University News

President Bush Announces 2006 Laureates of National Medals of Science and Technology

United States President George W. Bush announced the recipients of the nation's highest honor for science and technology, naming the recipients of the 2006 National Medals of Science and Technology.

The National Medal of Science, which was established by Congress in 1959. It honors individuals for pioneering scientific research in a range of fields, including physical, biological, mathematical, social, behavioral and engineering sciences, that enhances our understanding of the world and leads to innovations and technologies that give the United States its global economic edge. The National Medal of Technology, given by the President since 1985 as the nation's highest award for technological innovation, was mandated by Congress in 1980 to recognize the significant contributions that America's leading innovators have made to the nation's economic strength and standard of living.

President Bush will present 2006 and 2005 Laureates with National Medals of Science and Technology during a White House awards ceremony on Friday, July 27, 2007.

The 2006 National Medal of Science Laureates:

• Hyman Bass - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• Marvin H. Caruthers - University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
• Rita R. Colwell - University of Maryland, Bethesda, MD
• Peter B. Dervan - California Institute of Technology, San Marino, CA
• Nina V. Fedoroff - Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA
• Daniel Kleppner - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) of Belmont, MA
• Robert S. Langer - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) of Newton, MA
• Lubert Stryer - Stanford University, Stanford, CA

The 2006 National Medal of Technology Laureates:

• Leslie A. Geddes - Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
• Paul G. Kaminski - Technovation, Inc., Fairfax Station, VA
• Herwig Kogelnik - Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ
• Charles M. Vest - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
• James Edward West - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

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Microsoft Research Commits More Than $6 Million to Academic Collaborations

More than 400 thought leaders from academia and research labs around the world convened at the Microsoft Corp. headquarters Monday for the eighth annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit, where the company announced it will dedicate more than US$6 million in research grants to colleges and universities. Microsoft executives and researchers also met with summit attendees to discuss opportunities for future technological breakthroughs and in what areas technology has the greatest potential to address societal issues.

To that end, Microsoft committed nearly $5 million to open requests for proposals (RFPs) — opportunities for academia to receive research funding from Microsoft's External Research & Programs group, the arm of Microsoft Research that works closely with academic institutions around the globe.

Microsoft will provide funding in the following key areas, which also complement the company's overall research agenda and goals:

Cell phones as a platform for healthcare ($1 million). Encourages the development of new prototypes and tools that utilize cell phones to enable better healthcare services in rural and urban communities

Biomedical computing for genome wide association studies ($700,000). Encourages researchers to develop tools that can facilitate better data usage and analysis for genomewide association studies to provide a stronger framework for enabling personalized treatment methods

Intelligent Web 3.0 ($500,000). Encourages research to help find, discover, extract, publish, and share information, at a desk or on the go, safely, making the Web meaningful (from string manipulation to meaning computation) and enabling a human-centric, context-aware model of information access

Mechanisms for safe and scalable multicore computing ($500,000). Encourages research in how operating systems and runtimes can evolve to enable safe and scalable concurrent programs

Sustainable computing ($500,000). Encourages research in innovative approaches toward power-optimized system architectures, and adaptive power management solutions for maximizing the energy efficiency of computing infrastructure

Human-robot interaction ($500,000). Encourages research to take human-robot interaction to the next level through development of tools and methods that lead to practical applications with realistic commercial potential within five to 10 years

Representatives of Microsoft Research also announced the creation of the A. Richard Newton Breakthrough Research Award, which will provide $1 million in funding across several projects to encourage high-quality, breakthrough academic research in computational and multidisciplinary areas. The award honors the memory, legacy and accomplishments of the late A. Richard Newton, former dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and a longtime member of Microsoft Research's Technical Advisory Board, who died in January 2007.

In addition to funding open RFPs, again this year Microsoft Research will award $1 million to five new and rising faculty members as part of the Microsoft Research New Faculty Fellowship program. This will be the fourth consecutive year Microsoft has made the awards to stimulate and support creative research by promising researchers who have the potential to make a profound impact on the state of the art in their respective research disciplines.

As part of Microsoft's ongoing commitment to using technology to improve education, Microsoft also announced a $750,000 donation over three years to launch the Center for Collaborative Technologies at University of Washington (UW). This is the latest of 11 centers Microsoft has helped to establish to allow university researchers to focus deeply on extending the state of the art in computing. The center will further develop ConferenceXP, a technology that allows researchers, teachers and students to benefit from real-time research collaboration, wireless-enabled classrooms and highly interactive distance-learning environments.

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Consortium Wins £3 Million to Investigate How Ancestors Coped With Climate Change

Oxford researchers are part of a consortium which has been awarded funding of £3 million (US$ 6.1 million) to develop a novel approach for assessing how humans may have responded to rapid environmental changes during the recent past.

A five-year project named RESET (Response of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions), funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and led by Royal Holloway, University of London, brings together scientists from Oxford, the Natural History Museum, London, and the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS), University of Southampton, with expertise in human palaeontology, archaeology, oceanography, volcanic geology and past climate change.

The driving forces behind major shifts in recent human evolution and adaptation have been the subject of intense debate for more than 100 years. The funding emphasizes the importance of using records from the past to meet the challenge of climate change today.

Ice-core records from Greenland have demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that pronounced climatic shifts with severe environmental consequences are possible within as little as 20 years or less. This means that some of our ancestors experienced climatic changes every bit as rapid as those we face today.

Our understanding of how humans responded to such abrupt events is limited, however, largely because current studies are compromised by an inability to synchronize archaeological and geological records with sufficient precision.

The RESET project will construct a new chronological framework for testing the hypothesis that major shifts in human development coincided with, or immediately followed, some prominent abrupt environmental transitions in the recent geological past. At the core of this framework are volcanic ash layers (tephra layers) which are widespread throughout Europe, and which represent time-parallel signatures in archaeological and geological records.

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NSF Announces First Annual Computer and Information Science and Engineering Distinguished Education Fellows

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the first annual Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Distinguished Education Fellows at a ceremony at NSF's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters. Owen Astrachan of Duke University and Peter Denning of the Naval Postgraduate School were each recognized for their outstanding efforts to revitalize undergraduate computing education in the United States.

As part of the fellowships, Astrachan and Owen will receive funding from NSF to continue their work over the next two years.

The fellowships are a component of a broader NSF initiative called the CISE Pathways to Revitalized Undergraduate Computing Education Program (CPATH) Program. CPATH is working to ensure that undergraduate computing education in the U.S. attracts and prepares young people for futures in the computer science sector.

The CISE Distinguished Education Fellow awards focus on creating visible national leadership for revitalizing computing education. The fellowships recognize accomplished, creative and talented computing professionals who have the potential to serve as national leaders or spokespersons for change in undergraduate computing education.

The fellowships are made to individuals who have achieved distinction in the computing profession, who are committed to transforming undergraduate computing education, and who have innovative ideas on how to do so. The fellowships allow recipients to spend significant time and effort on projects focused on innovative, original and possibly untested ideas that will benefit undergraduate computing education on a national scale.

The newly-named fellows have spent their careers trying to meet this challenge. Astrachan will work to merge the concept of problem-based learning, a successful concept in business and medical education, into undergraduate computing education. "Programs need students to be able to solve real, domain-specific problems after a computing course," rather than teach only abstract theories, Astrachan said. He also pointed out that problem-based learning has a proven track record in getting a variety of students excited about a subject and engaged for the long term.

Denning's work will focus on identifying and understanding the principles of computer science and then applying them to modern day computing challenges. "We enshrined the principles of the 1960s to our core curricula," Denning said. "That worked well for a few years, but now our dreams of what computing can do lie elsewhere." Denning explained that students have shown their dislike to this approach by "voting with their feet" and avoiding computer science. "We need to get back to the excitement of inventing," Denning said, to make computer science relevant and compelling to the next generation.

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Dr. Robert H. Rutford Named President Emeritus of UT Dallas

Dr. Robert H. Rutford, the former president of The University of Texas at Dallas, was named president emeritus of that institution on July 11 by The University of Texas System Board of Regents.

Rutford served as president of UT Dallas from 1982 to 1994. He held the endowed Excellence in Education Foundation professorship of geology in the Department of Geosciences until his retirement last spring. Rutford's research interests have been in the area of glacial geology and geomorphology, primarily in Antarctica. Chief among the many honors bestowed upon Rutford over the years are a distinguished service award from the National Science Foundation and the Antarctic Service Medal.

He received bachelor's and master's degrees in geography and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Minnesota. In 1993, the University of Minnesota Board of Regents honored Rutford with its Outstanding Achievement Award and the University of Minnesota "M" Club awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.

Under Rutford's presidency, UT Dallas expanded to include a lower division of freshman and sophomore students and the first on-campus student housing was developed. In addition, Rutford provided direction and support for the founding of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

Rutford, a renowned scientist and explorer in Antarctica, has been recognized with the naming of the Rutford Ice Stream and Mt. Rutford, both in Antarctica, in his honor. Additionally, Rutford Avenue on the UT Dallas campus bears his name in recognition of his accomplishments in developing UT Dallas as an outstanding center of excellence in teaching, research and service to the Metroplex and to the state of Texas.

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Researchers at UC Berkeley and LBNL Share Gruber Cosmology Prize for Discovering Universe Acceleration

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have been awarded the 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize for their role in the seminal discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

This year's prize recognizes Saul Perlmutter, a UC Berkeley physics professor and an LBNL astrophysicist; Brian Schmidt, an astronomer at Australian National University; and the respective international teams they led – the Supernova Cosmology Project and the High-z Supernova Search Team.

The $500,000 award will be shared by Perlmutter, Schmidt and the other members of the two supernova teams, which included 51 researchers from around the world.

Each team presented its findings in two key papers, which were specifically noted by the Gruber award committee and whose co-authors comprise the list of awardees. Adam Riess was a Miller Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UC Berkeley working with astronomy professor Alex Filippenko on the High-z team when he led the study for which the group is being honored. Riess produced the bulk of the analysis for the team and was lead author of its publication.

The same work being recognized by the Gruber Foundation has been honored previously, most recently by a $1 million Shaw Prize in 2006 that was shared by Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt.

The Gruber Cosmology Prize is given in recognition of theoretical, analytical or conceptual discoveries leading to fundamental advances in the field. Since 2001, the prize has been awarded in collaboration with the International Astronomical Union.

[ FYI Index ]

Indian President Awarded King Charles II Medal

The Royal Society has awarded the King Charles II Medal to President Kalam of India. The medal is given in recognition of the President's extraordinary contributions to the promotion of science and science in society in India. He is only the second person to receive the prestigious accolade.

The award, which is only for heads of state, was previously given to Emperor Akihito of Japan in 1998.

"President Kalam has led India at a time when science and technology investment in the country has radically increased. He has played a major part in preparing a road map for transforming India from developing status into a developed nation. As a scientist himself he has also made a great contribution to scientific advances in his country," said Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, in a statement.

A ceremony to award the King Charles II medal, to be held in Delhi and London on Friday 13 July, has unfortunately been postponed, as a result of the death of former Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar. A ceremony will now follow at a later date, after the upcoming Indian Presidential elections.

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Zeppos Named Vanderbilt's Interim Chancellor

Vanderbilt University Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Nicholas S. Zeppos has been named interim chancellor effective Aug. 1, Board of Trust Chairman Martha R. Ingram announced July 12.

Zeppos will take over from current Chancellor Gordon Gee, who announced his plans to leave Vanderbilt to become president of Ohio State University

Ingram added that the Board of Trust has begun planning for a thorough and comprehensive national search for the next chancellor, who will be only the eighth chief executive in Vanderbilt's 134-year history.

Zeppos currently serves as Vanderbilt's chief academic, development, alumni relations and student affairs officer, with broad responsibility for resource management. He also chairs the university's Integrated Planning Budgeting Council.

Zeppos joined the Vanderbilt Law School faculty in 1987 after practicing law in Washington, D.C. He later served as associate dean of the law school and subsequently associate provost for academic affairs. He was named vice chancellor for institutional planning and advancement in 2000 and provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs in 2001.

Zeppos has spearheaded a number of important initiatives, including the planning process for The Commons and College Halls of Vanderbilt, the strategic academic planning group, innovative efforts in undergraduate admissions and financial aid, and the development of new programs in Jewish Studies. He has also led the university's Shape the Future fund-raising campaign, which exceeded its $1.25 billion goal two years ahead of schedule, with a new target of $1.75 billion by 2010.

A nationally recognized scholar in legislation and government regulation, Zeppos has written widely on legislation, administrative law, and professional responsibility. He has won five teaching awards at the Law School. He served as chair of the Scholars Committee on the Federal Judiciary and as chair of the Rules Advisory Committee of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Zeppos has also served as consultant to government agencies, major corporations and trade associations on complex litigation, policy design and implementation, administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure, federal jurisdiction and regulation of financial institutions.

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Calvin Jamison Named UT Dallas' Vice President for Business Affairs

Dr. Calvin D. Jamison, a seasoned university administrator, businessman, and municipal government leader, has been appointed vice president for business affairs at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Jamison was named as the university's chief financial and business officer by UT Dallas President Dr. David E. Daniel following a year-long national search to replace Dr. Larry D. Terry, who passed away unexpectedly last June. Jamison's appointment is effective Aug. 1.

The new vice president will report directly to Daniel. He most recently served as senior vice president and chief administrative officer at Hampton University in Hampton, Va., and is the former city manager of Richmond, Va.

The Office of Business Affairs is responsible for administering UT Dallas' operating budget, which exceeds $279 million in the current fiscal year.

The unit consists of the vice president's office and major functional departments involved in the day-to-day operation of the university, such as financial management, budgets and reporting, facilities maintenance, planning and construction, land development, police and administrative services including human resources, payroll, purchasing, the print shop, food service and the university bookstore.

The vice president for business affairs also is the designated custodian of records for the university, acts as the university's ethics officer and oversees the university's historically underutilized business program. The office employs more than 280 people.

Jamison earned an Ed.D. degree, a master's degree and an undergraduate degree from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.