AAS Division Awards Announced

Each year the divisions of the American Astronomical Society recognize the achievements of individuals who have made noteworthy contributions to astronomy. There were eight recipients for 2001.

Donald Osterbrock, a professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California’s Lick Observatory, received the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize from AAS’s historical astronomy division. He will deliver the Doggett Prize Lecture entitled “The View from the Observatory: History Is Too Important to Be Left to the Historians” at the 199th meeting of AAS, to be held next month in Washington, DC.

The division of planetary sciences presented three awards this year. The Gerard P. Kuiper Prize went to Bruce W. Hapke, professor emeritus of planetary sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. The division honored Hapke for his research contributions in modeling electromagnetic radiation, which have “provided the foundation for interpreting planetary remote sensing data.”

The Harold C. Urey Prize was presented to Michael E. Brown, an assistant professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech, for “various discoveries on Io, Titan, Ganymede, Europa, and Neried.”

The Carl Sagan Medal, given for outstanding communication to the general public by an active planetary scientist, went to André Brahic, an astrophysicist at the University of Paris VII-Denis Diderot. Known as the “Carl Sagan of France,” Brahic was honored for being “distinguished in his public communication by his joyous and enthusiastic style, but also by his rigorous attention to scientific accuracy.”

The George Ellery Hale Prize, given by the solar physics division, went this year to Alan M. Title for his “exceptional leadership in developing multiple, innovative, high-resolution telescopes and interpreting their data to dramatically advance our understanding of the Sun” and his “generous public service on behalf of the solar and solar-terrestrial communities.” Title is a senior member of the research laboratory and a senior staff consulting scientist in the solar and astrophysics department at Lockheed Missiles and Space Inc in Palo Alto, California. He is also codirector of the Stanford Lockheed Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.

The solar physics division also presented its popular science writing awards for 2001. Curt Suplee, director of the office of legislative and public affairs at NSF, received the division’s journalist award for his article “Sun Studies May Shed Light on Global Warming,” which appeared in the Washington Post on 9 October 2000.

The writing award to a scientist went to Paul Bellan for his article entitled “Simulating Solar Prominences in the Laboratory,” which appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of American Scientist. Bellan is a professor of applied physics at Caltech.

Jack Wisdom, a professor in MIT’s Earth, atmosphere, and planetary science department, garnered the Brouwer Award from AAS’s dynamical astronomy division. Wisdom was honored for his “fundamental contributions and leadership in the field,” including pioneering the application of modern nonlinear dynamics and the theory of Hamiltonian chaos in the field of Solar System dynamics.