��������� The Mount Holyoke Club of Boston will present its fourth annual Mary Lyon Spirit Award on March 4 to Professor of Physics Emerita Vera Kistiakowsky, who graduated from the college in 1948. The award was established to honor Boston-area women who exhibit leadership, a pioneering spirit and the belief in advancement through education. Professor Kistia-kowsky is the author of more than 70 scientific papers. Her 1978 article, "Baccalaureate Origins of American Scientists and Scholars," demonstrated the special contributions of women's colleges in the physical and life sciences.
��������� Institute Professor Noam Chomsky of linguistics will be one of nine recipients of honorary doctorates in June from the University of Western Ontario. He will speak to graduating students from the Faculties of Arts and Music during the university's spring convocation. The Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, is the 18th honorary degree for Professor Chomsky, a renowned linguist and political commentator.
��������� Dr. Robert S. Langer, the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, is the first recipient of the Pierre Galletti Award, an honor established by the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) to recognize "contributions to public awareness of medical and biological engineering, and the promotion of the national interest in science, engineering and education." The award was presented at last week's AIMBE ninth annual event, "Functional Replacement of Organs: Opportunities and Challenges for Bioengineering."
��������� Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II by John W. Dower, the Elting E. Morisson Professor of History, has won another award&emdash;the L.L. Winship Award for the year's best book with a New England author or subject.
Embracing Defeat has already won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and the John Fairbank Prize for Asian History. It is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a prize Professor Dower won in 1987 for War Without Mercy, an account of World War II in the Pacific.
The award was announced March 5 by PEN/New England and will be presented on April 9 at the Kennedy Library.
��������� James C. Weaver, senior scientist in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) and associate director of the HST Biomedical Engineering Center, was inducted March 10 as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) for his work in electrical effects in cells and tissues. His research has included minimally invasive drug delivery by physical methods; theory of biological effects due to strong and weak electromagnetic fields; microdrop technology for high throughput screening of cells based on protein secretion and other cellular functions; sensor technology; and superfluid helium.
��������� L. Mahadevan, the van Tassel Associate Professor in mechanical engineering, has been selected as an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator. He is one of 26 researchers selected nationwide from 178 applicants for the award.
��������� Assistant Professor Bevin P. Engelward of the Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Health has received one of 11 New Investigator Awards in the Pharmacological or Toxicological Sciences by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
The 2000 awards were given "to scientists who hold promise for bringing new ways of thinking and new experimental approaches to their fields." Each award provides $210,000 over a period of three years beginning July 1.
Professor Engleward won the award to study "Fluorescent Detection of Loss of Heterozygosity in Mammals."������
��������� Institute Professor Sheila Widnall of aeronautics and astronautics, former secretary of the Air Force, is one of three new members appointed to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution by the US House of Representatives. The Smithsonian, established in 1846 and based in Washington, DC, is composed of 16 museums and galleries and the National Zoo and numerous research facilities in the United States and abroad.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 29, 2000.
