ANN ARBOR, Mich., December 21, 2007 - The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) / UMI Distinguished Dissertation Awards, the nation's most prestigious honor for doctoral dissertations, were presented to Dr. Michael D. Chasar of the University of Iowa and Dr. Cristobal Uauy of the University of California, Davis. The winners were announced at a ceremony during the 47th CGS Annual Meeting in Seattle, Washington, on December 6, 2007.

Presented annually since 1982, the awards recognize recent doctoral recipients who have already made unusually significant and original contributions to their fields.  ProQuest's UMI dissertations publishing group, the world's premier dissertation publisher, sponsors the awards and an independent committee from the Council of Graduate Schools selects the winners.  Two awards are given each year, rotating among four general areas of scholarship.  The winners receive a certificate, a $1000 honorarium, and travel to the awards ceremony.

Dr. Uauy received the 2007 Award in Biological and Life Sciences for his research on improving the nutritional composition of wheat.  He received his Ph.D. in Genetics earlier this year from the University of California, Davis.  The Award in Humanities and Fine Arts was presented to Dr. Chasar for his work on the role of poetry in popular culture.  He completed his doctorate in English at the University of Iowa this year as well. 

"The exciting thing about each year's body of doctoral work is that it represents the leading edge of academic scholarship across disciplines," said ProQuest Director of Dissertations Publishing, Dr. Cathleen May.  "These two dissertations are extraordinary examples of how relevant doctoral work is to our society." 

Dr. Chasar's dissertation, Everyday Reading: U.S. Poetry and Popular Culture, 1880-1945,  uses personal poetry scrapbooks, poetry broadcast on commercial radio, and billboard advertising poetry to show how "ordinary" readers read and use verse in their daily lives.  He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa.

Dr. Uauy's dissertation demonstrates how a modification to a single wheat gene is able to increase the grain's levels of protein, zinc, and iron by 10-15%.  His finding has immediate applications, since two billion people globally have zinc and iron deficiencies, and 160 million children suffer from protein-based malnutrition.  Dr. Uauy is continuing his work at UC Davis as a postdoctoral fellow in Plant Sciences.

About the Council of Graduate Schools
The Council of Graduate Schools (www.cgsnet.org) is an organization of 500 institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada engaged in graduate education, research and the preparation of candidates for advanced degrees.  CGS member institutions award more than 90% of the doctoral degrees and over 75% of the master's degrees in the U.S.  The organization's mission is to improve and advance graduate education, which it accomplishes through advocacy in the federal policy arena, research, and the development and dissemination of best practices.

About ProQuest
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More than a content provider or aggregator, ProQuest is an information partner, creating indispensable research solutions that connect people and information. Through innovative, user-centered discovery technology, ProQuest offers billions of pages of global content that includes historical newspapers, dissertations, and uniquely relevant resources for researchers of any age and sophistication—including content not likely to be digitized by others. Inspired by its customers and their end users, ProQuest is working toward a future that blends information accessibility with community to further enhance learning and encourage lifelong enrichment.

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UMI, an imprint of ProQuest, was created in 1938 to safeguard threatened scholarly resources, and has served as the dedicated steward of significant collections-including graduate works-ever sinceThese graduate works are delivered to researchers at libraries everywhere through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database, which  holds more than 2 million citations dating from 1861 and grows by another 65,000 each year.  As a committed supporter of graduate education, ProQuest is proud to honor this year's outstanding authors of the CGS/UMI Distinguished Dissertation Awards.