In the News
Science carried a feature article on ICTP in
its 11 April edition examining the key role that ICTP has played
as a bridge between scientific communities--both North and South,
East and West. The article also looked at the current and future
challenges that the Centre faces. Meanwhile, Nature and
Physics World published articles on the Workshop on Capacity
Building for Academies in Countries with Predominantly Muslim
Communities and Symposium on Science, Religion and Values, which
took place on the ICTP campus on 5-7 March. The events were cosponsored
by the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), the Third
World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the US National Academy of Sciences,
the Organization of the Islamic Conference's Standing Committee
on Scientific and Technical Cooperation (COMSTECH) and the Islamic
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO). For
copies of the articles, please contact sci_info@ictp.trieste.it.
John B. Fenn, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry
in 2002, lectured at ICTP on 27 June at a Joint ICTP-Democritos
Colloquium. His talk, "Electrospray Wings for Molecular Elephants,"
examined the scientific foundation and subsequent development
of electrospray mass spectrometry (EMS), for which he won the
Nobel Prize. The technique, which allows for the attainment of
virtually fragmentation-free mass spectra of proteins and other
macromolecules, has revolutionised many areas of chemistry and
biochemistry. Born in 1917, Fenn is professor emeritus at Virginia
Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA.
Ramadas Ramakrishnan has joined ICTP's Mathematics group.
He assumed his position in May. Before arriving in Trieste, he
was a professor at the Department of Mathematics, Universite
de Montpellier II, France and, for 25 years, a researcher
at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India.
Ramakrishnan has also served as a researcher at the Institute
for Advanced Study at Princeton, NJ, USA, and a visiting professor
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. His major research
areas focus on the interface between geometry and physics. In
1988, he was awarded the Bhatnagar Prize of the Indian Council
of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India's highest
science award.
The American Physical Society (APS) 2003 Prizes winners include
two scientists who have had close association with ICTP.
Frank Wilczek, recipient of the J.E. Lilienfeld Prize,
was awarded the Dirac Medal of the ICTP in 1994.
Boris Altshuler, recipient of the O.E. Buckley Prize, is
director of ICTP's training activities on mesoscopic physics.
APS also recently announced the selection of 192 new fellows.
Forty-one of the new fellows-more than 20 percent of the total-have
an affiliation with ICTP, including
Masatoshi Koshiba, Nobel Laureate in physics 2002, who last
visited ICTP in 1998, and
Alexei M. Tsvelik, director of ICTP's workshops in strongly
correlated electron systems.
S. George H. Philander, professor of meteorology, Department
of Geosciences, Princeton University, USA, and a member of the
ICTP Scientific Council since 1996, is among the 187 new fellows
elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), headquartered
in Washington, DC.
Giuliano Francesco Panza, head of ICTP's Structure and
Non-Linear Dynamics of the Earth (SAND) group and professor of
seismology at the University of Trieste, has been elected a foreign
member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Three years ago, the
European Geophysical Union honoured Panza with the prestigious
Beno Gutenberg Medal for his research on earthquake prediction.
ICTP's senior associate Panamalai Ramarao Parthasarathy,
professor, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology,
Chennai, has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (IMS), based in Beachwood, Ohio, USA.
ICTP's regular associate Surender Dhankhar Singh, Department
of Agricultural Meteorology, Haryana Agricultural University,
India, has been awarded two national gold medals by India's president,
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Singh was honoured for his research on regional
monsoon dynamics and its relation to El Niño/La Niña
phenomenon.