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Stephen Brush, IPST, has been selected by the American Physical Society as the 2009 winner of the Abraham Pais Prize in History of Physics. The prize recognizes outstanding scholarly achievements in the history of physics.

Andrew Campbell, Geology, has been awarded an NSF Faculty Career Award for “High Pressure Melting and Phase Transitions in Model Compositions of Earth's Core." The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Jim Carton, AOSC, has been elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Founded in 1919, the Society promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications. The award will be presented at the 89thth AMS Annual Meeting, January 2009, Phoenix, AZ.

Hans Griem, Physics, was honored at the 13th International Workshop of Radiative Properties of Hot Dense Matter, November 10-14, with a special session of plasma spectroscopy to celebrate his 80th birthday. Griem is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Maxwell Prize winner.

Thomas Holtz, Geology, has been named one of the Top Referees in 2008 for the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The Top Referees were selected based on the number of manuscripts refereed during the year, the quality of the report and the speed in which the report was returned.

Eugenia Kalnay, AOSC and IPST, has been awarded a Doctorate Honoris Causa by the University of Buenos Aires. Kalnay received the award from her former student, Carolina Vera, Vice-Dean of Natural Sciences, and from the Minister of Science and Technology, Lino Baranao.

Laurent Montesi, Geology, has been selected to serve on the Ridge 2000 Steering Committee for 2009.  The Ridge 2000 Program is an interdisciplinary research program, sponsored by the NSF, focused on integrated studies of Earth’s oceanic spreading centers. The program provides national coordination for studies of deep-sea hydrothermal vents and rifting of volcanic crust.

Sumant Nigam, AOSC and ESSIC, has been appointed to serve a 3 year term on the National Research Council’s Climate Research Committee. The purpose of the Committee is to foster atmospheric, oceanic, and related research aimed at advancing knowledge and understanding of the physical basis of climate and climate change.

Jonathan Rosenberg and Scott Wolpert, Mathematics, have been selected as two of the four Conference Board of Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) Lecturers for the coming year.  CBMS lecturers each give a series of 10 lectures, providing focused descriptions of important areas of mathematical sciences, and subsequently prepare a monograph to be published by a national society.

Sylvain Veilleux, Astronomy, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award which is conferred on “Outstanding scientists and scholars from all disciplines from abroad whose fundamental discoveries, new theories, or insights have had a significant impact on their own discipline and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.”

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Eugenia Kalnay, AOSC and IPST, organized an intensive course on Data Assimilation at the School of Sciences, Ciudad Universitaria, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 27-November 7, 2008. Targeting young scientists, the course attracted huge numbers of applicants.

Dennis Papadopoulos, Astronomy and Physics, presented an invited tutorial review at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics, November 17, Dallas, TX. His review was entitled “Using Space as a Nonlinear Plasma Laboratory.”

CSCAMM has scheduled the Kinetic Description of Multiscale Phenomena: Young Researchers Workshop for March 2-5, 2009. The workshop is targeting primary researchers at an early stage of their career and will focus on recent developments in the modeling and simulation of multiscale phenomena via kinetic methods.

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Larry Davis and V.S. Subrahmanian, both Computer Science and UMIACS, were guests on the Kojo Nnamdi Show, November 25th, in a segment on Artificial Intelligence.

Rita Colwell, UMIACS, was quoted on the BBC News website, November 10, in an article on using satellite imagery to predict disease outbreaks.

Jordan Goodman, Physics, was quoted in The Hindu, November 25 on the recent publication in Physical Review Letters, November 24, on the Milagro collaboration discovering two nearby regions with an unexpected excess of cosmic rays. Follow-up stories appeared in Ars Technica, FirstScience and ScienceDaily.

Thomas Holtz, Geology, was featured on the Fairfax Network’s “Meet the Author,” on November 13, where he discussed his book “Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages.”  The show is produced by, and for, the Fairfax County Public Schools but is broadcast to school systems in over 30 states.

Alan Kaufman, Geology, was interviewed for the December 08 edition of Spektrum Der Wissenschaft on his sabbatical appointment as a Mercator Professor, University of Munster, by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) and his collaborative research with Professor Harald Bunch.  The Foundation offers the Mercator Program to enable Germany's research universities to invite highly qualified scientists and academics working abroad to complete a DFG-funded stay at their institutes. The visit should focus on joint cooperative projects by the guest and host.

Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, AOSC, was quoted in Discovery News, November 25, in an article on an experiment conducted by him and his student, Daniel Barrie, on the effects of large scale wind farms on wind patterns.

Lucy McFadden, Astronomy, was featured in the Concord Academy Alumni Magazine, Fall edition, with a story on her recent Antarctic adventures and mentioning her current project, DAWN, a NASA mission to asteroids between Jupiter and Mars.

Robert Park, Physics, was quoted in the Times Higher Education, November 27, in an article on his new book “Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science.”  A follow-up article appeared in the Tennessean, November 30.

Ben Shneiderman, Computer Science and UMIACS, was quoted in Investor’s Business Daily, November 13, in an article on government data mining.

Eun-Suk Seo, Physics and IPST, co-authored an article for Nature (Letters), November 20, on The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) experiment which has spotted a surplus of high-energy electrons coming from somewhere in the cosmos. Although the interpretation is far from certain, the electrons could be produced by dark matter – previously undetected particles that physicists believe make up 85% of all matter in the Universe. Follow-up articles appeared in The Hindu, Reuters, Universe Today and TG Daily.

Jessica Sunshine, Astronomy, published a “Response to Comment” on her earlier publication “Ancient Asteroids Enriched in Refractory Inclusions,” Science, November 14.

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Bradley Ballish, 1980 Ph.D. Meteorology (adviser Ferdinand Baer) was lead author in a paper in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), November 2008, showing that automated aircraft temperature data have biases compared to both the NCEP model background and radiosondes that vary with aircraft models. Temperature bias correction experiments are recommended for NWP, and field studies are needed to determine the truth.

Sergey Brin, 1993 B.S. Computer Science and Mathematics, was interviewed for Ecommerce Journal, November 14.

Stanley Dunn, 1983 M.S., 1985 Ph.D. Computer Science (advisor Larry Davis) was named Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, effective August 1, 2008.

Mary Glackin, 1982 B.S. Computer Science, who is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2001 Presidential Rank Award and the Charles Brooks Award for Outstanding Services to the American Meteorological Society, is the Deputy Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, NOAA.  In this role, Glackin is responsible for the day-to-day management of NOAA’s domestic and international operations.

Herbert Hauptman, 55 Ph.D. Mathematics and 85 Honorary Doctor of Science, Nobel Laureate and President of The Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, was featured in The Buffalo News, November 2, in an article on his memoir “On the Beauty of Science.”

Terry Milholland, 1969 B.S. Physics, has been appointed the IRS’ first chief technology officer.  The position, which reports directly to the deputy commissioner for operations support, is responsible for all aspects of the systems that operate the nation’s tax infrastructure.

Qiang Yang, 1984 M.S. Astronomy, 1987 M.S. Computer Science and 1989 Ph.D. Computer Science, has been elected an IEEE Fellow for his contributions to understanding and application of intelligent planning, learning and data mining.  Yang is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

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PLEASE SUBMIT ITEMS TO: Mary Kearney (mkearney@umd.edu)

COLLEGE OF COMPUTER, MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

Astronomy Department - Dr. Stuart Vogel, Chair
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Department - Dr. James Carton, Chair
Computer Science Department - Dr. Larry Davis, Chair
Geology Department - Dr. Michael Brown, Chair
Mathematics Department - Dr. James Yorke, Chair
Physics Department - Dr. Drew Baden, Chair
CSCAMM - Dr. Eitan Tadmor, Director
ESSIC - Dr. Antonio Busalacchi, Director
IPST - Dr. Rajarshi Roy, Director
IREAP - Dr. Dan Lathrop, Director
UMIACS - Dr. V.S. Subrahmanian, Director

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