Four Receive Distinguished Research Awards at The U of M
For release: Mar. 25, 2003
For press information, contact Gabrielle Maxey

The 2003 University of Memphis Alumni Association Awards for Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement will go to a poet, a physicist, a sociologist, and an expert on Latin American literature. Each will receive a $2,000 award March 28 during the University's annual Faculty Convocation.

Dr. Fernando Burgos, professor of foreign languages and literatures, is the winner of the award in the humanities. Dr. Donald Franceschetti, professor of physics, was chosen to represent the sciences, engineering and math. Gordon Osing, professor of English and director of the creative writing program, will receive the award for the creative arts. Dr. Barbara Ellen Smith, professor of sociology, will be recognized for achievement in the social sciences.

While Franceschetti has made pioneering contributions to the field of solid-state ionics, his work covers a broad range of topics, including thermodynamics, physics, solid-state chemistry, and DNA computing. In addition to his full-time assignment in physics, Franceschetti also serves the chemistry and biomedical engineering departments, as well as the Institute for Intelligent Systems. Through 70 journal articles and numerous papers, he has produced superior quality works on such topics as the theory of random walk, chaos and artificial intelligence.

Burgos is a professor of Spanish, specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American literature. His extensive research ranges from avant-garde prose fiction to poetry, from theater to the short story. Burgos' works are included in nine books, more than 45 articles, and 60 papers delivered at national and international meetings. He is a respected critic of the short story, a genre in which Latin America has distinguished itself over the past 50 years.

Poet Osing came to The U of M in 1973 and founded the River City Writers Series, which has brought dozens of prominent writers to the campus. He was the University's first exchange professor with Central China Normal University; while there, he helped create a collection of poems by Chinese writer Su Shi. That success led to his receiving a Senior Fulbright Lectureship in American Studies at Hong Kong University.

In 1995, Osing helped produce a collection of poems by China's first contemporary feminist author, Shu Ting. Poems influenced by Osing's three years in China appear in his collection The Water Radical. His other works include From the Boundary Waters and A Town Down the River.

Smith, in addition to her role as classroom professor, is the director of the Center for Research on Women. Her current research addresses issues of race and gender of Latino immigrants who work in the Memphis regional economy.
Smith's primary research areas include social movement, social inequality, and the American South and Appalachia. She has written many scholarly publications, addressing such topics as black lung disease among coal miners and citizen activism throughout Appalachia and the South.

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