The Monie A. Ferst Award This Sigma Xi award consists of a cash prize of $5,000 and a medal, and is given annually to a nationally prominent scientist who has made notable contributions to the motivation and encouragement of research through education, inspiring his or her research colleagues to significant scientific achievements. The award is given under the auspices of the Georgia Institute of Technology Chapter by a committee of three members of the Georgia Institute of Technology Chapter, the chair of the Society's Committee on Awards, and Sigma Xi's senior Southeast Regional Director. It is presented during a day-long symposium focusing on the achievements of winner's former doctoral students, research associates, and postdoctoral fellows as a tribute to the lasting influence of a distinguished teacher and scientist. The award is named for an outstanding engineer and businessman who received his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1911. While a student, Ferst became interested in scientific research conducted in an educational setting. In 1933, he and two other influential Georgians used their own funds to establish the Georgia Tech Research Institute, to enable faculty members to conduct research, in addition to teaching. Ferst's belief that it is necessary for professors to conduct scientific research in order to stay abreast of their fields and to generate enthusiasm in the classroom also led him to provide funding--during his lifetime and in perpetuity through the Ferst Foundation of Atlanta--for Sigma Xi research awards at Georgia Tech. As the culmination of his life-long concern, in 1975 his family and the Ferst Foundation established a $100,000 trust fund to provide income for the Georgia Tech Chapter of Sigma Xi to carry on the recognition of noteworthy contributions through the Monie A. Ferst Award.
Monie A. Ferst Award Recipients
2001 Michael J. Chamberlin, Biochemistry, University of California, Berkeley
2000 Dale W. Margerum, Chemistry, Purdue University
1999 Arthur W. Adamson, Chemistry, University of Southern California
1998 Chenming Hu, Electrical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley
1997 Leonard Kleinrock, Computer Science, University of California, Los
Angeles
1996 Marye Ann Fox, Physical Organic Chemistry, Chancellor, North Carolina
State
1995 Joseph A. Kuc, Plant Pathology, University of Kentucky, Lexington
1994 James M. Duncan, Civil Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute
and State University
1993 Ephraim M. Sparrow, Engineering, University of Minnesota
1992 Fred Basolo, Chemistry, Northwestern University
1991 Manuel Blum, Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley
1990 Fred Rapp, Microbiology and Immunology, Pennsylvania State University
1989 John W. Tukey, Statistics, Princeton University
1988 Nick Holonyak, Jr., Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois,
Urbana- Champaign
1987 Gilbert Stork, Chemistry, Columbia University
1986 Julian Schwinger, Physics, University of California, Los Angeles
1985 Norman F. Ramsey, Physics, Harvard University
1984 Richard J. Duffin, Mathematics, Carnegie Mellon University
1983 John C. Bailar, Jr., Inorganic Chemistry, University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign
1982 Nicholas J. Hoff, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University
1981 John A. Wheeler, Physics, Princeton University
1980 Ernest C. Pollard, Biophysics, Pennsylvania State University
1979 Richard L. Solomon, Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
1978 H.W. Liepmann, Aeronautics, California Institute of Technology
1977 E. Bright Wilson, Chemistry, Harvard University
Michael J. Chamberlin was born in Chicago in 1937, the oldest of five children. His father was an inventor, and his mother was a registered nurse and one of the first airline attendants in the United States. The Chamberlin family moved several times before settling in Evanston, Illinois, where Mike attended high school. An exceptional biology teacher, Mr. Murl Sailsbury, taught him that not all questions students ask should be answered by the teacher. At Harvard, Mike was mentored by John Edsall, and from there his graduate career at Stanford was marked by strong guiding inputs from both his thesis advisor, Paul Berg, and the department chair, Arthur Kornberg. Starting as a faculty member at Berkeley after receiving his Ph.D., Mike possessed a strong ethic of being an educator and a collaborator within the department. All of his 37 Ph.D. students experienced a laboratory environment of exceptional scientific rigor, which at the time may have seemed overdone, but which provided a solid grounding in science that came to be appreciated and understood. Mike has been honored often in his career, including his election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology. Always physically competitive, Mike was a 1976 Whitewater Canoeing National Champion in the team division, and more recently has excelled in local golf championships. However, the successes of his students are Mike Chamberlin's greatest scientific and personal rewards, and he has encouraged their progress long after their departure from his Berkeley laboratory. His students' significant scientific accomplishments in his lab and in their later career paths have created a legacy of excellent science and training, a tribute to Mike Chamberlin's long and highly successful career.
