Bear Briefs

UM Hires New Executive Chef—After an extensive national search, UM has hired a new executive chef. Monty Colby will take over the position in early fall semester, University Dining Services Director Mark LoParco announced recently. Colby comes to UM with a strong background in the hotel and hospitality industry. He has staked out an identity as a culinary trailblazer. His most recent position was executive chef at the Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in Visalia, Calif. Colby’s innovative influence will be felt throughout all UDS restaurants, especially University Catering Services. To learn more about Colby and see some of his original culinary creations, go to http://www.umt.edu/uds.

Montana Shares $6 Million Grant—The National Science Foundation has awarded Montana and Kentucky a $6 million grant to install and monitor water-quality sensors in freshwater lakes and streams in both states. The project — developed and funded through NSF’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, or EPSCoR — will manage new and historical data at two of the country’s most successful biological field stations, UM’s Flathead Lake Biological Station in northwestern Montana and Hancock Biological Station on Kentucky Lake in western Kentucky. Richard Hauer, limnology professor at UM, and Barbara Kucera, deputy director of the Center for Computational Sciences at the University of Kentucky, will head up the project, which will include employees from UM, Montana State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Murray State University and Eastern Kentucky University.

Legal Counsel Teaches Fulbright Seminar—David Aronofsky, UM legal counsel and adjunct law faculty member, has just finished teaching a graduate law seminar in Montevideo, Uruguay, as part of his second Fulbright Senior Specialist award. The seminar, which Aronofsky taught in Spanish using U.S. case materials, is part of a new Catholic University of Uruguay Law School master’s program in contract law for attorneys, judges and professors. While in Uruguay, Aronofsky also taught an undergraduate course at the University of Montevideo Law School, where he has been a regular visiting faculty member during the past nine years.

Native Laboratory Wins Biofuels Grant—UM’s Native American Research Laboratory soon will begin work on a novel biofuels technology aimed at making cellulosic ethanol production more efficient. Research Assistant Professor and NARL Director Michael Ceballos recently received an EArly concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) from the National Science Foundation to develop a unique enzyme technology that was originally developed at the NASA Ames Research Center. The two-year grant is for $300,000, with an option for a one-year renewal. In collaboration with NASA scientists, Ceballos will direct a significant research effort over the next three years to demonstrate that specialized enzyme platforms can increase the efficiency of cellulose deconstruction.