Author: Public Affairs

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Seismologist Marino Protti, who received his Ph.D. from the UC Santa Cruz Earth Sciences Department in 1994, has won the National Prize in Science from the Ministry of Science and Technology in Costa Rica. Protti, a professor at the Observatorio Vulcanologico y Sismologico de Costa Rica (OVSICORI), shared the prize with a mathematician…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Whether you’ve set sail in search of the Great White Whale or just an evening of fun, make sure to plot a course to "A Whale of an Auction," the largest annual fund-raising event for public education programs at Joseph M. Long Marine Laboratory of UC Santa Cruz. This year’s soiree, the twelfth…

Harry Noller, Robert L. Sinsheimer Professor of Molecular Biology, received the 1997 Alumni Achievement Award in Chemistry from the University of Oregon, where he earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1965. Noller joined the UCSC faculty in 1968 and now directs the Center for the Molecular Biology of RNA. He was elected to the National…

Developmental psychologist Campbell Leaper offers a first step for those who are concerned about gender inequality: Encourage girls and boys to play together. "If girls and boys don’t play together as children, how can we expect men and women to get along in the workplace or in love relationships?" asks Leaper. Leaper studies the role…

Dream expert Veronica Tonay was featured in an article in the Daily Herald, a Chicago newspaper. KUSP radio recently invited sociologist John Brown Childs to appear on the "Talk of the Bay" program. Childs, who was recently awarded a Fulbright Thomas Jefferson Chair award, is involved with the national urban youth antiviolence movement and Barrios…

Paleobiologist Richard Norris, who earned his B.S. with honors from UCSC’s Earth Sciences Department in 1982, made a big splash in the news in February by leading a team that investigated the biggest splash of all: the purported impact of a large meteorite in the Caribbean 65 million years ago. Norris, now an associate scientist…

Recommendations for creative action to maintain and build campus diversity are the goal of the newly formed Post-Prop. 209 Commission. "Although the passage of Prop. 209 stimulated students to respond, we don’t want merely to react," noted Professor Michael Cowan at the first meeting of the group on February 13. Rather, Cowan and his commission…

Phokion Kolaitis, a UCSC professor of computer science, has faced a number of challenges teaching the 85 to 100 students in his Introduction to Computer Science course. Many of these challenges–attendance problems, lack of appreciation of the subject’s core issues, and a wide range of student skills and expectations–are common to gateway classes such as…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Coral reefs, beautiful barometers of the health of the coastal environment, are in grave danger. Rapid human population growth leading to pollution, development, overfishing, warming, and other disturbances threaten to wipe out 20 to 30 percent of the world’s coral reefs by 2010, according to some estimates. Already, civilization has degraded about 10…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the country’s leading general scientific organization, has elected professor of biology Donald Potts of UC Santa Cruz to the rank of AAAS Fellow. According to the AAAS Council, fellows are members whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically…

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Arguably one of the most influential books ever written, Isaac Newton’s Principia stands as the foundation for much of modern science. Yet, with the release of editions of Newton’s other papers and letters, scholars are finding that there is still more to learn from and about the 300-year-old book. A symposium on these…

Donald Potts, professor of biology, was elected to the rank of AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This year, the AAAS Council elected 283 new fellows nationwide whose "efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished." Potts was honored for his significant…