Our mission is to engage the Portland area to enhance the health of the research enterprise, foster integrity in science and engineering, and promote the public's understanding of science for the purpose of improving the human condition. Our local chapter fulfills this mission by hosting public science lectures, student research symposia, awards to outstanding researchers, support for science teachers, and outreach to schools and the community.
We are comprised of faculty and students from several colleges and universities in the Portland area, as well as colleagues in local business, industry, federal and state agencies, and medical centers. Many of our members are retired scientists and engineers who have relocated to the Portland area and find a community of interests through the activities of the chapter. We would love to have you join us at our activities.
Annual Meeting, Banquet, and Lecture
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Smith Memorial Student Union 327-329
6:00 pm: Annual Meeting and Reception
7:00 pm: Banquet, Initiation, and Awards (for Sigma Xi members and guests, reservations required)
8:00 pm: MacCannell Memorial Lecture, by Christina Ortiz (open to the public, see below)
Kindly e-mail or telephone reservations to Tom Hard ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 503-235-3221). Please reserve as early as possible, with vegetarian request if desired. The absolute deadline for reservations is Thursday 17 May. After reserving, please pay for banquet at door by cash or check (no credit cards). Non-students $30; current student members $20; but newly inducted Sigma Xi members are banquet guests of the Chapter if they reserve a place.
Natural Armor: Interdisciplinary Convergence Among Engineering, Architecture and Evolutionary Biology
Christine Ortiz
Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tuesday, 22 May 2012, 8:00 pm
327-329 Smith Memorial Union
Portland State University (campus map)
The lecture is free and open to the public, following the Chapter's annual banquet for members and guests.
Biological exoskeletons or "natural armor" systems are multilayered, hierarchical structures that serve many functions, in particular protective mechanical roles such as; penetration, wear, and scratch resistance, minimization of back deflection and potential blunt trauma, damage detection and sensing, self-repair and regeneration, and, in certain cases, flexibility and mobility. We can learn much from biological organisms that have evolved over millions of years a veritable encyclopedia of environmentally-friendly engineering designs for protection against specific predatory and environmental threats. Natural armor functions efficiently by elegantly balancing protection, tissue damage tolerance, weight, and mobility requirements to maximize survivability. In order to elucidate the design principles of these fascinating materials, nanomechanics methodologies have been employed including; the measurement and prediction of extremely small forces and displacements, the quantification of nanoscale spatially-varying mechanical properties, the identification of local constitutive laws, the formulation of molecular-level structure-property relationships, and the investigation of new mechanical phenomena existing at small length scales. Additionally, the quantification and understanding of how animal exoskeletons utilize morphometry or shape to achieve maximum survivability from predatory and environmental threats will be discussed. Exoskeletons are imaged in three-dimensions using X-ray microcomputed tomography and then these data are used to fabricate, experimentally test and simulate the mechanical behavior of macroscopic 3D printed bio-inspired prototypes of exoskeletal assemblies in order to elucidate morphometric design principles, the interplay between morphometry and materiality, and to create new bio-inspired hybrid flexible protective designs. This talk will focus on a number of classes of natural armor: flexible, transparent, those that exhibit resistance to biochemical toxins, kinetic attacks, extreme thermal fluctuations, and blast. Model systems to be discussed include "living fossils" such as armored fish, deep sea hydrothermal vent species, echinoderms and molluscs with articulating segmented armor (e.g. chitons, urchins), and the transparent exoskeletons of certain crustaceans.
Christine Ortiz is the Dean for Graduate Education and a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Ortiz obtained her BS from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and her MS and PhD from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, all in the field of materials science and engineering. After graduation, she was granted an NSF-NATO post-doctoral fellowship which she used to carry out research in the Department of Polymer Chemistry, University of Groningen, in the Netherlands.
Dr. Ortiz's research program focuses on the multiscale mechanics of structural biological materials (musculoskeletal and exoskeletal) with the primary goal being to quantify and understand new mechanisms, phenomena, and design principles and how they determine function, quality, and pathology. Dr. Ortiz has over 140 scientific publications in more than 20 different academic journals.
News
- Jun 24-27, 2012: Sigma Xi Northwest Regional Meeting, June 24-27, in Boise ID, joint with AAAS and American Chemical Society.
- May 22, 2012: Sigma Xi Columbia-Willamette Chapter annual meeting (see above) and Christine Ortiz lecture (see above).
- May 12, 2012: Oregon Chapter, AMS: "The future of Northwest weather prediction," Cliff Mass, Univ. of Washington.
- Apr 10, 2012: The scientific case for human influence on global climate: Philip Mote, Christina Hulbe, and Andreas Schmittner, co-sponsored with Oregon Chapter, American Meteorological society.
- Apr 6, 2012: Eighth annual Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium | abstracts | awards | photos.
- Jun 27, 2011: Join our group on LinkedIn.
- May 18, 2011: Sigma Xi annual meeting photos.
- Apr 11, 2011: Seventh annual Sigma Xi Student Research Symposium photos.
- Apr 8, 2011: Vanguard: Sigma to host research symposium: Students will present research with creative posters.
- Feb 16, 2011: Student Research Symposium Abstract Submission
- Feb 3, 2011: Smelling a Rat on Easter Island. A blog entry about Terry Hunt's Sigma Xi lecture.
- Jan 25, 2011: Vanguard: Engineering grad student receives prestigious grant.
- Nov 11-14, 2010: Columbia-Willamette students present poster papers at Sigma Xi International Research Conference, Raleigh NC:
2011 Annual Banquet Photos
Check out the complete set of photos on our Facebook page.
