Five Earn Faculty Scholar Medals for 2006

17 March 2006—Five Penn State University Park professors will receive the 2006 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement. R. Keith Gilyard, distinguished professor of English, will receive the arts and humanities medal; B. Franklin Pugh, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, will receive the life and health sciences medal; Peter E. Schiffer, professor of physics, will receive the physical sciences medal; Darrell G. Schlom, professor of materials science and engineering, will receive the engineering medal, and Ann C. Crouter, professor of human development, will receive the social and behavioral sciences medal.

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peer reviews nominations and selects candidates.

Pugh is recognized for his research on the mechanisms of gene regulation throughout 6,000 genes of the baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He uses biochemistry, high-throughput genomic assays and computational-based approaches to define relationships between gene sequences, transcription factor function and gene expression. Yeast are good surrogates for human cells because the transcription machinery is nearly identical in yeast and humans, making his findings applicable to humans.

His recent research includes investigation of a gene regulatory element, found in 20 percent of yeast genes, that is associated with responses to stress, is highly regulated, and uses a pathway that differs from the other 80 percent of yeast genes. This establishes a bipolar functionality in the yeast genome with 80 percent of the genes loosely regulated and 20 percent highly regulated and responsive to emergencies.

He received his B.S. in biology from Cornell University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987. He was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of California–Berkeley before joining Penn State in 1992. He became associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in 1998 and professor in 2004.

Schiffer receives his award for his work in understanding the dynamic properties of granular materials such as sand, cereal or gravel. Materials in this form are critically important to numerous industries ranging from mining to pharmaceuticals, but the fundamental laws governing their behavior are still being explored.

He pioneered the study of stability and avalanches in wet granular materials, establishing a new subfield in this area of study. He also measured and analyzed the drag force on an object pushed through a granular material, elucidating the phenomenon of "local jamming," in which particles lock and provide a near-solid obstruction.

He received his B.S. in physics from Yale University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1993. After postdoctoral work at AT&T Bell Laboratories, he joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame as assistant professor of physics in 1995. He came to Penn State in 2000 as associate professor of physics and in 2003 became professor of physics. In 1997 he received both a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Army Research Office and an Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. In 1998 he received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and in 2004 was named a fellow of the American Physical Society.

[Andrea Messer]