Athens, Ga.
– Four University of Georgia
researchers have been named Fellows of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS
members by their peers.
The four UGA faculty members include R. Kelly Dawe, professor
and Georgia Research Alliance Lars G. Ljungdahl Distinguished Investigator in Plant Biology and Genetics; Daniel Promislow,
professor of genetics; Ying Xu, Regents Professor and Georgia Research Alliance
Eminent Scholar of Bioinformatics, all in the Franklin College of Arts and
Sciences; and Sarah F. Covert, associate professor of forest biotechnology in
the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
“The
university is enormously pleased that these four distinguished faculty have
been honored for their research accomplishments,” said David Lee, UGA vice
president for research. “Selection as an AAAS fellow is a major milestone in
the careers of our most talented scientists and important recognition of their
ground-breaking contributions that also brings distinction to the University of Georgia.”
This year, 471 AAAS members were awarded this honor as a
result of scientifically distinguished efforts to advance science or its
applications, according to the association. New fellows will be presented with a
certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin (the colors represent science and
engineering respectively) at a ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 16, during the 2008
AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.
Covert was recognized for “basic studies in plant pathology
concerning plant-fungal interactions and for innovative educational activities
in course development for practical skills in becoming a scientist;” Dawe for “distinguished
contributions to the field of plant biology, particularly for the molecular
cytogenetic analysis of plant centromeres and neocentromeres.”
The AAAS honored Promislow for “distinguished contributions
to our understanding of the evolutionary genetics of aging;” and Xu for “distinguished
contributions to the field of computational biology and bioinformatics,
particularly development of computational tools for gene finding, protein
structure prediction and genome studies.”
AAAS (www.aaas.org) is
the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science (www.scienemag.org). AAAS was founded in
1848 and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science,
serving 10 million individuals. Science
has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal
in the world, with an estimated total readership of one million. The non-profit
AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve
society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science
education and more.
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