Rice Professor Named to Russian Academy

Contact: Michael Berryhill
Phone: (713) 527-4943

Rice Professor Named to Russian Academy

Manik Talwani, the Schlumberger professor of geophysics at Rice University since 1985 who also works at the Geotechnology Research Institute at the Houston Advanced Research Center, has been named a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.

The academy is the successor organization to the Soviet Academy of Science. It is composed of scholars from Russia and around the world.

Russia is the second country to confer a distinction on Talwani. In 1987, he was elected a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Talwani received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award for leading the team that developed the first lunar gravity meter used on Apollo 17.

The U.S. Navy and Geophysical Union jointly awarded Talwani the Maurice Ewing Medal, the highest award in oceanography. The Rice professor’s use of gravity, magnetic and seismic data to model crustal structure in the world’s oceans has formed the basis of study by numerous scientists.

In 1986, in cooperation with scientists and researchers at a number of U.S. universities and institutes, Talwani launched Project Edge to investigate the geological structure of the U.S. continental margin using techniques developed by the energy industry.

He invented devices widely used in the measurement of gravity aboard surface ships. Computer programs he developed in the 1960s to model gravity and magnetic anomalies are still used throughout the world.

Talwani received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and served as professor of geophysics there through 1982. In 1981, he was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Oslo for his pioneering geophysical work in the Norwegian Sea.

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