HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

AMS awards Veblen Prize to Harvard professor

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) awarded the Oswald Veblen Prize in Geometry last month to William Casper Graustein Professor of Mathematics Peter Kronheimer (along with his collaborator Tomasz Mrowka of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Given every three years, the Veblen Prize is one of the field's highest honors for work in geometry or topology.

According to the prize citation, Kronheimer and Mrowka were honored for their joint contributions to both three- and four-dimensional topology through the development of deep analytical techniques and applications. The citation pointed in particular to three seminal papers by Kronheimer and Mrowka: "Embedded Surfaces and the Structure of Donaldson's Polynomial Invariants," Journal of Differential Geography; "The Genus of Embedded Surfaces in the Projective Plane," Mathematical Research Letters; and "Witten's Conjecture and Property P," Geometry and Topology.

- Andrew Brooks

KSG student named 'Person of the Year' by ABC News

Rye Barcott, a student at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and founder of a nonprofit that works to improve the quality of life in one of Africa's largest slums, has been named a 2006 "Person of the Year" by ABC News.

Barcott, who founded Carolina for Kibera Inc., also known as CfK, was named a "Person of the Week" by ABC News in October 2006 for his work establishing and growing Carolina for Kibera since he first visited the slum in 2000.

Home to as many as a million people, the slum is on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya. Carolina for Kibera started as a youth athletic league but has grown to offer health services, an AIDS and reproductive health awareness center for teenage girls, and a garbage recycling program. A nursery school, started through CfK's efforts, has since become independent.

CfK serves roughly 25,000 people, according to Barcott, and was recognized by Time Magazine in 2005 as a "Hero of Global Health."

- Alvin Powell

Gingerich awarded Janssen Prize

Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and of the history of science emeritus, has been awarded the 2006 Janssen Prize by the Société Astronomique de France (French Astronomical Society). First established in 1897, this prestigious prize is awarded every year (alternately to a French and non-French scientist) to an astronomer of international reputation, both for his or her scientific achievements and for his or her contributions to the diffusion of astronomical knowledge to the public.

According to the award citation, Gingerich's scientific achievements include the study of stellar atmospheres. A senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Gingerich was one of the main proponents of the groundbreaking model of the solar photosphere known as the "Bilderberg model."

Carr Center names Arkin fellow

William Arkin will join the Kennedy School of Government's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy as a policy fellow for the spring semester, it was announced in January. A Washington Post online columnist and NBC News military analyst, Arkin is also an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies, U.S. Air Force, where he is completing a study of airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Arkin started his career as a U.S. Army intelligence analyst and has since worked in a variety of nongovernmental organizations on arms control and military affairs.

While at the Carr Center, Arkin will be completing a monograph titled "Why Civilians Die," based upon a comprehensive database of military conflicts in the precision era, and he will be completing his chapter for Sarah Sewall's upcoming edited volume, "In Search of the Perfect War," analyzing the civilian effects of collateral damage in recent U.S. wars.