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Contact:
Rebecca Wallace
(608) 231-9275
E-mail: rwallace@fs.fed.us
Website: www.fpl.fs.fed.us

Chemist Receives Fulbright Senior Research Award

Hammel to conduct research related to carbon cycling in Germany

MADISON, Wis.— Dr. Kenneth E. Hammel, research chemist at the US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory (FPL), has been named recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Award by the German-American Fulbright Program.

Hammel will be studying mechanisms of lignin-degrading fungi, focusing on newly discovered enzymes that have an important role in carbon cycling in forest soils. These enzymes also have potential applications in biotechnology for selective oxidations of chemicals.
Professor Martin Hofrichter at the International Graduate School in Zittau, Germany, is hosting Hammel, whose 10 months of research abroad begin October 1, 2008.

Hammel earned his bachelor’s degree in genetics from the University of California at Berkeley and his Ph.D. degree in comparative biochemistry, also from UC-Berkeley. In 1983, he was awarded a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) postdoctoral fellowship to do research in the microbiology department at the Philipps-University in Marburg, Germany. From 1984 to 1986, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the FPL

After five years as an assistant professor of chemistry at the State University of New York in Syracuse, he returned to the FPL as a research chemist and team leader in FPL’s Institute for Microbial and Biochemical Technology. He is also an associate professor in the Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, has international outreach, providing exchanges between the United States and over 180 countries and territories worldwide. The program implements former Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright's visionary concept of promoting mutual understanding between the United States and other countries of the world through academic and bicultural exchange.

Headquartered in Berlin since 1998, the German-American Fulbright Program has developed into one of the most active and influential of the binational educational exchange programs operating under the Fulbright umbrella.

The U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory was established in 1910 in Madison, Wis., with the mission to conserve and extend the country’s wood resources. Today, FPL’s research scientists work with academic and industrial researchers and other government agencies in exploring ways to promote healthy forests and clean water and improve papermaking and recycling processes. Through FPL’s Advanced Housing Research Center, researchers also work to improve homebuilding technologies and materials. Information is available at FPL’s Web site: www.fpl.fs.fed.us.

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