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July 21, 2003
Awards and Honors
Librarian Christy
Hightower receives lifetime achievement award
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Christy Hightower accepting her lifetime achievement
award from the American Society for Engineering Education
Photo: Harold Colson |
Engineering librarian Christy Hightower has received a prestigious
lifetime achievement award from the American
Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).
The Homer I. Bernhardt Distinguished Service Award is presented to
leaders in engineering librarianship who have made exceptional contributions
to the profession through service, scholarship, mentoring, and innovation.
Hightower traveled to Nashville in late June to accept the award at
the 2003 ASEE Annual Conference.
Past recipients of the award include Clifford Lynch, former director
of library automation at the University of California Office of the
President, and now director of the Coalition for Networked Information
in Washington, D.C. Lynch developed the MELVYL system for UC libraries.
Hightower was cited for her leadership in developing web usability,
her pioneering work in federated searching, and her role as an influential
evaluator of electronic resources. ASEE Award Committee chair Greg Raschke
noted that one of her best-known achievements is the creation of Database
Advisor, a multi-database search engine that takes keywords and executes
a search in more than 30 bibliographic databases, providing results
ranked by the number of hits. This particular search engine was so successful
that the California Digital Library (CDL) eventually used it as the
foundation for a UC product called SearchLight.
"This award is especially meaningful because it comes from my
peers, which means it comes from an insider's knowledge of that which
is recognized--an appreciation of the challenges as well as the successes,"
Hightower said. "As libraries work to reinvent ourselves in the
digital environment, it is very important to have the support to try
new things."
The American Society for Engineering Education is a nonprofit member
association composed of more than 12,000 deans, professors, instructors,
students, and industry representatives. The organization is dedicated
to promoting and improving engineering and technology education.
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Economist K. C. Fung
investigating Pacific regional trade
K. C. Fung, professor of economics, has received funding for the final
year of a three-year, $250,000 research grant from the New York-based
Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.
The project, "Japan, the United States and China: Emergent Trilateralism
in the Pacific Economy," examines the evolving roles of Japan and
the United States in Pacific regional trade in light of China’s
emergence as an economic powerhouse.
Fung’s research team is identifying the potential rewards of regional
cooperation in an effort to promote a smooth transition to open multilateralism
in the region. After completing regional data collection, the team will
construct empirical models to assess two things: the effects of emergent
trilateral trade relations among Japan, the United States, and China;
and how a trilateral free trade agreement and similar "deep"
regional trade liberalizations can induce more open trade between the
Asia Pacific and other economies that make up the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, particularly the European Union.
Fung, codirector of the Santa Cruz
Center for International Economics (SCCIE) at UCSC, began the project
in July 2001. Fung, who is currently a visiting professor at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, helped organize an international conference at
UC Berkeley in June and will coedit a book based on papers presented
at the meeting. A conference will be held next year in Tokyo. The project
is slated for completion next June with a final report expected August
31, 2004.
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Anthropologist
Diane Gifford-Gonzalez awarded two grants for interdisciplinary study
Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, professor of anthropology, has been awarded
a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation for $158,000
to continue research on prehistoric human ecology and environmental
impacts in the Monterey Bay region. The grant follows on collaborative
research between Gifford-Gonzalez and Paul Koch, professor of Earth
sciences, on the prehistoric disappearance of northern fur seals from
regional ecosystems.
Gifford-Gonzalez has also received, with Koch and Daniel Costa, professor
of ecology and evolutionary biology, a Pacific Rim Workshop and Planning
Grant for an international workshop to be held at UCSC in early 2004
on "Northern Fur Seal Ecology, Biogeography, and Management in
Historic Perspective."
The interdisciplinary workshop will bring together biological, archaeological,
and paleontological researchers from the United States, Canada, Mexico,
Russia, and Japan to share data on the Northern Fur Seal in the present
and over the last 4,000 years.
Today the Northern Fur Seal breeds on San Miguel Island off southern
California, the Pribilof Islands of Alaska, and islands off Russia and
Japan, but Gifford-Gonzalez and Koch have gathered archaeological evidence
that indicates the species once also bred along the coasts of central-northern
California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada.
Understanding the pressures that contributed to changes in breeding
patterns over time is valuable information for today’s wildlife
managers, who seek to strike a balance between human use and species
survival. The identification of human-generated factors that affect
seal survival--as distinct from longer-term natural cycles--has implications
for policy makers, noted Gifford-Gonzalez.
Organizers hope the workshop will enable participants to integrate
detailed modern biological data with paleoecological findings on the
species. The workshop will also foster cross-disciplinary collaborations
and funding initiatives to further expand knowledge of the foraging
patterns, genetics, ecological contexts, and human uses of the Northern
Fur Seal in the northern Pacific.
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