UWI Regional Headquarters, Jamaica – Five outstanding faculty members and one Research Centre at The University of the West Indies will receive the 2013 Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence during the week of graduation ceremonies this coming October.
 
 
On a date to be announced, Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor E. Nigel Harris, will present awards to Professors Shivananda Nayak, Pathmanathan Umaharan, and Dr Carol Logie of the St Augustine Campus, Professor Rose-Marie Antoine of the Cave Hill Campus, and Professor Horace Fletcher of the Mona Campus. The Seismic Research Centre based at the St Augustine Campus will be recognised for its excellent research output.  
 
 
The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence was established in 1993 under former Vice-Chancellor, Sir Alister McIntyre, to recognise high achievement by academic and senior administrative staff of The UWI. This highly anticipated annual award ceremony is a celebration of the University’s core values, and the recipients of these prestigious awards are persons who have proven themselves to be exemplary of the UWI’s commitment to the pursuit of excellence. Awards are given in the areas: Teaching, Research Accomplishments, Service to the University Community, Contributions to Public Service, and All-round Excellence in a combination of two or more of the four core areas. Each award, valued at US$5,000, is made after a rigorous assessment and selection process, first at the campus level, then by a University-wide selection Committee for the final selection. Since its inception, 95 Awards for Excellence have been presented at ceremonies rotated among the UWI campuses. The 2013 Awards will take the total of prestigious awardees past the century mark, to 101.
 
 
At the ceremony Professor Shivanand Nayak, of the St Augustine Campus’ Department of Pre-Clinical Sciences, will receive the award for excellence in Teaching. Awards for Research Accomplishments will be presented to Professor Horace Fletcher, former Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and currently Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the UWI Mona Campus, and to Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, Head of the Cocoa Research Centre at the UWI St Augustine Campus. The Cave Hill Campus’ Professor of Law, Rose-Marie Antoine, will receive the award for her Contributions to Public Service. This year two awards for All-round Performance will be presented; the first will  go to Dr Carol Logie, lecturer at the St Augustine Campus’ School of Education and Administrative Director of its Family Development and Children's Research Centre (FDCRC), will be recognised for her all-round excellence in the areas of Service to the University Community and contributions to Public Service. The second All-round Performance award will be presented to the Seismic Research Centre for Research Accomplishments and its contribution to Public Service.
 
 
ABOUT THE AWARDEES
 
Professor Shivianand Nayak
Winner of the 2010 UWI/Guardian Life Premium Teaching Award and the 2010/2011 Pre-Clinical Medical Sciences Student’s Award for the Most Effective Lecturer, Professor Shivianand Nayak has worked as a lecturer in biochemistry at The UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Medical Sciences since 2004. Prior to that, he taught for 14 years at Manipal University, India, where his dedication and enthusiasm for teaching was also recognised and awarded. Throughout his career, Professor Nayak has received several Fellowships and authored numerous textbooks on biochemistry. Among his teaching accomplishments at The UWI can be counted the various student dissertations and research projects he supervised, many of which went on to win awards for their presentations at scientific meetings held by the Caribbean Health Research Council. He currently serves as the Chairman of the Campus’ Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee, and as an honorary member of the Advisory Board at Manipal University.
 
 
Professor Horace Fletcher
For the past nine years, Professor Horace Fletcher has served as the Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the UWI Mona Campus’ Faculty of Medical Sciences. One of the Caribbean’s leading obstetricians and gynaecologists, he has had significant influence on the field and its practice in the region. Bodies such as the Pan American Health Organisation and the drug company, Merck, have sought his expertise in areas such as the management of obstetric patients, oncology and colposcopy, the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine, uterine fibroids and other pregnancy related issues. His depth of academic knowledge, experience and exemplary clinical practice have led to his being elected to Fellowships at both the American and Royal Colleges Obstetrics and Gynaecology and his publication in and recognition by regional and international specialist journals including the West Indian Medical Journal, for which he has served as Assistant Editor, the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and the Journal, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, UK. At the Mona Campus’ Faculty of Medical Sciences, Professor Fletcher has served on numerous academic committees including the Faculty’s Curriculum Committee, the Accreditation Committee and he has served as Chairman of the Department’s Specialty Board. In addition, Professor Fletcher has been the recipient of numerous awards due to his various research exploits, such as the Principal’s Award for Top Researcher in the Faculty of Medical Sciences (2004, 2005 and 2012), the Faculty’s Best Research Publication Award (2010 and 2012) and the Certificate of Appreciation from the Faculty of Medical Sciences for his outstanding research output over the last 20 years, presented at the Faculty’s Annual Research Conference in 2011.
 
 
Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan
Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan has worked at The UWI St Augustine Campus for the past 22 years. In 1990 he became a member of academic staff in the Department of Life Sciences where he lectured in the areas of genetics, crop improvement, molecular biology and biotechnology and was instrumental in the development of these courses. He became Head of the Cocoa Research Unit in 2010 and his leadership led to its being upgraded to the Cocoa Research Centre (CRC) in 2012. He is now the first Director of the CRC. Professor Umaharan’s research interests are on genetics, plant breeding, biotechnology and molecular biology and, over the years, have included developing various strains of disease resistant bodi and black-eyed peas, and researching disease resistance, flavour, colour and improved yield in pigeon peas, anthurium, tomatoes, cacao and hot peppers. Professor Umaharan’s research has influenced and will continue to impact agricultural policy, agribusiness and the lives of people involved in these activities. Throughout his career, Professor Umaharan has won numerous awards. Among his most recent are the UWI-Trinidad and Tobago Research and Development Impact Fund Award (2012), the awards for the Best Research Team (Plant Genetics/Biotechnology) Encouraging Multidisciplinary Research and the Most Impacting Research Project at the UWI’s 2012 Research Awards Ceremony, a National Award for Visionary Innovator, granted in 2012 by the Intellectual Property Office, Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Legal Affairs, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s 2012 WIPO Award for Best Inventor.
 
 
Professor Rose-Marie Antoine
Professor Rose-Marie Antoine has the distinction of winning the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence for the second time, having been so honoured in 2006 for her accomplishments in Research. This time she wins it for her contribution to Public Service. Professor Antoine has had an outstanding career as an attorney-at-law and Professor of Labour Law and Offshore Financial Law at the UWI Cave Hill’s Faculty of Law. She is also the Faculty’s Deputy Dean and was the first Director of the LLM programme in Corporate and Commercial Law. She has made significant contributions to the region’s laws and policies. Among these are several important statutes which she has drafted in diverse areas of law including the financial sector, health, education, child justice, labour, human trafficking, the Labour Code of Saint Lucia and the CARICOM Harmonisation of Labour Law Report − the blueprint for CARICOM labour reform. She is a founding member of the Barbados Coalition against Sexual Harassment (CASH), active participant in the foundational activities of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA) and serves as a legal resource person on HIV for regional and international organisations and community groups. She is also a founding member of the UWI HIV Committee (UWI HARP) and was instrumental in the drafting of the University’s HIV Policy. Internationally, Professor Antoine has served as a lecturer at Case-Western Reserve, USA, and consults for governments and international organisations, including the government of Canada, the Inter-American Development Bank, World-Bank, CARICOM, UNICEF, International Labour Organisation (ILO), UNIFEM, United Nations International Drug Control Program (UNIDCP) and Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP).
 
 
Dr Carol Logie
Dr Carol Logie began her 30-year career in early childhood education in Spain in the 1970s, where she worked as a preschool teacher. There, she discovered her passion for working with young children. Dr Logie set on a path that would lead to her life’s work, designing effective teaching and learning spaces for young children. She became a member of staff at The UWI St Augustine Campus in 1986 and has since been instrumental in the field of Early Childhood Care and Development both regionally and internationally. Among her most significant contributions to the University and to the field, regionally, was her role in the founding of the Laboratory Preschool, subsequently renamed The UWI Family Development and Children's Research Centre (FDCRC), now widely known for its excellence in education and unique understanding and interpretation of innovative pedagogical approaches. Dr Logie was for seven years the Chair of the National Council for Early Childhood Care and Education, worked as a consultant for several early education projects undertaken around the world, and for organisations including the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, UNICEF and the Bernard van Leer Foundation. She has also won awards from various organisations for her contributions to the field of early childhood education. Dr Logie currently sits on the Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Education in Trinidad and Tobago and is an Executive Member, as well as the Caribbean Representative, of the World Forum for Early Childhood Care and Education. In addition, Dr Logie continues to lend her experience and knowledge as a guide for the development of early childhood education globally, as she works as a consultant to teachers and policy makers in Hong Kong, Europe and the Caribbean.
 
 
UWI Seismic Research Centre
The UWI Seismic Research Centre (UWI-SRC) is the regional institution responsible for surveillance of and fundamental research into volcanoes and earthquakes for the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean. Since its establishment in 1953, the UWI-SRC has become an internationally recognised centre of excellence in its core areas of seismology, volcanology and outreach. Operating the largest geophysical monitoring network in the Caribbean, the UWI-SCR generates 5 gigabits of data daily and provides a national seismological service for 13 of the UWI’s 16 contributing countries and a national volcanological service for six of these. Over the past five years, the UWI-SRC has responded to tsunami risk concerns expressed by Caribbean countries by upgrading and expanding its geophysical monitoring network. This expansion has been largely funded through grants from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk (CCRIF) and the Government of Chile. The upgrades, including the installation of fully digital seismic monitoring stations, a regional network of continuously operating GP stations and the establishment of a state-of-the art Libra seismic data acquisition system, have kept the UWI-SRC’s geophysical monitoring on par with technological standards worldwide. The Centre continues to contribute data to the global seismological community which requires data which are acquired and processed in accordance with accepted international standards. Over the last five years the researchers at the UWI-SRC have published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, books and book chapters, a monograph, technical reports as well as abstracts and posters. The list of current projects managed by the Centre includes the US$ 9 million Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) Management Contract for the period 2008-2013 with an offer from the Government of Montserrat to be the sole tenderer for the 2013-2018 contract.