2002
Award-Winning Faculty
El-Baz named to two prestigious committees
Farouk El-Baz, a research professor and founding director of BU's Center for Remote Sensing, has been invited to serve on the Charles Stark Draper Prize selection committee of the National Academy of Engineering. He has also received an invitation to serve a three-year term on the Committee on Human Rights of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The panel focuses on cases of detained, imprisoned, and exiled scientists, engineers, and health professionals who are considered to be prisoners of conscience, as well as those who have disappeared. Since its founding in 1976, the committee has helped several hundred colleagues worldwide gain release from prison.
Coming and Going: Two BU Faculty Go Abroad as Fulbright Scholars; BU Welcomes Five from Abroad
Peter Bridgman Benfield, a lecturer in the School of Law and Jeanne Ellen Koopman, a research fellow at the African Studies Center have been named Fulbright Scholars for 2002-2003. Benfield will lecture at the Adilet law School in Kazakhstan; Koopman will lecture and conduct research at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal.
Boston University will host visiting scholars Gangaram Belani, a dermatologist from Hospital Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Ionel Ciucanu, professor of chemistry and biology from West University of Timisoara, Romania; Valeri Konychev, asistant professor of North American Studies from St. Petersburg State University, Russia; Arkadi Lipkine, senior lecturere in philosophy from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia; and Karin Tan, a doctoral candidate in the department of Philosophy, Univesity of Oslo, Norway.
Geologist Maureen Raymo is one of the 50 Most Important Women in Science
Maureen Raymo, research associate professor of earth science is listed as one of the 50 most important women in science in the November 2002 issue of Discover Magazine. The magazine says, "The geologist's controversial "uplift hypothesis" maintains that the rise of mountain ranges such as the Himalayas causes a reverse greenhouse effect and explains why Earth's climate has chilled for 40 million years. She says "the weathering of mountain ranges scrubs CO 2 out of the atmosphere, which can lead to global cooling. We have such a rudimentary understanding of the carbon cycle — which controls life on Earth — that anything we learn about it will help us understand future change."
Archaeologist Paul Goldberg wins Rip Rapp Award
Archaeology Professor Paul Goldberg is this year's recipient of the Rip Rapp Archeological Geology Award from the Archaeological Geology Division of the Geological Society of America. The annual award was presented at the Society's annual meeting in October. Goldberg is internationally recognized as an expert in the use of micromorphology to study archaeological sediments, soils, and other materials. This involves making thin sections of undisturbed blocks of soil and/or sediment. These thin sections can be used to unravel the complex depositional and post-depositional history of deposits associated with archaeological sites.
James Wiseman wins Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Research Grant
Archaeology Profess James R. Wiseman is the only person from the U.S. among the twelve award recipients of research grants from the eighth annual program of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation.
The grant makes possible a month's stay in Athens, Greece where Wiseman will work on the second volume of the final reports of the interdisciplinary Nikopolis Project in Epirus, Greece. Director of the Center for Archaeological Studies and a former chairman of the department, Wiseman has done extensive field work in Greece, the former Yugoslavia, and Spain.
Thomas Barfield, a CAS professor and chairman of the anthropology department recently received a fulbright Senior Specialist grant.
The grant will support his participation in the conference of the International Association for Mongol Studies. Barfield spent two weeks this past summer in Mongolia at the International Congress of Mongolists, where he delivered the keynote address and chaired sessions. The Fulbright Scholar Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and managed by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, seeks to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and those in other countries. The Senior Specialist Program offers two- to six-week grants to leading U.S. academics and professional to support curricular and faclty development and planning at institutions in 140 countries.
(Photo taken by Thomas Barfield during field work in Mongolia. View more photos)
BU Profs Named as Mass High Tech Movers & Innovators
Candida Brush and James E. Hubbard, Jr. have been named Movers and Innovators for 2002 by the weekly publication, Mass High Tech.
Brush, associate professor in the School of Management, has spent the past 20 years researching, studying, and working with female entrepreneurs. Her most recent study, the Diana Project, was sponsored by the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial leadership, the U.S. Small Business Adminatration, and the National Women's Business Council.It investigates eight myths about women and equity capital, including one that says hat women don't have the right experience to build large ventures.
James E. Hubbard, Jr., senior systems engineer at the Photonics Center, has developed “smart skin,” a technology that they believe will help with the nursing shortage at hospitals and long-term care homes for the elderly. The disposable sensor, which looks like a thin blanket, is placed on a bed or seat. Using a wireless connection, nurses at centralized stations can monitor the position and movements of all patients.Future generations of the product will be able to monitor heart rate and respiration.
James Hubbard was also selected as Black Engineer of the Year in 2002
Read Mass High Tech Profiles: Brush, Hubbard
Economist Maristella Botticini has been awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research fellowship.
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has given a research fellowship to Maristella Botticini, a CAS assistant professor of economics. She was selected from among hundreds of nominations of highly qualified scientists at the early stages of their career, on the basis of exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge. Former Sloan fellows have received Nobel prizes and numerous awards and honors.
The Sloan Research Fellowship Program is one of the oldest fellowship programs in the country. Grants of $40,000 for a two-year period are administered by each fellow's institution, but fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of inquiry are of most interest to them and to use the funds in a variety of ways to further their research aims
Painter Alfredo Gisholt has been appointed a Guggenheim fellow
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation's 78th annual U.S. and Canadian 2002 fellowship winners include Alfredo Gisholt, a CFA teaching associate in the school of visual arts and a Newton, Mass., artist. The Guggenheim fellows, chosen from the fields of arts and sciences, are appointed on the basis of past distinguished achievement and exceptional promise for future accomplishment. The roll of fellows includes Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, a CAS professor of creative writing and founder of the Playwrights' Theatre, Henry Kissinger (Hon.'99), Philip Roth, and Eudora Welty
Robert L. Devaney , mathematics professor, has won a National Science Foundation Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars
The award honors educators for their outstanding contributions to research and for using their knowledge to contribute to enhancing education of undergraduates. Prof. Devaney is one of six recipients of the award this year and the first mathematician ever to receive it. The winners come from across the nation; Devaney also is the only winner from New England.
The Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars is the highest honor the National Science Foundation bestows on individuals for excellence in both teaching and research. Prof. Devaney will receive the award at a ceremony at the National Academy of Science on June 19, 2002. In addition, he will receive a grant of $300,000 over the next four years to continue his work and expand its reach beyond Boston University.
Prof. Devaney's most recent research is in complex dynamics, including the study of the chaotic behavior of quadratic and exponential functions. He has developed internet tools for high school and college students and faculty to help learn about and teach dynamical systems. He also has received various teaching awards, including the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award -- the Mathematical Association of America's national teaching award -- and Boston University's Teacher/Scholar Award. In addition, Prof. Devaney has given over 1,000 lectures on mathematics to audiences in all 50 states and on six continents.
Read an interview with Robert Devaney on the Project Kaleidoscope website.
2002 SPRING Awards
Special Program for Research Initiation Grants (SPRInG), inaugurated by the Provost this year, provides seed money to help launch and develop new, cross-disciplinary research projects on the Charles River Campus. Its aim is to encourage innovative, new projects that require an initial research effort in order to be competitive for significant, long-term, extramural support. Such projects may involve new areas of scholarship and/or new interdisciplinary research activities.
The program facilitates proof of concept activities with the specific expectation that a fully developed proposal will be submitted to an external funding agency or private foundation within 24 months of receipt of an award. It is also expected that awards will generate publishable papers, exhibitions, or presentations at conferences. The first series of SPRInG awardees are:
Maria Burgess (SAR) "Regulation of mechanical forces in hypertensive heart cells"
Benjamin Campbell (CAS Anthropology) "Biosocial Models of Adolescent Sexual Behavior among Adolescent Boys in East Africa" (partial funding)
Vadim Demidov (CAB) "Interference of pseudocomplementary peptide nucleic acids (pcPNAs) with DNA-processing enzymes" (partial funding)
Jackie Liederman (CAS Psychology) "Distinct Behavioral and Brain Activity Profiles for Two Kinds of Dyslexia: Implications for Individualized Treatment"
Laura MacLatchy (CAS Anthropology) "Locomotor Anatomy and Kinematics of Ateline Primates"
Todd Murray (AME) "High Frequency Optacoustic Imaging using Laser Array Interferometry"
David Starobinski /Jeff Carruthers (ECE) "Inter-Layer Modeling and Design of Wireless Communication Networks"
Joe Tien (BME) "Dynamic Substrates for Cell Structure"
James Traneillo (CAS BIO) "Neural correlates of aging, size, individual development and social plasticity in the ant Pheidole dentata"
Xin Zhang (MFE) "A Heart on a Chip: MEMS Technology for Minimally Invasive Organ Replacement"
Joe Tien, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has been chosen as this year's recipient of a Provost Innovation Fund Award for his work on self assembly of cells for engineering biological tissue. The Fund encourages and supports applications derived from basic
research in science and engineering that have commercial potential and are likely to lead to patent applications, royalties on licences, products, and companies.
Read the research brief
(from left: Provost Dennis Berkey and Joe Tien)
Annely Richardson, a senior in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has been named one of Mass High Tech's Whiz Kids for 2002.
Read the fully story
Read previous article about Annely's Goldwater Scholarship
AIMBE inducts three ENG profs
The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering ( AIMBE ), an organization representing over 36,000 biomedical engineers and whose College of Fellows membership represents the top 2 percent of biomedical engineers in the world, inducted three ENG professors of biomedical engineering as fellows on March 1.
Irving Bigio was inducted "for outstanding contributions advancing basic theory and practice in biomedical optics, including optical biopsy, interstitial laser thermotherapy, and optical pharmacokinetics";
David Mountain "for significant engineering-driven advance in the structure-function-mechanism relations of auditory physiology, with emphasis on outer hair cells and cochlear"; and
Temple Smith, also the director of the BioMolecular Engineering Research Center, "for extraordinary contributions in defining and advancing the field of bioinformatics, with emphasis on novel engineering methods to predict protein structure and function."
There are now 10 ENG biomedical engineering professors who are fellows of AIMBE, one of the largest numbers of faculty members of any university in the nation.
Kirsten Frieda, a high school student who took part in the BU Summer Research Internship program last summer, won a $25,000 scholarship Monday night in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Frieda, 17, placed fourth among 300 finalists for her chemistry project which she performed at Boston University under the direction of Professor Amy Mullin. Her project was to use computer simulations to model collisional energy transfer between molecules and explore how molecular interactions depend on mass, shape and dipole moment of the collision partners. She is currently a senior at Westlake High School in Austin Texas.
Michael Mendillo, professor of Astronomy and member of the Center for Space Physics, has been chosen President-Elect of the Space Physics and Aeronomy Section of the American Geophysical Union. Professor Mendillo was one of the original founding members of the Center for Space Physics. His research into the physics of the ionosphere, space plasma and planetary atmospheres utilize both space- and ground-based instruments.
Chemistry Professor Mort Hoffman, has been awarded the 2002 Responsible Care® National Catalyst Award by the American Chemistry Council. The award honors educators who excel at teaching science and chemistry to students in college, high school, middle school and grade school.
Recipients are nominated by colleagues and individuals who observe a teacher's excellence and inspiration in the classroom. Prof. Hoffman will receive a medal and citation at an awards dinner held in conjunction with the National Science Teachers Association Annual meeting on March 28th in San Diego, California. Boston University will receive $5,000 to be used to improve science education programs.
Center for Remote Sensing Director Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Farouk El-Baz, research professor and founding director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Membership in the Academy honors engineers and other professionals who have made "important contributions to engineering theory and practice" or have shown "unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology."
Dr. El-Baz first gained international attention for his work on the Apollo program, when he served as secretary of the lunar landing site selection committee, chairman of the astronaut training group, and principal investigator for visual observations and photography. A native of Egypt, he later served as a science advisor to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and to King Hussein of Jordan. He has been a pioneer in developing the field of remote sensing.
Among many other applications, El-Baz uses radar imaging technology to discover ancient river beds and water courses buried deep under sand dunes in the deserts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Photonics Center's Hubbard wins a Black Engineer of the Year award
James Hubbard, a BU research associate professor, recently received a Black Engineer of the Year award for his contributions to the field of engineering and for his efforts to help young black engineers.Hubbard is also senior systems engineer at the Photonics Center, and the chief technical officer of iProvica, a high-tech company supported by and located at the center. For his contributions to the engineering field and his efforts mentoring young black students and serving his community, Hubbard will receive the 2002 Black Engineer President's Award, one of about two dozen annual Black Engineer of the Year awards. The awards are sponsored by the Career Communications Group, publisher of U.S. Black Engineer and Information Technology magazine, the Council of Engineering Deans of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Lockheed Martin, and DaimlerChrysler. Hubbard will be honored at a February 26 reception at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md. Read the full story
BU Paleoclimatologist receives prestigious Cody Award
Maureen Raymo, department of Earth Sciences faculty member, has been selected to receive the 2002 Robert L. and Bettie P. Cody Award in Ocean Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. An internationally recognized expert in the field of climate change, Raymo has sought to understand the events that triggered recent ice ages. Co-author of the "Raymo-Chamberlin Hypothesis," she connects the advent of ice ages to the growth of the Himalayan mountains, and attributes cooling over the last 40 million years to a reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from chemical weathering of mountainous regions, particularly the Himalayas
El-Baz receives American Muslim Achievement Award
Farouk El-Baz, a CAS professor and director of BU's Center for Remote Sensing, received the American Muslim Achievement Award in Los Angeles on January 27 from the Islamic Center of Southern California for his outstanding contributions to science and the community.El-Baz, a renowned geologist, is a veteran of the U.S. space program. He participated in the training of the Apollo astronauts and coordinated the selection of the lunar landing sites. He was also a science advisor to President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan. The award recognizes El-Baz for his "unparalleled achievements in chemistry, geology, aeronautics and space technology, archaeology, and geography."
Since September 11, El-Baz has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims. In the recent keynote address at BU's 17th annual commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr., he said, "We should reflect on September 11 and remember what Dr. King said about religious tolerance and see what we can do now to establish understanding and peace."
The objective of the Islamic Center of Southern California is the dissemination of accurate information about Islam and Muslims to U.S. citizens. The award seeks to encourage young people in the pursuit of excellence by highlighting the accomplishments of role models.
Henderson honored with American Philological Association award
Jeffrey Henderson, a CAS professor, chairman of the department of classical studies, and director of the CAS honors program, recently won the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Philological Association (APA), a professional organization for classical studies in North America. He received the award, named in honor of a longtime member and benefactor of the APA, at its annual meeting.
Recognizing "an outstanding contribution to classical scholarship published by a member of the Association," the award was for Henderson's four-volume Loeb Classical Library edition of Aristophanes (Harvard University Press, 1998-2002).
Henderson, who is the general editor of the Loeb Classical Library, is the author of 13 books and numerous articles in the fields of classical Greek drama, textual criticism and editing, Greek political and social history, ancient sexuality, and translation. He has been teaching at BU since 1991.
Bonnie Costello, professor and acting chair of the Department of English and UNI Professor Bruce Redford, have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for their work in literary criticism. They were among 177 new fellows and 30 foreign honorary members recognized this year.
"The Academy is pleased to welcome these outstanding and influential individuals to the nation's most illustrious learned society. Election to the American Academy is the result of a highly competitive process that recognizes those who have made preeminent contributions to all scholarly fields and professions," said Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks.
Larry Kepko, a research associate in the Center for Space Physics, has been named the recipient of the prestigious 2002 Fred l. Scarf Award by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) .
The Scarf Award is presented annually to a recent Ph.D. for outstanding dissertation research contributing directly to solar-planetary science. Kepko's work centers on understanding the mechanisms of energy flow through Earth's magnetosphere, particularly the phenomenon of substorms. The AGU is an international organization, and nominations for this award are made from around the globe. Two of the three most recent Scarf awardees were from outside the U.S. — from Japan and the Netherlands. Kepko will receive the award and deliver a prominent lecture at the 2002 annual meeting of the AGU in December 2002. Science & Technology Day 2002, held on Tuesday, March 26, brought together nearly 130 outstanding research poster presentations by graduate students from both the Charles River and Medical campuses. A list of awards, and access to abstracts of work presented, are available here.