Short Takes: People and programs at UAF

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: (907) 474-7902
07/07/06

College of Fellows to host ’Goodies in the Garden’
The University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fellows will host its annual fundraiser "Goodies in the Garden"? Tuesday, July 11 from 6-8 p.m. at the Georgeson Botanical Garden on the UAF campus. The event will feature country music, homemade desserts, ice cream, wine and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as the Georgeson garden experts. Tickets are $30 each or eight for $200 and are available through the UAF Advancement Services office at (907) 474-6631. Each ticket will be entered to win two round-trip tickets on Alaska Airlines. You must be present to win. Proceeds will go toward a roof for the Jim Drew Amphitheater at the gardens.

SFOS professor wins Tsunami Society award
Zygmunt Kowalik, a professor of physical oceanography at the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, has received the 2006 Tsunami Society Award for his three decades of work in numerical modeling of tsunamis. The award notes that Kowalik is a world leader in his field and that his techniques are used to predict tsunami threats in the Gulf and Atlantic Coast regions. The Tsunami Society is an international organization that aims to disseminate information about tsunamis and their hazards. Kowalik has been a member of UAF’s faculty since 1981 and has published numerous articles, including several on the Indonesian tsunami of 2004, as well as a book on the numerical modeling of ocean dynamics.

Microbiologist published in ’Science’
An article by Andrew Lang, a researcher at the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, was published in the June 2006 issue of Science magazine. Lang co-authored "Metagenomic analysis of coastal RNA virus communities" with Alexander Culley and Curtis Suttle of the University of British Columbia. The authors used genome sequencing to explore the little-known world of marine viruses and found that the oceans are a reservoir of previously unknown RNA viruses.

Sociology students present research at national conference
University of Alaska Fairbanks sociology undergraduates Cassandra Johnson and Terin Walton-Rantz recently presented their research at the Pacific Sociological Association’s annual meeting in Hollywood, Calif. in late April. Johnson’s paper was entitled "Masked Agenda? Superhero Comics and the Construction of Deviance."? Walton-Rantz’s presentation was entitled, "Deviant for a Day: Bigenderal Transgression."? Both students plan to pursue graduate studies.

Engineering professor earns multiple awards
Shirish Patil, associate professor of petroleum engineering at UAF, recently received the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ 2006 Western North American Region Service Award. The award recognizes Patil’s contributions to his profession and the society. In addition to this award, the Alaska Engineering Societies this spring named Patil the 2005 Alaska Engineer of the Year. The award was announced at the Engineer’s Week banquet in late February and came on the heels of Patil being named the 2005 Alaska SPE Engineer of the Year by the Alaska section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.