Three Outstanding Doctoral Research works
Dag Lindgren surrounded by
three Outstanding Doctoral Research Awardees at IUFRO world conference in
Seoul. From left: Run-Peng Wei; Dag Lindgren; Finnvid
Prescher and Kyu-Suk Kang.
The International Union of
Forest Research (IUFRO) has a world congress each 5th year. The last world congress was in Seoul in August
2010. Previous congresses took place in 2000 and 2005. At these occasions
IUFRO shares awards. One Award is "Outstanding
Doctoral Research Award" (ODRA). ODRA recognizes
outstanding individual achievements and can be regarded as the best recent
doctor thesis in the world. ODRA awards are given to the field of each IUFRO
division. Division 2 deals with physiology and genetics. There are some hundred
PhD thesis to select among at each occasion. This
means that three times in a row IUFRO has decided to award PhD students of Dag
Lindgren. A term for three successful runs in a row is “hat trick” (used in Sweden).
The latest ODRA awardee is Finnvid Prescher (2010).
Links concerning Finnvid Prescher
ODRA (most of them vanished the
last years, some were changed and could be restored, URL does not live for
long)
_https://arbetsplats.slu.se/sites/sfak/Nyhetsbrev/Sfak_nyhetsbrev091218.pdf
_
_https://arbetsplats.slu.se/sites/sfak/Nyhetsbrev/Sfak_engnyhetsbrev091218.pdf
_
_Nordgen-Skog _
_http://skogstradsforadling.se/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Arsbok_2009.pdf
_ http://www.skogsaktuellt.se/?p=32913&pt=108&m=1422
_
_ Västerbottenskuriren 100116 _
_ PlantAktuellt 2009-4:3 _
_ IUFRO
Newsletter August 2010 _
_ http://www.goforwood.info/fr/news.php?id=28660 _
_ http://www.upsc.se/about-upsc/news/3720-the-third-outstanding-doctoral-research-award-in-a-row-to-the-department-of-forest-genetics-and-plant-physiology-at-upsc.html
_
_ WP Seed orchards _
_ PlantAktuellt 2010 2:1-2 _
The
“ODRA” for Division 2 “physiology and genetics" 2000. 2005 and 2010 are listed in the
Table below. The lists of papers in the thesis of the
awardees is what finally came out from the thesis chapters.
|
Year of ODRA |
Name |
|
Thesis |
Summary |
e-mail |
Information or links to information about awardee |
|
2000 |
Runpeng Wei |
Predicting genetic diversity and optimizing
selection in breeding programmes |
|
Lives in Hong-Kong |
||
|
2005 |
Kyu-Suk Kang |
http://epsilon.slu.se/avh/2001/91-576-6071-9.pdf
_ |
Associated professor at Seoul National University |
|||
|
2010 |
Finnvid Prescher |
_Seed Orchards – Genetic
Considerations on Function, Management and Seed Procurement_ |
_ |
Photo Seed manager Svenska Skogsplantor AB |
All made there thesis work
at Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology at the Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå and all had Dag Lindgren as supervisor. The
proposals were raised by different persons or organisations, supported by
different persons and dealt with different persons in IUFRO awarding committee
and board. It ought to be a handicap that these awards were given to students
from the same department, the same country, the same supervisor and similar
agenda. Thus it cannot be a coincident depending only on unusually bright
students, but also the other joint factors must have been important. As far as
I understand no ODRA awardee has been identified as a Swede until Finnvid Prescher got it 2010. Wei
is identified as Canadian and Kang as Korean.
Dag Lindgren and his three
ODRA students, photo taken at Dag Lindgren's 65 year
birthday 070927 Suggested text: The supervisor with his three Outstanding
Doctoral Research Awardees. From left Run-Peng Wei, Finnvid Prescher, Dag Lindgren
and Kyu-Suk Kang. photo:
Jan-Erik Nilsson
Article
following Kyu-Suks ODRA (Journal for the SLU
employee in Swedish)
Features of the three
awardees:
- They
choose Dag Lindgren as supervisor and approached me with the funding
reuired to start from their employer.
- Two
of them I met at the first time when the arrived in Umeå airport.
- All
had family (spouse and children) during their studies
- All
three had employment and experience within the area of the thesis work
before starting the PhD work.
- All
were “employed”, thus had a job to return to when ending the studies. Two
of them did, the third made a “postdoc” after the PhD.
- The
thesis are similar in style and target journals
- The
thesis are all unusually "thick", 11-13 chapters, of them 9-13
journal papers, which is more than double the average at the faculty.
- All
manuscripts at the dissertation heading for journals were published (100%
success rate).
- Journals
of publication are normal forest journals more often than general.
Citation of the awardees work is not spectacular high.
- The
emphasis of the thesis is not on data generation, but on analysis.
Variants of effective number and genetic diversity are important for all
three.
- The
awards 2005 and 2010 are focused on seed orchards
- At
least two thirds of the papers are with the supervisor. The thesis are all evident examples of fruitful interaction
between supervisor and student.
- Two
of the thesis included studies with other students in the group, one does
not.
- The
time between registration as research students and dissertation was 38-51
months (unusually little).
- No
studies in the PhD work were started before the registration as research
students.
- The
two foreign students did not come to Umeå for a PhD,
the program was upgraded to PhD after some time.
- The
financing was the employer (not the host university) and three foundations
close to Forestry (Föreningen skogsträdsförädling, Kempe, Skogsindustrins forskningstiftelse).
Not the SLU budget (via faculty or department), not Formas,
not strategiska forskningsstiftelser.
None of them had doktorandtjänst.
- There
are yet few “second generation research students” (no grandchild PhDs) and
the carriers of the ODRA-awardees was not straightforward Academic.
- We
all met at Seoul (see the photo above) and thus – for a short time -
formed a network.
Award
winners from Brisbane 2005 are presented
OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL RESEARCH AWARD -
LIST OF RECIPIENTS
XXI IUFRO World Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Gangying Hui China
2000
Rudolf Kropil
Slovakia 2000
Reinhold Muschler Costa Rica/Germany 2000
Volker Radeloff
Germany/USA 2000
Jens Peter Skovsgaard Denmark 2000
Rahim Sudin Malaysia 2000
Run-Peng Wei China 2000
XXII IUFRO World Congress, Brisbane, Australia
John G Bellow USA 2005
Eugénie Susanne Euskirchen USA 2005
Christian Gamborg Denmark 2005
Pablo José García Canada 2005
Kyu-Suk Kang Republic of Korea 2005
Sofía Sánchez Orois
Spain 2005
Bernard Slippers South Africa 2005