Vincent, McAuley win research awards

Two scientists—one whose research explores the physical world and the other who seeks to understand the workings of the human brain—have won prestigious awards from BGSU. The Office of Sponsored Programs and Research presented the honors Nov. 4 at the BGSU Research Conference.

Robert Vincent, a geologist who has pioneered the use of satellite remote sensing, is the winner of this year’s Olscamp Research Award. The award is given annually to a faculty member for outstanding scholarly or creative accomplishments during the previous three years, and includes a $2,000 cash prize and a reserved parking spot for one year.

J. Devin McAuley, a psychologist who addresses basic research questions about the nature of human time and rhythm perception and normal developmental changes that occur across the lifespan, was named the Outstanding Young Scholar. The award helps enhance the academic career of junior faculty by providing discretionary funds for the support of future scholarly activities. It brings a $1,000 credit to the recipient’s discretionary research account, in addition to a $2,000 cash award.

Vincent has been a member of the Department of Geology since 1992, after spending the first part of his career as a research geophysicist and as founder and president of two successful companies. In 1996 he established OhioView, a remote sensing consortium of 11 Ohio research universities. Under his direction, OhioView has been continually funded at over $4 million through the Ohio Aerospace Institute and NASA.

Robert Vincent, geology, accepts the Olscamp Research Award.

Through OhioView, scientists across the state have access to LANDSAT TM satellite data for their research. Using this data, Vincent was able to map phycocyanin pigment found in toxic algae, coliform bacteria and E.coli bacteria in Lake Erie. He is also developing ongoing research collaborations with the University of Toledo and other member schools of OhioView.

The results of his work have had far-reaching effects. He has been involved in obtaining congressionally directed funding and is responsible for a pending patent application for a device growing out of his work. He has studied agricultural cropland loss to urbanization in northwest Ohio and the potential use of passive radar to map the movement of tornadoes. He has also done work for the Boeing Co. that utilized remote sensing to determine best aircraft landing spots in natural terrain.

He is now using remote sensing for determining issues of concern for public health. For example, he has two patent applications for an invention that collects data on toxic algae, coliform and E.coli from sunlight reflected off water.

McAuley, this year’s Outstanding Young Scholar, is interested in aging, attention and timing, rhythm perception and production, and auditory cognition. He has received funding from the National Institute on Aging for research with Kevin Pang, a colleague in psychology, on the neural bases of age-related changes in attention and timing, and from the International Foundation for Music Research—truly engaging across disciplines.

Devin McAuley, psychology, explains his research upon being named the Outstanding Young Scholar.

"The general aim of my research program is to advance basic understanding of how humans and other animals are able to coordinate the timing of their behavior with the environment,” McAuley said. “An emphasis of this research is improving understanding of how the functional and neural mechanisms underpinning the timing of behavior change across the lifespan.

“I see this as a critical area of research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience because a number of developmental disorders and age-related diseases have associated timing deficits, such as ADHD, autism, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s,” he explained. “Improved understanding of the neural basis of timing in humans and other animals has the potential to lead to a better understanding of these conditions, as well as to the development of potential behavioral interventions.”

McAuley joined the University in 1999 after completing his doctorate in cognitive science and computer science at Indiana University, and after two postdoctoral appointments, one at Ohio State University and the other at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.