UA student awarded Fulbright scholarship

Lori Strazdas, a UA masters of public health student, was awarded a Fulbright scholarship.

The scholarship will allow Strazdas to live in Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania, for about one year and study stomach cancer.

Strazdasâ father was born in Kaunas, and she has many relatives in Lithuania.

ãI am anxious to apply the skills Iâve gathered throughout my education, as well as learn about my ancestry,ä Strazdas said.

The Fulbright Program was developed by Congress in 1946, immediately following World War II to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchange.

Sen. J. William Fulbright, sponsor of the legislation, saw the program as a move toward building an alternative to armed conflict. It has awarded more than 234,000 scholarships since its inception.

Faculty-staff newspaper going out of print

The last issue of the UAâs faculty-staff newspaper will be printed on June 27.

Recent state budget cuts have made it necessary to stop publishing Lo Que Pasa because of a lack of funds.

ãWe saw this coming years ago when the price of newsprint doubled, so we prepared ourselves by creating an extensive listserv and Web site,ä said Janis Leibold, editor at UA News Services.

Lo Que Pasa will still be available online at UANews.org.

Leibold said the Lo Que Pasa listserv currently serves 5,000 faculty and staff members at the university. She updates the listserv over the summer, so she expects the number of subscribers to increase in the coming months.

ãWeâre looking at providing facilities management employees with a print listserv, which would be handed out with their pay check,ä Leibold said.

She said this will serve the 600 or more staff members who do not have computers by keeping them informed about campus events.

Lo Que Pasa publishes stories for UA faculty and staff, including stories about new UA policies, benefits, staff layoffs, and information about upcoming activities, such as staff softball games.

The Lo Que Pasa listserv, the largest internal news listserv at UA, will continue to operate.

Lo Que Pasa Online will continue to accept submissions to its usual sections, including news, faculty and staff recognition, briefs and classified ads.

Faculty and staff who would like to subscribe the Lo Que Pasa listserv should contact Janis Leibold at janisl@u.arizona.edu.

NASA names university scientist to study Mars

A UA research scientist has been selected to be part of a mission to explore the terrain of Mars for a second time.

Peter Smith, a senior research scientist at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said he expects to be working to calibrate remote controlled cameras on the Mars Exploration Rover.

The rover is an improved version of the Mars Pathfinder, which will travel miles across the surface of Mars to study rocks and soils, search for water and search for clues as to whether life existed when water was present.

Smith is one of 28 scientists who was chosen for the mission and will work at NASAâs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. His camera provided images from the Mars Pathfinder mission several years ago.

The mission is scheduled for launch next summer and touchdown on Mars in winter or spring 2004.