By Faith Peppers
University of Georgia
Paul M. Bertsch, a University of Georgia professor of soil
physical chemistry and mineralogy and director of the Savannah
River Ecology Laboratory, received the 2004 D.W. Brooks Award for
Excellence in Research Oct. 18 in Athens, Ga.
The award includes a framed certificate and $5,000 cash.
Bertsch’s research on aluminum chemistry has improved scientists’
understanding of the element’s role in soil chemistry and plant
and animal toxicity.
His extensive work on delineating the chemical speciation, or the
molecular form of atoms in a matrix, of environmental
contaminants and on understanding the connection between chemical
speciation and the mobility, bioavailability and toxicity of
contaminants is widely recognized as pioneering.
It has provided the basis of a new research area now widely known
as molecular environmental science. His work has been widely
recognized by researchers in many fields, including geology,
chemistry, physics and biology.
Wide acclaim
Bertsch authored or co-authored more than 140 refereed journal
publications. He has been invited to present his research results
at many prestigious national and international meetings. Among
them were the 100th anniversary meeting of the American Physical
Society and the National Academy of Sciences Colloquium on
Geology, Mineralogy and Human Welfare, where only 16 scientists
worldwide were asked to participate.
Bertsch has been elected a fellow of the American Society of
Agronomy and the Soil Science Society of America. He also
received the SSSA’s Jackson Award for excellence in teaching and
research in soil chemistry and mineralogy.
He has served and continues to serve on many national and
international scientific committees. These include the National
Academy of Sciences National Committee for Soil Science and
Committee on Earth Resources.
Other winners
Other Brooks honorees this year were Debbie Purvis, county
extension programs; Jeffrey Dorfman, teaching, Bill Hurst,
extension and Jack Houston, international agriculture.
The Brooks teaching award was first given in 1981. Two years
later, the awards were expanded to include research, extension
and county extension programs. An award for international
agriculture was added in 1988 and is given in even-numbered years.
Before the awards ceremony, Mark Drabenstott delivered the D.W.
Brooks Lecture, “The Brave New World for Land-grant
Universities.” Drabenstott is vice president and director of the
Center for the Study of Rural America at the Federal Reserve Bank
of Kansas City.
The lecture and awards are named for the late D.W. Brooks,
founder of Gold Kist, Inc., and Cotton States Mutual Insurance
Companies. Brooks was an advisor on agriculture and trade issues
to seven U.S. presidents.
(Faith Peppers is a news editor with the University of Georgia
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.)
