Staff Researcher Is Promoted To Director Of U. Maryland's Marine Biotech Center

Author: Ron Kaufman, p.22 Madilyn Fletcher has been appointed director of the University of Maryland's Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) in Baltimore. Fletcher has been a senior staff scientist and professor at COMB since its founding in 1986. She assumed her new position on April 5. Fletcher says one of her first tasks as director will be to identify four areas of research on which the center should concentrate its efforts in the coming years. She says that the fields of fish and shellfish biotechnology, marine biofilm biotechnology, and high-temperature marine archebacteria are good candidates for areas of research focus. Fletcher says the center's personnel strengths and a field's strong basic science component are important in determining future areas of research excellence. "Part of this planning process is to define our goals and focus our research efforts on the existing strengths of the center," she says. "We are determining in what directions we will grow, expand, and develop." A new home for COMB's 65 technicians, postdocs, graduate students, and support staff is being built at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, next to the National Aquarium. The new location, called the Christopher Columbus Center for Marine Research and Exploration, is scheduled to be completed near the end of 1994. It will be larger than COMB's current home, and will house an advanced training center and exhibition hall. Fletcher says she anticipates a move in the spring of 1995. Fletcher says she will continue pursuing her own research in the area of marine biofouling. Biofouling, the colonization of solid surfaces by marine microorganisms and bacteria, happens on all surfaces submerged in water containing bacteria. She says this natural process can have serious economic implications for synthetic surfaces. "We are trying to understand the mechanism of this bacterial adhesion," she says. "Once we understand the mechanistic basis of it, we have some hope of trying to control it and in some way, maybe, prevent it." Fletcher received her B.S. from Randolph-Macon Women's College in Lynchburg, Va., in 1968 and her Ph.D. at the Marine Science Laboratories, University College of North Wales in the United Kingdom, in 1974. Before joining COMB, she taught for eight years in the department of environmental sciences at the University of Warwick, Coventry, U.K. She has been editor-in-chief of the independent journal Microbial Ecology (Springer-Verlag, New York) since 1984. The National Science Foundation has appointed Hugh Van Horn, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester in New York, as head of its division of astronomy. Van Horn will take the reins of the astronomy section in Washington, D.C., for two years, beginning on July 1. Van Horn, whose research focuses on high-density matter found in celestial objects, such as white dwarf stars and black holes, says he has outlined two goals for his upcoming tenure. One is that the United States should follow the recommendations of a 1991 report by the National Academy of Sciences' Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee--commonly called the Bahcall report after the committee's chairman, astrophysicist John Bahcall-- which outlines goals and funding priorities for the field of astronomy until the turn of the century. "I regard [the Bahcall report] as effectively the charter under which the field of astronomy is intended to operate for the next decade, until the next report is produced," Van Horn says. "The very top priority was what they referred to as `fixing the infrastructure,' [discussing] things like maintenance of the national observatories and adequate support for the research programs at the institutions for young investigators." The Bahcall report also recommended the continuation and completion of some specific research projects, such as the construction of two 8-meter telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, called the Gemini Project. Van Horn's second goal is for NSF's astronomy division to accrue more funding. Currently, the section receives about $100 million per year. "I would love to have $150 million for fiscal year 1995," Van Horn says. "I think there is a general perception within the astronomical community that the budget allocated to the astronomy division to support research activities in the national observatories has not been adequate to meet the needs of the field." Van Horn says, however, that the government's well-known budgetary constraints make a 50 percent increase in funding a long shot. "But I really do believe that the needs of the astronomical community justify an incremental adjustment to the level of support." He says if the U.S. wishes to maintain a high level of expertise in the areas of science and technology, funding astronomical research is a good way of attracting students to science-related careers. "Astronomy, of all the sciences, probably has the broadest general appeal to the public because of its very high visual impact," he says. "An investment in astronomy is an investment in finding ways of encouraging young people to consider science and technology as a career goal." Van Horn received his B.S. from Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland in 1960 and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cornell University in 1966. He has been a member of the faculty of the University of Rochester since 1967.

Staff Researcher Is Promoted To Director Of U. Maryland's Marine Biotech Center

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