HONORS & Other Things



For Work in Artificial Intelligence: Dr. Joshi

Dr. Aravind Joshi, co-director of the Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, is the 1997 recipient of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) Award for Research Excellence. Dr. Joshi, the Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science as well as Professor of Linguistics, will accept the award at the 1997 IJCAI Conference in Nagoya, Japan. The award, given only once every two years, is the highest honor given in the field of artificial intelligence and was last received by Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon in 1995; other past recipients include Ray Reiter (1993), Marvin Minsky (1991), Allen Newell (1989), and John McCarthy (1985).

Dr. Joshi was chosen for his fundamental contributions to computational linguistics and natural language processing. He particularly known as the inventor of tree-adjoining grammars (TAGs), and as a leader in the investigation of computationally tractable syntactic formalisms. He has also been a significant contributor to computational research on discourse, and he is extremely active in fostering interdisciplinary research and educational establishments in artificial intelligence and cognitive science in the United States and India.


International Programs Fund Awards

Three members of the faculty are winners of awards from the International Programs Fund, which supports area and international studies within the context of Penn's Agenda for Excellence. The winners and their projects:

Dr. Peter Berthold, professor of restorative dentistry, for "A study of the incidence of HIV related oral lesions in pregnant women in selected antenatal clinics in Malawi";

Dr. Susan Gennaro, associate professor of nursing and director of the Pereinatal Nursing Program, for "Women teaching women--an evaluation of an educational intervention in Malawi";

Dr. Barbara Medoff-Cooper, professor of nursing, for "Nutritive sucking: physiologic and behavioral correlates" (with Hadassah Hospital, Hebrew University).

For information on applying to this fund for 1998, please see the information in this issue.


Gimbel Award to Dr. Carino

Dr. Constance Carino, the emeritus professor of nursing who founded The Wellness Community in Philadelphia, was the 1996 recipient of the Allegheny University/Gimbel Philadelphia Award. Through the Wellness Community, created in 1993 on the premise that "Cancer patients who participate in their fight for recovery along with their health care team will improve the quality of their lives and may enhance the possibility of their recovery," over 1500 patients and family members have participated, free of charge, for a total of 14,450 visits.


Festschrift for Dr. Freyd

For the sixtieth birthday of Dr. Peter Freyd, professor of mathematics, the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra (116, 1997) has published a Festschrift in his honor, citing his influence on category theory especially through two of his books, Abelian Categories and Categories, Allegories, as well as influential papers such as Aspects of Topoi--and for his "... unstinting support for young mathematicians who come up to his exacting standards (coupled with an eagerness to debunk those who do not)."


....Among Other Things

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning gave its annual educator award to Penn's President Emeritus Martin Meyerson at the recent meeting in Toronto. Professor Meyerson, who chairs the Monell Chemical Senses Center, has also become chair of the Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation and has been reapppointed to the board of overseers of Turkey's Koç University. In addition, he was named an honorary professor of Beijing University; and is one of the few Americans appointed to the advisory group for the Japan Foundation/Center for Global Partnership.

Dr. Neal Nathanson, professor emeritus of microbiology/med, has been named to the National Institutes of Health's new AIDS vaccine committee, known as the Baltimore Committee for its head, the Nobel laureate David Baltimore. The 11-member body has a wide charge that includes "the possibility of cerating a centralized AIDS vaccine institute," according to Science February 21.


Note: Some foundations, such as the Guggenheim, notify the University centrally of awards made to Penn faculty, while others tell only the individual. Thus Almanac sometimes publishes piecemeal. Fulbright Awards are among those we cannot get from a central source unless we wait for a booklet due in August. We have been advised of one 1997 Fulbright Award to a faculty member (in neurosurgery) and are interested in knowing if there are others.--Ed.


Almanac

Volume 43 Number 28
April 1, 1997


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