University honors 15 for research, creative efforts

The university honored 15 outstanding scholars at the annual Research Awards Banquet May 6. President Charles B. Knapp gave the keynote address at the event, and Vice President for Research Joe L. Key presented the awards.

Creative Research Awards

• William W. Stueck Jr., professor of history, received the Albert Christ-Janer Award. Stueck's most recent book, The Korean War: An International History, has been widely acclaimed. The Christ-Janer Award honors outstanding scholarly activity in the creative arts and humanities; the winner receives a framed Christ-Janer lithograph and $2,500.

• Susan R. Wessler, professor of botany and genetics, received the Lamar Dodd Award. Wessler's studies of transposable elements in corn have provided the basis for understanding the role played by these DNA elements in gene mutation, gene function and plant evolution. The Dodd Award recognizes outstanding scholarly or creative activity in the sciences; the winner receives a framed Lamar Dodd print and $2,500.

  
  

• Ileana Arias, associate professor of psychology, studies family violence. She has helped transform the field from a reliance on rhetoric to a reliance on empirical research. Arias has found that relationship violence is at least as common among dating couples as it is among married couples. She has also empirically established that victims' reports of violence are valid while perpetrators' reports are suspect.

• Michael L. Arnold, associate professor of genetics, has challenged the assumption that natural hybrids are unimportant in evolution. He reached his conclusions, in part, by developing new technologies to better examine genetic variability.

• Scott A. Brown, associate professor of physiology and pharmacology, has conducted research on canine and feline renal disease, a leading cause of death in pet dogs and cats. He was the first to treat dogs and cats suffering from kidney problems with renal micropuncture.

• Stefanie S. Jackson, associate professor of drawing and painting, was recognized for her exhibit titled Salvaged Memories, Vestiges of the Blues, recently on view at the City Gallery East in Atlanta. Jackson's works, which incorporate a "blues aesthetic," visually represent the physical and psychological experiences of African Americans.

• Mary Ann Moran, assistant professor in marine sciences, has examined long-held paradigms of global elemental cycling and marine microbial processes. Humic substances from Georgia's upland mountains, tree farms and agricultural lands contribute a large amount of organic matter and nutrients to coastal marshes and waters. Moran found that these compounds, dissolved in natural waters, contribute significantly to microbial growth and production.

• Branson W. Ritchie, an associate professor in small animal medicine, heads the Psittacine Disease Research Group, which studies viral diseases of companion birds. His research has produced a control for two deadly avian diseases and initial characterization of a third. Ritchie and his research team identified the cause of these diseases as viruses and then developed diagnostic tests and vaccines.

  
  

• Beuchat, professor of food science and technology at UGA's Center for Food Safety and Quality Enhancement, is an internationally recognized expert in food microbiology.

• Carlson, professor of mathematics, is a world-renowned expert in algebra, in particular in the study of cohomology of group representations (the "glue," in a sense, in a collection of elements acting on objects; for example, the set of rotations of a geometric figure).

• Miller, professor of entomology and genetics, conducts basic and applied research on baculoviruses, a diverse group of viruses that infect a variety of insects, from mosquitoes to cotton bollworms. Her research has helped develop host-specific and environmentally safe biopesticides.

• Thyer, professor of social work, conducts empirical research with immediate application in social work practice and education and behavioral clinical treatment, including anxiety disorders, behavior analysis and therapy, faculty and institutional productivity, and the validity and utility of licensure and regulatory examinations.

• William D. Branch, a professor of crop and soil sciences at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station in Tifton, received the Inventor's Award. Branch developed the first runner-type variety of peanut plant to be released by the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Station since the early 1980s: Georgia Runner, a high-yielding variety with a generally higher percentage of jumbo-sized seed.

  
  

• S. Jeffrey Underwood, a graduate student in the department of geography's Climatology Research Laboratory, is creating the first climatologies of wind-driven rain in the United States.

  The Carmon Award is presented to a UGA graduate student who uses computers in an innovative way. Underwood uses cutting-edge computer technology to manipulate large data sets and create new computer-based analysis tools to analyze the frequency, area, intensity, forcing mechanisms and seasonality of wind-driven rain.

  
  

• James Haglund, who received a doctorate in mathematics from UGA in 1993, received the Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award of $1,000 for outstanding graduate student research. Haglund was one of 15 NSF fellowship recipients nationwide and the first from UGA. He studies algebraic and enumerative combinatorics, analytic number theory, partition theory, hypergeometric series and orthogonal polynomials.