UWI Sociologist and Gender Specialist, Dr Leith Dunn, has been named as a member of the Commonwealth Observer Mission for Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government Elections in the Republic of Malawi, to be held on May 20, 2014.
 
This is the fourth occasion on which Dr Dunn is being asked to serve as a Commonwealth Election Observer for polls in Africa.  She first served in March 2002 as Observer for the Zimbabwe elections and has also served on Commonwealth Observer Missions for elections in Zambia in 2006 and in Rwanda in 2010.
 

On behalf of the entire Department of Life Sciences and especially the Centre for Marine Sciences and the Port Royal Marine Laboratory (the latter was Ivan’s research base for over 20 years), we share the sorrow and mourn the loss of a leader in Marine Sciences with the passing of Professor Emeritus of Zoology Ivan Goodbody.
 

UWI Mona Senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Tracy Robinson has been elected Chair of the Board of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
 
The board of officers elected on March 20 is composed of Tracy Robinson (Jamaica), Chair; Rose Marie Antoine (Saint Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago), First Vice-Chair; and Felipe González (Chile), Second Vice-Chair. The election was held, in accordance with the IACHR rules of procedure, at the beginning of the Commission’s 150th regular Period of Sessions. The other members of the IACHR are José de Jesús Orozco Henríquez, Rosa María Ortiz, Paulo Vannuchi and James Cavallaro. The Executive Secretary is Emilio Alvarez Icaza (Mexico).
 

Dr. Tannecia Stephenson, lecturer in the Department of Physics and a member of the Climate Studies Group, Mona, was recently appointed by the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) as a member of the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) Science Advisory Team (CORDEX-SAT) and will serve a three year term starting in 2014.
 

Three University of the West Indies (The UWI) professors have been awarded the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander. The Awards were presented at the Ceremony of Investiture and Presentation of National Honours and Awards held at King’s House on National Heroes Day, Monday, October 21, 2013. They are University Director of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies’ Regional Coordinating Unit, Professor Verene Shepherd, Professor  of Literary and Cultural Studies Carolyn Cooper and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Chemistry, Tara Dasgupta.
 

Head of the Department of Physics at the University of the West Indies, Professor Michael Taylor has been awarded the Silver Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica for his work in climate change.
The ceremony will be held on Wednesday, October 16, 2013, at 3:00 p.m. at the Institute of Jamaica.
 

Professor E. Nigel Harris, Vice Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and former US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton were honoured in Scotland at the 600th Anniversary of Academia of the University of St. Andrews on September 13.
 
They joined 18 honourees lauded by St. Andrews University as “some of the best minds of our generation, leading academics from around the globe”, as the university acknowledged “the outstanding achievements of women and men whose thoughtful scholarship and outstanding integrity has changed both our world, and the way we understand our place in it.”
 

Executive Director of the University of the West Indies’ Natural Products Institute (NPI), Dr Trevor Yee has been awarded a Bronze Musgrave Medal by the Institute of Jamaica.
 
An Awards ceremony has been scheduled for October 16 at the Institute of Jamaica.
 
 
The Award was made by the Council of the Institute and recognizes Dr Yee’s distinguished eminence in the field of natural products.  The field of natural products is one focused on identifying, extracting and commercializing substances found in nature for the purpose of human growth, development and health.
 
 

Global Reggae, the book edited by UWI Mona Professor Carolyn Cooper and published by UWI Press, has received international recognition at the American Library Association Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. 

The book, a compilation of lectures from the 2008 ‘Global Reggae Conference’ convened at The UWI Mona, was named as a ForeWord 2012 Book of the Year.  ForeWord awards represent independent publishing at its finest and are selected from thousands of books by librarians and booksellers based on editorial excellence, professional production, originality, author credentials relative to the book, and the value the book adds to its genre.