Inside First Viterbi Psychology Symposium A€¦ · Grandford Wright Professor, Biederman and...

Searching theHuman BrainPA G E 6 & 7

Beyond Botox:Age GracefullyPA G E 9

EconomicsGains NewFacultyPA G E 10

Sweet, Bitter orUmami?PA G E 12

More Women inSciencePA G E 13

V O L U M E 5 N U M B E R 1

February 2004

erald Davison is anavuncular man with aneasy laugh. He is chairof psychology and notabove bragging about

his department. He sums it up inone word: interdisciplinary.

“Psychology is interdisciplinarybecause it straddles so many knowl-edge domains,” he says. “It’s anatural reach across the sciences ofbiology and chemistry into sociologyand philosophy. It crosses so manyboundaries. Besides, who isn’t inter-ested in human behavior?”

Davison was head of the psycholo-gy department from 1984 to 1990 andcame back as chair in 2001. He saysone of his biggest contributions tothe department was to strengthenties to neuroscience researchers inthe mid-1980s, linking psychologistswith brain researchers and other sci-entists in an interdisciplinaryneuroscience program in USCCollege.

“The upshot for our departmentwas an increase in faculty and doc-toral students interested in thecomplexities of mind-brain interac-tions,” says Davison. “I saw it as animportant direction for our depart-ment to go.”

The department’s 32 behavioralscientists study a wide range of sub-jects, from learning and memory toaging and disease. Researchers areexamining criminal behavior and substance abuse, happiness and sad-ness. In short, most of life itself.

Richard Thompson, the William M. Keck Professor of Psychology,uses psychological and genetic approaches to track the minute changesthat take place in the brain as learning occurs and memories are coded,stored and retrieved. Irving Biederman, the Harold W. Dornsife Professorof Neuroscience, theorizes on the brain’s pleasure cells.

Technology is revealing new frontiers yet to be explored. A new CognitiveNeuroscience Imaging Center will help scientists like Adrian Raine, the RobertGrandford Wright Professor, Biederman and Professor of Psychology Frank

InsidePsychology

The 32 behavioral scientists in psychology at

USC College span five major graduate programs,

including the highly ranked clinical program,

which examines such problems as depression,

family violence, alcohol abuse, juvenile delinquency,

anxiety, hate crimes and anger.

First ViterbiSymposium

historic meeting took place atUniversity Park December15 and 16, bringing together80 members of a newbreed of scientist from

USC College, MIT and three univer-sities in Israel.

The Viterbi Computational BiologySymposium featured powerhouses in a20-year-old “new field.” The idea forthe symposium came from Andrew J.Viterbi, a renowned visionary who hasworn many hats in his distinguishedcareer, including “USC Trustee.”

The field encompasses most of thesciences, plus math, computer science—even business. At USC, the field isreferred to as “Molecular andComputational Biology,” for which anew 125,000-square-foot building isbeing erected in front of KaprelianHall. MIT leans toward “SystemsBiology.” And the Israelis, from TelAviv University, the Technion andHebrew University, maintain adescription somewhat in between.

The nine out-of-towners first metfor dinner on the eve of the sympo-sium, sharing ideas and food at aChinatown restaurant with hostMichael Waterman, UniversityProfessor and USC Associates Chair innatural sciences.

The next morning, tingling withexpectation, about 70 USC faculty,students and postdocs crowded into aroom at the Davidson ConferenceCenter as the three groups presentedoverviews of their approaches to defin-ing and studying new areas incomputation and biology that will takeadvantage of the data-rich environ-ment that exists today in the wake ofthe successful completion of theHuman Genome Project.

The excitement built through

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Manis probe deeper into the myster-ies of the human brain and fostercollaborative research across

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2 USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences February 2004 V O L U M E 5 N U M B E R 1

As we have said in these pages manytimes, USC College is on a roll. Weare upward bound and we havemomentum. We are doing wellbecause we have an innovative planand we are determined to succeed.We are also fortunate to have manyalumni, friends and faculty who cansupport our efforts to transform theCollege.

Our faculty hiring initiative isbringing star professors and “risingstar” associate professors. We are alsonow competing for outstanding juniorfaculty—and we are succeedingbecause of the unique opportunitiesavailable at USC and in southernCalifornia. Our program to attractever-better graduate students is hav-ing an impact. And our bedrockundergraduate education program isbringing us the best freshmen in theland. They are performing well andgarnering more honors.

Our drive to be the best has takenon added importance in light of theCalifornia state budget retrenchmentand cutbacks in public education. Ourflourishing teaching and research go

forward full steam. USC’s initiativesmean that for southern California atleast, higher education can continueto be vibrant and entrepreneurial.

This is true because what’s goodfor USC is good for southernCalifornia. Our drive to excel is bring-ing us scholars who are contributingrichly to the economic, intellectualand cultural milieu in our region. Asour stock continues to soar, peoplethroughout the world will increasinglyrecognize southern California for whatit is—a global paradigm of culture,commerce and learning.

Our increasing recognition is evi-dent by the enormous success of ourresearch centers, both those home-grown at USC and those developed inpartnership with nearby institutions.In the previous issue of this magazine,we highlighted our new GenomicsCenter, federally funded with $18.7million from the National Institutes ofHealth. Its fundamental research willpilot the way to revolutionaryadvances in future medical care andmay fertilize the regional biotechnolo-gy economy. Our Loker Institute’s

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

Making a Difference

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BOARD OF COUNCILORS’ CORNER

Meet Dr. Alicia

Joseph AounDean of USC CollegeAnna H. Bing Professor

Dean Aoun

research on fuel cell technology willadvance the development of moreefficient energy resources, which arevital to sustainable life on this planet.And being firmly grounded here inLos Angeles (we hope), we are mostappreciative of the important work ofthe prestigious Southern CaliforniaEarthquake Center headquartered atUSC College.

And our contributions are not justin the scientific arena. Our Center forReligion and Civic Culture, theCasden Institute for the Study of theJewish Role in American Life, and theCenter for American Studies andEthnicity all provide deeper under-standings of the cultural and religiousties that can both divide and unite us.One of southern California’s greatestassets is the diversity resulting frombeing a global gateway. Los Angeles is

a laboratory for understanding thegreat pluralistic cities of the future—and our faculty are at the forefront infurthering that understanding.

With our added strength comesadded responsibility. Increasingly,leaders are turning to USC not just fortraditional scholarship, but also forinnovative ideas and applications thatwill improve the lives of individualsand enrich society as a whole. To citeanother example, Todd Sandler, theRobert R. and Katheryn A. DocksonChair in Economics and InternationalRelations, is acknowledged as one ofthe leading authorities on political fun-damentalism and terrorism. These aretopics that unfortunately have preoc-cupied much of our recent history, andhis work is having an impact.

Our drive to greatness has taken usout of the ivory tower forever. I firmlybelieve that the creative intellectualresources of USC College will play anincreasingly important role in theregion, the nation, and the world—onethat will benefit generations to come.

And that will make a difference.

Alicia Smotherman

When Dr. Alicia Smotherman joinedthe College Board of Councilors nearlya year ago, she saw many parallelsbetween her own career and theresearch of College biologists.

In casual conversation, she callsherself a “a huge admirer of Norm andMike,” referring to Norman Arnheimand Michael Waterman. Arnheim, theEster Dornsife Chair in BiologicalSciences, is the pioneering molecularbiologist who helped develop a revolu-tionary method for studying geneticsin a single cell. Waterman, aUniversity Professor and holder of theUSC Associates Chair in NaturalSciences, is widely recognized for hiswork pioneering mathematical andcomputational approaches to molecu-lar biology and human genetics.

“I love being surrounded by peoplewho have original ideas,” Smothermansays.

Smotherman, too, is an originalthinker—best known for her studyand treatment of hemochromatosis.This potentially fatal genetic disordercauses the body to absorb and storetoo much iron. The extra iron buildsup in organs and damages them.

“Before the work of scientists likeMike and Norm, people had to havea liver biopsy to see if they were car-riers of the gene that may lead tohemochromatosis,” she says. “Nowwe just draw blood.”

After earning her medical degreefrom Oklahoma State University,Smotherman teamed with husbandThad Alan Smotherman to launch asuccessful health care business calledThe Neighborhood Doctor. True to itsname, the business has donated morethan $5 million in medical serviceswhile treating more than 70,000patients without charge.

Helping the sick comes natural toSmotherman, whose family is distin-guished by a long-line of doctors.

“We were treating people since theCivil War—when a sick person didn’thave to make an appointment,” shesays. “My husband and I still applythat philosophy to our practice. Wedon’t take appointments. And if you’retoo sick to come by, we’ll come toyou.”

The Smothermans also own severalmedical clinics and labs, a physicaltherapy clinic and the Texas-based

Arlington Medical Institute, wheremore than 150 students are trainedeach year.

When she’s not treating patients,this Tennessee native can be foundwhipping up spicy dishes in herkitchen. “Cooking is my favorite pas-time—which works out well, since Ireally like to feed people,” she laughs.

Their house in Arlington, Texas, isa 14,000-square-foot replica of theHermitage, the home of AndrewJackson. The ample house serves as avenue for many philanthropicevents—which Smotherman herselfhappily caters. Their most recentblack-tie gala benefited the FortWorth Women’s Center, a haven forabused women and children.

USC sports teams that pass throughTexas are hard-pressed to leave townwithout first stopping in for a home-cooked meal by “Dr. Alicia,” asfriends and family affectionately callher. (She’s also been known to throwdinner parties for the DallasCowboys.)

Her most recent Trojan-fest: Anofficial send-off for 200 new USCfreshmen and their parents.

Her daughter Hillary graduatedfrom USC in 2002 with a degree intheater. Turns out, Mom is no strangerto the stage either. Smotherman beganmusic studies at age 6; by her 13thbirthday she was playing the organ at

the First Baptist Church in Selmer,Tennessee. She graduated from UnionUniversity in Jackson, Tennessee,with a bachelor of music degree inorgan performance.

After stints as a high school teacherof science, music and biology, sheenrolled at the University ofOklahoma, where she completed hermaster’s degree in natural sciencebefore entering medical school.

So how does this accomplishedwoman like serving on the USCCollege Board of Councilors?

“It’s awesome and humbling,” shesays, in a soft southern drawl thatmakes you want to stop in for dinner.

—Nicole St.Pierre


USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences 3V O L U M E 5 N U M B E R 1 February 2004

Superstring Theorist with Physical AmbitionsA fresh take on what ‘everyone encounters everyday’

Monday and Tuesday as the topicsswitched from overviews to thespecifics of a field heavy on math,computation and genetics. There wasa distinct feeling, expressed freely, ofbeing in on the beginning of some-thing important, but what is toemerge can’t yet be described.

Viterbi was in regular attendanceand at a small speakers dinner hostedby College Dean Joseph Aoun, saidthat he was pleased to be a catalyst forsuch an event. Viterbi’s academicroots are at MIT, where he receivedbachelor and master’s degrees, andUSC, where he received a Ph.D. Andas an Italian Jew whose family fledthe Fascists in 1939, he has an abiding

interest in Israel.His career is built

around the “ViterbiAlgorithm,” whichis central to digitaland wireless com-munications. Inrecent years hefound commonalityof interest andintent in computa-tional genomics,fostering and financ-ing scholars in thefield.

The groupexpressed the intentto meet again nextyear at MIT.

—Alfred Kildow

hen Clifford Johnsontalks about the forma-tion of crystals, he refersto its “beautiful math.”

He reminisces about an earlier “flirta-tion” with theoretical condensedmatter physics. But his real passionignites when he is discussing his cur-rent research: string theory, matrixmodels, D-branes and black holes.

Johnson, a professor in theCollege’s physics department, came toUSC College in the fall of 2003 as partof the Senior Faculty Hiring Initiative.This advancement effort strives to hireoutstanding senior faculty and well-established associate professorcandidates.

“Cliff is a leading expert on themost recent developments in thetheory of superstrings … and askilled lecturer,” says Gene Bickers,chair of the department of physicsand astronomy.

Johnson has been studying stringtheory since the late 1980s. String the-ory is a revolutionary field incontemporary physics as it attempts tounify gravity, electromagnetism, thestrong nuclear force and the weaknuclear force—the four forces ofnature—within a single mathematicalframework.

Born in London and raised for tenyears on the Caribbean island ofMontserrat, Johnson “always wantedto be a scientist.” He decided whenhe was nine that he would specializeas a physicist (he looked it up in thedictionary) and claims that he’s been“boringly single-minded” ever since.

He got his bachelors in physics

from ImperialCollege at LondonUniversity, andwent straight on toobtain his Ph.D. atSouthamptonUniversity. Ingraduate school, heworked with asmall group doingcutting edge workin Conformal FieldTheory and in aformulation ofstring theory calledMatrix Models.

Up until 1989, studies of string the-ory were largely perturbative, meaningthe strings were interacting weakly, ifat all. Matrix Models were very excit-ing at the time because they gave thetools to understand non-perturbativestring theory. “We would really like tounderstand when strings are interact-ing with each other strongly,” Johnsonexplains, “because we’re trying tounderstand how black holes work andhow Hawking radiation works … howthe universe itself works.” (Hawkingradiation is the idea that black holesglow when a particle from a virtualparticle pair escapes after its anti-parti-cle is absorbed).

But Johnson found himself outdat-ed at The Institute for AdvancedStudy at Princeton—“the Mecca ofPhysics.” By the time he arrived thereto do his first postdoc, Matrix Modelshad lost their allure; it was thoughtthat the aspects of physics they pro-duced were inconsistent. Despite thefact that Johnson and his colleagues in

Southamptonshowed that themodels’ non-per-turbative physicswere fully consis-tent, with adefinition as nat-ural as themainstreammodels’, the restof the physicsworld wasn’t lis-tening. “It gavequite wonderfulphysics but it

was never used for anything and it’sremained always at the back of mymind,” says Johnson.

This fall his ideas were vindicatedwhen the Princeton physics establish-ment wrote a paper, connectingJohnson’s thesis work on MatrixModels from 12 years ago to manymodern ideas in string theory. He hassince written a follow-up paper. “It’sall of a sudden become relevant,” hesays.

At Princeton, he studied stringtheory under renowned physicist EdWitten. He also found his physicsvoice working with Joe Polchinski atthe Institute for Theoretical Physicsat UC Santa Barbara. There, hebecame widely recognized for hiswork on D-branes—higher dimen-sional membrane-like structures.

His eloquence found a purpose inteaching. Johnson started lecturing atPrinceton, and later became an assis-tant professor at the University ofKentucky and a professor at theUniversity of Durham in England.

Fundamental Science in Africa His enthusiasm for teaching paral-

lels his intellectual appetite. Johnsonreferred to his childhood in theCaribbean, as a time when he wasalways running into a “limit to whatyou could find in the library.”Likewise while lecturing in SouthAfrica, he was struck by the pervasivepost-apartheid problems in education,where he felt students were simplymissing opportunities. So he devel-oped a scientific education programcalled ASTI—The African SummerTheory Institute—for students, highschool teachers and researchers to con-vene and discuss scientific ideas.

This pilot program in Cape Town,sponsored in 2004 by the Flora FamilyFoundation, the Perimeter Institute ofTheoretical Physics and the SouthAfrican National Astrophysics andSpace Science program, will allowaspiring African scientists to exploretopics in science. Through lectures,master classes and colloquia, it willexpand their knowledge of resourcesand career prospects.

It is the first forum for such groupsto meet together in the same place.

In early 2004 Johnson plans to over-see the inaugural ASTI program. Inthe spring, he will teach an undergrad-uate physics course on “what everyoneencounters everyday.” Boiling water asthermodynamics, turning on a lightswitch as electromagnetism—he hasseen that a lot of people want to knowhow such simple phenomena work.“And it’s great,” he says happily, “tobe the first person to tell them that.”

—Katherine Yungmee Kim

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Viterbicontinued from page 1

Clifford Johnson, who studies superstringtheory, joined USC in the fall of 2003.

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College DeanJoseph Aoun presents Andrewand Erna Viterbiwith an image of a next-generationgenetic map, high-lighting points ofvariation in a singlegene, producedusing a mix of thebiological, mathe-matical andcomputationalapproaches pio-neered by Collegefaculty and othersat the conference.

(Data for the imagecourtesy of MagnusNordborg.)



University Park and the HealthSciences Campus.

The department’s clinical researchincludes such fields as depression,family violence, alcohol abuse, juve-nile delinquency and cognitivefactors in anxiety, hate crimes andanger. Professor Beth Meyerowitzstudies the psychosocial aspects ofcancer and how family members andindividuals cope with illness.

The clinical program is the secondlargest of five graduate programs (clinical, life-span development,

n Gayla Margolin’s lab, a pre-ado-lescent boy sits alone in a roomwearing headphones. From anaudiotape, sounds of imaginary sce-

narios echo in his ear. In one, parentsloudly argue. In another, a suitcaseslams closed. In the most violent,glass shatters. The recording asks theboy how he would respond to eachimaginary scenario if he overheard hisparents arguing that way.

Speaking into a microphone, theboy says he would stand between hisparents and try to break up the fight.

It’s these coping responses thatintrigue Margolin, a psychology pro-fessor who studies how childrenrespond to different dimensions ofmarital conflict.

“Our lab tries to understand whysome children blame themselves andintercede when their parents fightwhile others just go outside and playwith the dog” she says.

The answer may depend onwhether in the past the family’s mari-tal conflicts have turned aggressiveand violent. Margolin’s research showsthat once violence has occurred in afamily, future conflicts elicit height-ened apprehensions in familymembers.

For instance, boys who come fromfamilies even with low levels ofaggressive marital behaviors (such aspushing and shoving) tell Margolinthey would physically try to break upa fight between their parents. Thesesame boys also are more likely toexhibit anxiety, depression and socialproblems.

“Most parents really don’t under-stand the impact that low-levelviolence can have on their children,even when it’s not done directly in

At the Heart of Family ConflictPsychologist studies children’s vulnerability to negative emotions

front of them. The door may be closedduring a fight, but most children hearmore than their parents think, or wish,they heard,” says Margolin.

Trained as a clinical psychologist,she got her start as a marital researcherand later became interested in theeffects of marital conflict and violenceon children.

“Adults have a choice aboutwhether to stay in relationships, butchildren don’t have a choice about the

families in whichthey grow up,”says Margolin.

To gather data,she turns to LosAngeles families. As volunteers, thefamilies provide information abouttheir lives, including actual family dis-cussions and daily journal entries. (Ofthe families she studies, 30 percentreport episodes of husband to wifeaggression in the past year.) With

funding from the David and LucilePackard Foundation, Margolin followsthe volunteers over three years tounderstand the cumulative effects ofviolence on children.

Margolin has found that familieswith financial and parenting stresshave high potential for child abuse ifhusband-to-wife aggression also existsin the home.

“What I want to understand areways that violence exposure affectsthe subtle, everyday dynamics of fami-ly interactions,” says Margolin. “Weare learning, for example, that chil-dren’s violence exposure is related toerosions in parental support. Childrenwho may need the most parental sup-port actually appear to receive lessempathy and more irritability fromtheir parents.”

These are small but pervasive pat-terns of daily life that can impact howa child copes, particularly through thetransition into adolescence, she says.

Often children’s coping strate-gies mimic their parents’behavior. Take a family’sresponse in the wake of a nat-ural disaster, for example.

Prior to the Northridgeearthquake that shook southern California in 1994,Margolin was working withnumerous families, monitoringtheir behaviors and conduct-ing research. Several monthsafter the earthquake struck,

she sent out a series of questionnairesto this same group of families.

“Surprisingly, we found that mostfamilies did not experience high levelsof conflict after the disaster. Instead,families seemed to rally and pulltogether,” she says, “with the excep-tion of one group.”

Those families that reported bothhigh levels of marital conflict andparental symptoms of depression oranxiety before the earthquake report-ed increased marital conflict after theearthquake. Moreover, children’s reac-tions after the earthquake were notjust related to the natural disaster. Thechildren’s distress was closely relatedto family problems before the earth-quake occurred—and their parents’distress after the earthquake.

“But for the most part, familiespulled together, even those familieswhere conflict was part of a normalroutine,” she says. “That was goodnews.”

—N.S.

quantitative,social, brain andcognitive sci-ences) in thedepartment,which also man-ages the HumanRelationsCenter, a com-munity training

clinic at University Park. Davison saysthe clinical program ranks within thetop 10 nationally for preparing clinicalpsychology faculty members. In 2001,the clinical program ranked 14th in theU.S. News and World Report rankingsof best graduate programs.

To Davison,teaching is rightup there withresearch as toppriorities.

“Excellencein teaching is agiven here andwe are constant-ly re-examiningour methods and evaluating ourselvesas instructors,” he says. “High-qualityteaching has made psychology offer-ings increasingly popular withundergraduates and is integral to theexcellence of the department."

—Karen Newell Young

Inside Psychologycontinued from page 1

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Gayla Margolin

Margolin finds that some parents do not understand the impact low-level violence has on their children.

Beth Meyerowitz Gerald Davison

Inside Psychology



epression inadolescencespells majortrouble later

in life, according toresearchers. In thehopes of preventingproblems later on,Shannon Daley, anassistant professor ofpsychology, studiesteenagers—and whatcauses them distress.

“Clinical depression is a fairly rarephenomenon in young children,” saysDaley. “However, with each passingdecade, the rates of depression areincreasing rapidly for adolescents,starting around 14 or 15 years of age.Some studies suggest that this is dueto an increase in family disruption orearlier sexual relationships, but no oneknows for sure.”

Depression in teenagers is not justa rocky patch in the road, Daley says.It is associated with serious outcomessuch as unplanned pregnancies, highdropout rates and abusive relation-ships. And it is a major predictor of

Why the Blues Turn Black An up-close look at teen depression

uppose you enter a room, anentirely dark space save for adim lamp that allows you to seeseveral objects. When the light

is turned off, you have a picture inyour mind of what was in the room—courtesy of your iconic memory.

Associate Professor of PsychologyZhong-Lin Lu studies cognitive defi-ciencies in observers at-risk forAlzheimer’s disease. With a team ofresearchers, he has just completed astudy that shows at-risk patients havea faster decaying iconic memory thannormal subjects. If a college studentcan retain an image for 400 millisec-onds, and a normal older subject 270 milliseconds, an at-risk partici-pant can only hold the image for 50milliseconds.

“The dominant view is thatAlzheimer’s disease starts from higherlevels of cognition and gradually goesto the sensory cortex,” Lu explains.“We are saying that we also find signsof Alzheimer’s in early cortices.”

Scientists have yet to determinethe cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

Understanding Alzheimer’s

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depression later in life.Because most data on

adolescents comes fromreports about middle- toupper-middle class stu-dents, Daley focuses herresearch on more econom-ically vulnerableteenagers. She is studyinga group of 10th gradersfrom Manual Arts HighSchool in Los Angeles,

students predominantly from poorfamilies that must work hard to makeends meet.

Stress Generation“There is a model of depression

that I study called the StressGeneration Model,” Daley explains.“It’s the idea that depressed peopleactually play a role in creating theirown stressful circumstances to someextent, due to their inability to gaincontrol of, or prevent, a bad situation.

That’s why I’m interested in theseyounger girls. Even before they have alot of depression in their lives, can Isee what causes distress and identify

features that leadthem to stressful cir-cumstances?”

So far, Daley’s pre-liminary analysis hasfocused on the girls inthe study and pointsto two personalitymarkers. One of thesetraits is called “erratic-dramatic” behavior,which is characterizedby intense emotions,volatile mood swingsand an extreme needfor attention.

The second—which appears to interfere with a girl’s ability toestablish normal interpersonal rela-tionships—is the overemphasis onbonds with friends and romanticpartners.

“Some girls place too much empha-sis on these relationships,” Daleyadds.

As a result of her research, Daleyhopes to play a role in public healthpolicy and the prevention of depres-sion. “We’re never going to have

enough funds to offer prevention forevery kid,” she admits. “But I hopethat my work identifies traits inteenagers that put them at risk fordepression. There are many youngpeople who should be receivingintervention.”

Daley has also worked with gradu-ate students at the Human RelationsCenter (HRC) to help low-income res-idents of Los Angeles deal withpsychological problems and relation-ship difficulties.

—Theresa Haganon

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What is known isthat nerve cells mal-function and die,though why is uncer-tain. Alzheimer’s isthe number one dis-order in a family ofdementias, afflictingfour-and-a-half mil-lion Americans.

Primarily a specialist in percep-tion, perceptuallearning, attention and brain imaging,Lu says this is his first study onAlzheimer’s. But he joins two stal-warts in the psychology department inexamining the etiology of this debili-tating brain disease.

Controlled GeneticsPsychology Professor Margaret

Gatz determined that cognitive stimu-lation plays an important role inpositive aging. In a study of 143 pairsof Swedish twins who were discordantfor dementia, low education wasshown to be a possible factor in devel-

oping Alzheimer’s dis-ease. The sibling notexhibiting signs ofdementia was describedas “having read morebooks” and “being lesslikely to get lost.” Gatzrefers to the dementedtwin as “less intellectu-ally engaged.”

As we age, our “cog-nitive reserve”—ourbrain’s cognitive func-

tions, such as learning and problemsolving— is assaulted. While chemi-cals, injuries and stress have proven tobe risk factors, it may also be possibleto bolster cognitive reserve throughcognitive stimulation and good nutri-tional habits during one’s earlier years.

The Real CulpritAn unmistakable characteristic of

Alzheimer’s is plaque deposits thatform lesions in the brain. This plaque,found to appear in the presence ofamyloid beta molecules, has been tar-geted as the culprit behind early

dementia and has been the subject ofresearch for the past two decades. Butsome healthy patients show the samebrain lesions without showing anysigns of dementia. In 2001, CalebFinch, University Professor,ARCO/William F. Kieschnick Chair inthe Neurobiology of Aging, and pro-fessor of gerontology, biologicalsciences and psychology, pinpointed adifferent, soluble form of amyloid betacalled ADDL that can spread through-out the brain in Alzheimer’s-affectedareas. Immobilizing the proper suspectmolecule is a goal in determining asuccessful treatment.

The ContinuumAlzheimer’s strikes ten percent of

Americans 65 years and older . Therate increases with age: nearly halfover 85 are affected.

Gatz calls the triumvirate of Finch,Lu and Gatz “a continuum” in thepsychology department. “We’re allneeded,” she says, “to give older peo-ple the whole story.”

—K.Y.K.

Margaret Gatz

Shannon Daley


Inside Psychology


hen schizophreniastrikes, the brain disor-der can leave its victimsstruggling with reality,

haunted by delusions and auditoryhallucinations and isolated in a worldthey perceive to have gone mad.

Early theories linked the disease toenvironmental stresses, such as grow-ing up in a dysfunctional family. Then,researchers focused their studies onthe brain chemical dopamine, geneticsand the brain’s frontal lobe.

Schizophrenia, says USC CollegePsychologist Sarnoff Mednick, is a disease with no simple cause or cure.Today, scientists recognize that schizophrenia is caused by genetic,biological and environmental factors.

The chronic brain disease affects 1 percent of the U.S. population, andoften does not show itself until lateadolescence or early adulthood.

Mednick was the first to link schiz-ophrenia risk to episodes of prenatalstress—including exposure toextremely stressful events, like a mas-sive earthquake.

In 1988, Mednick, director of theSocial Science Research Institute atthe College, published a landmarkstudy showing a higher-than-normalrate of schizophrenia among childrenwhose mothers contracted influenza in

Nature and NurtureSchizophrenia researchers search for roots of a devastating disorder

SC College vision researcherBosco Tjan holds up his cellphone and asks “What isthis?”

This is Tjan’s way of paying ode tothe human visual system, from thepupil and retina to the visual process-ing areas in the cortex of the brain.

“The best computer vision systemcan’t do what we do instantly andwithout effort,” says Tjan, an assistantprofessor of psychology.

“If we can understand what hap-pens in your mind’s eye when we seewhat’s around us, we can understandthe whole brain,” says Tjan. He stud-ies the initial steps of seeing andrecognition, and how adding speciallydesigned visual “noise” to an imageimpacts its recognizability.

This could lead to new insights into

The Mind’s EyePsychologists study visual perception

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the second trimester of pregnancy.Mednick, who was awarded the

Lieber Prize in SchizophreniaResearch, has since linked prenatalexposures to viruses, intense stressand radiation to increased rates of anumber of psychiatric disorders.

William McClure, professor of bio-logical sciences, uses cellular andmolecular techniques to figure outhow prenatal stressors might alter nor-mal brain development, leading tobrain deficits similar to those associat-ed with schizophrenia.

Recently, McClure’s team found apossible explanation of why schizo-phrenia tends to strike people in theirlate teens and early 20s. When

McClure’s team removed the hor-mone-producing gonads from ratsthat normally develop schizophrenia-like symptoms when they hit“puberty,” the rats showed no sign ofsymptoms. The finding leads theteam to believe that sex hormonesmay play a role in triggering the dis-ease, at least in animals.

Using psychophysiologicalapproaches, Michael Dawson, profes-sor of psychology, focuses on findingways to predict the course of schizo-phrenia in patients, in terms of futureseverity and ability to function, as wellas identifying which patients may bemost vulnerable to relapses. In anotherproject, he wants to see if attention

deficits could be used as amarker of schizophrenia risk.

Psychologist Adrian Raineapproaches schizophreniafrom another tack, using brain-imaging techniques to studythe brain structure and func-tion of schizophrenics andpeople with a “watered-downversion of schizophrenia”called schizotypal personalitydisorder. His studies have ledhim to theorize that damage tothe prefrontal cortex, a higherbrain area that inhibits inap-propriate behavior and links to

the emotional system, may lead to oneor both of the disorders.

Raine and Mednick have alsoshown the important role the environ-ment can play in modifying risk: In along-term study, his team “showedthat enriching the environments of 3-year-olds, by increasing exercise andcognitive stimulation and improvingnutrition for two years, led to a signifi-cant reduction in the incidence ofschizotypal personality 20 years later,”says Raine.

“We can treat schizophrenia, butwe can’t prevent it. This study givesus, for the first time, a handle on pre-vention ideas.”

—Eva Emerson

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the brain and help people who rely onperipheral vision, where these effectsare most pronounced.

A Leaping Tiger“Detecting the motion of prey or

predators is critical for survival of allanimals,” says Zhong-Lin Lu, associ-ate professor of psychology, whostudies how we sense motion. “If yousee a tiger, the brain can tell if it ismoving by comparing the luminosity,texture and color of the tiger to thebackground.”

“The brain breaks motion downinto these three parts, analyzes theinformation by three different path-ways, and then puts it all backtogether. We see the sum—one tigermoving,” says Lu. He will use theCollege’s new brain imaging center to

pinpoint where in the brain theseprocesses take place.

Pleasure of PerceptionAn expert on eye and brain, Irving

Biederman, the Harold W. DornsifeProfessor of Neuroscience, delights inthe vagaries of vision—especiallythose that reveal seeing as a productof the mind as much as that of theeye.

When you move your eyes themind suppresses vision temporarily, sothat you can never look at things whileyour eyes roam. “The mind fills in theblanks,” says Biederman.

Recently, he started investigatingthe connections between visual per-ception, cognition and pleasure tounderstand why we choose to pay

attention to certain things in our sur-roundings over others.

The pay-off is pleasure, he thinks.In the cerebral cortex of the brain, sci-entists have found cells that releaseenkephalins—natural opiates consid-ered the neurochemical basis ofpleasure. These cells are found at alllevels of the higher visual system, butare most dense in brain areas wherefaces, objects and voices are perceivedand linked to memories.

At the imaging center, Biedermanplans to test his theory, and continueto study object recognition.

“Somewhere between 50 to 65 per-cent of the brain’s cortex is involved invisual perception,” Biederman says.“We’re a very visual species.”

—E.E.

U



n his quest to under-stand both thebiological and psy-chosocial bases of

crime, violence and mental illness, USCCollege PsychologistAdrian Raine has peeredinto the brains of murder-ers, thieves, schizophrenics andpeople “just a bit odd”—those withpersonality disorders.

Over the last 15 years, Raine hastaken advantage of an array of brainimaging techniques, from EEG tofMRI. EEG, or electroencephalogram,is a method first introduced in 1929that measures electrical activity on thescalp, giving researchers a rough ideaof where activity is taking place.fMRI, or functional magnetic reso-nance imaging , is today’s mostcutting-edge brain scanner. Usingpowerful magnets, fMRI scannersoffer scientists the most detailed viewyet of both the brain’s activity and the

Searching the brain for the mindNew vistas of the brain will advance studies of behavior and experience

Imaging: Emotion

At the new center, Adrian Raine plans to study the neural

processes underlying the emotion of anger. Understanding

how normal people process anger, he says, will help shed

light on the altered brain processes that lead to the extreme,

pathological anger of violent criminals such as murderers.

Raine will also work with Laura Baker, professor of psychology, on a study of a vari-

ety of emotions in identical and fraternal twins that will integrate fMRI, MRI and

behavioral genetics approaches.

Social psychologist Brian Lickel will study the emotions of

guilt and shame, using fMRI to test his hypothesis that these

two distinct emotions are processed in separate areas of the

brain. In preliminary behavioral studies, his results indicate that

shame—a feeling caused by perceiving that an event reflects

poorly on one’s reputation or identity—is associated with a

motivation to withdraw from the social arena. Guilt differs in

that responsibility falls at one’s own feet, and is also, he says, more strongly associated with

a motivation to reach out to other people in an effort to apologize or fix things.

“Right now, it’s still controversial to what degree guilt and shame are really distinct

emotions,” says Lickel, an assistant professor of psychology. Brain imaging could help

answer the question of whether these emotions are based in different areas of the

brain. It could also provide more evidence about the link between social motivations

and these feelings.

In other studies, motivation to seek out others has been mapped to the left hemi-

sphere of the brain, while the urge to avoid social contact with others seems to be

based in the right hemisphere. “So, for a start, I’d like to see whether the feelings of

shame and guilt also have their home in separate hemispheres,” he says.

Imaging: Dyslexia

Frank Manis’ ongoing fMRI studies of dyslexia point to regions

of the brain crucial to reading, and hint at what goes wrong in

the brains of dyslexics. At the new center, Manis hopes to

build a library of fMRI brain scans of normal readers at vari-

ous ages. Comparing these with scans of dyslexics matched

in reading ability and in age, Manis will “find out if some dyslexics are [developmentally]

delayed in reading ability—do their brains respond to reading tasks the same way as nor-

mal younger readers? Or are they using entirely different parts of their brain,

compensating for an area that’s not working?” he says.

Based on his behavioral studies, Manis thinks that children with a sub-type of dyslex-

ia associated with problems putting sounds together may well be using different areas of

the brain to read. But others, he suspects, may just need a lot of extra time and training

to develop normal reading skills. What he finds may help him design early identification

methods for sub-types of dyslexia and lead to different instructional approaches for the

sub-types.

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precise location of thatactivity.

Raine’s own brainimaging studies haverevealed links betweenabnormalities in the phys-ical structure and activityof the brain and behav-ioral problems, discoveries

helping to move scientists closer tounderstanding both brain and mind.

Yet even Raine, the Robert G.Wright Professor of Psychology, hasbeen taken off guard by the increasingpace of new discoveries made usingfMRI and related brain imaging tech-niques over the past few years.

“There’s been an exponential gainin our knowledge about the brain,”says Raine. “I’ve seen a dramaticchange in the quantity and quality ofwork in this field. Brain imaging stud-ies, and their implications, aregenerating enormous excitement,beyond academic circles, in the gener-al public.”

Construction is already underwayon the building that will house USC’sown fMRI in the new Dana andDavid Dornsife CognitiveNeuroscience Imaging Center.

“This is the most exciting thing tohappen in the department in the last10 years,” says dyslexia researcherFranklin Manis, a professor of psychol-ogy and one of the more than 30 USCresearchers already engaged in fMRIimaging studies.

There’s no doubt that greateraccess to fMRI technology will mark anew era of brain research at theCollege, says Irving Biederman, theHarold W. Dornsife Professor ofNeuroscience and a professor of psy-chology in the College, who was aleader in the effort to build an imagingcenter on campus.

Studies at the imaging center are

expected toraise entire-ly newquestionsabout theconnectionbetween thehumanbrain—thephysicalorgan stud-ied atmolecular,cellular andsystems levels—and

the mind, defined as the behavioral orpsychological “product” of the brain’sactivities and interactions with theenvironment, says Biederman, a lead-ing scholar of visual perception.

Psychology researchers will beamong the first to take advantage ofthe scanner in the new center.

Investigators will use the tool toscan the brains of study participantsworking on specific activities—such aslooking at a beautiful painting or read-ing—providing a moving picture ofwhat parts of the brain are involved ineach task.

The fMRI records the physiologi-cal workings of the human brain bycapturing snapshots of blood flow inactive areas in the brain. Computerscombine the activity information withthe detailed anatomical brain scans oftraditional magnetic resonance imag-ing, or MRI, creating a clear image ofa living, human brain as it works.

—E.E.

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Rendering of the Dana and David DornsifeCognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center

Adrian Raine

Brian Lickel

Frank Manis

Irving Biederman



Inside Psychology

o bullies learn to push andshove their way throughlife? Or are they hard wiredfrom birth? Those first few

kicks may be the first step towardantisocial behavior.

Psychology Professor Laura Bakerhas been puzzling over the nature/nur-ture question her whole life. As achild, she wondered if aggressive kidswere conceived or created that way.

To find out, she is studying a largegroup of twins from southernCalifornia. With fellow psychologistAdrian Raine, they have gatheredmore than 500 sets of twins (bothidentical and fraternal) from publicschools throughout the area. To betterunderstand how genes and environ-ment influence behavior, thescientists are researching the siblings’learning and behavior problems,including antisocial activities andattention deficit disorder.

“We’d like to be able to predictand prevent problem behavior,” saysBaker. “But you can’t prevent some-thing unless you understand thebiological and social roots of theproblem.”

The study, funded by the NationalInstitute of Mental Health, will trackthe twins in waves, beginning at agesnine and 10 and analyzing themevery two years through age 21. Sofar, the researchers have completedtwo waves: the twins are now aged 11and 12.

Why twins? They provide a naturallaboratory because they share thesame genetic code. Fraternal twinsshare about half the same genes.

Antisocial behavior is a complicat-ed subject to study, Baker says.“Aggression takes many forms, frompushing, to manipulation, to breakingrules,” says Baker. “The complexityof violence and aggression makes it adifficult and fascinating area of study.Just as there are many forms ofaggression, there are probably manycauses for aggressive behavior.”

The Criminal MindWhen nature and nurture join

forces to shape an individual’s person-ality, the likelihood of criminalbehavior more than doubles, accord-ing to studies by Raine, the Robert G.Wright Professor of Psychology.

“Certain people have only biologi-cal factors predisposing them tocriminal behavior, while others haveonly psychosocial factors,” says Raine.

Bullies and the BulliedGenetics may influence playground fights and criminal behavior

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“But some people have both biologicaland psychosocial factors. As a group,these ‘biosocial’ individuals accountfor about 70 percent of all crime.”

A 1996 study by Raine and his col-leagues examined Danish males bornin the years 1959 through 1961. Theyouths with the highest crime ratewere found to bethose who hadexperienced bothbiological and psy-chosocial risks.One third of thisbiosocial group hadcommitted at leastone crime by age22.

By comparison,the crime rate was17.9 percent for the obstetrics group,which experienced only the biologicalrisks of obstetrical complications andslow motor development. The groupexposed only to the psychosocial riskof poverty (the poverty group) had thelowest rate of all, 15.7 percent.

The biosocial group also had signif-icantly more academic and behaviorproblems than the obstetrics groupand more behavior problems than thepoverty group.

Raine’s brain imaging studies haveled to significant discoveries about theminds of criminals, in particular thefact that violent offenders have poor

functioning in the brain’s prefrontalcortex. This section of the brain hous-es the mental machinery that controlsimpulsive behavior, social sensitivityand feelings of remorse, says Raine.

In a study of men diagnosed withAntisocial Personality Disorder, Raineand his co-researchers measured tissue

volume in the prefrontal cortex andfound that the antisocial men had 11to 14 percent less volume of nervecells in this area compared to normalmales.

From Bullies to Criminals Researchers have found that many

individuals graduate to criminal activi-ty from lessons learned in theplayground. In a report by FightCrime: Invest in Kids, a children’sadvocacy group, nearly one in six chil-dren in grades six through 10 werevictims of bullying each year and 3.7percent were bullies.

Nearly 60 percent ofboys who researchers classi-fied as bullies in grades sixthrough nine were convict-ed of at least one crime bythe age of 24; 40 percent ofthem had three or moreconvictions by 24, thereport said.

College PsychologyProfessor David Schwartz,who has studied bullyingfor 15 years, has found thatin 80 percent of the cases,the targets of aggressivebehavior are submissive or

passive children,many of whom comefrom an overprotec-tive or controllingenvironment.

About 20 percentare described as angrykids. “Sometimes it’sthe kids who overreactand get angry who getpicked on, but in mostcases it’s the passive

ones who are the biggest targets,” hesays.

His studies have also found thathaving a close friend helps childrenwho are chronically bullied. “Kidswho are at risk seem to do OK if theyhave a friend,” he adds. “It serves asprotection.”

While the linkbetween bulliesand criminals hasbeen established,the future of thechronically bulliedhas been lessexamined, accord-ing to Schwartz.He says both thebully and the bul-lied generally have

problems later in life.“Aggression early on indicates

problems for the targets of bullies,”says Schwartz. “It’s predictive of allkinds of future social problems.”

While it’s unclear how much, scien-tists agree both genes and theenvironment play significant roles indeveloping character and behavior.

“Genes should probably be viewedas risk factors rather than predictors ofantisocial behavior,” says Baker. “Themore we known about each and howit influences behavior, the more wecan help mediate the problem.”

—K.N.Y.

D

Identical Twins Albert and Gilbert Cervantes participate in Baker’s researchas part of the USC Southern California Twin Project.

“We’d like to be able to predict and prevent problem behavior,”

says Baker. “But you can’t prevent something unless you

understand the biological and social roots of the problem.”

Laura Baker



sk University Professor Caleb Finchwhat his ultimate career goal is andhe won’t hesitate to respond:

“It’s to understand the mecha-nisms behind the human life

span,” says Finch, holder of the ARCO/WilliamF. Kieschnick Chair in the Neurobiology ofAging and professor of biological sciences in theCollege.

Besides Finch, other researchers in theCollege are looking at ways to make life better,and maybe even longer. Here is a sampling:

Start early to stay youngThe best time to adopt healthful diet and

exercise habits is very early in life. A new paperby Biologist Michel Baudry lends support to theidea that cognitive declines begin in early mid-dle age. Prenatal and postnatal nutrition isespecially important to healthy brain develop-ment, says Margaret Gatz, psychology professorin the College.

Use your mind and socializeStimulating your mind throughout your life

span, through crossword puzzles for example,might help ward off Alzheimer’s. “While wehave not proved the adage ‘use it or lose it,’ itcertainly makes sense that keeping an activemind contributes to positive aging,” says psy-chology doctoral student Michael Crowe. Goingto museums and socializing with friends duringmiddle and senior years has been shown to berelated to lower risk of developing dementia,says Gatz.

Eat less, but more of the right thingsA growing body of research shows that eating

less can lead to a longer life and postpone, orprevent, many diseases—at least in worms, fliesand mice. Finch has shown that low-calorie dietsalso can slow brain aging in rodents.

Over the last few decades, aging researchershave increasingly focused on the link betweenmetabolism—the breakdown of food into ener-gy—and cellular damage. Anything that helps

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lower metabolism or oxidative damageseems to slow the aging process.

“There has been strong evidencedemonstrating the influence of metab-olism on disease,” Finch says. “A newtype of drug that could fool the bodyinto thinking it’s in restrictive caloriemode could be a key to addressingmany age-related diseases.”

At USC College, Baudry, graduatestudent Ruolan Lui and RichardThompson, the William M. Keck pro-fessor of psychology, are developinganti-oxidant compounds that mayslow down age-related declines inmemory. So far, they’ve only beentested in mice.

Exercise and stay uprightRegular exercise helps lower blood pressure,

reduces the risk of falls and resultant seriousinjuries (such as hip or wrist fractures) and

slows the body’s loss of muscle and bonemass. A healthy dose of sweat also worksas a mood elevator, promotes better sleepand is hypothesized to reduce the risk ofAlzheimer’s disease, says Gatz.

Tobacco cuts deep in many waysSteering clear of toxic substances such

as tobacco will likely leave you looking—and remembering—better at 70. Finchand collaborators have discovered a newform of soluble toxic proteins in thebrain—called ADDL amyloid beta—maybe a culprit behind Alzheimer’s.

Hope for good ancestors (and goodluck)

Ultimately, much of the aging process isleft to chance, says Finch. Genetics may onlyexplain 20 to 30 percent of our longevity, hesays. “The life-span of our cells is programmedinto our genetics to a point, but not as much aspeople might think,” says Finch, whosebook on chance, development and agingemphasizes the fundamentally randomnature of cell processes that affect aging.

Relax and reflect to rememberIndividual personality traits may affect

how well you age. For instance, peoplewho live a high stress life-style over along period of time alter neurotransmitterlevels, and thus the brain area wherememory is encoded, says Gatz.

Think about where you are headedEileen Crimmins, Edna M. Jones Chair

in Gerontology and professor of gerontol-ogy and sociology, is studying thepossible link between longevity, educa-tion and income levels. She also studies

how demanding work environments affect theaging process. This line of research asks whethermore money and more college degrees lead tolonger lives, and whether high stress jobs makeone live longer—or shorter.

And if happiness leads to longer life…“People make decisions assuming that more

income and positional goods will make themhappier, failing to recognize that hedonic adapta-tion and social comparison will come into playand raise their aspirations to about the sameextent as their actual economic gains,” writesRichard Easterlin, a professor of economics inUSC College. “As a result, they spend a dispro-portionate amount of time working at theexpense of family life and health, domains inwhich aspirations remain fairly constant as actualfamily circumstances change, and where theattainment of one’s goals consequently has amore lasting impact on happiness.”

The take home message: Relax, do crossword puzzles at home with

family, visit friends, eat healthy small meals,don’t smoke, exercise and stay active.

—N.S.

Beyond Botox(A how-to on aging gracefully)

Michel Baudry

Caleb Finch

Richard Thompson



Strength in NumbersA stronger economics department models the practical

Skin Color StressorsGraduate student takes a new look at racism

raduate student JenniferBest is turning the study of racial prejudice on itshead.

Scholars have long studied theenvironmental and social factors thatlead to racially biased thinking andbehaviors. “What hasn’t been aswidely researched is how victims ofracial prejudice cope with discrimina-tion-related stress,” says Best, whostudies clinical psychology in USCCollege.

Figuring out the psychological andsocial wellness of people of color isnot an easy task. But that didn’t stopthis Staten Island native who, as anundergraduate, studied psychologyand biology at Harvard.

As part of her masters’ project(which has since become the basis forher dissertation), Best recruited 64African American women to partici-pate in a research study. She usedpsychology professor and researchsupervisor Gerald Davison’sArticulated Thoughts in Simulated

Situations method as the foundationfor her research.

Through audio recordings, shesimulated three imaginary scenarios.

The first features the participantimagining being given poor service ata mall that has predominantly whitecustomers.

The second depicts a hate crimein which the participant’s car is van-dalized with racial slurs. “Thisscenario provoked the most intenseemotions of fear and anger,” she says.“Most of the women coped with thehate crime situation in a problem-focused way, meaning they would askfor help rather than shouting back.”

But the most unique aspect ofBest’s research is the third scenariowhich asks: How does a woman reactwhen people of her own race judgeher along racial lines?

To find out, Best made a thirdaudiotape.

“The participant imagines herselfabout to sign up for a predominantlyblack student organization, while two

other African American women lookon disapprovingly. Later the two girlspull the new club member aside andask, ‘Why don’t you sign up for thewhite club on campus, you’re notblack enough [for our club].’”

Best found this final scenario pro-voked an intense sense of sadness inseveral of the volunteers.

“The subject of intra-group preju-dice has barely been examinedscientifically, but it is a very realissue—especially for ethnic minoritystudents trying to adjust to com-muning within a multi-culturalcollege environment,” she says.

“Intra-group prejudice is some-thing that is almost taboo to talkabout,” she says. “There are certainsaid or unsaid codes about what itmeans to be an African Americanfemale.”

Best’s unusual approach to thestudy of prejudice was so wellreceived she is asking a related ques-tion in her dissertation: How do racialidentity and trait hostility influence

urious what World Cup soc-cer, procrastination andfrequent flyer miles have incommon?

Ask a USC College economist. While some scholars wait decades

to see their work find practical applica-tions, College economists’ research isapplied with tangible results.

On a routine day, economists com-bine theory and data to predict stockprices, structure compensation con-tracts, and pinpoint why and howincentives motivate people.

“In the past few years, this depart-ment has really gained momentum.Most of what we research relates toissues that are going on in the realworld,” says Robert Dekle, associateprofessor of economics and chair of thedepartment.

Dekle attributes much of this vigorto the College’s senior faculty recruit-ment effort. Since 2000, five seniorprofessors and a cadre of rising associ-ate professors have joined thedepartment, with others moving alongthe recruitment pipeline.

the perception of and ways of copingwith racial discrimination?

To answer this, she’s analyzing howethnic groups, including, AfricanAmericans, Mexican Americans,Asians and Europeans deal witheveryday slights.

“Things like bad customer service,for example, may or may not be attrib-uted to prejudice. But how do peoplereact psychologically when they’re notsure.”

It’s another burgeoning field thatfits well with Best’s “break the mold”attitude.

—N.S.

GJennifer Best

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Together they’re propelling thedepartment to new heights, steadilybreaking ground in microeconomics,contract theory and industrial organiza-tion. The department is partneringwith scholars in the Marshall School ofBusiness to supplementexisting strengths in macro-economics.

A World ViewIn September 2003,

Professors Hashem Pesaranand Guofu Tan joined thedepartment. Scribbles of eco-nomic formulas adorn theirwhite boards. Complex to besure, but a look past the sur-face reveals practical applications.

Pesaran provides insights about theeconomics of oil in the Middle East,energy demand in Asian countries andthe monetary and foreign exchangepolicy in Iran. A former consultant tothe World Bank and United Nations,he develops econometric models thatgovernments and businesses can usewhen they need to make economic

and financial decisions on the fly. “I am hoping I will be able to con-

tinue my work in this area and buildthe foundation of what might one daybe called Real Time Econometrics,”says Pesaran, who joined the College

from the University of Cambridge.Fellow newcomer Tan brings inter-

national expertise with respect to Asiaand the Chinese economy.

Organizing IndustryTan and Jean-Jacques Laffont, the

John Elliott Chair in Economics,anchor the department’s work inindustrial organization. In a series of

articles, Tan explains some of theunpredicted consequences of thederegulation of the U.S. airline indus-try in 1979. His economic modelsanalyze the hub-spoke network, fre-quent flyer programs and failure ofnew entrants and mergers.

Meanwhile, Laffont’s work hasbeen tapped by the FederalCommunication Commission, formingthe backbone for policies that regulat-ed pricing in the telecommunicationindustry.

Two rising stars, AssociateProfessor Juan Carrillo andAssistant Professor IsabelleBrocas, add muscle to thedepartment’s growingexpertise in industrial organi-zation and behavioraleconomics. They researchoriginal topics such as rushand procrastination underinterdependent activities andthe psychology of economic

decisions as it pertains to informationand self-control.

Carrillo, formerly a faculty memberat Columbia Business School, is blaz-ing new ground in his study of jobassignments as a screening device.

Sometimes economics can be foundin the most unexpected places.

Professor Richard Easterlin, amember of the National Academy of

CRising stars, Juan Carrillo and

Isabelle Brocas, add muscle to the department’s

growing expertise in industrial organization

and behavioral economics.



t first glance, sex and agingdon’t seem to go together. Inthe laboratory of PsychologyProfessor Kathleen

Chambers, however, they have a lot incommon. She studies sex hormones tounderstand the process of aging.

“I’m interested not only in thebasic function of hormones, but thechanges that take place with agingand how hormones modulate learningand regulate sexual activity,” saysChambers. “We’ve learned that hor-mones play different roles in malesand females. We’ve also learned thatalthough there is a great deal of simi-larity in the effects of hormones acrossanimal species, what works forrodents doesn’t always work for mon-keys and humans.”

Chambers began her career study-ing how animals learn to avoid certainfoods that have made them ill.Research on the relationship betweenhormones from reproductive glandsand aging developed later.

As a scientist at the OregonRegional Primate Research Center,she learned that imprisoned male sexual offenders were being given

Homing in on Hormones

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testosterone progesterone, based onresearch that had shown that ratsdosed with progesterone exhibited adecrease in sexual activity.

“The prisoner program was a disas-ter,” Chambers says. “Progesteronedoesn’t work that way in primates,although it does inhibit behavior inrodents. One of the participants leftthe prison and repeated his crimes.And the program shut down.” But itstimulated her interest in the relation-ships between sex and behavior.

“I’d always been intrigued by theproblem of sexual offenders and won-dered what could be done aboutsexual violence,” she says. Shethought if she could understand howand why male sexual activity dimin-ishes with age, she might be able tofind a successful way to treat sexualoffenders.

When Chambers explored the rela-tionship between a decrease intestosterone and the decline of sexualactivity in aging males she found thatadding more testosterone had littleeffect. Some of her research with ratssuggests a reduction in the brain’sreceptors that control behavior.

This may be why men who loseinterest in sex as they get older can-not retrieve their earlier desire bytaking testosterone supplements,Chambers says. She adds that drugssuch as Viagra do not affect the brain,so if a man loses interest in sexbecause of brain dysfunction, thereare no known treatments to bring itback.

But for females, the situation is dif-ferent. They appear to retain interestin sex as they get older, Chamberssays.

“With female rats and rhesus mon-

keys, we have found that even pastthe equivalent of menopause, if yougive them hormones, their behaviorwill come back. This is not true withmales.”

Chambers says one biologicalexplanation might be so-called “affili-ate behavior.” In a monkey, forexample, sexual behavior can be away of “affiliating” with a male whomight offer her protection or some-thing else that would be beneficial inan evolutionary sense.

Her work on learned food aversionsalso has important implications foraging. “There has been a great deal ofpress on the memory enhancing abili-ties of estrogen,” Chambers says. “Infact, our research shows that estrogencan have both facilitating and detri-mental effects on memory. Whicheffect it has depends on when it ispresent during the learning and mem-ory retrieval processes. Clearly, theidea that one hormone or drug canenhance all memory processes is look-ing to be quite simplistic.”

“These two systems, learned foodaversion and sex, can shed light onbrain function,” she says. “The hopealways is that if we can understandhow one system fails, it can teach usabout other systems more critical toour survival.”

—K.N.Y.

Kathleen Chambers

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Sciences, studieshow economicsinfluences society,focusing on history,population changesand the relationshipbetween wealthand happiness.

Those who findhappiness watchingsports may findProfessor GertRidder’s workintriguing. A nativeof the Netherlands,Ridder has success-fully predictedoutcomes of majorsoccer tournamentslike the World Cupby using a largedatabase to assessthe strength ofteams and simulatematches.

Outside of thiswork, he is devel-oping a newapproach to laboreconomics and theevaluation of socialprograms. Hisresearch helps statesocial workers todevelop methods

that motivate people who are out ofwork.

In one of his best-known studies,Ridder analyzes incentive-basedemployment programs, asking thequestion: Should you stimulate peoplewith rewards or punish them if theydon’t work?

Contracting MindsLaffont and Economics Professor

Bentley McLeod are advancing thestudy of contract theory.

McLeod has found that under-standing the complexities of anenvironment has all kinds of implica-tions for contracts and employmentrelationships. He is currently studyingsuch issues at the Industrial RelationsCenter at Princeton University. Hisresearch has found it is very commonfor contract parties to describe certainbehaviors as “unfair.”

For instance, if an employee feelsthat she is being unfairly treated, thenshe might respond to this by decreas-ing output. An implication is that anemployer’s beliefs as to what anemployee can do can have dramaticeffects on performance.

“But motivating people is not anissue in our department,” laughsDekle. “The energy seems to be con-tagious.”

—N.S.

Left to right: Jean-JacquesLaffont, Guofu Tan, Gert Ridderand Richard Easterlin


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12 USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences February 2004

Under the Microscope

t age nine, Amy Barrios likedchemistry. Her parents boughther a biology kit.

It wasn’t until shereceived her Ph.D. that she got thechemistry set she always wanted, saysBarrios, the newest member of theUSC College chemistry department.

Perhaps her parents knew some-thing: Barrios combines interests inthe chemical world of atoms and thebiological world of cells in her researchon the chemistry of metals within thebody.

Metals are critical in many of thebody’s proteins. Iron ions, for example,are a key ingredient in hemoglobin,which carries oxygen in blood. Theanti-cancer drug cisplatin, whichhelped cyclist Lance Armstrong beattesticular cancer, contains platinum.

One of her three research projectsfocuses on gold, a main ingredient in alast resort drug used for rheumatoidarthritis (RA) patients who fail othertreatments. Although effective, goldhas unwanted side effects.

Auranofin, the gold-containing

ut a caramel in your mouth andyour taste buds detect the sug-ary substance and instantlysend a message to the brain,

which interprets the signal—sweet! Trying to figure out what happens

in the split-second between eatingsomething and recognizing its sweetor bitter flavor, or more preciselybetween the initial detection of a tasteand a signal reaching the brain, ledneuroscientist Emily Liman to take acloser look inside the cells in the tastebuds.

What she found reveals new detailsabout how the sense of taste works.

The research by Liman, an assis-tant professor of biological sciences inUSC College, and graduate studentDan Liu indicates that calcium plays akey role in the detection of tastes bytaste cells in the tongue.

Published in December in theProceedings of the National Academyof Sciences, the paper also offers amolecular model of how taste cells

Golden ChemistryBarrios studies how metals work in the body

V O L U M E 5 N U M B E R 1

drug, targets the body’s joints, slowingthe disease process. Barrios speculatesthat auranofin interferes with enzymescalled cathespins thought to play a role

in RA andosteoporosis.

Cathespinscut up and clearaway proteinsno longer need-ed in the cell.Gone awry, theenzymes maydamage healthyproteins such asthe collagen injoints.

“We’re tryingto figure out ifgold inhibitsthese enzymes,”says Barrios, theGabilanAssistantProfessor ofChemistry.Understandingthe drug’s

mechanism could lead to a drug that’smore efficient and has fewer sideeffects. “That’s a big undertaking—not something I expect to accomplish

anytime soon.” In another investigation, Barrios

researches the dramatic differences inzinc levels found in healthy and malig-nant prostate cells. She aims to createa zinc-sensitive molecule to use withmagnetic resonance imaging technolo-gy to better diagnose prostate cancer.

In a third project, Barrios hopes tocharacterize enzymes called proteintyrosine phosphatases, important incellular signaling pathways such as theone that controls insulin levels.Genomic studies reveal 120 genesencoding for these enzymes, but howthey differ isn’t known.

By figuring that out, Barrios hopesto reveal new ways to battle diabetesmellitus, which some link to overac-tive phosphatases. Inhibiting theenzymes could lead to new treat-ments.

Barrios is a welcome addition to thedepartment, says chemistry chair andprofessor Hanna Reisler. “She’s bring-ing us new expertise in the field ofpharmaceutical chemistry.”

—E.E.

reset so they are ready to detect newtastes.

Until recently, scientists have

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known little about how taste works ona cellular or molecular level. Just fouryears ago scientists officially added aunique taste, called umami, to the list

Is it sweet, bitter — or umami?College research lights up taste

of better known ones: sweet, bitter,salty and sour. Umami receptors aresensitive to the amino acid glutamate,which most think serve as a marker forprotein-rich foods. Glutamate is alsothe main ingredient in the commonlyused flavor additive MSG (monosodi-um glutamate), which may explain theadditive’s appeal.

Taste research has attracted theattention of basic researchers likeLiman interested in unraveling howcellular signaling works. Food anddrug industry scientists are also veryinterested in understanding themolecular details of taste, especiallybitter and sweet, Liman says.

“It’s important to know how tasteworks and to identify the moleculesinvolved. These molecules can be tar-gets for designing chemicals thatactivate taste—for example, a betterartificial sweetener—or that blocktaste, such as an additive that could beused to block bitter tastes,” she says.

—E.E.

Emily Liman (right) investigates taste buds tobetter understand how animals detect sweet,bitter and umami flavors. The taste buds aremade up of bundles of 50 to 100 taste cells,here stained red with PLCbeta2, a proteininvolved in taste detection.


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fforts by USCCollege to recruitoutstandingwomen scientists

gained momentum thisyear with the appoint-ment of five women totenure-track positions inthe natural sciences. Theuniversity’s Women inScience and Engineering(WiSE) program providedimportant support forthese efforts.

The addition of fournew women faculty in biological sci-ences and one in chemistry markssteady progress in the effort toincrease the number of women facultyin the sciences.

The College’s strategic plan identi-fies increasing faculty diversity as oneof its key goals. Expanding the life sci-ences is another.

The new women scientists, addedto the recent appointments of threenew men faculty in biology, help fulfillboth aims, says Beth Meyerowitz,dean of faculty and professor of psy-chology in the College, who oversawthis year’s successful hiring of newCollege faculty, 12 of these women.

In biology, the new hires bring thenumber of tenured and tenure-trackwomen faculty from six to 10, withwomen now making up 21 percent ofthe biology faculty. In chemistry, adepartment with only two womenfaculty last year, the jump was smaller(from seven percent to more than 10percent this year), but qualitativelysignificant—chemists Anna Krylovand Hanna Reisler can now use theplural in describing their femalechemistry colleagues. Reisler chairsthe department.

In addition, the administrationreports a 25 percent rise in the numberof tenure-track and tenured minorityfaculty members since the strategicplan’s debut.

Recognizing that major work liesahead, College Dean Joseph Aounhails the gains made so far.

“Increasing the number of womenon our faculty is one aspect of our goalto diversify our faculty,” says Aoun.“Minority hiring is up over the lastthree years, and we are mindful ofintellectual diversity as well. In seek-ing new faculty who are leaders inemerging fields, and whose researchcrosses the usual disciplinary bound-aries, we are building a lively faculty

USC Sponsors Regional Biology Calendar

Life science scholarship is thriving in Los Angeles. As a result, USC’s regional online cal-

endar of the life sciences, BiologyWest, in its second full year, is finding high readership

for its listings of lectures, conferences and symposia in and around L.A.

The site can be viewed at www.usc.edu/biowest/. Readers are invited to log on to

find out what’s happening in molecular and computational biology, cancer research,

and countless other topics.

USC, UC Irvine, UCLA, Caltech and other institutions sponsor numerous symposia,

talks and lecture series that are open to the public, and post them on the BiologyWest

Web site.

Sponsoring institutions can submit events at the Web site simply by clicking on

“submit an event” and entering the details.

Further information is available by e-mail at [email protected].

Recruitment Strides New hires bring more women to science

with many interesting perspectives.“But this year, we are very proud

that we have been able to attract suchoutstanding women faculty.”

A National ProblemUSC College is if anything getting

ahead of the curve on the issue of howto increase the number of women aca-demics in science. According to a 1999report from the National ScienceFoundation, progress has been slowand uneven across science fields (withbiology attracting more women thanphysics) at colleges and universitiesacross the nation.

Aoun points to the pivotal role ofthe WiSE program in this year’s suc-cessful recruitment. WiSE has gottenthe word out that USC is committedto building an environment that willsupport and help develop the careersof young women scientists. And appli-cants are responding.

It made a difference to AmyBarrios, who joined the College in2003 as the Gabilan AssistantProfessor of Chemistry, one of threeGabilan chairs designed to assist jun-ior faculty in launching their scientificcareers. “It is an impressive statementfor a school to make publicly,” shesays. “It told me that there was a sup-port system already in place, and thatwas important to me.”

WiSE Support When WiSE was established three

years ago under the leadership ofUSC Provost Lloyd Armstrong, Jr., its primary goal was to double thenumber of tenured and tenure-trackwomen scientists and engineers with-in five years.

Generously funded by an anony-mous gift of $20 million, WiSEcontributes the majority of its annualbudget to recruitment. The College’s

new women scientists received sub-stantial research start-up funds fromWiSE on top of that offered by theCollege, says Jean Morrison, WiSEdirector and associate professor ofearth sciences.

WiSE espouses a second, harder-to-measure aim: to create a scientificcommunity that fosters the develop-ment of young faculty, both womenand men. “It starts with recruitment.But it’s critical to build a culture thathelps people thrive and grow,” saysMorrison.

Signs of SuccessBarrios, who studies the chemistry

of metals in biological molecules andsystems, was attracted to USC for anumber of reasons, she says, includinga chance to help guidethe development of agrowing biochemistryemphasis. But herinteractions withReisler and othersinvolved in WiSE, aswell as the generousstart-up funds, madethe College her topchoice.

New faculty mem-ber MichelleArbeitman, whojoined the molecularand computationalbiology program this fall, echoesBarrios’ sentiment.

“The funds WiSE has given mewill help me do my research moreefficiently. And their support, in termsof advice and networking, has beenimportant,” says Arbeitman, theGabilan Assistant Professor of Biology.

Her research focuses on the molecularand genetic processes that determinethe sex of a developing fruit fly andgenerate sex-specific behaviors inadults, such as male courtship.

In addition to Barrios andArbeitman, the College welcomes thefollowing assistant professors to thebiological sciences department:• Xianghong “Jasmine” Zhou, a

computational biologist who worksto develop new computationalmethods that will allow greaterunderstanding of how and whencells turn on and off genes.

• Samantha Butler, a developmentalneurobiologist, studies how devel-oping nerve cells hook up withother neurons to form the brain’scommunications network.

• Wiebke Ziebis, a marine biogeo-chemist, investigates the complexinteractions between creatures andmicrobes and the geological, chem-ical and ecological aspects of theirenvironment.

—E.E.

E

Amy Barrios and Xianghong “Jasmine” Zhou

Michelle Arbeitman and Hanna Reisler



Surfing for ScienceQuiksilver supports Wrigley Institute and college programs

Debra Reed and Arthur Drylie

$400,000 pledge to Life Sciences

Fairmount Family Trust

$11,300 gift to the Dean Joan Schaefer

Scholarship Fund

Bradford and Kathleen Farmer

$10,000 gift to Life Sciences

Alan Cooper Fox

$10,000 gift to support the Master of

Professional Writing Program

Judy and Tony Ho


Ralph Hutchings

$5,000 gift to the John R. Hubbard Fellowship

Janet Iimuna, Daniel Wakumoto and

Douglas Wakumoto

$10,000 gift to the Dean Joan Schaefer

Scholarship Fund

Gifts and Grants

unique ocean-based programdesigned toimprove sci-

ence education insouthern Californiaschools was announcedin October by USCCollege, the USCWrigley Institute andQuiksilver, aHuntington Beach-based company thatdesigns and sells surfand sun clothing.

With more than $1million from theQuiksilver Foundation,the partnership will sup-port a variety of newprograms that build on currentWrigley offerings. The goal is to makescience more approachable, relevantand fun for children ranging fromkindergarten to 12th grade.

“There is a critical shortage of sci-entists in the nation,” says JosephAoun, dean of the USC College.“Science plays an important role as anagent of economic growth and sustain-ability and promotes the well-being ofcitizens.”

“It’s incumbent upon us to reach

out to students during their formativeyears (K–12) and use their love of theocean to make them appreciate sci-ence,” Aoun says. “We are grateful toUSC alumnus Bob McKnight for hispassion and commitment to the envi-ronment and to education.”

The project also will sponsor“QuikScience Challenge,” a competi-tion encouraging seventh- and

eighth-graders in five southernCalifornia counties to find innovativeways to work with their teachers andschools to adopt and improve theWrigley Institute curriculum.

Students will compete for theopportunity to spend a week in theCaribbean Sea studying aboard TheIndian Trader, a 72-foot ocean researchvessel sponsored by Quiksilver, or aweekend research trip to the USCmarine lab on Catalina Island.

Bob McKnight, Quiksilver’s chiefexecutive officer, says his company is

committed to the environment as wellas to children.

“As surfers, we have a deep appre-ciation for the ocean’s beauty and itspower, but also its fragility,” he says.“We have a responsibility to give backand support the communities inwhich we operate, and we believeeducation is one of the best ways togive back.”

Quiksilver, which produces a num-ber of brands under names such asRoxy, Raisins and Quiksilver, also willsupport the Ocean LeadershipAwards, which recognizes teacherswho excel in teaching science inunique ways. Eight area teachers werepresented with awards in October.

Professor Anthony Michaels, direc-tor of USC’s Wrigley Institute, saysthe goal of the Wrigley Institute “is toextend our knowledge base outsidethe university. One of the mostimportant things we do is to workwith students—the idea makers oftomorrow.”

—Gilien Silsby, USC News

Tony Michaels, Annette & Bob McKnight,Anne McKnight and Joseph Aoun at the program’s October kick-off.

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Quicksilver CEO Bob McKnight talks withLos Angeles area students about surfing,sun and the importance of science.

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A Sampling of Recent Gifts

Mark and Kimberlee Krouse


$10,000 gift to the School of International

Relations

Jeanne A. McCormick Trust

$55,000 bequest to establish the Charles &

Jeanne McCormick Endowed Scholarship

Fund

Harlan Martens

$5,123 gift to the Linda and Harlan Martens

Plaza

Richard and Christine Nicholas


George and Judith Olah

Two charitable gift annuities to establish the

Carl Franklin Endowed General Interest

Lectures in the Loker Hydrocarbon Research

Institute; scientific books valued at $27,200 to

the George & Judith Olah Library Collection

of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute;

$5,000 gift to the Loker Hydrocarbon

Research Institute

Ragsdale Family Foundation

$5,000 gift to the Master in Professional

Writing Program

Douglas and Marilee Schneider


Jerol Sonosky

$10,000 gift to the Elizabeth Sonosky

Fellowship for Earth and Ocean Studies

Andrew Zinsmeyer

$5,000 to the Wrigley Institute for

Environmental Studies

Ahmanson Foundation

$1 million to support Life Sciences

To see a list of recent grants log onto

www.usc.edu/schools/college/research/grantsnews



an advantagein terms ofintegratingscholarship onthe PacificRim withscholarship onthe Atlanticworld.”

Unlikeexisting cen-ters that focuson particularregions, theemphasis willbe global,both in scopeof research

topics and in the recruitment of fel-lows, seminars and conferenceparticipants.

he trustees of the Andrew W.Mellon Foundation have award-ed a $629,000 grant to USCCollege, for a collaboration with

the Henry E. Huntington Library &Art Gallery.

The gift will help boost the USC-Huntington Institute for EarlyModern Studies, bringing togetherresearchers to share discoveries andscholarship on human societiesbetween 1492 and 1800—a periodrichly captured by the Huntington’shuge collection of rare books, manu-scripts and newspapers.

The money will be used over thenext three years to support researchand graduate training in studies ofthe early modern world.

“One of the unique features of theinstitute is that there are no compara-ble institutions on the West Coast,”

says Peter Mancall, director of theInstitute and a history professor in theCollege. “That gives us something of

Mellon Foundation Supports Early Modern Studies

lumni, parents and friends whosupport USC College willreceive customized courtesieswhen the new Associates

Program launches in spring 2004. A sampling includes free on-

campus parking, private seminars withleading authors and art historians,receptions at the Faculty Centerrestaurant, accessibility to the USClibrary system and pre-football gamepicnics to cheer on the Trojans.

The program’s intent is to increasephilanthropic support and awarenessof the College by working in conjunc-tion with the USC Associates, theUniversity’s premier group. Giftsraised through the new program aredesignated specifically to USCCollege.

“Among the most rewarding advan-tages of joining the USC CollegeAssociates is the opportunity to con-nect with alumni and faculty who arerecognized leaders in their professionand community,” says TamaraBaringer, the development officer whodirects the program for the College.

Most importantly, membership inthe program presents an unparalleledopportunity to support the intellectualheart of the University. Disciplineshoned within College corridors arecentral to all of the University’s profes-sional schools—from gerontology

Seminars cover five specific areasincluding: early modern British histo-ry, early American history, East Asia,material and visual culture and a year-ly theme-based seminar. This year theInstitute will host five seminars; twofocus on literature, the others on colo-nial America. Up to nine additionalseminars are in the planning for nextyear, Mancall says.

In addition, the Institute promotesthe Huntington’s programs, includingsuch endeavors as the program on the-atre history in the age of Shakespeare.

“The Huntington’s archives are anatural magnet for researchers,” saysCollege Dean Joseph Aoun.

“Innovative scholarship is inevitablewhen museums, nonprofit organiza-tions and libraries join forces withscholars from research institutions.”

—N.S.

An engraving from Hans Weigel’s 1577 Habitus praecipuorum populo-rum, (The Special Character of Nations). Courtesy of the HuntingtonLibrary.

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The College Connection Associates program kicks off in spring

to law—from communication to business. Today, every USC under-graduate takes classes in the College,with top professors teaching many ofthese undergraduate courses.

Whether your intellectual passion isletters, arts or sciences, or the bur-geoning intersection of all three,membership provides the opportunity

to directly support specific programsand disciplinary fields. Support canalso target the College’s priority areas,such as graduate programs, life sci-ences, the senior faculty hiringinitiative and undergraduate educa-tion.

A specialized division of the pro-gram called the InternationalAssociates will offer special benefitssuch as advisement to assist withcourse selection and invitations toevents in the U.S. and abroad. TheParents Associates program will offersimilar customized courtesies.

Membership, at various levels, is

open to anyone who wants to supportthe College: • Junior level (age 35 and under)

$1,500 annually• Annual level (age 36 and over)

$2,500 annually• Membership level (5 year pledge)

$25,000• Provost’s level (5 year pledge)

$50,000• Presidential level (5 year pledge)

$100,000

For more information contact TamaraBaringer, (213) 740-4990, or [email protected].

ASupporting Brain Research

David and Dana

Dornsife recently gave

an $8 million gift to

establish a Cognitive

Neuroscience Imaging

Center headquartered

at USC College (see

page 7). Pictured at the

celebratory dinner

(from left to right) is

USC President Steven B.

Sample, Dana Dornsife,

USC Trustee David

Dornsife, Chairman of

the USC Board of

Trustees Stanley P.

Gold, and College Dean

Joseph Aoun.

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Putting USC on the Global MapCartier wants to bring international perspectives to the fore

ohn Wills, Jr., who brought Asia tothe College history department,retires as a professor of history at theend of this academic year, nearly

four decades after he joined the USCfaculty.

When he came here, American uni-versities were most often cast from aEurocentric mold. USC had severalfine scholars in East Asian studies, butWills, an expert on China, was thefirst member of the history facultywith a specialty outside Europe andthe Americas.

Wills served as acting chair of theDepartment of East Asian Languagesand Cultures from 1987 to 1989 and asdirector of the East Asian StudiesCenter from 1990 to 1994.

“I got involved way back in the

n an effort to bring greater focus oninternational research to USCCollege, Geography ProfessorCarolyn Cartier is helping to create a

new certificate in urban and globalstudies.

The long-term vision calls for acenter for Urban and Global Studiesthat would be an umbrella institute forthe social science graduate curriculumand faculty research in the College.

“I’m interested in building the cos-mopolitan reach of the social scienceswithin the College,” says Cartier, whocame to USC in 1999 and becameassociate professor two years ago.

Cartier has been meeting with fac-ulty throughout the fall and addressedthe September department chairsmeeting to outline the proposal. Theresponse so far has been positive, shesays. A faculty committee has formedto explore launching the new certifi-cate program.

“This is the kind of innovativeapproach to graduate studies that wein the College have been talkingabout,” says Dean Joseph Aoun. “Ihave said in the past that we will notreach our goals by doing business asusual. This is the kind of effort thatwill advance the College and attractthe caliber of graduate students wewant to attract.”

Cartier says the College’s social sci-ences should have a broaderinternational focus and she hopes newfaculty will bring expertise in globalissues. “We need to take the strengthsof USC’s urban and regional researchto the global arena; we need to haveactive research on a spectrum of issuesin diverse world cities and regions,”she says.

The College has a strong basis inurban studies, but Cartier says there isa need to press further on compara-tive studies of L.A. in relation toother U.S. and international cities, aswell as urban issues globally, espe-cially in areas such as Asia and LatinAmerica, where the College has beendeveloping research strengths. Shesays that a dominant focus on L.A.keeps the College marginalized fromsome major funding agencies that tendto target global issues. The program is part of a University wide effort tostrengthen urban and global studies.

“A university of this stature shouldhave a more integrated internationalperspective,” Cartier says. “It is areality that the future is about tiesamong places, including critical ques-tions about transcultural relations,urban sustainability and the globaleconomy.”

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The Urban and Global Studies fac-ulty committee proposes that theinitiative center on four themes:Southern California studies; urbanenvironments; comparative urbaniza-tion; and globalization andtransnationalism. She says the themesplay to the College’s existingstrengths, address untapped possibili-ties and focus on important arenas offuture significance.

Core courses in the certificate inurban and global studies include,“City Space and Globalization”and“International Urbanization: UrbanOrigins, Growth and Development.”

Anthropology, economics, geogra-phy, history, international relations,

political science, sociology, Americanstudies, environmental studies andgender studies are expected to beaffiliated.

Thematic visions include the concept of “scale relations,” whichencourages thinking beyond single-scale studies and understandinginterrelations among different citiesand regions, from local to global. Such“multi-sited” research is the standardfor working in the arena of globaliza-tion, Cartier adds. Another thematicvision is nature-society relations,which considers natural resources andthe natural environment as integralaspects of urbanization.

“Cities are the concentrated centers

of natural resources consumption andas the world population continues tourbanize, future research on cities willincreasingly focus on both theoreticaland applied questions about theimpacts of urban life on the naturalenvironment. We would do well toposition ourselves at the avant-gardeof this trend,” she says.

Cartier, who earned her threedegrees (bachelor’s, master’s andPh.D.) in geography at UC Berkeley,currently works on urban and regionalrestructuring in China, landscapes inAsian cities and globalization as itrelates to Pacific Rim economies, trav-el, gender and migration.

This idea “promotes launching ourstrengths in southern California stud-ies into the wider world, as well ascomparative international urban stud-ies and the more theoretical researchon current questions of globalizationand transnationalism,” says Cartier.

She thinks it’s important to haveinternational speakers and symposia toinform debate on global issues. “Weneed to share a common language ofexcitement about what’s going on atour campus, see the halls filled withposters about incredible speakers andevents. We’re hoping to attract thatkind of energy and interest.

“It will be saying to the wider com-munity that really interesting thingsare happening in urban and globalissues at USC,” she adds. “We haveterrific faculty here who are alreadyinterested in these issues, so in partit’s an exercise in pulling everythingtogether. Then the programming inUrban and Global Studies forms abasis for stimulating debate over keyissues, broadening perspectives andthinking toward the future.”

—K.N.Y.

I “I’m interested

in building the

cosmopolitan

reach of the

social sciences

within the

College”

— Carolyn Cartier

1970s in thinking about the directionof the General Education program,”he says. “We developed a solid set ofchanges that lasted roughly from 1980through 1995.”

He says that one of the develop-ments that came out of the planningprocess was the agreement that USC’sGeneral Education program wouldrequire a course in non-Western cul-tures. This helped increase the rangeof offerings in East Asian languages,culture, and history when USC wasjust becoming a major research uni-versity on the Pacific Rim.

Teaching Chinese history was easyfor Wills. Locating appropriate materi-als was not. In planning a surveycourse for the General Education pro-gram, Will had to cobble together bits

J

John Wills, Jr.



avid Cunningham III was 16years old when his father ranfor state senator. He wasasked to walk precincts for

the campaign, and it was the experi-ence of “meeting people anddebating public issues” that triggeredhis interest in public service.

Still fulfilling that commitment,Cunningham was unanimously elect-ed president of the Board ofCommissioners for the Los AngelesPolice Department in July 2003. Hehad previously served on the five-member commission for two years.

Cunningham, who graduatedsumma cum laude and Phi BetaKappa from USC College in 1977,attributes his public service involve-ment to his undergraduate years. Aspresident of Omega Psi Phi, hefundraised for sickle cell anemia. Hevolunteered at a halfway house, andlearned to navigate the criminal jus-tice system. As an intern in the U.S.Court of Appeals for the District ofColumbia Circuit, he met and dis-cussed public service and the role oflaw in society with Supreme CourtJustice Thurgood Marshall—anencounter that further cemented hisambition.

“USC rewards me every day,”Cunningham says. “Not just becauseof my contacts, but because of thechances I had and the goals that ithelped me set. USC offered it, andstill continues to offer it.”

A Public Service AnnouncementCunningham ’77 is appointed President of L.A.P.D. board

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and pieces to provide good readingsfor his students.

“I thought it was getting tiresomepulling these texts together, and oftenthere was nothing adequate,” he says.“So I thought to myself, ‘why don’t Iwrite the whole darn thing?’”

“I tested the chapters on my stu-dents throughout the 1980s, so that bythe early 1990s I had written thewhole book. And to my considerablesurprise it was accepted. So I dedicat-ed the book to my students at USC.”

“Mountain of Fame: Portraits inChinese History” was published byPrinceton University Press in 1994.Wills says the book is an example ofhow publishing and teaching effortscan support each other.

His other books include “Pepper,

As commissioner, Cunninghamwants to increase the 9,300-strongpolice force to 10,000. He cites thediversification of police recruitmentand departmental reform as two of hispersonal priorities in 2004, calling for21st century policing that is mindfulof constitutional rights.

“We have a lot of work to do onthat one,” he admits. But he high-lights L.A.P.D. success in crimereduction—a 24.6% decrease forhomicides in 2003—and hails LosAngeles Mayor James Hahn’s goal of“making L.A. the safest city inAmerica.”

Cunningham also has an extensiveprivate sector background as a rede-velopment attorney—part of adistinguished legal career that issteeped in civil rights. He graduatedfrom New York University’s School ofLaw and later counseled in the VotingRights Section of the Civil RightsDivision in the Department ofJustice. He also had a judicial clerk-ship before moving onto civillitigation.

Currently, Cunningham builds eco-nomic bases in low-income urbanareas by cleaning contaminated indus-trial sites and upgrading them intohousing and retail components. TheNoHo Commons project is an upcom-ing arts and entertainment district inNorth Hollywood; in South CentralLos Angeles, CommissionerCunningham is collaborating with the

Community Redevelopment Agencyto turn a number of properties withheavy soil and vapor contaminationinto one major retail site.

“Brownfields”—as the project iscalled—will ideally create employ-ment in an economically blightedarea.

Striving to meld his dedication tocommunity involvement with LosAngeles’ police affairs, Cunningham is

pushing to enhance the partnershipbetween the police and the commu-nity, and he sees multiple townmeetings as a means of accomplishingthis task.

Much like his start canvassingfrom house to house, the commis-sioner says this aspect of his visionand goal for the LAPD is to “reach asmuch of the population as possible.”

—K.Y.K.

D “USC rewards me

every day,”

Cunningham says.

“Not just because

of my contacts,

but because of

the chances I had

and the goals that

it helped me set.”

David S. Cunningham III, Class of 1977

Guns, and Parleys: The Dutch EastIndia Company and China, 1662-1681” (Harvard University Press,1974); “From Ming to Ch’ing:Conquest, Region, and Continuity inSeventeenth-Century China” (YaleUniversity Press, 1979, co-edited withJonathan D. Spence); “Embassies andIllusions: Dutch and PortugueseEnvoys to K’ang-hsi, 1666-1687”(Harvard, 1984); and “1688: A GlobalHistory” (W.W. Norton, 2001).

Shortly after he leaves USC, Willswill travel to China and Vietnam. Heplans to lecture, research and writeduring retirement.

He sums it up this way: “I plan todo the exact same things I’m doingnow—except grade papers.”

—K.N.Y.

Building the Future, Beam by Beam

Much progress has been made since groundbreaking for the new Molecular and

Computational Biology Building took place in spring 2003. As one of the most ambitious

projects in the College’s history, the more than 100,000-square-foot building heralds an

important step for USC College and a new era for life science research at the University.

With state-of-the-art computing facilities and laboratory space for basic biological

research, it will be configured to promote collaboration among some of the College’s

most creative scientists. The new building will house up to 28 faculty researchers. It fea-

tures eight state-of-the-art molecular biology labs, eight new computational biology

laboratories, and four “hybrid” labs that have both wet labs and computing areas.

To view building construction in “real-time” visit http://www.usc.edu/schools/col-

lege/ and click on “New Biology Building Webcam.”


All in the FamilyStudy establishing the similarity of human populations named ‘best paper’


taying responsive to the com-munity, both on and off theUSC campus, has been a pow-erful force in keeping the Joint

Educational Project and its variousservice learning programs alive andthriving for the more than 30 years atUSC College.

So a few years ago, when local edu-cators and principals asked JEPExecutive Director TammaraAnderson and Tina Koneazny, directorof JEP’s USC ReadersPLUS program,for additional reading tutors, the teamwent into action. First they added astudent volunteer component to themain USC ReadersPLUS program,which employs about 100 work-studystudents as reading and math tutors tochildren in neighborhood schools.

When they began to get requestsfrom university staff members inter-ested in volunteering, they launchedthe USC Literacy Project—a group offaculty, staff, alumni and graduate stu-dent volunteers placed in local

Responding to Kids’ Need to ReadJEP asks ‘Spend lunch over a book—Read to a child!’

n December 20, 2003, pre-cisely a year from itspublication in the Americanjournal Science, a paper from

a young postdoc in the Molecular andComputational Biology group in USCCollege was chosen as the most impor-tant biomedical research paper in theworld for the year 2003.

The Lancet, England’s prestigiousmedical journal, bestowed the honoron Noah A. Rosenberg, who, workingwith colleagues in many fields, frommany institutions, published a paperentitled “Genetic Structure of HumanPopulations.”

“In working on this project, wewere very fortunate to have had accessto an excellent collection of geneticsamples from around the world,” saysRosenberg.

“Our work is only an initial steptoward understanding the relationshipbetween population ancestry andgenetic disease,” he says. “We hopethat future collaborations can linkanthropology and genetics to makeadvances in medicine.”

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Rosenbergexpanded on hishonored paper in apresentation to theViterbi Symposium(see page one) Dec.16 entitled“Inference of indi-vidual ancestry fromvariable markers inthe humangenome.”

In choosing thepaper, the Lancetcommented:

“The paper by Rosenberg et al hastwo messages of utmost importance:one general biological, even humanis-tic, and one methodological.

“The general biological lesson isthat the overwhelming source ofhuman genetic variation is betweenindividuals and not between ethnicgroups. In the paper this becomeseven clearer by the finding that thereare no absolute genetic differencesbetween ethnic groups: the differ-ences that exist are in relative

frequencies only. “The methodological

lesson is that for geneticrisk assessment it fol-lows that investigatorscan use standard epi-demiological studydesigns, provided self-reported ethnicbackground is taken intoaccount: for such riskassessment one shouldnot worry about ‘geneticadmixture.’

“The most enlighten-ing aspect of the paper, however, isthe insight that it gives in the ‘geneticstructure of human populations’—thevery title of the paper.”

The paper also illustrates thechanging, interdisciplinary, interna-tional nature of science. Rosenberg’sco-authors were from the Departmentof Human Genetics, University ofChicago; the Center for MedicalGenetics, Marshfield MedicalResearch Foundation, Wisconsin; theFoundation Jean Dausset-Centre

d’Etude du Polymorphisme Humain(CEPH), Paris; the Department ofGenetics, Yale University School ofMedicine; the Vavilov Institute ofGeneral Genetics, Russian Academyof Sciences, Moscow, and theDepartment of Biological Sciences,Stanford University.

Other nominated papers includedthe identification of the SARS coron-avirus, a vaccine trial of the humanpapilloma virus and the MillionWomen Study highlighting theincreased risk of breast cancer fromcombination hormone replacementtherapy.

Lancet editor Richard Horton said,“No existing prize in science or medi-cine recognizes the vital importance ofmultidisciplinary collaboration.

“This is a fatal flaw in, for exam-ple, the Nobel [Prize] awards. Withthis prize, we aim to salute truly first-class advances in thinking or practicewhich would otherwise go unnoticedby the contemporary establishmentof science.”

—A.K.

schools. In 1998, 25 faculty and stafftook part, but over time dwindling vol-

unteer numbers led Koneazny to sus-pend the program.

Last year, Koneazny and her teambegan rebuilding the program, recruit-ing 15 graduate student volunteers.This year, in an effort spearheaded bySherry Nguyen, the student centralcoordinator of USC ReadersPLUS,they have increased recruitmentefforts and found new ways to gettheir message out. They even haveconsidered using a slogan: “Spendlunch over a good book—Read to achild.”

“Our community schools have beenhappy to host our students, whose lit-eracy assistance truly makes adifference in the children’s readingabilities,” Koneazny says. The specialattention brings results. According toan assessment done in 2002, 63 per-cent of children working with USCtutors showed substantial improve-ments in reading accuracy.

Recognizing the difficulty for peo-ple who work full-time or have busyschedules, the Literacy Project asksfor only one to two hours a week ofvolunteers’ time.

Nguyen’s work has already startedto pay off, with more than 20 peoplesigned up for the spring training tolearn the basics about working one-on-one with a struggling reader.

ReadersPLUS is one of the three

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Champions of service learning: JEP Executive Director Tammy Anderson sits between SherryNguyen (left) and Tina Kozneazny (right) of USC ReadersPLUS and the recently re-launchedUSC Literacy Project, on the porch of the JEP House.

Noah A. Rosenberg

College Commons



Chemist George Olah Decorated by JapanNobel laureate receives high honor

n December, the Grand Cordon ofthe Order of the Rising Sun was pre-sented to USC DistinguishedProfessor George Olah as a tribute to

the valuable role he has played in thedevelopment of science and technolo-gy in Japan over the last 40 years.

Olah, holder of the Donald P. andKatherine B. Loker Chair in OrganicChemistry and director of the LokerHydrocarbon Research Institute,received the decoration during a cere-mony held at the Los Angelesresidence of the Consul General ofJapan.

Olah is one of 38 non-Japanese citi-zens honored with an ImperialDecoration this year, and one of onlythree to receive the Grand Cordondecoration, the highest award possible.He is the first foreign scientist to everreceive the honor.

One of the world’s preeminentscholars of hydrocarbon chemistry,Olah won the 1994 Nobel Prize inchemistry for his groundbreaking workon superacids and carbocations—afleeting chemical species long theo-rized to exist but never confirmed.

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Olah devised a way to keep the tran-sient carbocations around long enoughto study their properties. What hefound revolutionized organic chem-istry, leading to new discoveries, newfields of research and countless appli-cations.

The representative of the JapaneseMinister of Education, Culture, Sport,Science and Technology, HideyukiTsunoda, thanked Olah for his effortsto promote chemistry in Japan, begin-ning in the 1960s. Olah trained andmentored more than 30 youngJapanese chemists, who worked in hisU.S. lab and many of whom subse-quently became leaders in academiaand industry.

In 1974, Olah was elected a Fellowof the Society for the Promotion ofScience in Japan and in 2002 anHonorary Member of the ChemicalSociety of Japan.

USC College Dean Joseph Aounproposed a champagne toast to Olah,naming him “the College’s most dis-tinguished scientist.”

“Dr. Olah’s dedication to researchand the pursuit of knowledge hasalways been matched by the convic-tion that science, and in particularchemistry, can change the world forthe better—a belief borne out by hisown work,” Aoun said later. “As amember of the National Academies ofSciences and Humanities in six coun-tries and a recipient of awards from allover the world, Dr. Olah is a generousscientist with a global view. Today’s

award underscores all that makes himso valuable to the College.”

Wearing tails and the red-and-whitesash and medals of the Grand Cordon,Olah said it was gratifying to be recog-nized not just for his scientificresearch, but also for his efforts intraining young scientists and champi-oning science.

Olah’s wife, Judith, took part in theceremony, while his family, colleaguesand other guests, including KatherineLoker, a long-time USC philanthro-pist, looked on. Loker has been anunwavering supporter of Olah, provid-ing the endowment for his chair andcrucial funds for the LokerHydrocarbon Institute.

Olah’s career began in his native

Hungary, where he earned his doctor-ate from the Technical University ofBudapest. He came to the UnitedStates in 1957, working first for DowChemical Co. and, from 1965 to 1977,at Case Western Reserve University inOhio. In 1977, he joined USC College,moving his entire lab from Clevelandto Los Angeles.

Olah has made significant researchcontributions to the practical develop-ment of improved lead-free gasoline,cleaner high-octane gas and otherpromising nonpolluting fuels, as wellas many processes now used world-wide in pharmaceutical and industrialchemistry. His research has also led tothe development of a direct methanol-using fuel cell—a highly efficient andconvenient source of electricity.

His recent research centers on conversion of two greenhouse gases,carbon dioxide and methane, into useful fuels and products, and ismotivated by his long-standing inter-est in energy and environmentalissues. To deal with the problems ofdiminishing oil reserves and risinglevels of greenhouse gases, Olahenvisions a new era of producingfuels based on methanol.

This fall, Olah publicly outlinedthis vision in a guest editorial—calledThe Methanol Economy—featured onthe cover of Chemical & EngineeringNews, a magazine produced by theAmerican Chemical Society.

An elected member of the NationalAcademy of Sciences among manyother honors, Olah has authored morethan 1,200 scientific papers and morethan a dozen monographs and books.He holds more than 120 patents.

—E.E.

USC College chemist George Olah (right) receives the decorations of the Grand Cordon ofthe Order of the Rising Sun from Japanese Consul General Yoshio Nomoto.

I

service learning programs adminis-tered from offices in the rambling JEPHouse, an older bungalow. The othersare Trojan Health Volunteers and theoriginal Joint Educational Project,which remains the largest. JEP workswith professors to match studentsenrolled in one of more than 65 differ-ent academic courses withneighborhood organizations, andrequires that students meet weekly towrite about and reflect on how theirexperiences relate to classroom theoryand readings.

Combined, more than 1,000 stu-dents take part in JEP programs eachsemester.

“The beauty of JEP is that it allowsus to respond in a positive way to seri-ous issues facing the USCneighborhood—that’s the ‘good’ wedo. But what people most often over-look is the educational benefits USCstudents get out of their service—thelearning piece of what we do,”Anderson says.

The Children Youth and FamilyCollaborative recently awardedAnderson the Terrell SandersCommitment to Children andCollaboration Award for her passionand service to Los Angeles children.

—E.E.

What’s News With You?USC College values the close-knit community cre-

ated by its students, alumni, faculty and affiliates.

That’s why we’re interested in learning about

what you’ve been up to, and sharing it with your

College family and friends. If you have some

news you’d like to announce, please send the

information to [email protected], or mail it to:

USC College Magazine

University of Southern California

ADM 304, MC 4012

Los Angeles, CA 90089-4012


Faculty News

February 2004 V O L U M E 5 N U M B E R 120 USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

Intertwined Lives

In her new book, “Intertwined Lives:Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict andTheir Circle” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003),History Professor Lois W. Banner writesabout the complicated relationship ofanthropologist Margaret Mead and RuthBenedict, and the friendship that gavethem academic confidence in an intellec-tual world that was controlled by men.The book is the first to include previous-ly restricted private letters and papers.

Understanding Earth

College EarthScientistThomasJordan coau-thored the fourth edition of“UnderstandingEarth” (W.H.Freeman andCompany,2003)—a must

read textbook for anyone studying earthscience. Together with Frank Press ofThe Washington Advisory Group,Raymond Siever of Harvard and JohnGrotzinger of MIT, they explore the lat-est theories and findings in the fields ofearth science, geology, geophysics andmore. The book includes new insightsabout earthquakes, volcanism, erosion,plate tectonics and the earth’s interior.

Jordan’s other new book “Living on anActive Earth: Perspectives on EarthquakeScience” (National Academy Press, 2003)stems from a five-year study by a commit-tee of the National Research Council,which he chaired. Jordan holds the W. M.Keck Foundation Chair in GeologicalSciences.

Prostitution, Race and Politics

In her latest book, “Prostitution, Raceand Politics: Policing Venereal Disease inthe British Empire” (Routledge, 2003),Professor of History Philippa Levineexamines how the British governmentused legislation to protect the health ofBritish soldiers as a “conscious instru-ment of colonial dominance.” In 2004,Oxford University Press will publish hercontribution to the Oxford History of theBritish Empire series, “Gender andEmpire.”

hen USC College pro-fessors Ann Criglerand Edward McCafferybegan compiling a book

on the politics and prospects ofAmerican election reform, they usedthe 2000 presidential race as a start-ing point.

Little did they know that threeyears later, California’s controversialrecall election would offer an inter-esting parallel.

The dozens of essays included in“Rethinking the Vote: The Politicsand Prospects of American ElectionReform” (Oxford University Press,2004) are attempts to learn from thepast and offer possible solutions forthe future.

Some 22 scholars—including USCCollege political scientist Jeb Barnesand law professors ErwinChemerinsky and Susan Estrich, whoboth have joint appointments in the

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National Book Award Nominations

Two EnglishProfessors werefinalists for the2003 NationalBook Awards.T. C. Boyle andCarol Muske-Dukes werenominated infiction andpoetry, respec-tively, for “Drop City” and “Sparrow.”USC College was the only institution toboast two nominees. Boyle is the authorof eight previous novels and six collec-tions of stories. “Drop City,” Boyle’sninth novel, centers on the travails of ahippie commune in the early 1970s. Setin Sonoma County, it follows a group ofopen-minded free-lovers and drugabusers. But beneath the characters’ non-chalant veneer lurk the same selfishimpulses against which they set out todefine themselves.

Muske-Dukes, whorecentlyreceived theChapin Awardfor Poetry fromthe ColumbiaUniversitySchool of theArts, says thepoems in“Sparrow” are a

real departure from her usual style andsubject matter. Written in the wake ofpersonal tragedy from the death of herhusband, “Sparrow” grapples with thecontrast between love and grief, findingthe image of a flitting sparrow as the mostfitting metaphor.

Shirley Hazzard’s “The Great Fire,”won the National Book Award for fictionin November. C.K. Williams’ book, “TheSinging,” won for poetry.

Saint Vincent Honors Ragan

James Ragan, director of the master ofprofessional writing program, was namedto the advisory council for the Fred M.Rogers Center for Early Learning andChildren’s Media at Saint VincentCollege—his alma mater. Ragan alsoreceived the school’s presidential medalof honor and delivered the May 2003commencement address.

Publications on the Brain

Assistant Professor of NeurobiologyJudith Hirsch published an article abouthow inhibitory circuits in the cortexprocess visual information. It appeared inthe journal Nature Neuroscience on Nov.16.Two neuroscientists were published inthe Oct. 30 edition of Neuron. Professorof Neurobiology Chien-Ping Ko’s groupwrote about the role that glial cells play in maintaining synaptic function. In aseparate article, Associate Professor ofMolecular Biology Michael Quickanalyzed the function of serotonin trans-porters, which are major targets for avariety of therapeutic interventions.

MLA President

English Professor Marjorie Perloff wasrecently elected president of theModern Language Association. Perloffreturns to USC College from Stanford infall 2004.

International Council Honor

Carl R. Terzian (B.A., ’57), public rela-tions consultant and past president of theLos Angeles Fire Commission, was hon-ored as the International Citizen of theYear by the International Visitors Councilof Los Angeles. The award recognizeshim as an emerging international leader.Terzian graduated magna cum laude fromUSC College and was a student bodypresident. He was a State DepartmentGoodwill Ambassador for PresidentEisenhower and a former dean and pro-fessor of government at WoodburyUniversity. Terzian has been recognizedfor civic, philanthropic and professionalleadership by the U.S. Congress and theQueen of England.

Street Smart Ethics

Clinton W. McLemore (Ph.D., ’71) sawhis fifth and sixth books published in2003. “Street-Smart Ethics: Succeeding inBusiness without Losing Your Soul” cameout in February (Westminster John Knox)and “Toxic Relationships and How toChange Them: Health and Holiness inEveryday Life” (Wiley/Jossey-Bass)appeared in August. A clinical psycholo-gist, McLemore is president of RelationalDynamics, Inc., a management-consultingfirm located in Orange County. He taughtfull-time for six years at Mount St. Mary'sCollege and nine years full-time at FullerTheological Seminary. He also taught onesummer at USC.

Published Poet

Emmy Perez (B.A. ’93) published herfirst collection of poetry, “Solstice” withSwan Scythe Press in 2003. After graduat-ing from Columbia University’s master offine arts program, she received poetry fel-lowships from the New York Foundationfor the Arts and the Fine Arts WorkCenter in Provincetown. Her work hasappeared in “Prairie Schooner,” “NorthAmerican Review,” “New YorkQuarterly” and other publications.

Teacher of the Year

Alan Lawrence Sitomer (Ph.D. ’89) wasnamed 2003 Teacher of the Year by theCalifornia Literacy program. He is aLynwood High School English teacher,who also writes for the Walt DisneyCompany.

Aerial Photographs

Judson PeterBrohmer, Jr.(B.A. ’87)became a world-renowned aerialphotographerafter leavingUSC. Before hisdeath in an F-16crash in 2001, he shot a number ofAviation Week cover photos, and his workhad been published in Newsweek, Timeand U.S. News. His videos have aired onthe Discovery Channel, the LearningChannel, CNN, and PBS’s NOVA. A newbook celebrating his work, “BreakingFree” has just been published and isavailable at www.thinairpublishing.com

Thomas Jordan

T. C. Boyle

Carol Muske-Dukes

Alumni News

On the Ballot

Friends of USC College will nolonger have to travel to Los Angelesto hear from the College’s outstand-ing faculty and alumni. This springthe College launches a newDistinguished Speakers Series in the San Francisco Bay area.

The first event of the quarterlyluncheon series features ProfessorTodd Sandler, holder of the Robert R.and Katheryn A. Dockson Chair inEconomics and InternationalRelations, who will speak on the“Pitfalls of InternationalAntiterrorism Policies”. Sandler, amember of the National Academy ofSciences, is best known for applyinggame theory and economics to issuesof international importance, such asthe prevention of nuclear war.

Date: Thursday, March 25Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.Place: The World Trade Club,One Ferry Plaza, San Francisco

Admission is $45 per person, andcomplimentary for members of theUSC College Associates. (To learnmore about the College Associates,see page 15.)

For more information about the seriescontact Noelle Moss, (213) 740-4996, or e-mail [email protected]

College Commons

Speakers SeriesHits the Road



nnually, USC College presentsthe Raubenheimer Award tooutstanding faculty memberswho have excelled in each of

the College’s three disciplinaryspheres of teaching, research andservice to the University. This is theCollege’s highest honor.

This year’s recipients include:Moshe Lazar, Philippa Levine andCurt Wittig. Each received a $3,000award.

Jefferey Sellers received the JuniorFaculty Award and $1,500 for showingunusual promise in research, teachingand service.

Moshe Lazar, Humanities

Moshe Lazar’s colleagues call himan unrecognized jewel. This professorof drama and comparative literaturehas a range of expertise in Europeancultural traditions.

Lazar came to USC in 1977 on avisiting appointment from Tel AvivUniversity, where he founded theSchool of Visual and Performing Arts.At USC, Lazar founded the first com-parative literature program, which hassince become a College department.

He has produced scholarly work on

Top-Notch TeachersRaubenheimers recognizes teaching, research and service

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medieval literature in Old French,Spanish, and Provençal. He alsowrites about and for the contempo-rary theatre, particularly in French,and translates modern Europeanplays into Hebrew for the Israelistage. Since 1960, he has written andedited more than 40 books.

“As a teacher, Moshe is equallytireless,” says Peggy Kamuf, chair ofthe comparative literature depart-ment. “His courses sparkle with wit

and knowledge that draw students tohis classrooms and office.”

Philippa Levine, Social Sciences

“Philippa Levine has infectiousenthusiasm,” says Steven Ross, chairof the history department. “She hasbeen an important innovator, scholarand teacher.”

In the College, Levine is taking anew look at imperial history. Her proj-ect opens up a once very rigidlydefined field to include subjects suchas race, sexuality and the body. Sheexamines issues from the perspectivesof the colonized as well as the coloniz-er. These interests are broughttogether in her new book,“Prostitution, Race and Politics:Policing Venereal Disease in theBritish Empire, 1860-1861.”

She also teaches a variety of coursesin British history, methods and theory.Never reluctant to learn new things,Levine underwent a multimedia train-ing program at the USC Institute forMultimedia Literacy. Within the histo-ry department, she oversees thecomputing lab. As president of theAcademic Senate in 2002-2003, shespearheaded a number of new initia-tives, including sending by emailfaculty information about fundingopportunities, and a Web site offeringinformation about housing rentals.

Curt Wittig, Natural Sciences andMathematics

Curt Wittig has been creditedwith creating the Physical Chemistrysection at USC College.

He holds the Paul A. Miller Chairin Letters, Arts and Sciences and is aProfessor of Chemistry.

A leading researcher in the field of

molecular dynamics, he pioneeredthe use of weakly bonded clusters asa new medium for the study ofchemical reactions.

Wittig directs the Center for theStudies of Fast Transient Processes.Today, the group is one of the majorU.S. centers of molecular dynamics,free radical chemistry and surface sci-ence. “All of this has originatedeither in Wittig’s lab, through collab-orations with Wittig, or fromcolleagues attracted to USC by thetireless efforts of Curt as a recruiter,mentor and collaborator,” saysChemistry Professor Hanna Reisler.

Wittig’s work restructuring thechemistry department’s graduate stu-dent recruitment program resulted inan increase in both the number andquality of graduate students. And heteaches the most difficult, andfeared, core course for graduate stu-dents: Math Methods for Chemistryand Physics. His love for teaching isobvious. Coffee is ready in morningclasses and one-on-one tutorials arealways available.

Jefferey Sellers, Political Science

Jefferey Sellers, winner of theJunior Faculty Award, loves to teach.Student evaluations praise him as a“treasure at USC.” Part of that rea-son stems from the internationalperspective he brings to the studiesof cities and countries.

Sellers is the mastermind behind anew subfield called Urban Politicsand Diversity in Global Society. Thefield was recently introduced in thePolitical Science / InternationalRelations joint Ph.D. program todevelop scholarship relevant to LosAngeles and to the international rela-tions of global cities in the U.S. andabroad.

He also coordinates The PacificRim Urban EnvironmentalGovernance Study and collaborateswith researchers from five PacificRim countries to study urban envi-ronmental governance.

“His command of data and analy-sis from cities across the globe placehim at the forefront of scholars fromnumerous disciplines who are nowfocusing on innovative governance,”says Mark Kann, USC AssociatesEndowed Professor of PoliticalScience and Social Science. “He is agreat academic role model for ouryounger assistant professors.”

—N.S.

From left to right: Jefferey Sellers, Moshe Lazar, Philippa Levine, Joseph Aoun and Curt Wittig

College—weighed in on thepitfalls and prob-lems of America’scurrent votingsystem.

The contribu-tors offer a varietyof viewpoints onthe drama ofBush vs. Goreand the Americanelectoral systemin general.

“Opinionsrange from thosewho want a trulyparticipatorydemocracy inwhich all votes count, to those whobelieve in a more minimalistapproach,” says Crigler, director ofthe Unruh Institute of Politics, whoedited the book with McCaffery andMarion R. Just, a professor atWellesley College.

Some contributors looked at thepressures on pollsters and media to

call the 2000presidentialelection quickly.

Anotherchapter in thebook suggeststhat bias in vot-ing results canoccur simplybecause of theway the candi-dates are listedon the ballot.

“The(California)recall electionshowed thepromise andpotential of the

vote—it showed people’s hunger fortruly meaningful participation in theprocess,” says Crigler.

“But our past—recent and dis-tant—shows how fragile that hope canbe. We need to keep thinking andrethinking the proper means of androles for popular voting in democracy.”

—Gilien Silsby, USC News

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College Commons

enneth Basin, ajunior at USCCollege whomajors in interna-

tional relations, successfullystomped Harvard and Yalein a nationally televisedepisode of “Jeopardy” inNovember.

The budding interna-tional lawyer participated intwo shows, scoring 16,800points in the first round,which earned him the first-place take home prize of$5,000.

“I signed up for the past two yearsbut didn’t get a call back until thisyear,” he says.

But this time, luck and smarts wereon his side.

After being randomly selected froma Web site registration last summer,Basin passed a challenging writtentest which qualified him for a spot onthe show. Then, to test his entertain-ment value, he participated in a mockshow with casting people. “They hada sample interview section to see ifwe could banter with Alex,” Basinlaughs. “This is still television.”

So what was the easiest category

Letters to the Editor

avid M. Chackoand Nilay U. Vora,both seniors inUSC College, have

been selected as 2004Marshall Scholars.

The prestigious scholar-ships fund two years ofgraduate education at aBritish university. Eachyear, the program selects40 U.S. students based onacademic achievement, leadershipskills and interest in internationalissues.

Winning is an honor, especiallyconsidering the caliber of the manystudents who apply each year, saysChacko, a student in theBaccalaureate/MD Program at theCollege and in business administra-tion at the USC Marshall School ofBusiness. David’s older brother Jacobwon the same award four years ago.

Student Excellence Times Two Two from USC College named Marshall Scholars

“What is Beating Harvard and Yale?”

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Chacko,who willattend theUniversity ofOxford, wantsto become aleader inhealth policyand a physi-cian to themedicallyunderserved.

At Oxford next fall he will studyhealth care systems and policies fromaround the world in a comparativesocial policy master’s program.

Chacko’s long list of achievementsand honors include a 4.0 GPA, mem-bership in the Phi Beta Kappa HonorSociety and being named a USCTrustee Scholar. He also plays on themen’s soccer team, has done biomed-ical research and is the co-founderand program manager of the

Collegiate MedVolunteers program.

“David is one ofthe most amazingall-around studentsI’ve ever had,” saysCatherine Sugar, anassistant professorin the businessschool. “He is likethree star studentsrolled into one.”

Fellow winner Nilay Vora “exem-plifies the best of USC,” says AlisonDundes Renteln, associate professorof political science. She calls Vora “anintellectual gem and a natural leader.”

As a Marshall Scholar Vora willstudy human rights at the LondonSchool of Economics and Politicsand, in his second year, at Queen’sUniversity in Belfast, Ireland. Afterthat, he plans to go to law school andspecialize in international human

rights law.Vora came to USC as a pre-med-

ical student, but switched to a doublemajor in statistics and the interdisci-plinary study of human rights andnon-violence.

Vora’s commitment to social justicehas led him to organize workers inIndia, Sri Lanka and Mexico on laborrights. With the support of the AFL-CIO, Vora spearheaded a studentgroup’s filing of a complaint aboutconditions at certain Mexican facto-ries. The complaint was filed underthe North American Free TradeAgreement (NAFTA).

The Marshall Scholar programbegan in 1953 as a gesture of thanksfrom the British government for U.S.assistance after World War II. Thescholarships are named after GeorgeC. Marshall, the late U.S. general andformer secretary of state.

—E.E.

David M. Chacko Nilay U. Vora

for the Huntington Beach, Calif.,native who minors in natural scienceand critical approaches to leadership?

“I’m kind of ashamed of how wellI did in the ‘J. Lo Down’ categoryabout Jennifer Lopez. I probablyshouldn’t have been so successful atthat one,” he says. “In general, I feltpretty comfortable through most cate-gories, especially science and wordgames.”

His downfall? “In DoubleJeopardy of my second round game, a‘Women in Athletics’ category cameup that really did me in. It pretty

much doomed me for the rest of thegame.”

In the second round, Basin lost to a

contestant from Middlebury College(although he beat Wake Forest).

—N.S.

Kenneth Basin and Alex Trebek

Beyond Skin Color and Gender

I was stunned by the reader whosuffered “shock and sadness”because you put “four white males”on the front of your Summer 2003issue. It is unfortunate that thisreader could not get beyond theskin color and gender of the peopledepicted and instead appreciatetheir accomplishments. I am sur-prised that you would devotevaluable print space to such a bla-tantly racist and sexist letter.

—Scott F. MarchMarch earned an A.B. in

International Relations from USC College in 1976.

Look to History

I am intrigued by the piece,“American Culture PermeatesForeign Policy”, in which ProfessorRonald Steel relates the resem-blance between U.S. foreign policyand the film, “High Noon.” Thereis the suggestion that instead ofdealing head on with terrorism itcan be “managed similar to a dis-ease like arthritis and AIDS.” Astudy of history reveals that in thefifth century Rome was routinelysacked by the Vandals, and theRomans, rather than dealing withthem as Gary Cooper might have,decided to “manage” the situation.Is it necessary to remind ProfessorSteel what happened in 476 A.D.?

—Emil M. MuradHuntington Beach, CA



for the faculty and otherfriends. Anton bicycledall 20 miles to getthere.”

In 1994, Burg notedthat he had gonethrough eight bicyclesso far. “Of course, threeof them were stolen,”he added.

Benson recalled howBurg prevented firemarshals from condemn-ing an old Armybarracks that USC wasusing as a chemistry labin 1946. The marshalswere concerned becausethere was only one exitfrom the second story.

Burg jumped out asecond-story window,

landing easily and yelling out, “See,that’s all there is to it,” Bensonrecalled. “The Fire Departmentapproved the lab for use…. Weended up using it for another 20years.”

Burg retired in 1974, but keptcoming to his lab to continue hisresearch. Following the 1994Northridge earthquake, Bensonrecalled, his colleagues searched allover for Burg to inform him that hisbuilding had been condemned andhe couldn’t enter. When they finallylocated him, he was in the lab mak-ing repairs.

Burg never married.

By Thomas H. Maugh II, © Los AngelesTimes. Reprinted with Permission

nton Burg, 99, oncethe world’s leadingexpert on boron andthe father of chem-

istry at USC, died Nov. 18at his home near the USCcampus in Los Angeles. Nocause of death was given.

USC had a minusculeand undistinguished chem-istry department when Burgjoined the staff in 1939—“only one step ahead ofalchemy,” in the words ofone official. The emphasiswas solely on teaching andno research had been per-formed there for years.

Within a year, the youngassistant professor hadbecome chairman of thedepartment and embarkedon a hiring program that,within a decade, made thedepartment one of the nation’s best.

“By the early 1950s, we were thirdin the United States in funding perfaculty member and fifth in publica-tions,” said chemist Sidney Benson,one of Burg’s hires.

Chemist Arthur Adamson, anotherof Burg’s hires who died on July 22,2003 at the age of 83, recalled that theuniversity’s president was surprisedby the changes in the department.

“He was used to very subservientchairs. But Burg would not jump, andhe wouldn’t hesitate to stand up forwhat he thought had to be done,”Adamson said.

But Burg’s passion was the study ofboron. In 1927, Burg heard a lectureby chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis,who “said that nobody understood thechemistry of boron hydrides,” Burgrecently recalled. He made it his busi-ness to do so.

First at the University of Chicago,and later at USC, Burg synthesized ahost of boron compounds that subse-quently came to have wide use inorganic chemistry as tools for makingmore complex molecules. None of hiscreations became household names,but along the way he was one of thefirst people to see polyethylene andTeflon, both of which appeared asbyproducts of his boron reactions. Herecorded them in his notebooks asinteresting molecules and went onwith other things.

One of his practical products was aboron-based rubber that is now usedin environments where it must resist

Anton Burg, 99; Took USC chemistry from ‘alchemy’ to excellence

USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

Board of Councilors

Robert F. Erburu, Chairman

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Ken Ambrose

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James S. Corfman

Robert Dockson

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Ilene Gold

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George “Chip” Hughes

Stephen G. Johnson

Suzanne Nora Johnson

David Y. Lee

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Rosemary Tomich

AdministrationJoseph Aoun, Dean

Donal Manahan, Dean of Research

Beth Meyerowitz, Dean of Faculty

June Thames Poust, Senior Associate Deanfor Advancement

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Margo Steurbaut, Senior Associate Dean forBusiness Affairs

Roger D. Stewart, Senior Associate Dean forAdministration and Planning

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USC College Magazine

Nicole St. Pierre, Editor

Staff Writers:Eva Emerson, Katherine Yungmee Kim,Kaitlin Solimine

Contributing Writers: Theresa Haganon, Gia Scafidi, GilienSilsby, Usha Sutliff, Karen Newell Young

Merlyn Stigger, Administrator

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USC College Magazine is published bythe USC College of Letters, Arts &Sciences at the University of SouthernCalifornia. Permission to quote or repub-lish is given freely. Attribution to “USCCollege Magazine” is appreciated.

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A

high temperatures. The U.S. Armyalso approached him to make rocketfuels based on boron compounds —which have very high energy densities— but the work was aborted when itbecame clear that one of the reactionproducts was a glassy material thatclogged the nozzle.

In 1934, Burg suggested that oneof his young students, Herbert C.Brown, follow up on some reactionsthat he had discovered. The workeventually led to a Nobel Prize forBrown.

“Burg never published his initialresults,” Benson said. “Brown alwayssaid that if he had published, theywould have shared the Nobel.”

Anton Behme Burg was born Oct.18, 1904, in Dallas City, Ill., thegrandson of a German immigrant whomade a fortune building carriages. Heattended the University of Chicago,excelling as both a student and anathlete. His specialty was the highjump, and he was nationally ranked.

In 1926, the 5-feet-11 Burg cleared6 feet 6 1/4 inches. The winning jumpin the 1924 Olympics was 6 feet 6inches. Burg barely missed qualifyingfor the 1928 team.

His athletic interests later turnedto bicycling. Although he lived in LosAngeles for 64 years, he never ownedan automobile, preferring to bicycleeverywhere. His ability to get aroundstartled others.

“After we moved to Palos Verdesin 1950,” Adamson said, “my wife andI would have annual Christmas parties

Anton Burg

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24 USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences

February 2004

Tracking Earth’s Most Ancient AnimalsFossil hunter looks back to animal origins

ife originated in the water ofnameless, ancient oceans. Mostof these oceans have since shift-ed or dried up. But not without

a trace: Much of what is known aboutlife’s early history has emerged fromstudies of the fossils left in rocks oncecovered by these forgotten seas.

That’s why USC College paleobi-ologist and fossil hunter David Bottjerlooks to ancient seabeds—from Texasto China—in his search for clues, longturned to stone, about the planet’sfirst animals.

“You could say I’m a marine biolo-gist,” says Bottjer, a professor of earthsciences and biology and a member ofthe College’s growing geobiology pro-gram. “But I study ancient oceans andall of the evidence I’m interested in islocked up in rocks.”

Luckily, Bottjer’s fluent in the lan-guage of rocks and life. He studiesmarine fossils to shed light on some ofevolution’s toughest questions. Whendid animals first appear on Earth?What did they look like? How haveanimals changed over time?

Answers have come slowly, partlybecause the earliest animals’ soft,boneless bodies rarely fossilized. Untilrecently, the best fossil evidencedated the emergence of animals atabout 560 million years ago, despitetheoretical and molecular studies sug-gesting a far earlier origin.

New fossils, now under study byBottjer and an international, multidis-ciplinary team of scientists, show thatmulti-cellular animals were around600 million years ago.

“These fossils are the closest weget toward the origin of animals onEarth,” Bottjer says.

Signs of Early AnimalsAlthough most think of fossils as

the bones or shells of once living ani-mals, fossils are all rock. As geologic

forces turn loose sediments to rock,any animal remains buried in the sed-iments also turn to stone. Over tens tohundreds of thousands of years, min-erals gradually replace entombedbones, shells or, much more rarely,soft tissues, and preserve the animal’sentire form.

The ancient sea animals that mostfascinate Bottjer have no shells orbones, which led him to become anexpert in the study of Lagerstätten,the truly rare fossils that preserve softbodies and whole animals in wonder-ful detail.

In the late 1990s, paleontologistJun-Yuan Chen and biologist Chia-Wei Li unearthed extremely small,but exceptionally detailedLagerstätten fossils of multi-cellularanimals from the 600-million-year-oldDoushantuo rock formation in south-western China.

The collection of microscopic fos-sils contains many species never seenbefore. Most are less than a millime-ter in size—a little smaller than a

pinhead—andinclude theeggs, embryosand some adultsof species thatmost closelyresemble mod-ern sea spongesand cnidari-ans—a groupthat includes jellyfish, sea anemonesand corals.

“We’re looking back at the veryroots of animal evolution,” Bottjersays. “These are very primitive creatures.”

Surprising FindsThe fossils have brought surprises.

One was finding them at all: identify-ing the microfossils hidden deep inrock is a bit like searching every pieceof straw in a haystack for the elusiveneedle. “But we found a bunch ofneedles,” Bottjer says, noting that theteam cut and examined more than6,000 thin sections of rock under the

microscope. The diversity of animals revealed

in the rocks was another unexpectedfind. The number of species present600 million years ago leads the teamto speculate that animals probablyemerged even earlier in the planet’spast, given the time required for theevolution of new species from a com-mon ancestor.

This past fall, Bottjer presentedthe team’s latest results at the 2003Geological Society of America meet-ing. Most exciting, he shared“tantalizing evidence” that a bilater-ian, a lineage of animals distinct fromsponges and corals, may be amongthe Doushantuo fossils. Bilateriansare important because they gave riseto the majority of animal species alivetoday, including humans and all landanimals, from beetles to zebras.

“The big catch will be findingdefinitive evidence for bilaterians,which people have said evolved

much later,” hesays. The team,funded byNASA and ledby Caltechdevelopmentalmolecular biol-ogist EricDavidson, con-tinues tocarefully scruti-nize theputative bilater-ian microfossilsand hopes topublish their

results this year.Enthusiasm as well as an air of

healthy skepticism met the presenta-tion, says Bottjer, who serves as thepresident-elect of the PaleontologicalSociety. In a field with so many miss-ing pieces of evidence, that’s onlynatural.

“Understanding how life formedand evolved is the best mystery Iknow,” says Bottjer. “Sometimes it’s alot like a Sherlock Holmes novel. I’vegot some evidence and a lot of ques-tions, and I have to try to deduce asmuch as I can from the little I’vegot.”

—Eva Emerson

February 2004 V O L U M E 4 N U M B E R 3

University of Southern California

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Non-ProfitOrganization U.S. Postage Paid University of Southern California

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INSIDE:• Views of the Brain

pg. 6 & 7

• How to AgeGracefully (BeyondBotox) pg. 9

An easy find: USC paleontologist David Bottjer hunts ancient fos-sils the world over. This fossil prize—of a giant marine snail—hediscovered in the Natural History Museum of L.A. County.

According to tiny fossils under study by DavidBottjer, some of the first animals on Earth looklike primitive, microscopic forms of jellyfish,such as the species Pegea socia pictured here,and other modern cnidarian species like coralsand sea anemones.

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