Highlights from BYU colleges

Family, Home and Social Sciences

• Marc E. Agronin was the keynote speaker at the Annual Gerontology Conference on March 15. He discussed how the brain changes through aging and suggested exercise — both physical and mental — to keep the brain healthy.
• Former senator Gordon Smith spoke to BYU students about the importance of LDS values in government at a Civil Engagement Workshop on March 21. He emphasized informed voting and gave suggestions while running for office.

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology

• A team of BYU students won first place at the Technology and Engineering Education Collegiate Association’s International Technology and Engineering Association conference in March. They won first place in the communications challenge, technology challenge and problem solving challenge. They won second place in the teaching and lesson plan challenge.

  

• BYU engineering alumni Sydne Jacques and Catherine Wiggins spoke at the annual WE@BYU Women in Engineering and Technology Celebration on March 14. Jacques spoke about finding happiness by enjoying every stage of life, and Wiggins emphasized the importance of choosing happiness.

David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies

• Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, will speak about Myanmar’s transition to democracy at noon on April 12 in room 238 of the Herald R. Clark building.
• BYU radio host Marcus Smith will speak in the Environmental Lecture Series on April 14 at 3 p.m. in room 238 of the Herald R. Clark Building. His address is titled, “A Cultural Critique of Our Ungardened Society.”

Marriott School of Management

• Make-A-Wish Foundation CEO David Williams was named 2017 Administrator of the Year by BYU’s Romney Institute of Public Management on March 24. The Administrator of the Year award honors public management professionals who set an example for BYU MPA students for their ethical and moral service in the public sector.

  

• Clay Ellis won first place at the 2017 BYU Mobile App Competition in March for his app, Proactive Budget. The app is a virtual budgeting system that helps users organize how and where they use their money.

David O. McKay School of Education

• Kara Betts set a student employee record by working in the Educational Leadership and Foundations Department for five years. She has been a secretary since 2012 and will graduate with a statistics degree in April.

College of Humanities

• Mark Pickering, assistant professor from Lynn University, discussed the philosophy of David Hume and Immanuel Kant’s during BYU’s Philosophy Lecture Series on March 2. He focused his presentation on the meaning of substance and how impressions shape reality.

College of Life Sciences

• Held in March, the Life Sciences Undergraduate Research Poster Competition recognized three different groups of students for their efforts. Karma Phillips, Dallin Whitaker, Rebecca Schenk, Ryan Call, Bruce Roundy and Matthew Madsen won first place with their poster “Hydrophobic Seed Coatings for Improving Rangeland Restoration: Fall Reseeding.” Second place went to Jeffrey Zhao, Savannah Grossarth, Riley Driscoll, Frances Payne, McKenzie Hatcher and Laura C. Bridgewater for “Combating Obesity through Gut Microbiome Targeted Phage Therapy.” Caitlyn McNary, Jennifer Kearl and Brent L. Nielsen took third with their poster, “The Soil Microbiome of Utah Halophytes.”

  

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

• World War II veteran Norman Wright reminisced about being one of the first computer science professors on BYU campus in a recent article by the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Wright developed a punch-card system that revolutionized class registration in the 60s and taught more than 13,000 students in a 10-year period.

  

• In 2015, physics and astronomy professors Denise Stephens and Michael Joner discovered KELT-16b, a massive exoplanet, with five BYU students. The exoplanet is one of 19 identified over the past four years by the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope research group.

J. Reuben Clark Law School

• Deroy Murdock, a nationally syndicated columnist and a senior fellow with the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, and Greg Matis, Deputy General Counsel to Intermountain Healthcare, debated about what Congress should do with the Affordable Care Act on March 28.
• The BYU Law community celebrated the successes of students, faculty and staff at the annual Barrister’s Ball on March 29.
• BYU Law student Lisha Lisonbee was recently elected president of the 2017-2018 Student Bar Association.

Campus News

• Elder Bradley D. Foster will speak at BYU’s April Commencement Exercises on April 27 in the Marriott Center. Foster will be the presiding authority and is a General Authority Seventy of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tickets are not required for commencement or for college convocations.
• The Office of Information Technology is currently implementing an improved WiFi network called eduroam (education roaming) around campus. The implementation of eduroam is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.