CORVALLIS - Four scientists and educators from Oregon State University have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Fellowship in this organization is a prestigious honor conferred on members with distinguished accomplishments in the advancement of science or its application. The AAAS, founded in 1848, is the world's largest federation of scientific and engineering societies, with 282 affiliated societies and 142,000 individual members.

The OSU researchers who were honored include Andrew Blaustein, a professor of zoology; George Keller, vice provost emeritus for research and international programs; Mary Jo Nye, the Horning Professor of Humanities; and William Baird, professor and director of the OSU Environmental Health Sciences Center.

Blaustein is an expert on amphibians and the possible causes for their declines around the world, including the effects of ultraviolet light. He received his doctorate from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1978 and has been on the OSU faculty since that time.

Keller, an oceanographer who did research in marine geology and seafloor sediments, directed and expanded OSU's extensive programs of research and international programs for many years in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nye, a professor who holds an endowed chair in the Department of History, is an expert on the history of science, especially the history of chemistry and physics. She will deliver a major lecture at the national AAAS conference early in 1999.

Baird received his doctorate in 1971 from the University of Wisconsin and came to OSU in 1997 to direct the Environmental Health Sciences Center, which promotes interdisciplinary research on the effect of environmental factors such as toxins or carcinogens on human health.

Source: 

M. Greenwood, 202-326-6440

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