IIASA Press Release

Laxenburg, Austria – 8 November 1999 – Janica Ylikarjula, a doctoral student at the Helsinki University of Technology, has won IIASA’s 1999 Aurelio Peccei Scholarship for her outstanding performance during the Institute’s Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). The award recognizes Ms. Ylikarjula’s scholastic achievements, her general contribution to IIASA’s overall objectives, and her professional interactions with IIASA staff and the other summer students. The scholarship will enable her to continue her research during an additional three-month stay at IIASA in 2000.

Working within IIASA’s Adaptive Dynamics Network (ADN) project, Ms. Ylikarjula studied the potential causes, mechanisms, and consequences of stunted growth in species of freshwater fish. Her analysis, which addressed limitations in available food and size- or age-dependent survival probabilities, showed that stunted growth results from an interplay between ecological and adaptive factors. These findings can contribute to sustainable fisheries management; in the research context, they also suggest new directions for ecological modeling of populations with fluctuating dynamics.

IIASA established the Peccei Scholarships in 1984 in memory of Dr. Aurelio Peccei, who helped to inspire the original concept of the Institute and contributed actively to its realization. Scholarship candidates are nominated by their supervisors and then evaluated by a committee composed of the IIASA director and the dean and vice-dean of the YSSP. To reach its decision, the committee weighs the oral and written reports prepared by the scholarship candidates, supporting input from the candidates’ immediate supervisors, and evaluations by outside reviewers.

IIASA awarded a second Peccei Scholarship to Lily Panyacosit, University of California, Berkeley, USA, who worked on the health effects of airborne particulate matter with the Transboundary Air Pollution project.

The Vladimir S. Mikhalevich Scholarship, which recognizes innovative methodological research, went to Kevin Wheeler, University of Colorado, USA, whose study of water quality assessment was carried out in the framework of the Land Use Change project.

IIASA’s Young Scientists Summer Program offers advanced graduate-level students the opportunity to join in a three-month work-study program under the guidance of senior scientists. The program enables the students to acquire experience and enhance their skills in international and interdisciplinary scientific work, and expand both their research perspectives and their network of professional contacts. In 1999, 49 young scholars from 19 different countries participated in the YSSP; since the program began in 1982, over 1,000 students have taken part.

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Media contact:
Margaret Traber, YSSP Coordinator
IIASA
Telephone: (+43) 2236-807-448
Fax: (+43) 2236-71313
E-mail: traber@iiasa.ac.at

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria) is a non-governmental research institution sponsored by a consortium of National Member Organizations in Asia, Europe and North America. The Institute’s research focuses on sustainability and the human dimensions of global change. The studies are international and interdisciplinary, providing timely and relevant information and options for the scientific community, policy makers and the public.

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