June 21, 2007
Etc: News & Notes from around Campus
GERONTOLOGY GREAT: Nancy Hooyman, professor of gerontology and dean emeritus of the School of Social Work, gave the keynote address at the Korean Gerontological Society’s International Symposium recently, talking about trends in aging in the U.S. and implications for policy and practice. Hooyman joked that she was “treated like a gerontological rock star” at the conference, which focused on a comparative look at aging and the quality of life in the U.S., Korea and Great Britain. She also spoke about aging to more than 200 students at Kangnam University in Seoul.
Among Hooyman’s numerous publications are Living Through Loss: Interventions Across the Life Course and Social Gerontology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, now in its eighth edition. She commented that while Koreans were eager to learn about community-based care options in the U.S., we have much to learn from Korea, since its national government has just funded universal long-term care insurance and Koreans will have the longest life expectancy of people in any country within the next decade.
SOFTWARE SERVICE: The Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT) presented its Distinguished Service Award to David Notkin, the Frank & Wilma Bradley Chair in Computer Science & Engineering. This annual distinction recognizes a person who has “contributed important service to the software engineering community.” Notkin is currently on sabbatical in Sweden.
PSYCH HONORS: The Department of Psychology has announced its end-of-year award winners. Graduate Student Service Award recipients are Erika N. Feldman, Nicole L. Wilson and Jean C. Yi. This award honors graduate students, chosen by the Graduate Program Action Committee, who have consistently demonstrated service to the department as a whole and to the graduate student community specifically.
Kristyn Sakiko Funasaki and Cady Michelle Stanton are co-winners of the Guthrie Prize in Psychology. Funasaki’s paper, “Examining the Relationship between Sensation Seeking and 21st Birthday Alcohol Use,” was chosen as best empirical research paper. Stanton’s paper, “The Potential for Robots to Aid in the Social Development of Children with Autism,” was chosen as the best theory/review paper. This award honors meritorious undergraduate students.
Betty Repacholi, assistant professor in psychology’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, was honored by psychology’s Graduate Program Action Committee with the Davida Teller Distinguished Faculty Award for outstanding service to, and excellence in, graduate mentorship and training. The award is named in honor of Davida Teller who was an exemplary advocate for graduate and undergraduate mentorship and program development within the Department of Psychology and the psychology honors director for many years.
SPIDERMAN: The Burke Museum’s spider curator Rod Crawford recently contributed to the success of Bothell High School students in the annual Science Olympiad state competition. Through Crawford’s preparation and assistance in the area of insects, students Megan Lacy and her partner Emma Bishop won first place in the Entomology contest. As a team, Bothell High also won its first ever State Science Olympiad Championship.
BENEFIT MAN: Richard Zerbe, a professor in the Evans School of Public Affairs, was elected vice president of the newly formed Cost-Benefit Society. The society was founded at the recent Benefit-Cost Analysis Conference, which attracted benefit-cost analysis practitioners and some of the best known and most prolific benefit-cost analysts in the country.
FATHER-SON INNOVATORS: The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) has recognized Ted Bergstrom and Carl Bergstrom as SPARC Innovators. The father-son team advances the open sharing of scholarly information through original research and the creation of innovative tools that are used widely by the academic community to assess the value of research. Carl, a theoretical and evolutionary biologist, is an associate professor in the UW Department of Biology; his father teaches at UC Santa Barbara. To read in more detail about the Bergstroms’ contributions to scholarly publishing, please see the SPARC Innovator Web page at http://www.arl.org/sparc/innovator/.
OCEAN HONORS: Faculty and staff College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences award recipients are: For distinguished graduate teaching, Terrie Klinger, School of Marine Affairs, and Paul Quay, School of Oceanography; distinguished research, Carolyn Friedman, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences; and outstanding staff members, Rex Johnson, School of Oceanography, and Teri King, Washington Sea Grant.
APL ACHIEVEMENTS: Jim Thomson, oceanographer at the Applied Physics Lab, has won a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research. The award provides $100,000 in research funding per year for three years. Thomson’s winning proposal described the use of temperature differences to quantify the dominant physical processes in tidal flat regions, and part of the research money will go to build the system. Another APL oceanographer, Brian Dushaw, has won the Acoustical Society of America’s Medwin Prize in Acoustical Oceanography, which recognizes a researcher’s use of acoustical tools to detect and understand ocean processes over long distances.
Do you know someone who deserves kudos for an outstanding achievement, award, appointment or book publication? If so, send that person’s name, title and achievement to uweek@u.washington.edu.
