Honored Professors Call Attention to Colleagues

Joseph Caruso and Vernon Scarborough were recently selected to join an elite group of scientists. But as faculty in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, they say they’re already familiar with the privilege of being part of a select community of talented individuals.

Professors Caruso and Scarborough have been awarded the distinction of Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Fellowship status is given annually to distinguished individuals by society members and their peers. Caruso and Scarborough are among 539 AAAS members elected this year for their efforts to advance science or its applications. Honorees will receive official certificates and pins Feb. 18 at the Fellows Forum during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia.

“As I work with different people throughout the university and see what they do so well, I am compelled to say, ‘If I deserve this, so many others do as well’” Caruso said.

Scarborough echoed that sentiment.

“I just need to keep it in context and realize I was recognized and there could be at least 10, 12 or 20 more folks in Arts and Sciences who could be recognized too,” Scarborough said.

Caruso is being honored for contributions to the fields of trace metal analysis, speciation and metallomics (the study of metals and metal species in biological systems) and for past service as head of the chemistry department at the University of Cincinnati and dean of the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences. He is director of the UC/Agilent Technologies Metallomics Center of the Americas, and a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the Society for Applied Spectroscopy and the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was given UC’s Rieveschl Award for Distinguished Scientific Research in 2007, and ISI Web of Science shows his work has been cited more than 9,000 times. He’s currently working on a project with nanoparticle toxicity and research into whether metalloproteins (proteins with metal atoms) might play a role as biomarkers in predicting strokes.

“The idea is to develop a better understanding of the actual molecular mechanisms to see if any of these (metalloproteins) might be predictive of the onset of stroke,” Caruso said.

Scarborough is being honored for revolutionizing the view of the ancient Maya Lowlands through his landscape and water-management studies set in a global context. By examining ancient engineered water systems and landscapes in Belize, Guatemala and elsewhere around the world, he addresses societal sustainability issues from a comparative ecological perspective. To achieve this end, he has emphasized cross-disciplinary exchange and international fieldwork. Scarborough is a Distinguished University Research Professor and Charles Phelps Taft Professor in Anthropology. He was awarded UC’s Rieveschl Award for Creative and Scholarly Works in 2004. Scarborough said his research overlaps with concerns about global warming and that we’re in a “very serious time ecologically.”

“Water is the most precious of all resources for anything organic,” Scarborough said. “In our setting here in Ohio, we don’t think much about it because it rains frequently. But if you go very far away into semi-arid setting or even temperate settings where you have a problem with the absence of a river right next door, it can become crucial. It can decide a whole culture’s fate.”

Caruso wants to take some matters of fate into his own hands by assuming a direct role in getting more of his colleagues from across the university nominated for various awards. He said there are many scientific researchers in the colleges of A&S, Engineering and Medicine who are worthy of being Fellows in AAAS and the key to helping them earn that distinction is becoming more familiar with the nomination process. In addition to the personal accolades, Caruso sees award recognition as a way to get the attention of potential benefactors.

“Our researchers can stand against any,” Caruso said. “I’m hoping to get into nominating not only from my department, but from throughout the university. And I would hope as this goes on we’ll get a lot more people promoting awards and recognition because I think that helps in other indirect ways, such as grant funding and raising the research profile of the university.”

The AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publishes the journal Science. Founded in 1848, the society includes more than 260 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million people. A nonprofit organization, the society is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society” through initiatives in science policy, international programs and science education.

Keith Herrell contributed to this article.