UO Press Release:

UO Doctoral Students Awarded Research Fellowships

EUGENE-Four University of Oregon doctoral degree candidates are recipients of 2000-2001 UO Doctoral Research Fellowships. Doctoral students Chris Demaske in journalism and communication, Michael Pebworth in history, Scott Reed in chemistry and Jean Luc Robin in Romance languages are this year's fellowship recipients. Each award includes a $16,000 stipend and a UO tuition waiver, with funding beginning in either Summer or Fall terms of 2000.

The UO Doctoral Research Fellowship program, jointly funded by the Graduate School and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, is designed to promote excellence in research at the university by supporting exceptional advanced doctoral degree candidates as they complete their research and write their dissertations.

Since the program's inauguration in 1991, three to six UO doctoral degree candidates have received the doctoral research fellowships each year.

The fellowships are available to eligible doctoral degree candidates in all academic disciplines at the university, and recipients must be entering their final year at the UO. Each department may nominate one candidate for the fellowship, and a subcommittee of the UO Graduate Council evaluates the applications, in consultation with the dean of the Graduate School.

Demaske, of Uniontown, Pa., will use her grant to study the First Amendment and develop a framework of case analysis to look at issues of free speech and equality. Her dissertation title is "A Feminist Interpretation of the First Amendment: Reconceptualizing Freedom, Liberty and Equality."

"I am trying to develop a framework of conducting case analysis based primarily in feminist theory," says Demaske.

While at the UO, Demaske has taught courses in communications law and in women, minorities and the media at the School of Journalism and Communication.

Demaske received her master's degree from the University of Mississippi where her thesis dealt with naming rape victims in the press. She plans to
complete her UO dissertation in 2001.

Pebworth, of Homewood, Ill., will use his award to study the history of federal wilderness preservation in Washington State in his dissertation, "Evergreen Struggle: Federal Wilderness Preservation, Populism and Liberalism in Washington State, 1950-1988."

He will focus on grass-roots activists including the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Sierra Club and several timber labor unions. His study will analyze how their efforts to preserve or use federal forests shaped liberal politics in Washington State.

"I plan to argue that fights over federal wilderness alienated some working-class voters from liberalism in Washington State, just as civil rights policies did in eastern, urban areas in the 1970s," Pebworth says.

While at the UO, Pebworth was a graduate teaching fellow for five years and helped to teach more than 15 classes, including U.S. history, African history and western civilization. He has been an active participant in the Teaching Effectiveness Program and had an article published in College
Teaching.

Pebworth received his master's degree from the University of Oregon in 1995. His thesis focused on the creation of Olympic National Park in Washington State in the 1930s and how the fight over the park related to New Deal politics.

Reed, of Port Washington, N.Y., is completing a dissertation entitled, "Electron Transfer Through Peptide-Containing Alkanethiol Assemblies." In his research, Reed will examine the use of chemistry in modeling the natural process of protein-mediated electron transfer.

"I seek to better understand how proteins perform functions such as energy storage, catalysis and conversion of solar energy to chemical energy through studying the mediation of electron transfer by proteins over long distances," says Reed.

While at the UO, Reed has worked as a graduate teaching fellow in the Department of Chemistry where he developed a novel "green chemistry" curriculum emphasizing environmentally benign chemistry practice in an undergraduate laboratory. Reed has received numerous awards including a Department of Education Teaching Fellowship in 1998 and a presentation award at the American Chemical Society's 1997 national meeting. He also has written many articles in such research journals as Chemical Education, Crystal Engineering and Chemistry of Materials.

After Reed's postdoctoral work, he hopes to pursue an academic career in the field of biomimetic material synthesis.

Robin, of Montpellier, France, is working on a dissertation in the Department of Romance Languages, entitled "Experiment and Model in Literary and Scientific Texts of the Classical Period." His dissertation, written in French, will investigate the use of experimental and simulation procedures primarily as narrative and rhetorical devices in the writings of Copernican scientists and French naturalist writers of the 17th century.

"The cultural hegemony enjoyed by classical French writers until the 1680s confirms that the practical benefits of experimentation and simulation achieved earlier success in literature than in science and in human nature enquiry than in physics," says Robin.

A graduate teaching fellow since 1995, Robin has taught first- and second-year French courses and two third-year French language and culture
courses.

Robin obtained a master's degree in France in 1991 and a second master's degree at the UO in 1997. Upon completion of his dissertation in fall 2000, he plans to pursue a university teaching career.