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September 7, 1998
Sociology professor Dane Archer's Web page on nonverbal communication has received a Links2Go Key Resource award for the field of social psychology. Links2Go provides an interface that allows Web surfers to browse links by topic, find links and topics related to an interesting link, and to search for links and topics. The award identifies links that are most representative of the topics in Links2Go, based on how page authors index and organize the links on their pages. The awards are based on an analysis of millions of Web pages.
Postdoctoral researcher Mathias Müller received the Young Scientist Award at the 11th International Workshop on Plant Membrane Biology in August in Cambridge, England. Müller, who works in the lab of biology professor Lincoln Taiz, won the award for his poster presentation on the enzyme that gives lemons their high acidity. The enzyme is present in all higher organisms and has been linked to certain diseases in humans. Taiz's lab studies it in lemons because it is particularly active in lemon fruit, making them sour, but not in other parts of the plant, allowing the researchers to study how the enzyme is regulated. Müller's coauthors were Megan Jensen and Taiz.
Postdoctoral researcher Kevin Wilson has been awarded an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship to support his work in the lab of biology professor Harry Noller. The fellowship provides a stipend of $66,000 over two years.
Brewster Smith, professor emeritus of psychology, gave the presidential address to the Division of Political Psychology of the International Association of Applied Psychology. His talk was titled "Political Psychology and Peace: A Half-Century Perspective." Smith was president of the division from 1994 to 1998. The address was part of the International Congress of Applied Psychology, which took place in San Francisco in August.
From Sleepy Lagoon to Zoot Suit: The Irreverent Path of Alice McGrath, a video by Porter College academic preceptor Bob Giges, has won the Latin American Studies Association's 1998 Award of Merit in Film and will be showcased at their XXI International Congress in Chicago September 24-26. The video concerns the Sleepy Lagoon Case in 1940s L.A., Luis Valdez's play Zoot Suit, and activist Alice McGrath, the feisty 81-year-old who continues to work for social justice in Nicaragua as well as in Ventura County (Alice was Porter College's commencement speaker this past June). The video will also be featured at the Marin Latino Film Festival in San Rafael October 30-31. For more information, contact Bob Giges at otom@cats.ucsc.edu or (831) 459-2864.