UW News

April 29, 2003

National Academy of Sciences names two from UW, one from Fred Hutchinson as new members

News and Information

An oceanographer striving to find the limits of life, a marine policy expert helping resource managers and citizens prepare for global climate change and a neurobiologist investigating the mechanism underlying the sense of smell became the University of Washington’s newest members of the National Academy of Sciences today.

The announcement from Washington, D.C., says being named a member is one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Professors Jody Deming and Ed Miles, both with the UW’s College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, and Linda Buck, a neurobiologist with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who also has an affiliate faculty position at the UW, were among 72 new members elected to the academy.

Deming, a biological oceanographer, studies tiny organisms that survive under extreme conditions – the frigid temperatures and salty brine found deep within the crevices of the Arctic ice pack, and the fierce pressures and 700 F temperatures of hydrothermal vents near seafloor volcanoes. These microorganisms, referred to as extremophiles, thrive at the limits life can tolerate on Earth. Along with understanding their Earthly realms, which could include a global biosphere under the Earth’s crust, understanding such microorganisms also could help in the quest to find life on other planets and moons, says Deming. She is a founding faculty member of the UW’s Astrobiology Program, the first doctoral program of its kind in the world when it was began in 1999.

Deming’s undergraduate degree in biological science is from Smith College in Massachusetts and her doctorate in marine microbiology is from the University of Maryland. She conducted postdoctoral work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and worked at Johns Hopkins University’s Chesapeake Bay Institute. At the UW since 1988, Deming teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses, has led a number of icebreaker expeditions in the Arctic and traveled in submersibles deep within the oceans.

Global climate change – which could affect water resources, ecosystems and sea levels the world over – poses unique challenges for local and Pacific Northwest resources managers, according to Miles of the UW’s School of Marine Affairs. To help, Miles formed the Climate Impacts Group that strives to help businesses, agencies and other organizations incorporate short-, medium- and long-term climate forecasts into their planning.

Miles also has served on a working group that is part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an international effort. Fishing, shipping, oil drilling and military security on the high seas are all policy arenas with international challenges in which Miles has played roles during his 35-year career. Miles earned his bachelor’s from Howard University, Washington, D.C., and his doctorate in international relations from the University of Denver. He has been a fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Harvard Center for International Affairs. He had a UNESCO appointment in Paris as an international affairs fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations before joining the UW in 1974. From 1982 until 1993, Miles was director of the UW School of Marine Affairs. He is currently the Virginia & Prentice Bloedel Professor of Marine and Public Affairs at the UW.

Buck is a member of the basic sciences division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, UW affiliate professor of physiology and biophysics and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She and Richard Axel, professor at Columbia University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, have been recognized for their discovery of the family of olfactory receptor proteins. Buck received an undergraduate degree from the UW and a doctoral degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She did postdoctoral research in neuroscience at Columbia University.

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For more information about new UW members, contact
Deming, (206) 543-0845, jdeming@u.washington.edu
Miles, (206) 685-1837, edmiles@u.washington.edu

http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/04292003?OpenDocument

For information about Buck, call Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Kristen Woodward, (206) 667-5095, kwoodwar@fhcrc.org