Christine A. Shoemaker, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Thomas D. Seeley, professor of neurobiology and behavior, at Cornell University have received Alexander von Humboldt Research Awards, which include 100,000 to 120,000 Deutsche marks (about $45,500 to $54,000) and six to 12 months of research time at a German university of their choice.

Regarded as the most prestigious scientific honor given by Germany to foreign scholars,

the prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is intended as a lifelong tribute to academic accomplishments.

Shoemaker will visit Aachen University of Technology and the University of Stuttgart in Germany as a part of her project "Optimal Cost and Risk Minimization of Hydrogeologic Environmental Problems." Her research focuses on the development of numerically efficient optimization algorithms for large-scale problems and the application of optimization and modeling procedures to problems arising in environmental management, such as groundwater contamination.

A member of the College of Engineering faculty since 1972, Shoemaker served as chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering from 1985 to 1988. She teaches classes in heuristic methods for optimization and environmental and water resources systems analysis. She is a member of the graduate fields in civil and environmental engineering, applied mathematics, operations research, and ecology and evolutionary biology.

Shoemaker earned a B.S. degree in mathematics (1966) at the University of California at Davis, and her Ph.D. (1971) in mathematics at the University of Southern California. Her previous honors include the 1999 Julian Hines Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for "leadership and research in ecosystems management, water resources systems analysis and groundwater modeling and protection," the highest award given by the Water Resource and Planning Division of ASCE. She also was elected (1996) a fellow of ASCE.

Seeley was cited, in his nomination by German scientists, for 25 years of studies of the inner workings of honey bee colonies, which were summarized in his book, The Wisdom of the Hive (Harvard University Press, 1995).

The award will take Seeley to the University of Würzburg, where he will conduct studies of communication among bees via substrate (honeycomb) vibrations and write a biography of the German scientist Martin Lindauer, whose observations of the social physiology of honey bees laid the foundation for Seeley's work.

A member of the Cornell faculty since 1986, Seeley focuses his research on understanding one of the five major transitions in evolution – the transition from individual organisms to integrated groups – using honey bee colonies as model systems for studying functional organization at the group level. At Cornell he teaches courses in animal communication, behavior, biology of social insects and major transitions in evolution. Seeley earned an A.B. in chemistry (1974) at Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in biology (1978) at Harvard University. He was in the Society of Fellows at Harvard, 1978-80, and taught at Yale University, 1980-86, before joining the neurobiology and behavior faculty at Cornell as an assistant professor. Seeley also is the author of Honeybee Ecology (Princeton University Press, 1985).

Originally established shortly after the death of nature researcher and explorer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the foundation was re-established in 1953 by the Federal Republic of Germany to promote an active, worldwide network of scholars. Since its re-establishment, the foundation has sponsored more than 20,000 scholars from 125 countries. Some 66 faculty members currently at Cornell have received von Humboldt fellowships or awards.

Other related websites:

• Von Humnboldt foundation: http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/index.htm