AAAS Award Winners Have Had a Positive Impact for Science and Humanity

David Michaels, winner of the 2005 AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility

ST. LOUIS — An accomplished group of scientists and educators have been named the winners of AAAS’s annual awards, which represent some of the highest honors in science. They work in different fields and pursue different goals, but the 2005 AAAS award winners all have had a positive impact for science and humanity.

The announcements were made on the eve of the AAAS Annual Meeting, which will bring together thousands of researchers, educators, science aficionados and journalists from around the world to hear about some of the latest advances across the fields of science and engineering.

The awards will be presented Saturday 18 February in a ceremony beginning at 11:30 a.m. in the Renaissance Grant Hotel in St. Louis.

The winners:

• David Michaels is the winner of the 2005 AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, honored or his commitment to obtaining justice for workers who became ill after working in nuclear weapons programs and for advocating scientific integrity in public policy-making. Michaels is research professor and associate chair in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services, and directs the department’s doctoral program. From 1998 to 2001, Michaels served as Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he championed a decades-long struggle by workers who were seeking compensation for chronic and often fatal illnesses that may have been caused by exposure to materials used in the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Michaels took on powerful interests in his own agency and in the U.S. Department of Defense to uncover previously secret records documenting exposure to radiation and beryllium at work sites, as well as more than two dozen scientific studies demonstrating the high risk of cancer deaths among these workers.
  
  
• Norman R. Augustine, former chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp., won the 2005 AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Prize. Augustine was cited for his outstanding contributions to U.S. science and technology policy, his unrelenting work to maintain U.S. scientific and technological preeminence and his initiatives to strengthen the scientific partnerships between academia, industry and government. Augustine’s distinguished career spans 40 years and includes volunteer service to the government and science and technology communities. Today he is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council. Augustine “has helped to ensure that the United States remains at the forefront of scientific capability, thereby enhancing our ability to shape and improve our nation’s and the world’s future,” said Alan I Leshner, AAAS CEO and executive publisher of the journal Science.
  
  
• Sheila Browne, a chemistry professor and the Bertha Phillips Rodger Chair in Chemistry at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, received the 2005 AAAS Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement. Being the first in her extended family to complete high school, Browne overcame significant obstacles through the mentorship of teachers who encouraged her to envision a bigger future than she could see at that time. Today, Browne is an accomplished physical organic chemist. Browne has directed the bachelor’s or master’s theses of 79 women, 28 of whom went on to doctoral degrees and 31 of whom were minorities, and directed the doctoral work of two women.
  
  
• Karen L. Butler-Purry, an engineering professor at Texas A&M University, won the 2005 AAAS Mentor Award. She has mentored 18 underrepresented students through the doctoral level and has positively affected the lives of scores more undergraduate and graduate students both in the electrical engineering and computer sciences areas. To support student mentoring, Butler-Purry has secured grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Sloan Foundation and the NSF. Butler-Purry has been faculty advisor to the university’s chapters of the National Society of Black Engineers and the Society of Women Engineers; she initiated the Engineering Graduate Invitational at Texas A&M, which targets underrepresented students in engineering and encourages participants from minority-serving institutions.
  
  
• Jane Lubchenco has been named the winner of the 2005 AAAS Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award for her exemplary commitment to initiatives that communicate science and technology to broadly diverse audiences, ranging from business leaders to church groups and children. A marine ecologist by training, Lubchenco is engaged in a wide range activities to help address serious environmental problems by making the best possible information more accessible to government leaders and the public. She is the Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology and Distinguished Professor of Zoology at Oregon State University.
  
  
• A team of Russian and American scientists won the 2005 International Scientific Cooperation Award. The winners are Kyle T. Alfriend, Paul J. Cefola, Felix R. Hoots and P. Kenneth Seidelmann from the United States, and Andrey I. Nazarenko, Vasiliy S. Yurasov and Stanislav S. Veniaminov from Russia. Once adversaries, these dedicated scientists are honored for both their determination to transcend numerous limitations to collaboration and their pioneering work to advance state-of-the-art space surveillance in both countries for the benefit of the worldwide astrodynamics community and the safety of human activity in space.
  
  
• A 2004 Science paper showing the spin effects in semiconducting materials induced by electric fields along the length of the material has won the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the oldest award conferred by AAAS. The researchers are Yuichiro K. Kato, Roberto C. Myers, Arthur C. Gossard and David Awschalom. In a paper published 10 December 2004, they reported observing the spin Hall effect, the first time it has been seen in an experiment. The prize is supported by Affymetrix Inc., a pioneer in creating breakthrough tools that are driving the genomic revolution.

 

Read All About It! For more AAAS news from the 2006 Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Mo., click here.

[To see full stories on each of the awards, as well as coverage of some of the top people and key presentations in St. Louis, visit the AAAS Annual Meeting news page.]

Edward W. Lempinen

15 February 2006