March

"Face to Face: Artists' Self-Portraits from the Collection of Jackye and Curtis Finch Jr." is on view at Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, April 2 through Aug. 7. The exhibition features 70 self-portraits, ranging from traditional to stylistic representations, by modern and contemporary artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Auburn University Theatre is presenting the 2015-2016 annual dance performance, "Dancing on the Edge," opening March 31, at 7:30 p.m. on Telfair Peet Theatre Main Stage and running through April 3. Conceived and directed by Adrienne Wilson and Jeri Dickey, both Department of Theatre faculty in the College of Liberal Arts, "Dancing on the Edge" celebrates bodies in motion from modern to tap to aerial dance.

Carl A. Stockton, provost and vice president for academic affairs at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, begins July 1 as the next chancellor for Auburn University at Montgomery.

Insects are a significant problem for Alabama's conventional fruit and vegetable growers, but for the state's organic producers, they are a huge problem. Organic growers have a strong ally in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. A team led by Ayanava Majumdar, an Extension entomologist, has used grants from the Sustainable Agriculture and Education, or SARE, program to identify new tools for Alabama growers to battle insects that can wipe out a crop.

Auburn University and the Southeastern Conference have announced that Professor Hanqin Tian of the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences has been honored with the SEC's Auburn University Faculty Achievement Award for 2016.

Auburn University's Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps, the War Eagle Battalion, will join in celebrating the centennial anniversary of the U.S. Army ROTC, which began in 1916 with President Woodrow Wilson's signing of the National Defense Act of 1916.

Auburn University will hold its "This is Research: Student Symposium 2016" on April 13 in the Student Center, giving Auburn and Auburn Montgomery students an opportunity to share their research university-wide. More than 350 undergraduate and graduate students will participate through oral presentations, posters and creative scholarship displays.

Auburn University will host a design charrette March 30-April 2 at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center to select the architectural firms for the new performing arts center, while fundraising for the project continues.

Original ABC "Shark Tank" panelist and serial entrepreneur Kevin Harrington will help Auburn University celebrate the success of alumni and student business leaders when the Raymond J. Harbert College of Business hosts the Auburn University Entrepreneurship Summit Friday, April 22, at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center.

The chief scientist for the nation’s efforts to solve global hunger and food insecurity will present a lecture, “The End of Hunger: from Vision to Reality,” Thursday, March 31, at 4 p.m. in The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center auditorium.

The Auburn Alumni Association honored its lifetime achievers at a dinner and induction ceremony March 12 at The Hotel at Auburn University and Dixon Conference Center. Four recipients were named to receive the association's highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, in 2016. They are: Jane B. Moore, retired faculty member of Auburn University; Edward Lee "Ed Lee" Spencer '52, chairman of AuburnBank; Ret. U.S. Army Col. and NASA astronaut James Shelton "Jim" Voss '72; and Walter Stanley "Walt" Woltosz '69, owner of Simulations Plus Inc.

Auburn University faculty member James Long hopes to absorb new teaching methodologies and enhance his ability to present technical material to students from diverse, international backgrounds. As a Fulbright Scholar, he'll get his chance.

Auburn University’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences will host an informational program and photo contest to commemorate the United Nations’ global celebration of forests Monday, March 21.

End Child in Hunger in Alabama, a statewide initiative launched from the Hunger Solutions Institute at Auburn University, has a new marketing campaign.

Pradeep Lall, the John and Anne MacFarlane Professor in Auburn University's Department of Mechanical Engineering, has received the Wright Gardner Award from the Alabama Academy of Science.

Every four years the Auburn University Symphonic Band has traveled to a different part of the world, including China and Ireland. This year, the symphonic band is on a 10-day tour of Italy during the university's spring break.

Two College of Veterinary Medicine faculty were part of a medical team that performed surgery last month on Kentucky Derby winning horse War Emblem.

In 2012, Jenna Bloemer picked up her white coat, crossed the stage and shook hands with Dean Lee Evans, signifying her induction into the Harrison School of Pharmacy at Auburn University.

Auburn University is teaming up with the University of Alabama in Huntsville and Alabama A&M University in the newly formed Alabama Remote Sensing Consortium working with Teledyne Brown Engineering, which is providing state universities with imaging data of the earth's surface from NASA's International Space Station.

Auburn University began planting descendants of the original Auburn Oaks today in historic Samford Park, which will complete a multiyear redevelopment project. Ten trees are being planted along a section of walkway reaching from Langdon Hall to Toomer's Corner.

The Auburn University Council of Engineering Graduate Students is gearing up to host NanoDays 2016. The free annual event is scheduled for Wednesday, April 6, at the Agricultural Heritage Park Pavilion, 620 N. Donahue Dr. in Auburn, and will be open to the community from 5 to 7:30 p.m.

An Auburn University professor says human-induced methane and nitrous oxide gas emissions overwhelm terrestrial carbon dioxide uptake—contributing to climate change—and thus should be reduced to alleviate the problem, according to a study published in the March 10 issue of the scientific journal, Nature.

Donald Wehrs fell in love with English and history after reading Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace" when he was 10 years old. Now, he has a double major in both subjects.

Army Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, commander of U.S. Central Command and an Auburn University graduate, will deliver the Graduate School's New Horizons Lecture on Monday, March 21, at 3 p.m. in the Langdon Hall Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

The Bailey Small Animal Teaching Hospital at Auburn University's College of Veterinary Medicine is one of the few teaching hospitals in the country to offer stereotactic surgery to treat animals with brain disease.

Bill Hutto, airport and aviation center director at Auburn University Regional Airport, has been appointed to the Alabama Homeland Security Task Force by Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey.

A new training aid for the military and law enforcement transforms participants into three-dimensional avatars, enabling them to simulate actual missions. Named "Dauntless," the system is the latest technology from Motion Reality Inc., a company based in Marietta, Georgia.The development of Dauntless was led by Nels Madsen, professor of mechanical engineering at Auburn University and also the Motion Reality vice president for research and development. Motion Reality debuted the cutting-edge technology during the Defense and Security Equipment International Show in London, the largest event of its kind for the world's military.The Dauntless immersive virtual training system mimics realistic scenarios, allowing users to train as if they are engaged in actual operations. The system features high-resolution graphics and video game capabilities. This follows in the footsteps of VIRTSIM, the company's previous simulation and training product, which has been in use by the FBI and a Gulf nation since 2011.Dauntless trainees wear wide field-of-view headsets and are able to carry weapons and engage within a variety of virtual venues. The system can also administer muscle stimulation feedback to a participant's body, simulating injuries. This feedback mechanism, along with many other features, enhances the ability to hone individual skills and tactics and to participate in team exercises.Madsen, who has led research and development for the company since the 1980s, said the Dauntless system is being evaluated by defense and security organizations around the world and has received rave reviews."The Dauntless technology is quite compelling and readily engages users into very real scenarios," he said.The training system is the latest of many career achievements for Madsen. His work in the field began in sports biomechanics when he joined the Auburn faculty in 1978 and formed a close working relationship with Thomas McLaughlin, who had joined the faculty a year earlier.Through the mid-1980s, Madsen and McLaughlin's unique collaborative research combined biomechanics with engineering methods, influencing the development of advanced motion-capture technologies. In the early years, they used markers placed on subjects to monitor movement and create 3-D models. Information gathered from these studies led to specific training regimens used to train athletes on nearly every Auburn sports team, including Bo Jackson, Charles Barkley and Rowdy Gaines.In addition, the entrepreneurial team developed camera and analysis technologies to analyze the 3-D movements of racquetball and tennis players. This research fueled the optimization of racquet designs, contributing to the demise of the traditional wooden tennis racquet.Later, Madsen and McLaughlin employed video cameras and 3-D computer graphic displays to create better systems for analyzing human movement. Video motion capture was developed using software to track the movement of objects or people and create 3-D animated models."McLaughlin left academia around this time period and founded Motion Reality. He had envisioned even greater technological improvements and the private sector provided capital to advance the technology," Madsen said. "While I stayed at Auburn, McLaughlin asked that I lead the R&D effort at Motion Reality, which I was thrilled to do. This has allowed Motion Reality to serve as an employment gateway for many of my students."A motion capture laboratory was established on campus in the 1990s, with funding from Motion Reality and Auburn University, enabling Auburn Engineering students to obtain hands-on experience and secure jobs following graduation.Motion Reality teamed up with Acclaim Entertainment, a video game company, to pioneer the first use of the 3-D motions of live humans as templates for animated characters in video games. Brian Windsor, an Auburn University mechanical engineering graduate, joined Acclaim Entertainment and led the use of this approach in video games such as "NFL Quarterback Club" and "Mortal Kombat."A spinoff of this video game technology led to the creation of animated characters for feature films, including "Batman Forever," "Avatar" and "The Lord of the Rings." Madsen received an Academy Award for technical achievement in 2005 for the Motion Reality software used to create the characters for movies such as the blockbuster hit "The Lord of the Rings."Taking hardware and software to the next level, Motion Reality teamed up with TaylorMade-adidas Golf Company to develop 3-D golf swing analysis systems. These MATT-T systems capture human body and golf-swing data for the development of custom-fit golf clubs and for the improvement of golfers' swings. This technology development was another step toward later development of the immersive virtual reality VIRTSIM and Dauntless systems.Looking to the future, Madsen said he is excited about the possibilities of providing solutions for other areas, including medicine and robotics, and continuing his work as a professor.

It's 2016 and no one has discovered time travel yet, but Samuel Ginn College of Engineering students may have us traveling 760 miles per hour in the near future. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, known for his success with PayPal, Tesla Motors and most recently SpaceX, held an open competition in January for university students and engineering teams to design and build for his idea, the Hyperloop.

Mike Greene, an assistant professor of nutrition at Auburn University, is understandably concerned about the continued popularity of the Western diet.

Mario Eden finds joy in working alongside his chemical engineering graduate students to develop methods for solving interesting problems that no one else has been able to solve before.