Newsmakers

Tompkins to lead NIGMS grant project

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has selected Ronald Tompkins, chief of trauma and burn services at Massachusetts General Hospital, to lead a multifaceted team of scientists in a $6.7 million grant project to research the immune system’s response to traumatic injury. As part of the research, Tompkins, the John F. Burke Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, aims to develop standard operating procedures for burn and trauma patients.

Assistant Professor Xi He wins Keck award

Xi He, assistant professor at the Neurology Department and Neuroscience Division at Children’s Hospital, was named a 2001 Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar in medical research. The foundation will provide He with up to $1 million in the next five years for his research into the molecular basis for embryonic development. The scholarship represents the largest private award to junior faculty in the country.

Harvard researchers pick up NSF grants

The National Science Foundation has awarded Mikhail Lukin, associate of the Harvard College Observatory, and Alyssa Goodman, Harvard professor of astronomy, individual grants for their research in developing innovative uses of information technology in science and engineering. Lukin received $477,257 for his project “Physics of Quantum Information Processing Based on Photon Storage,” and Goodman was awarded $510,000 for “Developing the National Virtual Observatory Data Model.”

Kleinman wins Boas anthropology award

Professor of anthropology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Arthur Kleinman (also the Presley Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School) will receive the prestigious Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology at the 100th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) on Saturday, Dec. 1.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks