Research awards and notes

In September 2006, the American Dietetic Association awarded Professor Jean H. Hankin the Edna and Robert Langholz International Nutrition Award. Hankin is a dietitian and professor emeritus in the epidemiology program at the Cancer Research Center of Hawai‘i, and professor of public health at University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. The Langholz honor has only been awarded five times since its inception in 1992. It carries a $25,000 prize and recognizes outstanding contributions to the international community in the fields of nutrition and diabetics. Hankin was one of the first researchers to study how “Westernization” of Asian diets affected risk for heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and stroke.

In October 2006, researchers from the International Pacific Research Center at UH Mānoa predicted a strong El Niño event for 2007 based on conditions in the Indian Ocean, a novel predictive method. The recurring climate phenomenon, which is associated with an increased number of violent storms along the California coast and cyclones in the central Pacific, as well as with drier Hawaiian weather and fewer Atlantic hurricanes, has in the past been identified primarily with unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. In 1997 scientists first noticed a marked dip in ocean temperatures off the Indonesian island of Sumatra concurrent with a strong El Niño.

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) in October 2006 elected Whitlow W. L. Au, chief scientist of the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology’s Marine Mammal Research Program at UH Mānoa, as its next vice-president. ASA is the premier international society dealing with acoustic science and technology. Au studies acoustics in the context of marine biology and has in particular researched echolocation techniques in dolphins. He has been a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council since 2004.

In October 2006, Ralf Kaiser, a physical chemistry researcher at UH Mānoa, received a $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Collaborative Research in Chemistry program to examine the atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn’s moons. Hydrocarbon-based layers in Titan’s atmosphere could provide important clues as to the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere billions of years before life emerged, thus helping scientists understand the chemical development of the Solar System. Kaiser will lead an international, multi-institution team in the project, which was one of six selected for funding out of 118 applicants.

In November 2006, UH Mānoa engineering Professor Vassilis Syrmos was named associate vice chancellor for research and graduate education. Syrmos is the author of more than 100 journal and conference papers and one textbook. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Office of Naval Research, and Hawaiian Electric Company, among others.