Berkeleyan

Awards

03 June 2004

Four Berkeley science faculty elected to National Academy
Four Berkeley professors were elected in April to the National Academy of Sciences, in recognition of their achievements in scientific and engineering research. The new members are Armand Paul Alivisatos, Chancellor’s Professor of chemistry and materials science; Raymond Jeanloz, professor in earth and planetary science and in astronomy; George Oster, professor of cell and developmental biology and of environmental science, policy, and management; and Peter Quail, professor of plant biology and research director at the Plant Gene Expression Center.

Alice Agogino
The National Science Foundation has selected Alice Agogino, professor of mechanical engineering, as a recipient of its highest honor for teaching and research excellence, the Director’s Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. She is one of eight scientists to receive the 2004 award, which is worth some $300,000 to each scholar over the next four years.

Agogino is an expert in computational design, diagnostics, and monitoring systems whose multimedia case studies of engineering design and two digital libraries “have reached and encouraged students at all levels,” the NSF said in its announcement. She directs the Berkeley Expert Systems Technology Laboratory, the Berkeley Instructional Technology Studio, and the BITS Multimedia Classroom.

Paul Gray
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Paul Gray has been named the 2004 recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ James H. Mulligan, Jr., Education Medal. The IEEE cited Gray, a professor of electrical engineering, “for exemplary contributions to electrical engineering education through mentoring of students, an influential textbook, and universitywide academic leadership.”

Gray will be honored June 19 in Kansas City, Mo., at the institute’s annual awards ceremony.

Walter Hood
Landscape architecture and environmental planning professor Walter Hood received an award April 24 from Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown for his professional contributions to the urban landscape. Hood has spearheaded a number of landscape-design projects in Oakland. Among these are the recently completed Splashpad Park — a $900,000 remake of a blighted area opposite the Grand Lake Theatre, near one end of Lake Merritt — which opened last October.

Richard Karp
Computer science professor Richard Karp has been named a winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal, honoring lifetime achievement in science. Karp is a world leader in algorithm design and analysis and computational complexity. His work has broad applications in industry, commerce, and science and has been applied to industrial production, transportation routing, circuit layout, communication network design, and amino-acid sequencing.

The 2004 Franklin Medal honored individuals whose work has implications for brain research. Karp and four other winners of the medal were honored at an April 29 ceremony and gala in Philadelphia.

Ananya Roy
An assistant professor of city and regional planning, Ananya Roy, is the recipient of the 2004 Prytanean Faculty Award, a $15,000 prize awarded to an outstanding Berkeley female assistant professor. The prize has been given annually since 1986 by Prytanean Alumnae, a 102-year-old organization of women graduates of UC Berkeley.

Roy specializes in comparative urban studies, urban and regional planning, international development, social policy, and gender studies. Graduate students in the College of Environmental Design named her Teacher of the Year for 2003.

Tom Devlin
Tom Devlin, director of the campus’s Career Center, was recently elected to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Academy of Fellows. Devlin was instrumental in the development of NACElink™, a new national online job services system specifically designed to serve the unique needs of college career centers and employers interested in hiring college students and graduates. In 2001, he and his staff received the NACE/Chevron Award for Innovative Programs in the Career Services Field for their development of web-based employer profiles.

Margo Wesley
Margo Wesley, director of the Staff Ombuds Office, was installed as president-elect of the University and College Ombuds Association at the association’s annual conference in April. The UCOA is an international organization of people who perform the ombuds function in universities and colleges and of individuals affiliated with institutes of higher learning who are interested in ombuds practice.