Spectrum - Volume 20 Issue 35 July 16, 1998 - ACHIEVERS

A non-profit publication of the Office of the University Relations of Virginia Tech,
including The Conductor , a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

ACHIEVERS

Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 35 - July 16, 1998

Twenty-five students in the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources have become the first undergraduate students in the nation to be trained as facilitators in three national environmental education programs. Facilitator training--the highest level of training in the national programs, Project Learning Tree, Project WET and Project WILD--qualifies the students to train other educators in six-hour workshops. Facilitator training is part of a new Natural Resources Education course taught for the first time spring semester by Natural Resources Educator Kathy Sevebeck and Assistant Professor Steve McMullin . Project WET, WILD, and Learning Tree are K-12 curriculum supplements about natural resources. For more information call Sevebeck 1-7670.
Robert "Bob" H. Giles Jr., professor of wildlife resource management, retired this month after serving Virginia Tech for three decades. His involvement in the field will continue as the newly elected president of the National Animal Damage Control Association. Giles plans to work with Foresters Inc. of Blacksburg in the area of resource management. He also has ongoing projects at his 20-acre wildlife refuge. He will continue writing a column for the Whitetail Times magazine published out of Richmond, consulting and will work with web pages. As the college expands its Northern Virginia offerings, Giles hopes to teach some of those courses.
Shep Zedaker , forestry professor, initiated a partnership with the Turkish Forest Service and hosted a delegation from its silviculture department. The visit culminated in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a reciprocal exchange visit. Burhanettin Seckin, head of the Turkish Forest Service Department of Silviculture, gave a lecture on forestry in his country to the college in May. The MOU, signed by College Dean Greg Brown and the Director General of the Turkish Forest Service, Hasan Basri Canli, calls for the development of a cooperative project between the college and the Turkish Forest Service to provide training and technology transfer to Turkey.
Bruce Zoecklein , assistant professor of food science and technology, was featured in an article in the spring 1998 issue of the California Agricultural Technology Institute Bulletin . The article highlighted his research on grape glycosides. Zoecklein has several research programs evaluating the influence of vineyard management and wine processing on plant-derived aroma and flavor precursors. His work was also featured in an article published in the American Vineyard , mailed to every grape grower in the US.

Susan Sumner , associate professor of food science and technology, presented a talk on "Food Allergens: What are they and why all the concern?" at the joint Mid-Atlantic and Virginia Food Processors Annual meeting in Ocean City, Md., March 30. She also organized and chaired the food-safety session. In addition, Sumner conducted a day-long training session on cheese processing and food-safety issues for the Department of Agriculture dairy and food inspectors in Virginia Beach April 9. She also organized a two-day meeting in Chicago that examined how Extension could further enhance food safety through a quality-control program called Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points (HACCP).

Cameron Hackney , professor and head of the Department of Food Science and Technology, and Tom Rippen, associate professor at the University of Maryland, spent nine days in Venezuela working with processors to implement a seafood-safety HACCP program.

S.K. DeDatta , was recognized by the Philippine Society of Soil Science and Technology for his contributions to soil science in the Philippines. The director of the Office of International Research and Development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, DeDatta was previously head of the agronomy department of the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.
President Paul Torgersen has been appointed to the National Academy of Engineers Academic Advisory Board . The board advises the academy on matters relating to engineering education and academic engineering research. Selected principally from leading universities, the advisory board assists the NAE in maintaining currency in engineering education.
Norrine Bailey Spencer was honored at the June meeting of the Virginia Executive Committee of the American Council on Education-Virginia Identification Program for her four years of leadership on the state committee. Spencer, associate dean for undergraduate programs, Pamplin College of Business, served as chair during the past year and as co-chair during 1994-1997 with Joyce Williams Green , former director of Black Studies at Virginia Tech. The ACE-VIP program is part of a national network of women who are administrators in higher education and who work to identify and advance women in administrative positions.
During Spencer's tenure, the Virginia program sponsored two state conferences, eight regional meetings, and an annual senior seminar series in which 25 Virginia women are selected to meet with top higher-education and government representatives from the state. The Virginia committee has been in continuous operation since ACE founded networks in each state in 1977 and is staffed completely with volunteers.
Jesus M. ("Chema") de la Garza , professor of civil engineering (CE), and CE graduate student P.T. Alcantara received the Best Paper Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers Technical Council on Computing Practices. The paper, "Using the Parameter Dependency Network to Represent Design Rationale," was published in the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering in April 1997.
Joseph Schetz , the J. Byron Maupin professor of engineering, has been selected to receive the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Air Breathing Propulsion Award for 1998. The award citation reads: "For recognition as a world-renowned researcher in the field of Air Breathing Propulsion working in the areas of ramjets/scramjets, base burning, and turbine engine aerodynamics and heat transfer." Schetz accepted the award on July 14 during the Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit in Cleveland, Ohio.
Michael Furey , professor of mechanical engineering, was elected as an honorary member of the Polish Tribology Society in "appreciation of his outstanding scientific achievements and merits in the field of friction, lubrication and wear." Furey is the first U.S. researcher and only the fourth person to receive this honor. For 13 years, Furey has worked with Polish researchers on tribopolymerization concepts that have led to four patents issued to Virginia Tech Intellectual Properties. Furey and his Polish colleagues also have formed a Virginia company, Tribochem International, Ltd., for the design and production of antiwear compounds and additives.
Ruth Smith , associate professor of marketing, gave a presentation, "Internet-Based Instruction in a Principles of Marketing Course," that was judged to be one of the three best talks at the Technological Innovations in Business Education Conference in Charlottesville this past spring. The judges were representatives from Price Waterhouse and faculty members at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce, who organized the conference. Lance Matheson , associate professor of management science and information technology, and David Tegarden , assistant professor of accounting and information systems, gave a joint presentation on "Technological Enhancements to Instruction in Business."
Public Radio WVTF won two state-wide and two national awards this summer The radio station won two awards from the Virginia Association of Broadcasters (VAB) for best news operation of the year in Virginia (for large markets) and best documentary and public affairs in Virginia (large markets). The station also took two national awards from the Public Radio News Directors Inc. this year for best coverage of a continuing news story for coverage of the elections in 97 and best spot and breaking-news coverage. In late May the station was given awards for best documentary, best feature and best commentary from the Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters (VAPB).
Harry M. Kriz , assistant to the dean of libraries for special projects and head of the Interlibrary Department published a paper entitled "ILLiad: Customer-Focused Interlibrary Loan Automation" in the Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Information Supply , Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 31-47 (1998) M. Jason Glover and Kevin Ford , former Virginia Tech employees, were co-authors of the paper. At the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in late June Kriz also presented a talk: "ILLiad: The Strategic Solution for Automated Interlibrary Borrowing."
Susan Tinsley Gooden , assistant professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy, was selected to present the keynote address at a reception unveiling the May 1998 issue of the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy. Held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, this event features one scholar per year. Gooden was recommended for the honor by the editorial board of the journal. Gooden's article, "All Things Not Being Equal: Differences in Caseworker Support Toward Black and White Welfare Clients," was published in the journal. She was introduced by William Julius Wilson as a "futuristic thinker in our understanding of the dynamics of welfare reform."
Gooden was also selected as a 1998-99 research visitor at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) in Madison, Wisconsin. IRP hosts two academic scholars per year to spend two weeks interacting with residence faculty members and becoming acquainted with IRP resources and projects.
Amy Simms , who earned her M.S. in industrial and systems engineering (ISE) in 1997, recently received the 1998 Institute of Industrial Engineers Graduate Research Award for the thesis she researched at Virginia Tech. Simms' thesis, "A Stochastic Approach to Modeling Aviation Security Problems Using the Knapsack Problem," co-advised by ISE faculty members John Kobza and Sheldon Jacobson , offers a new approach to improving the design and implementation of aviation security systems deployed at airports in the U.S.