Researchers Receiving MacArthur Fellowships Demonstrate 'Capacity To Make A Difference'

PRIZE WITH A PRICE: Science historian Peter Galison has taken some ribbing from his family since being named a MacArthur fellow. One could almost pity Peter Galison. A historian of science at Harvard University, Galison is one of seven members of the scientific community among the 23 recipients of this year's John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. The coveted five-year awards provide unrestricted support plus health insurance to talented individuals, with no reports or projects required of the recipients. Galison has found that his fellowship has come with a price: Along with the grant, he has also become the recipient of some ribbing from his family, who have picked up on the fellowships' popular moniker, the "genius awards"-a nickname whose use is strongly discouraged by the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation. "They tease me about it," he laments. "But I don't believe in such categories." The program's criteria are "creativity, the capacity to make a difference, and a need for the fellowship beyond simply deserving it," notes Catharine R. Stimpson, director of the MacArthur Fellows Program. Stimpson, who has been named University Professor and dean of New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science, will be succeeded at the MacArthur Foundation by Daniel J. Socolow on October 1. But even if need is demonstrated, candidates cannot simply apply for a MacArthur fellowship. The selection process begins as the foundation invites more than 100 nominators to serve as what it calls "talent scouts" in the arts, humanities, social sciences, physical sciences, and public affairs. Nominators submit a list of names, which is evaluated by a separate, 12-member selection committee. Members of both groups remain anonymous. Final approval comes from the foundation's board of directors. This year's selections were announced in June. MacArthur fellowships range from $150,000 to $375,000 over five years, depending on the age of the recipient. The Chicago-based philanthropy has honored 502 fellows since the program began in 1981. Among those named, 150 have been scientists, including the late Barbara McClintock, who subsequently won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine. (For more information, visit the foundation's Web site at http://www.macfdn.org.) Members of the scientific community receiving MacArthur fellowships in 1997 are: Eric L. Charnov, 49, a distinguished professor of biology at the University of Utah, with adjunct appointments in anthropology and psychology ($300,000); Peter Galison, 42, a Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and Physics at Harvard University ($265,000); Mark Harrington, 37, policy director, Treatment Action Group (TAG), New York ($240,000); Eva Harris, 32, an assistant adjunct professor of biology at the University of California, San Francisco ($210,000); Russell S. Lande, 46, a professor of biology at the University of Oregon ($280,000); Nancy A. Moran, 42, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona ($265,000); and Andrew J. Wiles, 44, a professor of mathematics at Princeton University ($275,000). Four of the fellows are biologists, but Stimpson calls this a "coincidence." "Although those scientists share an interest in ecology and the environment, the foundation wasn't seeking to focus on biology this year," she notes. GOING PUBLIC: Biologist Eva Harris believes that "it's important to bring science to the people." Harris is a biologist who works in the area of technology transfer. As a result of her grass-roots efforts, scientists in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia have initiated or expanded their use of DNA diagnostic technologies to identify the protozoan, bacillar, and viral strains that lead to outbreaks of infectious diseases. "I want to connect science to real life," says Harris. "I enjoy the human contact, seeing my work make an impact. I believe it's important to bring science to the people." In San Francisco, Harris has established a nonprofit foundation, the Sustainable Sciences Institute, to facilitate international collaboration on public health issues. She is excited about receiving the fellowship because it will allow her to expand her efforts and expresses "tremendous gratitude to the many friends and colleagues who have been working with us." Harris has begun writing a book to assist future researchers. "It will deal with developing protocols for appropriate treatment," she explains. "I'll describe how to make your own equipment. We need to get low-cost molecular methodology available wherever possible to do the most good." Lande also plans to use the fellowship for further research. His work in conservation biology demonstrates that poor management of resources by humans could lead to the extinction of large fractions of the Earth's biodiversity. "I don't consider myself an activist," he comments. "But I'm interested in providing a scientific reality check for activists about what constitutes good and bad science." His most-cited paper (R. Lande, S.J. Arnold, "The measurement of selection on correlated characters," Evolution, 37:1210-26, 1983) has been referenced more than 550 times. Another of his papers (R. Lande, "Models of speciation by sexual selection on polygenic traits," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 78:3721-5, 1981) has received more than 500 citations. In recent research, Lande has undertaken population viability analyses to show why under current harvesting practices, the salmon industry could fish itself out of existence. He is also studying tropical species to develop methods of measuring their diversity. "A good rule of thumb is that we should conserve tropical diversity," Lande believes. "But a combination of scientific approaches is required to do this properly." EVOLUTIONARY FRAMEWORK: Nancy Moran's research on aphids is helping to elucidate how their complex life cycle came about. Since the late 1970s, Moran has examined the ecological and evolutionary relationships between aphids and their host plants. An article she wrote in 1993 (N.A. Moran et al., "A molecular clock in endosymbiotic bacteria is calibrated using the insect hosts," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, 253:167-71, 1993) has been cited more than 50 times; a 1988 article (N.A. Moran, "The evolution of host-plant alternation in aphids-evidence for specialization as a dead end," American Naturalist, 132:681-706, 1988) has been cited more than 40 times. Moran's research indicates that the complex life cycles of aphids, once thought to result from independent evolutionary paths, can be conceptualized within a single framework combining developmental and evolutionary components. She has also identified a strain of aphid soldiers (larvae that attack and kill intruders entering their colonies) in southern Arizona and New Mexico, previously thought to exist only in Japan. Moran's recent research has focused on bacterial endosymbionts of aphids. "Since Buchnera bacteria have lived in aphids for 200 million years, this is a convincing argument for the coevolution of bacteria and their hosts," she asserts. As for her fellowship, Moran plans to use it to "make life easier" for her and her daughter. "Maybe I can finally get a car that doesn't break and hire somebody to clean the floors every couple of weeks," she says with a chuckle. Charnov's work encompasses a wide area at the interface of evolutionary biology, ecology, and behavior studies. His mathematical models have created a theoretical foundation for current understandings of foraging behavior, the genetics of sex, and life history and demography. Charnov is the author of The Theory of Sex Allocation (Princeton University Press, 1982) and Life History Invariants: Some Explorations of Symmetry in Evolutionary Ecology (Oxford University Press, 1993). With M.E. Lamb, R.A. Thompson, and W. Gardner, he coauthored Infant-Mother Attachment (Hillsdale, N.J., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985). Jon Seger, an associate professor of biology at the University of Utah, notes that Charnov has "relentlessly pursued an economic style of analysis" in ecology. "He's concerned with the currencies an organism has, such as time, calories, and risk, and what actions the organism takes operating under those constraints." Seger feels Charnov's work is highly respected because "it goes straight to the heart of the matter." He adds: "He has a great talent for seeing an interesting and approachable problem, defining it, and then making a testable prediction with data drawn from primary literature." Harrington, as policy director of TAG-a highly regarded organization that addresses science and policy issues related to AIDS-has "brought together institutions, patients, and research scientists," according to Stimpson. He has served as a member of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Research Program Evaluation Working Group (B. Goodman, The Scientist, July 10, 1995, page 1). Now writing "an autobiographical narrative on the history of AIDS activism," Harrington deflects praise for his efforts. "This $240,000 fellowship really honors everyone in the AIDS movement," he asserts. In his new book, Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics (University of Chicago Press, 1997), Galison examines the fundamental division among physicists between those who seek to identify "golden events" through unequivocal pictorial evidence and those who rely on large numbers of qualitatively identical measurements and statistical analyses. "Nevertheless, physicists have developed trading zones to talk to each other across this divide," Galison points out. "They may not agree on the ultimate nature of space and time, but they create a local language, as basic as pidgin or as sophisticated as Creole, that allows them to collaborate on specific projects." In his first book, How Experiments End (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Galison analyzed the impact of laboratory practice on the course of the discipline. He postulated that scientific instruments represent the epistemological center of experimental physicists' work while also serving as a locus of social organization. Galison's next major work, partially supported by his $265,000 fellowship, will be a history of theoretical physics in the 20th century. 'TREMENDOUS COURAGE': Andrew Wiles' work is "an inspiration," according to one of his colleagues. Princeton mathematician Wiles is best known for his 1994 proof of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture on elliptic curves, which included a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. This theorem had frustrated number theorists for 350 years. Peter Sarnak, chairman of the mathematics department at Princeton University, has known Wiles for 17 years. "His work is an inspiration to other mathematicians," states Sarnak. "He makes us set our sights higher." Bringing together elements of algebraic geometry and modern number theory, Wiles had concentrated on the conjecture since the late 1980s. His proof is of a specific case of the conjecture, and Sarnak believes that Wiles "is likely to prove the general case within another decade." Sarnak describes his colleague as "a man of tremendous courage"-a quality that undoubtedly appealed to the MacArthur "talent scouts." Bruce Anderson is a writer based in Burlington, N.J.

Researchers Receiving MacArthur Fellowships Demonstrate 'Capacity To Make A Difference'

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