In February, Ants Leetmaa became the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. He had previously served as the director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Maryland. Leetmaa replaced Jerry Mahlman, who retired as director last October. Mahlman had been the director since 1984 and had worked at the lab for exactly three decades—beginning his NOAA career the day the agency started and ending his career there on NOAA’s official 30th anniversary. He currently is Lecturer with Rank of Professor at Princeton University.
Alex Zunger, an institute research fellow and scientist at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, received the 2001 John Bardeen Award from the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society at its annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, in February. The society acknowledged Zunger’s “contributions to the theoretical understanding and prediction of ‘spontaneous ordering,’ phase stability, and electronic properties of semiconductor alloys.” He was also recognized “for the impact that this work has had on experimental studies of electronic materials and for his continued leadership in the field.”
Duncan Moore joined the Optical Society of America (OSA) in January as its part-time senior science adviser. He previously was the associate director of technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In addition to his position with OSA, Moore works full-time as Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor of Optical Engineering at the University of Rochester.
At a January ceremony at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet presented the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal—the highest award bestowed by the US Intelligence Community—to two winners, one of whom works in physics. Sidney D. Drell was recognized in part for bringing “White House and community attention to bear on a wide range of critical scientific and technical challenges confronting this nation.” Drell, deputy director of SLAC until 1998, is an emeritus professor of theoretical physics at SLAC and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. The other winner was Senator Warren B. Rudman.
The University of Chicago named Robert Zimmer as the vice president for research and for Argonne National Laboratory last December. In addition to his new duties, Zimmer will continue to serve as the university’s deputy provost for research, a post he has held since 1988, and as Max Mason Distinguished Professor of Mathematics.
Last November, the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg, France, awarded the 2000 European Latsis Prize in the field of molecular structure to Kenneth Charles Holmes, director of the biophysics department at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany. The foundation recognized “his outstanding contributions to structural biology, studies of great scientific and social significance for European progress” and noted that he “was a pioneer in the development of both theoretical and experimental x-ray diffraction methods for elucidating the structures of biological macromolecules.” The prize, financed by the Latsis Foundation, carries a cash award of 100 000 Swiss francs (about $60 000).
Shuji Nakamura, a professor of materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara, received the 2000 Honda Prize, given by the Honda Foundation of Japan in November. The citation noted in part that Nakamura “undertook the challenging task of creating crystals by using gallium nitride as material—considered a particularly difficult process—and succeeded in the development of light-emitting diodes and laser diodes.” These devices “can be used as a light source for high-density optical recording of optical disks…. Light-emitting bodies thus developed will consume very little power, will be environment friendly, and one of the most important energy-saving devices.” Nakamura received a cash prize of ¥10 million (about $85 000).
The Max Planck Society and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation last fall handed out the 2000 Max Planck Research Awards for various disciplines to 12 scientists, 6 of whom work in physics-related fields. Simon D. M. White and Peter Wölfle shared the award for physics. White is with the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and Wölfle is with the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. Among the recipients of the biological sciences and medicine award were George J. Augustine of Duke University and Wolfgang Baumeister of the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried near Munich, Germany. Dieter Enders of the Rhine-Westphalian Technical University of Aachen in Germany was honored with the award for chemistry. Jerrold E. Marsden of Caltech received the award for mathematics and informatics.
Paul Ching-Wu Chu, T. L. L. Temple Chair of Science, professor of physics, and director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston, will become the president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in July. He will still maintain his association with the center as T. L. L. Temple Chair of Science and chief science adviser, without drawing a salary, to continue his research on high-temperature superconductivity. Chu will succeed outgoing HKUST president Chia-Wei Woo, who left the presidency at San Francisco State University in 1988 to plan the establishment of HKUST, which opened in 1991. Woo says he plans to “continue to engage in education, science, and technology activities, including US–China cooperation in this arena.”
