Two University professors have been awarded this year’s John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, which provides research funding to assist scholars and artists.
The fellowship, established in 1925, awards money to be used by the recipient for research-related costs within one year.
Philip Scher, an associate professor of anthropology, and Shawn Lockery, a professor of biology, were two of this year’s 190 Guggenheim Fellows from the United States and Canada.
Scher was awarded roughly $43,000, which he will use to support the field research he will conduct starting next fall during his first sabbatical year in Barbados. His research will focus on places that are classified as World Heritage sites by the United Nations and how the classification affects local culture.
“This (classification) is creating these cultural zoos, where an area has to suddenly remain static,” Scher said.
Scher, who will be living in Barbados with his family from September 2008 to May 2009, hopes his research will shed light on how the expanding tourism market in the Caribbean is influencing the area’s local cultures.
Scher said many countries in the Caribbean are forced to develop an economy based on tourism because they cannot compete in production “with a big economic engine like the United States.” These countries, which are geographically similar, compete with each other to bring in the highest number of tourists by setting themselves apart culturally, he said. For this reason, having a World Heritage site is economically beneficial.
Scher said Barbados currently has two sites that are under consideration by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for a World Heritage site classification, which is the main reason he chose to do his research there.
Scher said he has conducted research in other Caribbean countries before.
“I wanted to stay within the Caribbean, but wanted to get a new experience,” he said.
Scher was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to fund his research in Barbados.
Lockery will use the funds he was awarded – roughly $40,000 – to do research that will further his study of how the nervous system controls behavior in nematodes, or parasitic worms, while on his second sabbatical year. He will work next year at Harvard University in a laboratory run by one of the founders of microfluidics.
Lockery will spend the year mastering microfluidics – which deals with the movement of fluids through very small devices using tubing that is usually only a few thousandths of an inch across – so he will be able to design and build environments for the nematodes to explore, he said. This will enable him to both control what the worms are exposed to and better monitor and record their behavior and neurological activity, Lockery added.
One of the benefits of Lockery’s research is the ability to screen anti-nematode drugs more effectively, said Lockery.
The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 30 percent of the world population is currently infected by parasitic worms, according to its Web site.
Lockery hopes in the next three to five years to partner with pharmaceutical companies to conduct research and drug screening at the University. The research will be conducted in the new Lorry I. Lokey Laboratories building.
The long-term goal of his research is to “understand how sensory and motor systems are integrated,” said Lockery.
“In receiving this award, and the research findings that led to it, I (am) deeply grateful to all the members of my laboratory whose efforts and shared enthusiasm made it possible,” Lockery said.
The Guggenheim fellowships are awarded to scholars who have “demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts” and show promise for future potential, according to the program’s Web site.
“It’s a great institution because it’s kind of kick-starting the second part of people’s careers and gives people the opportunity to build on what they have already done,” Scher said.
The amount of money fellows receive is adjusted to meet the needs of the individual based on other resources and the type and scope of the person’s research, according to the foundation Web site.
This year’s 190 fellows were chosen from a pool of more than 2,600 applicants in the United States and Canada. The average award amount was $43,000.
Since the foundation was established, 62 University faculty members have been named Guggenheim Fellows, according to the University’s Web site.
“Receiving this award is a tremendous honor,” said Lockery, “Many of the people who have received it in the past are my personal heroes in my field.”
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