PEOPLE & PLACES UPDATE

November 2005 65

Garkunov to wear gold medal

The UK’s Institution of Mechanical

Engineers, which administers the

Tribology Trust, has awarded

86-year-old Dmitrii Nikolaevich

Garkunov of the Russian Academy

of Engineers the 2005 Tribology

Gold Medal for his achievements in

tribology. The institution highlights

Garkunov’s research in the fields of

selective transfer and metal

hydrogen wear.

CENAMPS names chief executive

The UK’s Centre of Excellence for

Nanotechnology, Micro, and

Photonic Systems (CENAMPS),

founded in Newcastle in 2003 by

regional development agency

One NorthEast, has appointed

Mike Pitkethly, cofounder and

former commercial director of

QinetiQ Nanomaterials, as chief

executive. Pitkethly is a fellow of

the Institute of Materials, Minerals

and Mining, and the Institute of

Nanotechnology.

Imperial gets new materials head

From January, the new head of the

Department of Materials at

Imperial College London, UK will be

William Lee. He succeeds John

Kilner, department head since 2000.

Currently at the University of

Sheffield, Lee has been professor of

ceramic science and engineering

since 1998 and founding director of

the Immobilisation Science

Laboratory since 2001.

Physics prize for MRI developer

The American Institute of Physics’

2005-2006 Industrial Applications

in Physics Prize has gone to

William A. Edelstein for

“developments leading to the

commercialization of high-

resolution magnetic resonance

imaging (MRI) for medical

applications”. As a research fellow

from 1977-80 at Scotland’s

Aberdeen University he helped to

build one of the first whole-body

MRI scanners and was primary

inventor of ‘spin warp’ imaging.

He continued work on MRI at the

General Electric Corporate Research

and Development Center from

1980-2001. He now consults and is

a visiting scientist at Rensselaer

Polytechnic Institute and a senior

research associate at Case Western

Reserve University.

MIT’s Suresh strikes gold At the Materials

Research Society’s

2005 Fall Meeting,

Subra Suresh, head of

the Department of

Materials Science and

Engineering at

Massachusetts Institute

of Technology (MIT),

will receive the

2006 Acta Materialia

Gold Medal. “During a

career spanning three

decades, he has made pioneering contributions to

metallurgy, materials science and engineering,

engineering mechanics, fracture mechanics, fatigue of

materials, thin films, and cell and molecular

biomechanics,” says award sponsor Acta Materialia.

MRS honors Langer The Materials Research Society’s 2005 Fall Meeting

will also see presentations for the following awards.

The Von Hippel Award goes to MIT chemical

engineering professor Robert S. Langer for “pioneering

accomplishments in the science and application of

biomaterials in drug delivery and tissue engineering,

particularly in inventing the use of materials for

protein and DNA delivery”. Langer’s research is

credited with generating new medical products,

creating new fields of biomaterials science, and

inspiring research programs throughout the world.

Langer has written over 840 articles, received over

130 major awards, and has over 500 patents issued

or pending. He was elected to the Institute of

Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in

1989, and both the National Academy of Engineering

and National Academy of Sciences in 1992.

The MRS Medal goes to Reshef Tenne, head of the

Department of Materials and Interfaces at Israel’s

Weizmann Institute, for “realizing that nanoclusters

of layered compound materials (e.g. MoS2, WS2) can

be made to fold into hollow cage structures

[inorganic fullerenes], in analogy to graphitic carbon.”

After gaining a PhD in chemistry and physics at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976, Tenne spent

three years at the Battelle Institute in Switzerland

before joining the Weizmann Institute in 1979.

The Turnbull Lecturer Award goes to Eugene E. Haller,

professor of materials science at the University of

California, Berkeley and head of the Electronic

Materials Program at Lawrence Berkeley National

Laboratory, for “pioneering achievements and

leadership in establishing the field of isotopically

engineered semiconductors, for outstanding

contributions to materials growth, doping, and

diffusion, and for excellence in lecturing, writing, and

fostering international collaborations.” Haller studied

at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has held

positions in Stuttgart, London, Berlin, and Tokyo, and

is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

AVS announces annual awards The winners of the 2005 American Vacuum Society

Awards have been announced.

The John A. Thornton Memorial Award goes to Stan

Veprek, head of the Technical University of Munich’s

Institute for Chemistry of Inorganic Materials, for

“the design of strong and hard materials as well as

their deposition as thin films by plasma-assisted

techniques”.

Christopher R. Brundle and Associates win the Albert

Nerken Award for “pioneering early development in

the field of electron spectroscopy, and sustained

applications to surface science and a wide range of

industrial materials characterization issues.”

The Peter Mark Memorial Award for a scientist or

engineer of age 35 or less goes to University of

California, Los Angeles chemical engineer Jane P.

Chang for “the synthesis, processing, and

characterization of novel materials for applications in

microelectronics and optoelectronics.”

The development of novel photoelectron

spectroscopy and synchrotron radiation techniques

for the study of the atomic, electronic, and magnetic

structure of surfaces and buried interfaces wins

Charles S. Fadley of the University of California, Davis

the Medard W. Welch Award.

Oxford admits 14-year-old A 14-year-old Chinese boy, Yinan Wang, unable to

speak English on arrival in the UK two years ago, has

been admitted by Oxford University to read material

sciences at Corpus Christi college. Wang was a pupil

of one of the UK's biggest comprehensive schools

(Copland Community College in Brent, north-west

London), where 96% are from ethnic-minority

backgrounds. However, Oxford may be the UK’s last

university to admit students under 17 because of the

costs of complying with new UK child protection laws.

Wang has already received a maths degree from the

Open University.

Please send details of new appointments, honors, and awards to materialstoday@elsevier.com

Credit: Donna Coveney/MIT.