Oregon Graduate Institute of Science & Technology

12/01/2025

Bets Rasmussen's research into collecting breath samples from marine animals was featured in the Oregonian Science section on July 3, 2002. Her method was similar to breath tests done at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. The article was posted in an outpatient room to help kids feel that even dolphins think breath tests are cool. Bets signed the article, “To all the kids @ OHSU, Breathe well!”

10/09/2025

The memorial gathering for John Hunt will be on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time at UUCCWC church, 6815 NE Birch St, Hillsboro, Oregon 97124. It will also be on Zoom:

09/12/2025

John Hunt, a long-time OGI senior technical staff member and much-loved and respected co-worker, died on Sunday, September 7, 2025. Memorial details:

View John Mark Hunt's obituary, contribute to their memorial, see their funeral service details, and more.

08/30/2025

We were saddened to learn that Michael Wilkin, an OGI marine technician, recently passed away on May 16, 2025. You can read a wonderful article about him at https://outoftheboxblog.org/2025/05/25/a-man-of-few-words/

11/12/2024

David Maier, Ph.D. was recently featured in a High Impact in Databases episode on Disseminate: The Computer Science Research Podcast. David joined OGI's Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 1988 as a professor. He currently is a Maseeh Professor Emeritus of Emerging Technologies at Portland State University.

Tune in to hear David's story and learn about some of his most impactful work at https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YQK6CRulVDZNWARq3TkLq

08/16/2024

During the summer of 2001, we had a "Last Day of OGI " party before merging with OHSU. (23 years sure goes by fast.) There was food, drinks and special t-shirts made to commemorate the event. If our memory serves us correctly, Deb Siscarett designed them. Here she is lying on the grass with the graduate education department. Can you help identify the people in the photo?

08/10/2024

Where are they now? Andrew Black, Ph.D.

Andrew is an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. He was a guest speaker at the Papers We Love Conference in St. Lois, Missouri in 2023. Watch his talk "Why Programming Languages Matter" at https://youtu.be/JqYCt9rTG8g?si=MSAQuGr1EHvokhgP

During his time at OGI, Andrew was a professor and the department head of Computer Science and Engineering from 1994 – 1999. According to his CV on the PSU website, he "doubled enrollments in educational programs and founded, in collaboration with three state Universities, the Oregon Master of Software Engineering degree program. Concurrently, we in creased per-capita research income, hired 12 new faculty members, and moved the department into a new building.”

08/03/2024

The OGI faculty and students were not only brilliant scientists but pretty good musicians. This band had ECE Professor Michael Macon on the accordion. We think that's grad students Dan Gareau (far left) and Ameer Tavakoli (far right). Do you know the other two in the photo?

07/27/2024

The OGI marketing team had some interesting ways to promote the school over the years. One of them was the creation of scientific trading cards. Here's a story about them in the Dallas Morning News from November 1, 1991. (We apologize for not having Rick Johnson's card mentioned in the story. Maybe someone has one they can share in the comments.)

`YOU`LL TRADE ONE RYNE SANDBERG CARD FOR . . . WHAT?`

Unlike Texas Rangers star Julio Franco, Richard Johnson, Ph.D., didn't bat about .340, didn't get 180 hits this year and doesn't play second base.

He isn't even sure who Julio Franco is. But Richard Johnson does have his own trading card.

Johnson is an environmental scientist and assistant professor at the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in Beaverton. His 3-by-4- inch trading card is among the first the small school-and possibly the first that anyone-has issued in honor of scientists.

”I don't know why they chose me,” Johnson said from his office near Portland. ”Maybe it's because they had my picture and didn't have pictures of any others.”

The trading cards were created by Bob Applegate, public relations director at the Oregon institute, and inaugurated recently.

”OGI is a small institution, and we try to do whatever we can to get media attention,” Johnson said. ”This is as new and different as you can get.”

Eventually the school, which has 125 faculty members, will feature all of its instructors on trading cards, to be issued monthly. The first set included Johnson, chemist David Grainger and institute President Dwight Sangrey.

The scientific trading cards are just like their baseball counterparts. The front has a picture of the honored scientist at work-in Johnson's case, he's standing in an artificial aquifer he helped build. On the back are personal and professional statistics.

You won`t find height and weight listed there, but you do find out that Johnson likes snow skiing and hiking and that he has had articles appear in numerous publications, including the journal Ground Water.

Johnson hasn`t had much time to adjust to his celebrity status: ”I didn`t even know they were coming out until someone asked me to sign their card. Then I came back to my office and one was taped to my door.”

But the professor has given some thought to the precedent set by the trading cards. He predicted that other schools will copy the idea, and he speculated that there might be bidding wars for cards among faculty members at different schools.

”Maybe this will catch on. . . . Maybe we`ll have to get agents before long.”

Note: The article was reposted in the Chicago Tribune at https://www.chicagotribune.com/1991/11/01/youll-trade-one-ryne-sandberg-card-for-what/

07/21/2024

Bob Turpin, a senior research engineer, is photographed for an Oregonian article in 1986. The story is about OGC receiving a $50,000 grant from the National Coastal Resources Institute in Newport to research welding that will make shipbuilding and repair more efficient.

07/19/2024

Ever wonder who was the first woman that was a graduate student at OGC? According to a 1969 Oregonian newspaper clipping, it was Bari Earl.

"A chemist, Bari Earl is the only woman student at the Oregon Graduate Center, which welcomed its first students last month."

07/04/2024

Happy 4th of July! Stopped by the old campus today. The construction of high density housing makes it almost unrecognizable.