Professor to Get Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Sleep Foundation has selected UCSD professor of psychiatry Sonia Ancoli-Israel as the recipient of its 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award is in honor of Ancoli-Israel’s contributions to sleep research and public health. With more than 30 years of experience, the pioneering researcher is an expert in sleep disorders and aging.
She is also a prolific author of over 300 publications and three books, including “”All I Want is a Good Night’s Sleep.””
Ancoli-Israel has held numerous distinguished offices, and was the first person at the UCSD School of Medicine, and the only faculty member with board certification in behavioral sleep medicine.
In addition to being a professor of psychiatry, she is the research director of the UCSD Sleep Medicine Center, co-director of the UCSD General Clinical Research Center Gillin Laboratory of Sleep and Chronobiology and deputy editor of the journal Sleep.
“”The National Sleep Foundation is extremely grateful to [Ancoli-Israel] for her outstanding devotion to the field of sleep medicine,”” Barbara A. Phillips, Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, stated in a press release. “”NSF extends its sincerest appreciation for everything that she has done to advance public understanding of the importance of sleep.””
Ancoli-Israel received a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Long Beach, and a Ph.D. from UC San Francisco.
Currently, she is studying the effect of sleep disorders on aging and the correlation between circadian rhythms and cancer.
Irrigation Masks Global Warming Effects
Irrigation throughout California ———– especially in the Central Valley ———– could mask the effects of global warming, according to a recent study.
Professor Laura Kueppers of the School of Natural Sciences at UC Merced, along with two colleagues from UC Santa Cruz, found that irrigation’s natural cooling effects cause the temperature to drop in summer months, countering greenhouse gas emissions.
“”It gives a false sense of security because the irrigation makes it really difficult to assess the effects of greenhouse gases,”” Kueppers said.
Kueppers’ findings showed that agricultural and forestry activities impact the measurement of climate change.
Her model indicated a mean temperature rise of 6.5 degrees in irrigated areas, while greenhouse gas emissions are expected to warm Earth by approximately the same amount.
“”If we don’t consider what we’re doing to the area by urbanizing, which removes farmland that has a cooling effect, we could very well end up with a much hotter Central Valley,”” Kueppers said.
