Kudos

:: research survey ::

Kudos

English professor Kevin Dettmar has received a $118,892 grant to direct a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers in 2007. The six-week seminar will bring 15 teachers together with Dettmar in Dublin, Ireland, to study novelist James Joyce's masterpiece, Ulysses.

Ruth Anne Rehfeldt, associate professor with SIUC's Rehabilitation Institute, has been named editor of The Psychological Record, a national peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles on theory, research, historical developments, and current findings.

Physiologist Jena Steinle has been awarded a five-year, $750,000 grant from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Association to continue her investigations into whether a particular drug used in asthma treatment may offer a way to prevent diabetic retinopathy. A patent application has been filed on the potential advance.

Physicists Naushad Ali and Shane Stadler have received a four-year, $620,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to optimize and analyze alloys they have developed that are better than any others to date at producing a refrigeration effect without the use of compressed gases. Look for an article about this research in the Spring 2007 issue of Perspectives.

Y. Paul Chugh, a professor of mining and mineral resources, will spend time this fall as a Fulbright Senior Specialist at the top mining institution in India. Chugh will gather input from the nation's academic and mining industry leaders to further develop the Indian School of Mines' environmental science and engineering programs. An internationally known coal researcher, Chugh also will help the institution expand its research efforts. In December, Chugh will deliver a keynote lecture on the future role of coal around the globe to the International Coal Congress in New Delhi.

Poet Michael Meyerhofer, a new lecturer in English who earned his M.F.A. in creative writing from SIUC this past summer, was among only a score of younger poets whose work was chosen to appear in the anthology Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World (Three Candles Press, 2006). This year Meyerhofer also won the inaugural Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry, sponsored by Briery Creek Press, for his poetry collection Leaving Iowa. The book will be published this fall.

A University Museum exhibit curated by Linda M. Smith, a doctoral student in anthropology, has won the prestigious Leadership in History Award from the American Association for State and Local History. The honor was for the fall 2004 multimedia exhibit "Words, Wood & Wire: The History of Southern Illinois as Told Through Folk Songs and Musical Instruments." Smith is an ethnomusicologist and musician; her exhibit highlighted the research of David McIntosh, a late music professor who recorded the folk music of Southern Illinois in the 1930s—1950s.

Two graduate students in zoology, Andrew Trimble and Amanda Harwood, have been awarded prestigious $60,000 STAR Fellowships from the Environmental Protection Agency. Both are working in the lab of zoologist Michael Lydy, who investigates the effects of various water pollutants on aquatic organisms. A third STAR Fellow at the University, Brian Benscoter, is a doctoral student working with plant biologist Dale Vitt.

Plant scientist Bryan Young has received $880,000 from Monsanto Co. for research on agricultural weed management and the use of Roundup Ready crops (those engineered to be resistant to the company's Roundup herbicide). The work, part of a four-year, six-state study, will look at farmers' weed management practices and the benefits and risks of Roundup Ready cropping systems. Issues will include long-term ecological suitability.