2010 Research Innovation Awards recognize nine faculty members

EUGENE, Ore. -- (May 3, 2010) --Their accomplishments range from a leading textbook on natural resources law to nanotechnology commercialization to pioneering literary nonfiction. Nine University of Oregon professors will be honored for furthering "societal connections" at the UO Research Innovation Awards ceremony May 17.

The Research Innovation Awards, now in their fifth year, celebrate the diversity of UO's achievements in research and scholarship by taking a different focus each year. In 2006, recipients were chosen on the basis of grants, patents or spin-off companies they generated. The next year was humanities, followed by community and society, and then science and innovation a year ago.

This year's societal connections focus will fall upon three professors each from the UO School of Law, the Lundquist College of Business and the School of Journalism and Communication. They were selected for outstanding achievement in fostering new knowledge, creative endeavors and connections of scholarship to society.

Recipients from the UO School of Law are Steven Bender, director of Portland programs and director of the Green Business Initiative; Susan Gary, who specializes in inheritance law and regulation of nonprofits; and Mary Wood, faculty director of the environmental and natural resources law program.

Lundquist College of business award-winners are David Guenther, who studies income tax effects on financing, investing, and financial reporting; Sergio Koreisha, whose economic modeling research has been supported by the U.S. Census Bureau; and Alan Meyer, who has researched nanotechnology investing.

At the School of Journalism and Communication, awards will go to Lauren Kessler, whose literary nonfiction focuses on American subcultures; Janet Wasko, who studies the political economy of communications; and Kyu Ho Youm, whose research includes U.S. communication law and press freedom theories.

The UO Research Innovation Awards ceremony and reception will be hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, and will be at 5 p.m. May 17, at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

The event is sponsored by the financial services company TIAA-CREF and the law firm Klarquist Sparkman, LLP.

About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 62 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.

Contact: Stacy Williams-Wright, research and graduate studies, 541-346-2888, stacyw@uoregon.edu

Links: Research Innovation Awards website http://ria.uoregon.edu/

Media contact: Joe Mosley, media relations associate, 541-346-3606, jmosley@uoregon.edu