Emilio Bruna Receives UF International Educator of the Year Award

By:
Chuck Woods (352) 392-0400

Source(s):
Emilio Bruna BrunaE@wec.ufl.edu, (352) 846-0634, (352) 846-0634
Dennis Jett djett@ufic.ufl.edu, (352) 392-5323 ext. 501

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Emilio Bruna, an assistant professor in the University of Florida’s wildlife ecology and conservation department, received the UF International Educator of the Year Award during Nov. 15 ceremonies in Gainesville.

The award, which includes a plaque and $5,000, was presented to Bruna by Dennis Jett, dean of UF’s International Center, and Joseph Glover, UF associate provost, at UF’s Keene Faculty Center.

Bruna, who also has a faculty appointment in UF’s Center for Latin American Studies, was honored for his international teaching and research. His work focuses on how deforestation, habitat fragmentation and other human- induced alterations of landscapes influence plants and animals.

His research is conducted mainly in the lowland rain forests of the Amazon and the tropical savannas known as the Cerrado. These ecological communities are both species-rich and highly threatened. Bruna’s work provides information essential for understanding their structure, function, conservation and management.

Jett said Bruna has an outstanding publication record for a junior faculty member, including more than 25 peer- reviewed publications in journals such as Nature, Ecology and Conservation Biology. Bruna also serves as principal investigator or co-PI on more than $600,000 in grants that support his international research. His most recent award was a $245,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the structure and functioning of ant- plant relationships in tropical rain forests.

In 2002, Bruna received the John Harper Young Investigator’s Prize from the British Ecological Society, and in 2003 he was named a Diversity Scholar by the American Institute for Biological Studies. Both of these prizes were in recognition of his studies on the ecological consequences of deforestation in the Amazon.

Jett said Bruna’s teaching program increases student awareness of international issues and encourages interactions between UF students from the United States and those from abroad.

Bruna joined the faculty of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences in 2002 after serving as an NSF minority postdoctoral research fellow at Brazil’s Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia. In 2005, he became an adjunct professor with the Universidade Federal de Uberlandia in Brazil.

Born in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Bruna received his doctoral degree in population biology from the University of California at Davis in 2001, his master’s degree in biology from UC San Diego in 1995, and his bachelor’s degree in ecology, behavior and evolution from the same institution in 1994.

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Posted: November 21, 2005


Category: UF/IFAS



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