PROVIDENCE – Five Brown University faculty members have been honored as fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
• David M. Berson, the university’s Sidney A. Fox and Dorothea Doctors Fox Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.
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Berson was recognized for his contributions to visual neuroscience. His lab explores structural and functional diversity among the ganglion cells of the eye, the retinal neurons that communicate directly with the brain, and currently is focusing on special cells that sense light directly and are active in functions including the synchronization of the “biological clock” with the rising and setting of the sun. A member of Brown’s Class of 1975, he has been neuroscience researcher for more than 30 years, and a Brown professor for 23 years.
• Mark D. Bertness, the Robert P. Brown Professor of Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
He was recognized for his outstanding mentoring of young researchers, as well as his contributions to marine ecology. Bertness and his students study the ecology and conservation of marine intertidal communities, examining New England’s salt marsh and rocky shore ecosystems. His previous awards include the 1999 Leduc Prize for Distinguished Teaching in the Life Sciences. Bertness also has served as the 2004 distinguished ecologist lecture at Mount Holyoke College and the 2004 visiting chair in ecology at the University of Groningen in Holland.
• John P. Donoghue, the university’s Henry Merritt Wriston Professor, director of the Brain Science Program at Brown and former chairman of the Department of Neuroscience.
He was honored for his interdisciplinary work exploring how the brain converts intention into movement. For more than 20 years, Donoghue has been performing research on brain-computer interfaces.
• Susan A. Gerbi, the George Eggleston Professor of Biochemistry in the Division of Biology and Medicine.
She was selected for her ongoing research. Gerbi is studying the initiation of DNA replication; she has developed a method of mapping the start site, at the nucleotide level. Recent results suggest a steroid-hormone receptor may play a direct role in the start of DNA replication. Her lab also studies the structure, evolution and biogenesis of ribosomes. Some of its findings open the door for a possible new class of antibiotics.
Gerbi previously has been awarded the R.I. Governor’s Award for Scientific Excellence and been elected president of the American Society for Cell Biology. She also has been active in training biomedical PhDs; has served on training, career and grant study panels for the National Institutes of Health and National Academy of Sciences; and has testified about graduate education before the U.S. Congress.
• Jimmy Xu, the Charles C. Tillinghast Jr. ’32 University Professor in the Division of Engineering and a professor of physics.
His interests include nanoscale science and technology, quantum photonics, aperiodic optics, semiconductor lasers, molecular electro-optics and collective behaviors of large coupled systems, the university said. Xu is currently performing research into carbon nanotube structures, physics, and applications; silicon lasers and sub-wavelength photonics; synthesis and non-lithographic fabrication and sciences of quantum-arrays made from metals, superconducting, molecules and semiconductors; DNA conductivity; and the physics of redox processes in proteins and cells.
They are among 486 scientists nationwide chosen this year from among the society’s membership. Fellows are elected by their peers in the AAAS. The group is the world’s largest general scientific society, founded in 1848. It has been selecting AAAS fellows since 1874. It also publishes the journal Science.
The new fellows were announced in the Dec. 19 issue of Science and will be honored in Chicago this February during a ceremony at the AAAS annual meeting.
Brown University is an Ivy League institution offering nearly 100 programs of study to its nearly 7,200 undergraduate, graduate and medical students. For more information, visit www.brown.edu.
