Two MIT composers have received 1994 awards by the Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program (in partnership with the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the NEA). Professor John Harbison will write a 15-minute song cycle for baritone, which Sanford Sylvan will perform at five locations across the country, including Emmanuel Church in Boston. Associate Professor Evan Ziporyn and Robert Kyr will compose works for electronic instruments, percussion and Balinese gamelan, also to be performed at five locations nationally, including MIT.
Continuing on a musical note, Dr. Mark Harvey, lecturer in music, recently conducted the world premier performance of his composition, "The Seeker," commissioned by and presented as part of the 15th John Coltrane Memorial Concert at Northeastern University. He also has recently given lectures and presentations at the University of Chicago and the Andover Newton Theological School.
Dr. Shirley Jackson, professor of physics at Rutgers University, the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate from MIT and a Life Member of the MIT Corporation, has been nominated by President Clinton to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Dr. Ellen Crocker, a lecturer in the foreign languages and literature section, is one of 11 recipients of the 1994 Certificate of Merit for outstanding cheievement in furthering the teaching of German in US schools. The award was made by the American Association of Teachers of German and the Goethe Institute.
The Museum of Science has presented its 1994 Bradford Washburn Award for "an outstanding contribution toward public understanding and appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in our lives" to Paula S. Apsell, executive producer of NOVA, the public television science series produced by WGBH-TV, Channel 2, and director of the WGBH-TV Science Unit. Ms. Apsell was a 1983-1984 Vannevar Bush Fellow in the Public Understanding of Technology and Science. (The Bush fellowships were renamed in 1987 the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships.)
In 1987, the Washburn Award recipient was Professor Sheila E. Widnall of aeronautics and astronautics, who is on leave serving as Secretary of the Air Force.
A collection of short stories, Bewildered, Harold Faced the Day, has won this year's Capricord Fiction Award of the National Writer's Voice for Anthony Rogers, senior manager for operations in the Medical Department. Mr. Rogers, whose stories have been published in several literary journals, will present a reading of work from the cited manuscript next spring in New York City.
Several recent distinctions have come to Dr. Subra Suresh, Richard P. Simmons Professor of Metallurgy and professor of mechanical engineering. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Society for Materials International in recognition of his contribution to the understanding of fatigue fracture and micromechanisms of deformation of metals, ceramics and composites. He has also been invited to be one of two lecturers for the Midwest Mechanics Lecture Series. Finally, he has been selected as a principal editor for the international journals Acta Metallurgica et Materialia and Scripta Metallurgica et Materialia. He will be the editor for papers on all aspects of mechanical properties submited to both journals.
Two MIT students, Henrietta N. Edmonds, a graduate student in chemical oceanography from Fairfield, CT, and Tammy L. Stoops, a senior in nuclear engineering from Export, PA, have received $5,000 scholarships from the Boston Chapter of the ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) Foundation. The ARCS Foundation is a national women's organization dedicated to fostering scientific excellence through scholarships to outstanding students in the natural sciences, medicine and engineering. Selection of the students to receive the awards is made by the institutions receiving the funds.
Clarification: In the item that appeared last week announcing the Keck Foundation Award for engineering teaching excellence, it should have been made clear that the selection of Dr. John H. Lienhard V was made by MIT.
A version of this article appeared in the November 9, 1994 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 39, Number 11).
