3 University of Arizona Professors Named AAAS Fellows

WASHINGTON DC —Three University of Arizona professors on Wednesday were named AAAS Fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The trio is part of a group of 565 scientists, engineers and innovators across scientific disciplines to earn the distinction from the AAAS, the Washington D.C.-based general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

The UA professors earning the distinction were: Elizabeth "Betsy" Arnold, professor of plant sciences, Carol Gregorio, professor and head of the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Cecile McKee, professor of linguistics.

"AAAS is proud to bestow the honor of AAAS Fellow to some of today's brightest minds who are integral to forging our path into the future," said Sudip Parikh, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. "We celebrate these distinguished individuals for their invaluable contributions to the scientific enterprise."

Arnold is being recognized for her contributions to the field of ecology and evolution, particularly for her studies of plant microbiomes in the wild and agricultural ecosystems, a UA spokesperson said.

In 2005, Arnold began as a UA faculty member and as curator of the university's Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium, a role which she still holds today.

She has led an effort to digitize, expand and preserve the Gilbertson Herbarium in addition to making contributions to research, instruction, mentorship, outreach and service.

Arnold has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers and for the past five years has served as executive editor of the journal Mycologia, the flagship journal of the Mycological Society of America.

"There are millions of fungal species on Earth, yet we've only described about 100,000," Arnold said. "Every plant holds a tremendous biodiversity waiting to be discovered. In many cases, those fungi can be used to make new medicines or agricultural tools for sustainability."

Gregorio, who joined the UA faculty in 1996, is being honored for her internationally recognized contributions toward understanding heart and skeletal muscle structure, function and disease, according to the university.

In addition to heading the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Gregorio is co-director of Sarver Heart Center, director of the Molecular Cardiovascular Research Program, a professor of cellular and molecular medicine, assistant vice provost for Global Health Sciences and a BIO5 Institute member.

Gregorio said she loves the beauty of her science.

"Muscles work by sliding against each other — their structure is highly regular," Gregorio said. "The same mechanisms that cause a heart to contract, cause cells to move during processes such as cancer metastasis, but because striated muscle is so beautifully aligned you can see and watch muscle filaments move, which would be impossible if it wasn't so well organized."

McKee is a professor in UA's Department of Linguistics and, according to the AAAS, she is being recognized for: "(her) distinguished contributions to developmental psycholinguistics, particularly experimental design for demonstrating children's knowledge of syntax, and for distinguished service in promoting public awareness of the significance of linguistic study."

McKee's studies have focused on children's language development, recently focusing on how fast and how fluently they talk. McKee has also developed innovative ways to examine complex syntax in young children.

"For much of my research, I wanted to look at whether children knew something about their language that was either very rare or very complex," McKee said. "And, so, I spent a lot of time developing new ways to put 2-year-olds in experiments probing their grammatical knowledge."

McKee added: "The reason that matters is that various contrasting theories care very much about that early end. Once a kid is about 3 or 4 years old, syntactically, they're pretty much done. We find they perform like adults in certain experiments."

For many years, McKee – often accompanied by a team of students – has been active in public engagement at K-12 schools, science and cultural festivals, including Science City at the Tucson Festival of Books and Tucson Meet Yourself.

She also collaborated with the Children's Museum Tucson, as part of a UA class providing special engagement opportunities for undergraduate students.