Stubbs Awarded $1 Million Fellowship
It's been a good year for Christopher Stubbs, UW professor of astronomy and physics. As a member of the High-Z Supernova Research Team, he has been involved in a project cited by Science magazine as the most significant discovery of the past year. Now there's more good news: Stubbs has received a McDonnell Centennial Fellowship from the James S. McDonnell Foundation. The fellowship carries with it a research award of $1 million.
Stubbs will use the award to intensify his six-year search for dark matter in the universe. Scientists have long puzzled over the problem of the universe's dark, or "missing," matter. They know how much matter there should be, but the mass has not been accounted for in observations. Stubbs leads a group looking for dark matter in the form of astrophysical objects, particularly massive bodies on the scale of Jupiter or larger, that cannot be observed directly.
"What this grant does is it turns the corner on this project," says Stubbs. "This contribution is absolutely pivotal for us to accomplish what we want to."
The McDonnell Centennial Fellowships are a one-time award honoring James S. McDonnell, Jr., a pioneer in the aerospace industry who founded McDonnell Douglas Corp., now part of The Boeing Company. Ten McDonnell Centennial Fellowships were awarded in five categories, including two in astrophysics and cosmology.
Hanson Praised for Time and Revolution
For his first book, Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions, Political Science Professor Stephen Hanson has received the 1998 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.
"Stephen Hanson's book is distinguished by ambition, erudition, and originality," writes a colleague in the association's November 1998 newsletter. "In a short book, Hanson attempts to explain the history of Marxism, the victory of Leninism, the peculiarity of some of the Soviet institutions and Bolshevik pronouncements, and ultimately the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. In doing so, he moves with ease from philosophy to history, from history to sociology, and from sociology to political science.
"...Even those who will not find every argument in this book convincing . . . will benefit from reading this highly original and undoubtedly provocative book," asserts the reviewer. Time and Revolution was published by University of North Carolina Press in 1997.
Charlson Honored by King of Sweden
In February, Robert Charlson, professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences and chemistry, received a letter from Sweden. The postmark was not novel for Charlson, who has collaborated frequently with Swedish colleagues. But this note, partly handwritten, was from King Carl XVI Gustaf. Charlson discovered that he had been named to the "King Carl XVI Gustaf's Professorship in Environmental Science" for 1999-2000. He will be hosted by the University of Stockholm but will visit several universities during the year.
Sweden is a familiar destination for Charlson, who figures he has been there nearly three dozen times during his career. "I've been doing research in Sweden for 30 years," he explains, "because it's where acid rain was discovered. As an environmental chemist, it has been very natural for me to travel there to work on related research, which has largely been at Sweden's expense."
Closer to home, Charlson is currently a co-investigator in a major NASA-funded project to develop the PICASSO-CENA satellite to study climatic effects of manmade haze.
World Affairs Council Honors Bernson
Mary Hammond Bernson, associate director of the East Asia Center in the Jackson School of International Studies, was recently honored by the Seattle World Affairs Council, which presented her with its World Educator Award. Bernson, who has been in the Jackson School for 16 years, organizes summer training institutes and other programs and services to help Northwest teachers understand more about the cultures of China, Japan, and Korea.
"I had a high school teacher who went off to a summer institute at Berkeley and learned about Asia," recalls Bernson, who grew up in Wisconsin. "It was a very unusual thing to be doing at the time. She came back and offered an elective at my high school that really opened new worlds to me. ...Now I design and get the funding for summer institutes like the one that she attended back in the sixties."
Bernson believes that by the time people enter high school, they are likely to have formed their attitudes about other cultures. "That's one reason why I work a lot with elementary school teachers--so that the kids learn something about Asia at a time when they are forming their attitudes," she says. "It is important that they learn to be open to the idea of differences."
Other A&S Awards and Honors
Music professors Stuart Dempster and Richard Karpen received awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for their catalog of original compositions and for recent performances.
Jere Bacharach, director of the Jackson School of International Studies, was elected President-Elect of the Middle East Studies Association, the major academic organization for the study of the Middle East.
Lance Bennett, professor of political science, has won the Ithiel de Sola Pool Award, given by the American Political Science Association for outstanding career achievement.
David Brody, assistant professor of painting, has received the Basil H. Alkazzi Award, which supports "individual artists who show a firm commitment to their art form, and whose work also shows promise at any stage in a career, from beginning to emerging."
John Coldeway, professor of English, has received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship award.
Monica Devens, visiting lecturer of Near Eastern languages and civilization, has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers and Independent Scholars.
Kathleen Fearn-Banks, associate professor of communications, has been awarded a Faculty Enrichment Grant from the Canadian Embassy, which she will use to develop a course comparing the public secretaries of the prime ministers of Canada and the presidents of the U.S.
Leland Hartwell, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and professor of genetics, has received the 1998 Brinker International Basic Research Award from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
Resat Kasaba, associate professor of international studies, has been awarded a Visiting Fellowship at Princeton University's Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.
Scott Noegel, assistant professor of Near Eastern languages and civilization, has been invited to serve on Mayor Paul Schell's Arts Task Force, a newly formed group responsible for deciding the direction and sources of funding for the arts in Seattle.
Patricia Radin, assistant director of the Canadian Studies Program in the Jackson School of International Studies and a Ph.D candidate in the School of Communications, has been awarded a Graduate Studies Grant from the Canadian Embassy.
Richard Reed, professor emeritus of atmospheric sciences, has been named an Honorary Member of the American Meteorological Society.
Peter Rhines, professor of atmospheric sciences and oceanography, was named the first recipient of the Henry Stommel Research Award from the American Meteorological Society.
Lynn Riddiford, professor of zoology, received the G.J. Mendel Honorary Medal for Merit in the Biological Sciences, the highest distinction of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
Laurie Sears, associate professor of history, has received the Harry Benda Book Award from the Association for Asian Studies for her book, Shadows of the Empire.
Boris Solomyak, associate professor of mathematics, has been selected as a 1998-99 Fulbright Scholar, to conduct research on dimension theory and dynamical systems at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Henry Staten, professor of English and comparative literature, won the William Riley Parker Prize from the Modern Language Association (MLA) for outstanding essay published in the MLA's journal.
Tatiana Toro, associate professor of mathematics, was elected as member-at-large to the Council of the American Mathematical Society.
Douglas Wadden, professor of graphic design, has been been invited to join the Alliance Graphique Internationale. The prestigious organization for graphic designers has approximately 320 members worldwide.
Priscilla Wald, associate professor of English, has been awarded a Cornell University Society for the Humanities Fellowship.
[Winter 1999 - Table of Contents]