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09/20/2012
The giant asteroid Vesta, it turns out, has its own version of ring around the collar. Two new papers based on observations from the low-altitude mapping orbit of NASA’s Dawn mission reveal that volatile materials have colored Vesta’s surface in a broad swath around its equator. Pothole-like features mark some of Vesta’s surface when the volatiles, likely water, released from hydrated minerals boiled off. The findings were released today in the journal Science.
 
Dawn did not find actual water ice at Vesta, but signs of hydrated minerals delivered by meteorites and dust are evident in the giant asteroid’s chemistry and geology. One paper, led by Thomas Prettyman, the lead scientist for Dawn’s gamma ray and neutron detector (GRaND) at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., describes how the instrument found signatures of hydrogen, likely in the form of hydroxyl or water bound to minerals in Vesta’s surface. A complementary paper, led by Brett Denevi, a Dawn participating scientist based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., describes the presence of pitted terrain created by the outgassing of volatiles.
 
David A. Williams, an associate research professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, is a participating scientist on the Dawn mission and contributed to the Denevi study.
 
Upon finding signs of hydrated minerals, the scientists set out to find out where the hydrogen within Vesta’s surface came from. It turns out that hydrated minerals appear to be delivered by carbon-rich space rocks that collided with Vesta at speeds slow enough to preserve their volatile content.
 
Scientists thought it might be possible for water ice to survive near the surface around the giant asteroid’s poles. But, unlike the Moon, Vesta has no permanently shadowed polar regions where ice might survive. And the strongest signature for hydrogen in the latest data came from regions near the equator, where water ice is not stable.
 
In some cases, other space rocks crashed into these deposits later at high speed. The heat from the collisions converted the hydrogen bound to the minerals to water, which evaporated. The holes that were left as the water escaped stretch as much as 0.6 miles (1 kilometer) across and go down as deep as 700 feet (200 meters). Seen in images from Dawn’s framing camera, this pitted terrain is the most spectacularly preserved in sections of Marcia crater.
 
“When we first saw the pitted terrain in Dawn images, many on the science team thought immediately that this was evidence for the release of volatiles from the surface,” said Denevi. “The pits look just like features seen on Mars, but while water [was] common on Mars, it was totally unexpected on Vesta in these high abundances. The results provide evidence that not only were hydrated materials present, they played an important role in shaping the asteroid’s geology and the surface we see today.”
 
“I am tasked with the geologic mapping of Marcia crater region, and I was amazed when we saw these pitted terrains on the crater floor,” said Williams. “When you place images of this terrain side by side with images of similar terrain on Mars, it is clear why we think release of volatiles, perhaps water ice, could explain this unusual vestan terrain.”
 
Williams worked with Denevi and others on the Dawn team to analyze the pitted terrain on Vesta, and compare it with similar features recently identified in high resolution images of Mars. After exploring various hypotheses that might explain the terrain, the leading hypothesis became the release of volatiles during the formation of the Marcia crater.
 
“The key unresolved question, was the volatile material, presumably water ice, in Vesta’s crust itself when the impact occurred, or was brought in by the impactor that formed Marcia crater? Further research may resolve this question,” said Williams.
 
Vesta is the second most massive member of the main asteroid belt. The orbit at which these data were obtained averaged about 130 miles (210 kilometers) above the surface.
 
GRaND’s data are the first direct measurements describing the elemental composition of Vesta’s surface. Dawn’s elemental investigation by the instrument determined the ratios of iron to oxygen and iron to silicon in the surface materials. These findings solidly confirm the connection between Vesta and a class of meteorites found on Earth called the Howardite, Eucrite and Diogenite (HED) meteorites, which have the same ratios for these elements. In addition, more volatile-rich fragments of other objects have been identified in HED meteorites, which supports the interpretation that the materials were deposited externally on Vesta.
 
“Working on the Dawn mission at Vesta has been very exciting,” said Williams. “Vesta is more than just a space rock; it is a protoplanet and shows evidence of geologic processes we see on the larger planets of the Solar System.”
 
Dawn left Vesta on Sept. 4, 2012 PDT (Sept. 5, 2012 EDT) and is now on its way to its second target, the dwarf planet Ceres.

Image: This perspective view of Marcia crater on the giant asteroid Vesta shows the most spectacularly preserved example of "pitted terrain," an unexpected discovery in data returned by NASA's Dawn mission. This view is a mosaic of images from Dawn's framing camera, overlain on a digital terrain model with five times vertical exaggeration. At right is a close-up of the floor of Marcia, which contains the largest concentration of pits on Vesta. Marcia is one of the youngest craters on Vesta, with a diameter of about 40 miles (70 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/JHUAPL

 

ASU researcher helps investigate volatiles on asteroid Vesta
09/19/2012

ASU’s newest science building – the Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV (ISTB 4), on the Tempe campus – is designed to advance research and discovery, and to encourage children to explore their futures as scientists and engineers. The building will do this through a mixture of high-tech labs, interactive environments and open spaces that will allow the public to witness research and technology advancement as it happens.

A formal opening of ISTB 4 will take place at 8 a.m., today.

The seven-story, 293,000-square-foot building is designed to provide flexible laboratories for ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE), ASU’s Security and Defense Systems Initiative, and research laboratories and centers of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

The building provides ample laboratory space –166 lab modules with wet and dry labs and a rooftop laboratory – and an inviting public space, in addition to offices, collaboration spaces and meeting rooms for faculty and staff.

“This new facility will not only offer state-of-the-art equipment and infrastructure, but will provide a unique collaborative environment that is designed to foster large, team-driven projects in areas such as earth and space exploration, security and defense systems research and renewable energy,” said Sethuraman Panchanathan, senior vice president with ASU’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development (OKED). The office advances research, innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development activities for ASU.

ISTB 4’s design embodies the transdisciplinary spirit of ASU, accommodating research programs from science and engineering, and continuously encouraging interaction of both worlds.

“The SESE faculty and research staff are well known for their scientific research, but many in the ASU and Phoenix communities are less aware of their well-deserved international reputation for engineering, particularly designing and deploying advanced instruments to enable scientific exploration of Earth and other worlds,” said Kip Hodges, director of SESE, part of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Sophisticated laboratories for instrument development in ISTB 4 will further increase ASU’s leadership, and we have designed several of these laboratories so that the public can watch technologies being created.”

“We encourage multiple faculty with compatible research agendas to use the major laboratories in a collaborative way, reinforcing the transdisciplinary spirit of ASU,” added Hodges.

One of the first engineering challenges for SESE in ISTB 4 is OSIRIS-REx Thermal Emission Spectrometer (OTES), which will be the first major scientific instrument completely designed and built at ASU for a NASA space mission. Viewing windows will allow visitors to see into the environmentally controlled facilities where the OTES instrument is being built.

For ASU engineering, ISTB 4 will help with facing today’s challenges and building a better society for tomorrow.

“This signature facility reflects our core research themes of energy, health, security, sustainability and education through the five main engineering centers housed in the building,” said Paul Johnson, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “The interdisciplinary environment fosters close collaboration among SESE and Fulton Engineering researchers as we pursue complementary efforts to advance the technology of tomorrow and provide practical solutions to real-world challenges today.”

In addition to complex labs, the new building boasts a five-story, naturally lit atrium (starting at the third floor) offering a series of “living rooms in the sky” for scientists and engineers to meet. It also has world-class conference facilities and first and second floor public outreach spaces designed to communicate the excitement of scientific research and the technologies that enable it.

First floor facilities feature digital media, public lectures, visible laboratories and interactive displays. A focal point of the building is the Marston Exploration Theater.

“We all wonder what future scientific innovation will bring and are fortunate to now have a center that invites the public to witness and be participants in science and discovery happening on our own doorsteps,” said Robert Page, vice provost and dean of ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “A special gift from Carolyn ‘Susie’ Marston in memory of her husband Barret is the 238-seat theater for high-definition documentaries, 3-D planetarium-style shows and media-rich space for teaching undergraduates. It will touch people of all ages.”

Another highlight is the 4,300-square-foot “Gallery of Scientific Exploration,” outfitted with kiosk-style interactive exhibits and large-format, high-definition monitors that display video from Earth-observing satellites and robotic probes of other worlds.

On the second floor is ASU’s Center for Meteorite Studies, relocated and expanded for greater public access, which features interactive displays, touchable specimens and a video display of most of the collection’s specimens. Also on this floor are a variety of learning spaces designed to stimulate discovery and exploration of Earth and space science that will be used specifically for outreach to pre-college students.

“Research is vital to the health of our economy and our society, so it’s very important that we not only advance it, but we do it in such a way as to generate excitement for future generations of scientists and engineers,” said Panchanathan. “This facility is poised to advance new technologies, explore our world and encourage our children to be participants in this exciting endeavor.”

Sundt Construction Inc., served as the construction manager at risk for the ISTB 4 project working with the design teams of HDR and Ehrlich Architects.

(Nikki Cassis)

 

ASU's new science building will push boundaries of research, exploration
09/17/2012

The NASA Space Grant Robotics team at Arizona State University sent 10 team members to Orlando, Fla. in June to compete in the Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE) international robotics competition.

Armed with Koi, a robot capable of functioning 30 feet underwater, the ASU team challenged 22 teams from across the country and across the globe, ranking 11th overall.

Matthew Plank, a computer systems engineering junior and NASA Space Grant intern, is the team’s president and has been competing in robotics competitions since high school.

“Robots allow you to go places humans typically can’t,” explains Plank, who helped design Koi’s electronics. “They allow for exploration and study of deep sea and space.”

The MATE competition, which ASU has competed in since 2009, focuses on ocean-related occupations and real-world industry problems. Each team is judged on their ability to “sell” a design that could solve a real-world crisis or fill an exploratory need.

For past competitions, teams designed robots that could deal with issues surrounding the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill or could explore underwater volcanoes. This year’s mission revolved around a sunken World War II vessel and its potential impact on the environment. The robots removed fluid from the fuel tank and surveyed and mapped the surrounding area.

“Each team is treated like a pseudo company,” said Michael Przeslica, electrical team lead and material science and engineering junior. “We are judged and scored based on a professional engineering presentation, a twenty page technical report detailing every aspect of our robot, a poster presentation, and carrying out a physical mission with our robot.”

During the physical mission each team had 15 minutes to complete approximately 20 underwater tasks.

The six months of work that the team put in culminated in the Martin Klein MATE Mariner Award for the team’s practical application of their knowledge and skills and for the desire to improve. This award included a $1,000 grant to support next year’s team.

The team came home with a second award. Emily McBryan, a senior aerospace engineering major, received the Engineering Evaluation Most Valuable Player individual award.

“I have been a member of this robotics team for four years now and this year the greatest lesson I have learned is how a team can come together and combine its talents in order to fulfill a mission. Koi is a great representation of not just our engineering skills but our teamwork skills and leadership ability,” says McBryan, who served as the robotics’ team president for the past two years.

The ASU/NASA Space Grant Robotics team does more than build award-winning robots, however.

“This is an opportunity to learn hands-on skills and to demonstrate leadership in the field,” and anyone who is willing to learn can join, Plank said.

About 20 active members with majors ranging from materials engineering and Earth and space exploration to computer science participate on the team. The team meets officially two days a week for two hours each, but Plank said that members are welcome to work as long as they are willing.

“We’re big on getting our hands dirty,” Przeslica said.

Phil Christensen, Regents’ Professor of Geological Sciences in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, provides lab space for the team in the Mars Space Flight Facility in the Moeur building.

“We like to surround ourselves with the spirit of exploration,” Przeslica said, adding that the research that is conducted around them is an inspiration for the team.

The team also competes in the National Underwater Robotics Challenge competition and will be adding the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International competition, which focuses on fully autonomous robots, to its schedule this year.

In addition to learning real-world skills, Anthony Hallas, a computational mathematical sciences senior, said that his experience on the robotics team has had a practical application to his classwork.

The group is mentored by Shea Ferring, propulsion engineering manager for Orbital Sciences Corporation and Space Grant alumnus, and ASU graduate student Robert Wagner.

Although the group has mentors, Plank said that the team is student-run and members learn from each other more than anything else.

He added that the “hands-off” dynamic has encouraged members to learn to work with other engineers and learn something completely different from their respective majors.

“You can never downplay how important actually doing engineering and learning from other members is,” Plank said.

The team relies on NASA Space Grant support, donations and awards for material costs and travel to competitions. Unfunded travel costs are paid by students determined to see their project from beginning to end. Their current robot, Koi, is valued at approximately $6,900. For this year’s competition, they plan to design and build new systems with upgraded capabilities.

Photo: Team picture with the Koi robot and MATE officials

By Kristen Hwang

 

ASU Robotics team makes a splash
09/12/2012

Philip R. Christensen, Regents' Professor of Geological Sciences in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, is among the engineers and scientists being honored by the 2012 Haley Space Flight Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The award is going to the entire mission team for NASA's long-lived Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

Christensen, director of the Mars Space Flight Facility on the Tempe campus, is the designer and principal investigator for the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), an instrument carried by both Spirit and Opportunity. Working at heat-sensing wavelengths, Mini-TES was built to operate as a mineral-scouting device.

"Mini-TES played a critical role in identifying targets of interest which the rover then studied in detail with the instruments on its robotic arm," says Christensen. "For example, it identified more than a dozen different rock types on Mars, nearly all of them previously unknown."

He adds, "The instrument also led to several key discoveries. In the Columbia Hills in Gusev Crater, it spotted opaline silica deposits, which are evidence of hot springs. Mini-TES data also led ASU research scientist Steve Ruff to discover carbonate rocks there. Both findings clinched the case for significant water in Gusev."

Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, is accepting the Haley Award for the team at the AIAA's annual meeting, Sept. 12, 2012. The AIAA is the world's largest technical society for the aerospace profession, with more than 35,000 individual members worldwide.

Although partly upstaged by the Aug. 6 landing of Curiosity, NASA's new Mars Science Laboratory rover, both Spirit and Opportunity have set outstanding space exploration benchmarks. Landing in January 2004, each far exceeded its three-month design lifetime. Spirit operated more than six years in Gusev Crater. Its twin, Opportunity remains on the job today in Endeavour Crater on Meridiani Planum.

During the past two months, Opportunity has driven about a third of a mile, extending its total overland travel to 22 miles. The rover is surveying outcrops of layered rock in search of clay minerals to gain new insights into ancient wet environments.

"The MER rovers proved that medium-size rovers can play major role in Mars exploration," says Christensen. "Curiosity is a magnificent machine, but follow-on rovers are more likely to resemble Spirit and Opportunity. In the future, I expect we'll see a number of modest-sized rovers sent to different locations. Each of these would be equipped to find and cache potential samples for return to Earth."

Photo: ASU Mars scientist Philip Christensen is among those being honored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Credit: Tom Story

(Robert Burnham)

ASU scientist part of Mars rover team receiving astronautics award
09/06/2012

A star’s internal chemistry can doom a planet’s life long before the star itself dies

 
The search for potentially habitable planets involves discussion of what is sometimes referred to as the Goldilocks Zone, the relatively thin band in a solar system in which conditions on a planet can support life. Astrobiologists and planetary scientists agree that a planet’s distance from its parent star is of paramount importance for creating those optimum conditions – like Goldilocks’s porridge, it has to be just right. A new study by Arizona State University researchers suggests that the host star’s chemical makeup can also impact conditions of habitability of planets that orbit them.
 
The team’s paper, published in the August issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, demonstrates that subtle differences in a star’s internal chemistry can have huge effects on a planet’s chances of long-term habitability.
 
“We have identified changes in the ratios of different elements as particularly important for a given solar system’s habitability,” says Patrick Young, an assistant professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and lead author on the paper. “The more abundant elements carbon, oxygen, silicon, magnesium, and sodium are particularly important. The greater the abundances of these four elements in a star, the slower it, and the location of its Goldilocks Zone, will evolve.”
 
As a star evolves, it becomes brighter, causing the habitable zone to move outwards through its solar system. The team’s study indicates that a greater abundance of oxygen, carbon, sodium, magnesium, and silicon should be a plus for an inner solar system’s long-term habitability because the abundance of these elements make the star cooler and cause it to evolve more slowly, thereby giving planets in its habitable zone more time to develop life as we know it.
 
To explore whether stellar internal chemistry causes significant changes in the evolution of stars and therefore their habitable zones, Young and his colleagues, graduate students Mike Pagano and Kelley Liebst, did simulations of stars that are like our sun.
 
“We used spectra from 145 broadly sun-like stars targeted by planet to estimate the amount of variation in the abundance ratios of elements. For each model we varied the amount of one element to the extremes of variation we estimated from our analysis of the observations,” explains Pagano, who is a graduate student in the School of Earth and Space Exploration astrophysics program. 
 
The largest changes, unsurprisingly, arise from variation in oxygen.
 
“Oxygen is the most abundant element in the universe besides hydrogen and helium, so a change in the oxygen abundance results in a significant change in the total amount of heavy elements in the star. Oxygen turns out to be highly variable in abundance.  The effect of increased heavy element abundance on a star is to make it harder for the energy produced by nuclear fusion to escape the star. This means less energy needs to be produced to support the star, and it can live longer.”
 
The stellar abundance of oxygen seems crucial in determining how long planets stay in the habitable zone around their host star. If there had been less oxygen in the Sun’s chemical makeup, for example, Earth likely would have been pushed out of the Sun’s habitable zone about a billion years ago, well before complex organisms evolved. Considering the first complex multicellular organisms only arose about 650 million years ago, such a move would have likely destroyed any chance of complex life taking hold on Earth. Planets we are searching for signs of life may be about to leave their habitable zones or only have just entered them.
 
“Habitability is very difficult to quantify because it depends on a huge number of variables, some of which we have yet to identify,” says Young. “It also depends on the definition of habitable that we choose to use. We chose to use a relatively simple model that predicts whether a planet can sustain liquid water on its surface with reasonable assumptions about planetary atmospheres.”  
 

(Nikki Cassis)

Stellar make up impacts habitable zone evolution
The Unstoppable
09/04/2012

Arizona State University is unstoppable. We believe if you empower students and faculty with entrepreneurial thinking and encourage them to explore at the edge of learning, great things will happen. SESE Professor Ed Stump is featured in the new The Unstoppable commercial, which got its first airing during the Pac 12 Network's coverage of the August 30th Sun Devils football game with NAU.

The associated webpage is now live at asu.edu/unstoppable with bios and a separate video with each of the people in the commercial.

Professor featured in ASU commercial
09/04/2012

The Arizona Daily Star's Centennial salute to science in Arizona runs all summer. Each day, for 100 days, they'll record a milestone in the state's scientific history. On Sept. 2, Paul Scowen was highlighted. Scowen works on the development of next-generation detectors and instrumentation to enable new insights into Star and Planet Formation both in our own Galaxy and in nearby galaxies. He works as the PI on several space mission designs and concept studies and was a member of the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee that created this image.

Read the full story here

Paul Scowen profiled in 100 Days of Science
100 days of science: Space-imaging expert turns sight on health care
08/26/2012

The Arizona Daily Star's Centennial salute to science in Arizona runs all summer. Each day, for 100 days, they'll record a milestone in the state's scientific history. On August 26, Rogier Windhorst was highlighted for his years of work with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Photo credit: Tom Story

Read the full story here

Rogier Windhorst profiled in 100 days of Science
MORENO VALLEY: Resident creates replicas of Mars rover
08/26/2012

While the Mars rover Curiosity explores the red planet, those of us here on Earth can see a replica of the vehicle made by Jim Arbaugh at the Science Discovery Center in Santa Anna, and later this week in Arizona State University’s new research building, Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building IV.

Arbaugh has spent much of the last year working on the two replicas, the one on exhibit in Orange County and the other, more sophisticated model to be transported to ASU.

Curiosity weighs nearly 2,000 pounds including 180 pounds of scientific instruments. It is 9 feet, 6 inches long, nearly 9 feet wide and a little over 7 feet tall. Arbaugh's version matches the dimensions of the real thing except it weigh 450 pounds. It fills the space of one car in his two-car garage.

Kip Hodges, director of ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, said Arbaugh was recommended to him by the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. Hodges has seen pictures of Arbaugh's work on the rover. “It's truly spectacular,” said Hodges. “I think this is worth every penny.”
On Aug. 31, Arbaugh will disassemble his 450-pound project, load it on a truck and drive it to Tempe, Ariz. The rover will be installed over the Labor Day weekend.

Before he started work on the first model, he had to be given a security clearance. Then JPL handed over plans to him. The first model on display in Orange County took three months to build. The model he's done for Arizona State is “a complete replica down to the instrumentation,” he said. “The one I did for the Discovery Science Center represented a mock up. This is representative of the actual vehicle on Mars with as much information as I could gather.”
 

Rover replica to arrive this weekend
08/22/2012

Arizona State University is kicking off a pilot program aimed at improving access to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) classes for students who are blind or visually impaired.

Called 3D-IMAGINE (Image Arrays to Graphically Implement New Education), the program will use three-dimensional materials to enhance independent learning. Researchers are seeking as many program participants as possible from both ASU and the wider community.

Beginning biology (100) and astronomy (113) lab classes each will have one section using new, 3-D tactile boards designed specifically for students who are blind or visually impaired. However, sighted students may use the materials as well.

“Textbook images typically contain important messages, whether it’s intensity or altitude, or cell structure,” said Rogier Windhorst, Regents’ and Foundation Professor in ASU’s School of Earth & Space Exploration. “We think these messages can be conveyed in a 3-D tactile just fine. While a person who is blind would have to sense the information, we believe 3-D images may open up a new world in STEM courses for students who are visually impaired.”

To test their theory, an ASU interdisciplinary research team developed a series of 3-D tactile boards that represent key textbook images. Students need to understand these images in order to successfully complete each science class. Made of high-density plastic, the boards will initially cost about $60 each, and be used in place of or in addition to traditional lab materials.

The goal is to provide an opportunity for students who are blind or visually impaired, to learn the material independently.

College level STEM courses are typically rigorous, but for blind or visually impaired students, these classes often present even greater challenges. Imagine taking an astronomy class and having to depend on someone else to accurately and effectively describe a photo of a nebula, or in biology, detail the image of a cell.

The idea to turn digital images into 3-D tactile representations originated in Debra Baluch’s upper-level Cell Biotechnology class. Baluch, a research scientist in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, taught junior Ashleigh Gonzales last spring. Gonzales is pursing a degree in molecular biosciences and biotechnology, and is visually impaired.

“She is just as capable as anyone else in the class of doing this level of science, but unfortunately, she faces a barrier,” said Baluch. “What she chooses as a career may be decided by her visual impairment, even though she has the same level of education as her peers. We can improve access to our STEM classes by providing these 3-D models which we expect will enhance independent learning in students who are visually impaired.”

“Accessible is an interesting term,” said Terri Hedgpeth, director of ASU’s Disability Resource Center. “When a student signs up for a class, we get the textbook and convert it into Braille or electronic text, and we render tactile diagrams that go along with it. That’s time-consuming and expensive,” she added. “What we are doing in this pilot program allows us to create 3-D models which provide a better tactile representation of the material. It’s very different from the line pictures we typically produce.”

If the pilot program is successful, the team hopes to lay the foundation for using the 3-D tactile boards in all 100 level STEM courses. The group is currently seeking funding from the National Science Foundation and other organizations to support the program.

“I would like to see students be inspired to take additional classes in STEM and consider majors in the STEM fields,” said Hedgpeth. “Maybe we can excite them a bit and raise their hopes for a better level of access.”
The team includes researchers from ASU's School of Life Sciences, School of Earth & Space Exploration, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, and Disability Resource Center.

For more information on 3D-IMAGINE, contact Rogier Windhorst at rogier.windhorst@asu.edu, or Debra Baluch at page.baluch@asu.edu.

To participate in the Biology 100 and Astronomy 113 classes, contact Cindy Jepsen at cindy.jepsen@asu.edu, 480-965-1232 and/or Becca Dial in SESE Office ISTB4-795C, Rebecca.Dial@asu.edu Phone: 480-965-2213 or 480-965-5081.
 

Image: ASU senior Ashleigh Gonzales tests new 3-D tactile boards that will be used in basic STEM courses. Gonzales, who is blind, is part of an ASU research team developing the materials. Photo by: Jacob Mayfield

(Sandy Leander)

Program aims to improve access to STEM classes for blind, visually impaired students