Highlights from BYU colleges

David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies

• Geography Associate Dean Samuel Otterstrom will speak at the Kennedy Center Lecture Series on Jan. 24 at noon. Otterstrom will present about migration patterns to California in the late 1800s and how this early history shaped the present settlement landscape.

Marriott School of Business

• Business students from across the country visited BYU on Jan. 12 for the Deloitte Supply Chain Case Competition. Visiting schools included the University of Southern California, Penn State University, the University of Tennessee and Purdue University. BYU took second place in the competition and USC took first.

College of Life Sciences

• Research led by BYU ecologist Ben Abbott found bodies of water can be used as “sensors” of ecosystem health. This information could be used to demonstrate which areas are best for farming and food production.

College of Fine Arts and Communications

• BYU dancer Montana Shugars recently traveled to Italy to train at one of the leading ballet schools in the world, La Scala Opera Ballet School, as part of a study abroad. Shugars said her experience taught her to focus less on herself as a performer and more on the audience.

• After spending a summer studying with the Ballet West Summer Intensive in Salt Lake City, BYU dance student Benja Cuque has created his own non-profit dance company. Cuque said his training with Ballet West also prepared him to teach creative dance in a public Mayan school in Guatemala next summer.

College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences

• Geology professor Jani Radebaugh and her team have qualified as finalists in Nasa’s New Frontiers program. The Dragonfly Mission, Radebaugh’s proposed project, would land on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. The team will find out next spring whether their project has been chosen.