Press, a geophysicist, is receiving the award in the category of Safety Engineering and Disaster Mitigation. He is regarded by the presenters as one of the pioneers in modern earthquake seismology for using the surface wave motion and ruptures of the Earth's crust and upper mantle as predictors of quakes. In 1957, Press was instrumental in creating the International Geophysical Year, a decade-long effort that mapped and measured geophysical phenomena.
Press received his B.S. from the City College of New York in 1944 and his Ph.D. in geophysics in 1949 from Columbia University. He has held professorships in geophysics at Columbia (1945-55) and the California Institute of Technology (1955-65) and is currently an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In four months, Press, 67, will leave his post at NAS after serving two consecutive six-year terms. Prior to serving at NAS, Press was the director of the Office ...
