Dr. Joy Watts, Assistant Professor of Biology, has been selected as the first recipient of the Jess & Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair in the Biological and Physical Sciences. Dr. Watts? appointment to the Fisher Chair will commence on August 16, 2006 and will be for three years. As the holder of the Jess and Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair, she will be provided a monetary award of $20,000 for each of three years. This award may be used for, but is not limited to, a summer faculty stipend, professional travel, research equipment and supplies, undergraduate student support, and a three-hour course load reduction per annum in her teaching.
Dr. Watts received her B.Sc. (Hons.) in Applied Biology from Liverpool John Moores University and her Ph.D. in environmental microbiology from the University of Warwick. Before arriving at Towson in 2004, Dr. Watts served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. Dr. Watts is a leading expert in the use of molecular tools to examine the ecology and distribution of microbial communities associated with PCB dechlorination in the environment. Her research plans during her tenure as the Fisher Endowed Chair will include continuing studies of microbial communities in the Chesapeake Bay as well as new projects focusing on studies of new dehalogenating microorganisms that exist in symbioses with sponges from the Chesapeake Bay and identifying new microorganisms from catfishes that are associated with the degradation of carbon polymers in wood that normally resist degradation. Dr. Watts will conduct much of this work in close collaboration with her undergraduate students.
As the Fisher Chair, Dr. Watts will be required sometime during her appointment to make a public presentation to the university community on the results of her research and that of her students.
This year?s competition for the Fisher Chair was extremely strong. There were a total of eleven applications, many of which contained impressive research plans and articulate statements on the impact the Fisher Endowed Chair would have on professional development and in providing research opportunities for undergraduate students. Two faculty did receive ?meritorious recognition? on the basis of the strength of their applications: Dr. Harald Beck (Biological Sciences) and Dr. Jennifer Scott (Physics, Astronomy and Geosciences). They will each receive a $5,000 award in support of their professional development.
***The Jess and Mildred Fisher Endowed Chair in the Biological and Physical Sciences was established in June 2005 as part of a $10.2 million gift to the College from the Robert M. Fisher Foundation. The purpose of the Fisher Endowed Chair is to honor the memory of the Fisher family by incorporating research opportunities into the undergraduate learning experience through the support of the scholarly growth of highly promising faculty researchers in the physical and biological sciences who are in the early stages of their careers at Towson. ***
