In a September ceremony in Kyoto, Japan, the American Nuclear Society presented the Edward Teller Medal for 2001 to Stefano Atzeni and Mordecai D. Rosen. Atzeni was acknowledged for his “leading contributions to understanding and teaching the high-energy-density physics related to inertial confinement fusion.” He is an associate professor of general physics at the University of Rome I (“La Sapienza”) and the National Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM) in Italy.
Rosen was recognized for his “major contributions to the development of laboratory soft x-ray lasers and to the design and analysis of complex experiments carried out on the Nova laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.” He is a laser and plasma physicist with LLNL.
Susan Coppersmith joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in August as a professor of physics. She previously was a professor of physics at the University of Chicago.
The Honda Foundation of Japan announced that Donald Mackay will receive the 2001 Honda Prize during a ceremony planned for this month. Mackay, director of the Canadian Environmental Modelling Centre at Trent University, was recognized for his “contribution to environmental chemistry by developing techniques to apply the theoretical concept of fugacity by means of comprehensive systematic techniques of modeling to predict the fate of chemicals in environmental media such as air, water, soils, sediments, and biota.” He also was acknowledged for his “work on elucidating the behavior of oil spills on land, in oceans, and especially in cold Arctic waters.”
Ralph B. James joined Brook-haven National Laboratory last June as the new associate laboratory director for energy, environment, and national security. He previously was a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California.
The South African Institute of Physics in Faure awarded its Silver Jubilee Medal this past July to Robert de Mello Koch, a senior lecturer in the department of physics and Center for Theoretical Physics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. At the ceremony held during the institute’s annual conference in Durban, de Mello Koch was honored for his work in superstring theory. According to the citation, he “has produced significant work explaining how to obtain lump solutions in open string field theory in the context of tachyon condensation….” The medal is awarded biannually for outstanding achievement to a physicist younger than age 35.
This past May, Jonathan F. Ormes became the director of space sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He previously served for 10 years as the chief of Goddard’s Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics. Nicholas White now heads that lab. Ormes replaced Steve Holt as director. Holt is now a professor of physics at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, and director of science at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
Da Hsuan Feng, vice president for research and graduate education and a professor of physics at the University of Texas at Dallas, was awarded the Distinguished Award for Science and Technology by the Greater Dallas Asian American Chamber of Commerce this past August. He was acknowledged as “an expert in mathematical physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear astrophysics.”
Acta Materialia Inc in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has announced that Craig R. Barrett, president and CEO of Intel Corp, has won its 2002 J. Herbert Hollomon Award. Barrett was acknowledged for his “outstanding contributions concerning the interactions between materials and society.” Robert W. Cahn has received the 2002 Acta Materialia Inc Gold Medal, which recognizes “demonstrated ability and leadership in materials research.” Cahn is a distinguished research fellow in the materials science and metallurgy department of the University of Cambridge in the UK.
