AUSTIN, Texas-Professor Shelley Payne has been selected to receive the 2006-07 Civitatis Award, one of the highest honors bestowed upon members of the university. William Powers Jr., president of the university, will present the awards at a recognition ceremony on campus during the 2007-08 academic year.
The Civitatis Award is presented to faculty members who have demonstrated exemplary campus citizenship throughout a career of service at the university. It recognizes dedicated and meritorious service to the university above and beyond the regular expectations of teaching, research and writing.
The award's name derives from the Latin motto that appears on the university's seal-Disciplina Praesidium Civitatis-taken from the words of Mirabeau B. Lamar, former president of the Republic of Texas, meaning "Cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy." The recipient is selected by the university's president upon the recommendation of the Faculty Council Executive Committee.
Payne is the Lorene Morrow Kelley Fellow in Microbiology and a member of the university's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. Her research focuses on the molecular biology of iron acquisition and other virulence factors in pathogenic bacteria, including those that cause dysentery and cholera in humans.
Payne began working at The University of Texas at Austin in 1980 after serving as a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California at Berkeley. She was chair of the Department of Microbiology (now the Section of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology) from 1993-1997. In 2005, Payne was appointed to the National Institutes of Health National Allergy and Infectious Diseases Advisory Council. She served on the Faculty Council and the Graduate Assembly and is a former chair of the Faculty Council. Payne has been involved in a number of initiatives on the status of women at the university and has strived to be a positive influence on gender equality on campus. She also has served on a number of university committees, including the Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Men and the Intercollegiate Athletics Council for Women. She also has been chair of the Athletics Council for Women.
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