People
Briefs
Three Princeton faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year. They are among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates chosen in recognition of their distinguished and continuing accomplishments in original research.
The inductees are: Emily Carter, the Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Applied and Computational Mathematics; José Scheinkman, the Theodore A. Wells ’29 Professor of Economics; and, as a foreign associate, Rosemary Grant (United Kingdom), senior research biologist in ecology and evolutionary biology.
Two faculty members at the Institute for Advanced Study who have strong ties to Princeton also were elected: Eric Maskin, who won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics, and Nathan Seiberg. Maskin is a visiting lecturer with the rank of professor in economics at the University, and Seiberg is a visiting lecturer with the rank of professor in physics at Princeton.
Membership in the academy is one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States. Briefs
John Groves, the Hugh Stott Taylor Chair in Chemistry, will receive the Frontiers in Biological Chemistry Award for 2009 from the Max Planck Institute for Bioinorganic Chemistry in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany.
The award was established by the institute in 1995 to honor an internationally renowned scientist in the field of either bioinorganic chemistry or biological photochemistry. Awardees are invited to give a series of lectures. That event is capped by a special award lecture in which the honoree addresses a general audience. Groves is expected to receive his award next winter.
Groves’ work centers on understanding the molecular mechanisms of metalloproteins. He is known for his work with cytrochrome P450 enzymes, powerful proteins that detoxify materials in the bloodstream and play a key role in the body’s ability to metabolize drugs.
Groves came to Princeton in 1985 after teaching at the University of Michigan for 16 years, where he was director of the Michigan Center for Catalysis and Surface Science. Among his many honors, he is a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Four named to endowed professorships
Four faculty members have been named to endowed professorships. They are:
• Michael Aizenman, the Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics, effective July 1, 2008.
• Manjul Bhargava, the Henry Burchard Fine Professor of Mathematics, effective Feb. 1, 2009, to June 30, 2009.
• János Kollár, the Henry Burchard Fine Professor of Mathematics, effective Sept. 1, 2008, to Jan. 31, 2009.
• Deborah Prentice, the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Psychology, effective July 1, 2008.
