FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 14, 2004
Contact: Linda McCandless, 607-254-5137, email llm3@cornell.edu

Cornell Graduate Students Receive Perrine and Chapman Awards
By Joe Ogrodnick

Pictures are linked to hi-res scans Bob Seem, Interm Director of the Geneva Experiment Station (Left), presents Francisco Badenes-Perez with the Champan Award. Terence Robinson (left) and Alan Lakso (right) present the Perrine Award to Jason Osborne.

GENEVA, NY: Two Cornell University graduate students recently received awards from the entomology and horticultural sciences departments at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY.

In entomology, Francisco Badenes-Perez, a  Ph.D. student in entomology, received the 2004 Paul J. Chapman award. Jason Osborne, who is working on his Master’s degree in the department of horticultural sciences, received the 2004 Perrine award.

Badenes-Perez is testing potential trap crops for the diamondback moth, the most destructive insect pest of cruciferous crops throughout the world, and trying to understand how trap crops can be used in insect pest management.

The Chapman Fellowship, which was established by Paul Chapman in 1992, is awarded annually to a graduate student in entomology by the full professors in the department, based on the following criteria: 1) scientific quality of research work; 2) publications and presentations; and 3) involvement in professional activities. The student is provided a full year of tuition and fees.

Chapman, who was hired as a full professor of entomology in 1929 and served as head of the department at Geneva from 1948-1965, established the fellowship to inspire young entomologists to follow the principles and insights he believed important.

Osborne is focusing his thesis work on the evaluation of several peach blossom thinners, and plans to conduct some of his experiments in Mexico.

David Perrine, who established the Perrine Award in memory of his wife, Fanny, was a prominent orchardist from Centralia, Illinois, who met Fanny at Cornell in the 1920s while she was a student in bacteriology and he was a student in pomology. David and his brother, Alden (Cornell '47), were partners in the Perrine Orchard, farming 600 acres of peaches, apples, and pears.

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