Eight Cornell faculty members are recipients of the 2009 Provost's Award for Distinguished Scholarship. The $15,000 awards recognize research and scholarship by outstanding tenured faculty members early in their careers and are an opportunity for the university to recognize its own talented researchers.

Paula Cohen, associate professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was honored for her work in DNA mismatch repair in mammalian meiosis and recombination. Cohen has also helped forge collaborative relationships with scientists in Ithaca and at Weill Cornell Medical College by creating the Cornell Center for Reproductive Genomics, and has established a laboratory that is one of the most innovative in the field of early meiosis.

Matthew DeLisa, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the College of Engineering, works on understanding and engineering bacterial protein machinery for the discovery, design and manufacturing of human drugs. He is one of a few biomolecular engineers ever to discover a major new biological pathway (the global control of mRNA degradation in bacteria by a novel RNAi-like mechanism) and has made seminal discoveries in cellular protein folding and protein secretion.

Andrew Galloway, professor of English and director of graduate studies for the Department of English and the Medieval Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences, was recognized for his contributions to the field of medieval studies. It was noted that Galloway's work is marked by thoroughness, clarity of presentation, sensitivity to language and useful contextualization, as well as originality in its testing of theories about the editing and interpreting of medieval texts.

Jeffrey Hancock, associate professor of communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), was honored for his research in communication and information sciences, specifically within the field of computer-mediated communication. His research has focused on examining social interactions mediated by information and communication technology, with a particular emphasis on how people produce and understand language in these contexts.

Brian Lazzaro, associate professor of entomology in CALS, was recognized for his research on the evolutionary genetics of insect immune responses and host-pathogen interactions, with implications for applications in human health and insect biological control. An expert on the evolutionary biology of the insect immune system, Lazzaro serves on the executive committee of the Cornell Center for Computational and Comparative Genomics.

Christiane Linster, associate professor of neurobiology and behavior in Arts and Sciences, has emerged as an international leader in computational neuroscience, and was recognized for her work on the olfactory system and how what is happening in the nervous system relates to perception. Some of the major questions she has probed include how different odors are encoded in the brain and how experience alters the organization of the brain and the perception of odors.

Michal Lipson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, develops technology for manipulating light signals on a microelectronic chip for future low-power computing, similar to the way electrical signals are manipulated in computer chips. Today, in large part due to Lipson's contributions, the field of silicon photonics is highly competitive and well established.

Bernadette Meyler, associate professor of law at the Cornell Law School, was recognized for her interdisciplinary work between law and the humanities, particularly in the use of literature to provide insights into law. A signature undertaking of Meyler has been her creation of the school's Law and Humanities Colloquium.