MEDIA ADVISORY

12/17/09

Contacts:

Margaret Broeren, (608) 890-2168, mbroeren@glbrc.wisc.edu

Molly McElroy, (202) 326-6434, mmcelroy@aaas.org

AAAS and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center Announce 2009 Fellows

Tim Donohue and Michael D. Casler of the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellows. Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

This year 531 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, February 20, from 8 to 10 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

This year’s AAAS Fellows will be announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on December 18, 2009.

As part of the Section on Biological Sciences, Tim Donohue, professor of bacteriology and director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, was elected as an AAAS Fellow for distinguished contributions to the field of bacteriology, especially for contributions to metabolic and regulatory activities of photosynthetic bacteria critical to bioenergy formation.

“I was honored to be elected a Fellow in the AAAS,” says Donohue. “Recognition like this is always gratifying, especially when you realize the nomination process begins with several of your colleagues. It is sobering because so many other outstanding scientists on campus have been recognized with this distinction.”

As part of the Section on Agriculture, Food and Renewable Resources, Michael D. Casler, a research geneticist for USDA-ARS at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center and an agronomy professor, was elected as an AAAS Fellow for distinguished contributions to agricultural sciences in teaching, research on perennial forages and bioenergy crop genetics, quality, fitness, and adaptation, and for scientific services.

“The recognition of two Great Lakes Bioenergy scientists is a tribute to the tremendous expertise we have within the center,” says Steve Slater, scientific programs manager at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. “It’s the strength of our researchers along with their highly collaborative nature that has allowed us to make so much progress in our first two years.”

The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association’s 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee’s institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer.

Each steering group then reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.

The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.

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The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is one of three Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Centers funded to make transformational breakthroughs that will form the foundation of new cellulosic biofuels technology. The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with Michigan State University as the major partner.  Additional scientific partners are DOE National Laboratories, other universities and a biotechnology company. For more information on the GLBRC, visit www.glbrc.org.

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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 some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.