Ewing Honored as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

28 October 2004 — Andrew Ewing, holder of the J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Natural Sciences, professor of chemistry, and professor of neural and behavioral sciences, has been honored with the title of Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Awarded to 308 individuals this year, the honor is bestowed upon members of the AAAS whose efforts to advance science or its applications are deemed to be scientifically or socially distinguished. Ewing was recognized for his distinguished contributions to the development and application of nanoscale methods for single-cell analysis and neurochemistry.

Ewing is one of the world's foremost leaders in developing small-scale techniques and tools for understanding fundamental processes within the brain's individual cells. His techniques for measuring chemicals in the brain have enabled scientists to study the excretion of single neurotransmitter molecules from single nerve cells--a fundamental process whose understanding neuroscientists declared to be a top priority for the Decade of the Brain during the 1990s. "The importance of this work is that it provides a means to examine mechanisms of normal neuronal function as well as abnormal neuronal function associated with illness," Ewing says.

Ewing's research has resulted in three major methods for monitoring nerve cells during their communications with each other: an electrochemistry technique using very small electrodes and a capillary electrophoresis technique capable of analyzing volumes less than one millionth of a rain drop; and a mass-spectrometry technique, developed in collaboration with Nick Winograd, Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry, that is capable of imaging submicron sections of cell membranes.

In recognition of his research contributions, Ewing previously has received the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1987, both the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 1989, and the Swedish Medical Council Visiting Scientist Fellowship in 1991. He was honored with Penn State's Faculty Scholar Medal in Physical Sciences and Engineering in 1994, with the Graduate Faculty Teaching Award in 1997, with the Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Capillary Electrophoresis in 1999, and the Benedetti-Pichler Award by the American Microchemical Society in 2000. He was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow in 1999-2000, received a Distinguished Alumni Citation from Saint Lawrence University in 2001, and a special creativity extension award from the National Science Foundation from 2001 to 2002. He is the author or co-author of more than 185 publications and serves on several advisory boards for journals and scientific meetings.

Ewing earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry, cum laude, at Saint Lawrence University in 1979 and a doctoral degree in analytical chemistry with a minor in biological chemistry at Indiana University in 1983. He was a research associate at the University of North Carolina from 1983 to 1984, when he joined the Penn State faculty as an assistant professor. Ewing was promoted to associate professor in 1989, then to professor in 1992. He was named adjunct professor of neuroscience and anatomy from 1995 to 2003 and served as Co-Director for the Neuroscience Option at Penn State from 1996 to 2000 and Head of the Department of Chemistry from 1999 to 2004. In 1999, he was named J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Natural Sciences and in 2003 he was named Professor of Neural and Behavioral Sciences.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world's largest general scientific society, serving 10 million individuals, and is the publisher of the journal, Science, which has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world.

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