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OUR GANGby Jeff Grabmeier Be not afraid of greatness. Ainissa G. Ramirez, a Yale assistant professor of engineering, as well as a science writer, was recently named one of the world’s top 100 young innovators by Technology Review magazine. The Technology Review 100 consist of individuals under age 35 whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact on today’s world. Ainissa, a materials scientist, has developed novel materials for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) by exploring how materials thinner than a human hair behave mechanically. She has also discovered metals that can strongly bond with hard-to-bond surfaces, such as glass and diamond. Find Ainissa at ainissa.ramirez@yale.edu. All the world’s her stage. The San Francisco Medical Society has named Ulysses Torassa recipient of the 2004 David Perlman Award for Excellence in Medical Journalism. Ulysses, medical writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, received the award for reporting on the complexities of Marin County’s high rate of breast cancer and for an article on a highly controversial method of therapy for brain-damaged children. The judges said Ulysses’ articles “stood out for being consistently well-written and researched.” Ulysses will receive a plaque and a $1,000 prize during the society’s annual dinner in January 2004. Ulysses is at utorassa@sfchronicle.com. Some that glitters IS gold. PIOs Joe Bonner and Cathy Yarbrough and their colleagues at Rockefeller University were recently honored in the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s Circle of Excellence competition. Joe and Cathy are part of the university’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs, which received a gold medal for research, medicine, and science news writing, and an overall grand gold award for excellence in news writing. Congratulations! Joe, who is director of communications, is at bonnerj@mail.rockefeller.edu. Yarbrough, vice president for communications, can be found at yarbroc@mail.rockefeller.edu. Why, then the world’s her oyster. Pamela Houghtaling has been awarded a 2003-04 U.S. Department of Commerce Science and Technology Fellowship, which includes a ten-month assignment with an agency of her choosing. Pam has selected the Office of Defense Research and Engineering at the Pentagon. For the past three years, Pam has been with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), most recently as marketing manager for NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory. Send your best wishes to Pam at pamhough@alumni.princeton.edu. Parting is such sweet sorrow. But then again, the University of Pennsylvania’s loss is Harvard’s gain. Steve Bradt has left Penn to become assistant director of communications for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. The new position will allow Steve to branch out from his exclusively science beat at Penn. “Still, to the extent that ‘science’ is a big part of FAS, I hope to remain plugged in to the science writing community,” he writes. Steve’s new coordinates are steve_bradt@harvard.edu. A Fellow by any other name… Congratulations are in order for San Francisco freelancer Andrew Fraknoi, who is also the chairman of the Foothill College Astronomy Department. Andrew became the first California community college educator to be named a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences for his contributions to the advancement of science. The academy is governed by a distinguished group of eminent scientists who have been appointed Fellows in recognition of their notable contributions to one or more of the natural sciences. Nominated by their colleagues and appointed by a board of trustees, the Fellows remain members of the Fellowship for life. Andrew is at fraknoiandrew@fhda.edu. Something was rotten in the city of Lakewood. But Walter Neary has promised to clean it up! Walter, assistant director for media and community relations for the University of Washington Health Sciences Center and UW School of Medicine, was recently elected to the City Council of Lakewood, Wash. Lakewood is a city of about 60,000 people just south of Tacoma. The big issues in Lakewood, says Walter, are rebuilding public confidence in the community after a lot of closed-door dealings and ending a contract with the county sheriff in order to start the city’s own police department. Walter’s political Web site is http://www.walterneary.net. Wherefore art thou, Elizabeth? One of the newer members of NASW is Elizabeth Tait, who recently moved to Philadelphia after a lifetime in Washington to assume the newly created position of manager, science communications, at the American Association for Cancer Research. AACR works to accelerate the prevention and cure of cancer through research, education, communication, and advocacy. [Elizabeth joined NASW at the behest of her new boss, Warren Froelich, formerly of The Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego.] Before joining AACR, Elizabeth worked at the National Science Foundation, Ketchum Public Relations, and the Smithsonian Institution. Elizabeth’s new home on the Internet is tait@aacr.org. All’s well that ends well. Freelancer Mignon Fogarty is part of a group hoping to relaunch GeneticHealth.com, a content-heavy Web site for which she was the editorial director during the dot-com heyday. The company went out of business, but a few key people from the company are volunteering their time to bringing back the content, with the ultimate goal of making it a nonprofit site. The site was not yet live at deadline, but Mignon hopes it will be by the time you read this. Mignon is at mignon@welltopia.com. To thine own self be true. David Malmquist has been named director of communications at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Dave was formerly a part-time science writer for VIMS. Chartered in 1940, VIMS is currently among the largest marine research and education centers in the United States. The VIMS School of Marine Science is the professional graduate school in marine science for the College of William & Mary. Dave’s e-mail is davem@vims.edu. Something scientific this way comes. Mari Jensen is a new science writer for the News Services Office at the University of Arizona. Mari will be covering the College of Science and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, especially biology and the life sciences. Immediately before joining UA, Mari was a freelance science writer and editor, writing for magazines that included Science and BioScience, being a conference reporter for the BioMedNet Web site, and editing a range of books and reports. You can find Mari at mnjensen@email.arizona.edu. O, what women dare do! Liza Gross left her job as a life sciences label writer and science writer at San Francisco’s Exploratorium to join the Public Library of Science. The PloS is a new nonprofit group dedicated to “making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.” PLoS’s first journal, PLoS Biology, aims to cover a wide range of the biological sciences, “from molecules to ecosystems.” Liza will help write reader-friendly synopses of the research articles, as well as other more accessible front matter, including, primers, essays, features, media reviews, and more. Liza’s new e-mail is lgross@plos.org. What a piece of work is Rick! How noble in reason! Our Gang editor emeritus Rick Borchelt may never reclaim the glory that comes from writing this column. But he is not resting idly on his laurels. Rick, who is director of communications and public affairs at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in Cambridge, was recently elected chair-elect of the AAAS Section on General Interest in Science and Engineering. He will begin his term at the end of the 2004 annual meeting and serve through the 2005 meeting. He will become chair in 2005-06 and retiring chair in 2006-07. Congratulations Rick! He can be reached at rick_borchelt@wi.mit.edu. As we like it. Freelancer Rob Kunzig is co-recipient of the first Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Ocean Science Journalism Award, given for contributions to the public understanding of oceanography. He was honored for his book Mapping the Deep: The Extraordinary Story of Ocean Science. The award comes with a $5,000 cash prize and memento. Send best wishes to Rob at robert.kunzig@wanadoo.fr. # Jeff Grabmeier is assistant director of research communications at Ohio State University in Columbus, OH. Send news about your life to Jeff at grabmeier@nasw.org. |
