Caltech Names Four Distinguished Alumni
PASADENA, Calif.-- Since 1966, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has acknowledged a select group of graduates' achievements by honoring them with the Institute's Distinguished Alumni Award. This is the highest honor the Institute bestows.
A committee of senior administrators, faculty, and alumni chooses the award recipients, whose selection is then confirmed by the Board of Trustees. The award may be in recognition of a particular achievement, a series of achievements, or a career of accomplishment. This year, Caltech will present four graduates with the award: leaders in aeronautics, industry, academia, and even an origami artist.
The 2009 Distinguished Alumni are David B. Kirk (MS '90 Computer Science, PhD '93 Computer Science); Robert J. Lang, (BS '82 Electrical Engineering, PhD '86 Applied Physics); François M. M. Morel (MS '68 Civil Engineering, PhD '72 Engineering Science) and David W. Thompson (MS '78 Aeronautics).
David B. Kirk has long been known for his contributions to graphics hardware and algorithm research. By the time he began his studies at Caltech, he had already earned BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and worked as an engineer for Raster Technologies and Hewlett-Packard's Apollo Systems Division. As chief scientist at NVIDIA, a leader in visual computing technologies, he has led graphics-technology development for some of today's most popular consumer-entertainment platforms. For his role in providing mass-market graphics capabilities previously available only on workstations costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, Kirk received the 2002 Computer Graphics Achievement Award from the Association for Computing Machinery and the Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Technology (ACM SIGGRAPH) and, in 2006, was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers.
Robert J. Lang was an avid student of origami for more than 30 years and is regarded as a leading master of the art, with over 500 designs catalogued and diagrammed. Lang's work combines aspects of the Western school of mathematical origami design with the Eastern emphasis on line and form to yield models that are distinctive, elegant, and challenging to fold. His work has been shown in Paris's Carrousel du Louvre; New York's Museum of Modern Art; the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, Massachusetts; San Diego's Mingei International Museum; and the Nippon Origami Museum, in Kaga, Japan, among others. In 1992, Lang became the first Westerner invited to address the Nippon Origami Association's annual meeting, and he has been an invited guest at international origami conventions around the world. A pioneer of the cross-disciplinary marriage of origami with mathematics, Lang has been one of the few Western columnists for Origami Tanteidan Magazine, the journal of the Japan Origami Academic Society. He is the author or coauthor of eight books and has consulted on applying origami to engineering problems ranging from air-bag design to expandable space telescopes.
François M. M. Morel is The Albert G. Blanke Professor of Geosciences and director of the Center for Environmental BioInorganic Chemistry at Princeton University, and is considered a leader in the aquatic and marine sciences and one of the foremost biogeoscientists working today. Morel's work blends geochemistry, microbiology, biochemistry, and genetics in an attempt to understand how ocean life depends on its chemical environment and in turn shapes that environment, and he is renowned for how effectively he has shared that vision with students and colleagues. In addition to his current positions, he served as director of the Princeton Environmental Institute from 1998 to 2006 and as a member of the Princeton University Press editorial board from 1991 to 2004. His many honors include the Clair Patterson Medal, the Maurice Ewing Medal, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and he is a fellow of the Geochemical Society and the American Geophysical Union. An environmental consultant to private firms and public interest groups, he has served on a number of national scientific committees and has been a member of the visiting committee for Caltech's geological and planetary sciences division since 2000.
David W. Thompson has been chairman and chief executive officer of Orbital Sciences Corporation since cofounding the company in 1982. One of America's leading space-related R&D and manufacturing companies, Orbital provides affordable space systems to commercial and government customers worldwide and has performed over 675 rocket launches and satellite deployments in support of commercial communications, Earth and space science, and national defense. Before cofounding Orbital, Thompson served as special assistant to the president of Hughes Aircraft's Missile Systems Group, and as a project manager and engineer on advanced rocket engines at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Thompson's many honors include the National Medal of Technology, the National Air and Space Museum Trophy, the Arthur C. Clarke Lifetime Achievement Award, and the World Technology Award for Space. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and the International Academy of Astronautics, he is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Astronautical Society, and the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Recipients receive an engraved Tiffany bowl and a framed calligraphy certificate, and their names will be added to a plaque at the Caltech Alumni House.
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