$10,000 USIBELLI AWARD-WINNERS NAMED

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 7, 1998

Recipients of the 1998 Emil Usibelli Distinguished Teaching, Research and Service awards were announced today at a convocation sponsored by Provost John Keating at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Each of the faculty recognized for their achievements and contributions to UAF will receive a check for $10,000. The awards are funded annually from a $600,000 endowment made to UAF in 1992 by Usibelli Coal Mine.

The recipients for 1998 are: Professor of Wildlife Ecology Terry Bowyer, Usibelli Research Award; Associate Professor of Chemistry Tom Clausen, Usibelli Teaching Award; and Professor of Music Ted DeCorso, Usibelli Service Award. DeCorso was recently given a Governor's Award for the Arts in Art Education by Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles.

Terry Bowyer has been with UAF since 1986. He is being recognized for his contributions to the field of wildlife behavior and mammalian ecology, including his pioneering work in the area of sexual segregation, which examines why large mammals live apart for most of the year. Bowyer is also a leader in the field of studies examining environmental factors affecting wildlife reproduction.

After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, Bowyer's work on river otters in Prince William Sound resulted in major breakthroughs in blood-based determinations of animal stress levels or "biomarkers."

Tom Clausen has been with UAF since 1982. His students credit him with the unique ability to translate the complex and often intimidating equations and procedures of organic chemistry into concepts that are understandable Students consistently rank him as one UAF's best teachers, even though some of his courses are among the toughest students must tackle.

Students also praise Clausen for inspiring them by example, through his own passion, love of work and commitment of time to help them master the reactions and mechanisms of unknown chemical processes. Clausen's own research is in the area of chemical interactions between plants and animals, which he conducts while carrying a full teaching load and through volunteering his time to community activities, including high school science fairs and the annual Science Potpourri sponsored by the College of Science, Engineering and Mathematics. Clausen is a co-founder of Science Potpourri which attracts hundreds of young children and their families to the campus for hands-on science activities. Most recently, Clausen was instrumental in obtaining a $200,000 National Science Foundation-funded magnetic resonance spectrometer, which will benefit students throughout the university system by conducting real time experiments over the Internet.

Ted DeCorso has been with UAF since 1974. He has been the director of the UAF Summer Fine Arts Camp since 1979, and overseen the growth of the program from a music-only workshop for a small group of Interior junior and senior high school students, to a multi-faceted fine arts camp which attracts thousands of students from throughout the nation.