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Awards & Honors

Berners-Lee
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Berners-Lee

Jim Garcia , 43, a Lincoln Lab Group 71 mechanical engineer and MIT alumnus (S.B. 1980, S.M.), was named USA Track & Field 's first Athlete of the Week for 2001. He was recognized for claiming the 2001 National 50K Trail Championship on Dec. 29, which he did by winning the Huff 50K Trail Run, one of the 10 largest ultramarathons in North America, in a time of 3 hours and 39 minutes. (An ultramarathon is any footrace exceeding the marathon length of 26.2 miles.) That's an average pace of 6 minutes, 34 seconds a mile over nearly 32 miles on tough and icy terrain. Garcia has been a member of the US National 100K team (see MIT Tech Talk Aug. 29, 2001). This is Garcia's second national championship in 2001; he also won the 2001 National 100 Kilometer Championship.

The Academy of the American Society for Healthy Aging (ASHA) has selected Professor Leonard Guarente to receive its first annual award for significant contributions to the field of aging research. The award honors a researcher "whose work has most significantly contributed to the world's understanding and/or intervention of the aging process."

Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium and senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS), was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering's first Sir Frank Whittle medal on Jan. 3 by Sir Alec Broers, vice chancellor of Cambridge University and president of the Royal Academy of Engineering. Berners-Lee, who was born and raised in London, was recognized for "creating the World Wide Web, which in just 10 years has connected millions of people all over the world, enabling them to work together, trade and manage information in real time." The award, created and named in honor of Britain's jet engine pioneer, recognizes engineering developments that contribute to the well-being of the United Kingdom.

"Tim Berners-Lee is one of a select handful of engineers whose inventions have brought the world together," said Ann Dowling, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Cambridge and Chairman of the Academy's awards committee.

Two Lincoln Laboratory engineers have been elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Dr. Serpil Ayasli, associate leader of Group 45, was honored for her contributions to the development of military radars. Dr. Kenneth D. Senne, head of Division 10, was recognized for his contributions to the development of real-time adaptive signal processing systems for defense applications.

Dr. Tso Yee Fan, assistant leader of Lincoln Laboratory's Group 82, has been elected a Fellow of the Optical Society of America for the development of diode pumped solid-state lasers, particularly Yb-Yag, and for innovations in laser beam combining.

Professor of History John Dower has won the Yamagata Banto prize for promoting Japanese culture abroad. The Osaka prefectural government in western Japan, sponsor of the award, said Dower "succinctly depicted postwar Japan and its people in his latest book, 'Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.'" The book won the Pulitzer Prize in Letters for General Nonfiction (see MIT Tech Talk, April 12, 2000 ). Dower will receive the 3 million yen prize at an award ceremony in March. The prize, established in 1982, is named after Yamagata Banto (1748-1821), an Osaka rice merchant and scholar.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 9, 2002.

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