The Ohio State University 2002 Distinguished University Professors

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Two researchers named Distinguished University Professors
Saif, Thompson receive Ohio State's highest faculty honor

COLUMBUS -- Ohio State has bestowed its highest faculty honor, designation as a Distinguished University Professor, upon two researchers who have earned international acclaim for their scholarship. The 2002 honorees are Linda J. Saif, a professor in the Food Animal Health Research Program and veterinary preventive medicine at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster, and Lonnie G. Thompson, professor of geological sciences and a researcher in the Byrd Polar Research Center.

At the university's Board of Trustees meeting Friday (6/7), Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray granted each recipient the title and an annual budget of $10,000 for three years to support their academic work. They also automatically become members of the President's and Provost's Advisory Council. Up to three faculty may be given the title of Distinguished University Professor each year and, counting this year's recipients, only 26 professors have received the title since it was first awarded in 1987.

"Both Professor Saif and Professor Thompson received their doctorates at Ohio State and have spent most of their careers at the university. More than 25 years later, they are both internationally recognized and respected for the impact that their pioneering research has had on the body of knowledge in their disciplines," Ray said. "Their students are incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from them, and their colleagues and the university are very proud of their extraordinary accomplishments."

Distinguished University Professors continue their regular program of teaching; research, scholarly or creative work; and service. They are nominated by their colleagues both at Ohio State and internationally. Evaluators from outside the university are invited to assess the quality and significance of each nominee's academic accomplishments. The selection committee this year consisted of Distinguished University Professors Matthew Platz (chemistry) and Charles Capen (veterinary biosciences and internal medicine); Barbara Becker-Cantarino, professor of Germanic languages and literatures; Albert de la Chapelle, director of Ohio State's Human Cancer Genetics Program; and Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical engineering.

Linda Saif
Saif is the first Ohio State researcher not based on the Columbus campus to be recognized as a Distinguished University Professor. She is known nationally and internationally for her work on enteric animal diseases - those relating to the digestive system, and specifically the intestines - mainly rotavirus and calicivirus. Certain strains of the viruses can cause gastrointestinal illnesses in humans, especially children.

In support of her nomination, one colleague - a member of the National Academy of Sciences - wrote that "Dr. Saif is the world's foremost authority on the immune response of newborns to intestinal infections." A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention section chief added, "Dr. Saif is by far the most outstanding virologist and immunologist in the research field that deals with gastrointestinal viruses in animals and humans."
Credited with discovering the potential for enteric viral infections in animals to infect human populations in epidemic proportions, Saif also is recognized for extending the discovery process from the basic molecular biology of the virus to the interaction of the virus and host, to understanding how the host eliminates the organism, and to developing methods for detecting the organism.

Saif has been published extensively in books and journals and has been awarded numerous honors. She has participated in professional service and peer review panels and has garnered more than $14 million in research grants throughout her 30-plus year career. Current research projects include immune response to the rotavirus, DNA vaccines, enteric pathogens in oysters, pathogenesis of human caliciviruses, and effects of nutrition and waste management technologies on pathogens in animal manure.

"It's a real privilege to have Dr. Saif on our staff," said Bobby Moser, dean of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and vice president for agricultural administration. "This is the kind of research that the college is trying to promote - people working on the cutting edge who can bridge that gap between applied and basic research. Dr. Saif can do that and that's unique." Added Glen Hoffsis, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, "Linda Saif … has contributed enormously to our understanding of disease mechanisms and immunology in both humans and animals."

Lonnie Thompson
Thompson's work in using ice cores drilled from remote, mountaintop glaciers to unravel global climate histories for thousands of years has earned him numerous prizes and accolades, especially in the past year. Among them, he recently was named one of America's Best Scientists by Time magazine and the Cable News Network, placing him in a prestigious group numbering fewer than two dozen.

Those supporting his Distinguished University Professor nomination reinforced Thompson's importance to the field. A Columbia University peer noted that Thompson "is arguably the most productive scientist in the earth and environmental sciences today" and that he "ranks in the top five most influential scientists studying the history of the Earth's climate system."

Others noted that Thompson has become a leading national spokesman on the subject of global climate change and one of the most respected voices in the world on related policy issues, as well as a scientist whose work will influence the future of the planet and all of its inhabitants.

Thompson has spent more than two decades drilling ice cores from mountaintop ice caps throughout at least seven countries and returning them to the university for analysis. Those cores contain stratigraphic records of climate that can extend back hundreds of thousands of years. Understanding the pattern of ancient climate can provide insight into the changes that are occurring throughout the world today.

He shocked the public and scientific community alike last year when he announced that the analysis of ice cores from high mountain glaciers in Africa and Peru showed melting at an alarming rate — one that would lead to the loss of those ice fields within 15 years.
This spring, he led his 45th expedition, this time traveling to an Alaskan glacier to capture evidence of ancient weather dating back thousands of years. Drilling and collecting ice cores from the glacier was completed during the first week of June. Thompson and his research team have undertaken similar missions to ice fields and glaciers in Peru, Bolivia, Antarctica, Greenland, Kurgyzstan, China, Africa and the Russian Arctic during the last quarter-century. The cores they have returned to Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center paint a picture of climate across the millennia, with the oldest dating back 600,000 years.

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