Class
| • | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [X] |
| | 461 | Name: | Dr. Edward M. Purcell | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1954 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1912 | | | Death Date: | 3/7/97 | | | | |
| 462 | Name: | Dr. Helen R. Quinn | | | Institution: | SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | | | | |
Helen R. Quinn works as the Assistant to the Director for Education and Public Outreach and previously worked as a professor and chair of the PPA Faculty at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Helen Quinn's work with Georgi and Weinberg on the unification of gauge coupling constants still plays a central role in attempts to find a unified theory of all interactions. The mechanism she proposed with Peccei to assure parity and time-reversal invariance in strong interactions has had far-reaching consequences for model building and axion searches. Her recent research has focused on deciphering the details of the tiny violations of these symmetries. She is a member of the BABAR collaboration at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center that, together with the BELLE collaboration in Japan, provided the first evidence for such effects in B-mesons. She contributes to the Particle Data Group, which maintains an updated compilation of data in particle physics and cosmology, and has been active in outreach and education efforts. She has done important service for the national physics community, in particular as president of the American Physical Society. She was the 2000 winner of the Dirac Medal and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1998) and the National Academy of Sciences (2003). In 2016 she was awarded the AIP Karl Compton Medal. | |
| 463 | Name: | Dr. Michael O. Rabin | | | Institution: | Hebrew University & Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1988 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1931 | | | | | | |
Michael Rabin earned his M.Sc. from the Hebrew University and his Ph.D. from Princeton University, where he received his first academic appointment. Later he served as a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study and as a member of the faculty at the Hebrew University, serving as its Rector (Academic Head) from 1972-75. He was also Saville Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and Steward Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. From 1982-94 he served on the IBM Science Advisory Committee. Dr. Rabin's research interests include complexity of computations, efficient algorithms, randomized algorithms, DNA to DNA Computing, parallel and distributed computation and computer security. Among his inventions are (with Y. Aumann and Y.Z. Ding) Hyper-Encryption, the first ever encryption scheme probably providing everlasting secrecy against a computationally unbounded adversary; (with S.Micali and J. Kilian) Zero Knowledge Sets, a new primitive for privacy and security protocols; and (with W. Yang and H. Rao) a micro chip for physical generation of a strong stream of truly random bits. Dr. Rubin's accomplishments have been recognized with awards including the ACM Turing Award in Computer Science, the ACM Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award, the Rothschild Prize in Mathematics, the Weizmann Prize in Exact Sciences, the IEEE Charles Babbage Award and the Harvey Prize for Science and Technology. He is a member or foreign honorary member to academies including the National Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Since 1980 he has been Albert Einstein Professor of Mathematics at Hebrew University and since 1983 has served as Thomas J. Watson, Sr., Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University. | |
| 464 | Name: | Dr. V. Ramanathan | | | Institution: | Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego | | | Year Elected: | 2006 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1944 | | | | | | |
V. (Ram) Ramanathan is the Victor C. Alderson Professor of Applied Ocean Sciences & Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California, San Diego, where he also directs the Center for Atmospheric Sciences. He is the Chairman of the UNEP sponsored Atmospheric Brown Cloud Project and was the co-chief scientist for the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX), which led to the discovery of the South Asian brown haze. Dr. Ramanathan has made fundamental contributions to our modern understanding of global climate change and human impacts on climate and environment. He is widely recognized for establishing the impacts of non-CO2 trace gases in climate, particularly the contributions of chlorofluorocarbons as well as tropospheric and stratospheric ozone and for his research in understanding the effects of water vapor, clouds and aerosols in global climate change. More recently he demonstrated that soot can play an unexpectedly large role in global dimming. His work on the trace gas greenhouse effect linked chemistry in a fundamental way to climate, while his work on the radiative effects of tropospheric ozone and soot linked air pollution strongly with global warming. He was the first to demonstrate in 1975 that CFCs are major greenhouse gases and that adding one molecule of CFC to the atmosphere has the same greenhouse effect of adding more than 10,000 molecules of CO2. He then led a WMO study which concluded that numerous trace gases are significant contributors to global warming. He followed this up by predicting (with Madden) in 1980 that the global warming would be detectable by 2000, which was subsequently verified in 2001. He led innovative efforts to distinguish the effects of infrared absorption and reflection both by clouds and clear skies using global satellite data, and thereby provided new observational constraints on the influence of clouds in the Earth's energy budget. He also used the satellite data to show that water vapor greenhouse effect was a major amplifier of global warming. With Pitcher, et al., he played a key role in developing the first community climate model, now the major American climate simulation research model. During the 1990s, he designed and conducted two international field experiments, the Central Equatorial Pacific experiment with J. Kuettner and the Indian Ocean experiment with P. J. Crutzen. With INDOEX scientists from the U.S., Europe and India, he showed that black carbon and other aerosols in the widespread South Asian brown haze led to a large reduction of solar radiation reaching the surface (dimming) and increased solar heating of atmosphere with significant impacts on regional climate and monsoon rainfall. He is now studying the effects of Atmospheric Brown Clouds over Asia, including their effects on water and regional climate. For this purpose he is developing an observing system with light weight and long range unmanned aircraft vehicles with miniaturized instruments. He has received numerous honors including: the Buys Ballot Medal of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences given once every decade; the VOLVO environmental prize for pioneering work related to the greenhouse effect; the Rossby Medal which is the highest award given by the American Meteorological Society; induction into the National Academy of Sciences in April 2003; election by Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2004; the 2018 Mendel Medal from Villanova University; and the 2021 Blue Planet Prize of Japan's Asahi Glass Foundation. He has served on numerous national and international committees and has given expert testimonies in the U.S. Congress. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2006. | |
| 465 | Name: | Dr. Simon Ramo | | | Institution: | TRW Inc.; University of Southern California | | | Year Elected: | 1971 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 103. Engineering | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1913 | | | Death Date: | June 27, 2016 | | | | | | |
Simon Ramo is recognized as a statesman and executor of high technology. He co-founded two Fortune 500 companies, one of which (TRW) was an enormously successful defense electronics firm that designed the American intercontinental ballistic missiles. He provided technical advice and systems analysis to the first Air Force ballistic missile program which produced the Thor, Alas, and Titan missiles in a five to six-year time period. Dr. Ramo had advised presidents, Cabinet members and Congress on questions of defense and scientific policy and has published a dozen books on subjects ranging from technology to tennis. Born in Salt Lake City in 1913, he earned a Ph.D. magna cum laude from the California Institute of Technology in 1936. Prior to working in defense, he served as a research engineer at the General Electric Corporation, where he attained worldwide recognition as a pioneer in microwave technology and developed GE's electron microscope. By the end of World War II, he held 25 patents in electronics. Dr. Ramo served on the National Science Board. He was the recipient of a special citation of honor from the United States Air Force for his role as the leading civilian in the Air Force's ballistic missile program. He had also been awarded the National Medal of Science and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was inducted into the Business Hall of Fame, and his texts on science, engineering and management have been translated into many languages and are used in universities throughout the world. In January 2008 he joined the faculty of the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering as a presidential chair and professor of electrical engineering. He received his last patent, for a computer-based learning invention, at age 100. Simon Ramo died June 27, 2016, at age 103 at his home in Santa Monica, California. | |
| 466 | Name: | William Ramsay | | | Year Elected: | 1899 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1852 | | | | |
| 467 | Name: | Dr. Norman F. Ramsey | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1958 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1915 | | | Death Date: | November 4, 2011 | | | | | | |
Norman F. Ramsey won the Nobel Prize in 1989 for his work on the hydrogen maser and the atomic clock, which underpins the Global Positioning System and many other important technologies. He did his Ph.D. work under I.I. Rabi at Columbia University, and during WWII he worked on the Manhattan Project and at the MIT Radiation Lab on the development of radar. Dr. Ramsey then returned to Columbia as a professor, working with Rabi and others on molecular beam research. Together with Rabi, he laid the groundwork for the establishment of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and in 1946 he became the first head of its physics department. A year later, he accepted a professorship at Harvard University and remained at Harvard, becoming Higgins Professor of Physics Emeritus in 1986 although he continued his work through the early 90s. Dr. Ramsey was recognized with numerous prestigious research awards as well as the Oersted Medal in recognition of his contributions to physics and math teaching. A former Science Advisor to NATO, he has been honored with membership in the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Dr. Ramsey died on November 4, 2011, at the age of 96 in Wayland, Massachusetts. | |
| 468 | Name: | Dr. Lisa Randall | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1962 | | | | | | |
Lisa Randall's papers with Raman Sundrum on the brane-world with warped extra dimensions are two of the five most highly cited works in high energy theory in the last 20 years. This should not come as a surprise though, as the papers effectively open up new directions in so many different areas of particle theory. Her ideas have shaped the discourse in the field from collider phenomenology to cosmology. An unusually broad and powerful field theorist, Randall has also made important contributions to the theory of supersymmetry breaking and phenomenology, inflation, CP violation, electroweak radiative corrections, the axion, heavy quark physics, and dynamical symmetry breaking. Randall's book Warped Passages, describing the brane-world picture without mathematics, is remarkably successful outreach to the general public and was named a New York Times Notable Book in 2005. Her recent books include Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminated the Universe and the Modern World (with Gino Segre, 2012) and Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe (2015). She has received the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro Chisesi Award from the University of Rome (2003), the Klopsteg Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers (2006), and the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize from the American Physical Society (2007).
Lisa Randall earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1987 and held professorships at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University before returning to Harvard in 2001. She currently serves as Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Lisa Randall was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010. | |
| 469 | Name: | Dr. C. N. R. Rao | | | Institution: | Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research | | | Year Elected: | 1995 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1934 | | | | | | |
Prof. C.N.R. Rao (born on 30 June 1934, Bangalore, India) is the National Research Professor as well as Honorary President and Linus Pauling Research Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. He is also an Honorary Professor at the Indian Institute of Science. His main research interests are in solid state and materials chemistry. He is an author of over 1400 research papers and 45 books. He received the M.Sc. Degree from Banaras, Ph.D. from Purdue, D.Sc. From Mysore universities and has received honoris causa doctorate degrees from 53 universities including Purdue, Bordeaux, Banaras, Delhi, Mysore, IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Novosibirsk, Oxford, Stellenbosch, Grenoble, Uppsala, Wales, Wroclaw, Caen, Khartoum, Calcutta, Sri Venkateswara University and Desikottama from Visva-Bharati.
Prof. Rao is a member of many of the major science academies in the world including the Royal Society, London, the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., the Russian Academy of Sciences, French Academy of Sciences, Japan Academy as well as the Polish, Czechoslovakian, Serbian, Slovenian, Brazil, Spanish, Korean and African Academies and the American Philosophical Society. He is a Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of Academia Europaea and Foreign Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is on the editorial boards of several leading professional journals and is a distinguished visiting professor of the University of California and Cambridge University.
Among the various medals, honours and awards received by him, mention must be made of the Marlow Medal of the Faraday Society (1967), Bhatnagar Prize (1968), Padma Shri (1974), Centennial Foreign Fellowship of the American Chemical Society (1976), Royal Society of Chemistry (London) Medal (1981), Padma Vibhushan (1985), Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London (1989), Hevrovsky Gold Medal of the Czechoslovak Academy (1989), Blackett Lectureship of the Royal Society (1991), Einstein Gold Medal of UNESCO (1996), Linnett Professorship of the University of Cambridge (1998), Centenary Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, London (2000), the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society, London, for original discovery in physical sciences (2000), Karnataka Ratna (2001) by the Karnataka Government, the Order of Scientific Merit (Grand-Cross) from the President of Brazil (2002), Gauss Professorship of Germany (2003) and the Somiya Award of the International Union of Materials Research (2004). He is the first recipient of the India Science Award by the Government of India and received the Dan David Prize for science in the future dimension for his research in Materials Science in 2005. He was named as Chemical Pioneer by the American Institute of Chemists (2005), Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the President of the French Republic (2005) and received the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Physics, London (2006) and St. Catherine’s College, Oxford (2007). He received the Nikkei Asia Prize for Science, Technology and Innovation (2008). He was awarded the Royal Medal by the Royal Society (2009) and the August-Wilhelm-von-Hoffmann Medal for his outstanding contributions to chemistry by the German Chemical Society (2010). He received the Ernesto Illy Trieste Science Prize for materials research in 2011.
Prof. Rao is Chairman, Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, immediate past President of The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) and Member of the Atomic Energy Commission of India. He is Founder-President of both the Chemical Research Society of India and of the Materials Research Society of India. Prof. Rao was President of the Indian National Science Academy (1985-86), the Indian Academy of Sciences (1989-91), the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (1985-97). He was the Director of the Indian Institute of Science (1984-94), Chairman of the Science Advisory Council to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1985-89) and Chairman, Scientific Advisory Committee to the Union Cabinet (1997-98) and Albert Einstein Research Professor (1995-99). He was elected an International member of the American Philosophical Society in 1995. | |
| 470 | Name: | Dr. Marilyn Raphael | | | Institution: | University of California, Los Angeles; National Center for Atmospheric Research | | | Year Elected: | 2023 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1959 | | | | |
| 471 | Name: | John W. Strutt Rayleigh | | | Year Elected: | 1886 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1842 | | | | |
| 472 | Name: | Lord Martin Rees | | | Institution: | University of Cambridge | | | Year Elected: | 1993 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1942 | | | | | | |
Martin Rees is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal and also Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at Leicester University. After studying at the University of Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before becoming a professor at Sussex University. In 1973, he became a fellow of King's College and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge (continuing in the latter post until 1991) and served for ten years as director of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor. He is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pontifical Academy, and several other foreign academies. His awards include the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Balzan International Prize, the Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the Heineman Prize for Astrophysics (AAS/AIP), the Bower Award for Science of the Franklin Institute, the Cosmology Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation, the Einstein Award of the World Cultural Council, the Crafoord Prize (Royal Swedish Academy), the Lewis Thomas Prize (2009) from Rockefeller University in recognition of his book Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (2000), the 2011 Templeton Prize, and the 2012 Isaac Newton medal of the Institute of Physics. He has been president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1994-95) and the Royal Astronomical Society (1992-94) and a trustee of the British Museum, NESTA and the Kennedy Memorial Trust. He is currently on the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of Science and Industry the Institute for Public Policy Research, and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, and has served on many bodies connected with education, space research, arms control and international collaboration in science. In 2005 he was appointed to the House of Lords and elected President of the Royal Society. He is the author or co-author of more than 500 research papers, mainly on astrophysics and cosmology, and of numerous magazine and newspaper articles on scientific and general subjects. He is the author of several books, including From Here to Infinity: Scientific Horizons (2011) and On the Future (2018). He has broadcast and lectured widely and held various visiting professorships, etc. His main current research interests are high energy astrophysics, cosmic structure formation and general cosmological issues. | |
| 473 | Name: | Charles L. Reese | | | Year Elected: | 1922 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1862 | | | Death Date: | 4/12/40 | | | | |
| 474 | Name: | Dr. Tullio Regge | | | Institution: | Institute of Theoretical Physics, Turin | | | Year Elected: | 1982 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1931 | | | Death Date: | October 23, 2014 | | | | | | |
Tullio Regge was an Italian theoretical physicist known for his introduction of geometrical principles to the formulation of what have come to be called "Regge poles" and the "Regge calculus," a simplified form of general relativity. A graduate of the University of Rochester (Ph.D., 1956), Dr. Regge served as Professor of Theory and Relativity at the University of Turin beginning in 1962. For 12 years he was also a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University (1967-79). Winner of the 1996 Dirac Medal, Dr. Regge had also been awarded the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (1964), the Einstein Medal (1979) and Cecil Powell Medal (1987). In 1989 he was elected to the European Parliament. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1982. He died October 23, 2014, at the age of 83. | |
| 475 | Name: | Dr. Roger Revelle | | | Institution: | University of California, San Diego | | | Year Elected: | 1960 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1909 | | | Death Date: | 7/15/91 | | | | |
| 476 | Name: | Dr. Stuart Alan Rice | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 1986 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1932 | | | | | | |
Stuart A. Rice is the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus, in the Department of Chemistry and the James Franck Institute of the University of Chicago. He is currently Science Advisor to the Director of Argonne National Laboratory. Born in New York City in 1932, he received a B.S. degree from Brooklyn College in 1952 and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in, respectively, 1954 and 1955. His graduate research was carried out with Paul Doty. He was elected to the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, in 1955. After two years as a Junior Fellow he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he remained until retirement in 2004. He was selected to be the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor in 1977. He has carried out theoretical and experimental research in diverse areas of physical chemistry. He and his coworkers have published more than 650 papers dealing with polyelectrolyte solutions, helix-coil transitions in polypeptides and DNA, the transport of mass, energy and charge in liquids, diffusion in crystals, the equilibrium properties of dense fluids, the fluid-solid transition, exciton-exciton interactions in molecular crystals and polymers, exciton and charge carrier band structures of molecular crystals and liquids, structure of the liquid metal-vapor interface, pseudopotential theory of atomic and molecular electronic structure, radiationless transitions, non-statistical behavior in unimolecular reactions, structure and properties of water, quantum and classical deterministic chaos, collision induced mode specific state-to-state vibrational energy transfer, shaped laser field active control of molecular dynamics, structure of Langmuir monolayers, structure, phase transitions and diffusive motion in quasi-one and quasi-two-dimensional colloid assemblies, and miscellaneous other subjects. He has also co-authored four books: Polyelectrolyte Solutions (with Mitsuru Nagasawa); The Statistical Mechanics of Simple Liquids (with Peter Gray); Optical Control of Molecular Dynamics (with Meishan Zhao) and Physical Chemistry (with R. Steven Berry and John Ross). Amongst other public service activities, he has served on numerous advisory boards for Federal Agencies, was a member of the National Science Board from 1980-86 and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for about twenty years. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Irish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received four medals from the American Chemical Society (the Award in Pure Chemistry, the Baekland Award, the Debye Award, and the Hildebrand Award), as well as the Hirschfelder Prize in Theoretical Chemistry, the Willis Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics, the Centennial Medal of Harvard University and the National Medal of Science. | |
| 477 | Name: | Theodore W. Richards | | | Year Elected: | 1902 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1868 | | | Death Date: | 4/2/28 | | | | |
| 478 | Name: | Horace C. Richards | | | Year Elected: | 1907 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1868 | | | Death Date: | 5/20/45 | | | | |
| 479 | Name: | Dr. Rebecca Richards-Kortum | | | Institution: | Rice University | | | Year Elected: | 2017 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 103. Engineering | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1964 | | | | | | |
Guided by the belief that all of the world’s people deserve access to health innovation, Professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum’s research and teaching focus on developing low-cost, high-performance technology for low-resource settings. She is known for providing vulnerable populations in the developing world access to life-saving health technology, focusing on diseases and conditions that cause high morbidity and mortality, such as cervical and oral cancer, premature birth, and malaria. Professor Richards-Kortum’s work in appropriate point-of-care screening technologies has earned her induction into the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Rebecca is the Malcolm Gillis University Professor and a member of the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. After receiving a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1985, she continued her graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received an MS in Physics in 1987 and a PhD in Medical Physics in 1990. She joined the faculty in Bioengineering at Rice University in 2005 and served as Chair of Bioengineering from 2005-2008 and 2012-2014.
Dr. Richards-Kortum’s research group is developing miniature imaging systems to enable better screening for oral, esophageal, and cervical cancer and their precursors at the point-of-care. She led development of a novel high resolution microendoscope capable of real-time, subcellular imaging of epithelial tissue. Her team developed low-cost (<$2500), robust hardware platforms, including a tablet- and cell-phone based system. Together with colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine and the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, she has carried out clinical trials involving more than 1,000 patients, which show that the device has promise to improve early diagnosis of esophageal, oral, and cervical precancer. In a prospective, multi-center clinical trial carried out in the US and China, high resolution microendoscopy improved specificity for esophageal precancer from 29% to 79%, without reducing sensitivity. Clinical trials of over 15,000 patients in China, Brazil, and El Salvador are now underway.
Her group has integrated advances in nanotechnology and microfabrication to develop novel, low-cost sensors to detect infectious diseases at the point-of-care, including HIV, cryptosporidium, malaria, and Tuberculosis. Her group developed a low-cost sensor to detect hemoglobin concentration; the device reduced per test cost by more than 100-fold (less than US$0.01 per test) compared to standard care. She led development of novel nucleic acid tests to enable diagnosis of HIV in infants in low-resource settings, introducing the first integrated paper and plastic device for isothermal amplification of DNA.
Together with Maria Oden, Dr. Richards-Kortum led development and dissemination of low-cost, robust technologies to improve neonatal survival in sub-Saharan Africa. Her team developed a $160 bubble CPAP device to treat premature infants with respiratory distress; the device delivers the same flow and pressure as systems used in the US, at 30-fold cost reduction. Clinical evaluation showed that the device improved survival rates from 24% to 65%, mirroring the impact of CPAP when it was introduced in the US. The device has been implemented at all government hospitals in Malawi, and introduced in Zambia, Tanzania, and South Africa. In 2014, CPAP was recognized by the UN as one of 10 innovations that can save the lives of women and children now. The team is now developing a comprehensive set of technologies to enable essential newborn care at district hospitals in Africa, with the goal to equip a district hospital serving a catchment area of 250,000 people for less than $10,000. In 2018 Dr. Richards-Kortum was named a U.S. science envoy by the State Department.
At Rice University, Dr. Richards-Kortum has established new educational programs in global health technologies. She founded the Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB) program in which undergraduate students from multiple backgrounds learn to think beyond geographic and disciplinary boundaries to solve challenges in global health. In 2012, Science awarded BTB the Prize for Inquiry Based Instruction. In addition, the National Academy of Engineering recognized BTB with the Real-World Education Prize for successfully integrating real world experiences into undergraduate curriculum. BTB has also been recognized by ASEE with the Chester Carlson Award (2007) and with the IEEE Educational Activities Board Vice-President Recognition Award (2008).
Rebecca is married and has three sons, Alexander, Maxwell and Zachary and three daughters, Katie, Elizabeth, and Margaret. | |
| 480 | Name: | Sir Owen W. Richardson | | | Year Elected: | 1910 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1879 | | | | |
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