In Brief

The National Academy of Engineering, at its annual meeting in Washington, DC, in October, bestowed its Arthur M. Bueche Award on Robert A. Frosch. He was recognized for having “a career of advances in aerospace and automotive technology, and ‘industrial ecology,’ and for administration of research and development in industry, government, and academia.” He is a senior research fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Also at its annual meeting, the NAE presented its Founders Award to Carver Mead, Gordon and Betty Moore Emeritus Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech. The academy acknowledged Mead for his “visionary contributions in the field of microelectronics, including VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) technology and computational neural systems.”

On 1 December, Vladimir Agranovich began his appointment to the NanoTech Institute of the University of Texas at Dallas as the institute’s first “Pioneer of Nanoscience.” The purpose of this position is to help bring science and technology pioneers to the university for extended sabbaticals. Agranovich retains his post as head of the theoretical department in the Institute of Spectroscopy at the Russian Academy of Sciences near Moscow.

Next month, Matthew Colless, senior fellow of the research school of astronomy and astrophysics at the Australian National University, will become the new director of the Anglo–Australian Observatory in Sydney.

O 3 November, Steven J. Dick became the new director of NASA’s history office and chief historian, DC. Before joining NASA, Dick worked as an astronomer and historian of science at the US Naval Observatory.

In October, Louise Johnson joined Diamond Light Source, a synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire, England, as director of life science. Johnson will continue her affiliation with Oxford University, where she is the David Phillips Professor of Molecular Biophysics.