Communications and Psychiatry Professors
Receive Faculty Research Lecturer Award

Ioana Patringenaru | March 3, 2008

Carol Padden received an Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for 2006-07.

Carol Padden, a communications professor, and Marc A. Schuckit, a psychiatry professor, received the Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for the 2006-07 academic year, officials announced this week.

The award recognizes faculty whose research has made a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The award is presented annually to two researchers: one from the arts, humanities or social sciences, and one from the sciences. Each recipient presents a lecture on a topic of their choice; is honored by the faculty at a reception following the lecture; and receives a $1,000 award. 

Padden will give her lecture at 4 p.m. March 13 in the Leichtag Auditorium. She will talk about her research on the Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), a new sign language that developed in a community in southern Israel without any apparent influence from languages in the region, including Hebrew, Arabic and other sign languages. By watching native signers tell stories and describe actions, Padden and researchers from Stony Brook University and the University of Haifa found that the language goes beyond a list of words for actions, objects, people, characteristics to establish systematic relations among those elements.

Marc A. Schuckit received an Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for 2006-07.

Schuckit will give his lecture at 4 p.m April 24, also at the Leichtag Auditorium. He will speak about his research into the link between genetics and alcoholism. Schuckit followed for 25 years about 450 subjects, who were UCSD students at the time when the study began. Some had alcoholic parents, others did not. Schuckit found that the best predictor of alcoholism was a genetically-influenced characteristic determined at age 20, namely a low sensitivity to alcohol.

The award was established in 1982 and started recognizing faculty for the 1983 academic year. At that time, the award went to one faculty member each year. In 1996, the senate decided to recognize two faculty members per year. As a result, a total of 22 faculty members have been recognized since the award was created. Past recipients include Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, David Noel Freedman, Roger Tsien and Elizabeth Barrett-Connor.