Faculty Promoted to Senior Faculty Research Assistant I or II - 2020

13 OSU Faculty Promoted to Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
4 OSU Faculty Promoted to Senior Faculty Research Assistant II

The research enterprise of our university is continually strengthened by the promotion of outstanding research assistants.

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Nichole Baley, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Crop and Soil Science

Nichole Baley started her career with Oregon State University in May of 2013. She is currently a faculty research assistant under Brian Charlton for the Potato Variety Development Program located in Klamath Falls, OR. Ms. Baley is responsible for on-going field research that includes: variety development trials, pest management ,and cultural management to improve production efficiencies. She serves as a member of a broader statewide, tri-state and regional potato variety development team to improve both fresh and processed potatoes.

 

 


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Jason Ball, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Food Science and Technology

Jason Ball is a Faculty Research Assistant and Culinary Project Manager at the Oregon State University Food Innovation Center in Portland, OR. Jason works as part of the Product and Process Development Team at the FIC. His work utilizes creative thinking, innovative techniques, and scientific principles to develop value-added food and beverage products across all categories. Many of the projects that Jason works on are focused around new product development, ingredient applications, or innovative culinary research. Additionally, Jason manages the Culinology and Culinary Ideation Programs at the FIC. Previously Jason has worked in the industry as a chef in Chicago, New York, London, and Copenhagen. He holds an associate degree in Hospitality Management, and a Bachelors of Culinary Science from the Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, NY).

 


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Aimee Hasenbeck, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Food Science and Technology

Aimee Hasenbeck, is a Sensory Scientist, Faculty Research Assistant, at the Oregon State University Food Innovation Center in Portland, OR. Aimee received both her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Food Science from the University of Arkansas. She is in her fourth year of employment at Oregon State University. Prior to her current position, she managed the Center for Sensory & Consumer Behavior Research in Corvallis, OR. She currently works as a Sensory Scientist at the Food Innovation Center in Portland, OR, an Oregon State University Experiment Station, where she conducts sensory and consumer testing with industry clients and collaborates on mission-oriented research designed to advance Northwest agriculture and food products.

 


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Laura Helgerson, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Crop and Soil Science

Laura Helgerson is a Faculty Research Assistant with the Barley Breeding Program in the Department of Crop and Soil Science. After earning a B.S. from Oregon State University in Natural Resources, she began working for the program in 2012. Her primary responsibility is managing the greenhouses for doubled haploid production, crossing, research projects, and educational opportunities. During the spring, summer, and fall you will find her in the field taking notes, harvesting, and planting. Laura enjoys being part of a team that interacts with the many diverse groups that barley brings together.

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David Jacobson, Senior Faculty Research Assistant II
Fisheries and Wildlife

David Jacobson has had the privilege and pleasure of working at several great institutions during his 35 years in research. Since joining OSU in 1996, he has been involved with two different laboratories. With Dr. Chris Langdon he managed the Molluscan Broodstock Program and helped create healthier breeding stock for west coast oyster growers. With Dr. Michael Banks, his work included several successful Chinook salmon projects. Their research changed the way California diverts water, based on life history genetic markers, and helped define policy for the reintroduction of spring Chinook salmon above Oregon dams.

 


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Patrick Jones, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Horticulture

Patrick Jones moved to Oregon in 2014 to be with his wife, Elizabeth. After acquiring a master’s degree in turfgrass at the University of Tennessee and working for a year in Columbus, Ohio, he made the switch to berries out of a desire to continue working in research and agriculture. He quickly grew to love the comradery of the small community of growers and his research team. Patrick and Elizabeth currently live in Beaverton with their dog Jola and enjoy spending their time cooking, improving their house and entertaining friends.


 


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Hannah Lucas, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Horticulture

Hannah was a free-range child, locally raised on a farm in the Willamette Valley. She went north to Washington for most of her schooling, including an MS in Biology. She has lived in a lot of places and studied several kinds of critters in many different ecosystems. Hannah’s love for bees developed relatively late in life, but once it did, she decided an ideal job would allow her to apply her molecular biology education and field biology experience to the issues faced by honey bees and beekeepers. Naturally, she is very happy to work in the OSU Honey Bee Lab.

 

 


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Tom Silberstein, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Crop and Soil Science

Thomas Silberstein currently works as a Faculty Research Assistant for the Klamath Experiment Station (KBREC). In his current position, in the Field Agronomy Project provides applied research support related to small grains (wheat, barley, oats, etc.,) forages (Teff) and alternative/industrial crops as well as assist other research projects on-site. One of the most intriguing aspects in his current research is a USDOE/USDA NIFA cooperative research project joining Oregon State University with The Ohio State University and University of Nebraska to develop Russian dandelion (Taraxacum kok-saghya L.E. Rodin), a wild plant, into a commercial agricultural crop to provide a source of domestic latex/rubber supply.

 


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Michele Wiseman, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Botany and Plant Pathology

Michele Wiseman received her bachelor's degree in biology from Oregon State University in 2011 and her M.S. in plant pathology from Washington State University in 2013. While at WSU, Michele characterized two novel post-harvest apple and pear pathogens. After graduating, she worked for the OSU Plant Clinic as a diagnostician and then managed the molecular lab where she designed, optimized, and/or incorporated several new molecular assays. In 2018, Michele joined Dr. David Gent’s Lab and has since focused on characterizing novel hop pathogens, studying powdery mildew and hop genetics, and managing the greenhouse facilities. During her career, Michele has authored or co-authored seventeen peer-reviewed publications and has presented to over 1200 industry professionals and/or academic peers. In her downtime, Michele enjoys volunteering with LGBTQ youth as a facilitator for Out'N'About.

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David Neiman, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences

David Neiman received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the UC Berkeley in 1984, and has performed postgraduate work in surface chemistry at CU Boulder and Stanford. He worked for IBM and HP as a specialist in surface characterization before joining OSU in 2011 as a faculty research assistant in the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). His work with OOI has included documentation of sensor and platform qualifications for OOI and procurement support for ongoing OOI operations.

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Paul Walczak, Senior Faculty Research Assistant II
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences

Paul Walczak is the lead technician of the Marine Sediment Sampling (MARSSAM) facility in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. He began working for MARSSAM during the final year of his M.S. degree in Oceanography (cum laude, 2006). MARSSAM is the only National Science Foundation facility of its kind, supporting marine and geological science that requires samples of the seafloor for principle investigators throughout the country, working in all the world’s oceans. In his role as Senior Faculty Research Assistant, Paul continues the decades-long tradition of fostering national excellence and leadership in marine geology at Oregon State University.

 


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Dylan Winters, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences

Dylan Winters is a Faculty Research Assistant at Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences specializing in oceanographic data processing. Dylan works in the Coastal and Estuarine Physical Oceanography and Ocean Mixing groups led by Jim Lerczak and Jonathan Nash, respectively. He supports a wide variety of projects ranging from field data collection to numerical wave modeling and autonomous ocean sampling methods. Prior to arriving at OSU in 2015, Dylan was a Staff Research Associate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He graduated in 2014 from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in Mathematics.

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Chad Hanson, Senior Faculty Research Assistant II
Forest Ecosystems and Society

Mr. Hanson joined the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society in 2007. Since 2013, he has supervised the Oregon State University AmeriFlux core sites and serves as a member on the AmeriFlux Management Technical Team. Chad continued his innovative and creative work on advancing biometeorological methods. This includes building new eddy-covariance systems and deploying them in diverse ecosystems, as well as upgrading CO2 concentration measurement systems associated with NOAA-funded sites. In recognition of his outstanding technical, managerial, and scientific contributions to eddy covariance flux towers in Oregon, Chad is now recognized and serves as a co-PI of the Oregon site cluster.

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Michaella Sektnan, Senior Faculty Research Assistant II
Social and Behavioral Health Sciences

Michaella Sektnan is an Evaluation Specialist and Senior Faculty Research Assistant with the Extension Family and Community Health program in the College of Public Health and Human Science. Her main role is to provide program assistance, database management, and evaluation services for grant and contract funded parenting education and early childhood initiatives. Michaella received her Master’s in Human Development and Family Science from Oregon State University in 2008 with a focus on the impact of early family risk on academic achievement of young children. She has a variety of additional experience working with children and families, including working as a child welfare caseworker for the Oregon Department of Human Services and volunteering as a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA). Her research interests include parenting education, early child care, and education, community-based support for children and families, child development, school readiness, and the impact of child abuse and neglect on early development.

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Stephanie Bollmann, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Integrative Biology

Stephanie Bollmann has been an FRA and Lab Manager in Michael Blouin’s lab in the Department of Integrative Biology for five years, and has worked at Oregon State University for over eight years.  She received her undergraduate degrees at Kansas State University and her Ph.D. at Oregon State University.  Her work is focused on population genetics in two experimental systems.  First, in identifying the genetic basis for resistance to Schistosoma mansoni in Biomphalaria glabrata, aquatic snails which are an obligate host for the human parasite which infects millions of people worldwide.  Secondly, she studies the negative effects of current hatchery practices on the reproductive fitness of steelhead salmon.  She is grateful to be in a position where she can work on interesting genetics projects and use her skills to help train and support others in their research.

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Brittany Poirson, Senior Faculty Research Assistant I
Integrative Biology

Brittany Poirson is a Faculty Research Assistant in the Menge Lubchenco lab. She studies the interactions of intertidal invertebrates and algae along the Oregon and California coasts. She is involved with the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), the Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB), and the Seastar Tragedy and Recovery Study (STARS) projects. Brittany received her master's degree from Georgia Southern University where she studied recolonization of benthic invertebrates at Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. She has over 10 years of experience conducting biological experiments. When she is not frolicking in the intertidal, Brittany enjoys crafting, hiking, and hanging out with her family