UNH Professors Named American Association for Advancement of Science Fellows

Thursday, November 29, 2012

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Nathan Schwadron, associate professor of physics at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) at the University of New Hampshire, was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

DURHAM, N.H. - A space plasma physicist and an endocrinologist from the University of New Hampshire have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Nathan Schwadron, associate professor of physics at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS), and Stacia Sower, professor of biochemistry and director of the Center for Molecular and Comparative Endocrinology (CME), are among the 702 new Fellows.

Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers for scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New fellows will be formally announced in the journal Science Nov. 30, 2012. Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Feb. 16, 2013, during the 2013 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

"The University of New Hampshire is proud to have two faculty members nationally recognized for their research contributions. Dr. Stacia Sower and Dr. Nate Schwadron are talented scientists whose achievements have been recognized by their peers," says Jan Nisbet, senior vice provost for research at UNH. "The Office of the Senior Vice Provost congratulates both of them."

Schwadron is being recognized for "outstanding contributions to NASA missions and to the theoretical and observational understanding of the space radiation environment, solar wind, and interstellar interactions," according to AAAS. He is the science operations lead for the Interstellar Boundary Explorer mission and deputy principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Among other accomplishments, Schwadron has been instrumental in developing tools that help characterize the radiation environment beyond low-Earth orbit, which will serve a critical role in future manned missions to the moon and Mars.

Says astrophysicist Harlan Spence, director of EOS and principal investigator for CRaTER, "Nathan is one of the most productive and creative scientists I have worked with, and my own research program has benefited enormously through our ongoing collaborations. His remarkable insights, energy, and drive allow him to work on a large number of important topics across a broad swath of space science and make significant advances and discoveries. He sets a very high standard of scientific excellence, and so this tremendous honor from the AAAS is most well deserved." 

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Stacia Sower, professor of biochemistry and director of the Center for Molecular and Comparative Endocrinology at the University of New Hampshire, was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Credit: Lisa Nugent, UNH Photographic Services.

Sower, whose research concerns reproductive endocrinology of lampreys and hagfish, was nominated "for a distinguished academic career in research, teaching, and service; for development of integrative and comparative fish endocrinology, reproductive, hormonal genomic studies among lampreys and other agnathan fishes," reads her citation. She has directed the CME since its founding in 2008, focusing on environmental endocrinology, reproductive biology, and the evolution and regulation of physiological phenomena. Working with colleagues from Japan, Sower identified the first reproductive hormone of the hagfish, the world's oldest living vertebrate, representing a significant step toward unraveling the enduring mystery of hagfish production.

"We in the college are very proud of Dr. Sower's demonstrated excellence in research and the advancement of knowledge within her discipline, as evidenced by this prestigious award.  Few scientists receive this level of recognition," says Jon Wraith, dean of the UNH College of Life Science and Agriculture and director of the N.H. Agricultural Experiment Station.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal Science(www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes 261 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

Photographs available to download:

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Nathan Schwadron, associate professor of physics at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) at the University of New Hampshire, was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

 

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Stacia Sower, professor of biochemistry and director of the Center for Molecular and Comparative Endocrinology at the University of New Hampshire, was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Credit: Lisa Nugent, UNH Photographic Services.