PEOPLE & PLACES UPDATE

October 2004 61

ASM International award winners

The recipients of ASM

International’s awards for 2004

have been announced. Charles O.

Holliday, Jr., chairman and chief

executive officer of DuPont in

Delaware will receive the Medal for

the Advancement of Research for

“sustainable material, chemical, and

biology-based technology solutions

that improve many aspects of our

daily lives”. Bhakta B. Rath of the

Naval Research Laboratory,

Washington, DC wins the society’s

Gold Medal for his research on

solid-state transformations,

microstructure-property

relationships, and his leadership in

directing research for national

security. Subra Suresh of

Massachusetts Institute of

Technology wins the Albert Sauveur

Achievement Award. The Bradley

Stoughton Award for Young

Teachers goes to Nikhilesh Chawla

of Arizona State University.

Ferrell becomes APS Fellow

Thomas Lee Ferrell has been

elected a fellow of the American

Physical Society (APS) for his

invention of the photon scanning

tunneling microscope. The

microscope scans a tapered optical

fiber probe with a nanosized tip

within a few hundred nanometers

of a sample surface. Ferrell is a

distinguished research staff member

of the Oak Ridge National

Laboratory and a professor of

physics at the University of

Tennessee.

Fotakis and Eliseev win awards

The Optical Society of America

(OSA) has announced its award

winners for 2004. Costas Fotakis,

director of the Institute of

Electronic Structure and Laser at

the Foundation for Research and

Technology – Hellas in Greece, wins

the OSA Leadership Award/New

Focus – Bookham Prize for

contributions to the use of lasers

for art conservation. Peter G. Eliseev

receives the Nick Holonyak, Jr.

Award for his work on the physics

and technology of semiconductor

lasers. Eliseev is at the Center for

High Technology Materials,

University of New Mexico,

Albuquerque while on leave from

the P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute

of the Russian Academy of

Sciences.

Potocnik in charge of EU scienceJanez Potocnik, the

Slovenian

representative in the

European Commission

(EC), is to be the next

Commissioner for

Science and Research.

He takes charge of the

European Union’s (EU)

science policy,

succeeding Philippe

Busquin.

Previously Slovenian

minister for European

Affairs, Potocnik led

the negotiations for the country’s accession to the

EU. A respected political figure in Slovenia, Potocnik

has a PhD in economics and spent five years as a

researcher in the Institute for Economic Research in

Ljubljana.

The appointment is part of a raft of new portfolios

allocated by the new president-designate of the EC,

José Barroso. Potocnik is one of 25 new

commissioners, each appointed by one EU member

country, who will take office in November.

Career boost for young scientistsThe 25 winners of the first European Young

Investigator (EURYI) Awards have been announced by

the European Heads of Research Councils and the

European Science Foundation. The young researchers

will each receive �1.25 million to establish and lead

their own groups. The awards are intended to support

the career development of the next generation of

leading researchers.

Raffaele Colombelli of the Institut d’Electronique

Fondamentale in Orsay, France will use the award to

develop quantum cascade photonic crystal lasers.

Albert Schenning of Eindhoven University of

Technology, the Netherlands will investigate the

DNA-templated assembly of π-conjugated molecules

for supramolecular electronics. Andrea Cavalleri will

study critical phenomena in strongly correlated

materials using femtosecond X-ray methods at the

University of Oxford, UK. The functionalization of

carbon nanotubes will be the focus of Nikolaos

Tagmatarchis’ work at the National Hellenic Research

Foundation. Mihail-Dumitru Barboiu of the Institut

Européen des Membranes in Montpellier, France will

develop new supramolecular nanomaterials.

Successful collaborationThe 2004 Erwin Schrödinger Prize for Interdisciplinary

Research has been won by researchers at the Institut

für Nanotechnologie at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe,

Germany. Frank Hennrich, Ralph Krupke, Marcel

Mayor, and Heiko Weber will share the �50 000

award from the Helmholtz Association of 15 German

research centers.

Working together, the researchers have developed a

method for separating semiconducting and metallic

nanotubes in solution by applying an alternating

current with a frequency of 10 MHz. They have also

successfully measured the electrical properties of

single molecules suspended between electrodes.

Swedish ESS location assessedAllan Larsson, former Swedish minister of finance and

European Commission director general, has been

appointed by the Swedish government to assess the

feasibility of locating the European Spallation Source

(ESS) in Lund, Sweden. On the basis of Larsson’s

assessment, the Swedish government will then decide

whether to offer to host the ESS.

While the �1 billion ESS is yet receive the go-ahead,

it would be the world’s most powerful neutron

source. Thousands of researchers in academia and

industry would be expected to use the center to study

all types of materials, from proteins and plastics to

steels and semiconductors. It would be an important

hub for scientific and economic growth wherever it is

located. Besides Lund, sites in Germany, the UK, and

Hungary have been proposed as possible locations.

Japan Prize for catalysis researchKenichi Honda of the University of Tokyo and Akira

Fujishima of the Kanagawa Academy of Science and

Technology have been awarded the 2004 Japan Prize

for their pioneering work on photochemical catalysis

and its environmental application. The prize,

presented by The Science and Technology Foundation

of Japan, includes a cash award of $500 000.

Honda and Fujishima demonstrated the splitting of

water into hydrogen and oxygen using a single-

crystal TiO2 electrode irradiated with light of an

energy greater than the TiO2 band gap. This result

suggests that it may be possible to use solar light to

produce hydrogen as a clean energy source. Fujishima

has used the strong oxidative power of TiO2 to

decompose environmental pollutants and has

developed methods for preparing TiO2 thin films on

various substrates to create self-cleaning materials.

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

Credit: Audiovisual Library of theEuropean Commission.

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