University Times

Stephen Farber, a professor of public and urban affairs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), has been appointed to a National Academy of Sciences panel for a year-long review of Louisiana's coastal management plan.

The panel comprises economists, engineers, ecologists, biologists and public management professionals. Members will meet as a group for the first time Dec. 12-14 in New Orleans.

Farber, also director of environmental policy studies at Pitt's University Center for Social and Urban Research, is GSPIA's director of public and urban affairs.

Farber's work in ecological economics includes the valuation of natural systems. He has published in Ecological Economics, Nature and Science. Farber has a five-year grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to evaluate wetlands remediation projects in coastal Louisiana.

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Rebecca P. Hughey, associate professor of medicine in the renal-electrolyte division at Pitt's School of Medicine, has been appointed to the Physiological Chemistry Study Section of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review (CSR). The CSR is responsible for peer reviewing every grant application received by the NIH.

Hughey will review applications focused on the structure, physiological function and enzymology of a number of cellular systems.

Hughey will serve on the study section for four years. During this time, the section will review and rank NIH grant applications based on scientific merit and provide feedback to the proposals' authors.

Based on recommendations and rankings by the study group, the top half of the proposals will then be considered for funding by the Institute Advisory Councils.

Hughey is a member of the American Society for Cell Biology and American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Her research focuses on the mechanisms involved in apical targeting of newly synthesized proteins and their subsequent recycling at that surface.

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Thoracic surgeon Rodney Landreneau has joined UPMC Cancer Centers as director of the Comprehensive Lung Center at UPMC Shadyside.

Landreneau comes to UPMC Cancer Centers from Allegheny General Hospital where he served as director of the Center for Lung and Thoracic Diseases. Prior to his position there, he had been with the UPMC Health System for five years as co-director of the Lung Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI).

Landreneau will be working with James Luketich, chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at UPMC. They will focus on comprehensive, multi-specialty evaluation and treatment of all non-cardiac diseases of the chest, including lung and esophageal cancers, as well as benign diseases such as gastro-esophageal reflux disease.

After obtaining his medical degree from Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans, Landreneau went on to complete his medical training at Parkland Memorial Hospital at the University of Texas, Dallas and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery and is widely published in prominent thoracic surgery journals.

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Richard F. Melka and Yong-Zhuo Chen, professors of mathematics at the Bradford campus, received recognition in the October issue of Mathematics Magazine for solving a problem that the magazine had proposed.

The proposed problem, said Melka, who also is chairman of the math, computer science and engineering department, "was to evaluate an infinite sequence of mathematical formulas. Each formula is defined by the preceding one."

Melka and Chen were among several mathematicians who were successful in solving the problem. That group included one mathematician each from France, Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Italy, Hungary, Greece, Germany and Canada and nine from the United States, Melka said.

Mathematics Magazine is the official publication of the Mathematical Association of America, which is the world's largest organization targeting the interests of math professionals at the collegiate level.

Melka has been teaching at Pitt-Bradford since 1976. Chen started teaching at the college in 1989.

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Margo B. Holm, professor, Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS), has joined the "Caregiving for Individuals With Disabilities" panel at the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Human Development (RCI) at Georgia Southwestern State University, part of the newly established Johnson & Johnson/Rosalynn Carter Caregivers Program. Holm is one of 12 experts participating in the panel.

This advisory panel brings together a group of national experts to address a range of caregiving challenges and disability issues, including diagnosis and family dynamics, and family caregivers as members of the treatment team. Holm addressed "Emerging Technology as a Support for Caregivers of an Individual With a Disability."

Holm is director of post-professional education in the occupational therapy department, and holds secondary appointments in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. She has served on several Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (formerly the Health Care Financing Administration) technical expert panels and has testified before the U.S. Subcommittee on Populations of the Vital and Health Statistics Committee.

Additional panels are convening to address a range of other caregiving issues, such as caring for a loved one with cancer or Alzheimer's disease. A new caregiving book series is being developed by the RCI following the panels; one book will be created from each panel meeting.

Through research, education and training, RCI promotes the mental health and well-being of individuals, families and professional caregivers; encourages effective caregiving practices; builds public awareness of caregiving needs, and advances public and social policies that enhance caring communities.

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Two Pitt faculty members are among the 291 new 2002 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows, AAAS announced in the Oct. 25 edition of Science.

Pitt's new AAAS Fellows are:

* Jose-Marie Griffiths, the Doreen E. Boyce Chair and Professor of Information Science, Library Science and Telecommunications and director of the Sara Fine Institute for Interpersonal Behavior and Technology in Pitt's School of Information Sciences. She was nominated by the AAAS section on information, computing and communication.

AAAS selected Griffiths for her "leadership in information science education and information policy and for research in the economics and impacts of the changing scholarly communication system."

* Peter Wipf, professor in the Department of Chemistry in the Faculty and College of Arts and Sciences, who was nominated by the AAAS chemistry section.

AAAS selected Wipf for his "outstanding contributions to alkaloid synthesis, heterocyclic and organometallic synthetic methodology development, and combinatorial chemistry."

Election as a fellow of AAAS is an honor bestowed upon members by their peers. Potential new fellows are nominated by AAAS steering groups, by the AAAS chief executive officer or by any three current fellows, as long as two of the three are not affiliated with the same organization as the nominee. The tradition of AAAS Fellows distinction began in 1874.

Founded in 1848, the AAAS has worked to advance science for human well-being through its projects, programs and publications in the areas of science policy, science education and international scientific cooperation. With more than 134,000 members from 130 countries and 272 affiliated societies comprising more than 10 million individual members, AAAS is the world's largest federation of scientists.

The association also publishes Science, an editorially independent, multidisciplinary, weekly peer-reviewed journal that ranks among the world's most prestigious scientific journals.