IN THIS ISSUE: ACES | EDUCATION | ENGINEERING | FAA | LAS | MEDIA
agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences
Jack Widholm, professor emeritus of plant physiology in the department of crop sciences, has received the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Society for In Vitro Biology. This award is the highest honor given by the society and is presented annually to a scientist who is considered a pioneer in the science and art of cell culture.
Widholm’s laboratory was the first to report the regeneration of soybean plants. Other firsts include isolating and characterizing biochemical plant cell mutants, growing higher plant cells photoautotrophically at a rapid growth rate, developing viability stains for cultured cells, and showing that most corn inbreds could be regenerated by changing the culture conditions.
education
Richard Anderson, professor of educational psychology and director of the UI Center for the Study of Reading, was a panelist on the National Academy of Education’s policy forum titled “Education Policy in Transition: A Briefing on the National Academy of Education” in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 18. The forum featured researchers, policy leaders and advisers to President-elect Barack Obama and his congressional staff in a discussion of some of the most urgent issues in education policy.
engineering
John A. Rogers, the Lee J. Flory Founder Chair in Engineering Innovation at Illinois, has been selected as a National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellow. Rogers, who is a professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry, is one of six distinguished university faculty scientists and engineers forming the 2009 class of the faculty fellows program. The program provides grants to top-tier researchers from U.S. universities to conduct long-term, unclassified, basic research involving the most challenging technical issues facing the Department of Defense.
fine and applied arts
The UI ranks fourth among “Universities With 10 or More Licensed African-American Graduates,” according to a report in the fall 2008 issue of NOMA Magazine. The magazine is a publication of the National Organization of Minority Architects. In its ranking process, the magazine considered all accredited programs at American collegiate schools of architecture.
The report tallied the number of individual graduates from the UI School of Architecture at 53.
Total counts included non-professional degrees, master’s degrees and doctorates; individuals are counted one time only, even if they received multiple degrees from the same institution.
The Pacifica Quartet, the faculty quartet in residence at the UI, has been recognized as Ensemble of the Year by Musical America.
The annual directory and online site – regarded as the bible of the performing arts industry – hailed Pacifica as “a model string quartet of the 21st century.”
Musical America also applauded the ensemble for its “open-minded approach to repertory” that “embraces both venerable and modern masters, overlooked gems and brand-new works.”
The members of the quartet are Sibbi Bernhardsson and Simin Ganatra, violin; Masumi Per Rostad, viola; and Brandon Vamos, cello.
liberal arts and sciences
Martin Gruebele, the James R. Eiszner Endowed Professor of Chemistry, has been awarded the 2008 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences. The award, given by Tel Aviv University, was established to support and recognize dedication to science, originality and excellence. The Sackler Prize is intended for young scientists, under the age of 45, who have made outstanding and fundamental contributions in their fields. Prizes are awarded each year in the disciplines of either physics or chemistry. Gruebele will receive the prize next spring.
John Katzenellenbogen, the Swanlund Professor of Chemistry, has received the Leading Edge in Basic Science Award from the Society for Toxicology. The award recognizes a scientist who has made a recent seminal scientific research contribution/advance to understanding fundamental mechanisms of toxicity. Katzenellenbogen will receive a plaque and a cash award at the awards ceremony, which will be held in March in conjunction with the 2009 SOT Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
Ralph G. Nuzzo, professor of chemistry, has been named to the G.L. Clark Professorship in Analytical Chemistry. He has earned this honor through his extensive work in the field of materials and surface chemistry. Nuzzo’s research and contributions to the science of self-assembly has led to major scientific advancements earning national attention.
media
The National Communication Association recently announced that Kent Ono, UI professor of communication and of Asian American Studies, and John M. Sloop, from Vanderbilt University, are the 2008 winners of the Charles H. Woolbert Research Award.
Ono and Sloop were selected based on their article “The Critique of Vernacular Discourse” which appeared in the 1995 edition of Communication Monographs. The selection committee felt that the essay “has stood the test of time and become a stimulus for new conceptualizations of communication phenomena.” The award is presented to an association member who has published a journal article or book chapter that has stood the test of time and has become the stimulus for new conceptualizations of speech communication phenomena. All entries were read and reviewed by a selection committee comprised of college professors from around the country.