|
||
|
|
|
|
Press Releases | |
April 26, 1999
Marine Ecologists Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge to Receive Honorary DegreesOregon State University Professors will be Honored at May 23 Commencement Ceremony
Contact:
Jane Finalborgo
Joe Dionisio
(516) 287 8313
Fax: (516) 283 4081Southampton, NY -- Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge, internationally respected marine ecologists from Corvallis, Oregon, each will receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree during commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 23 at Southampton College of Long Island University.As husband-and-wife faculty members at Oregon State University, they pioneered the practice of balancing work and family by splitting a single, tenure-track professorship into two half-time positions. Each holds an endowed title as Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology, and has been a full-time professor since 1989.
For the next five years, they will focus their expertise on a $17.7 million research project to study the ecology and conservation of coastal Pacific Ocean marine life.
It is fitting that Drs. Lubchenco and Menge are being honored by Southampton College, which is nationally acclaimed for its programs in Marine and Environmental Science. In the past 24 years, 31 students in these programs have won Fulbright Scholarships, a remarkable number for a school the size of Southampton. Also receiving honorary degrees will be Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Congressman Michael Forbes and educator Richard Wingfield.
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, who also serves as Distinguished Professor of Zoology at OSU, is a world-renowned environmental scientist whose voice on ecological matters is heard clearly in the corridors of our nation's capital.
A national spokesperson for marine conservation, she regularly accepts invitations to discuss ecological issues with the President and Vice President of the United States, Congressional committees, heads of industry, and the world's religious leaders.
Her research focuses on biological diversity, sustainable ecological systems and ecological causes and consequences of global changes. In 1997, her participation at the U.S. Climate Forum and at the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto, Japan, played a key role in helping world leaders address measures to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases. She also works tirelessly to address environmental problems by making information more accessible to the scientific community, decision makers and the public.
Dr. Lubchenco, a former president of the Ecological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science-- the world's oldest, most influential science organization-- has challenged the nation to elect members of Congress who truly appreciate science, and encourages Americans to address science with a greater awareness of its social and economic consequences. She is a member of the National Science Board, and serves on advisory committees for the United Nations Environment Programme, the National Research Council and UNESCO. An advisor to National Public Radio's Living on Earth, she has collaborated on educational scientific films including the PBS documentary Oregon's Ocean and the award-winning National Geographic Society program, Diversity of Life.
Dr. Lubchenco was named Oregon Scientist of the Year (1994), a MacArthur "Genius" Fellow (1993-98), and a Pew Scholar in Conservation and the Environment (1992-95). She earned a B.A. in Biology at Colorado College, an M.S. in Zoology at the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Ecology at Harvard.
Dr. Bruce Menge is known worldwide for his research on the dynamics of ecological communities in biologically diverse marine environments. He and his wife recently were named lead principal investigators on a $17.7 million, five-year grant to support the ecological investigation of the Pacific Ocean's near-shore zone, an effort aimed at improving the conservation of marine organisms.
His studies have focused on how marine communities respond to conditions altered by climate change such as water temperature, salinity and wave forces. "Bruce has greatly expanded our knowledge of rocky shores, one of the most important and well-studied marine environments," said Jeff Levinton, a marine ecologist at Stony Brook University.
Known as a superb mentor for both students and colleagues, his visiting professorships have taken him to Guam, Sweden, Quebec, Chile, Jamaica, New Zealand and Panama, where he has been an associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Institute since 1978.
He serves on the board of directors of the Friday Harbor Laboratory, the West Quoddy Biological Research Station, the Organization for Tropical Studies, and the Sustainable Ecosystems Institute. He has won OSU's F.A. Gilfillan Memorial Award for Excellence in Research (1997-98), the George Mercer Award from the Ecological Society of America (1979), and fellowships from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He has been a reviewer for the Journal of Marine Research since 1989.
Dr. Menge is a member of the American Society of Naturalists, the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Ecological Society of America, the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and the Nordic Ecological Society. He earned a B.A. in Zoology at the Univ. of Minnesota in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Zoology at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle in 1970. He and his wife have two sons, Alexei and Duncan.
###