U of Oregon professors win Oregon Academy of Science awards

Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR), Mar 10, 2005 by Justin Stranzl

Two University of Oregon faculty members have received top awards from the Oregon Academy of Science.

Geologist Ewart M. Baldwin and physicist Richard M. Taylor have been named the 2005 Outstanding Scientist and Outstanding Teacher in Higher Education, respectively.

The awards were presented last month at the association's annual meeting at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Baldwin, author of the geological handbook Geology of Oregon, is in his 58th year at the University of Oregon and holds the rank of professor emeritus of geological sciences. He has mapped more than 4,000 square miles of southwestern Oregon and the southern Oregon coast as a field geologist professor studying the geological record of the Tertiary period, which stretched from 65 million to 2.3 million years ago.

The academy chose to honor Baldwin in recognition of the long, productive and transformational career of scholarly excellence and commitment to bringing geological science to the research community, students and general public, said Dan Arp, president of the Oregon Academy of Science and an Oregon State professor of botany and plant pathology.

Taylor, who teaches about 450 students each term, is best known for discovering a way to authenticate the paintings of Jackson Pollock. He has received courtesy appointments in the University of Oregon art and psychology departments.

Professor Taylor is an inspirational, engaging and effective teacher who is exceptional in the classroom and has inspired many through his innovative curriculum developments, Arp said. He truly is an outstanding educator at all levels.