Temple University Professor Receives
Award for Public Understanding of S&T

For his tireless efforts to communicate the joy of mathematics to the public, Temple University Professor John Allen Paulos has been named to receive the highly coveted 2003 AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

Paulos has made mathematics understandable to audiences in the United States and abroad. He has written seven books. Innumeracy spent 18 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and, following publication, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper became number one on the Amazon.com bestseller list.

In reviewing, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market (22 June 2003), Steve Pearlstein, of The Washington Post wrote: "John Allen Paulos is a genius at translating the arcane and complex for the rest of us in ways that go down as easily, and enjoyably, as vanilla ice cream. ... His tour of the literature takes in all the paradoxes, fallacies and theories about markets, skillfully blending the math and economics and, most important, the psychology of it all. You won't come away with any surefire investment strategy, but you will understand why anyone who purports to have one almost certainly doesn't. This book should be required reading for anyone opening a brokerage account."

Perhaps best known for his monthly column on ABCNews.com, Paulos addresses issues in the news that have a mathematical twist to them.

During the 2000 presidential elections, for example, Paulos contributed pieces that led to a number of media appearances and much commentary, most notably a citation by the Florida Supreme Court. He has appeared frequently on television and radio, including interviews with the "Today Show," "20/20," "the Lehrer News Hour," "David Letterman," and "Larry King." Paulos has also written many opinion pieces for periodicals ranging from the The Nation and The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal and Daily News, and his work has been cited favorably by commentators as disparate as Molly Ivins, Jeff Greenfield and Stephen Jay Gould.

For more information on John Allen Paulos, please visit http://www.math.temple.edu/~paulos/.

The AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science & Technology, established in 1987, recognizes scientists and engineers who make outstanding contributions to the "popularization of science." A monetary prize of $5,000, a commemorative plaque and other honors are bestowed upon winners of the AAAS award. For more background on the award, please see http://www.aaas.org/about/awards/Public.shtml

—Monica Amarelo

23 December 2003