TOP HONOR: President Clinton presented the National Medal of Science to chemistry professor John Ross and 11 other researchers in a March White House ceremony. Established by Congress in 1959, the medal is the nation's highest scientific honor. Ross was singled out for his work in physical chemistry, especially in molecular studies, statistical mechanics and the chemical kinetics of nonlinear systems, and for opening up new fields in chemical science.
EXCELLENCE IN ENGINEERING: Franklin Orr, '69, dean of the School of Earth Sciences, and David Kelley, MS '78, associate professor of mechanical engineering, were elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Orr specializes in the quantitative aspects of fluid behavior in porous media. Kelley, who is also the founder of IDEO Product Development, has created objects as diverse as the lavatory sign on an airplane, the 3-ton mechanical whale used in the movie Free Willy and the original Apple computer mouse. The election of Orr and Kelley brings the number of Stanford academy members to 80.
GREAT THINKERS: Karl Pribram, professor emeritus of psychiatry, who discovered the functions of several regions of the brain, will receive the first Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Prize, awarded by the president of the Czech Republic to "great thinkers." Calvin Quate, MS '47, PhD '50, research professor of electrical engineering, won both the Third Millennium Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the 2000 Joseph F. Keithley Award from the American Physical Society. Zhi-Xun Shen, PhD '89, associate professor of applied physics and of physics, received the H. Kamerlingh Onnes Prize for his work on the electron structure of semiconductors.
