b'News and Notes set a standard for the park and the National Park Service, according to the ANPR. Mikes tenure as superintendent of Yellowstone raised the conservation bar within that park to a level that has never been surpassed, according to Don Barry, former assistant secretary, Department of the Interior.Finley grew up in Medford, OR, the son of a family that enjoyed hunting and fishing as well as music and the arts. He attended SOU as a biology major and planned to become a dentist. As an undergraduate, Finley worked summers on a hotshot crew with the Mike Finley Recognized U.S. Forest Service. By the time he earned his bachelors degree, Finley had discovered his passion lie in the outdoors and not in a with National Honor dental office.Students Present SOU ResearchThe Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR) recently honored Michael V. Finley 70 with its prestigious Harry Yount Lifetimeat National ConferenceAchievement Award in recognition of Finleys leadership to theSOU computer science students Chandler Campbell and Jacob National Park Service and in the role of the National Park ranger.Nowack showcased their work in November at a national conference The award is named in honor of Harry Yount, the first gamekeeper inon a pair of closely related projects that hinge on the use of artificial Yellowstone National Park during the 1880s. intelligence to simplify and organize highly complex research tasks.Finley retired in 2001 after more than 32 years with the NationalCampbell and Nowack were presenters at the third annual national Park Service. During those three decades, he was superintendentconference of the US Research Software Engineer Association, an at four of the nations national parksAssateague Island Nationalorganization that supports those who use expertise in programming Seashore (1981), Everglades National Park (1986), Yosemite Nationalto advance research. The association is a project of a California-based Park (1989), and Yellowstone National Park (1994). Prior to landingnonprofit.these prized positions, Finley cut his teeth as a ranger in Big BendCampbell presented a paper on his study of tacit knowledge in National Park in Texas; National Capitol Parks in Washington, D.C.;research settingsgathering, storing and retrieving the unspoken Pinnacles National Monument in California; and Wyomings Grandpractices of academic teams that sometimes are lost when a project is Teton National Park.disrupted or endsand Nowack spoke about using a tacit knowledge By the time Finley reached his last post in Yellowstone, theretool to help UCLA astronomers rapidly expand their efforts to survey was no shortage of issues facing himfrom recreation andbillions of distant galaxies. Both Campbell and Nowack work on bison management to restoration of the cutthroat trout and thetheir AI projects under Bernadette Boscoe, Ph.D., an SOU assistant reintroduction of the gray wolf. Finleys stewardship of Yellowstoneprofessor of computer science.abstract of the NSF grant. By combining fieldwork, laboratory experiments and computer simulations, the research will improve ecological forecasts and inform pest management strategies that support national food security.The project is also expected to provide opportunities for SOU students to participate as SOU Biologistpaid researchers. The work will be conducted partly by students enrolled in Youngbloods courses in Receives NSF Grant forenvironmental physiology and biogeography. Grasshopper Research This work has the potential to significantly improve how we manage national rangelands in a changing climate, Youngblood said. If we can Biologist Jacob Youngblood, Ph.D., was awarded a three-year,predict grasshopper outbreaks before they happen, $422,183 grant from the National Science Foundation to studywe can act proactively to minimize damage to crops and forage.how insects respond to two aspects of climate changerising airThe project will test competing hypotheses for how the combination temperatures and declining plant nutrientspotentially improvingof temperature conditions and nutrient availability affect the pest management strategies and forecasts of insect-related damagebiology of grasshoppers. It will involve a combination of computer nationwide. simulations, experiments in artificial laboratory environments and The study will focus on migratory grasshoppers, which consume asfield experiments conducted at The Farm at SOU.much as 20% of available forage from U.S. rangelands each year forTogether, this integrative approach will advance general theory on losses estimated at about $393 million. how organisms forage in multidimensional environments and how This project will investigate how temperature and nutrition jointlythose foraging decisions scale up to affect physiology and ecology, affect the most damaging rangeland pest in the United States, said anthe abstract of the NSF grant project said.166 N SS O OE T TY1 NEEWWSSFFRROOMM OOUUTTHHEERRNNR RGEOGNO NU NUINVIEVRESRI SYI'