April 14, 2003

Photographer Ann Parker to Speak, April 22
Author and celebrated photographer Ann Parker, who has explored and recorded the arts and cultures of lesser-known corners of the globe for more than 30 years, will present an illustrated talk about her new work and her distinguished career on Tuesday, April 22, at 7 p.m. in the Konover Auditorium at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

Parker's new work, featured in the exhibit, "Botanical Metamorphics," on display in Homer Babbidge Library through May 25, represents a radical departure from her earlier efforts. Without using either film or camera, she passes light directly through fruits, flowers, and vegetables, and projects it onto color-sensitive paper, resulting in "photograms," which reveal the inner structure of plant life with extraordinary clarity.

Parker believes that we are increasingly out of touch with nature. Although the marketplace provides us, both in and out of season, with an unprecedented variety of produce, it comes to us dyed, bleached, waxed, gassed, saturated with chemicals, dehydrated, reconstituted, and frequently tightly cocooned in plastic.

Parker was trained as a painter, graphic artist, and photographer. Her photography has been exhibited widely both in the U.S. and abroad. In collaboration with her husband, writer Avon Neal, she has published six photographic books. Her work can be found in public, private, and corporate collections including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; the Boston Public Library; the Center for Creative Photography; Hood Museum, Dartmouth College; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art; the San Antonio Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

'Environmental Hero' to Speak About Coastal Water Quality April 24
"Linked Watershed/Ocean/Human Ecosystem: Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico Water Quality" will be the topic of a lecture by Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium on Thursday, April 24, at 4 p.m., in the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center.

The lecture, one of the Edwin Way Teale Lecture Series on Nature and the Environment, will focus on the influence of excess nutrients on marine systems, especially the hypoxic area of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Rabalais will explore similar situations that exist globally, and the interactions of science and policy that lead to sound management policies regarding nutrient management.

Rabalais is a leader in the science and implications of coastal anoxia, the lack of oxygen in coastal waters. She pioneered research on what is often called the "Dead Zone" because shrimp and other marine species can't survive in coastal waters due to runoff of nutrients from farming and other industries.

In 2002, the "Dead Zone" was the size of Massachusetts and stretched as deep as 120 feet and as far as 25 miles into the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River Delta across Louisiana and Texas.

Scientific work by Rabalais and her colleagues, together with the activities of advocates, have resulted in the Hypoxia Action Plan, endorsed by the White House and Congress, to alleviate this massive ecological and economic problem.

Rabalais was named an Environmental Hero in 1999 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and one of 30 Clean Water Act Heroes in 2002 for her work on the causes and consequences of Gulf of Mexico hypoxia.

Rabalais teaches marine science courses at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and at the Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences at Louisiana State University.

Geneticist to Launch 'Chancellor's Distinguished Lecture' Series
Dr. Mark Hughes of Wayne State University and the Karmanos Cancer Institute will give a lecture on "Human Reproductive Genetics: The Science, the Medicine and the Ethical Challenges" on Monday, April 28.

The lecture, the first in a new series established by Chancellor John Petersen, will take place in Room A120 in the Chemistry Building on the Storrs campus, beginning at 4:30 p.m. Admission is open to the University community.

The Chancellor's Distinguished Lecture Series is designed to bring to campus individuals who are doing revolutionary work in their respective fields. The series is planned to be presented several times during the academic year and will focus on various aspects of science, technology, the arts, and the humanities, and other topics of interest to the University community.

Dr. Hughes has conducted path-breaking research on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. He is currently affiliated with Wayne State University, where he is a professor of molecular medicine and genetics, obstetrics and gynecology, and pathology; and the Karmanos Cancer Institute, where he is director of the human genomics department.

In 1994, he became one of the founding clinician-scientists in the NIH-Human Genome Center in Bethesda, Md. His work focused on transferring basic human genetics technologies into immediately applicable clinical-research tools for patient care.

Previously, his work while at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston involved the initial cloning of the estrogen and progesterone steroid receptors and the study of how these molecules regulate fundamental gene transcription in reproductive biology.