Notables

Richard B. Root, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, will receive the 2003 Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America (ESA) at the organization's annual meeting Aug. 3-8 in Savannah, Ga. The award is given annually to a senior scientist "in recognition of an outstanding body of ecological work or of sustained ecological contributions of extraordinary merit." Root's research focuses on the relationships between herbivorous insects and plant communities. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1971 as an assistant professor of ecology in the Department of Ecology and still holds a joint appointment in that department. Previous Cornell recipients of the ESA award include Nelson Hairston (1991), the Rhodes Professor of Environmental Science and current chair of ecology and evolutionary biology; and Gene Likens, the adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and director of the Institute of Ecosystems Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., and a former professor of biological sciences and chair of the old Section of Ecosystems Studies.

Martin Wiedmann, assistant professor of food science, has received the 2003 Samuel Cate Prescott Award, given at the Institute for Food Technologists (IFT) convention in Chicago on July 12. The Prescott Award is given to honor an IFT member who has shown outstanding ability in research in food science and technology. Wiedmann's research integrates basic and applied components that prepare the food industry for future challenges in microbial product quality and food safety, according to the IFT. The group also cited his leadership in applying modern molecular biology and genomics to study foodborne pathogens and spoilage mechanisms. Since joining the food science faculty in 1999, Wiedmann's major focus is the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, which he has demonstrated as a model for pathogen transmission along the food chain. Wiedmann was a member of the Listeria Working Group, which was honored by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Award for Superior Service in 2000 for detection of a multistate listeriosis outbreak.

The book Landscape Ecology, Theory and Application (Springer-Verlag, New York), authored by Arthur S. Lieberman, Cornell professor emeritus of physical environmental quality, and Zev Naveh, professor emeritus at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has been published this year in Chinese and Spanish, respectively, by Xian Map Publishing House in the Republic of China and the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. In the latter book, two chapters were added by three Latin American ecologists dealing with the dynamic conservation management of the Tropical Andes and Pampas landscapes. The original book, published in 1984, was the first English language monograph on the emerging science of landscape ecology. It was followed by a Special Student Edition in 1990 and a second slightly revised and enlarged edition published in 1994, which is now out of print.

The Asahi Glass Foundation has announced that Gene E. Likens, adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, is a co-recipient of the 2003 Blue Planet Award for outstanding scientific research that helps to solve global environmental problems. Likens was the Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences in the Section of Ecology and Systematics at Cornell in 1983 and he served as chair of the section during 1982-83. He left in 1983 to become the director of the Institute of Ecosystem Studies, which he founded, in Millbrook, N.Y. Likens was awarded the distinction along with F. Herbert Bormann, his collaborator at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire. The Blue Planet Award recognizes the role that Likens and Bormann have played in understanding human impacts on ecosystems and informing national decisions regarding the management of air, land and water resources.