Five from MIT named AAAS fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently awarded the distinction of fellow to 388 scientists, including five members of the MIT professors.

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. 15, 2014, at the AAAS annual meeting in Chicago. They will also be formally announced in the AAAS “News & Notes” section of the journal Science on Nov. 29.

The following MIT professors are new AAAS fellows:

• Robert Langer, the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT, for inventions and discoveries that led to the development of controlled drug release systems, engineered tissues, and new biomaterials;
• Thomas Herring, a professor of geophysics, for leadership in the use of space-geodetic measurements to study Earth system processes and the properties of the Earth;
• James Utterback, the David J. McGrath Jr. (1959) Professor of Management and Innovation, for distinguished contributions to the fields of technological and scientific innovation in engineering and industry through his longtime leadership efforts in research, teaching, and technology;
• Charles Leiserson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science, for distinguished contributions to the theory and practice of parallel and distributed computing, practical impact, and transfer of new knowledge to others; and
• Wayne O’Neil, a professor of linguistics, for distinguished contributions to work on the history of Germanic languages, and to developing ways of teaching scientific work on language in the schools.