

Streicker: Both rabies and folkloric vampires

are associated with cycles of biting, aggression,

hypersensitivity, disrupted sleeping patterns

and other changes in behavior, so the

symptoms of each mirrors the other. To me,

these interactions between infectious disease

and popular culture are much more a

fascinating testament to the importance of

infectious diseases in historical and modern

In the case of rabies, the folklore is sosurprisingly similar to the biology that it hasbeen suggested that rabies was actually adriving factor in the development of theEastern European vampire legends.

DANIEL

STREICKER

societies than a trivialization of their effects on

public health or veterinary medicine.

Graduate School Magazine: What has

transpired since the Science article ran? Is your

phone ringing off the hook?

Streicker: I was actually working in the

Peruvian Amazon during the week that the

paper came out, so that led to some

interesting interview scenarios, such as trying

to find a corner of a busy jungle town that was

not inundated by motorcycle horns to talk on

my cell phone or searching to find a satellite

internet connection that could support Skype,

but overall it has been extremely rewarding to

see some interest in my work from the general

public. More importantly, the publication of

this paper has opened up some great

professional opportunities for me, such as

invitations to give presentations at other

universities and to participate in workshops. I

am really grateful for these opportunities and

I think they will be invaluable training for my

development as a scientist.

Graduate School Magazine: Do vampire bats

have anything to worry about themselves? Are

there any predators, apart from stake-wielding

actors in old vampire movies?

Streicker: There is the white nose syndrome,

which is devastating North American bat

populations.

Vampire bats do have natural predators

including owls, hawks and occasionally snakes.

None of those species are susceptible to

rabies. Cats have also been reported to hunt

vampire bats and are actually used as a

strategy by people living in some parts of the

Amazon to keep the bats from biting them;

however, cats are susceptible to rabies and

there have been many cases of cats getting

infected by bats and exposing their owners.

Infectious diseases can also represent a

substantial threat to bats themselves. For

example, North American cave-dwelling bats

are currently experiencing dramatic

population declines due to White Nose

Syndrome, a disease associated with a fungal

pathogen. At present, it is estimated that over

1 million bats have already been killed and

29UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

regional extinction of some species seems like

a real possibility. This new disease threat to

bats, which may represent the worst die off for

any wild animal species in North American

history, provides a renewed sense of urgency

to understand the dynamics of disease

transmission within wildlife communities.

For further reading, see Daniel Streicker’s

website: http://dstrike.myweb.uga.edu/

Link to National Geographic article:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video

/player/news/animals-news/vam

Link to Science article:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5

992/676.abstract?sid=c0f51069-d213-465b-

b2a5-9511097698ca

G

Bat Man! Daniel Striecker Stalks Bats. He’s on amission to help prevent infectious disease.

“Jim Moore is the magnet who has pulledthe team together,” says colleague SteveOliver, the group’s principal investigator onits unique Science Education PartnershipAwards grant from the National Institutes ofHealth. Moore involved UGA 3-D animationexpert Mike Hussey early on in the process,and Hussey has involved his undergraduateand graduate students ever since.

“I claim no credit for assembling the team,”Oliver insists. “I am the school guy, orperhaps it is better to say, I am the formerhigh school biology teacher in the group whohelps direct the aspects of the project thatimpact the teachers/students/schools.”

“If every picture is worth a thousand words,”explains Flint Buchanan, an instructionaldesigner working on the visionaryeducational animation project, “Andanimations run at 30 frames per second, thenevery second is worth 30,000 words.”Buchanan is credited by the team in helpingkeep the project focused on making scienceengaging for students.

Can scientific principles be taught in ameaningful yet exciting way? This distilledinto a singular thought: If the group canconceptualize something students havetrouble understanding and can teach it 3-dimensionally, will the students becomeengaged and learn the material better?

a uga team of professors, students, artists and

scientists brings to bear an astonishing array of inter-

disciplinary talents and good will. Some of the team are

parents, others not. Some are students or faculty, and some

are staff. They have one essential commonality: intentions

to change high school education by making the process fun.

And they darned well may do it.

31UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

that is not glass, but visceral, quivering, and

elegant kinetic energy in motion. The ringside

cluster includes professors, scientists and

veterinary students, trained upon something

which only they observe and evaluate.

ONLY YARDS AWAY…

Meanwhile, a gathering of men and women

huddle nearby in a different ring. Twenty three

men and women circle a conference room

table and line the walls inside the large animal

research building. They, too, observe in order

to teach, employing a virtual 3-D world at

their fingertips.

There’s not much personal space in the

darkened room, but no one appears to mind.

The observers are close enough that you can

hear breaths expelled in exasperation or a

sharp intake when caught by happy surprise.

There’s only one reference point for this

captive group—the large TV on the wall. They

stare, all absorbed by a graphic. They have

named a teenager in a virtual world “Chip”

and his diabetic cat “Dip.” Chip and Dip are a

case study premise, describing processes in

type II diabetes that are “crazily complex,”

according to one student seated at the table.

A laptop keyboard key strike causes a 3-

dimensional muscle cell to wriggle, and there

is a collective murmur. Here, too, there is a

twitchy, kinetic energy, an air of anticipation

inside the room. The group discusses Chip’s

muscle fibers, glucose transporters and

mitochondria, and “parsing out exactly what

we’re doing.”

The animation of Chip’s body structure

and musculature is debated as Jared Jackson,

the project’s lead animator, interacts with the

“Thingy” he has created. “Thingy” is the

white horse gets a morning

workout in a ring at the UGA

College of Veterinary Medicine’s

Complex, as onlookers evaluate, closely

monitoring the horse’s movements as it’s

taken through its paces. The sun hesitates

behind a puffy cloud, signifying something

inexorable to the horse. The horse respires in

the morning air. With nostrils flared wide,

flank and hooves shifting, muscles rippling, the

horse’s tail dusts the motes of sunlight that

dance along in its wake.

It’s a marvelous thing observed, the

delicate configuration of musculature, sinew,

cartilage and bone supporting the horse’s

1,200 pounds. The systems contained within

this great beast provide clues that only an

educated onlooker can visually discern. To a

trained eye the horse is nearly transparent as

glass, and nearly as delicately configured.

The observers lean in, eyes trained,

following each swishing movement of a horse

31UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

ENGAGING STUDENTS

Becomes an Ideal Science Projectfor Students, Faculty and Staff

A

1.Can you guess who they are? Answers on page 40.

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS

PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY JARED JACKSON, B.J. WIMPEY,

RENEE STANDER, STEVEN ARNOLD, AND JEF FREYDLE

group’s term for a game demonstrating a

biological processes—games with analogous

situations that visually demonstrate the

important part of a case study.

“For example, the games explain

physiologic processes like osmosis. In order to

do this, the group must re-create, and

animate, things such as the membranes of a

cell wall, or how glucose enters cells and drives

functions on a cellular level,” says Moore, a

professor of large animal medicine.

“Anything that spits things across the

membrane, the kids will love,” chortles

Moore, as the group dissolves into laughter.

These people are also going through

paces, getting the weekly workout that is their

habit for more than two years now. As a

matter of fact, the germ of the idea for their

group project was about a horse—that now

famous Glass Horse, one which Moore and

others brought to fruition as a teaching tool

10 years ago. In the 1990s, Moore first turned

to UGA colleagues to figure out how to

articulate scientific processes in a more

dynamic way than with words-connected-by-

arrows, dry charts and graphs. “From my

experiences,” he says, “those ways simply

weren’t working.”

The quest to find a new model led

Moore to a UGA computer graphics artist

named Thel Melton.

“In 1996 I started working with Thel,

who works in the College. Thel was interested

in learning how to use the software programs

used to create 3-D models and animations,

and I wanted to pursue new ways to teach the

vet students about equine abdominal diseases.

It was a great match, and we were joined by an

excellent instructional designer/programmer,

named Mac Smith. We finished the first Glass

Horse CD in 2001.”

Moore explains how the genesis for

future animations was in the production of

those transparent horse videos. “Our next

project was the anatomy of the horse’s leg, an

area that veterinary students have difficulty

mastering. Flint Buchanan joined the three of

us, and we finished the Elements of the Equine

Distal Limb CD in 2004,” he says. The CD won

the Dr. Frank H. Netter Award for Special

Contributions to Medical Education in 2005.

These early projects spun off into much larger

group experimentation with animations.

Colleagues from other disciplines became

involved. Collaborations expanded.

But the chronology thereon is

intertwined and complex. Each piece of the

group’s evolution was a case of “group mind,”

Moore says. The very idea of creating

animated games was “kick started by Casey

O’Donnell, a professor in journalism who

studies how kids learn from videogames,”

Moore explains.

“This is all a group venture,” he says.

”WE JUST CLICKED”

But Moore was the magnetic center, insists

Steve Oliver. Moore went to the College of

Education and met Oliver for the first time 10

years ago. Oliver is a professor of science

education and associate head of mathematics

and science education. He has also become

the principal investigator for the group, and a

fellow fanatic for their cause.

“We just clicked,” Moore recalls. He

asked Oliver what he was asking other

colleagues in various departments on campus:

Could science and math be fun—as much fun,

as say, the computer games kids love?

Oliver well remembers the day in 2000,

and the first impression he had of Moore’s

concept. “I met JimMoore about 10 years ago

32

2.

3.

33UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

entirely by chance. He showed me some of

the animations he had been building for the

Glass Horse project and I said ‘Science teachers

would love stuff like that!’—and I have been

involved ever since.”

They started by assembling an inter-

disciplinary creative team. The team was

tasked with all the things 3-D productions

required to come to life: writing the scripts,

ensuring the scientific content was accurate,

shooting video footage, recording narratives,

creating original music and art, then designing

and programming the computer interface.

This proved to be as exhausting and as

exhilarating as anything Oliver and Moore

could have conceived. Over the next few

years, people from the arts, theater, sciences,

and other disciplines came together, agreeing

to volunteer their time and talents.

INSIDE A CROWDEDCONFERENCE ROOM,

SOMETHING MAGICAL HAPPENS

There’s something in common here among

the animation group in the conference room

with the group gathered outdoors—a taut

attention to what is transpiring. Outdoors, the

group monitors a living entity; the group

indoors seeks to replicate a living process in an

interactive virtual world.

Though they gather on the veterinary

school’s turf, the collaborative team “includes

faculty in education, veterinary medicine,

biological sciences, engineering, physics,

journalism, theater, music, as well as local high

school teachers,” says Oliver. Moore adds,

“There are nine graduate students, three

recent graduates, and 12 undergraduate

students involved in this project.”

“The best thing about it,” says Moore,

with characteristic zeal, “is we have people who

come week after week…the group has grown.

There’s a higher good—a higher ground.”

The current interactive case study about

filtration demonstrates hemodialysis in a

the games explain physiologic

processes likeosmosis.In order to do this, the group must re-create,and animate things such as the membranes of

a cell wall, or how glucose enters cells and drives

functions on a cellular level.

—James Moore, professor of Large Animal Medicine, UGA

“

4.

5.

”

34

6.

7.

8.

9.

“Jim Moore is the magnet who has pulledthe team together,” says colleague SteveOliver, the group’s principal investigator onits unique Science Education PartnershipAwards grant from the National Institutes ofHealth. Moore involved UGA 3-D animationexpert Mike Hussey early on in the process,and Hussey has involved his undergraduateand graduate students ever since.

“I claim no credit for assembling the team,”Oliver insists. “I am the school guy, orperhaps it is better to say, I am the formerhigh school biology teacher in the group whohelps direct the aspects of the project thatimpact the teachers/students/schools.”

“If every picture is worth a thousand words,”explains Flint Buchanan, an instructionaldesigner working on the visionaryeducational animation project, “Andanimations run at 30 frames per second, thenevery second is worth 30,000 words.”Buchanan is credited by the team in helpingkeep the project focused on making scienceengaging for students.

Can scientific principles be taught in ameaningful yet exciting way? This distilledinto a singular thought: If the group canconceptualize something students havetrouble understanding and can teach it 3-dimensionally, will the students becomeengaged and learn the material better?

The IDEAL team have created an interactivesite and direct link to this article for Graduate

School Magazine readers. To experience their animated

learning tools directly, please go to:

www.idealbiology.com

patient suffering kidney failure. This case study

requires that a student assist a virtual doctor in

a dialysis clinic, in order to learn how the

artificial kidney filter works.

“Check the patient’s urea, potassium and

albumin,” states Dr. Phil Tration, the virtual

doctor who acts as the student's guide in the

case study.

The creators of this particular case study

are demonstrating visually a process of

counter current exchange, “something first-

year vet students still struggle to fully

understand,” Moore says pointedly. “They

struggle with the concept largely because of

the way it is presented in textbooks—we’re

pretty sure that this new, interactive and

immersive approach will make this concept

understandable at the high school level. If we

are right, it’ll be an incredible move forward.”

Backs straighten among the game’s

designers and programmers, and the case

study proceeds with another set of keyboard

manipulations. Comments erupt around the

room. Someone in the group murmurs, “Like

Nintendo’s platform!” This inside joke causes

quiet laughter—there’s a palpable camaraderie.

Glasses are shoved up the bridges of noses, as

a guy at an Apple keyboard strikes it again—it’s

too dark to know precisely who is doing what.

On screen, the keyboarding activates pulsing,

lively pinging, and a gyrating image, which

merits excited interruptions, fist pumping,

guffaws, and cheers from the group.

Occasionally, too, there is a groan.

The assembled group of geeks and

nerds, by modest self-description, bring

considerable star power to the table. The team

venture brings to bear an astonishing array of

inter-disciplinary talents, and good will. Some

of the team are parents, others not. Some are

students or faculty, and some are staff. They

have one essential commonality: intentions to

change high school education by making the

process fun.

I think that the students will be able to grasp concepts more readily

when they are able tovisualize the effectsof a disease process, for example,

and the effectiveness of treatment modalities. THE RATIONALE for your treatment

is shown to you. —Stacey Toben, critical care neonatal nurse, pediatric emergency department, Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital,Greensboro, N.C.

“

”

And they darned well may do it.

It’s complex work, certainly, yet because

the cases under scrutiny are designed to be

entertaining, the creators frequently erupt

into laughter. The laughter is a good sign, they

say. They should make the work of learning

interactive and innovative, just as the experts

counsel.

“This group has grown up around our

current NIH Science Education Partnership

Awards project in which we are creating

interactive, inquiry-based 3-D educational

materials for high school science courses,” says

10.

11.36

Tom Robertson, a professor of veterinary

physiology and pharmacology.

“Using clinical case study material as the

focus, we develop 3-Dmodels of the structures

involved in basic biological processes (i.e.,

osmosis, filtration, diffusion, etc.) and then

incorporate these models into a videogame

engine that allows the students to move about

in the environment, form and test hypotheses,

and hopefully see the impact of these processes

on their lives,” Robertson explains.

Now the group is exploring other avenues

and applications beyond 3-D and videos.

Robertson reports that the group has another

creative project they hope to launch with the

Atlanta Girls’ School. “In the computer science

classes in that school, the girls learn to program

for their iPhone and iPod Touch. To create

games and case studies that appeal equally to

boys and girls, we are planning to partner with

them to design some of our future games and

case studies.”

MEANWHILE, 330 MILES NORTHOF GEORGIA…

The interactive case studies may have

relevance beyond what the group anticipated.

Stacey Toben is a critical care neonatal nurse in

the pediatric emergency department at Moses

H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro,

N.C. Toben graduated from UGA in 1989,

where she once studied veterinary science. (“I

changed my major because so many of the

undergraduate courses were b-o-r-i-n-g!”)

She obtained one of the animated games

in the “Engaging Students in Science” series.

Toben, also a parent of two young children,

thought of her children playing Wii or

computer games for hours. When she saw

how games demystified science, she thought

excitedly, “This rocks!”

Toben took one of the case studies that

demonstrate osmosis via a newborn calf in

crisis to her hospital. As her colleagues tried

different treatment protocols, she watched,

intrigued, as they interacted with the virtual

world. “I had the medical director of the

pediatric emergency department play with the

12.

13. 14.

15.37UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

program. He enjoyed the graphics and

choosing his treatments. He also enjoyed

choosing the wrong treatment to see what

would happen to the calf.”

She was excited that seasoned medical

colleagues found the 3-D case study

absorbing. “He agrees with me that this is a

very good teaching tool. I think that the

students will be able to grasp concepts more

readily when they are able to visualize the

effects of a disease process, for example, and

the effectiveness of treatment modalities. The

rationale for your treatment is shown to you.”

Toben looks forward to the next

program. Case studies about filtration,

diffusion and synapses are in development

now. “I hope the UGA group will send me the

new case study for kidney dialysis. These

things are fun.” That was the intention, say

Moore and Oliver.

O’Donnell agrees. “Find out for

yourself,” he invites. “We’ve created a special

link so that readers of the Graduate School

Magazine can see examples of one of our

games and our case studies.”

Some of the developers believe their

games will work with younger students. “I

think we need to target elementary school

students,” says Jenna Jambeck, a professor of

engineering. Jambeck is working with

O'Donnell, Robertson and elementary school

teachers to introduce engineering principles

to third graders. “Interest and enthusiasm

needs to be sparked in elementary school. If

we make science fun and engaging, they’ll

learn. That’s our mantra.”

The old cliché holds. A mind is a terrible

thing to waste—especially a young one. From

the get-go, the passion that Oliver andMoore

shared has spilled over into other areas,

infecting other people. They all come

together – to pull more students into science.

It is as simple, yet as difficult, as that.

Yet money—a lot of it—was needed to

bring those ambitions to life. Oliver knew how

to navigate through grant applications. He

soon became the project’s principal

investigator. Oliver laughs. “I am not

completely sure why I became the PI other

than Jim's modesty and the fact that I had

written lots of science education grants prior

to this one.”

The tenacious professors wrote an

endless stream of grant applications over five

years. They gave the collaborative venture a

new, snazzier name and kept tweaking the

language. “The project’s official title on the

NIH grant is Learning Biological Processes Through

Animations and Inquiry: A New Approach,” says

Oliver. “On some occasions we refer to it as

IDEAL Biology: Interactive 3 Dimensional

Education and Learning.”

Moore and Oliver met nights and

weekends in a campus office, putting new

touches on each grant application. Repeatedly

turned down for funding, Oliver laughs wryly

that neither gave up.

“Jim and I were the two primary writers of

the funded grant. We had submitted many

grants prior to getting funded—probably two or

three per year for more than five years. We just

believed that the project was important and we

were both sufficiently senior that we could

spend the time doing that,” Oliver recalls.

“Tom Robertson has been incredibly

involved in this project as well. He helped fine

tune the funded grant as well as many of the

proposals submitted prior to and after that

one. Cindi Ward and Scott Brown also were

very important in the scientific conceptualiza-

tion of what we would be attempting to build.

But there are lots of other people who played

a role.”

Could science andmath be fun-

as much fun,as say, the computer games

kids love?

16.

38

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY—WHERE TO GET IT?

Five years on, sourcing funds had grown more

challenging than the work of writing, planning,

and executing the project itself. Then, a grant

application to the National Institutes of Health’s

Science Education Partnership Awards program

finally struck a vein of gold. How large was this

vein,Moore andOliver wondered?

“We started getting hints that we might

get funded about six months after we

submitted the grant in September of 2007,”

Oliver recalls. “In February we got a hint that

we had passed the first level of review. In May

we got a second hint that we had passed the

second level of review. The hints generally

came as a change of status on the website

used by NIH to monitor grant activity.”

Twice—in August and September of

2008—the group was asked to make proposal

modifications, Oliver says. “The folks at NIH

wanted something a little different in the

budget and with the human subject’s plan.”

Oliver and Moore obsessively tweaked.

“Each time I talked to someone the

response was always, ‘Well we can't promise

anything, but we need to see this change.’”

Finally, Oliver received an email from an NIH

program officer. He read it, stumped. “As soon

as one more little thing was done they would

issue the NOGA. I called Kim Wright, who

manages the grants office in the College of

Education, and said, ‘What is a NOGA?’

Oliver laughs. “I spelled it to Kim: ‘N-O-G-

A,’ over the phone. And she very excitedly said,

'NOTIFICATIONOF GRANT AWARD!' and at

that moment I felt like the scene in TomHanks'

movie about the rock and roll band from Erie,

Pennsylvania (That Thing You Do) when they first

hear their song on the radio….Getting funded

by NIH just seemed (and still does seem) really

special because it is pretty rare.”

By the fall of 2008, the NIH grant award

came through. For five years, the group finally

had the funding needed to provide salary

support for the graduate student animators

and programmers essential to the project, and

to purchase the necessary equipment and

software. Most of the faculty members

involved volunteered convinced of the

project’s impact.

Today, three local high schools use and

help critique their animations. Oliver and

Moore estimate more than 400 school

children have tested their case studies and

games. In the last two years of the project, the

effectiveness of this new approach will be

tested, comparing how well students learn

taught using traditional methods against

students taught with the 3-D interactive

materials. Oliver says, “I know the science

teachers and schools around Athens and I take

the materials to the students and teachers as

my biggest responsibility.”

The personnel, equipment and data

storage needs are immense, consuming much

of the project’s funding. “Dean Maureen

Grasso of the Graduate School has been

incredibly supportive, both financially and with

her encouragement,” says Moore. “Her

support has also allowed us to purchase newer,

faster, more powerful computers and state-of-

the-art computer graphics software programs,

both for our building and for Mike Hussey’s

animation courses (where our next generation

of 3-D animators are being trained). These

funds are moving us forward at a faster clip

than we’d ever thought possible.”

Hussey, an associate professor of dramaand

17.

“Anything that spits thingsacross the membrane, kidswill love.”

—James Moore, professor of Large Animal Medicine, UGA

39UGA Graduate School Magazine W I N T E R 2 0 11

theater, has a coterie of students who are

nationally known for animation projects. He, along

with his graduate students, has worked on

animations for nationally televised documentaries.

Hussey was a cover subject for the Graduate School

Magazine’s inaugural issue in 2005.

“This is precisely the type of project that

you’d like to see go on forever,” says Dean

Grasso of the Graduate School. “In this case,

faculty, staff and students from all over campus,

working together, enjoying themselves, and

creating something to engage Georgia’s children

in science. This should be of interest to anyone

with a son, daughter or grandchild.”

For further information see the link:

www.3-Dglasshorse.com/

19.

G

20.

answers 1. Kyung-A Kwon, Education, graduate student, and J. Steve Oliver,

Education, faculty member 2. David Mitchell and Aaron Carter, Music, graduate students 3. Ji

Shen, Education, faculty member 4. James Moore, Veterinary Medicine, faculty member 5. Jenna

Jambeck, Engineering, faculty member 6. Craig Weigert, Physics, faculty member 7. Flint

Buchanan, Veterinary Medicine, instructional designer 8. Jared Jackson, Veterinary Medicine,

digital artist (previous student in Dramatic Media), and B.J. Wimpey, Computer Science, graduate

student 9. Cindy Ward, Veterinary Medicine, faculty member 10. Renee Stander, Veterinary

Medicine, digital artist, (previous graduate student in Dramatic Media) 11. Georgia Hodges,

Education, graduate student 12. Lauren Ivans, Education, graduate student 13. Casey O'Donnell,

Telecommunications, faculty member 14. Katherine Stanger-Hall, Biological Sciences, faculty

member 15. Kelsey Hart, Veterinary Medicine, graduate student 16. Richard Patterson, Athens

Academy, science teacher 17. Tom Robertson, Veterinary Medicine, faculty member 18. Steven

Arnold, Veterinary Medicine,digital artist, (previous graduate student in Dramatic Media) 19.Mike

Hussey, Dramatic Media, faculty member, and Dominique Edwards, Scientific Illustration,

undergraduate student 20. Jef Freydl, Veterinary Medicine, digital artist, (previous graduate

student in Dramatic Media)

18.

40

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LAST WORDGraduate SchoolAdministration

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