Department of Chemistry, Columbia University

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Congratulations to Professor Gerard Parkin on receiving a 2008 Presidential Teaching Award. The presidential awards honor the best of Columbia's teachers for the influence they have on the development of their students and their part in maintaining the university's longstanding reputation for educational excellence. Each year, the president of the university writes to faculty, students, and alumni asking for nominations for the awards, which are announced at the spring commencement ceremony. More information can be found on the university's teaching award website.

Columbia Professor Louis Brus is among the first recipients of the Kavli Prize, awarded to pioneering scientists who "...have transformed human knowledge in the fields of nanoscience, neuroscience and astrophysics." The awardees were announced during a live simulcast between Oslo and New York at the opening ceremony of the World Science Festival, which included an address by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

The winners will each receive a scroll and medal and share a $1M
prize awarded under each category. Professor Brus was awarded the
nanoscience prize along with Sumio Iijima, of Meijo University in
Japan. More information can be found on the Columbia University website.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences today released the names of its newly elected members, among whom is Professor Rich Friesner. You can view the announcement at www.amacad.org/news/new2008.aspx. Congratulations to Rich. Only nine chemists were elected to the AAAS this year, and only four Columbia faculty were selected.

A special double-issue (Volume 20, Issues 3,4) of the international journal chirality, has been published to honor Dr. Nina Berova, Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, in recognition of her “four decades of dedication to the promotion of organic stereochemistry and chiroptical spectroscopy.”