Siegfried Hecker awarded 2008 Los Alamos Medal
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Siegfried S. Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Robert Cowan, a laboratory fellow, have been awarded the 2008 Los Alamos Medal, the institution's most prestigious award.
Established in 2001, the medal is the highest honor the laboratory can bestow upon an individual or small group. Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio will present the medals to Hecker and Cowan during a formal awards ceremony and reception.
Recipients of the award are selected by a review committee on the basis of whether they have "made a contribution that changed the course of science, facilitated a major enhancement to the laboratory's ability to accomplish its mission, had a significant impact on lab sustainability, and established a major direction for the institution or the nation."
Hecker was selected "based on his many important and signature contributions to scientific research as a technical staff member, to the management of science at Los Alamos during his brief but critical leadership of the emergent Center for Materials Science and later as laboratory director, and to national policy, including stockpile stewardship and plutonium aging, engaging Russian nuclear weapons scientists after the collapse of the Soviet Union, promoting the importance of the study of terrorism as an emerging threat, and acting as a senior representative of the nuclear weapons complex in the North Korea nuclear weapons situation," the committee wrote.
Hecker's contributions to the science of plutonium metallurgy and his scientific leadership have been recognized by election to the National Academy of Engineering, as a member of the American Physical Society, as a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hecker also has received the U.S. Department of Energy's E.O. Lawrence Award.
As laboratory director, Hecker helped transition the laboratory to a post-Cold-War environment and promoted collaboration with Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the ex-Soviet stockpile of fissile materials. "As both a scientist and as a manager, Hecker was a passionate and eloquent spokesman for science, a legacy that will continue to be felt at Los Alamos for many years," the committee wrote.
Hecker and Cowan join a distinguished coterie of past Los Alamos Medal winners, including Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, former laboratory Director Harold Agnew and Louis Rosen, father of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center.
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Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of oil in the Niger Delta
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Michael Watts, PhD, is a Professor of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley. His interests include the political economy and ecology in Africa and South Asia, US agriculture, and Islamic social movements. Less specifically, Watts is also interested in development, peasant societies, and social and cultural theory.
His recent publications include Afflicted Powers, 2005 and Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, 2004, as well as many journal articles and invited papers.
Ed Kashi, is a photojournalist, filmmaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. A sensitive eye and an intimate relationship to his subjects are the signatures of his work.
Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His innovative approach to photography and filmmaking produced the Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook. Using stills in a moving image format, this creative and thoughtprovoking form of visual storytelling has been shown in many film festivals and as part of a series of exhibitions on the Iraq War at The George Eastman House. Also, an eight-year personal project completed in 2003, Aging in America: The Years Ahead, created a traveling exhibition, an award-winning documentary film, a website and a book which was named one of the best photo books of 2003 by American Photo. Along with numerous awards, including honors from Pictures of the Year International, World Press Foundation, Communication Arts and American Photography, Kashi’s editorial assignments and personal projects have generated four books. In 2008, his latest books will be published; Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta and Three.
CO-SPONSORED BY CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES
» http://www.powerhousebooks.com/blackgold.pdf
» http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/
» http://curseoftheblackgold.blogspot.com/
Oksenberg Conference Room
Michael J. Watts
Professor of Geography
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University of California at Berkeley, co-sponsored by Center for African Studies
Ed Kashi
Photo journalist, filmaker
Speaker
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Gender, Aging, and Health in China
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Dr. Shea will talk with us about her research on menopause and aging among Chinese women and issues surrounding romance, sex, and marriage in later life in mainland China, as part three of the colloquium series on "The Implications of Demographic Change in China," co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Asia Health Policy Program.
A sociocultural anthropologist who specializes in medical and psychological anthropology and Chinese culture, Dr. Shea's research interests include gender issues, health and healing, aging and the lifecycle, and intergenerational issues. She has spent three cumulative years living, studying, and doing research in the People's Republic of China.
Dr. Shea earned a B.A. in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College in 1989, followed by an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1994 and 1998.
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Jeanne Shea
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Speaker
University of Vermont
Seminars
