In Brief: Regents Professor video profiles, online payments for classified ads, 'Convo With Cantwell'
A new medallion was presented to the 2020 outstanding faculty honorees. See video profiles of the honorees on the Presidential Evens and University Ceremonies website.
Convo with Cantwell is a monthly Zoom fireside chat hosted by Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell, senior vice president for research and innovation.
You can now submit payments for classified ads online.
Video profiles share the motivations and accomplishments of the 2020 outstanding faculty honorees
Video profiles of the 2020 Regents Professors, Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Outreach Faculty are posted on the Presidential Events and University Ceremonies website.
The videos were shared last month during a social media campaign that was launched In lieu of an in-person celebration. The redesigned medallion that the honorees were the first to receive was featured in a story posted on UA@Work.
The 2020 honorees: 
Regents Professors
- Roberta Díaz Brinton
Professor of Pharmacology
Director of the Center for Innovation in Brain Science
Member of the BIO5 Institute - Judith K. Brown
Professor in the School of Plant Sciences
Member of the BIO5 Institute - Peter Chesson
Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology - Jeff Greenberg
Professor in the Department of Psychology - Connie Woodhouse
Professor in the School of Geography, Development and Environment
* Will be inducted with the 2021 honorees
Alfred McEwen, professor in the Department of Planetary Sciences, was named Regents Professor in 2019, but was inducted with the 2020 honorees.
University Distinguished Professor
- Jeff Stone
Professor in the Department of Psychology
University Distinguished Outreach Faculty
- Marta Civil
Professor in the Department of Mathematics
Roy F. Graesser Endowed Chair in Mathematics - Ricardo Valerdi
Professor in the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering
Hear reflections from past honorees in this video.
Online payment now available for classified ads
We are very pleased to announce that you can now pay for UA@Work classified ads online.
To pay for your ad with a debit or credit card, choose "online" in the Payment Method dropdown box that appears on the online submission form. If you prefer to pay with cash or check, you can still mail your payment or drop it off in person.
With low rates and the option to include images, the classified ads section has long been a great place to find tenants, sell furniture and offer services.
Anyone can place an ad (not just members of the campus community) and anyone can view them (no NetID required).
For more information about submitting ads, visit About Classified Ads. If you have questions, contact Jennise Taylor at 520-626-9422 or jenniset@arizona.edu.
'Convo With Cantwell' to look at today's research through a futurecasting lens
Futurecasting – using today's research to forecast what the future will hold – will be the topic for the April "Convo With Cantwell." The discussion will feature Cyndi Coon, founder and chief operating officer of Laboratory5 Inc. and an expert in creative storytelling, information shaping and threatcasting.
Convo with Cantwell is a monthly Zoom fireside chat hosted by Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell, senior vice president for research and innovation.
The discussion will be held Apr. 22 at 3 p.m. Registration is open now. (Please note that you must register for each episode. Registration for one does not carry forward to future episodes.)
For those who missed it, the March Convo With Cantwell celebrated Women's History Month with a conversation centered on women researchers and entrepreneurs. Panelists included: Joann MacMaster, CEO of the Desert Angels; Sadhana Ravishankar, associate professor, animal and comparative biomedical sciences; Hong Hua, professor of optical sciences; and Colleen Janczak, chief operating officer of startup Scintillation Nanotechnologies. Doug Hockstad, assistant vice president of Tech Launch Arizona, also joined the discussion.
MacMaster noted that Desert Angels is looking for more diversity in potential investments and encouraged women researchers to pursue their ideas. Focusing on very early-stage companies in a variety of industries, Desert Angels is ranked No. 8 in the country and No. 1 in the Southwest among the most active angel groups. On average, the group receives 1,000 applications and closes on 20 deals per year. In the last 10 years, Desert Angels members have invested $51 million in 104 companies and 234 deals.
Ravishankar's focus is on improving food safety. Her experience in entrepreneurship is in commercializing plant-based microbials as natural washes for salad vegetables. Given the large number of foodborne pathogen outbreaks in recent years, there is significant consumer demand for a safe alternative to chlorine. To meet that demand, she has developed biodegradable and recyclable plant-based microbials that leave a residue on food to help prevent cross-contamination. Ravishankar said that, as an academic, her entrepreneurial learning curve was large, but she was helped tremendously by TLA and its many resources.
An expert in variable displays, Hua has developed technologies that have been licensed for commercial applications, including an assistive technology for people with disabilities. She emphasized that finding solutions to problems important to you personally is a key to success. She told participants that inventions don't come when you're looking for them; they come when you are solving a real problem.