Steve Otwell and Natalia Peres recognized for international work
Sometimes, it’s easy to think of IFAS strictly in terms of its effects on the Sunshine State. But Florida is, in many ways, a hub of interconnected concerns and activities reaching from the Arctic Circle to the Ring of Fire.
This year, IFAS has recognized two of its members who exemplify this institution’s dedication to improving food and agricultural sciences the world over.
Steve Otwell and Natalia Peres have been named winners of the 2007 IFAS International Educators Award. Additionally, Otwell and Peres have been named winners of the IFAS International Fellow and Achievement Awards, respectively.
The International Educators Award seeks to recognize individuals who enhance the educational environment and experience of students, faculty and staff by promoting a global perspective. The International Fellow and Achievement Awards recognize outstanding international endeavors by IFAS faculty members that contribute to the globalization of the university.
A Florida Sea Grant seafood technology specialist, Otwell has conducted work that led to innovative and cost-effective responses to issues of seafood safety worldwide.
Otwell is on of the founders of UF’s Aquatic Food Products Program, the center of technical expertise that is home to the leading domestic and international training program for shrimp processors and regulators worldwide.
He has been a key architect of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) that U.S. seafood importers, distributors and processors use to meet federal food safety regulations.
Otwell’s work “has helped to raise the visibility and stature of both the University of Florida and UF/IFAS in the international arena,” said Jimmy Cheek, UF senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources. His programs of seafood safety education and research “have been of great benefit to the citizens of Florida, the U.S. and the world,” Cheek said.
An assistant professor of plant pathology at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Natalia Peres has developed a comprehensive program of research, education and extension on diseases of strawberries, citrus and ornamentals in only four years with IFAS.
More specifically, she has done considerable research in the area of Colletotrichum diseases and worked on the development of various computer models to assist growers in scheduling fungicide applications.
Even before coming to Florida, Peres had become well known in Brazil for her efforts to control plant disease—a distinction she continues to hold through her commitment to educating the future plant pathologists of not only her home country, but many others.
Otwell and Peres received plaques in recognition of the 2007 IFAS International Educators Award at a ceremony on Nov. 13 as part of a universitywide recognition of international educators. They will receive plaques for their IFAS Fellow and Achievement Awards during an Administrative Council meeting in early 2008.
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