Enhancing Academic Excellence 2024

Uncovering the building blocks of Mercury

Asmaa Boujibar, with purple latex gloves and purple highlights in her curly hair, stands smiling in her laboratory with two people working at a desk behind her.

Assistant Professor Asmaa Boujibar, in her WWU lab, was knighted by the King of Morocco for being the first Moroccan woman to work for NASA.

Assistant Professor of Geology Asmaa Boujibar and her graduate students have received a two-year, $300,000 grant from NASA to explore the secrets of the planet Mercury.

Mercury is very different from Earth and Mars; as the closest planet to the sun its daytime temperatures climb to near 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Mercury’s rocks also have far less oxygen and far more sulfur, meaning there are no analog rocks on Earth that can be used as proxies for Mercury.

Boujibar is able to produce in her lab the same chemistry, pressures and temperatures that are present on Mercury—creating a little slice of the planet on campus.

 

“We’re using laboratory data and what we know of Mercury’s geochemistry from the Messenger spacecraft to see what they can tell us about the formation of the planet,” Boujibar says.

NASA’s Messenger probe generated a mountain of data when it orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015. Boujibar and her students are using machine learning to process this large body of data and identify patterns unseen with traditional mathematical techniques.

Another spacecraft is set to begin orbiting Mercury in December 2025. “Our results will provide new hypotheses to test with data collected by this mission,” Boujibar says.

Accreditation team praises student inclusion and academic support

Two of Western’s major student support initiatives received special recognition this year during Western’s accreditation process.

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities highlighted both the Centers for Student Access, Community and Intercultural Engagement (known on campus as “The Centers”) and the Academic Advising & Student Achievement Center as examples of Western’s “commitment to student success.”

The Centers’ departments and programs support student retention, community-building, identity development, and intercultural co-curricular learning. Spanning the Multicultural Center and space in Wilson Library, the Centers’ departments include the Office of Multicultural Student Services, LGBTQ+ Western, and the Disability Access Center.

The Academic Advising & Student Achievement Center is Western’s primary undergraduate advising center, offering academic advising and planning services, learning assistance programs for academic and personal support, and outreach to support students with unique needs and identities.

The Academic Advising & Student Achievement Center serves all students, with extra attention on supporting the success of incoming students, particularly first-gen students, as well as others who need additional support. The AASAC, which launched Sept. 1, 2023, combines the strengths of two previous student resources, the Academic Advising Center and Student Outreach Services.

Words over a stairway in the Multicultural Center is 'nothing about us without us.'

The Multicultural Center houses Western's Centers for Student Access, Community and Intercultural Engagement.

Supply chain program ranks with the best in North America

WWU’s Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management Program is among the best undergraduate programs in North America, according to recent biennial rankings by Gartner Inc.

Western moved up five spots in the ranking, from 18th in 2022, to 13th. Gartner regularly surveys supply chain programs in the U.S. and Canada. This year, 52 undergraduate programs responded to the survey, and programs were judged on program scope, industry value and program size.

“It's humbling and exciting to see our program ranked so highly and alongside much larger supply chain management programs at flagship universities around the country,” says Program Director Peter Haug.

rows of boxes sit on conveyer belts

Grad student researching Alzheimer’s disease prevention

Jessi Gauvin, a graduate student in experimental psychology, is working in the neuroplasticity lab of Behavioral Neuroscience Professor Jacqueline Rose to explore new ways to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease.

Gauvin studies ferulic acid, an antioxidant compound commonly found in fruits, vegetables, coffee, and teas. According to Gauvin, new research suggests that antioxidants like ferulic acid might be linked to a delay in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease in some patients.

To study this link, Gauvin feeds ferulic acid to an Alzheimer’s model of a type of microscopic worm called C. elegans to observe whether it causes any changes in the behavior or receptor expression in the worms.

Jessi Gauvin

Jessi Gauvin