Four MIT faculty members have been selected as Office of Naval Research Young Investigators.
They are Dr. Nesbitt W. Hagood IV, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics; Dr. Paul E. Laibinis, Texaco-Mangelsdorf Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering; Dr. Matthew A. Wilson, Edward J. Poitras Assistant Professor in Human Biology and Experimental Medicine; and Dr. Gregory W. Wornell, ITT Career Development Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Research Laboratory of Electronics.
The program is designed to attract young scientists and engineers who show exceptional promise for doing creative research and teaching.
"We believe that Young Investigators are the best and brightest young academic researchers this country has to offer, said Rear Adm. Marc Pelaez, Chief of Naval Research, in a letter to President Charles M. Vest.
The four MIT researchers were among 34 investigators selected from a group of 416 applicants.
"They emerged successfully from a very competitive pool because of their academic achievements, their abilities to contribute to the strength of the nation's research and development, and the commitment to them expressed by university administrators," Adm. Pelaez said.
Professor Hagood received three degrees from MIT, the SB in aeronautics and astronautics in 1985, the SM in 1988 and PhD in 1991. He joined the faculty in 1991 as Charles Stark Draper Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He heads the Active Materials Structure Laboratory.
Professor Laibinis received two SB degrees from MIT in 1985, in chemistry and chemical engineering, the AM in organic chemistry from Harvard in 1987 and the PhD from Harvard in 1991. He did postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology until 1993, when he joined the MIT faculty. He recently was awarded a Doherty Career Development Chair.
Professor Wilson received the BS in electrical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1983, the MS from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1986 and PhD from Caltech in 1990. He did postdoctoral research from 1990-92 and was an adjunct assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona from 1992-94, after which he came to MIT. He has a joint appointment in the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biology, and is associated with the Center for Learning and Memory.
Professor Wornell received the BASc degree in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1985, and the SM and PhD degrees from MIT in 1987 and 1991, the year he joined the MIT faculty. He is affiliated with the RLE's Digital Signal Processing group. During the 1992-93 academic year he was on leave at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
----------
Professor Peter Temin, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Economics, has been elected President of the Economic History Association for 1996-1997, and will give the Presidential address at the Association's annual meeting in September 1996. The Economic History Association was founded in 1940 to encourage and promote teaching, research and publication on every phase of economic history, and to encourage and assist in the preservation and administration of the materials for research in economic history.
----------
Two MIT scientists--Dr. Simone Hochgreb and Dr. Victor W. Wong--have been honored by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Dr. Hochgreb, Bradley Foundation Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, received the 1966 SAE Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award.
Recipients of the award are chosen on the basis of their academic training, contributions to teaching and research, and participation in extracurricular student involvement.
Dr. Hochgreb received a BS degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1985, and both the MA (1988) and PhD (1991) in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University.
Dr. Wong is a principal research scientist in the Energy Laboratory, manager of the Sloan Automotive Laboratory and a lecturer in mechanical engineering.
He and co-author Shumichi Aoyama of the Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., were recognized for the originality of their contribution to automotive engineering through the authoring of an SAE paper. They shared an Arch T. Colwell Merit Award, which is granted annually to recognize excellence of content and presentation of a technical paper in any field.
Dr. Wong and Mr. Aoyama, whose company sponsored the research, were cited for their paper, "A Numerical Model of Piston Secondary Motion and Piston Slap in Partially Flooded Elastohydrodynamic Skirt Lubrication." It was presented at SAE's 1994 International Congress & Exhibition.
Dr. Wong received the BS degree in engineering sciences from Dartmouth College in 1974, and both the SM (1976) and PhD 1978) in mechanical engineering from MIT. He worked at the Cummins Engineering Co. in Columbus, IN, before returning to MIT in 1986.
----------
Dr. Subra Suresh, R.P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has recently received several international honors.
He has been elected an honorary member of the Materials Research Society of India and a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He also delivered the Sauveur Lecture of the American Society of Materials International, New England Chapter, and he has been invited to give the closing plenary lecture at the international conference, Fatigue '96. The conference, which has more than 350 speakers from dozens of countries, will be held in Berlin during May with the German Materials Society as the host organization.
