UA professor, parrot win $28K fellowship

A UA professor and her parrot, Alex, received a portion of the $4.5 million awarded by John Simon Guggenheim Foundations.

Irene Pepperberg, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, was one of 156 applicants awarded a $28,000 fellowship in the 72nd annual awards competition.

For two decades, Pepperberg has been training African gray parrots, Alex in particular, how to communicate using phonetic sounds.

"The two-way communication is used to examine cognitive abilities and how intelligent the parrots are," Pepperberg said.

"The parrots have performed at the same levels as chimpanzees, dolphins and young children in their ability to identify 50 objects, seven colors and shapes, and quantities up to six," she said.

The research goals are to see how the brain organizes information differently from humans and how it can be used as a model for intervention with dysfunctional children, and also to sensitize people to birds to strengthen conservation efforts, she said.

Pepperberg, a 1976 Harvard graduate, said the award will help her financially while she takes off the coming academic school year to write a book.

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Prof wins $6K for music excellence

Carrol McLaughlin, a music professor at the UA, received a $6,000 award for excellence, innovation and creativity in visual and performing arts. She will use the money to help complete an instrumental compact disc along with Japanese flutist Yoko Owada.

She has previously recorded classical and Jazz CDs.

McLaughlin, who created a videotape to inform the award committee about her use of excerpts from performances with Diana Ross and Jerry Lewis, said, "It's an incredible honor that the committee thought what I've done is worthy of reward and recognition."

She has taught at the UA for 13 years and is the director of HarpFusion, a 14-student harp ensemble.

HarpFusion has recorded two CDs from originally composed music and other music selections, titled Desert Reflections and The Trouble with Angels, over the last four years.

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Law student wins Munger prize

An international law student received a $2,400 award from a former UA law graduate and Tucson attorney.

Lisa Thompson is the 1996 recipient of the John F. Munger prize for Scholars in International and Business Law. Munger, in conjunction with his wife, Roseann, has funded a $60,000 endowment to further studies in international and business law.

"There is not a lot of focus on international law awards," said Munger, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents. "The international law program needed to be recognized, and so did the students," he said.

Thompson, who is writing her masters thesis on international arbitration between Mexico and the United States, is planning on working in a Phoenix law office after graduation. She said she hopes to teach law in the future.

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Prof given $58K for depression study

At least 17 percent of the U.S. population will experience a major depression for at least two weeks, said the recipient of a national award.

John Allen, assistant professor of psychology, is one of 120 Young Investigators awarded a $58,000 grant over two years by the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.

"This grant is a great honor to receive and I'm looking forward to being able to expand on my current research in the field of mental illness," Allen said.

Allen was selected from a pool of 700 researchers who specialize in the reactions of the human brain in relation to mental illness.

The research is targeted at identifying people who are at risk and intervening before they experience severe depression, Allen said.

This disease affects large amounts of people, he said, and can be disabling for those who have it.

Allen said his research involves measuring the activity in the frontal lobes of the brain to see if they are equal. If an imbalance exists, the chemical in the brain known as serotonin is not equal. Allen's research has shown that serotonin is directly related to depression.

Through experiments using volunteers who were formerly depressed, Allen will measure the serotonin in the brain during bouts of depression. Depletion of serotonin in most people will cause them to become depressed for about a day, until the brain can reproduce an equal amount of serotonin again, Allen said.