In Brief

Two scientists, one renowned for more than three decades of contributions to the area of experimental inertial fusion and the other for his seminal role in the development of fast ignition, have been selected by the American Nuclear Society to receive the 2005 Edward Teller Medals. Joe Kilkenny and Max Tabak, who were honored for their “pioneering work in the field of fusion research,” are receiving the medals this fall at the Fourth International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications in Biarritz, France. Kilkenny is vice president for Inertial Fusion Technology at General Atomics in San Diego, California, and associate director for science and technology at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics of the University of Rochester in New York. Tabak is a senior scientist and group leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.

Wayne Rosing, an adviser at Google Inc, where he was a senior vice president for engineering, has been named the first senior fellow in mathematical and physical sciences at the University of California, Davis. Rosing, a keen astronomer also renowned in the computer industry, is working with J. Anthony Tyson, professor of physics, on the proposed Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.

C. Matthias Mountain, director of the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii, has been named director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Mountain, who begins his term 1 September, had been with the Gemini Observatory since 1992 and assumed directorship in 1994. He succeeds Steven Beckwith.