One of the world's leading experts on Asian economics, an eminent scholar of women's and children's rights in the Middle East, and a consumer scientist who's helped develop the foods we eat are the winners of this year's Distinguished Public Service Awards at UC Davis.
They are Wing Thye Woo, professor of economics; Suad Joseph, professor of anthropology and women and gender studies; and Howard Schutz, professor emeritus in food science and technology.
The UC Davis Academic Senate an-nounced the Distinguished Public Service Awards at its quarterly meeting May 4. The senate, representing all tenured faculty members, makes the awards annually to recognize faculty members' significant public service contributions to the world, nation, state and community.
Wing Thye Woo's research focuses on economic and finance issues of East Asia, especially China and Indonesia. His studies and activities have involved China's economic development and U.S. policy toward China, and he has traveled extensively in that country. His advice is sought by leading international organizations including the United Nations, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Woo has co-authored books on Indonesia and China, and edited volumes and special issues of journals on international financial crises and economic transitions. An article of his in the Journal of International Economics was identified as one of the 25 most cited papers in the journal's 30 years of history.
In 1998, Woo headed the project known as the Asia Competitiveness Report to analyze the Asian financial crisis for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He also served as special adviser to former treasury secretary Robert Rubin, accompanying the secretary to a meeting with China's president in 1997.
Kevin Hoover, chair of the economics department, noted in his nomination that Woo has "literally circled the globe many times during his 19-year career at UC Davis.
"His wife, Jennie, says that he no longer has a natural time zone. He works wherever and whenever -- on planes and in hotels -- sleeping when he can fit it in."
Woo received his doctorate in economics from Harvard University in 1982.
Suad Joseph's research has explored gender, family, politics, and culture and identity in the Middle East. Her research focuses on her native Lebanon, its war and the aftermath, which has parallels with the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.
Joseph also founded and coordinates the Arab Families Working Group, a research consortium of scholars, planners and policy-makers with participants from Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. She founded the Association for Middle East Women's Studies in an effort to promote quality research in the field.
Carol Smith, chair of the anthropology department, wrote in nominating Joseph that she has "offered a lifetime of service dedicated to increasing understanding, exchange and scholarly cooperation between the United States and the Middle East."
Joseph has developed a long-term research program on the interface of gender, family and state in the Middle East, with a focus on Lebanon, but also carrying out comparative work in Iraq. She has conducted numerous workshops in the Arab world for non-governmental organizations, public agencies and universities. Therapists and social workers in clinical settings are using her work on Arab families and the self.
Joseph now is carrying out a long-term research project following a cohort of children in a Lebanese village -- observing, as they grow, how they learn their notions of rights, responsibilities, nationality, citizenship; how these notions come to be thought of as male or female; and how the notions are transferred from family arenas into political and public arenas.
Joseph received her doctorate in anthropology from Columbia University in 1975.
Howard Schutz focused his career on taste and odor research, preference measurement and methodology, and cognitive and context factors in food acceptance. He has worked on product development methods, consumer behavior, food irradiation attitudes, and food and nutrition attitudes.
Schutz has served as a visiting scientist for the U.S. Army, where he helped develop more efficient production methods for food and clothing, and has consulted with the U.S. Product Safety Commission on devising drug containers.
"I have long regarded Professor Howard Schutz as a model for faculty scholarly public service," wrote Dennis Pendleton, dean of UC Davis Extension, in nominating Schutz. "He has been a campus leader in acknowledging and rewarding the service of others and in enhancing campus emphasis on the practice of public service."
The founder of a new distance-learning certificate in sensory evaluation and consumer testing for UC Davis Extension, Schutz has worked with a Sacramento regional planning commission and the state of California on consumer education programs. He has assisted the city of Davis on assessing the consumer needs of elderly citizens, and has strived to expand university degree offerings to working professionals and older adult learners.
Schutz has collaborated with the Agency for International Development in evaluating the potential of using fish protein as a food supplement in Columbia. He also introduced sensory-evaluation tools for use in Norway, Denmark and the United Kingdom.
Schutz received his doctorate in physiological and experimental psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1955.