Vol. 11, Issue 291 - Wednesday, October 18, 2006

SHINING STARS

4 UH professors earn national honors

The University of Hawaii-Manoa has four professors who are members of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and three have academy medals for outstanding achievements.

The three who have received National Academy of Sciences Medals, awarded only once every three years, are:

» Klaus Wyrtki, professor emeritus of oceanography, who holds the Alexander Agassiz Medal for his pioneering studies of ocean circulation, the Southern Oscillation and El Niño.

» Klaus Keil, planetary scientist and former interim dean of the School of Ocean, Earth Science and Technology, who received the J. Lawrence Smith Medal for his studies of minerals of meteorites and the origin of the solar system.

» Steven Stanley, a leader in paleobiology who holds the Mary Clark Thompson Medal for studies of mollusks and how they and other organisms evolved as the global carbonate cycle changed over geologic time.

Oceanographer Dave Karl, the fourth honoree, is one of the nation's leading microbial biologists and principal investigator for the Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and Education. He was elected this year to the National Academy of Sciences and also to the American Academy of Microbiology.

"Shining Stars" runs Monday through Thursday.