Jerry Gale

Jerry Gale, a long-time marriage and family therapy professor, was awarded the 2006 American Family Therapy Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Systems Research by the American Family Therapy Academy.

Gale, who heads the marriage and family therapy doctoral program in the child and family development department of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, was presented the award at the AFTA annual meeting in Chicago in June.

Gale is a member of the UGA Qualitative Interest Group. His other areas of research have included narrative approaches to therapy, discourse analysis, improvisation in teaching and therapy, attachment of families with adopted children, family mediation and hypnosis and family therapy. He also maintains a part-time private practice
with Athens Associates for Counseling and Psychotherapy.

Stephen Hubbell

Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., awarded an honorary doctor of science degree in June to UGA Distinguished Research Professor of Plant Biology Stephen P. Hubbell. The award is the latest for the internationally recognized plant biologist.

Hubbell is a 1963 graduate of Carleton, and his research on tropical rainforests and theoretical ecology has made him known worldwide. Also a senior staff scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Hubbell is the author of three books and more than 130 scientific papers on tropical plant ecology, theoretical ecology, plant-animal interactions and numerous other areas of inquiry.

Thomas Lauth

Thomas P. Lauth, dean of the School of Public and International Affairs, was appointed by U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker to the Comptroller General’s Educators’ Advisory Panel.

Comprised of deans of the nation’s top public administration and policy schools, the advisory panel receives briefings on current activities of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, advises the Comptroller General on the top fiscal challenges facing the nation and consults with GAO on its recruitment of students from public administration and policy schools.

UGA Regents Professor Bernard C. Patten won the 2006 Senior Researcher Prigogine Medal for his work on nature’s invisible pathways of energy and matter transfer.

Bernard Patten

Patten received the medal—jointly awarded by Siena University, Italy and the Wessex Institute of Technology, United Kingdom—during the fourth international conference on urban regeneration and sustainability held in July in Tallinn, Estonia. Patten also served as keynote speaker.

Patten has taught and pursued a nontraditional kind of ecology known as systems ecology for almost 40 years at UGA’s Institute of Ecology.