PEOPLE- Climate Expert Wins Award For Achievement

Climate Expert Wins Award For Achievement Professor of meteorology Bert Bolin, who helped focus international attention on the potential dangers to the world’s climate posed by “greenhouse” gases such as carbon dioxide, is the winner of the 1988 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. A University of Stockholm faculty member and director of the International Meteorological Institute in Stockholm, Bolin has been instrumental in determining how man’s activities have increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He reports that CO2 concentrations have increased 25% in the past 100 years and projects that a continued increase in co2 emissions could lead to sharply altered climatic patterns, marked by a worldwide rise in atmospheric and surface temperatures and changes in sea levels, rainfall patterns, agriculture, forests, and most major ecosystems on Earth. Bolin’s early meteorological work in the 1950s led to the computerized weather forecasting that is standard today. In the 1960s, he played a key role in the development of the multidisciplinary Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP), a joint effort of the World Meteorological Organization and the International Council of Scientific Unions. GARP was the forerunner of today’s World Climate Research Program that is working toward providing the observations necessary for global climate forecasting. Bolin was awarded $150,000 and a gold medallion at a dinner ceremony in Los Angeles last month. The Tyler Prize was established in 1973 by Alice C. Tyler and her late husband, John C. Tyler, and is administered by the University of Southern California. Retiring from the Du Pont Comany this summer is Hazen L. Richardson, vice president, pharmaceuticals. Succeeding Richardson is Joseph A. Mollica., who previously held the position of director, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology research and development. Richardson will remain at Du Pont through August on a special pharmaceuticals assignment. During Richardson’s seven-year tenure, Du Pont Pharmaceuticals’ annual research budget grew from less than $20 million to almost $200 million. Experimental computer scientist William A. Wulf has joined the National Science Foundation as assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. Wulf made the move last month from his previous position as AT&T Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. He succeeds the directorate’s first assistant director C. Gordon Bell, who left NSF in late 1987. Edward Hall, founding director of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford, has won a 1988 National Art Collections Award from England’s National Art-Collections Fund. Hall will put the $9,000 award back into a number of projects at the laboratory. Using X-ray flourescence, atomic absorption spectrometry, archaeomagnetism, and uranium series dating, Hall and his colleagues study works of art and archaeological artifacts. The American Association of University Professors recently elected national officers for 1988-90. Assuming office this month are: president, Carol Simpson Stern of Northwestern University; first vice president, Judy Green of Rutgers University; second vice president, Lawrence S. Poston of the University of Illinois, Chicago; and secretary-treasurer, Morris Mendelson of the University of Pennsylvania. Several scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have won 1988 Special Awards for Excellence in Technology Transfer. The awards—a plaque and letter of citation—were presented last month by the Federal Laboratory Consortium, a group of representatives from about 200 federal laboratories. Ian Brown, a principal investigator in LBL’s Accelerator and fusion research division, won for his work in designing, developing, and actively transferring to industry a device called the MEVVA (metal vapor vacuum arc) ion source, which can generate ion beams up to 1,000 times greater than those from other sources. The MEVVA can harden metal surfaces and toughen metals, which has made it of interest to several companies, including AT&T Bell Laboratories and 3M Corp. Five scientists in LBL’s Windows and Daylighting Group— Mike Rubin, Dariush Arasteh, Steve Selkowitz, Sue Reilly, and John Hartman—won for their energy-saving computer program, WINDOW 2, a thermal performace research tool that is helping window manufacturers and others compare conventional and energy-conserving window designs. More than half of the U.S. insulating window industry now uses the program which LBL’s scientists put into an easy-to-use format on personal computer diskettes. William E. Paul, a National Institutes of Health immunologist, is the winner of the 3M Life Sciences Award. The $10,000 award, sponsored by 3M and administered by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, is said to honor “researchers whose work has made a significant contribution to the health and welfare of mankind.” Paul, chief of the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has made contributions to understanding how immune cells respond to foreign invasion. IBM recently named three employees to the position of IBM Fellows, the company’s highest honor for sustained technical achievement. They include: Bernard R. Aken Jr. of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a key technical leader in developing computer operating system software; Michael Hatzakis, Yorktown Heights, N.Y., a prime contributor in resist technology used in fabricating semiconductor circuits; and James L. Walsh, East Fishkill, N.Y., a leader in the field of high-performance switching technology who pioneered the development of IBM’s first transistor circuits. Only 104 employees have been named Fellows since the program was established 25 years ago. Fellows continue as salaried emloyees but have complete freedom to pursue, for at least five years, any research or technical projects of their choice that are related to IBM business. Leslie Green, director of the Science and Engineering Research Council’s (SERO) Daresbury Laboratory, will retire in August. Filling the position as of September will be Alan Leadbetter, who is currently an associate director and head of the science department at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Applied physicist, John E. Bowers, has been selected as a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator. Bowers, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializes in the study of semiconductor materials. His current research centers on the development of high-speed semiconductor lasers capable of producing extremely short pulses of light. The NSF award was created in 1985 to help universities attract and retain outstanding scientists and engineers who might otherwise pursue or remain in nonteaching careers. Bowers joined the UCSB faculty last September from AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he worked for five years as a member of the technical staff. Each of the 148 recipients of the award receives up to $100,000 a year for five years through a combination of federal and matching private funds. The Oregon Health Sciences University has selected endocrinologist Peter 0. Kohler as its new president. Kohler, medical school dean at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, succeeds Leonard Laster and will assume his new post next week. Paul J. Torpey has been named the executive director of the Empire State Electric Energy Research Corp., the research and development consortium of the New York State electric utility industry. Torpey, former director of Energy Conversion and Fuels Research at Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc., succeeds George E. Watkins who retired after more than 12 years as the corporation’s executive director. One hundred eighty research projects valued at nearly $100 million will now be under Torpey’s charge. ESEERCO is a nonprofit corporation funded by major electric utilities in New York State. The Iowa Biotechnology Consortium this month honored Nobel Peace Laureate and native Iowan Norman E. Borlaug for “his commitment to the human needs of the world.” Borlaug was presented with an award named in his honor. The Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Award will be presented annually to an individual or organization with an Iowa link in recognition for biotechnology work that reflects concern for human needs worldwide. Borlaug is most famous for developing wheat varieties that vastly increased production in countries such as Mexico, Columbia, India, and Pakistan. In 1970, he became the first agricultural scientist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

PEOPLE- Climate Expert Wins Award For Achievement

The Scientist Staff

Climate Expert Wins Award For Achievement

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