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Larson and Sen Honored as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

21 September 2006—Daniel Larson, the Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly College of Science, and Ayusman Sen, professor of chemistry and head of the Department of Chemistry, have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society. The honor is given to members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished." The award was presented to 376 individuals during the 2006 AAAS Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri.

Daniel J. Larson was recognized for his distinguished research, professional, and academic contributions to the advancement of physics. He is a leader in physics education at the graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as an accomplished researcher who has focused his experiments on using the special characteristics of negative ions to study processes and properties of general importance in atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

Larson is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the honorary societies Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Sigma Pi Sigma. He is the chair of the board of directors of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope and co-chair of the Penn State Health Sciences 2020 team, and he serves as a member of the board of directors of the Penn State Research Foundation and a member of the executive committee of the Penn State Institutes of the Environment, Materials Research Institute, and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences.

Before joining Penn State in 1998 as dean of the Eberly College of Science, Larson was the Maxine S. and Jesse W. Beams professor of physics at the University of Virginia, where he consistently was ranked among the best teachers in his department and among the most highly respected researchers. At the beginning of his career, Larson was an assistant professor of physics at Harvard University from 1970 to 1975, and was an associate professor of physics there from 1975 to 1978. He then joined the University of Virginia in 1978 as an associate professor of physics, was promoted to professor in 1987, was associate dean of arts and sciences at from 1989 to 1991, and was chairman of the physics department there from 1991 to 1997. He also was a visiting professor at Chalmers University in Sweden in 1986. He was a visiting scientist at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards in 1985 and 1986 and at the Laboratoire Aimé Cotton in France in 1991.

Larson graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor-of-arts degree in physics and mathematics from St. Olaf College in 1966. He earned his master's degree in 1967 and his doctoral degree in 1971, both in physics at Harvard University. He was a Woodrow Wilson fellow in 1966 and a National Science Foundation graduate fellow from 1966 to 1970.

Ayusman Sen was honored for his "distinguished contributions to organometallic and polymer chemistry and catalysis, particularly for the discovery of novel oxidation and polymerization systems and synthetic catalytic nanomotors." His research encompasses the twin themes of catalysis and new materials, with the goal of developing new metal catalysts that will enable the synthesis of polymers and related materials, with one of the goals being the development of new catalysts that will enable the synthesis of polymers and related materials with novel combinations of properties.

Sen also is developing antimicrobial polymers and composites that can be used to coat surfaces to render them antiseptic and resistant to biofilm formation. These materials are potentially useful as antimicrobial coatings in a wide variety of biomedical and general-use applications. He also is interested in developing ways that miniature "engines" could convert chemical energy into motion, providing the power for microscale and nanoscale motors and pumps through catalytic reactions.

Sen holds 20 patents and has published more than 225 scientific papers related to his research. His research accomplishments were recognized in 1988 with a Paul J. Flory Sabbatical Award from IBM and in 2003 with a Faculty Scholar Medal from Penn State. He received a Young Investigator Award from the Chevron Research Company in 1982 and held an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship from 1984 to 1988. He has held named professorships and lectureships at several universities including the Imperial Oil Distinguished Lectureship at the University of Toronto in Canada in 1993, the Iberdrola Visiting Professorship at the University of Valladolid in Spain from 1999 to 2000, and the Gerhard Closs Lectureship at the University of Chicago in 2002.

Sen was a Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology from 1978 to 1979 prior to joining the faculty of the Penn State Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor in 1979. He was promoted to associate professor in 1984 and to professor in 1989. He received a bachelor's degree with honors from the University of Calcutta in India in 1970 and a master's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur in 1973. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago in 1978.

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