UUPers in the news

Culinary artists — The student culinary team at SUNY Delhi — under the direction of chef Thomas Recinella — recently won the American Culinary Federation’s (ACF) state junior competition, making this the third consecutive year for Delhi to earn this title. The team now moves to the ACF’s Northeast Region competition this month.

Delhi’s student culinary artists scored a record-setting 37.45 out of a possible 40, earning the squad a gold medal. The team had 60 minutes to demonstrate technical skills and then meet the challenges of preparing and serving a four-course meal for four in 75 minutes.

“Our team is very strong this year,” said Recinella, a culinary instructor and coach of the winning team.

Young investigator awarded — Paschalis Alexandridis, an associate professor in SUNY Buffalo’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, received the prestigious 2002 Sigma Xi Young Investigator Award.

The award in the physical sciences, given every two years by Sigma Xi, the international science honors organization, recognizes an individual on the basis of scientific accomplishments, relevance of research and the individual’s ability to communicate his or her work to the general public.

Alexandridis uses molecules and particles as “LEGOs” to develop advanced materials at the nano-scale that end up in products ranging from paints to contact lenses.

TERN-about is fair play — A SUNY Buffalo psychologist, whose research seeks to identify multiple levels of influence that contribute to the development of adolescent substance use, was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Tobacco Etiology Research Network (TERN) scholar for 2002.

His selection will allow Craig Colder, an assistant professor in the department of psychology in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, to work with the network of senior scientists representing a number of disciplines whose principal purpose is to understand predictors of transitions and trajectories in tobacco use, from no use to dependence.

The goal of the TERN Scholar Program is to train junior investigators to become the next generation of researchers who take tobacco research in new directions.

Colder, who directs the Laboratory for the Study of Individual Differences and Substance Use, has studied the psychosocial characteristics of alcohol users and problem solvers, and related issues.