Accolades

Luping Yu, Professor in Chemistry and the College, has received a Special Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation.

The award extends his current three-year grant an additional two years, allowing him to do exploratory research that was not part of his original proposal. Yu will use the award to fund research that builds on his 2002 synthesis of a molecule-sized electronic component called a diode. He now has turned his attention to the development of a molecular switch.

Takeshi Oka, the Robert Millikan Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Chemistry, Astronomy & Astrophysics and the College, has been awarded the 2004 Davy Medal by the Royal Society. The medal, first awarded in 1877, is given annually “for an outstandingly important discovery in any branch of chemistry.”

Oka was cited for “his many and varied contributions to molecular spectroscopy and its applications, particularly to astronomy.”

Nicolas Dauphas, Assistant Professor in Geophysical Sciences and the College, has been awarded the Nier Prize from the Meteoritical Society.

The Nier Prize recognizes outstanding research in meteoritics and closely allied fields by scientists under the age of 35.

Dauphas’ research proposes such questions of origin as how and when did the planets, asteroids and comets form, and how did the Earth get its wet atmosphere.