Awards

16 October 2002 |

Russell Jones
Professor of Plant and Microbial Biology Russell Jones received the American Society of Plant Biologists’ Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award at the society’s 2002 annual meeting, held in Denver in early August. The annual award — the society’s oldest, established in 1925 — recognizes meritorious work in plant physiology by scientist at least 60 years of age.

Chung-Pei Michele Ma
The American Physical Society has named Chung-Pei Michele Ma, associate professor of astronomy, as winner of its 2003 Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award. The honor will be presented at the society’s April 2003 meeting in Philadelphia.

Ma, who joined the Berkeley faculty last January from the University of Pennsylvania, was cited “for her important contributions to theoretical astrophysics,” including her research on the clustering and dynamics of dark-matter halos around galaxies.

The Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award recognizes outstanding achievement by a woman physicist in the early years of her career and provides opportunities for her to present public lectures on her research. Ma will receive $2,500, plus a $4,000 travel allowance, to speak at four institutions as well as before members of the society.

Barrie Thorne
Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies Barrie Thorne received the 2002 Jessie Bernard Award at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago. The Bernard Award is given annually in recognition of scholarly work that has enlarged the horizons of sociology to encompass fully the role of women in society.

The association noted that Thorne has “continually identified important research topics ahead of her time. Her research on gender has been particularly influential, along with her work on childhood, language, and social change.” Thorne’s scholarship, it said, “has challenged conventional sociological thinking, broadening and deepening the discipline.”

In accepting the award, Thorne said she had “the good fortune of entering the field of sociology and the women’s liberation movement in the same period of time…. There is much transformative work still to be done, but I take heart in the fact that a next generation of critical scholars and teachers is firmly in place.”