Posted on March 15, 2001 at 11:38 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — James B. McClintock, Ph.D., dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has received the prestigious Wright A. Gardner Award from the Alabama Academy of Science. McClintock will be presented with the academy’s highest honor at its annual meeting March 30 at Auburn University.
The award was instituted in 1984 to honor individual Alabama residents who have made outstanding contributions to science. It is named for Wright A. Gardner, principal founder and first president of the Alabama Academy of Science, which was established in 1924.
“Jim McClintock is outstanding in all categories,”said George Cline, Ph.D., head of the selection committee for the Gardner Award. “His track record in academics, teaching, grant awards and publications is superb. Not only is Jim McClintock prolific in his publications, but the quality of the work is outstanding as well. It wasn't just the numbers that impressed us. His work puts him head and shoulders above the rest. We are lucky to have someone of his caliber in the state.”
McClintock joins a distinguished list of scientists and educators as Gardner Award winners, including UAB physics professor Thomas J. Wdowiak and George Crozier, executive director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.
"I am thrilled and honored to receive this award," McClintock said. "It is a privilege to be included among a very prestigious list of past Wright A. Gardner Award winners."
McClintock is recognized as a world authority in marine chemical ecology and echinoderm biology. Much of his work has been done in the frigid waters of Antarctica, revealing how noxious and toxic chemicals are used by marine organisms in defense or in mediating competitive interactions. His work in Antarctica also shows great potential for the discovery for new pharmaceutical materials.
McClintock's work in Antarctica propelled the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which has been naming locations in Antarctica since 1947, to name a geographical site on the continent after him in 1999. McClintock Point is located on the Ross Sea at the entrance to Explorer's Cove, where McClintock has done much of his Antarctic field research.
McClintock has been published in such notable science journals as Nature, American Scientist, and Marine Biology and has had 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He received the Carmichael Award in 1992 from the Alabama Academy of Science for an outstanding publication in the academy's journal and won the Ireland Prize in 1993 as the Outstanding UAB Faculty Scholar. In 1999, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.