Briefs

Mung Chiang, a Princeton engineering professor who studies the communications networks integral to modern society, received a 2007 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Chiang, an associate professor of electrical engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, was one of 67 scientists who received the awards at a ceremony held at the White House on Dec. 19.

The annual awards are given to early career engineers and scientists whose work “shows exceptional promise for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge,” according to a statement from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The award is considered the nation’s highest honor for researchers at the beginning of their independent scientific careers.

Chiang was recognized for his research on communication networks such as those that serve as the basis of the Internet, broadband access and wireless services. The citation for his award noted his “fundamental contributions to optimization, distributed algorithm and stochastic analysis of communication networks, leadership in the networking research community and mentorship of undergraduates.”

Robert George, Princeton’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, received the Presidential Citizens Medal at a ceremony at the White House on Dec. 10. The medal, awarded in recognition of exemplary deeds of service to the nation, is one of the highest honors a president can confer on a civilian.

George, a distinguished constitutional scholar, is the director of Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and a member of the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics. Last spring he received the Heritage Foundation’s $25,000 Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship for embodying the virtues of America’s founders. He was selected in November as the U.S. member of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology, an advisory board of the United Nations.

Two Princeton alumni, Wendy Kopp and James Billington, also were among the 24 recipients honored by President George W. Bush. More than 100 people have received the medal since it was established in 1969.

Three chosen for endowed professorships

Three faculty members have been named to endowed professorships, effective Sept. 1, 2008. They are:

• Sandra Bermann, the Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and professor of comparative literature.

• Paul DiMaggio, the A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs.

• Annabella Selloni, the David B. Jones Professor of Chemistry.