Awards, People

AAAS elects 11 UC Berkeley faculty as fellows

By Sarah Yang

Eleven faculty members at the University of California, Berkeley, have been named 2011 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

The UC Berkeley researchers are among 539 new fellows chosen for this honor, which is bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers in recognition of their distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

The list of fellows, released Tuesday, Dec. 6, by the AAAS, will appear in the Dec. 23 issue of Science.

With this announcement, UC Berkeley now boasts 226 AAAS Fellows among its faculty. The new honorees and their citations are:

  • Robert Full, professor of integrative biology, for imaginative investigations in comparative locomotion biomechanics with models and robotics, and for his contributions as a prolific scientist with an outstanding ability to communicate the excitement of science to all.
  • Leslea Hlusko, professor of integrative biology, for distinguished contributions to the study of primate evolutionary biology, especially in relation to the integration of genetics and the fossil record.
  • Dan Kammen, professor of energy and resources, public policy and nuclear engineering, for demonstrating the value of rigorous interdisciplinary work combining technical expertise with policy analysis, with a particular focus on renewable energy systems in developing countries.
  • Randy Katz, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, for outstanding contributions to storage and networking systems, for distinguished national service, and for exemplary mentorship and teaching.
  • Chung-Pei Ma, professor of astronomy, for major contributions to theoretical astrophysics and cosmology, including relativistic cosmological perturbation theory, dark matter and dark energy properties, and galaxy formation and merger models.
  • Sheila McCormick, adjunct professor of plant and microbial biology, for distinguished contributions in the area of plant reproductive sciences, particularly for elucidating biological processes in pollen that lead to reproductive success.
  • Anastasios Melis, professor of plant and microbial biology, for pioneering contributions to our understanding of photosynthetic oxygen evolution and for opening the field of photosynthetic production biofuels.
  • Carolyn Merchant, professor of environmental science, policy and management, for distinguished contributions to the field of history and philosophy of science, particularly for the history of the scientific revolution and gender and science.
  • John Ohala, professor emeritus of linguistics, for distinguished contributions to phonetics and phonology, effectively championing empirical methods for relating language use and change to the physical properties of speech sounds.
  • Stuart Russell, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, for distinguished contributions to artificial intelligence, especially advances in decision-making systems, probabilistic reasoning, and machine learning.
  • Martin White, professor of physics and astronomy, for distinguished contributions to physical cosmology theory and data analysis pertaining to dark energy, the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure.

The AAAS will present the new fellows with a gold and blue rosette pin and an official certificate on Feb. 18, 2012, at the society’s annual meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

The society was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science serving 10 million individuals.

The tradition of AAAS Fellows, who are chosen by their peers, began in 1874. Members can be considered for the rank of AAAS Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the association’s 24 sections, or by any three fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee’s institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer.