CORVALLIS - Two Oregon State University faculty members have earned emerging scholars honors from the campus chapter of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.

Jennifer Cornell, an assistant professor of English, and Valerian Dolja, an assistant professor of botany and plant pathology, were recognized for outstanding research or creative activity. Each received membership in Phi Kappa Phi, along with a $500 honorarium.

Cornell specializes in short-story fiction and representations of culture in popular media. Her book, "Departures," a collection of 12 stories about the similarities and differences between people in conflict, earned the 14th annual Drue Heinz Prize for Literature.

Cornell also earned the 1996 Andres Beger Award in Fiction from NW Writers and was a fellow at the OSU Center for the Humanities.

Dolja was recognized for his work in plant molecular virology. His research on the beet yellows virus has opened a path to the molecular characterization of the closteroviruses, a family of plant viruses that have been difficult to investigate because of their unusually large genomes. He has also made important contributions to the study of viral movement in plants, and his work with tobacco etch virus has generated new possibilities for the genetic engineering of resistance to viral diseases and for the insertion of foreign genes coding for useful proteins into the cells of host plants.

Phi Kappa Phi is a national scholastic honor society founded in 1897, with membership open to all fields of study. The purpose of the society is to recognize academic excellence and to encourage scholarship. The OSU chapter was founded in 1924 and is one of 26 general honor societies on campus.

Source: 

Sue Borden, 541-737-2388

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