Discovery’s power to transform

Don’t look now, but real changes and improvements in our world’s quality of life are being made possible by UND

Editor’s note: The UND LEADS Strategic Plan is meant to be a compass for the community, a tool that points the way toward the University’s goals. With that in mind, UND Today is devoting a special issue on the last Tuesday of each month to charting for readers the institution’s advance.

So, today’s special edition of UND Today – the ninth in this series – focuses on the Discovery core value. As readers will see, every story in today’s issue – including those which we’re reprinting today and were first published over the past few months – centers on a UND program or activity that reflects the Discovery objective, as described in the Strategic Plan.

To continue the series, our issue on July 30 will be devoted to the “Service” core value, while Aug. 27 will bring an issue devoted to “Learning.”

Comments or questions? Contact Tom Dennis, UND Today editor, at tom.dennis@UND.edu. Thank you for reading!

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By Charles Gorecki and Scott Snyder

How can any new strand of new material be transformative if it is as thin as a human hair?

Well, if the strand is made of graphene, then it can lift a grand piano. Picture such a thing — a grand piano gently swaying, held aloft by what looks like a human hair — and think about the quantum leap it potentially represents in materials strength and usefulness.

Then understand that UND is on the leading edge of research into not only materials science (including the study of graphene), but also dozens of other fields ranging from neurobiology to laser communications to hydrogen energy to space travel.

You’ll see why we’re both so thrilled to call attention to transformative UND research. And that very much includes research in the humanities, where scholarship can illuminate our history, society and psychology as brightly as a spotlight on a singer at a Broadway musical.

Innovation, application and transformation

Among the charges in the Discovery core value of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan is this one: UND will “foster innovative teaching, applied learning and transformative research that exemplifies discovery, as shown by experimenting, researching, drafting, writing, prototyping rehearsing, etc.”

Again, the word “transformative” is key. And it’s a calling that brings about some of the most meaningful and exciting work on campus.

Moreover, this spirit infuses not only the laboratories on campus, but also the classrooms. At UND, our professors innovate and create across all disciplines. Then they move the knowledge learned from discovery into the classroom, where they invite students to interact with that knowledge and, more important, teach students the thought processes and methods to go out and discover on their own.

This “self-discovery” as undergraduates, graduate students and post-docs experience the amazement that’s at the heart of all research can be as transformative as any peer-reviewed finding. To put it another way, discovery at UND can and does improve the lives and careers of students, just as it improves our understanding of and interaction with our world.

Speaking of interactions with our world, the team at the EERC approaches their work with a sense of wonder that leads to creative solutions to global energy and environmental challenges.

And the word “global” in that sentence is not an overstatement. The EERC works hard to make sure North Dakota’s energy resources and products remain accessible, affordable, environmentally responsible and clearly understood. But the solutions we’re developing have impact across the country and worldwide.

For example, the more the EERC can prioritize national security, build a strong relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense and collaborate across UND on all national security initiatives, as we’re endeavoring to do, the better protected the United States will be.

Likewise, the more North Dakota can decarbonize its energy mix and put the CO2 to work to provide more clean, reliable energy — tasks at which the Center is emerging as an acknowledged international leader — the more the rest of the world can take advantage of those technologies as well.

Energy for the future

Then there is the Hydrogen Hub Initiative, in which the EERC will lead a collaborative project to help the upper Midwest benefit from clean energy investments, good-paying jobs and improved energy security.

Hydrogen energy “has the power to slash emissions from multiple carbon-intensive sectors and open a world of economic opportunity for communities across the country,” the federal Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations states. The EERC is proud to play a leadership role in this initiative, which ultimately may employ tens of thousands of people across the country while supporting healthier communities and even a healthier planet.

It’s hard to get more transformational than that.

Meanwhile, another story in today’s special issue of UND Today describes an entirely different field in which UND is transforming humanity’s capabilities: space.

“Imagine being an astronaut on NASA’s envisioned long-haul flight to Mars, and the unthinkable happens: components on your spacesuit break,” the story posits.

If that frightening scenario unfolds some time in the future, then the solution that the astronauts call upon will very likely have been pioneered at UND. That’s because Pablo de León, chair of UND’s Department of Space Studies, “has come up with a system to manufacture spacesuits and other parts while on that long journey,” the story reports.

“Recently, de León received a patent for his NASA-funded research into 3D printing spacesuits or other objects that are needed in long space voyages. Doing so onboard a spacecraft avoids the supply chain problem of receiving spare parts while far from Earth by bringing the means of manufacture along.”

An ‘unparalleled triumvirate’

One final example, this one not from the stratosphere but from beneath the surface of the Earth.

From semiconductors to cell phones to electric cars, rare earth elements grow more important to our world every day. For economic prosperity and national security, the United States is driven to develop its own sources of rare earth elements through transformative research.

That’s where UND comes in. Researchers in the College of Engineering & Mines and the EERC are finding new ways of extracting rare earth elements from coal and other readily available substances.

Already, the amount of materials being produced by this process is being measured in pounds, not ounces. And as efficiencies improve and the production becomes more economical, don’t be surprised if North Dakota winds up with a whole new industry — one that creates jobs, diversifies the state economy and dramatically improves national security, all at the same time.

“The key is an unparalleled triumvirate of government, private industry and academic leaders all flying in the same direction,” Forbes magazine wrote in 2021 of UND’s success in the drone industry. And as happened with uncrewed aerial systems, so, too, is happening with all of the fields mentioned above and many more.

That’s the energizing reality at UND, where the campus community taps the power of research to transform — and improve — our world, one discovery at a time.

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>> QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS about the UND LEADS Strategic Plan? Your thoughts are welcome! Please contact Angie Carpenter, UND’s director of Special Student Populations, and/or Ryan Zerr, associate vice president for Strategy & Implementation, the co-chairs of the UND LEADS Implementation Committee.

You also may offer your thoughts by visiting the UND LEADS Strategic Plan home page and clicking on the “Provide your feedback” link that you’ll find there.

Thank you for your support of the UND LEADS Strategic Plan!

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About the authors:

At UND, Charles Gorecki is CEO of the Energy & Environmental Research Center, and Scott Snyder is vice president for Research & Economic Development.