Accolades

The American College of Cardiology awarded Morton Arnsdorf, Professor in Medicine, a Distinguished Fellow Award at its annual scientific session in March. Arnsdorf, a cardiologist renowned for his work on cellular electrophysiology and electropharmacology, clinical arrhythmias, and the development of the atomic force microscope for biomedical use, was honored for actively advancing the field of cardiology by promoting biomedical ethics through research and public service, the ACC citation noted.

Stephen Hanauer, Professor in Medicine, has been named editor-in-chief of Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology & Hepatology. This journal, launched last November by the prestigious Nature Publishing Group, is one of four new medical journals created to translate basic research results into clinical practice by giving physicians access to the key points published in research papers.

Chuan He, Assistant Professor in Chemistry and the College, has received research awards from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation and Research Corp. The Beckman Foundation has named He a 2005 Beckman Young Investigator, an honor which provides research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences.

The foundation will provide $264,000 over three years to support He’s project to study DNA repair and modification proteins through the use of chemical methods that help reveal the functions of cellular proteins.

He also has received a $100,000 Cottrell Scholar Award from Research Corp. to study DNA repair and modification proteins. Research Corp., based in Tucson, Ariz., is a private foundation that aids basic research in chemistry, physics and astronomy at U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities.

The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia has awarded the 2005 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics to Yoichiro Nambu, the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics.

The institute cited Nambu “for his path-breaking contributions leading to our modern understanding of subatomic particles—the standard model. His work has revolutionized our ideas about the nature of the most fundamental particles and the space through which they move.”

Janet Rowley, the Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor in Medicine, Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology and Human Genetics, received two awards last month for her work.

The American College of Physicians gave Rowley its annual award for outstanding scientific work as it relates to medicine. In addition, Rowley was given one of two Landon-AACR Prizes for Basic and Translational Cancer Research by the Kirk A. and Dorothy P. Landon Foundation and the American Association for Cancer Research.

The Landon awards are the largest offered to cancer researchers from a professional society of their peers. Rowley will receive an unrestricted cash award of $200,000 and will contribute three-quarters of her prize to the University.

Both awards honor Rowley for her groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of how chromosomes can exchange genetic material, resulting in the uncontrolled growth of cells that characterizes cancer.

The Landon-AACR Prizes for Basic and Translational Cancer Research were launched in the summer of 2002 to promote, recognize and reward seminal contributions to the understanding of cancer through basic and translational cancer research.

Geoffrey Stone, the Harry Kalven Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Law School and the College, will receive the 25th annual Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for his most recent work, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism.

Ethel Kennedy will present Stone with the award Tuesday, May 24, at a Washington banquet given by the RFK Memorial, which annually honors the book that “most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy’s purposes—his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity.”

Last month, Perilous Times received the prestigious Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Book of the Year in History.

Perilous Times also has been named on the “best books of the year” lists of The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.

A study of civil liberties in times of national emergency, the book explores six pivotal national emergencies in the history of the United States: the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War.

George Tiao, the W. Allen Wallis Professor Emeritus of Econometrics and Statistics in the Graduate School of Business, and his fellow members of the Ozone Science Tiger Team have received the 2005 Environmental Protection Agency’s Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award.

The Tiger Team is a group of statisticians and atmospheric scientists, which has, since 1982, studied the role of human impact on the ozone in the upper atmosphere.

Tiao, an original member of the 10-member team, is a member of the Center for Integrating Statistics and Environmental Science at the University. The Tiger Team is currently funded through the center, an EPA-supported endeavor that carries out research in a broad range of problems in environmental statistics. EPA program analyst Bella Maranion described the Tiger Team as “a major influence on the policy development to protect stratospheric ozone.”

The EPA established its Ozone Protection Awards in 1990 to recognize exceptional leadership, personal dedication and technical achievements in eliminating ozone-depleting substances.

A team of three undergraduates from University Theater took second place at the United States Institute of Theater Technology’s Tech Olympics in March. The students—Catharine Kollros, Keith Skretch and Peter Sloane—competed in a series of events that simulated challenges for theater technicians. The Chicago team excelled in several categories, including building a safety cable for a light instrument, knot-tying, costume quick change, building an electrical connector for a light instrument, light instrument focus and sound system set-up.

The United States Institute of Theater Technology is the professional association for theater technicians.