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Newsmakers

David V. MacCollum, '50, has been chosen as a Fellow in the American Society of Safety Engineers. He is a consulting safety engineer and publisher of the monthly newsletter, Hazard Information, which highlights new safety technologies. He has received numerous awards for his efforts to prevent injury to workers and the public by ensuring safe design of construction and mining equipment and safer construction contract management. He and his wife, Nancy, have lived in Sierra Vista, Ariz., for 36 years.

Octave Levenspiel, '52, professor emeritus at OSU, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering. Known as the founder of chemical reaction engineering, he is the first OSU faculty member elected to the academy. He served as a faculty member for 25 years until his retirement in 1991. He has published more than 100 papers and proceedings and is recognized as introducing chemical reaction engineering into the basic curriculum now studied by engineering students worldwide.

James M. Davidson, '56, '58, has received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America in recognition of outstanding service to soil science. He conducted research in soil physics and the movement and sorption of pesticides and other organic chemicals in soil-water systems. He is vice president emeritus and professor emeritus of soil and water science at the University of Florida.

Thomas W. Osborn, '68, '72, was recently appointed to the Victor Mills Society of the Proctor and Gamble Company, which represents the highest level of technical achievement in the company. He is one of only 16 members of this society, chosen from the 7,500 scientists who work in the company's global research and development divisions. He holds more than 60 patents and has 90 patents pending.

Yumiko Ishikawa-Brush, '75, lives in England and is the scientific officer at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in Tony Monaco's Human Genetics lab. She also is a senior research scientist at the department of clinical medicine, University of Oxford, on a genome-wide search project studying specific language impairment. Her husband, Gerry Brush, '76, is teaching statistical analysis to biologists at the department of biological anthropology, the University of Oxford.

Margaret Leinen, '76, has been named the head of the Geosciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. Managing a $470 million budget, she will coordinate environmental science and engineering programs within the NSF and develop environmental cooperation and collaborations between NSF and other federal agencies. Leinen is an expert in paleoceanography and paleoclimatology. She is past president of The Oceanography Society and on the board of governors of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions and the Ocean Research Advisory Council.

Sharon Harmon, '81, is the executive director of the Oregon Humane Society in Portland. She has a zoology degree from OSU and manages the care and adoption of 13,000 animals at the Portland shelter. She instituted training programs to educate her staff in breed characteristics of various pets so that they can make the right match for adoptive families. She has formed partnerships with local veterinarians and pet-supply retailers to reduce cost and improve care of their animals. Harmon has just completed a capital campaign raising nearly $8 million for a new shelter building, which opened in November 1999.

Mitch Coleman, '89, '91, is a recipient of the 1999 Milken Family Foundation National Educator Award. He is an agriculture education teacher at Dayton High School in Dayton, Ore. He is one of four Oregon teachers honored for excellence in teaching. He was instrumental in Dayton High's nursery career curriculum, heads the state's largest FFA chapter and has seen several of his former students pursue careers in the field of education. The award includes an unrestricted financial award of $25,000.