3 UB Faculty Members Recognized by SUNY Research Foundation

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Three University at Buffalo faculty members were among the 52 State University of New York faculty members recognized for their research and scholarship by the SUNY Research Foundation at a recent dinner in Albany.

Receiving the Research and Scholarship Award were Jo L. Freudenheim of North Buffalo, UB Distinguished Professor and interim chair, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (SPM), School of Public Health and Health Professions; William E. Pelham, Jr., of Amherst, UB Distinguished Professor in the departments of Psychology, Pediatrics and Psychiatry, and director of the Center for Children and Families; and Jolene K. Rickard of Sanborn, associate professor, Department of Art History, College of Arts and Sciences.

The awards were presented to SUNY faculty members "who are recognized leaders in the humanities, arts, social sciences, sciences, medicine and engineering," according to a statement issued by SUNY. "Their dedication and hard work advances humanity, enhances New York State's economy and ensures the State University of New York is recognized throughout the world as a home to research and scholarship."

Jo Freudenheim joined UB's faculty in 1988 after serving as a postdoctoral fellow in SPM from 1987-88.

Her research focuses on the epidemiology of diet in relation to cancer risk, with a particular focus on breast cancer. She also is examining residential history as an indicator of environmental exposures to elucidate a possible role of those exposures in breast cancer epidemiology.

Her work has received major funding from the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute, and has been published in numerous scholarly journals.

She serves as chair of the Epidemiology of Cancer Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health.

Freudenheim earned a bachelor's degree in human nutrition from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, master's degrees in nutritional sciences and epidemiology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a doctorate in nutritional sciences, statistics, also from Wisconsin.

William Pelham, Jr., is one of the leading researchers in attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the U.S. He joined the UB faculty in 1996 after a 10-year stint on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh, where he directed the Attention Deficit Disorder Program at the University of the Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Pelham conducts at UB the highly successful behavior-modification Summer Treatment Program for children with ADHD, named by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a Model Program in Service Delivery in Child and Family in Mental Health.

Over the years, Pelham has studied many aspects of ADHD, including the nature of cognitive deficit; peer relationships; diagnosis; pharmacological, psychosocial and combined treatments; motivation and persistence; family factors, such as parental alcohol problems; service delivery, and outcome.

He is a principal investigator on the National Institute of Mental Health Multi-site Treatment Study for ADHD, a clinical trial investigating effective treatments for ADHD, and currently holds 10 other grants from NIMH, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and several pharmaceutical companies.

Pelham is on the Council of Representatives for the APA and directs the Biennial Niagara Conference on Evidence-Based Treatments for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

He received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Stony Brook University.

A Tuscaroran photographer, art historian, theorist and essayist, Jolene Rickard holds a joint appointment in the departments of Art and Art History.

She served as guest curator of the spectacular "Wall of Gold" in the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), which opened in September 2004 in Washington, D.C. The wall, which consists of gold objects owned and used by native peoples before their contact with Europeans, is designed to illustrate the enormous wealth that subsequently was stolen from them. It features 408 gold figurines dating back to 1490, along with European swords, coins and crosses that were made from melted native objects.

Rickard's scholarly work focuses on the aesthetic practice of First Nations and indigenous peoples in a global context. It spans a broad range of issues in historical and contemporary art, including the examination of Native-American iconography, the "trickster" in art, Iroquoian women's beadwork and the relationship between Native-American and African-American art.

She is a widely sought after consultant, speaker and author on the subject of the history and aesthetics of Native-American art and is on the board of the New York State Historical Association, a

member of the College Art Association, Native Art Association and the Society for Photographic Educators, and a founding board member of the Otsego Institute of Native American Art History.

Her photographic installations have been shown widely across North America at venues that include the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, Canadian Museum of Civilization (Ottawa), the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), the McCord Museum (Quebec), Gallery of the American Indian Community House (New York City) and the New York State Museum (Albany).