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CALS’ Fred Gould is 2012 O. Max Gardner Award winner

Dr. Fred Gould, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, is the 2012 recipient of the O. Max Gardner Award. Presented annually by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the award goes to to a UNC-system faculty member who “has made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.” It is the most significant universitywide honor given to faculty by the UNC Board of Governors.

An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Gould researches the ecology and genetics of insect pests, to improve food production and human and environmental health. One of his projects involves genetically modified mosquitoes that have reduced capacity to carry and spread dengue fever. His work had been funded by such groups as the National Science Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Gould won the 2010-2011 Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence, N.C. State’s highest award for faculty achievement. In 2007, he won Sigma Xi’s George Bugliarello Prize for his article on genetic manipulation of pests for control of human disease vectors. And in 2004, he received the Alexander Von Humboldt Foundation Award, presented annually to the person judged to have made the most significant contribution to American agriculture during the previous five years.

Gould is a member of the Entomological Society of America, the Society for the Study of Evolution and Sigma Xi. He has served on National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council committees to study the environmental effects of the commercialization of genetically modified plants and develop recommendations on genetically modified pest-protected crops. He has also served on Environmental Protection Agency panels on genetically modified crops.

A native of New York, Gould holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Queens College and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the State University of New York-Stony Brook. He came to N.C. State in 1978 as a research associate and became full professor in 1990. In 1993, he was named William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Entomology.

Gould brings to 27 the number of O. Max Gardner Award winners from N.C. State University since 1949, when the awards program began honoring “persons who have made notable contributions of national or international scale, or persons whose contributions, although local, have served as models nationally or internationally.”

Previous O. Max Gardner winners from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences include Dr. Todd Klaenhammer (2009), Dr. Trudy MacKay (2007), Dr. Bruce Weir (2003), Dr. R. Wayne Skaggs (1997), Dr. Ernest Hodgson (1996), Dr. Major Goodman (1987), Dr. Frank Guthrie (1983), Dr. Joseph Sasser (1982), Dr. Ellis Cowling (1981), Dr. C. Clark Cockerham (1980), Dr. Stanley Stephens (1970), Dr. Walton Gregory (1967) and Dr. Zeno Metcalf (1955).

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