Two UW-Milwaukee faculty members, Stefan Schnitzer and Lei “Leslie” Ying, were recently awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award to fund research studies in their fields.

UWM’s Department of Biological Sciences employs Schnitzer, and Ying studies in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Associate Professor Schnitzer is putting his $890,000 award towards his research along a stretch of forest on the Isthmus of Panama.

“One of the definitions of the field of ecology is explaining the abundance and distribution of organisms, which is one of the things that my lab is trying to do,” Schnitzer told the Post.

Schnitzer is testing a hypothesis he proposed in 2005 called the “Dry Season Growth Hypothesis.” According to Schnitzer, the hypothesis seeks to discover why some plant groups and species reach numerical dominance, or are more abundant, in seasonal tropical forests compared to wet tropical forests.

“In most tropical forests, diversity and abundance of most organisms increases with increasing rainfall, which is why the wet aseasonal tropical forests tend to have very high diversity and are really lush with vegetation,” Schnitzer said. “However, most tropical forests are seasonal, and explaining the abundance and diversity of organisms in seasonal forests will be a huge ecological advance,” he added.

According to Schnitzer, his “Dry Season Growth Hypothesis” asserts that “some organisms have the ability to grow during seasonal droughts, thus capitalizing when their competitors are sleeping, or dormant.”

When asked why he chose the Isthmus of Panama for his studies, Schnitzer described its environment as “ideal” for testing the hypothesis. “We needed a contiguously forested area with a steep rainfall gradient,” Schnitzer said.

While conducting his research in Panama, Schnitzer is being provided an office at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, where he works as a research assistant.

“(They) help solve some of the logistic challenges associated with this type of research,” Schnitzer said.

Assistant Professor Ling is currently using her $400,000 award to fund the investigation of “compressing sensing” ? a math theory that would improve the MRI imaging of internal organs. Currently, adequate still images of organs in motion, such as a heart beating, cannot be captured.

“This could improve the diagnoses of several diseases,” Ying said. “For example, the new technique could image the cardiac motion much better, thus improving

diagnoses of heart diseases.”

She added that it could also “image the changes of the contrast agent concentration at the tumor, so that cancer can be detected earlier.”

MRIs are notorious for their size and the time it takes to produce an image, which averages 30 minutes. Ying’s research could decrease the current scanning time by as much as 60%.

“The machine size will remain the same,” Ying said. “The decrease in (scanning) time depends on the image content ? and I am working with my colleagues to apply (the theory) to photo-acoustic imaging,” she added.

Ying was elated that she was chosen as an NSF CAREER Award recipient.

“My dream finally came true,” Ying said. “This was my third attempt and the last chance. It really gave me confidence that I am doing something wonderful.”