• Eileen Boris, professor of studies in women and gender, will receive Boston University's highest alumni honor. She was selected by the school's College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate School Alumni Association to become a member of the Collegium of Distinguished Alumni, in recognition of her contributions to the school and the association. The honor will be bestowed May 20.

• In conjunction with National Laboratory Week (April 3-7), three U.Va. Health System employees were recognized with Laboratorian of the Year awards. Honored were Sandy Ryan, for support; Lisa Gross, for anatomic pathology; and Martha Tilman, for clinical pathology. All three were nominated by fellow staff members.

• President Clinton named Lori Graham, an assistant professor of civil engineering, as one of 60 young researchers to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. It is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.

Eight federal departments and agencies make nominations for the awards. Graham, who was nominated by the National Science Foundation, received her award April 12 in a White House ceremony. Winners receive up to five years of financial support to further their studies in support of critical government missions.

• The April 4 "Notables" item listing the winners of awards from District III of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education inadvertently omitted two honors won by the Television News Office. The office received a special merit award in the television category for "UVA Leadership," a promotional spot typically aired at halftime of televised athletic contests; and another special merit award in the film/videotape category for "Getting Started at UVA," the summer orientation video for new students.

• As director of the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, Karen Holt is often in the news. But she recently received some off-the-job recognition, too, for a nifty "neologism."

Washington Post columnist Bob Levey sponsors a monthly contest asking leaders to coin a word to fit a certain definition. The March challenge: "Regardless of age and marital status, every male does it. When he's introduced to an attractive woman, he sucks in his gut and puffs out his chest. This deeply rooted reflex is called ..." Holt's entry beat out 3,000 others. Her word: "tumfoolery."

• Curry School professor Daniel Hallahan recently received the Council for Exceptional Children's Special Education Research Award. In making the award, the council said he "has not only been one of the most prolific researchers and scholars in special education for more than two decades, he has also been one of the most influential." Curry School colleague James Kauffman is a past winner of that award; U.Va. is the only school in the country to have two faculty members win it.

• Eric R. Bredo, professor of leadership, foundations and policy in the Curry School, was recently elected vice president of the American Educational Studies Association, the national organization for foundations of education.

• The military recently presented the Legion of Merit, one of the highest awards made in peacetime, to Robert S. Brown, who holds dual professorships in the Curry School and the School of Medicine. The award commends Dr. Brown for his "meritorious service and dynamic leadership" while assigned as a medical officer to the 99th regional support command.

• Linda K. Bunker, William Parrish Professor of Education, was selected as the 2000-01 Alliance School for the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. She is the 24th elite scholar to be so designated since 1976.

• Dr. Marcus L. Martin, professor and chair of emergency medicine, was recently inducted into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi at North Carolina State University.

• Dr. Talissa Altes, a fourth-year radiology resident and biomedical engineering graduate student, was awarded the Young Investigator Award for Clinical Science at the eighth annual scientific meeting of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. She was recognized for her work using hyperpolarized helium-3 magnetic resonance imaging to view the lungs of asthmatics.

• At its April 2000 meeting, the American Association for Ukrainian Studies awarded Natalie O. Konenenko, professor of Slavic languages and literature, its prize for best book in the field for Ukrainian Minstrels: And the Blind Shall Sing (1998, M.E. Sharpe). The book previously won the Kovaliv Prize, an international recognition given by a Swiss couple.

• The Virginia Mathematics and Science Coalition on March 23 honored Juanita Jo Matkins, professor of science education at the Curry School, for her efforts to boost the success of women and minority students in math, science and technology. Matkins penned a reader theater production, "Women, Wife, Mommy, and Scientist," for teachers entering the profession.

• "Testing the Waters," a plan designed by assistant professor of landscape architecture Julie Bargmann to reclaim a former coal-mining site, is on exhibit through Aug. 6 in the National Design Triennial at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York City. The 45-acre mine site in Vintondale, Pa., was plagued by acid mine drainage, which kills all life downstream. Bargmann's landscape design uses biological processes to de-acidify the water in a public, park-like setting. In reviewing the show, New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp called Bargmann's work "the most ambitious project in the Reclaimed section, and one of the best in the Triennial."

• The U.Va. Health System's Teen Health Center won the Charlottesville-Albemarle Community Foundation's annual Youth Service Award. The award, decided by a panel of nine high school seniors and announced April 25, includes a $10,000 grant. The center, open since 1991, receives 3,000 visits a year from patients between the ages of 12 and 20. Some of the grant money will be used to fund a peer health education program, to begin in the fall.

• Two U.Va. professors were recently appointed to the state Department of Environmental Quality's Science Advisory Committee: Wu-Seng Lung of the Engineering School's civil engineering department, and Aaron Mills of the environmental sciences department. According to their letters of appointment, the State Department is seeking "expert assistance to ensure that [it] is employing both the best current scientific principles and is positioning itself to evaluate and incorporate the continually evolving environmental paradigms."