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NEWS RELEASE

03-26-01

Contacts:
James Bloedel, Vice Provost for Research, (515) 294-6344
Steve Sullivan, News Service, (515) 294-3720

CANDIDATES FOR ISU BIOINFORMATICS CENTER ANNOUNCED

AMES, Iowa -- Four candidates for the director of Iowa State University's Laurence H. Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics have been announced.

The candidates are Naomi Altman, associate professor of biometrics at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; Volker Brendel, associate professor of zoology and genetics at Iowa State; Robert Jernigan, chief of the section on molecular structure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Md.; and Hal Stern, interim director of the Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics and professor of statistics at Iowa State.

The Baker Center for Bioinformatics and Biological Statistics is one of nine research centers sponsored by Iowa State's Plant Sciences Institute. The center develops highly advanced computational and statistical methods for acquiring and analyzing biological and genomics data. The Baker Center director oversees continued expansion of Iowa State's research programs in bioinformatics, computational biology and biological statistics.

Jim Cornette, University Professor of mathematics, was the first director of the Baker Center. He retired in 2000.

All four candidates will interview on campus in April. Each will give a research presentation as well as a presentation on "Future Directions for the Laurence H. Baker Center." Each research presentation will be at 10 a.m. in Howe Hall auditorium.

Research presentations
Jernigan: Tuesday, April 3
Altman: Thursday, April 5
Stern: Wednesday, April 11
Brendel: Thursday, April 26

Each "Future Directions" presentation will be at 1:10 p.m. Each will be in the Ensminger Room of Kildee Hall unless otherwise noted.

"Future Directions" presentation
Jernigan: Wednesday, April 4
Altman: Friday, April 6, Gallery, Memorial Union
Stern: Thursday, April 12
Brendel: Friday, April 27

Jernigan
Jernigan has been with the NIH since 1970. He has been a theoretical physical chemist with the NIH National Cancer Institute since 1975; deputy chief of the laboratory of experimental and computational biology since 1989; and in his current position since 1992. Jernigan earned a B.S. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1963, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University in 1967.

Altman
Altman has been chair of the department of biometrics at Cornell University since 1997. She has held several positions at Cornell, including assistant professor of biometrics (1987-1995); visiting associate professor in the bioacoustics laboratory (1996-1997); associate professor of biometrics (1995 to present); and co-director of the environmental statistics program (1997-present). She received a B.S in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1974; an M.S. in statistics from the University of Toronto in 1979; and a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University in 1988.

Stern
Stern has been on the faculty of Iowa State since 1994. He was an associate professor of statistics from 1994-97; director of graduate studies from 1996-98; and professor of statistics from 1997 to present. He was appointed interim director of the Baker Center in 2000. Prior to Iowa State, Stern held several positions at Harvard University, including associate professor of statistics and director of undergraduate studies in statistics. He received a B.S. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981; and an M.S. in 1985 and a Ph.D. in 1987, both from Stanford University.

Brendel
Brendel has been an associate professor of zoology and genetics at Iowa State since 1998. Since 2000, he also has had an appointment as an associate professor in statistics. Prior to Iowa State, Brendel was a lecturer and research associate in mathematics at Stanford University. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics/physics and biology from Christian Albrechts Universitat, Kiel, Germany, in 1978; an M.S. in applied statistics from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, in 1980; and a Ph.D. in life sciences, bioinformatics and applied mathematics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, in 1986.

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