Amy Ward Chosen as Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Dr. Amy Ward, a professor of biological sciences at The University of Alabama who is leading a program that’s becoming a national model for how to train future scientists, is the winner of the University’s Blackmon-Moody Outstanding Professor Award. She will be honored in a ceremony at the UA President’s Mansion at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 29.

The award is one of the highest honors bestowed on UA faculty and is presented annually to a faculty member whose, “singular, exceptional, or timely work, whether in the form of research, a product, a program or published material, has brought national recognition to the faculty member and The University of Alabama.”

The award was created by Frederick Moody Blackmon of Montgomery to honor the memory of his grandmother, Sarah McCorkle Moody of Tuscaloosa.

“You have brought distinction and recognition to yourself and The University of Alabama in numerous ways,” wrote UA interim President Barry Mason in notifying Ward, a freshwater ecologist, of the award. “You help to make this institution a special place.”

Ward, a faculty member in UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, founded and directs UA’s Center for Freshwater Studies and heads a new graduate education program to support students in freshwater studies. This graduate program, made possible by a $2.7 million National Science Foundation grant, is designed to meet the nation’s needs for broadly trained Ph.D.s with multidisciplinary backgrounds. UA was selected for the five-year program in 1999 and was one of only 21 colleges and universities chosen from the more than 400 proposals submitted to NSF that year.

In the program, known as Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training or IGERT, UA faculty from biological sciences, geography and geology participate jointly with faculty in similar areas from the University of New Mexico. The inter-regional component of the program allows students from each of the two universities to travel to the other region and study freshwater environments in contrasting climates. The students also participate in externships with state and federal agencies where they apply what they’ve learned in dissertation research to real-world problems.

Under Ward’s direction, the Center for Freshwater Studies is dedicated to understanding and preserving water, the environment in and around it, and the plants and animals that depend on it, including people. The interdisciplinary teaching, research and outreach program draws together faculty from the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, the School of Law and the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration.

“For over two decades, Dr. Amy Ward has been indefatigable in her vision for the aquatic biology program here and for its potential to be one of the top graduate programs in the nation bridging ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity,” wrote Dr. Martha Powell, professor and chair of the biological sciences department, in support of Ward’s selection.

“Through the leadership Dr. Amy Ward has provided, our IGERT program is becoming recognized as a model for how to educate and train students as modern scientists who can study and solve globally important problems of the future,” Powell continued.

During her 21 years at UA, Ward has been principal investigator on six National Science Foundation funded projects and co-principal investigator on four others. Under her leadership, the Center for Freshwater Studies has been awarded $10 million in extramural research and education grants.

Praise for Ward also came from outside UA.

Dr. Ross A. Virginia, a professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College, wrote in support of Ward’s nomination. “Amy represents the best of the teacher-scholar model that most universities profess as their expectation from the faculty,” Virginia wrote.

Virginia and Ward know one another through their affiliation with the Association of Ecosystems Research Centers. Ward served as president of this association for professional scientists in 1999-2000 and Virginia has served as an officer and a board member of the group.

Born in Georgetown, Texas, Ward earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Alabama and her master’s and doctoral degrees from Michigan State University. She is the daughter of Mrs. Ruthelle Jones, of Tuscaloosa, and the late Dr. Ralph Wood Jones and is married to Dr. Milton Ward, also a UA professor in the biological sciences department.