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Governor Kaine Announces 2006 Outstanding Scientists and Industrialists

RICHMOND – Governor Timothy M. Kaine and Science Museum of Virginia Director Dr. Walter R.T. Witschey today announced the state’s Outstanding Scientists and Industrialists of 2006. The honorees will be introduced to the General Assembly on Thursday, March 2, and will receive their awards at a banquet at the Science Museum on Tuesday, April 4.

“These select people are at the top of their fields,” said Governor Kaine. “This year’s Outstanding Scientists and Industrialists have expertise in medicine, biology and national security. Their creativity, contributions and dedication are aimed at making life better for us all.”

“Science and industry are such an integral part of our existence that we often take them for granted,” says Dr. Witschey. “Virginia’s Outstanding Scientists and Industrialists awards give us the opportunity to stop and recognize the people whose hard work and talent have helped create the technology and life-style we enjoy every day.”

Virginia’s Outstanding Scientists 2006

Dr. John T. Povlishock is professor and chairman of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine’s Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Povlishock is internationally recognized as an expert in traumatic brain injury — the leading cause of death and disability in young adults. This condition affects more than two million Americans each year. The National Institutes of Health says traumatic brain injury is a silent epidemic. Povlishock’s work has revolutionized medical understanding of traumatic brain injury. Because of Povlishock, doctors now know that traumatic brain injuries do not stop after the initial damage — it can take several hours before a brain shows irreversible damage. Povlishock and his colleagues have devised several new treatments to block continuing damage. Some of those therapies are currently in clinical trials. Povlishock has been at VCU for 33 years. In addition to his roles as professor and chairman, Povlishock is director of the Commonwealth Center for the Study of Brain Injury and a professor of surgery in the Department of Neurosurgery.

Dr. Cindy Lee Van Dover is an associate professor of biology at the College of William and Mary. “When I was a child, I thought that all the world was known. I was taught so,” says Van Dover at the beginning of her book “The Octopus’s Garden.” She thought the list of explorers was complete. Wrong. Van Dover has become an internationally known deep ocean explorer. She is the only woman ever certified to pilot the deep-sea submersible Alvin. Her work has changed the way people view life on Earth. While examining specimens from a hydrothermal vent dive, she discovered an unusual eye in a deep-sea shrimp. That led her to associating geothermal light with hot springs on the ocean floor. Her explorations have led her and her colleagues to discovering photosynthetic microorganisms with previously unknown importance to the global carbon cycle. She has led 9 major expeditions to deep-sea vents. Van Dover collaborates with experts in many fields — sensory physiologists, geologists, geochemists, geophysicists, engineers, planetary evolution scientists, astrobiologists and microbiologists.

Virginia’s Life Achievement in Science 2006

Dr. Duncan M. Porter has a worldwide reputation as a Charles Darwin expert and botany professor. He’s director of Cambridge University’s Darwin Correspondence Project and a botany professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Porter has been with the Darwin Project since 1991. He started as senior editor and became project director six years later. He and his Darwin Project colleagues are transcribing, cataloguing and annotating all of Darwin’s thousands of letters. The work will ultimately result in 30 volumes. Porter’s supporters say it is quite a feather in his cap to be an American named to lead the British Cambridge University venture. He has proven a capable fundraiser for the project. In the last four years he has raised more than $2.5 million in competitive grant funding. In 2002 Porter and Cambridge University’s vice chancellor went to Buckingham Palace to accept a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Excellence in Higher and Further Education from Queen Elizabeth II. His long-term plant studies have included Virginia’s endangered plants, identifying the plants on the Galapagos Islands and identifying Charles Darwin’s plant specimens from the voyage of the Beagle.

Virginia’s Outstanding Industrialist 2006

Jack L. Ezzell Jr. is CEO of Zel Technologies LLC — a company that may be impacting your life more than you know. ZelTech describes itself as “providing customers with knowledge, tools and solutions needed for correct and timely decisions and effective actions to help ensure U.S. national security.” Ezzell’s Hampton, Va.-based company has responsibilities that range from supporting current military operations around the world to leading the effort to provide security upgrades for the Virginia Port Authority. The company has also been selected to play a major role in building an Air Force command and control system for the 21st century. Ezzell is a retired Air Force colonel. He founded ZelTech as a small consulting firm. Today it is a multi-faceted engineering and information technology corporation with employees at 30 locations throughout the U.S. and overseas. To give back to the community, Ezzell established an innovative technology laboratory called KidTech, providing free access to computers and information technology children from kindergarten through 5th grade and to senior citizens.

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