In Brief

The European Commission handed out its Descartes prizes for 2004 at a ceremony in Prague, Czech Republic, last December. A joint EU–US project team received one of two awards in the research category and shared half of the C1 million (about $1.3 million) prize. The IST-QuComm (Information Systems Technology-Quantum Communications) team, which is developing a global communication system using photons, was cited for “demonstrating a number of intriguing applications of quantum physics: from teleportation to the secure transmission of encrypted information over fibre optic cable links and through free space.” The team includes Thierry Debuisschert (Thales Group, France), Artur Ekert (University of Cambridge), Nicolas Gisin (University of Geneva), Richard Hughes (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Anders Karlsson (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm), John Rarity (University of Bristol), Harald Weinfurter (University of Munich), and Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna).

After 29 years at Sandia National Laboratories, most recently as director of the Pulsed Power Science Center, Jeff Quintenz is now president of Lockheed Martin Nevada Technologies Inc and deputy general manager of stockpile and stewardship programs and operations for Bechtel Nevada.

Stephen Hawking received the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal from the Smithsonian Institution at a ceremony in Washington, DC, on 14 February. The award, which honors the Institution’s original beneficiary, is given to people who have made distinguished contributions to the advancement of areas of interest to the Smithsonian. Hawking was chosen for his “groundbreaking research in theoretical physics and his influence on young scientists in Great Britain, the United States, and around the world,” according the citation. Hawking holds the Lucasian Chair of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge University.

Robert Kirby-Harris became chief executive of the Institute of Physics this month. He replaces Julia King, who is now the principal of the faculty of engineering at Imperial College London.

On 1 June, John P. Holdren will take over the directorship of the Woods Hole Research Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. At that time, the Center’s founder and its director for the past 20 years, George M. Woodwell, will become director emeritus. President-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Holdren has been a visiting scholar and a trustee at Woods Hole for 10 years, and is a professor in the Kennedy School of Government and the department of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, where he will continue part-time.

Acta Materialia Inc in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has announced that Alton D. Romig Jr will receive the J. Herbert Hollomon Award for 2005. The award recognizes contributions to the interactions between materials technology and societal concerns. Romig is vice president of nonproliferation and assessments at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. George Smith has been awarded the 2005 Acta Materialia Inc Gold Medal, which is given in honor of leadership in materials research. Smith is head of the department of materials at Oxford University and nonexecutive chairman of Polaron, a UK technology group.

Ralph Cicerone will become president of the National Academy of Sciences on 1 July. An atmospheric chemist and chemistry professor, he is currently the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine. Cicerone succeeds Bruce Alberts, who will have served two terms as NAS president.