Spectrum - Volume 17 Issue 07 October 6, 1994 - Achievers

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including The Conductor , a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

Achievers

Spectrum Volume 17 Issue 07 - October 6, 1994

Norrine Bailey Spencer , associate dean, Pamplin College of Business, and Joyce Williams-Green ,director of Black Studies, have been named co-coordinators of the Virginia Executive Committee of the American Council on Education National Identification Program for the Advancement of Women in Higher Education Administration. Founded in 1977, the program established a system for the identification, recommendation, and advancement of woman administrators. In Virginia the group sponsors a network of institutional representatives, regional and state-wide conferences, and annual seminar series for senior woman administrators.

Michael Saffle

, professor of music, and Bruce Wallace , University Distinguished Professor of biology, were among 70 former Humboldt Fellows and award winners who met in Madison, Wisc., last month to establish an Alexander von Humboldt Association of the United States of America.

The German-based foundation awards fellowships and prizes in the natural sciences and the humanities to both promising young persons and established workers. The foundation was established in honor of the German naturalist and traveler Alexander von Humboldt.

The purpose of the newly established association in the United States is to tighten the connection of the Humboldt Foundation with American scientists and humanists. According to Wallace, it is expected that many local chapters will be formed within the association, largely on a campus-by-campus basis. Nearly a dozen former Humboldtians are on Virginia Tech's faculty.

As a local chapter, the Virginia Tech members could recommend to the association faculty members, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students who might qualify for study abroad. Saffle and Wallace will contact the former Humboldtians on the Tech campus to determine their interest in establishing a local chapter of the newly organized association. The chapter's main purpose would be to assure that scholars at Virginia Tech are not overlooked with respect to the fellowships and prizes awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Jaime de la Ree Lopez

, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, has been elected a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. Only about 8 percent of the institute's 320,000 members are elected to the rank of senior member, the institute's highest professional grade.

Harold Burkhart , the Thomas M. Brooks Professor of Forestry, was selected by an international committee to receive the Distinguished Statistical Ecologist Award by the INTECOL Statistical Ecology Group at the International Congress of Ecology in August in Manchester, England. The award recognizes his outstanding contributions to the development of basic concepts and applications of statistical ecology. Burkhart has done pioneering work on modeling the dynamics, growth, and yield of forest stands.

John Seiler, associate professor of forestry, has been recognized as a successful innovator in science, mathematics, and engineering education by the National Science Foundation (NSF). He was invited to attend a national conference of innovators in undergraduate education in Washington, D.C., to help implement large-scale reform in undergraduate education. NSF's goal is to make the U.S. first in the world in science and mathematics by the year 2000.

Bob Shaffer , associate professor of forestry, is the new vice president/president-elect of the Virginia Forestry Association. He is only the fourth person not employed by the forest industry to hold this position in the 1,800-member association since its founding in 1943.

Shaffer and Mike Aust , assistant professor of forestry, took first place in the technical writing competition of the Southeastern Technical Division of the American Pulpwood Association for their paper, "Cost/benefit comparison: voluntary U.S. regulatory BMP's."

Bill Stuart, associate professor of forestry who developed the latest prototype logging rig, has been awarded research funds to engage in a five-year project on forest harvesting. His work for integrating forest use with landscape impact sensitivities is known nationally and internationally.

Jim Burger

, professor of forestry, received a singular award for research from Gamma Sigma Delta, the honor society of agriculture.

Wolfgang Glasser , associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources, presented a scientific paper, "Structural Materials from Naturally Occurring Polymers," at the 208th American Chemical Society national meeting in Washington, D.C., in August. Glasser discussed how biochemically engineered materials could be designed on the basis of naturally occurring polymers and thus be biodegradable. Last spring he was invited to review the curriculum at the University of Malaysia. Glasser also visited Thailand to participate in the "Royal Project on Food Processing" and to visit King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok, where he observed several different demonstration development projects on food processing, bio-gas and waste treatment technology, and food processing additives.

Jhung-WonColby, Leopoldo G. Enriquez-Ibarra, and George J. Flick Jr. , of the Food Science and Technology Department, are the authors of a book chapter, "Shelf Life of Fish and Shellfish." The book, Shelf Life Studies of Foods and Beverages, Chemical, Biological and Nutritional Aspects , was published by Elsevier Science Publishers.

Wayne Moore , assistant professor of political science, was an invited participant in a Summer Seminar in Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory sponsored by the New York University School of Law in July.

Edward Falco , associate professor of English, had a short story, "The Artist," published in the October issue of The Atlantic Monthly .

Stephen K. White , professor of political science, is the author of the book Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics , published this year by Sage Publications. White's article, "Desperately Seeking Marie? (Antoinette)" was in the May 1994 issue of Political Theory .

Charles L. Taylor , professor of political science, was a visiting scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin this summer, editing two books on founding democratic elections in Hungary and (former) Czechoslovakia.

Jacqueline E. Bixler , associate professor of Spanish, presented two talks in Mexico. One was on "Emilio Carballido and Popular Theatre in Mexico," presented at the Second International Theatre Conference in Puebla. The second was part of a roundtable devoted to Carballido at the National Pedagogical University in Mexico City and was on "From Rosalba to Rosa: A Return to Pure Comedy."

Clifford A. Shaffer , associate professor of computer science, has had his entry, "GeoSim: A GIS-Based Simulation Laboratory for Introductory Geography" selected as one of the 13 recipients of the 1994 Undergraduate Computational Science Awards from Iowa State University's Ames Laboratory.

James Bohland,

chair of urban affairs and planning in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, delivered the keynote speech at the Virginia Association of Free Clinic's annual meeting in Richmond, Monday, Sept. 26. The address was entitled: "Health Reform and the Continued Role of Free Clinics."