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This issue...

  News in Brief

  View from the Inside

  Human Genome Sequencing

  Magnetic Moment

  Scintimammography

  People

  About

  Subscribe Free

People

Honors and Awards

Ari PatrinosAri Patrinos, Associate Director for Biological and Environmental Research, received the Secretary's Gold Award. Before his departure, Secretary Richardson awarded Dr. Patrinos the Gold Award, which is the highest award that the Secretary can give. The citation reads: "In recognition of your extraordinary leadership and selfless commitment to the International Human Genome Project. Your belief in the value of the information contained in the human DNA sequence, your tireless skills as a negotiator and your exceptional stewardship of the public funds entrusted to the Department enabled President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair to announce on June 26, 2000, that a working draft of the human DNA sequence had been completed by scientists in both the public and private sectors. Your achievements as Associate Director for Biological and Environmental Research and your dedication to the goals of the Human Genome Project represent the best in public service and are an example to us all." Dr. Patrinos was instrumental in mediating negotiations that resulted in a joint announcement of the near completion of the human genome sequencing by leaders of the public and private sides of the Human Genome Project. (See "Human Genome Sequencing: Nearing the End of the Beginning" in this issue.)


Charles DeLisi and President ClintonCharles DeLisi was awarded the Citizen's Award from President Clinton. Internationally regarded as the father of the Human Genome Project, DeLisi conceived of a project to sequence the human genome, which eventually led to the current revolution in genetic knowledge. DeLisi initiated the Human Genome Project while serving as director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Health and Environmental Research Programs. President Clinton said of Dr. DeLisi, "Just as Lewis and Clark set forth to explore a continent shrouded in mysterious possibility, Charles DeLisi pioneered the exploration of a modern day frontier, the human genome. As an administrator and researcher in the Department of Energy in the mid-1980's, he worked in close partnership with Senator Pete Domenici along with others who supported his efforts to marshal federal resources and secure funding for this groundbreaking research." (See the complete citation.)


Ari PatrinosSally Benson has been named Deputy Director for Operations at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, effective April 2, 2001. She succeeds Klaus Berkner, who will retire after 37 years at the Laboratory, the last seven in his current position. Like Berkner, Benson is a scientist who has spent her entire professional career in Berkeley—since 1977 when she was hired as a geology graduate from Barnard College. She started as a technical assistant in the Energy and Environment Division and, as she worked her way through UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Material Science and Engineering, she moved up through the staff scientist ranks in a career highlighted by creative solutions to some of California's most intractable environmental problems.

In 1993, Director Shank named her Division Director for Earth Sciences, and in 1997 she took on the role of Associate Laboratory Director for the Energy Sciences, a member of the senior management team.

As an earth scientist, some of Benson's most notable work has involved a fair measure of field hydrogeology as she strove to deal with a selenium-contamination crisis at the Kesterson Reservoir in the Central Valley in the mid-1980s. Benson's ultimate success at Kesterson was a product of imagination, teamwork, initiative, and energy, qualities she has brought to all her scientific endeavors and expects to bring to her new job as Berkeley Lab's second-ever Deputy Director for Operations.


Klaus Berkner, the retiring Deputy Director for Operations at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), has been given the Distinguished Associate Award, the highest honor the U.S. Department of Energy can bestow on a non-federal employee at a contractor facility. Dick Nolan, Manager of the Berkeley Site Office, presented the plaque on behalf of the Department. The award cited Berkner for "having made extraordinary contributions to the Department of Energy in the area of fusion science" and for "service on numerous advisory panels and committees that led to major improvements in operational and administrative practices throughout the Office of Science laboratory system." Berkner spent 37 years at LBNL as a physicist and administrator.


Lars Petersen, a Wigner fellow working with the Solid State Division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has earned an award from the Danish Academy of Natural Sciences for his outstanding doctoral thesis of 1999. The title of the thesis is "Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Studies of the Electronic Structure of Metal Surfaces." Petersen earned a doctorate from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. His undergraduate work concentrated in physics and chemistry. While working at the University of Aarhus and the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Petersen probed surface electronic properties using scanning tunneling microscopy.


Stephen J. Kennel of the Life Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Kennel was honored for his important and sustained research in immunochemistry—particularly for fundamental advances in the understanding of monoclonal antibodies and their use for radioimmunotherapy. This work uses antibody molecules and their engineered derivatives to deliver radioactive isotopes to tumors for therapy. New approaches, which attack tumor blood vessels, are being tested in mice. Kennel is senior staff scientist and group leader in the Life Sciences Division's Molecular Immunology Group.


Jeffrey Hittinger of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been named one of two of the first Frederick A. Howes Scholars in Computational Science. The Howes Scholar award was established to honor the late Frederick Anthony Howes who managed the Applied Mathematical Science Program in the U.S. Department of Energy during the 1990s. Howes was highly respected and admired for his energy, dedication and personal integrity. Howes' responsibilities included oversight of DOE's Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF) program. He was extremely committed to this program which supports graduate students in computational science. This program is unique as it requires candidates to take courses in mathematics, computer science, and an applications discipline such as physics or engineering. The CSGF program currently supports nearly 50 graduate students and is administered by the Krell Institute. There will be a special presentation to the Howes Scholars at the 2001 CSGF conference to be held July 19-21 in Washington, D.C.


The 2001 Spring meeting of the American Chemical Society scheduled to be held in San Diego in April will be a memorable one for the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Chemical Sciences program. Six scientists supported by the program will be spotlighted for their outstanding contributions in chemistry and education. The following awards will be given: Alexis T. Bell, University of California-Berkeley, 2001 ACS Award for Creative Research in Homogeneous or Heterogeneous Catalysis; Charles T. Campbell, University of Washington, 2001 ACS Award in Colloid or Surface Chemistry; Tobin J. Marks, Northwestern University, 2001 ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials; Daniel M. Neumark, University of California-Berkeley, Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry; Richard R. Schrock, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award; and J. Michael White, University of Texas-Austin, Arthur W. Adamson Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Surface Chemistry.


Amos M. Nur, Stanford University, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for founding and establishing rock physics technology for quantifying rock properties from remote seismic measurements. He is the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Sciences, professor of geophysics, and director of the Stanford Rock Physics and Borehole Geophysics project at Stanford. Professor Nur is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division.


The 2001 William Spraragen Awardees were announced as follows: Zhishang Yang, Pennsylvania State University; Tarasankar Debroy, Pennsylvania State University; John W. Elmer, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and Joe Wong, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The awarda will be given by the American Welding Society at the Annual Meeting in May 2001 in Cleveland, Ohio, for "...best research paper printed in the Welding Journal during the twelve month period ending in December." The paper was entitled "Evolution of Titanium Arc Weldment Macro and Microstrucures—Modeling and Real Time Mapping of Phases," and published in Welding Journal, 2000, vol. 79(4), pp.97s-112s. This research was supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


Professor Puru Jena, Professor of Physics at the Virginia Commonwealth University, won the 2001 Outstanding Faculty Award, for his outstanding contribution to teaching, research, and public service. The award was issued by Governor James S. Gilmore III, on behalf of the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia. This award is given annually to 11 of Virginia's 10,000 faculty in universities and colleges and constitutes the highest honor a faculty can receive in the state of Virginia. Professor Jena is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


The 2001 Acta Metallurgica Gold Medal was awarded to Chain T. Liu, Metals and Ceramics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for his leadership and outstanding achievements in research on ordered intermetallics based on aluminides and silicides. The award was issued by Acta Metallurgica, Inc. with support from Elsevier Science, Ltd. Dr. Liu has played a key role in advancing the science and developing the technology of intermetallic alloys for use as new structural materials. Dr. Liu's research has been supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


Mina J. Bissell, Director of Life Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was conferred the honor of "Doctor Honoris Causa" by the Universite Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris, France, on January 24 in the Salon of the Chancellery of Paris at the Sorbonne. Dr. Bissell's honorary doctorate is in recognition of her contributions in establishing the central role that extracellular matrix and microenvironment play in differentiation, programmed cell death, and cancer.


Professor Gerald B. Stringfellow, Dean, College of Engineering, University of Utah, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for leadership in the development of III/V semiconductor alloys, including the organo-metallic vapor phase epitaxy (OMVPE) growth technique, for modern electronic and photonic devices. Professor Stringfellow is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


Professor Maria Tamargo, Department of Chemistry, City College of City University of New York, was chosen to be a Fellow of the American Physical Society for significant original contributions to the development and understanding of the growth and properties of novel semiconductor materials and heterostructures, in particular, in the field of wide bandgap II-VI compounds. Professor Tamargo is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


Winners of the 2001 APS prizes include the following: The J. J. Sakurai Prize was awarded to Nathan Isgur, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility; Mikhail Voloshin, University of Minnesota; and Mark Wise, California Institute of Technology; "for the construction of the heavy quark mass expansion and the discovery of the heavy quark symmetry in quantum chromodynamics, which led to a quantitative theory of the decays of c and b flavored hadrons."
The Robert R. Wilson Prize was awarded to Claudio Pellegrini, University of California, Los Angeles, "for his pioneering work in the analysis of instabilities in electron storage rings, and his seminal and comprehensive development of the theory of free electron lasers."


Hsi-Na (Sam) Lee, Environmental Measurement Laboratory (EML), has received the "Japanese government research award for foreign specialists in comprehensive, basic study field of atomic energy" from the Science and Technology Agency (STA) in Tokyo, Japan. Under this award, STA paid all expenses for Dr. Lee's visit to Japan during March 5 to 24, 2001. Dr. Lee visited STA and other Japanese institutions to discuss establishing collaborative research efforts.


Professor Robert O. Ritchie, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the understanding of fatigue fracture and the failure of engineering structures. Professor Ritchie is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.


After fulfilling a two-year commitment as Executive Director to the Spallation Neutron Source, David Moncton will return to Argonne National Laboratory as Associate Laboratory Director of the Advanced Photon Source (APS). Effective as of March 1, he guides both APS science productivity and construction of the Center for Nanoscale Materials—one of six proposed interdisciplinary research centers.


Professor Charles T. Campbell, University of Washington received the 2001 American Chemical Society Award in Colloid or Surface Chemistry. Professor Campbell's research has clarified structure-function relationships central to copper-zinc oxide catalysts used in methanol synthesis and the water gas-shift reaction. His work has revealed the roles of catalytic poisons and promoters, and he has contributed to a fundamental understanding of bimetallic surfaces. One of his most noteworthy contributions is in the development and application of microcalorimetry for direct measurement of heats of adsorption of metals on well-characterized specimens as a function of surface coverage. Campbell's recent research has addressed surface functionalization. Professor Campbell is a grantee of the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division.


David L. Clark, Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the winner of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows Prize. Dr. Clark was recognized for his outstanding contributions to the understanding of the molecular behavior of the solution chemistry of actinide ions. The award is given yearly and its purpose is to recognize and stimulate high-quality investigations in science or engineering by laboratory staff and to encourage publication in appropriate journals, books, or reports. The prize carries a maximum award of $3,000 per individual and an appropriate commemorative certificate. Dr. Clark=s research is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division.


Randall Winans of Argonne's Chemistry Division was appointed Director of the Basic Energy Sciences Synchrotron Radiation Center (BESSRC) at the Advanced Photon Source effective January 1, 2001. Dr. Winans has been an active participant in BESSRC and operates a broad scientific program in small angle X-ray scattering. He is also the group leader of the Carbon Chemistry program in the Chemistry Division. He is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division.


P. James Viccaro, Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory Journal of Applied Physics, was appointed as editor of the Journal of Applied Physics. Dr. Viccaro recieved his Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University and has held various positions at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory since 1987. He is currently responsible for overall project oversight of the development of the ChemMatCARS synchrotron-based research resource at the Advanced Photon Source and is a leader in the development of x-ray coherence as a probe of static and dynamic synchrotron radiation. His work is supported by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences/Materials Sciences and Engineering Division.

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