Awards

20 November 2003

Scientific American lists two profs among top 50 innovators
Two campus professors are among the top 50 innovators of 2003 chosen by Scientific American.

The magazine’s December issue contains its second annual salute to the Scientific American 50 — individuals, teams and organizations whose accomplishments in research, business, or policymaking during the past year demonstrated outstanding technological leadership. Profiled in the issue are Henry Chesbrough, a visiting assistant professor at Haas School of Business, who also serves as executive director of the campus’s Center for Technology Strategy and Management, and David Culler, professor of computer science in the College of Engineering and former director of the Intel Research Berkeley laboratory.

Chesbrough, while working for data-storage-manufacturer Quantum Corp. in the 1980s, the magazine says, “began to wonder why large corporations such as IBM and AT&T couldn’t seem to reap the market benefits of the advanced technology they created.”

A senior product-marketing executive for almost a decade for Plus Development Corp., a Quantum subsidiary, Chesbrough concluded that these corporations were too insular in their research focus, while their businesses only used concepts conceived in-house.

The magazine notes that in his book, Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard Business School Press, 2003), Chesbrough proposes a new model of industrial research and development to eliminate the traditional boundaries between businesses, universities, start-ups, and sources of innovation.

Chesbrough earned his Ph.D. from the Haas School in 1997.

David Culler is honored by Scientific American for his innovative work on wireless sensor networks for military and environmental applications.

He has led research on the TinyOS operating system that allows tiny, cheap sensor motes to communicate with one another. These motes are being used to help biologists monitor petrel seabirds on a remote island off the coast of Maine and study the microclimate within a redwood grove. Wireless-sensor networks are also being developed to track local stresses on the Golden Gate Bridge, to track vehicles that enter restricted areas or battlefields, and to monitor rescue operations of firefighters.

Culler plays a leading role in several major research initiatives on network computing, including the recent launch of a global testbed known as PlanetLab. The testbed allows researchers to develop new Internet services that operate simultaneously on multiple computers spread over a wide area, rather than on a single website. Such a system could lead to significantly faster downloads and more secure storage systems.

Culler earned his Ph.D. in computer science in 1989 from MIT.

Arthur Reingold
Professor Arthur Reingold, chair of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. A leading expert on infectious diseases, Reingold was one of 65 newly elected members announced by the institute on Oct. 28. He is the 11th Berkeley faculty member to receive the honor.

Established in 1970, the institute is a national resource for independent, scientifically based analysis and recommendations on issues related to human health. Candidates for membership are nominated for their professional achievement and commitment to service.
Reingold was the principal investigator of a $2.8 million Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) grant in 2002 to establish the new Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, he served as assistant chief at CDC of the Special Pathogens Branch, Bacterial Diseases Division.

Kevin Padian
Professor of integrative biology Kevin Padian has been named winner of the Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. Padian is a leading paleontologist and researcher in the evolution of birds and dinosaurs and serves as curator of paleontology at the campus’s Museum of Paleontology.

Wonderfest — an organization of scientists, educators, and journalists that fosters public understanding of controversies and advances in science — awards the Sagan Prize annually to a Bay Area researcher. Padian will accept the prize, which includes a $5,000 cash award, on Nov. 1 in a campus event at Pimentel Hall.

Kirk Smith
Kirk Smith, professor of environmental health and associate director of the international program of the Center for Occupational Health, has been named to a newly established endowed chair in the School of Public Health.

Smith is the first recipient of the Brian and Jennifer Maxwell Endowed Chair, which honors its donors, the husband and wife who founded PowerBar, Inc. Smith’s work has illuminated the impact of pollution from indoor cooking and heating fuels on the respiratory health of women and children in developing countries. He recently contributed to a report from the World Health Organization, which found that smoke from heating or cooking indoors is one of the ten major health risks in the world today.