Berkeleyan

Awards

08 February 2006

Kris Pister

Kristofer Pister, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and co-director of the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, has been awarded the second annual Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological Innovation from the I/UCRC Association, a voluntary, independent organization of past and present members of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center program.

The award recognizes Pister's successful pioneering achievements in developing and inspiring the commercialization of "Smart Dust," a wireless network of miniature sensors. The network consists of a series of highly miniaturized motes, each of which contains a sensor, about the size of a grain of rice, that detects and records things; a miniature transmitter/receiver that communicates with other motes; and a battery about the size of an aspirin that allows operation for longer than a year. These features allow the network to operate in an autonomous, self-discovering, and self-configuring fashion.

The Schwarzkopf Prize is awarded annually in the name of Dr. Alexander Schwarzkopf, who established the I/UCRC Program at the NSF in 1979.

Todd Hickey, Ignacio Navarrete

Two Berkeley researchers are recipients of 2006 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships for University Teachers. Todd Hickey, assistant research papyrologist in the Bancroft Library and assistant professor of classics, and Ignacio Navarrete, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, will each receive $40,000 in support of their pursuit of advanced research in the humanities that contributes to scholarly knowledge or to the general public's understanding of the humanities.

Hickey's topic, "Reading the Papyri of a Priestly Family: Social Relations and Cultural Negotiation in Egypt under Roman Rule," allows him to delve deeper into the Bancroft Library's Tebtunis Papyrii collection. Navarrete's research topic is "Narrative Culture in Spain, c. 1500."

George Foster

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology George Foster received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Medical Anthropology for his foundational work in the field. In addition, Foster was recognized for his creation of the joint medical anthropology program at Berkeley and UCSF and his voluminous writings, including classic works on field methods, economic development, applied anthropology, folklore, medicine and public health, and social structure and symbolic systems.

David Wake

David Wake, a professor of integrative biology and curator of herpetology, received the Joseph Leidy Award at a public lecture and ceremony at the Academy of Natural Sciences on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Wake has studied amphibians for more than 40 years. Since the 1970s, he and other biologists have monitored their alarmingly steady decline in every part of the world but have been unable to pinpoint one single culprit. Habitat loss, pollution, overharvesting, and a recently discovered fungal disease can explain the disappearance of only about half the decline, according to the National Wildlife Federation.

Established in 1923 in honor of Dr. Joseph Leidy (1823-1891), anatomist, paleontologist, and Academy president, the award consists of a bronze medal and $5,000.