Star Tribune’s Richard Chin refers to Brian Krohn ‘08�� as a “Minnesota Genius” in his article. Among Krohn’s creations are surgery tools,��wizard staffs, a cycling workout app, and more recently, Soundly, a cell phone application designed to help people who snore by getting them to play a voice-activated game to strengthen their upper airway muscles.

While at Augsburg, Krohn switched majors from film to chemistry, that’s when his interest in becoming a scientist began. His undergraduate research led him to “Good Morning America” where he talked about a process to produce environmentally-friendly fuel, which was later commercialized in the development of a $9 million pilot plant.

“A lot of times I get a little bug about something, I kind of just do things and see where they go,” says Krohn about his ventures.

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Sverdrup Lecture, 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 16, Hoversten Chapel

Title: MESSENGER at Mercury: Solving the riddles of the innermost planet in our solar system

Abstract: Because the planet Mercury is so much closer to the Sun than the Earth it is hard to observe with telescopes and difficult to reach with spacecraft, and is the least explored of the terrestrial planets. On 18 March 2011 NASA’s MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft became the first ever to orbit Mercury. After overcoming numerous challenges and a journey of nearly 5 billion miles, MESSENGER trained its cameras and other instruments on the planet and revealed immense lava flows that would cover half of the United States, landscapes littered with hollowed depressions each the size of a small city, and evidence for bombardment of the surface by furious blasts of charged particles.

Sverdrup Student Convocation, 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 17, Hoversten Chapel

Title: Exploration as a Moral Imperative

Abstract: Humankind is inquisitive by nature and this impulse has played a critical role in technical advances throughout our history as a species from the development of agrarian societies to the Renaissance, the industrial revolution, and the explosion of formal scientific inquiry. Should we understand this capacity as something more than an accidental trait that gives humans a competitive advantage? Does the health of civilization depend on communal enterprises of creativity and discovery? Does the religious understanding of creation and life as more than incidental imply a moral imperative to create and explore?

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Sorum did research on the bacteria, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacteria that affects about 80 percent of cystic fibrosis patients by the age of 18. The bacteria is difficult to treat because it forms a biofilm in the lungs that protects it against antibiotics and white blood cells. He harvested secretions from a non-cystic fibrosis lung model and applied them to the bacteria to test whether the lung secretions would inhibit the formation of the biofilm.

For Sorum, simply attending the conference and presenting his research alongside students from U.S. and Canadian universities and colleges was rewarding. “The biggest thing for me was seeing that going to a small liberal arts college, you can be competitive with large research universities. Just being able to share my results was enough for me as a scientist, but it was definitely a surprise to win.”

The AAAS 2012 poster competition was open to students actively working toward an undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral degree. Posters were judged on content, and presenters were judged on their ability to present their findings to an audience. As a winner, Alex will receive a cash award, a framed certificate, and a one-year subscription to Science. Additionally, he will be recognized in an upcoming issue of Science as well as on the AAAS website. Alex’s trip to present at AAAS 2012 was funded by Augsburg’s Undergraduate Research and Graduate Opportunity (URGO) office.

in an URGO research project series YouTube video produced by Augsburg photojournalist Stephen Geffre.

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Among these scientists are two Augsburg physics graduates — Brian Anderson ’82 and George Ho ’91. Both work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), which serves as the manager of the Mercury MESSENGER project for NASA.

Anderson is on the mission’s core team; he is a deputy project scientist and oversees the orbital operations planning to ensure that observations from all of the instruments are coordinated to meet the mission objectives. He is also a MESSENGER co-investigator for the work of the Magnetometer, one of seven scientific instruments on the spacecraft. This will measure the strength and variations of Mercury’s magnetic field, constantly collecting field samples.

Ho is an instrument scientist for another of the spacecraft’s instruments, the Energetic Particle and Plasma Spectrometer (EPPS), which measures the mix and characteristics of the charged particles in the planet’s magnetic field.

The goal of MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is to better understand Mercury, the planet with the oldest surface. It has been more than 30 years since data was sent from the Mariner spacecraft as it journeyed past Mercury but never orbited around it.

MESSENGER’s successful entry into orbit was reached after a journey of 4.9 billion miles. The spacecraft was launched on August 3, 2004, and followed a path to Mercury that included a flyby of Earth, two flybys of Venus, and three of Mercury before inserting itself into orbit last week. MESSENGER will remain in orbit one Earth year sending back data before returning. Its instruments were started up and testing began on March 24, with data transmittal set to begin on April 4.

To learn about the Mercury MESSENGER mission, go to .

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