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William T. Golden, a corporate executive and a longtime advocate of progress in science and technology, was named chairman of the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History last month. The 79-year-old Golden, who serves in an advisory capacity at several corporations, including General American. Investors Co. and Block Drug Co., says his aim is to provide "leadership without domination" in representing the board to the museum's president. The new chairman has been a museum trustee since 1968 and most recently served as vice-chairman. He recalls that his lifelong love affair with science began when he received his first radio and transmitting device at the age of 13. The board is currently developing plans for the modernization of the New York City museum, a 5 to 10 year program that will provide for renovations of museum exhibitions and structures as well as support for the activities of the museum's scientists. Since its founding in 1869, the museum has become the largest natural-history museum in the world, supporting extensive research in the zoologic, anthropologic, and earth sciences. Golden sees this research as crucial for the future of the museum, predicting that basic research will grow in the next decade, specifically in the area of molecular biology, which he says is essential for all types of biologic research, particularly paleontology. Though not a practicing scientist, the new board chairman calls himself an "amateur of science." Golden has held a number of significant posts within the science community, on national and local levels. In 1950 and 1951, he served as a special consultant to President Harry S Truman, and in this capacity designed the post of science adviser to the president and counseled the president on the establishment of NSF. In 1982, he received the Distinguished Public Service Award of NSF. Golden also serves as officer and trustee for many scientific and educational organizations. He is chairman of the New York Academy of Sciences and treasurer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has long been secretary and a trustee of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and is co-chairman (with Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, president of Rockefeller University) of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government. The new museum board chairman is editor and coauthor of Science Advice to the President and Science and Technology Advice to the President, Congress, and Judiciary, both published by Pergamon Press, and serves as vice-chairman of New York City's Mayor's Commission for Science and Technology. The American Ceramic Society recently named a distinguished life member and three fellows, all research scientists at the Coming Glass Works, Coming, N.Y. Life member S. Donald Stookey, retired director and active consultant to Coming, was honored for his prolific inventions, including photochromic glasses and glass ceramics. Fellow Rodney D. Bagley is best known for having developed the extrusion-die design and process used to make cellular-ceramic substrates for automotive catalyst supports. The other fellows are Kenneth Chyung, senior research associate and expert on the relation of micro-structure and thermochemical properties in glass ceramics, and David C. Larsen, research associate in advanced materials and author of numerous publications on the mechanical behavior of advanced ceramics and ceramic-matrix composites for thermostructural applications. Donald G. Bergmann has joined Smith Kline & French Laboratories, the pharmaceutical division of the Philadelphia-based SmithKline Beckman Corp., as director of biochemical manufacturing. Bergmann comes to the company after six years with Genentech Inc., where he served as scientist, cell culture operator, and, most recently, senior project manager. The Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America has named Marcia P. Sward as the society's new executive director. For the past four years, Sward has served as executive director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board of the National Research Council in Washington, D.C. On Sept. 1, she will take over management of the 28,000-member association, which represents mathematicians working at the collegiate level. John D. Wiley, associate dean for engineering research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, was named dean of the university's graduate school. Wiley, who joined the university's faculty in 1975, has been instrumental in UW-Madison's efforts to develop computer chips through X-ray lithography, a technique that can lead to the production of smaller and more powerful integrated circuits. Wiley will succeed Dean Robert M. Bock, who has held the position for 22 years. The William T. Pecora Award is presented annually by the Department of the Interior and NASA to recognize outstanding contributions toward the understanding of the earth by means of remote sensing. This year's winner is William J. Campbell of Tacoma, Wash., a research scientist specializing in the use of microwave data in ice and climate studies. A 25-year employee of the U.S. Geological Survey, Campbell was presented with a plaque after giving his honorary Pecora lecture, titled "Microwave Remote Sensing:From Genesis to a New Knowing of Earth." In his lecture, Campbell discussed the historic development of the understanding of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice and oceans through the use of satellite-mounted microwave sensors. Anthony V. Nero, a physicist with the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, has been named the 1989 recipient of the Leo Szilard Award for Physics in the Public Interest by the Council of the American Physical Society. The award recognizes Nero's "outstanding research on problems dealing with issues of physics, the environment, and public health," including the identification of radon as a major health hazard. Nero and his group have studied radon for a decade. Chemistry professors Werner G. Kuhr, University of California, Riverside; and Jennifer S. BrodbeltLustig, University of Texas, Austin, have been selected as recipients of the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh 1989 Starter Grant Awards. The $10,000 awards are given to encourage high-quality, innovative research by new professors in the field of analytical chemistry and to promote the training and development of graduate students in the field. Kuhr's grant will fund his project on "Discrete Sampling of Transient Neurochemical Events in Brain with Capillary Zone Electrophoresis/Indirect Detections." The award-winning research proposal submitted by Brodbelt-Lustig was "Investigation of Fundamental Aspects and Analytical Applications of Ion/Molecule Reactions in Mass Spectrometry."

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