Happenings

R. Palmer Beasley, known for his work that linked the hepatitis B virus to liver cancer, has been appointed dean of the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. Beasley is currently professor of medicine and head of the Division of Communicable Disease Epidemiology at the University of California at San Francisco. He is also director of the American University Medical Center in Taipei, Taiwan, a position he will continue to hold after his move to Houston. Mitchell Feigenbaum has been named the first Toyota Professor of The Rockefeller University. Feigenbaum joined Rockefeller's staff in January, coming from Cornell University, where he was a professor in the Department of Physics and the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics. Among his recent honors are the 1986 Wolf Foundation Prize in Physics, a 1984 MacArthur Foundation Award and the 1982 Ernest O. Lawrence Award of the U.S. Department of Energy. The new chair was established through a $1.5 million gift from Toyota Motor Corp. Aubrey E. Taylor, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at the University of South Alabama School of Medicine in Mobile, has been elected president-elect of the American Physiological Society. He replaced Harvey V. Sparks Jr., who is the new president of the 66,000-member society. Sparks is professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Michigan State University. In an-other APS election, Vernon Bishop, professor of cardiovascular pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, was named to a 4-year term on the 7-member council of the society. David Muir Wood has been appointed to the Cormack Chair of Civil Engineering at the University of Glasgow. Wood, whose research focuses on the mechanical behavior of soils, is currently a lecturer in soil mechanics at Cambridge University and a fellow of Emmanuel College. He takes on his new post at Glasgow October 1. Peter T. Lyman has been named deputy director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He took on his new position July 1, replacing Robert J. Parks, who has retired. Lyman has been with JPL for 24 years, most recently as assistant laboratory director. Rita Coiwell and Sir David Roxbee Cox will receive honorary degrees July 14 from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, U.K. Colwell is a professor of microbiology at the University of Maryland, president of the American Society for Microbiology, and chairman of the bacteriology division of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. She is being recognized for her international contributions to the science of environmental and marine micro biology. Cox is a professor of statistics at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, U.K. He is being honored for outstanding work toward developing theoretical and practical statistics in the United Kingdom. Elizabeth M. Martin has been appointed vice president for communications for the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C. Martin, a pro gram director for the National Science Foundation, will join the association's staff July 13. She will be responsible for media relations, publications and public education efforts. Louis J. Kettel has also been named to the AAMC staff as associate vice president for academic affairs. Currently dean at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson and chairman of the AAMC Council of Deans, Kettle will take on her new post January 1. She will help to oversee the association's programs for student se lection and admission to medical school, financial aid and U.S. and international medical education. The AAMC represents the 127 ac credited medical schools in the United States, as well as 87 academic societies and more than 430 teaching hospitals. Awards Howard T. Odum and Eugene P. Odum have been named recipients of the 1987 Crawford Prize in Biosciences of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The $240,000 award, which will be divided between the two brothers, recognizes their pioneering and original research on the structure and dynamics of ecosystems. Howard T. Odum is a graduate research professor in environmental engineering sciences and director of the Center for Wetlands at the University of Florida. Eugene P. Odum is a professor emeritus and director emeritus of the Institute of Ecology at the University of Georgia. The award will be presented September 23 in Stockholm by King Carl XVI Gustaf. Joseph J. Billadello, Helen Haskell Hobbs and Mitsuo Ikebe have received the 1987 awards of the Syntex Scholars Program. The winners, selected for their out standing potential in cardiovascular science, will equally share a prize of $450,000, which is to be used toward their research efforts. Billadello is an assistant professor of medicine in the cardiovascular division of the Washington University School of Medicine; Hobbs is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Molecular Genetics of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas; and Ikebe is an assistant professor in the Department of Physiology and Bio physics at Case Western Reserve University. The awards were established in 1985 by the Syntex Corp. of Palo Alto, Calif. an international health-care company that develops pharmaceuticals, medical diagnostic systems and animal health products. Paul C. Lauterbur received the. Medal of Honor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the organization's highest honor, for his discovery of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Lauterbur is a professor at the College of Medicine, Center for Advanced Studies, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; he is also a professor of chemistry and director of MRI research at the university. In addition, Lauterbur holds a position as adjunct university professor at SUNY Stony Brook. The award was presented at a ceremony in Los Angeles last month. Three other awards, listed below, were also presented by the IEEE: Roberat A. Henle, director of the interdivisional Advanced Silicon Technology Laboratory at IBM, received the IEEE Edison Medal for his contributions to the development of logic and memory circuits for computer systems. Andrew S. Grove, president and chief executive officer of Intel Corporation, received the 1987 Engineering Leadership Recognition of the IEEE "for leadership in developing exemplary management and manufacturing practices, and for outstanding entrepreneurship in the semiconductor industry." IBM and SONY were awarded the 1987 Corporate Innovation Recognition of the IEEE. IBM Corp. was cited for the "innovative development and expansion of the magnetic disk storage concept for computers" which has played a key role in the rapid progress of the data processing industry. The Sony Corp. was honored for "the development and effective application of high technology to consumer and industrial products," such as the Trinitron television picture tube and other innovations in audio re cording and playback equipment. Etcetera Linus Pauling has donated his papers and other memorabilia to Oregon State University. The Pauling collection, consisting of some 25,000 items, includes personal and scientific correspondence, medals and research models. Among the more prominent pieces in the collection are the original manuscript of The Nature of the Chemical Bond; the papers of his late wife, Ava Helen Pauling, reflecting her involvement in the peace movement; and the original petition for nuclear disarmament presented to the United Nations, with more than 13,000 signatures of renowned scientists and Nobel laureates. Pauling, a 1922 graduate of Oregon State, received the 1954 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the nature of chemical bonding, and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to campaigns against nuclear arms. The collection, to be housed in the university's William Jasper Kerr Library, is expected to be open to researchers by October 1987. The MacArthur Foundation Recognizes 16 in Science The John D. and Catherine 1. MacArthur Foundation last month selected 32 recipients for its "no strings" fellowships, half of whom are scientists or experts in related fields. Chosen for their creativity and outstanding talent, the new fellows will receive individual awards ranging from $150,000 to $375,000 over five years (the amount is based on the age of the recipient). Unlike conventional grants, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation imposes no requirements, restrictions or performance standards on the fellows. The 16 recipients in science-related fields are listed below: Robert Axeirod, 44, Arthur W. Bromage Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Michigan, whose research applies to international politics, business and biology. $275,000. Robert F. Coleman, 32, associate professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, known for developing new techniques in algebraic-geometric number theory. $215,000. Daniel H. Frledan, 38, professor of physics at the University of Chicago, whose work has focused on the unification theories of physics. $245,000. David Gross, 46, professor of physics at Princeton University, who has been a leader in the study of particle physics. $285,000. Ira Herskowltz, 40, professor of biochemistry and biophysics and head of the division of genetics at the University of California, San Francisco, whose work has contributed to the understanding of mechanisms in molecular biology and gene expression. $255,000. Horace Freeland Judson, 56, Henry R. Luce Professor of Science and Writing at Johns Hopkins University, a journalist known for his expertise in the history of science. $335,000. Stuart Alan Kauffman, 47, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, who has made major contributions to theoretical biology and evolutionary theory. $290,000. Eric Steven Lander, 30, assistant professor of managerial economics at Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration and a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, known for applying his mathematical expertise to problems in genetics, molecular biology and computer science. $205,000. Michael C. Malin, 37, geophysicist and assistant professor at Arizona State University in Tempe, known for his analyses of astronaut training, planetary geology, computer graphics simulations, and related sciences. $240,000. David Mumford, 50, professor of mathematics at Harvard University, a leader in the field of algebraic geometry. $305,000. David Rumelhart, 45, professor of psychology at the University of California at San Diego, known for his comparative studies of artificial intelligence and the functioning of the human brain. $275,000. Robert Morris Sapolsky, 30, assistant professor of biology at Stanford University, a neuroendocrinologist who studies stress-related disorders in wild baboons. $205,000. John Schwarz, 45, professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, whose research has been crucial for the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity. $280,000. Jon Seger, 40, professor at the University of Utah, has combined field work in evolutionary ecology with mathematical modeling. $255,000. Stephen Shenker, 34, professor of physics at the University of Chicago, whose work has focused on statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. $225,000. Richard Waiter Wrangham, 38, associate professor of anthropology and biology at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, whose research has combined primatology, evolutionary biology and anthropology in the study of the social organization of early hominoids. $245,000.

Happenings

The Scientist Staff

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