Groundbreaking research earned UA professors induction into the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s new class of fellows.
Carol A. Barnes, a psychology and neurology professor, and Nancy A. Moran, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor, are two of 471 scientists who will comprise the new class, to be honored at the Fellows Forum in Boston on Feb. 16.
The nomination process began with a “”steering group”” that selected potential new members and presented their recommendations to the AAAS, which then voted on the nominees, Barnes said.
“”It’s truly an honor to be recognized by your peers,”” Barnes said. “”The fact that two UA faculty have been recognized this year is tremendous for the university.””
Barnes, the director of the McKnight Brain Institute at the Arizona Research Laboratories and former president of the Society for Neuroscience, joined the UA faculty this fall and teaches a course on gerontology.
Her research focused on how the brain changes during the aging process and the functional
It’s great to have recognition, but to be honest, it doesn’t make much difference to me personally. I become much more excited about a new scientific finding.
– Nancy A. Moran, professor, ecology and evolutionary biology
consequences of these changes on information-processing and memory in the elderly.
“”This honor will certainly strengthen my visibility in the scientific community,”” Barnes said.
Moran has been a UA faculty member since 1986 and has taught various courses, including Evolutionary Biology, Introductory Biology and Genomics. She researched the genomics of symbiotic bacteria and is currently on sabbatical, splitting her time between the University of California, Berkeley and the Joint Genome Institute.
Moran said she doesn’t get too worked up about awards and honors.
“”It’s great to have recognition, but to be honest, it doesn’t make much difference to me personally,”” Moran said. “”I become much more excited about a new scientific finding.””
Moran said she even forgot to tell her husband about her induction.
“”I would never forget to tell him if I had an interesting new result from research,”” she said. “”Awards are fine, but just doing science is more gratifying.””
Even so, Moran said the prestige of the AAAS is hard to ignore.
“”The AAAS is a very important organization promoting science in the U.S. and the world, so I am honored to have this recognition,”” she said.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is a nonprofit organization that serves approximately 10 million individuals, according to the AAAS Web site. It was founded in 1848 and is the world’s largest general science society. The organization also publishes the journal Science, which has a readership of approximately one million.
