"The Housewives of Mannheim," a play by Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody, has won the Bloomington Playwrights Project (BPP) Reva Shiner Full Length Play Contest. There were more than 300 entries for the BPP award, which includes a cash prize and full production of the winning play. The drama, set in 1944 working-class Brooklyn, deals with homosexuality, anti-Semitism and gender roles. It will be staged Feb. 9-25 at the BPP's new theater in Bloomington, Ind. For more information, visit www.newplays.org.
Javier Garcia-Martinez, a recent MIT postdoctoral fellow, has been named one of Europe's top younger chemists of 2005 and awarded the Europa Medal and 1,000 euro prize for his work on a novel form of carbon prepared by self-assembly. Garcia-Martinez conducted the prize-winning research on nanostructured carbon while working as a postdoc in MIT's chemical engineering department.
Michael Athans, professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, received a medal from the Polish Academy of Sciences on June 30 for his contributions to optimal control, following his plenary lecture at the 25th Polish Automation Conference in Warsaw. He was also elected a life fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, effective Jan. 1, 2006. Athans has been a visiting research professor at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal, for the past five years.
Richard Locke, Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science and director of the Sloan School's Global Entrepreneurship Laboratory, was recently recognized as a Beyond Grey Pinstripes Faculty Pioneer by the Aspen Institute. Locke is one of six faculty members in the nation to receive this year's honor, which goes to "exceptional scholars and excellent teachers who are leading the way in incorporating social and environmental issues into their teaching and research."
Arup K. Chakraborty, Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering, professor of chemistry and professor of biological engineering, recently received the Presidential Citation for Outstanding Achievement from University of Delaware President David P. Roselle.
Chakraborty, who earned a Ph.D. from the University of Delaware in 1989, was one of six Delaware alumni honored with the award, which went to Delaware graduates of the past 20 years who "exhibit great promise in their professional and public service activities."
Professor Paul Lagace of aeronautics/astronautics has been elected a fellow by the American Society of Composites. Fellows are long-standing members of the society who have made significant contributions to the advancement of composite technology.
Ramana Nanda, a Ph.D. candidate in strategy and international management at the Sloan School of Management, has won the Kauffman Dissertation Fellowship for his dissertation research program. Nanda is doing large-scale studies of entrepreneurial activities in Denmark and India.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on December 21, 2005 (download PDF).
