AUSTIN, October 29, 2009 - The winners of this year’s University Co-op Robert W. Hamilton Book Awards were announced on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at the Four Seasons Hotel. The Hamilton Award is one of the highest honor of literary achievement given to published authors at the University of Texas at Austin. Chairman of the University Co-operative Society, Dr. Michael H. Granof hosted the event and announced the winners. Dr. Victoria Rodriguez, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, presented the awards.
The Hamilton Awards are named in honor of Professor Robert W. Hamilton, the Minerva House Drysdale Regent Chair-Emeritus in Law. Professor Hamilton was chair of the Co-op Board for 12 years, from 1989 to 2001, and was in large measure responsible for the Co-op’s uncommon growth and profitability during that period.
The $10,000 Grand Prize winner of the Hamilton Book Award was
Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research
Authors: Thomas O. McGarity, J.D. and Wendy E. Wagner, J.D.
College: School of Law
Publisher: Harvard University Press
In writing Bending Sciences: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research, Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner reveal the range of sophisticated legal and financial tactics political and corporate advocates use to discredit or suppress research on potential human health hazards. Scientists can find their research blocked, or find themselves threatened with financial ruin. Corporations, plaintiff attorneys, think tanks, even government agencies have been caught suppressing or distorting research on the safety of chemical products. With alarming stories drawn from the public record, McGarity and Wagner describe how advocates attempt to bend science or “spin” findings. They reveal an immense range of tools available to shrewd partisans determined to manipulate research. Bending Science exposes an astonishing pattern of corruption and makes a compelling case for reforms to safeguard both the integrity of science and the public health. From: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MCGBEN.html
There were also 4 winners who took home $3,000 runner-up prizes as follows:
Jacqueline Jones,Ph. D. – Department of History
“Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War” Published by A. A. Knopf
Peter F. MacNeilage, Ph. D. - Department of Psychology
“The Origin of Speech” Published by Oxford University Press
Tracie M. Matysik, Ph.D. – Department of History
”Reforming the Moral Subject: Ethics and Sexuality in Central Europe, 1890-1930”
Published by Cornell University Press
Karen L. Rascati, Ph.D. – College of Pharmacy
“Essentials of Pharmacoeconomics” Published by Lippincott Williams and Wilkins
Another highly regarded award presented at this event was University Co-operative Society’s Career Research Excellence Award.
J. Tinsley Oden, Ph.D. – Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, was awarded the $10,000 Career Research Excellence Award for maintaining a superior research program over many years at the university.
Dr. Tinsley Oden is one of the most respected scientists and academic administrators in the country, and he has enjoyed a spectacular career in the fields of engineering, computation, and applied mathematics. His life's work has been marked by superlative achievements with far-reaching impact.
An author of over 500 scientific publications: books, book chapters, conference papers, and monographs, Dr. Oden is an editor of the series, Finite Elements in Flow Problems and of Computational Methods in Nonlinear Mechanics. Among the 50 books he has authored or edited are Contact Problems in Elasticity, a six-volume series: Finite Elements, An Introduction to the Mathematical Theory of Finite Elements, and several textbooks, including Applied Functional Analysis and Mechanics of Elastic Structures and more recently, A Posteriori Error Estimation in Finite Element Analysis, with M. Ainsworth.
Julian Vasquez Heilig, Ph. D. – Department of Educational Administration, was awarded the $5,000 Best Research Paper Award for “Accountability Texas-Style: The Progress and Learning of Urban Minority Students in a High-Stakes Testing Context.”
Ms. Michelle Habeck, – Department of Theatre and Dance, won the $3,000 Fine Arts Award for outstanding achievement by a faculty member of the College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin.
About University Co-operative Society:
The University Co-op is a not-for-profit corporation owned by the students, faculty and staff of the University of Texas at Austin. Since the year 2000, the University Co-op has given over 28 million dollars to UT in the form of gifts, grants and rebates.
Contact:
Hulan Swain, hswain@universitycoop.com
Tel: 512.322.7071
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