Curl Elected AAAS Fellow

Curl Elected AAAS Fellow

BY LIA UNRAU
Rice News Staff
May 28, 1998

Robert Curl, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Natural Science, was
elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) on April
17.

Also elected this spring was alumnus Louis Brus ’65, currently a professor
in the department of chemistry at Columbia University, and a member of the Scientific
Advisory Board of Rice’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

Nobel laureate Curl joins four other Rice faculty as fellows of the academy:
David Auston, provost; Michael Carroll, dean of the school of engineering; James
Kinsey, dean of the school of natural sciences; and Richard Smalley, the Gene
and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and professor of physics.

Two emeritus faculty are also fellows of AAAS: William Gordon, distinguished
professor emeritus of space physics and astronomy and of electrical and computer
engineering, and Norman Hackerman, president emeritus and distinguished professor
emeritus of chemistry.

The academy was founded in 1780 by John Adams and other leaders to create a
"learned society to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance
the interest, honor, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous
people." Through interdisciplinary and collaborative projects and publications,
such as the journal Daedalus, the academy works to exchange ideas and promote
knowledge in the public interest.

Curl joins a membership of about 4,000 fellows nationwide, including 160 Nobel
laureates and 65 Pulitzer Prize winners, who have been recognized for their
contributions to sciences, scholarship, public affairs and the arts. New fellows
will be formally inducted in ceremonies Oct. 3 at the House of the Academy in
Cambridge, Mass.

For related information visit the following Web site:
Wiess School of Natural Sciences: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~nsci/