The Classified Employees Advisory Council and the Professional Employees Advisory Council have announced the University of Maine’s outstanding employees of the year.

CEAC employees selected for 2012 awards are Dianne Perro, the administrative assistant for the Department of Earth Sciences, and Nancy Michaud, a library assistant II in the Science & Engineering Department at Fogler Library.
PEAC has named Dominick Varney, who works in the UMaine Explorations Program as an academic adviser, coordinator of the Academic Recovery Program and coordinator of Foundations, and Larry Parent, assistant director for operations, and senior research and development program manager in the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, as the 2012 outstanding employees of the year.

The science website Adventures in Climate Change has posted a recent blog from a University of Maine Climate Change Institute team currently doing fieldwork in Alaska’s Denali National Park. Seth Campbell, a graduate student in the UMaine Climate Change Institute, is leading the expedition and this week posted his second blog updating the status of his team’s work on the Traleika and Muldow glaciers.

Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756

Dorothy Klimis-Zacas, UMaine professor of food science and human nutrition, has been awarded a Senior Fulbright Specialist grant in agriculture, which will enable her to continue her research on the health benefits of wild blueberries at the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department at the University of Milan in Italy. In 2007 she received a Senior Fulbright Specialist grant to research and teach at the University of Milan, where she has been conducting human trials on the effects of wild blueberries on inflammation and endothelial function as related to cardiovascular disease.

Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756

The Bangor Daily News carried an article about University of Maine senior Samantha Paradis of Frenchville, who graduated last Saturday summa cum laude with degrees in nursing and psychology. Her mother Stacy Paradis will receive a degree in rural public safety May 12 at the University of Maine at Fort Kent, while her sister Sarah graduates as the honor essayist from Wisdom High School.

Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756

The College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture announces the winners of this year’s graduate student awards.

Vanessa Coats

The Norris Charles Clements Graduate Student Award—Vanessa Coats

Vanessa Coats is a Ph.D. student in biochemistry and molecular biology who is investigating the invasive plant Japanese barberry. Vanessa’s research is breaking new ground by using high-throughput gene sequencing to identify symbiont diversity associated with this invasive ornamental plant. Her research addresses the very practical and important problem of how to prevent and control the spread of invasive plant species in Maine and New England. (Advisor: Mary E. Rumpho-Kennedy)

Kristin Gabor

George F. Dow Graduate Scholarship Fund—Kristin A. Gabor

Kristin Gabor, an IPh.D. student in biomedical sciences, is examining the innate antiviral immune response to viral infection at the single molecule level. All of her studies were conducted in the zebrafish model, and the results of these studies can be transferred and extended to economically important aquatic organisms, such as finfish and shellfish. (Advisors: Carol Kim and Samuel Hess)

Jeremy Charette

Fred Griffee Memorial Award—Jeremy Charette

Jeremy Charette is a Ph.D. degree candidate in biomedical sciences. His research is attempting to characterize the innate immune response of zebrafish to pathogen infection. By using zebrafish as a model, this research can identify targets for immunostimulants and vaccines to help prevent economic loss due to pathogen infection in Maine’s aquaculture industry. (Advisor: Carol Kim)

Megan Wibberly

Outstanding Master’s Degree Student Award—Megan Wibberly

Megan Wibberly is a master’s degree student in the School of Economics whose research focuses on Mainers’ views about environmental and energy-related issues.  Her research and education had an interdisciplinary theme, which included coursework in anthropology, communications, and psychology. Megan has exceeded the expectations of her advisors with her creative conceptualization of research problems. She has also mentored undergraduate and high school students, guest-lectured in undergraduate economics classes, and tutored both undergraduate and graduate students. Megan is a Graduate Student Government senator and the student representative to SOE faculty meetings. (Advisor: Mario Teisl)

Aaron Putnam

Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award—Aaron E. Putnam

Aaron Putnam is a Ph.D. student in earth sciences whose research involves reconstructing the evolution of mountain glaciers since the last ice age. Based on data gathered in his 90 weeks of fieldwork in several different countries, Aaron has helped develop state-of-the-art techniques for mapping and exposure-dating of moraines deposited by mountain glaciers. These techniques enable the evaluation of theories of past climate changes. While still a graduate student, he has been lead or co-author on 12 journal articles, including three in Science and one in Nature. Aaron has presented his research at numerous national and international meetings, delivered guest lectures at several universities, and has collaborated with the American Museum of Natural History to produce a documentary film about UMaine research in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Aaron has recently taken a postdoctoral position at Columbia University in New York. (Advisor: George Denton)

Brianna Hughes

Outstanding Service Award

Brianna Hughes, a Ph.D. candidate in food and nutrition sciences, has been an exceptional contributor to her department, university, and profession. Brianna has volunteered many hours for the Consumer Testing Center in the Department of Food Science and Nutrition and has been an active mentor of undergraduate students. Brianna serves the university through her role as Graduate Student Government’s representative to the Board of Trustees, a role she has fulfilled with great energy and success. President Ferguson has recently appointed Brianna as the grad student member of the Strategic Planning Leadership Team—one of two student members. Brianna also volunteers at the Northeast Institute of Food Technologists meetings and the Food Industry Expo; she is vice president of the Food Science Club and president of Golden Key International Honour Society. (Advisor: Denise Skonberg)

Bess Koffman

Graduate Research Excellence Award—Bess Koffman

Bess Koffman is a Ph.D. student in earth sciences who is studying the role of atmospheric dust in the climate system. Bess’s research addresses one of the most fundamental problems in climate science: the controls of atmospheric carbon dioxide on different time scales. To study this problem, Bess has spent significant time in Antarctica and has developed a new analytical system to process recovered ice cores. The instrumentation that Bess developed is regarded as state-of-the-art and is now being duplicated by other laboratories worldwide. As a result, Bess is now recognized in the international climate community as an expert in ice core geochemistry. (Advisor: Karl Kreutz)