Spectrum - Volume 21 Issue 09 October 22, 1998 - ACHIEVERS

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ACHIEVERS

Spectrum Volume 21 Issue 09 - October 22, 1998

Kent Holliday of Virginia Tech's music has received an ASCAP Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
The award is designed to assist and encourage writers of serious music. They are granted by an independent panel and are based on the unique prestige value of each writer's catalog of original compositions, as well as recent performances of those works in areas not surveyed by the society.
Panelists who make the decision included Jo Ann Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic, Long Beach Symphony, and Virginia Symphony; Tim Page, author and classical music critic for the Washington Post; and Fred Sherry, renowned cellist and member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Holliday has earned other musical honors, including having been selected as winner of the 1996 Virginia Music Teacher's Association/Music Teachers National Association Commissioned Composer Competition.
Several faculty members were honored for excellence in teaching during the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine's 15th Annual Awards Program.
Stephen Holladay, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, was presented the Norden Distinguished Teacher Award, a national award presented on the basis of "outstanding teaching ability, leadership and high moral character."
John Robertson, an associate professor in the department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology, earned the Class of 2001 Teacher of the Year Award; R. Lee Pyle, a professor in the department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, was awarded the Class of 2000 Teacher of the Year Award; and S. Dru Forrester, an associate professor in the department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences, and Jerry Roberson, an assistant professor in the department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, were co-presented the "Class of 1999 Teacher of the Year Award."
William "Terry" Swecker, an associate professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, was presented the College Teaching Award and a Virginia Tech Certificate of Teaching Excellence.
Also, 83 students were formally presented 35 different scholarships during the annual event, which seeks to recognize both the donors who fund the scholarships, and the students who earn them.
Jay Stipes , professor of plant pathology, was keynote luncheon speaker at the annual meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture in Charlottesville last month. He was also invited to speak on Dutch Elm Disease Management at the Third International Elm Conference sponsored by the Morton Arboretum, in Chicago on October 1. Thirteen nations were represented at the conference.
Several Virginia Tech faculty members are slated to participate as chairs and presenters during the Wireless Communications Conference and International Symposium on Microelectronics, to be held in San Diego, October 31-November 4.
Aicha Elshabini of electrical and computer engineering (ECpE) is co-chair of the wireless conference; Charles Bostian of ECpE serves as technical chair; and presenters and instructors include ECpE faculty Peter Athanas, Tim Pratt, Theodore Rappaport, Jeffrey Reed, Dennis Sweeney, Warren Stutzman, William Tranter, and College of Business faculty members Sheryl Ball and George Morgan .
Presenters at the microelectronics symposium include Fred Barlow and Elshabini of ECpE, D.P.H. Hasselman of materials science and engineering, James McGrath and M. Sankarapandian of chemistry, Doug Nelson from mechanical engineering, and Hideko Oyama of the Center for Science and Technology. The conference and symposium are sponsored by the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society.
Wolfgang Glasser, wood science professor in the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources, has been made a fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science. He is currently on sabbatical at the University of Kyoto in Japan.
Charles C. Stallings , professor and Extension dairy scientist, recently traveled to Turkey and Greece on a project sponsored by the U.S. Grains Council and the American Soybean Association. The project involves individual farm consultation, farm demonstrations and field days, technical reports, and seminars. A presentation titled "Bypass Protein and Use of Bypass Soybean Meal Products" was presented at Afyon, Turkey, and at Thessaloniki, Greece.
Three faculty members and one graduate student from Virginia Tech spent two weeks in July in Albania to develop a work plan for a $600,000 project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The project will establish an integrated-pest-management program for olive trees. The project is part of an Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program administered through Virginia Tech's Office of International Research and Development (OIRD). The participatory appraisal team consisted of eight members from three universities. Virginia Tech participants were Douglas G. Pfeiffer , associate professor of entomology; Greg Luther , entomologist and assistant program director for OIRD; Keith Moore , rural sociologist and assistant program director for OIRD; and Lefter Daku , a graduate student in the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics.
Andy Roberts , research associate in the Department of Entomology, visited Jamaica in June to meet with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute on an information systems project associated with the Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program. He returned in August to assist in a geographic-information-system workshop with the same group.
Four faculty members were funded this summer by the Virginia Small Grains Board to visit three research laboratories in England that have on-going projects investigating aphid-transmitted barley yellow dwarf virus. The group was investigating the issues involved in mounting a research effort to counter the virus, which is a problem in Virginia and most Eastern small grains growing states. The faculty members participating were Ames Herbert , associate professor and Extension entomologist; Mark Alley , professor of crop and soil environmental sciences; Glenn Chappell , area integrated-pest-management agent for Virginia Cooperative Extension; and Paul Davis , agricultural Extension agent with small-grains specialty area.
Jeffrey R. Bloomquist , associate professor of entomology, presented an invited paper on "Effects Of Insecticide Exposure on Behavioral and Neurochemical Biomarkers of Parkinsonism." The paper was presented in July at an international meeting in Oxford, England, called Neurotox '98: Progress in Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology of Pesticides and Drugs.
Chester L. Foy , professor of plant pathology, physiology and weed science, was presented the 1998 International Gamma Sigma Delta Distinguished Achievement in Agriculture Award. He is only the second award winner from the Virginia Tech chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta to win the highly competitive award.