In Brief

At its annual meeting in Philadelphia last month, the Archaeological Institute of America, located in Boston, presented the 2002 Pomerance Award for Scientific Contributions to Archaeology to Garman Harbottle. He was recognized for his “contributions in the development of the archaeological sciences and being at the forefront of applying nuclear sciences to problems in archaeology, especially in the fields of proveniencing, radiocarbon dating, and archaeometallurgy.” Harbottle is a senior chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York.

Last month at the 91st session of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research scientific council in Dubna, Russia, the JINR presented the Bruno Pontecorvo Prize to Nicholas Samios, Distinguished Senior Scientist with Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, and former director of BNL. The JINR recognized Samios for his “outstanding contribution to particle physics.”

Katepalli R. Sreenivasan joined the University of Maryland, College Park, in January as a Distinguished University Professor of Physics and Mechanical Engineering and director of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology. He was previously the Harold W. Cheel Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University.

Last November, at its annual assembly in Strasbourg, France, the European Science Foundation awarded the 2001 European Latsis Prize in the field of climate research to André Berger, a professor of climatology and meteorology at the Catholic University of Louvain, in Belgium. Berger, who established an accurate description of the variations of the astronomical factors that influence global climate, was honored for his “outstanding contributions to the understanding of the Ice Age climate” and, in particular for “understanding how the climatic fluctuations are generated, using computer models of different complexity.” The European Latsis Prize is awarded annually to an individual or group who has made the greatest contribution to a particular field of European research. It includes a cash prize of 100 000 Swiss francs (about $60 000).

The Foresight Institute in Palo Alto, California, presented its 2001 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, Experimental, at the conference on molecular nanotechnology held last November in Santa Clara, California. The institute awarded the prize to Charles Lieber, Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry, Harvard University, for his “pioneering experimental work in molecular nanotechnology, which included seminal contributions to the synthesis and characterization of the unique physical properties of carbon nanotubes and nanowires.” Lieber’s work, adds the citation, “represents a significant advance toward molecular-scale computation and nanotechnology.” He received a cash prize of $5000.

The Foresight Institute also handed out the 2001 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, Theoretical, to Mark Ratner. According to the citation, he has made “major contributions to the development and success of nanometer-scale electronic devices…. His work has been instrumental in establishing scientific understanding worldwide about the mechanisms and magnitudes of conduction in molecular junctions and, in particular, the nature of charge transport in single-molecule nanostructures.” Ratner is a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. He also received $5000.

At its annual meeting in Boston at the end of November, the Materials Research Society presented its highest honor, the Von Hippel Award, to Simon C. Moss, M. D. Anderson Chair of Physics at the University of Houston, for “consistently timely and essential contributions to identifying and understanding the atomic-level structure of almost every new type of material discovered in the past 30 years.” The award included a $10 000 cash prize.

The Materials Research Society also handed out other awards at the Boston meeting, including the 2001 MRS Medal Award to Norm Bartelt, a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, and to C. Mathew Mate, a research staff member with the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. The society acknowledged Bartelt for “contributions to the statistical mechanics of materials surfaces.” Mate was noted for “pioneering studies of friction at the atomic and molecular level.” James R. Chelikowsky, Institute of Technology Distinguished Professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, garnered the society’s 2001 Turnbull Lecturer Award. He was cited for “contributions to the fundamental understanding of electronic, optical, mechanical, surface, and interface properties of bulk and nanostructured semiconductors, ceramics, and metals through ab initio calculations; and for excellence in teaching, lecturing, and writing.”

After nearly 30 years with NSF, Boris Kayser joined the ranks of Fermilab in October as a Fermilab distinguished scientist. He previously was NSF’s program director for theoretical physics, a position he had held since 1975.

In September, Sukyoung Yi joined the physics department at the University of Oxford as a lecturer. Yi previously was a staff scientist with Caltech.

On 1 June, Thomas Henning will take the position of director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, located in Heidelberg, Germany. He currently is director of the Astrophysical Institute and University Observatory at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany.