|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|||||||
| |
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
HONORIS CAUSA
The United States Senate has confirmed the nomination of Nina Fedoroff by President Clinton to serve as a member of the National Science Board (NSB). Fedoroff is professor of biology, the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences, director of the Life Sciences Consortium, and director of the Penn State Biotechnology Institute. The NSB is composed of 24 part-time members who are selected on the basis of their eminence in science, engineering, education, or research management to direct the activities of the National Science Foundation (NSF). Members of the board are nominated for four-year terms by the president and confirmed by the Senate. "My areas of research, plant genetics and molecular biology, give me the background to deal with issues in plant-genetic and genomic research, as well as the genetic modification of plants, which are high priorities of the NSF right now," Fedoroff says. "The NSF funds basic research in all the fields not covered by the National Institutes of Health. I would like to help assure that the NSF continues its strong plant research programs because of their importance in assuring that the world's food supply is abundant, secure, and safe in the face of continued population growth." Fedoroff is perhaps best known for her research on the molecular biology of mobile genetic elements, also known as transposons, in plants and on the developmental regulation of gene expression. Among her accomplishments, she isolated and characterized the first complete maize transposable genetic element--research that provided the molecular basis for understanding unusual phenomena first described in maize by Nobel Laureate Barbara McClintock. Fedoroff later identified and studied the molecular mechanism of regulation of the maize suppressor-mutator element and also identified a unique regulatory protein encoded by this element. "The ultimate goal of my research is to identify and understand the function of genes that are important in plant development," Fedoroff says. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honorary societies, the board of directors of the Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, the International Advisory Board to the Englehardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow, and the editorial boards of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Plant Journal, and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. Fedoroff earned a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry, summa cum laude, at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in molecular biology at Rockefeller University. Her recent honors include the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award in 1990, the New York Academy of Sciences Outstanding Contemporary Woman Scientist Award in 1992, being named one of the fifty most outstanding alumni of the Damon Runyan-Walter Winchell Foundation in 1996, and the Sigma Xi John P. McGovern Science and Society Medal in 1997. She has received research grants from NSF, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, including a 10-year National Institutes of Health MERIT Award. Fedoroff has served on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the board of directors of the International Science Foundation, and the board of trustees of the Biological Sciences Information Service (BIOSIS). She recently has been elected to the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Among her many professional activities in the national and international science communities, she has been a member of the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee, the international advisory committee to the Human Frontiers of Science Program, the board of directors of the Genetics Society of America, and a Scientific Advisory Panel on Applied Genetics of the Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress of the United States. She has been a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and she has served on the Committee for the Visiting Scholar Program of Phi Beta Kappa. She served the National Academy of Sciences as a member of three National Research Council organizations: the Biotechnology Committee, the Commission on Life Sciences, and the Board on Biology. In addition, she was co-chair in 1989 of the US-USSR Interacademy Workshop on Plant Molecular Biology Applied to Agriculture. Other current members of the NSB who have a Penn State connection include Eamon M. Kelly, chair of the board, who was an assistant professor of finance at Penn State from 1965 to 1968 and is now president emeritus and professor in the Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer at Tulane University; Warren M. Washington, PhD Mete'64, who is director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research climate & global dynamics division; and Joseph A. Miller, Jr., PhD Chem'66 and a Penn State Distinguished Alumnus and Alumni Fellow, who is a member of the National Research Council Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education and the Senior Vice President for Research and Development and Chief Science and Technology Officer at DuPont. Benkovic Earns Award From Protein Society
The Protein Society honored Benkovic because his contributions to the interface area between chemistry and biology distinguish him as one of the world leaders in chemical biology. In the course of his research he has implemented the ingenious and creative application of rapid-quench or stop-flow kinetic methods as the solution to problems in mechanistic enzymology. What sets his work apart from others is his mastery of many different fields--organic chemistry, physical chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology. The award includes a monetary prize. An international organization, the Protein Society works to "promote interactions among investigators in order to explore all aspects of ๋the building blocks of life.' " Benkovic has received numerous honors; most recently, he presented the prestigious Alexander Todd Lectures at Cambridge University in England and was the Welcome Visiting Scholar at Yale University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. Benkovic earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry at Lehigh University in 1960. He earned his doctoral degree in organic chemistry at Cornell University in 1963. He joined Penn State as an assistant professor of chemistry in 1965,
became an associate professor in 1967, and was named professor in 1970.
Collins Honored With Humboldt Award
The award includes a monetary grant and support for research at German universities of the recipient's choice for a period of one year. A theoretical physicist, Collins focuses on the strong interactions of elementary particles. He is perhaps best known for his mathematical proofs of "factorization theorems." These theorems provide the fundamental tool by which successful predictions are made for experimental observations at high-energy particle accelerators. Without the theorems, it would not be possible to understand the data produced by the accelerators or to use the accelerators for searches for new phenomena. Collins will spend the 2000-01 academic year based at Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, a laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, that performs basic research in high-energy and particle physics as well as in the production and application of synchrotron radiation. The facility is one of two high-energy physics laboratories in Europe. Collins received his doctoral degree from Cambridge University, England, in 1975. He was a research associate at Princeton University from 1975 to 1976 and an assistant professor at Princeton University from 1976 to 1980. From 1980 to 1990, he worked at Illinois Institute for Technology as an assistant professor, associate professor, and professor. He joined Penn State in 1990. The Humboldt Foundation presents up to 150 research awards annually to "foreign scholars whose academic qualifications enjoy international recognition. The object is to pay tribute to accomplishments of award winners and to foster long-term cooperation between foreign and German researchers." Brandt Earns NSF Early Career Award
The award for Brandt, which the agency describes as its highest honor for new faculty, provides five years of funding to stimulate the early development of academic careers in science and engineering and to support the critical roles played by faculty members in integrating research and education. Research for Brandt's CAREER program will focus on the investigation of X-ray sources using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. In two recent Chandra discoveries that were not a part of the CAREER award, Brandt helped determine the X-ray characteristics of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field North and also gauge the chemistry and speed of a powerful wind near a supermassive black hole. As part of the CAREER award, Brandt plans to support astronomy outreach activities in the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science. "It was a wonderful surprise to receive this award, and I'll do my best to be worthy of it," Brandt said. "I'm grateful for the steadfast support my department and college provided in the application process, and I look forward to both the research and educational outreach activities the award will fund." Brandt earned his bachelor's degree in physics at California Institute of Technology in 1992. He earned his doctoral degree in X-ray astrophysics at Cambridge University in 1996. He was a Smithsonian Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1996 until he joined the faculty at Penn State in 1997. Banavar, Hammerstedt Elected AAAS Fellows Jayanth Banavar, professor and head of the Department of Physics, and Roy Hammerstedt, professor emeritus of biochemistry have been elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The AAAS selects as Fellows members whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished."
A professor at Penn State for 29 years, Hammerstedt retired in 1999. He was honored for work involving his company, BioPore, Inc., of State College, and the University. Founded in 1987, BioPore works to develop and foster commercial application of innovative biotechnologies. Their honors will be conferred during the AAAS Fellows Forum, part of the association's Annual Meeting and Science Innovation Exposition, scheduled to take place from 15 to 20 February 2001 in San Francisco, California. "Recognition as a AAAS Fellow is especially rewarding, coming at the transition between two exciting careers," Hammerstedt said. "First, an academic experience allowed me the chance for teaching and research activities with an excellent group of students and colleagues. And now, I am in the biotechnology world, leading a company that serves as an interface between those basic studies and commercial applications, thereby providing return on the investment of both the public and private sectors." The honor of being elected a Fellow Fellow began in 1874 and is acknowledged with a certificate and a rosette. Banavar, a condensed-matter theorist who has authored or coauthored more than 100 journal articles, is a fellow of the American Physical Society. He was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal in 1997 from Penn State, and a Fullbright Fellowship in 1995. Banavar joined the Penn State faculty in 1988. Prior to that he had been a member of the professional staff at Schlumberger-Doll Research from 1983 to 1988. He was a postdoctoral member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1981 to 1983 and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1981. He earned his doctoral degree in physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1978. He earned both his master's and bachelor's in physics at Bangalore University of India in 1974 and 1972, respectively.
He earned his doctoral degree in biochemistry, with a minor in organic chemistry, at the University of Minnesota at St. Paul in 1968. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry, with a minor in mathematics, at the University of Minnesota at Duluth in 1963. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Society for Andrology, the Society for Cryobiology, the American Society of Blood Banks, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Founded in Philadelphia in 1848, the AAAS is the world's largest general science organization and publisher of the peer-reviewed journal Science. With more than 138,000 members, AAAS serves as an authoritative source for information on the latest developments in sciences.
Alan Walker, distinguished professor of anthropology and biology, has been awarded an honorary doctor-of-science degree by the University of Chicago. The degree was conferred in November as part of a special convocation to inaugurate incoming University of Chicago President Don Randel. Walker's honorary degree, approved by the board of trustees at the University of Chicago upon recommendation from faculty members and input from outside reviewers, honors him exclusively for his research and scholarship. According to the nominating statement, "Alan Walker has been a flagship contributor to research in early hominid evolution. He has been unrivaled in his discovery, reassembly, and interpretation of stunning specimens of major theoretical import." Added one outside reviewer, "Professor Walker has had, and continues to have, the most distinguished career in the fields of paleoanthropology in the last part of this century." Walker is one of the world's foremost experts on the evolution of primates and humans. His research involves searching for primate and human fossils in rocks dated from about 30 million to 1 million years ago. He pioneered the study of living primates as a basis for the analysis of fossils and was one of the first to use scanning electron microscope studies of enamel microwear on teeth to understand the diets of extinct mammals. He has made many important discoveries during the past three decades at paleontological digs in Africa with his collaborators Richard and Meave Leakey, including a famous hominid specimen known as "The Black Skull." In 1995, he and Meave Leakey discovered the skeletal remains of a previously unknown species in the human lineage, which they named Australopithecus anamensis, that lived about 4 million years ago. One of the surprising revelations resulting from his subsequent analysis of these remains is that these ancestors of humans were walking upright that long ago. Walker was honored with a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1986 and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life in 1992. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1988, elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996, and elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. Born and educated in England, Walker earned a bachelor's degree with honors in geology and zoology and Cambridge University in 1962 and a doctoral degree in anatomy and paleontology at London University in 1967. He taught anatomy at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London; the Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda; and the University of Nairobi, Kenya, before moving to the United States in 1973. From 1974 to 1978, he was a faculty member in the Department of Biology at Harvard University, where he also was associated with Harvard Medical School and the Peabody Museum. He was a professor of cell biology and anatomy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1978 until he joined the Penn State faculty in 1995.
Honoris Causa continued (part 2) Back to Science Journal Spring 2001 Index
|
|
|
Penn State Home Page | Eberly College of Science | Find a Person | Locate a Building | Search | Site Index Students
| Alumni
| Visitors
| Researchers
| Faculty and
Staff | Postdoctoral
Fellows | Corporate
Interests |
|
| This page is maintained by Barbara K. Kennedy: science@psu.edu, (814) 863-4682 and Leta A. Krumrine: LAK15@psu.edu, (814) 863-8453 -- FAX (814) 863-2246 Eberly College of Science, Office of Public Information, 427 Thomas Building, University Park, PA 16802-2112 This page was last updated on 12 March 2001 If you would like
to communicate with the keepers of the Eberly College of Science Web server,
send electronic mail to: science-web@thunder.science.psu.edu |
Senate
Confirms Fedoroff to National Science Board
Stephen
Benkovic, Even Pugh Professor of 
John
Collins, professor of 
Niel
Brandt, assistant professor of 
Banavar
has been selected for "the productive and imaginative application
of statistical physics to interdisciplinary problems."
Hammerstedt
joined the Penn State faculty in 1970 as an assistant professor.
He was named associate professor in 1976 and professor in 1983.
He served as a visiting professor at the 
Walker
Receives Honorary Degree from University of Chicago