Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology

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2008 Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach, American Physical Society
Dr. Katepalli Sreenivasan has been awarded the 2008 Nicholson Medal for Human Outreach.  The Medal was established in 1994 to recognize the humanitarian aspects of physics and physicists and consists of a medal and a certificate that includes the citation for which you are being recognized.  The citation that will appear on the certificate reads as follows:
“For his commitment to mentoring students and junior colleagues and his significant contributions to fostering international collaborations and promoting the advancement and education of early career scientists from the developing world.”
The Nicholson Medal will be presented at the APS March 2009 meeting in Pittsburgh, PA.

2008 Members Elected to the Amerian Philosophical Society
Roald Sagdeev, Director, East-West Center for Space Science, and Distinguished University Professor of Physics, has been elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Election to the APS honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields. The APS is unusual among learned societies because its membership is comprised of top scholars from a wide variety of academic disciplines.

Nomination and Election
The APS is an honorary society that elects new members to their ranks each year in April. Nominations for membership can only be made by Resident members of the APS.
http://www.amphilsoc.org/
http://www.amphilsoc.org/members/2008NewMembersPR.doc

2008 R&D 100 Award
Michael Coplan, Associate Director of IPST, and Director of the Chemical Physics Program, and Charles Clark of NIST, and Associate Director of the Chemical Physics Program, have been selected for a 2008 R&D 100 Award.  They will receive this important award for their Lyman Alpha Neutron Detector (LAND).

Prestigious National Fellowships to IPST Graduate Students
Ed O'Brien, a Chemical Physics graduate student working with Professor Dave Thirumalai, was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship for three years. He will use this award to visit Cambridge, England. He also recently won the Best Graduate Poster Award at the Biopolymer Gordon Conference.

Dr. Patrick Hughes, a Research Associate with Dr. Michael Coplan, was awarded an NRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the NIST National Center for Neutron Research (NCNR). Dr. Hughes received his Ph.D. in Physics in December 2007 under the direction of Dr. Coplan and has been working with him since.

Space Studies Board's James A. Van Allen Lectureship
Dr. Frank B. McDonald has been selected by the Space Studies Board's Executive Committee, National Academy of Sciences, as the recipient of the James A. Van Allen Lectureship for Space and Earth Science.  Dr. McDonald will present his lecture, entitled Explorer 1:  Gateway to the Never Ending Wonders of Space Science, at an invitation-only event at the National Air and Space Museum on June 26 as part of the Space Studies Board's celebration of 50 years of space science and the Board's 50th birthday.

2008 Distinguished International Service Award
Jan Sengers has been chosen as the 2008 recipient of the Distinguished International Service Award by the Office of International Programs.  President Mote will present the award on November 5, 2008.

2008 Dean's Outstanding Non-Exempt Employee Award
Mr. Ed Cole, Engineering Tech III in IPST, has been selected as the recipient of the 2008 Dean's Outstanding Non-Exempt Employee Award. This honor is in recognition of his exceptional service and professionalism in his duties for IPST since starting employment
in 1990.

2008 Sloan Research Fellowship Award Winner
Arpita Upadhyaya is a 2008 Sloan Research Fellowship Award Winner.
Assistant Professor Arpita Upadhyaya of IPST/Physics was among the list of 2008 Sloan Research Fellowship Award Winners. These awards are intended to enhance the careers of the very best young faculty members in science. A total of 118 fellowships are awarded annually. For more information, visit: http://www.sloan.org/programs/scitech_fellowships.shtml

National Academy of Science 2007 Election
Katepalli Sreenivasan has been elected a member of NAS.  He is now a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the NAS.
Note:  The National Academy of Sciences today announced the election of 72 new members and 18 foreign associates from 12 countries in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
The election was held during the business session of the 144th annual meeting of the Academy. Those elected bring the total number of active members to 2,025. Foreign associates are nonvoting members of the Academy, with citizenship outside the United States . This election brings the total number of foreign associates to 387.

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=05012007

2007 Poole and Kent Teaching Award for Senior Faculty
Mikhail Anisimov is the winner of this year's Poole and Kent Teaching Award for Senior Faculty.
Comments by Sheryl Ehrman, Selection Committee:  To me, Mikhail is such great example of a true scholar and educator who both recognizes the potential of all of our students  and helps them however he can to achieve their goals.   And by all students, I mean not just the very bright ones that would excel anywhere with minimal input from us, but also the students who are earnest, curious, and willing to work hard.  

2005 Royal Medal Award
Michael E. Fisher has been awarded the 2005 Royal Medal, with the following citation:
Her Majesty the Queen has approved the recommendation of the President and Council of the Royal Society that Dr. Fisher be awarded a Royal Medal in recognition of his seminal contributions to wetting transitions, dislocation melting and criticality of ionic solutions and many other topics in Statistical Mechanics.
The Royal Medal will be awarded November 30, 2005, London, England.
For the history of the Royal Medal, please go to:

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?tip=1&id=1749

2005 APS Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research
Howard M. Milchberg
Citation: “For the conception and first realization of hydrodynamic shock-formed plasma channels, and for the development of diagnostics for their characterization”.
Howard will be presented the award at the Banquet of the Division of Plasma Physics, American Physical Society annual meeting, October 24-28, 2005 in Denver Colorado.
http://www.aps.org/praw/plasma/index.cfm

Ellen D. Williams, Elected Member of National Academy of Sciences
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/05032005?OpenDocument

Wolf Prize
Professor Serguei Novikov has been awarded the 2005 Wolf Prize in Mathematics for his "Fundamental and pioneering contributions to algebraic and differential topology, and to mathematical physics, notably the introduction of algebraic-geometric methods."  The award will be presented by the President of Israel, Mr. Moshe Katsav, in a special ceremony to take place in Jerusalem on Sunday, May 22, 2005.
http://www.aquanet.co.il/wolf/

Eitan Tadmor, Distinguished University Professor                                    Professor Tadmor has been awarded the title of Distinguished University Professor.
This award is in recognition of his work in the area of numerical analysis of time-dependent problems and is the highest academic honor that our university confers upon a faculty member.  He is a member of the Department of Mathematics; Institute for Physical Science and Technology; and Director, Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling.

Distinguished Scholar Teacher Award 2005-2006

Professor Howard Milchberg has been selected to be one of the 2005-2006 Distinguished Scholar-Teachers at the University of Maryland at College Park.

http://www.faculty.umd.edu/FacAwards/dstlist.html

American Physical Society Dissertation Award in Plasma Physics  (See Awards and Prizes)

CREAM Status (Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass)

The third CREAM flight is in preparation and is scheduled for December 2007.
http://cosmicray.umd.edu/homepage  or
http://cosmicray.umd.edu/cream/cream.html

Review engineer Larry Lutz's career with IPST and the CREAM Project:  http://www.outlook.umd.edu/article.cfm?id=2421

News items - http://www.ipst.umd.edu/News/news.html

  • Dr. Murthy Gudipati - Remarks:
    NASA News Release 07-17AR, April 6, 2007
    http://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/redglow/
  • Two professors elected Fellows of the American Geophysical Union.
  • Professor elected to the Executive Board of the American Physical Society.
  • Professor Emeritus Ivo Babuska elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
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Updated 9/24/08