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• Ron Pond, clinical assistant professor of music, has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Eastern Oregon University recognizing professional and community accomplishments and contributions.
• Stephen Setter, associate professor of pharmacotherapy, recently was named pharmacist of the year by the Spokane Pharmacy Association.
• Tom Maloney, emeritus director of the WSU Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory, received the Distinguished Service Award for leadership in testing at the 15th International Nondestructive Testing of Wood Symposium in September.
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• Steven R. Lyon, a senior scientific assistant in WSU’s winter wheat breeding program, received the O.A. Vogel Crop Improvement Award recently. The award is given annually to an individual in WSU’s College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, WSU Extension or the U.S. Department of Agriculture who has made significant contributions to the pure seed program or crop production in Washington state.
• A business begun by WSU Spokane research
professors Lisa G. Shaffer and Bassem Bejjani recently received the 2007 Catalyst Award for company of the year from Greater Spokane Incorporated in recognition of regional accomplishments in technology and innovation. Signature Genomic Laboratories specializes in using microarray technology to provide chromosome analysis for diagnosing such things as birth defects.
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• The WSU Intercollegiate College of Nursing recently was awarded the 2007 Catalyst Award for organization of the year from Greater Spokane Incorporated (GSI) in recognition of regional accomplishments in technology and innovation. GSI promotes economic development and business and public policy resources in the Spokane area.
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• Dennis L. Haarsager, general manager of Northwest Public Radio (NWPR), has been elected to a one-year term as chair of the National Public Radio board of directors. NWPR is a regional public radio service of WSU.
• A number of WSU faculty are ranked in the top 10 in the nation for productivity, according to statistics recently released by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Developed by Academic Analytics, the Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index ranks 375 different institutions based on the productivity of their faculty in terms of books published; journal publications; citations of journal articles; federal grant dollars awarded; and honors and awards. (See related article about the controversy surrounding these rankings on page 5)
WSU researchers in the plant sciences ranked No. 2; veterinary medical sciences third; animal sciences fourth; food scientists sixth; agronomy and crop sciences seventh; zoology seventh; American studies eighth and horticulture eighth.
• Diane Cook, Huie-Rogers chair and professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, has been named a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for her extraordinary accomplishments and contributions to machine learning algorithm design and application.