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Robert L. Gluckstern, President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Physics, died at his home on December 17 at the age of 84.  As UMD Chancellor, 1975-1982, he worked to upgrade academic quality by raising entrance standards, improve salary equity for female faculty members and established merit scholarship programs.  In 1998 he was awarded a President’s Medal for service to the university and was awarded a prize from the U.S. Particle Accelerator School for his research.  Dr. Gluckstern played clarinet and saxophone, was an avid sports fan, loved crossword puzzles and enjoyed international travel with family and friends.

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Elizabeth Beise, Physics, was awarded the 2008 George A. Snow Memorial Award for the many ways she promotes women in physics. The Award was established in honor of the late George Snow, a UMD high energy physicist who died in 1992.

Nicholas Hadley, Physics, and V.S. Subrahmanian, Computer Science and UMIACS, were elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Hadley was recognized for his leadership role in the discovery of the top quark as well as his contributions to searches for phenomena beyond the standard model of particle physics.  Subrahmanian was recognized for his contributions in computer science and multidisciplinary computing, for techniques to implement multiple data sources, software programs, automatically build group behavioral models and forecast group behaviors.

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Larry Davis, Computer Science and UMIACS, Office of Naval Research, $125,000, “Integrated Research on Detection, Tracking and Activity Analysis of Humans.”
 
James Farquhar, Geology, American Chemical Society, $100,000, “Temperature Dependence of 13C-180 ‘Clumping’ in Synthetic Aragonite: Calibration of a New Paleothermometer.”
 
Rosemary Killen, Astronomy, NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, $128,480, “Studies of Mercury’s Exosphere During the Messenger Era.”
 
Saswata Hier-Majumder, Geology, NSF, $220,000, “Cross-scale Modeling Of Magma Migration And Storage.”
 
V.S. Subrahmanian, Computer Science and UMIACS, Naval Air Warfare Center, $242,000, “A Cultural Online Environment for Research and Training.”
 
Wenlu Zhu, Geology, NSF, $235,000, “Acquisition of a Triaxial Deformation Apparatus.”

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Sankar Das Sarma and Victor Yakovenko, Physics, had an image from their paper “Anomalous Nernst effect from a chiral d-density-wave state in underdoped cuprate superconductors” featured for the Kaleidoscope of PRB Images, American Physical Society, November 2008.
 
ESSIC has received an award of $50,000 from the Green Fund to establish a graduate fellowship endowment in global climate change. Administered jointly by the departments of Geology and Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, the fellowship is awarded to students working with faculty associated with ESSIC.
 
Michael E. Fisher, Physics and IPST, Christopher Jarzynski and Jan Sengers, both IPST, gave invited presentations at the 100th Statistical Mechanics conference held at Rutgers University, December 13-18.  
 
Rosemary Killen, Astronomy, discussed new discoveries derived from observations of sodium, calcium, and magnesium in the nightside and tail regions of the exosphere at the AGU Fall meeting, December 15-16.  The MESSENGER presentations were made in three separate sessions, the first of which was webcast.


Victor Yakovenko, Physics, spent the first part of his sabbatical at the Laboratoire de Physique Theorique et Modeles Statistiques, Orsay, France. During his stay he gave eight invited talks including talks at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, the Laboratoire National des Champs Magnetiques Pulses, Toulouse and the Universita Cattolica del Sacro, Milan.  
 
The Department of Physics and the Condensed Matter Theory Center have established the Richard Prange Prize and Lectureship in Condensed Matter Theory and Related Areas. The Prize honors Professor Prange, who died in September 2008, and whose distinguished career at Maryland spanned four decades.  

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Phil Arkin, ESSIC, was quoted in The DC Examiner, December 12, in an article on January’s Inauguration Day and the weather.
 
“Dinosaurs: The Most Complete, Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages," written by Thomas Holtz, Geology is an AAAS/Subaru finalist in the 2009 Science Books and Films Prizes for Excellence in Science Books.  Descriptions of the 19 finalists, chosen by panels of librarians, educators and scientists, were presented in the December 5 edition of Science.  Holtz was also quoted in the National Geographic News, December 12, in an article on new 3-D scans of dinosaurs’ skulls.
 
Jordan Goodman, Physics, was quoted in Discovery News, December 12, on the possible sources of two nearby regions with an unexpected excess of cosmic rays recently discovered by the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory.
 
Wolfgang Losert, Physics, was quoted in Discovery News, December 2, on the creation of a light-weight, cigarette-sized anchor that burrows itself into the sea floor.  The anchor is based on the oblong-shaped razor clam, Ensis directus.
 
Dzmitry Matsukevich, Physics, co-authored an article for Nature Physics, December 7, reporting a quantum memory using the magnetically insensitive clock transition in atomic rubidium confined in a one-dimensional optical lattice.  A follow-up article appeared on PhysOrg.com, January 2.
 
Robert Park, Physics, was quoted in the Seattle Times, December 21, in an article on Ron Ace’s idea to cool the planet by evaporating water.  He was also quoted in the Baltimore Personal Finance Examiner, December 6, in an article on Blacklight Power’s claim of “hydrinos,” a previously unknown form of hydrogen, with a follow-up article in the Columbia Journalism Review, December 15.  The Atlantic Magazine, December 14, quoted Park in an article on the nomination of Steven Chu as the new Secretary of Energy.
 
Christopher Reynolds, Astronomy, was mentioned in ScienceDaily, December 16, in an article on research conducted by Reynolds et al., published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, on seeing the shape of material around black holes for the first time.  

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Stewart Bushong, 1959 B.S. Physics, is the Vice President and Medical Director, HealthHelp, Houston, TX. Bushong received his master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh and spent three decades as professor and chief of the radiology department’s radiologic sciences division at Baylor College of Medicine.

David Eisner, 1990 B.S. Computer Science, was quoted in the Washington Business Journal, December 15, in an article on the souring economy.  Eisner is President and CEO of Dataprise Inc.

Charles Martin, 1986 B.S. Physics, is the Wireless Chief Technology Officer, Huawei Technologies, Richardson, TX. Previously Martin was Nortel’s Director of WiMAX Network and Systems Product Line Management.

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WE GREATLY ENCOURAGE ALL OUR READERS TO KEEP US INFORMED OF THEIR NEWS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

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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