Congratulations to the newest recipients of the Sadelle and Sydney Berger Awards for Service and Scholarly Activity presented by Mr. Charlie Berger at the Fall Conference.

Service Award – Dr. Kristina Hochwender

It is with great pleasure the University of Evansville Berger Award Committee bestows the 2022 Berger Service Award to Dr. Kristina Hochwender for her long-term service contribution to faculty engagement, student success, and pedagogy at the University of Evansville. As a UE faculty member, Dr. Hochwender has been a member of many service activities, and committees, both elected and appointed. However, her more noteworthy contributions are for her roles as Director of General Education and Director of the Eykamp Center of Teaching Excellence, both of which are arduous and time-consuming endeavors. One of the nominations submitted on behalf of Dr. Hochwender provides a succinct synopsis of Dr. Hochwender’s role as Director of General Education: “The Director of General Education is often a thankless job, tasked with managing a program disliked by some and misunderstood by many, but that ultimately effects every major and student. It is a rare person who has the temperament to listen patiently as Dr. Hochwender did to the competing and contradictory needs of the overall program, to find common ground, and make forward progress. Dr. Hochwender inherited a program at a crossroads and reconnected the program to realistic goals and assessment plans. Her thoughtful but thorough attention to the work on these committees benefitted all of its members.”

As Director of the Eykamp Center for Teaching Excellence (ECTE), Dr. Hochwender was also tasked with many responsibilities including, but not limited to: coordinating UE New Faculty Orientation including the provision of mentors for the new faculty, directing weekly conferences for new faculty, providing regular campus-wide programs for faculty professional development, managing two different grant opportunities for UE faculty, managing UE faculty book clubs, providing portfolio review sessions, and directing the ECTE advisory council.

Therefore, based on her long-term service contribution to the greater UE community, the Berger Committee confers the Berger Award for Service to Dr. Kristina Hochwender.

Scholarship Award – Dr. Katie Aldred-Craig

It is with great pleasure the University of Evansville Berger Award Committee confers the 2022 Berger Award for Scholarship to Dr. Katie Aldred-Craig. Dr. Aldred-Craig has been an active participant in research starting very early in her career, in fact she was first published in 2009 as an undergraduate student at UE. The incorporation of research into the undergraduate experience is very important to Dr. Aldred-Craig and since her arrival to the UE Biology Department, she has mentored about two students each year for some type of research project. During her professional career, Dr. Aldred-Craig has published articles across a range of journals using various cellular, molecular, and organismal experimental protocols and some of her articles have been cited over one thousand times. As a faculty member in the Biology Department at UE, Dr. Aldred-Craig has established a strong research program and has collaborated with her colleagues in the Department of Biology. In fact, one of Dr. Aldred-Craig’s nominators provided the following narrative, “Dr. Aldred-Craig has co-authored a publication with UE professors Dale Edwards and Brian Ernsting (simultaneously) which should earn her some sort of extra meritorious service award”. Most would agree with that statement!

As a result of her exemplary research endeavors, Dr. Aldred-Craig and her students have presented their results at several regional and national conferences including the prestigious Gordon Research Seminars. At that conference in 2018, Dr. Aldred-Craig, along with three UE students, presented her research on DNA Topoisomerases in Biology and Medicine. The inclusion of students at a prominent conference is one example of Dr. Aldred-Craig’s commitment to undergraduate research opportunities and the overall mission of the university.

Therefore, based on her scholarly activities, the Berger Committee confers the Berger Award for Scholarship to Dr. Katie Aldred-Craig.

Below are some examples of Dr. Aldred-Craig’s publications:

K.J. Aldred, E.J. Breland, V. Vl?ková, S.A. McPherson, C.L. Turnbough, Jr., K.C. Neuman, R.J. Kerns, and N. Osheroff. (2014) Role of the Water-Metal Ion Bridge in Mediating Interactions between Quinolones and Escherichia coli Topoisomerase IV. Biochemistry, in press.

A.C. Ketron, K.J. Aldred, R.H. Lindsey, and N. Osheroff. (2014) “Gyrase and Topoisomerase IV as Targets for Antibacterial Drugs.” In The Encyclopedia of the Molecular Life Sciences (L. Kaguni, ed.) Springer, New York, in press.

Aldred KJ, Payne A, Voegerl O. A RADAR-Based Assay to Isolate Covalent DNA Complexes in Bacteria. Antibiotics. 2019; 8(1):17.

Katie J. Aldreda,1, Tim R. Blowerb,2, Robert J. Kernsc, James M. Bergerb,3, and Neil Osheroffa. Fluoroquinolone interactions with Mycobacterium tuberculosis gyrase: Enhancing drug activity against wild-type and resistant gyrase. PNAS, 113 (7) 2016.

Activity of quinolone CP-115,955 against bacterial and human type II topoisomerases is mediated by different interactions (2015). KJ Aldred, HA Schwanz, G Li, BH Williamson, SA McPherson, ...
Biochemistry 54 (5), 1278-1286

Gyrase and topoisomerase IV as targets for antibacterial drugs
AC Ketron, KJ Aldred, RH Lindsey, N Osheroff
Molecular Life Sciences: An Encyclopedic Reference, 1-5

Bacillus anthracis GrlA^V96A Topoisomerase IV, a Quinolone Resistance Mutation That Does Not Affect the Water-Metal Ion Bridge
KJ Aldred, EJ Breland, SA McPherson, CL Turnbough Jr, RJ Kerns, ...
Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 58 (12), 7182-7187

Role of the Water–Metal Ion Bridge in Mediating Interactions between Quinolones and Escherichia coli Topoisomerase IV
KJ Aldred, EJ Breland, V Vlc?kova?, MP Strub, KC Neuman, RJ Kerns, ...
Biochemistry 53 (34), 5558-5567

K.J. Aldred, R.J. Kerns, and N. Osheroff. (2014) Mechanism of Quinolone Action and Resistance. Invited Current Topics review article in Biochemistry, 53, 1565-1574.

K.J. Aldred, H.A. Schwanz, G. Li, S.A. McPherson, C.L. Turnbough, Jr., R.J. Kerns, and N. Osheroff. (2013) Overcoming Target-Mediated Quinolone Resistance in Topoisomerase IV by Introducing Metal-Ion-Independent Drug-Enzyme Interactions. ACS Chemical Biology, 8, 2660-2668.

K.J. Aldred, S.A. McPherson, C.L. Turnbough, Jr., R.J. Kerns, and N. Osheroff. (2013) Topoisomerase IV-quinolone interactions are mediated through a water-metal ion bridge: mechanistic basis of quinolone resistance. Nucleic Acids Research, 41, 4628-4639.

K.J. Aldred, S.A. McPherson, P. Wang, R.J. Kerns, D.E. Graves, C.L. Turnbough, Jr., and N. Osheroff. (2012) Drug Interactions with Bacillus anthracis Topoisomerase IV: Biochemical Basis for Quinolone Action and Resistance. Biochemistry, 51, 370-381.

BR Ernsting, DD Edwards, KJ Aldred, JS Fites, CR Neff (2009 Mitochondrial genome sequence of Unionicola foili (Acari: Unionicolidae): a unique gene order with implications for phylogenetic inference
Experimental and Applied Acarology 49 (4), 305-316

N Byars, A Rohde, K Aldred, H Kalb ., Effects of Incubation Temperature on Incubation Duration and Hatchling Fitness in Malayan Box Turtles (Cuora amboinensis)