Archive for the ‘Awards’ Category

Three SLAC scientists receive early career grants

May 16th, 2013
Slac scientists

Thomas Bligaard, Stefan Hoeche, Juhao Wu

Three scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will receive Early Career Research Program grants from the U.S. Department of Energy for research to boost the peak power of X-ray laser pulses, model catalytic chemical reactions and build better simulations of particle collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

SLAC’s THOMAS BLIGAARD, STEFAN HOECHE and JUHAO WU were among 61 scientists selected from a pool of 770 applicants for the five-year grants, which were announced last week by the DOE Office of Science. Researchers receive about $500,000 per year for salary and research expenses.

The grants support the development of individual research programs of scientists who received their doctoral degrees up to 10 years earlier. Recipients must be full-time DOE national laboratory employees or tenure-track assistant or associate professors at a U.S. academic institution, and their research topics must fall within one of six Office of Science focus areas.

Bligaard, a senior staff scientist who joined SLAC’s SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis two years ago, works to improve computer modeling of chemical reactions involving catalysts. Catalysts speed up reactions without themselves being consumed in the process. They are essential for many industrial processes, including the large-scale production of fuels and other chemicals, and for reducing airborne pollutants.

The grant will be useful in constructing more sophisticated, comprehensive codes that encompass a broader range of variables in chemical reactions and better represent complex materials, he said.

Hoeche, a member of SLAC’s Particle Physics Theory Group, is also working on better simulations, but of a very different sort. He and his group are developing more precise simulations for researchers at the Large Hadron Collider.

“We’re providing a tool that bridges the gap between theory and experiment,” Hoeche said.

Wu, a staff scientist in the Accelerator Research Division who joined SLAC in 2002, is studying methods to increase the peak power of pulses at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) by more efficiently transforming its electron energy into X-rays. The LCLS is an X-ray free-electron laser, or XFEL, and its ultrabright, ultrashort X-ray laser pulses are generated when an electron beam from the lab’s linear accelerator traverses a sequence of alternating magnets in devices called undulators.

Read the entire press release on the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory website.

France honors Stanford historian Aron Rodrigue

May 14th, 2013

The French Ministry of Education has named ARON RODRIGUE, a professor of history and director of the Stanford Humanities Center, a Knight (Chevalier) of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.

The Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Order of Academic Palms) is an honorific order of France that recognizes significant accomplishments in the areas of teaching, research and scholarship. Non-French citizens may also receive an award for contributing to the expansion of French education, language and culture throughout the world.

Established by NAPOLEON BONAPARTE in 1808, the distinction became a decoration under Emperor Napoleon III in 1866 and is the oldest non-military French decoration.

Rodrigue, whose research and publications focus on the spread of French language among 19th- and 20th-century Jewish communities in Muslim lands, said he was simultaneously “pleased, surprised and honored” when he learned about the award.

Raised in Istanbul, Rodrigue said his research probably had its origins in his curiosity about why “French was the language of culture” that he encountered in his youth. His scholarly pursuits led him into an investigation of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, a French-Jewish educational system that established schools across the Middle East.

As director of the Humanities Center, Rodrigue founded the International Visitors program, which has invited several French scholars to campus. Years before he became director, Rodrigue co-founded the center’s French Culture Workshop, in which academics from a wide array of disciplines examine questions relevant to French culture and society.

Rodrigue will join three other Stanford scholars who have been recipients of Order of Academic Palms honors, history Professor KEITH BAKER, Clayman Institute scholar MARILYN YALOM and CHARBEL FARHAT, professor of aeronautics and astronautics and of mechanical engineering.

The award and accompanying medallion will be conferred in a ceremony administered by the French Consulate.

—CORRIE GOLDMAN, the Humanities at Stanford

Spormann elected fellow of American Academy of Microbiology

May 9th, 2013
Spormann

Alfred Spormann

ALFRED SPORMANN, professor of civil and environmental engineering and of chemical engineering, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in recognition of his significant contributions to the field of microbiology.

Spormann studies anaerobic microbes to understand the molecular and biochemical basis of unusual metabolism, as well as the triangular relationship between metabolism, population-level fitness and ecosystems-level niche construction. In particular, Spormann has been working to develop microbes able to produce “clean” methane as a potential grid-scale electrical storage technology.

The American Academy of Microbiology is a leadership group within the American Society for Microbiology, the world’s oldest and largest life science organization. Its mission is to recognize scientists for outstanding contributions to microbiology and provide microbiological expertise in the service of science and the public.

—ANDREW MYERS, School of Engineering

Martin Reinhard wins Humboldt Research Award

May 6th, 2013

MARTIN REINHARD, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, has been selected for a Humboldt Research Award, conferred annually in recognition of lifetime achievements in research. The award is presented by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Bonn, Germany, to promote academic collaboration between top international scientists and scholars and colleagues in Germany.

Martin Reinhard

Reinhard studies the fate of organic substances in the subsurface environment. His lab develops technologies for the remediation of contaminated groundwater through chemical and biological transformation reactions in soils, natural waters and treatment systems.

Humboldt awardees are invited to carry out research projects of personal interest in cooperation with German counterparts.

—ANDREW MYERS, School of Engineering

Senior Maya Kornberg awarded Shultz Fellowship

May 3rd, 2013

Thomas L. Friedman, Maya Kornberg and George Shultz

While thousands of Stanford students earn scholarships and have the opportunity to study abroad, for senior MAYA KORNBERG, the awarding of her fellowship to study in Israel this summer was anything but ordinary. “This is an only-at-Stanford kind of morning,” said RABBI SERENA EISENBERG, executive director of Hillel at Stanford. Or as New York Times columnist and author THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN said, “Not many people get a fellowship handed to them by two former secretaries of state.” Not to mention a best-selling author.

Condoleezza Rice and Maya Kornberg

At a breakfast gathering at Hillel Thursday morning, Kornberg was awarded the George and Charlotte Shultz Fellowship for Modern Israel Studies from former U.S. Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE. Rice, also a professor of political science and business at Stanford, happened to teach Kornberg in her undergraduate foreign policy seminar winter quarter. Kornberg also received accolades from the namesake of the fellowship, GEORGE SHULTZ, also a former U.S. secretary of state. And Friedman, who established the fellowship in honor of Shultz on the occasion of Shultz’s 90th birthday two years ago, also joined in bestowing the honor.

“This fellowship is an example of what Stanford does best,” Rice said. “Great research universities bring together people from the entire academic spectrum, from 18-year-old freshmen to Nobel laureates, and put them together to instill in all of us a desire to search for the truth.” Despite her many commitments, Rice said she did not hesitate when asked to serve on the Shultz Fellowship review committee: “Anything with George’s name, I pay attention. George is emblematic of a great public servant, and he is also a university person, deeply involved with students. And Tom Friedman, he has helped us see inside this complicated region more clearly than any author or scholar I know.”

Rice, Shultz and Friedman all noted that a visit to Israel is essential for any scholar working to understand the Middle East. Friedman said he established the fellowship in recognition of Shultz’s “tireless efforts to broker Middle East peace,” and that the honor is available to any Stanford student interested in studying Israel or the Arab-Israeli peace process. The Shultzes then added to the fellowship, as did philanthropists LAURA LAUDER and JIM KOSHLAND. (Because of university restrictions on funding research opportunities in Israel while the State Department maintains a travel advisory there, the fellowship fund was established at Hillel at Stanford, which administers the award.)

Last year, the first fellowship was awarded to EMILY WARREN, a joint JD-economics PhD candidate, who used the time to study how Israel’s defense investments in the late 1980s resulted in a tech boom in the early 1990s.

Kornberg, a graduating senior majoring in international relations, intends to use her fellowship to examine Israeli political parties’ campaigns in elections between 1967 and 2013, investigating the platforms and rhetoric on issues relating to the peace process, such as territorial division, the status of Jerusalem and rights of return.

“What I have appreciated most about my Stanford experience is that they just keep throwing these amazing opportunities at you all the time,” said Kornberg, who is the daughter and granddaughter of two Nobel laureates, ROGER KORNBERG and the late ARTHUR KORNBERG. Her proud mother, who was toting a camera Thursday morning, is YAHLI LORCH, associate professor of structural biology.

Maya Kornberg plans to pursue a graduate degree in public policy at Columbia University. But when she returns from Israel, she has a date to meet with Rice, Shultz and Friedman to share what she learned.

—LISA LAPIN

Graduate School of Education professors recognized for their research

May 2nd, 2013

David Labaree

AERA, the American Educational Research Association, recently honored three faculty members of the Graduate School of Education — DAVID LABAREE, RAY MCDERMOTT and SEAN REARDON — at its annual meeting in San Francisco.

Labaree, professor of education, was selected to be a 2013 AERA Fellow for his exceptional scholarly contributions to education research. Labaree explores the development of the American education system and the role this system plays in American society. He is the author of a number of award-winning books, including Someone Has to Fail: The Zero-Sum Game of Public Schooling, The Trouble with Ed Schools and How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education.

At the AERA conference, Labaree also gave the 55th annual John Dewey Lecture. His talk, “College — What Is It Good For?” traced how the modern American university came into being, looking in particular at how this institution developed its basic form in the “improbable context of the United States in the 19th century.”

Ray McDermott

Education Professor McDermott was chosen to receive a lifetime achievement award for distinguished contributions to social contexts in education research. He also gave the keynote address to AERA’s Division G, the organization’s section devoted to the social contexts of education. His talk, “Changing Borders: Relocating Race, Ethnicity and Class,” addressed how the dynamics of power along racial and ethnic borders affect access to educational opportunity.

McDermott, an anthropologist whose 45-year career in education began as a classroom teacher in New York City, joined the GSE faculty in 1989. Much of his recent research has been centered on the intersection of education, social structure and political economy. He takes a broad interest in the analysis of human communication, the organization of school success and failure, and the history and use of various literacies around the world. His work includes studies of inner-city public schools, after-school classrooms and the function of information technologies in different cultures.

Sean Reardon

Reardon, also a professor of education, and ANDREW HO, who received his PhD from the GSE and is now assistant professor of education at Harvard, were chosen to receive AERA’s Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for their paper, “Estimating Achievement Gaps from Test Scores Reported in Ordinal Proficiency Categories” in the August 2012 issue of the Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics (JEBS). The award is given annually to recognize the highest quality of scholarship published in JEBS and three other AERA publications.

In the paper, Reardon and Ho present novel statistical methods that enable researchers to better use readily available test score data to estimate achievement gaps among student groups. In particular, they describe ways to more accurately estimate achievement gaps when only incomplete data are available.

— JONATHAN RABINOVITZ, Stanford Graduate School of Education

Harold Hwang wins top Korean Award

April 30th, 2013

 

Harold Hwang

HAROLD Y. HWANG, professor of applied physics and photon science at Stanford and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has won the 2013 Ho-Am Award in Science, one of five annual awards often referred to as the Korean equivalent of the Nobel prizes.

The award – which consists of a 6-ounce gold medal, a laureate diploma and a cash prize of 300 million Korean won (about $265,000) – will be presented May 31 in Seoul. Recipients also are scheduled to give commemorative lectures at major universities, academies and high schools across Korea.

Hwang is an expert in creating complex oxide materials with extraordinary electronic and magnetic properties, including superconductivity. Made of alternating atomic layers of metals and oxygen, these materials are the focus of intense worldwide research seeking to design new combinations for electronics, sensing and energy applications.

“Complex oxides are today where semiconductors were early in the 20th century, when crystal radios were state of the art,” Hwang said. “If you put various semiconductors together, you can make fantastic devices just because the semiconductor interface can range from an insulator to a good conductor. With complex oxides, however, you can add superconductivity, magnetism, ferroelectricity and many other properties. Imagine the possibilities.”

The key, he said, is determining the principles that give each atomic arrangement its special behavior. Hwang and colleagues use SLAC’s light sources to probe the electronic behavior of these materials. His team is creating a chamber that will enable researchers to create complex materials layer by layer and measure their properties at the same time.

The Ho-Am Prize was established by Samsung in 1990 to honor its founding chairman, the late Byung-Chull Lee. “Ho-Am” was Lee’s pen name. Awards are given each year in the categories of science, engineering, medicine, arts and community service. In addition, a Ho-Am Prize in Mass Communication was awarded from 1991 to 1994 and in 1996.

A total of 177 people have received Ho-Am prizes, including two Stanford professors: THOMAS LEE (2011, engineering) and STUART K. KIM (2004, medicine).

Ho-Am Prizes are awarded to people of Korean origin. (The prize for community service, however, can also be awarded to non-Koreans who made outstanding contributions to Korea and Koreans at home and abroad.) Hwang’s parents are from Korea, and came to Southern California for graduate school. He said he’s descended from a Chinese merchant who moved to the Korean peninsula about a thousand years ago.

—MIKE ROSS, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Stanford’s Asian Staff Forum hosts Adam Johnson

April 29th, 2013

Newly minted Pulitzer Prize winner and English Professor Adam Johnson signs books at an Asian Staff Forum talk.

When the Asian Staff Forum (ASF) invited ADAM JOHNSON, associate professor of English, to speak to their group about his novel The Orphan Master’s Son, they had no idea that just a few days before the event their guest would win a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The Orphan Master’s Son, Johnson’s third novel, is a gripping tale about a young man’s life and struggles in North Korea during Kim Jong Il’s reign. The ASF seeks to promote the interests of Stanford employees of Asian/Pacific/Indian subcontinent descent or affinity.

Originally planned as an intimate discussion at the Asian American Activities Center, the event was moved to the Humanities Center to accommodate more people. But Johnson played down the impact the prize was having on his daily life. Asked by an audience member how it felt to win a Pulitzer, Johnson said that since the announcement his dishwasher had broken and he had gotten a parking ticket, so “everything feels the same.”

A curiosity about the “great tragedies of the world” inspired Johnson to learn more about the turbulent history of the Korean peninsula and the harsh reality of life in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). He gleaned what he could from policy texts and frequent visits to propaganda laden DPRK websites. “Scenarios, scenes and dialogue” that filled in the missing human stories “just started coming out,” he said.

As a fiction writer, Johnson was particularly intrigued by how the strict rules of the Kim dynasty have created a “single national story” for North Koreans.

In an effort to learn more about the cryptic society, Johnson visited North Korea in 2007. He knew that in such a closed society where even family members censor each other, he wouldn’t be able to stop people on the streets to learn more about their lives, but said that he learned a lot through observation. His imagination filled in the rest.

“Legend, myth, rumor and dreams are powerful tools” when it comes to “building a psychological portrait,” Johnson told the group.

—CORRIE GOLDMAN, Humanities at Stanford

President Hennessy receives the inaugural Tall Tree Global Impact Award

April 24th, 2013

When it was time for the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and the Palo Alto Weekly to honor outstanding local individuals and organizations with the 2013 Tall Tree Awards, they decided to add another prize to this year’s roster — the Global Impact Award.  Stanford President JOHN HENNESSY was selected as its first recipient.

“I am deeply honored to be the first recipient of the Tall Tree Global Impact Award,” Hennessy said at a celebration of the awardees earlier this month. He noted that El Palo Alto, “the tall tree,” is at the center of both the Stanford seal and the City of Palo Alto’s seal.

During his acceptance remarks, Hennessy recognized all of the “incredible people” he’s worked with, particularly faculty and staff, “who are so dedicated to our students.”

“My career and my interests and my family have all been nurtured by this community over the years,” Hennessy continued. “Of course, living in this area I breathed the atmosphere of entrepreneurism that is everywhere and learned about thinking big, swallowing that potion that says you really can change the world and do something remarkable that affects people.

“The symbiotic relationship between the community, the university and the valley has been absolutely crucial to make that happen. One of the reasons we’ve succeeded is not only this inventive atmosphere that exists at the university, but because this is an absolutely delightful place to live. And that’s one of the things that’s really helped us recruit the best and brightest people from around the world.”

Hennessy said that when he and his wife, Andrea, first came to the area in 1977, it was not the world’s technological hub as it is today.

“When I first came, if you wanted to go talk to the movers and shakers in the computer industry, you had to get on a plane and fly to Boston or fly to New York. Now, they all fly here to visit us,” he said.

He reminded the attendees that there remains work to be done in order to ensure that the greater Palo Alto area continues to hold on to its core values: excellence in education; maintaining a vibrant arts community; building a state-of-the-art hospital; and being role models in environmental sustainability.

“I look forward to working with all of you to make sure that our community remains a leader not only in innovation, but also in the quality of life we offer the people who live here,” Hennessy concluded.

Since 1980, the Tall Tree Awards have recognized individuals and organizations that have made “bold and significant contributions to the heart of Palo Alto, while extending influence beyond our local community.”

In addition to the Global Impact Award (which will be awarded periodically, not annually), the 2013 recipients of the annual Tall Tree Awards are:

Outstanding Business: Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Outstanding Nonprofit Organization: Breast Cancer Connections

Outstanding Citizen: RAY BACCHETTI, a former vice president for planning and management at Stanford

Outstanding Professional: BECKY BEACOM, health educator for Palo Alto Medical Foundation

—ELAINE RAY

Alumna Sharon Olds wins Pulitzer for poetry

April 23rd, 2013

 

(AP Photo/Jim Cole)

SHARON OLDS won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry April 15 for Stag’s Leap. The book has been called an unflinching response to the collapse of her marriage of 32 years, a mix of grief and confusion that shows in the collection’s namesake poem:

“When anyone escapes, my heart / leaps up.  Even when it’s I who am escaped from, / I am half on the side of the leaver.”

Olds, who graduated from Stanford in 1964, teaches at New York University and is former poet laureate of New York. She penned most of Stag’s Leap in the late 1990s, in the years after her divorce. “I wrote these poems the way I always write, which is immediately,” she told the Concord Monitor. “Only then do I have the feeling that is so full in me that it feels the need to spill over into an expression of itself.”

But she held off publishing these poems for more than a decade, promising her grown children she’d allow time for the changes to absorb. She said she never imagined the kind of reception that lay in store for them.

“It was beyond unexpected,” she told the Huffington Post. “There are things we think won’t happen to us – that are outside our picture of ourselves.”

(AP Photo/Alfred A. Knopf, Michael Lionstar)

Stag’s Leap is her 12th collection. Her first, Satan Says, was published in 1980, when she was 37, a delayed start she attributes to earlier resistance from male editors. Her first submitted poem to a magazine got a reception hardly imaginable today. “They told me: ‘This is a literary magazine. If you wish to write about this sort of subject, may we suggest the Ladies’ Home Journal. The true subjects of poetry are … male subjects, not your children,’” Olds told The Guardian.

Olds has won numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Prior to the Pulitzer, Stag’s Leap won the T.S. Eliot Prize for the best collection of verse published in Britain and Ireland in 2012.

In awarding that prize, CAROL ANN DUFFY, chair of the judging panel, said: “This was the book of her career. There is a grace and chivalry in her grief that marks her out as being a world-class poet.”

—SAM SCOTT, Stanford magazine