University News

UTD's VP for Business Affairs Larry Terry dies Saturday in Atlanta

Admitted to hospital Monday after severe allergic reaction

Larry Terry, vice president for business affairs, died Saturday morning in an Atlanta hospital after being admitted Monday for a severe reaction to an unknown allergen.

UTD officials said Terry, 52, was in Atlanta Monday for a one-day meeting of the Southern Association of College and Schools and was accompanied by President David Daniel, Provost Hobson Wildenthal and professors Robert Nelsen and John Sibert. Approximately 11 a.m. Monday, Terry experienced difficulty breathing and speaking, Daniel said, and was advised to go to the hospital.

"Without really any warning, he just indicated to Provost Wildenthal that he was having serious allergic reaction, and needed immediate medical attention," Daniel said.

Terry was admitted to an Atlanta area hospital and was later transferred to Emory University Hospital, where he died, according to university officials. An Emory University Hospital spokesman declined to comment, but a hospital secretary confirmed Terry's death Saturday.

Services are pending for the end of the week of June 19 in Tulsa. A university memorial service and scholarship fund are being planned, but specifics have not yet been announced.

Terry had served as vice president for business affairs at UTD since Feb. 1, after serving an eight-month stint in an interim capacity.

He joined the university in 2001 as associate vice provost and public administration professor. Terry served as editor-in-chief of the academic journal Public Administration Review - the most highly regarded journal in the field of public administration - and relocated its staff to UTD.

Terry received his doctoral degree in 1989 in public administration/affairs, specializing in organization theory and behavior, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.

Before joining UTD, he worked at Cleveland State University from 1992-2001, where he served as interim associate dean and chair of the College of Urban Affairs. Previously, Terry served as a professor at Radford University in Virginia from 1983-1991.

Terry was known as a leading international authority on public administration and was a member of the National Academy of Public Administration. He published his first book, "The Leadership of Public Bureaucracies" in 1996. His second book, "Administrative Interpretation of the Law," is in progress with Georgetown University Press.

Terry is survived by his four children.

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Penn Vet's New Bolton Center to Receive $13.5 Million

The School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has received a US$13.5 million grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the George D. Widener Hospital for Large Animals at Penn Vet's New Bolton Center.

The funds will be used toward the completion of new medical facilities on the New Bolton Center campus, including a new isolation building, a colic barn and a chemical digestion facility. The isolation building will provide added biosecurity for the treatment of infectious disease, while the colic barn is for the specialized treatment of horses with a variety of high-risk abdominal conditions. The chemical digestion facility will house a new technology that offers a safe and efficient means to dispose of infectious waste.

Widely known as the nation's premier location for equine medicine and as the hospital caring for champion Barbaro, New Bolton Center is also well known within the Commonwealth as an important provider of agricultural services and disease prevention. Each year, the Widener Hospital treats more than 7,000 patients, and New Bolton Center Field Services make more than 21,000 patient visits, serving farms throughout the region.

Additionally, New Bolton Center's diagnostic and avian pathology laboratories serve to protect Pennsylvania's agricultural industry from the threat of emerging and infectious disease.

The Geographical Information System technology developed at New Bolton Center maps the location of poultry facilities throughout the Commonwealth in order to minimize the effects of disease outbreaks. The center also has aided the Pennsylvania Game Commission and U.S. Department of Agriculture in tracking the spread of chronic wasting disease among wildlife.

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Diet, Aging Study Gains $7.9 Million Grant from University of Wisconsin-Madison

A pioneering long-term study of the links between diet and aging in monkeys will continue through 2011 with the help of a new US$7.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

First initiated at the National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1989, the study examines the effects of a reduced-calorie diet on the aging process and health of 76 rhesus monkeys. It is one of only two long-term studies of its kind, and during the course of 16 years has shown that a nutritious but reduced-calorie diet has multiple benefits for health and aging.

A pioneering long-term study of the links between diet and aging in monkeys will continue through 2011 with the help of a new $7.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The study, led by Professor Richard Weindruch at the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and first initiated at the National Primate Research Center at UW-Madison in 1989, examines the effects of a reduced-calorie diet on the aging process and health of 76 rhesus monkeys. Pictured from the study sitting in animal cages are, left to right, rhesus monkeys Canto, on a restricted diet, and Owen, a control subject on an unrestricted diet.

The project, according to Richard Weindruch, the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health professor who has led the research since 1994, is in a critical phase as the monkeys in the study are entering late middle age, which for rhesus macaques is their early to mid-20s. In captivity, rhesus monkeys can live up to 40 years.

Late middle age, Weindruch notes, is the time of life when a host of age-related conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cognitive deficits and arthritis, among other things, begin to manifest themselves. This is true, he says, for both monkeys and humans.

At this point in the study, the disparities between the monkeys on a diet reduced in calories by 30 percent and those allowed to eat as much as they wish are clearly evident.

Of those animals who have died, most have succumbed to the same age-related conditions that kill many humans with colon cancer claiming the most, and diabetes and heart disease also taking a high toll.

The idea that fewer calories can extend lifespan and improve health has a long experimental history. The notion has been tested in animal models ranging from spiders and mice to, more recently, fledgling studies in humans.

But the rhesus macaques in the Wisconsin study, according to Weindruch, offer perhaps the best window into a phenomenon that is the only proven dietary way to extend lifespan. Rhesus macaques have much in common with humans, including a similar genetic makeup and susceptibility to many of the diseases and conditions that affect human health.

The animals on a restricted diet exhibit 70 percent less body fat, and the fat tissue itself, Weindruch notes, is very different from the fat tissue in the control animals, those allowed to eat freely. His group has also observed that the animals that eat less have less insulin in their bloodstreams and less insulin resistance, which are opposite to increases seen in these hallmarks of type 2 diabetes.

The new NIH grant will enable to project to add at least one new dimension, according to Weindruch: studies of brain structure and function as the animals age.

The new work is being coordinated by Sterling Johnson, an assistant professor of medicine, and will employ high-resolution MRI to assess structural changes as the monkeys in the study age.

The cognitive and functional abilities of the brain decline with age, Johnson says. Using techniques that involve such things as touch-screen computers and other methods of assessing brain function, Johnson and his colleagues will explore the functional changes that occur in the monkeys as they grow old and determine whether diet restriction affects cognitive aging.

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$4.8M Gift to Yale to Promote Biodiversity Conservation in Tropical Forests

An environmental leadership and training program to promote biodiversity conservation in tropical forests in Asia and Central and South America has been established at Yale University with a US$4.8 million gift from the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund.

"Worldwide environmental challenges reflect deep disparities in the capacities of nations, institutions, communities and individuals to develop and implement solutions that sustain both human societies and the biosphere," said Mark Ashton, the program's principal investigator and professor of silviculture and forest ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). "The future success of conservation efforts requires a major enhancement of social capital in the developing world."

The program's co-principal investigators are Lisa Curran, associate professor of tropical resources; Amity Doolittle, lecturer and program director of the Tropical Resources Institute; and Brad Gentry, senior lecturer in sustainable investments.

The Tropical Resources Institute at F&ES, in partnership with the Center for Tropical Forest Science of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, will coordinate the program, which will build the environmental conservation and management capacity of individuals, communities and institutions in regions of high biological diversity in tropical forests.

The program will focus on the training of field workers in conservation, park managers, officials concerned with energy, infrastructure services and natural resources, and environmental policy makers and community leaders.

Short courses, workshops and field trips will take place at the program's principal sites in Panama City and Singapore, where Yale and the Smithsonian already work together, as well as at field sites in South and Southeast Asian and Central and South American regions.

Based in London, the Lisbet Rausing Charitable Fund supports activities of high scholarly, cultural or social worth. The fund's principal trustees are Lisbet Rausing, a historian and a research fellow of Imperial College in London, and Peter Baldwin, a professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies is a graduate and professional school that provides teaching, research and outreach in broad areas of environmental policy, science and management to some 200 candidates for master's degrees and 75 doctoral students.

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Burgess Named UGA Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration

Timothy P. Burgess, who has worked for 27 years in Georgia government, including four years as the state's top budgeting and finance officer, has been named University of Georgia senior vice president for finance and administration effective July 1. President Michael F. Adams announced the appointment in a press conference.

Burgess will succeed Henry M. "Hank" Huckaby, who retires June 30 after six years as the university's chief financial officer and more than 40 years in state government. Burgess likewise succeeded Huckaby as state budget director in 1995, each serving a four-year term in that post.

Burgess has been the university's associate vice president and budget director since last year, with responsibility for development and management of the $1.3 billion annual operating budget and for development of the university's annual capital plan. He came to the post after two years' service as commissioner of the Georgia Department of Community Health, to which he was appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue. The department manages the state's Medicaid and State Employee Health Benefit programs with a $10.2 billion budget.

Burgess began his career in state government in 1979 with the Office of Planning and Budget, rising through several positions to deputy director, and was appointed in 1995 by Gov. Zell Miller to succeed Huckaby as director, a post he held until 1999. He served a previous stint as UGA associate vice president for finance and administration in 1999-2000. In 2000-2001, he was chief financial officer for the Georgia Technology Authority. Gov. Roy Barnes appointed Burgess as the first commissioner of the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety, a position he held from 2001 to 2003.

Burgess is a 1977 graduate of the University of Georgia, where he earned a bachelor's degree in political science. He holds a master's degree in public administration from Georgia State University. A graduate of the Leadership Georgia program and a participant in the Global Leaders of the South Leadership Forum, he also completed the Atlanta Regional Commission Regional Leadership Institute.

A search committee chaired by Arnett C. Mace Jr., the university's senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, conducted a national search with the assistance of the search firm Baker-Parker. After in-person interviews with seven potential candidates for the position, Burgess was the committee's top recommendation to the president.

The senior vice president for finance and administration oversees all business operations at the university including the divisions for auxiliary and administrative services, budget, the controller, environmental safety, human resources, physical plant, university architects and facilities and space management.

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Charles Goodman Elected as New Chairman of Hebrew University Board of Governors

Charles H. (Corky) Goodman of Chicago was elected as chairman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Board of Governors during the 69th meeting of the board. He succeeds attorney Yigal Arnon, who has been serving in the post for the past six years.

Goodman is the vice chairman of Henry Crown and Company and serves also on the board of General Dynamics Corporation. He is a prominent and active philanthropic leader both in his hometown of Chicago, nationally in the U.S. and on behalf of Israel.

He has served as president of the Council of Jewish Federations in North America (1990-93), and of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. He has also served as chairman of the Jewish Agency Board of Governors (1995-99). Other organizations in which he played leading roles are the United Jewish Appeal, the Joint Distribution Committee and Brandeis University.

Last year, Goodman received an honorary doctor of philosophy degree from the Hebrew University, and in 1993 he received the Julius Rosenwald Memorial Award from the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

He is an officer of the Arie and Ida Crown Memorial Foundation, a private charitable foundation named for his late wife Suzanne Crown's grandparents. The family's philanthropy supports a great number of community interests in such areas as education, arts and health care.

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MIT's Canizares, Gibson Get Top Posts

MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif has announced that Associate Provost Claude R. Canizares will become vice president for research and associate provost and that Professor Lorna J. Gibson will become associate provost, effective Tuesday, Aug. 1.

They will be part of an academic leadership team that includes the provost and Professor Philip S. Khoury, whose appointment as associate provost effective July 1 was announced in April.

In his new position, Canizares succeeds Professor Alice Gast, who will become president of Lehigh University on Aug. 1. As vice president for research and associate provost, Canizares will have overall responsibility for research policy, as well as the Institute's research misconduct policies and process. He will have oversight of several major interdepartmental laboratories and centers and of MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Several research-related offices report to the vice president for research as well, as does the Division of Comparative Medicine.

As associate provost, Gibson will oversee academic and space planning, including chairing the Committee for the Review of Space Planning. She will be responsible for faculty affairs, including, for example, faculty development and renewal. In addition, she will have oversight of the policies and process for handling faculty grievances.

Canizares is the Bruno Rossi Professor of Experimental Physics and has been associate provost since 2001. His primary roles include responsibility for campus space and capital planning, oversight of MIT Lincoln Laboratory and assistance with federal agency relations.

Canizares' main research interests are high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of galactic and extragalactic objects and observational cosmology. He is a principal investigator on the Chandra X-ray Observatory and has also worked on several other space astronomy missions. He has served on many scientific advisory committees and boards and currently serves on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the Government University Industry Research Roundtable, among others.

Canizares is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Gibson is the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where her research interests focus on the mechanical behavior of materials with a porous, cellular structure, such as foams. Her current work is on cellular biomaterials such as scaffolds for tissue engineering and the mechanical interactions of biological cells with scaffolds.

A fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, she is co-author of "Cellular Solids: Structure and Properties." She is currently chair of the MIT faculty, having just completed the first year of a two-year term. In 1999, she chaired the School of Engineering committee assessing the status of women faculty in that school, which has seen a significant increase in the number of women faculty members in the past several years.

The provost said that he will be consulting with the officers of the faculty and the faculty Committee on Nominations regarding the selection of a new chair of the faculty. Professor Bishwapriya Sanyal is chair-elect, with a term to begin in July 2007.

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Laboratory Impex Systems Ltd. Partners with Texas A&M University System

Laboratory Impex Systems Ltd. of Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom, has entered an agreement with The Texas A&M University System in the United States to license Shrouded Probe technology.

Shrouded Probe technology has applications in the nuclear industry, including power plants and defense applications. The technology is used to continuously monitor atmospheric emissions of radioactive contaminants from the stacks and ducts of facilities such as nuclear power reactors and material processing plants. The probes provide accurate samples that lead to more precise measurements of the amount of radioactivity discharged to the air environment, which allows industries and government facilities to better comply with environmental and safety standards, or to help generate a reliable warning in case of an accident situation.

The Shrouded Probe is commercially available in the United States and is accepted by both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for meeting relevant rules and regulations on emission monitoring. Advancements in sampling technology, which form the technical foundation for the Shrouded Probe technology, were accomplished under funding provided by the NRC and DOE to The Texas A&M University System, and through intellectual interactions with NRC and DOE scientists. The advancements are embodied in a national standard for sampling nuclear emissions.

Laboratory Impex Systems Ltd. is now collaborating with Texas A&M researchers to introduce the Shrouded Probe technology in Europe and other parts of the world. First, the team is working to "custom fit" the technology to serve the needs of the European market, where interest in the technology is increasing, said Chris Palmer, managing director of Lab Impex.

Lab Impex will collaborate with the Aerosol Technology Laboratory (ATL) research team in Texas A&M University's Dwight Look College of Engineering and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES). The team, headed by Andrew R. McFarland, the Wyatt Professor of Mechanical Engineering, conducts research related to sampling and characterizing aerosols from stacks and from occupied and ambient environments. The aerosol particles with which they deal are small, typically with sizes less than one-tenth the diameter of a human hair, yet they present a challenge to human health because of their ability to penetrate into the lower reaches of the human lung. The ATL group has served for more than 25 years as a center for aerosol research for both private and public sector interests.

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University of Nottingham Librarian Wins International Award

A librarian at The University of Nottingham has become the first recipient of a new international award, which recognizes excellent work in libraries and information services outside the UK. The award is presented by the International Library and Information Group of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Khan QuayKin is Head of Information Services at the University's Malaysia Campus. Appointed as Chief Librarian in June 2000, Khan embarked single-handedly on the challenging task of planning and organizing the library in time for the opening of the campus in September that year. The library was open and fully operational on time.

Since then, as Head of Information Services, Khan has appointed a significant number of key library and IT support staff, and was instrumental in positioning Information Services as an integrated provider of outstanding library and information services for the growing number of students, researchers and staff.