Notable

Raymond Wacker

Raymond F. Wacker, Emerson Electric/Charles Groennert Teaching Excellence Professor and an associate professor in the School of Accountancy, part of SIUC's College of Business and Administration, is receiving the 2007 Outstanding Educator Award from the Illinois CPA Society on May 31 in Chicago.

"I was very humbled to have been honored by such a prestigious organization," Wacker said.

The Outstanding Educator Award recognizes Illinois educators at a community college, college or university who excel in their leadership and teaching, and who have made continuous and outstanding contributions to accounting education in Illinois.

The Illinois CPA Society is a state professional association representing 23,000 accounting, finance and business professionals throughout Illinois and worldwide.

Wacker joined the SIUC business faculty in 1989. He teaches taxation, international business policy, business ethics, and managerial and financial accounting. Wacker's research focuses on international taxation. He is the author of 40 articles that appeared in academic journals.

Last year, Wacker was one of eight SIUC faculty members to receive an "Excellence Through Commitment Award" for superior teaching. He also received the 2006 College of Business and Administration Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher of the Year Award.

Gregory J. Brewer, professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology at the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield, has been awarded a five-year federal grant from the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to study the function of neurons in the brain. The grant with a budget of $942,072 is a subcontract of a grant awarded to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The study will try to understand how learning and memory work. Nerve cells in rodent brains will be examined to identify patterns or connections that link neurons and to determine whether the neurons can be engineered like a circuit board to form useful patterns and connections. This study may eventually lead to potential new treatments for memory problems in humans as well as develop better computers and teaching methods.

Brewer, who joined the SIU faculty in 1980, is the principal investigator for the SIU portion of the grant.

Brewer’s research has received funding for 30 years from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and now totals more than $4.3 million. His previous research has focused on two- and three-dimensional neural networks and how aging contributes to Alzheimer’s disease.