Yale Bulletin and Calendar

December 1, 2006|Volume 35, Number 12|Two-Week Issue

Fellow scientists honor four Yale
researchers as AAAS Fellows

Four Yale faculty members have been awarded the distinction of AAAS Fellow, an honor bestowed upon members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) by their peers.

The AAAS honors members as fellows in recognition of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The new fellows will be inducted at the Fellows Forum on Feb. 17, during the 2007 AAAS annual meeting in San Francisco.

The tradition of naming AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the association's 24 sections, by any three fellows who are current AAAS members not affiliated with the nominee's institution, or by the AAAS chief executive officer. After a review by the steering group, the AAAS Council votes on the aggregate list.

Announcement of this year's AAAS Fellows was published in the AAAS "News & Notes" section of the journal Science on Nov. 24. The following are the Yale faculty members who were named fellows and a description of their accomplishments by the AAAS.

John R. Carlson, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, was named a fellow in the Section on Neuroscience for "outstanding contributions to the molecular neurobiology of olfaction, making elegant use of Drosophila to reveal the roles of odorant receptor proteins in smell."

Arthur Horwich, professor of genetics and of pediatrics and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, was named a fellow in the Section on Biological Sciences for "outstanding contributions to our understanding of the role of chaperonins in mediating protein-folding, particularly for structural and functional studies of GroEL."

Oswald J. Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology and associate dean of academic affairs at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and director of its Center for Biodiversity Conservation and Science, was named a fellow in the Section on Biological Sciences for "distinguished fundamental contributions towards understanding the emergence and maintenance of ecosystem structure and functioning, and for relating ecosystem patterns to individual behaviors."

Kurt W. Zilm, professor of chemistry and chemical engineering, was named a fellow in the Section on Chemistry for "pioneering accomplishments in applications of solid-state NMR spectroscopy to molecular structure and reaction mechanism determination, and for dedication to pre-college and undergraduate science education."

The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society and is the publisher of the journal Science. It was founded in 1848, and includes 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. The non-profit AAAS is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy, international programs, science education and more.

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