Davidson Receives National Medal of Science
Kakiuchi Receives Japan's Order of the Rising Sun
A Statistical Honor for Thompson and Raftery
Listing of Additional A&S Awards and Honors

Ernest Davidson Receives National Medal of Science

	Ernest Davidson.

Weeks before Ernest Davidson rejoined the A&S faculty as professor emeritus of chemistry, he received one of the highest honors awarded to U.S. scientists: the President’s National Medal of Science.

President George W. Bush presented the medal to Davidson and 14 other honorees at a White House ceremony on June 13. The medal recognizes Americans who have made significant and lasting contributions to science.

Davidson was on the UW faculty from 1962 to 1984, then became a professor and chair of the University of Indiana Department of Chemistry before returning to the UW this year.

Early in his career, Davidson combined theory and computers to better understand the way atoms and subatomic particles move. In pioneering the field of computational quantum chemistry, he fundamentally improved scientists’ ability to predict the outcome of chemical reactions. As a result, his work has indelibly touched a wide range of research areas, from materials engineering to the development of pharmaceuticals.

One colleague told the selection committee for the medal that “Davidson changed our understanding of the structure of matter.” Another said that Davidson’s calculations “set standards for decades.”

The annual presentation of the President’s National Medal of Science began in 1962. It is administered by the National Science Foundation with the support of Congress.

Kakiuchi Receives Japan's Order of the Rising Sun

George Kakiuchi, professor emeritus of geography, has received one of Japan’s highest honors: the Order of the Rising Sun.

George Kakiuchi, center, displays his Order of the Rising Sun award with Consul General Fumiko Saiga and Kayoko Kakiuchi at the May 24, 2002 ceremony.

The award is the highest imperial honor to a civilian. It was given in recognition of Kakiuchi’s research, which has focused on the changing nature and organization of agriculture in Japan—from subsistence farming to large-scale cooperatives—and the consequent migration of people from rural to urban areas.

Throughout his career, Kakiuchi has maintained close contact with many of Japan’s academic geographers and their students. Several times a year, he assists delegations of researchers, teachers, and students—making arrangements, organizing lectures, and leading field trips of Washington State agriculture. Through decades of writing, travel, and support for Japanese understanding of the U.S., he has influenced generations of Japanese scholars and non-scholars. Thus, it was fitting that he be one of the few non-Japanese citizens to receive the award each year.

Kakiuchi’s first trip to Japan was in the 1940s, under quite different circumstances. Born in California and sent to an internment camp during World War II, Kakiuchi decided to join the Army after the war. The Army sent him to Japan to interrogate Japanese prisoners of war upon their return from camps in the Soviet Union.

After his military service, Kakiuchi studied at the University of Michigan, earning a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. He then joined the UW faculty in 1957 and taught at the University until retiring in 1990. Since retiring, he has remained an active presence as a professor emeritus.

The Emperor of Japan awarded Kakiuchi the Order of the Rising Sun in April, and Consul General Fumiko Saiga presented the award and medal to Kakiuchi at a ceremony in Seattle in May.

A Statistical Honor for Thompson and Raftery

You may not hear their names in casual conversation—unless you are a statistician—but UW professors Elizabeth Thompson and Adrian Raftery have the distinction of being among the world’s ten most cited mathematical scientists during the past decade.

Thompson, professor of statistics and biostatistics, was ranked fourth, and Adrian Raftery, professor of statistics and sociology, was ranked ninth.

“The reason there are so many statisticians—there are eight—among the ten most cited mathematical scientists is that statisticians tend to work with scientists in other fields,” says Peter Guttorp, chair of the Department of Statistics, “and if the work is important, it tends to be cited in these fields.”

As an example, one of Thompson’s papers has had 752 citations, in journals of wildlife management, genetics, molecular ecology, forensic science, cancer research, biology, aquaculture, chemistry, scientific justice, and more.

Guttorp points out that another UW statistics professor, Julian Besag, had the most cited paper in the department, mentioned in an even wider range of journals. But the paper was not published during the last ten years and therefore did not make the list.

The rankings, covering the period 1991-2001, were compiled by the Institute for Scientific Information, which publishes the Science Citation Index and the Web of Science.

Additional Awards, Honors, and Professorships

Christopher Bretherton, professor of atmospheric sciences and applied mathematics, was awarded the American Meteorological Society Editor’s Award. The citation was “for insightful reviews of papers on planetary boundary layers and clouds for the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.”

The Department of Geography has received a 2002 Gold Star Department Award from the UW’s Graduate and Professional Student Senate in recognition of excellence in student services.

Dennis L. Hartmann, professor of atmospheric sciences, was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and cited for “fundamental contributions to understanding of planetary-scale climate fluctuations.”

Sarah Keller, assistant professor of chemistry, has received a Research Innovation Award from Research Corporation and a National Science Foundation Career Award 2002.

Ivan King, research professor of astronomy, received an honorary degree, Laurea Honoris Causa, from the University of Padua.

Richard S. Kirkendall, Bullitt Professor Emeritus of History, has received the Distinguished Service Award from the Organization of American Historians, one of the two largest organizations of historians in the U.S.

Matthew Krashan, director of Meany Hall’s UW World Series, received the Jerry Willis Award, the highest honor of the Western Arts Alliance. The award honors “artistic excellence and extraordinary leadership in service to Western communities and to the performing arts.”

Margaret Levi, Jere L. Bacharach Professor of International Studies and professor of political science, has been elected Vice President of the American Political Science Association.

Celia Lowe, assistant professor of anthropology, has received a Ciriacy Wantrup Fellowshop at University of California, Berkeley.

Pierre MacKay, professor emeritus of classics, served as Elizabeth A. Whitehead Visiting Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.

Katharyne Mitchell, associate professor of geography, has been named a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavorial Sciences at Palo Alto. The Center awards residential postdoctoral fellowships to scientists and scholars who show exceptional accomplishment or promise.

Martina Morris and Mark Handcock, both professors of statistics and sociology, have received the Richard A. Lester prize from Princeton University for their recent book, Divergent Paths: Economic Mobility in the New American Labor Market.

Pradipsinh Rathod, professor of chemistry, has been awarded the Global Infectious Diseases Senior Scholar Award by the Ellison Medical Foundation for 2002.

Jaromir Ruzicka, professor of chemistry, has received a 2003 Fulbright Research Professorship.

Bradley Smull, research associate professor of atmospheric sciences, was given the NOAA Award for Sustained Superior Performance.

Michael Ward, professor of political science, and Patrick Heagerty, associate professor of biostatistics, have won the Miller Prize for the best article published in volume 10 of Political Analysis.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names recently designated a ridge in Antarctica on Ross Island “Warren Ridge,” named after Stephen G. Warren, professor of atmospheric sciences, who investigated climate processes on the Antarctic plateau in four deployments to the South Pole Station, including the full year of 1992 as station science leader.

John D. Wilkerson, associate professor of political science, won the American Political Science Association’s Information Technology and Politics Award for best academic website, for his site LEGSIM: Legislative Simulation, which provides an experiential learning environment where students organize and run their own legislature on the web.

[Autumn 2002 - Table of Contents]