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April 20, 2004 |
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By Kim McDonald
M. Brian Maple, Bernd
T. Matthias professor of physics and director of UCSD’s Institute for Pure
and Applied Physical Sciences, and Charles S. Zuker, a professor of biology
and of neurosciences at UCSD, were among the 72 new members and 18 foreign
associates from 13 countries elected to the academy this morning “in
recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original
research.” Their election brings
the number of current faculty members at UCSD who are members of the
National Academy of Sciences to 71, ranking the university seventh in the
nation in the number of academy members. The National Academy of Sciences,
established by Congress in 1863, serves as an official adviser to the
federal government on matters of science and technology.
Mark Thiemens, Dean of
UCSD’s Division of Physical Sciences, and Eduardo Macagno, Dean of UCSD’s
Division of Biological Sciences, noted that “The election of Professor
Maple and Professor Zuker to the academy today is a testament to their
scientific achievements and underscores the intellectual vitality of UCSD’s
two science divisions.” “It’s often said that
Roger Revelle built this university from the top down by recruiting members
of the National Academy of Sciences to UCSD. But much of our scientific
talent, as demonstrated by the election today, resides in the faculty who
have developed and established themselves at UCSD,” added the two deans. Maple received his
doctorate in physics from UCSD in 1969, working under the renowned UCSD
physicist Bernd Matthias, and was named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year
at UCSD in 1987. An expert on high-temperature superconductors—materials
that lose all resistance to electricity at commercially attainable, cold
temperatures—he presided over the celebrated high-temperature
superconductivity session, dubbed the “Woodstock of Physics,” during the American
Physical Society’s March meeting in 1987. His research interests also
include magnetism, low-temperature physics, high-pressure physics and
surface science. Maple has been on the faculty at UCSD since 1973. Zuker, a 46-year-old
neurobiologist, was born in Chile and moved to the U.S. to obtain his
doctorate in molecular biology from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Zuker is also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
and has been on the faculty at UCSD since 1987. Recently elected to the
Academy of Arts and Sciences, Zuker and his colleagues in his laboratory
employ a combined molecular, genetic, and physiological approach to
investigate the biology of sensory transduction mechanisms in
photoreceptors, mechanoreceptors and taste receptors. |
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