Five from MIT named AAAS fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently awarded the distinction of fellow to 702 scientists, including five members of the MIT community.

Fellows are recognized by their peers for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue pin (representing science and engineering, respectively) on Feb. 16, 2013, at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston.

The following individuals are new AAAS fellows:

• Jianzhu Chen, the Ivan R. Cottrell Professor of Immunology, for distinguished contributions to immunology, particularly for innovation of immunological methods and contributions to cellular and molecular mechanism of immune recognition and memory;
• Sallie Chisholm, the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies, for distinguished contributions to biological oceanography, especially for pioneering studies on the most abundant primary producer on the planet, the marine microorganism Prochlorococcus;
• Mandana Sassanfar, an instructor in the Department of Biology, for distinguished contributions to undergraduate biochemistry teaching, as a senior teaching fellow at the Derek Bok Center at Harvard University, and for receiving the Summer Institute Award for Teacher Education from the Massachusetts Department of Education;
• Karen Sollins, principal research scientist in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, for notable contributions in computer privacy, security and distributed systems architecture; and
• Samuel Ting, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Physics, for distinguished contributions to particle physics, particularly the installation of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station.