Honoris Causa
Science Journal -- Spring 1996 -- Vol 13, No. 2
The American Astronomical Society has announced the selection of Alexander Wolszczan, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, as the recipient of its prestigious Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize. The prize recognizes an outstanding research contribution that is of an exceptionally creative or innovative character and that has played a seminal role in furthering the understanding of the universe. According to the society, Wolszczan was selected for his "creative and innovative analysis of binary and relativistic pulsars culminating in the discovery of a system of planets outside our solar system."
Past recipients of the Tinsley Prize include Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, the codiscoverer of pulsars; Edward Purcell, the discoverer of the galactic hydrogen emission; and Raymond Davis, the discoverer of solar neutrinos.
In 1992, Wolszczan became the first person to discover planets outside our solar system when he used the 1000-foot Arecibo radiotelescope to detect three planets orbiting a rapidly spinning neutron star. He currently is one of the leaders in the effort to discover extrasolar planets.
He also has received the Popular
Science Grand Award for "Best of What's New" in 1994 and has been honored
by the government of his native Poland with the Prize of the Foundation
for Polish Science. He will receive the Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize at the
annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Toronto, Canada,
in January, 1997.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has selected Diane Henderson, assistant professor of mathematics at Penn State, as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. The foundation awards one hundred fellowships annually to faculty in the United States and Canada who are in the early stages of their research careers and who have exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience, or economics.
Begun in 1955, the Sloan Research Fellowship Program is one of the oldest fellowship programs in the nation. Sloan Fellows receive highly unrestricted grants of $35,000 for a two-year period, with which they are free to pursue whatever lines of research inquiry are of most interest to them. According to the foundation, this flexibility often is of great value to young scientists who are at a pivotal stage in establishing independent research projects.
Dr. Henderson's research involves the behavior of waves in fluids and her approach incorporates laboratory experiments to test and guide theoretical predictions. Her work has a variety of applications, from remote satellite sensing of the sea surface to understanding how contaminants such as oil affect the behavior of waves.
"I am very fortunate to be a member of one of the very few mathematics departments in North America that supports a ," she says, explaining that the lab allows her to combine experimental, theoretical, and numerical research. "I plan to use the support of the Sloan Fellowship for experimental investigations of fundamental questions in fluid mechanics," she added.
In 1992 she received both the National
Science Foundation Young Investigator Award and the David
and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in Science.
Xumu Zhang, assistant professor of chemistry, is one of ten chemical scientists nationwide to receive the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award.
Established by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation in 1979, the award carries a $25,000 unrestricted grant designed to provide research support for new faculty members at the start of their research and teaching careers. The awards are presented to scientists for their outstanding research accomplishments and to assist them in realizing their promise as outstanding educators of undergraduates.
Zhang, who joined the Penn State faculty in 1994, intends to use this award to further his research in transition-metal catalysts for asymmetric synthesis in organic chemistry. Zhang says the award will provide support for research in his lab that is "highly interdisciplinary, involving biomimetic chemistry, organic stereochemistry, organometallic chemistry, and inorganic transition-metal chemistry." His research involves the development of novel transition-metal-based catalysts for organic transformations in the synthesis of both right-handed and left-handed materials. "Biological activities of many pharmaceuticals, fragrances, food additives, and agrochemicals??and physical properties of some electronic and optical devices??often depend on their molecular asymmetry," Zhang explains. He hopes to contribute to advances in transition-metal-catalyzed asymmetric synthesis, which he predicts will have profound impacts in the chemical industry and in other areas of science and technology.
Indian Academy of Sciences Awards
Honorary Fellowship to Ashtekar
Abhay Ashtekar, Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics and director of the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry, has been elected to an Honorary Fellowship in the Indian Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished contributions to science.
While the Academy has over two thousand Fellows, its by-laws restrict the number of Honorary Fellows to sixty. Scientists from all countries are eligible but the number of Honorary Fellows elected in any one year can not exceed three.
Dr. Ashtekar is a world-renowned theoretical physicist who specializes
in general relativity and quantum gravity. He is internationally recognized
for his efforts to bring Einstein's Theory of gravity into the 21st century
by developing a quantum-mechanical version of the theory.
Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao, Holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Statistics and director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis, is acknowledged as one of the world's top five statisticians for his distinguished contributions to the theory and application of statistics and mathematics, both as a researcher and as a teacher. He recently has received a number of awards in recognition of the profound impact his work has had on the fields of statistics, econometrics, electrical engineering, and many other disciplines. The prime minister of India, P. V. Narasimha Rao, presented Rao with the P. C. Mahalanobis Birth Centenary gold medal awarded by the Indian Science Congress Association for his outstanding contributions to statistics.
The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications elected Rao as an Honorary Fellow, citing him as "the world's leading expert in design theory." Of the 654 members of the institute, only eight hold the title of Honorary Fellow. Rao holds seven additional Honorary Fellowships in the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, King's College in the United Kingdom, the International Statistical Institute, the International Biometric Society, the Finnish Statistical Society, and the Calcutta Statistical Association.
Sri Venkateswara University in Tirupati, India, awarded Rao an honorary
doctorate of science degree and the University
of Munich, Germany, awarded him an honorary doctorate in economics.
He now is the holder of twenty honorary doctorate degrees from universities
in fifteen countries. In addition, the mayor of the Borough of State College,
Pennsylvania, recently proclaimed Rao a Distinguished Citizen of State
College. Rao is a member of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Thomas Gramila, assistant professor of physics, and Jorge Pullin, assistant professor of physics, have received Early Career Development Program Awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The awards are part of a new NSF program to encourage scientists and engineers in the early stages of their careers to integrate their research and education efforts. Gramila and Pullin are among approximately 300 this year to receive the grants, which provide support for periods from three to five years and range from about $70,000 to $300,000.
Gramila received the award for his work on "Electron Drag Measurements: A New Approach to Physics in Electron Systems." He has developed a new measurement technique that probes the complex interactions between electrons in conducting materials. These interactions provide the basis of many important effects in conductors; however, prior to Gramila's work, direct measurement of these interactions was not possible. His studies of fundamental issues in electron systems require temperatures close to absolute zero and very high magnetic fields.
Pullin was honored for his "Theoretical Investigations in Classical
and Quantum Gravity." He uncovered a previously unrecognized connection
between knot theory and quantum gravity, which led to a new way of connecting
quantum gravity, topological field theories, and knot theory. These findings
were instrumental in the development of the quantum representation for
gravity and gauge fields known as the extended loop representation. He
has written a book titled "Loops, Knots, Gauge Theories, and Quantum Gravity,"
soon to be published by Cambridge
University Press, which he coauthored with Rodolfo Gambini, of the
Universidad
de la Republica in Uruguay.
Research Corporation selected Thomas J. Gramila, assistant professor of physics, as one of thirteen faculty nationwide to receive a 1995 Cottrell Scholar Award. Named in honor of Frederick Gardner Cottrell, the founder of Research Corporation, the award provides a $50,000 grant to beginning faculty members at university departments of astronomy, chemistry, or physics.
The award winners were selected for their contributions to and success
in undergraduate teaching, their commitment to pursuing careers as teacher-scholars,
and their potential for mounting a strong research program. Among Gramila's
teaching accomplishments are innovations in testing techniques and computer
demonstrations for Physics 201, the introductory physics course for students
majoring in science and engineering disciplines. The award will help to
support Gramila's research in electron physics.