GSAS Medalists announced

A physicist who has helped guide U.S. science policy, a biologist who is India’s foremost conservationist, a psychologist who studies organizational behavior, and an engineer who has made major contributions to the science of aerodynamics received the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal on Wednesday (June 6) at the Harvard Faculty Club.

The medalists are: Lewis Branscomb, A.M. ’47, Ph.D. ’50, physics; Madhav Gadgil, Ph.D. ’69, biology; Joanne Martin, Ph.D. ’77, psychology and social relations; and Allen Puckett, S.B. ’39, S.M. ’41, applied sciences.

Lewis Branscomb

Branscomb is the Aetna Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Management Emeritus at Harvard University, the emeritus director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the principal investigator of the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project. He has also taught at the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado, and Vanderbilt University.

Branscomb pioneered the study of atomic and molecular negative ions and their role in the atmospheres of the Earth and stars, and was co-founder of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado. After serving as director of the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) from 1969 to 1972, he was named vice president and chief scientist of IBM Corp. and a member of IBM’s Corp. Management Board. In 1980, he chaired the National Science Board and served until 1984.

Branscomb was appointed by President Johnson to the President’s Science Advisory Committee (1964-1968) and by President Reagan to the National Productivity Advisory Committee. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Public Administration. He is a director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and a councilor of the National Academy of Sciences.

Among Branscomb’s many honors are the Arthur Bueche Prize of the National Academy of Engineering, the Gold Medal of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Vannevar Bush Award of the National Science Board (shared with Harold Varmus). He holds honorary doctoral degrees from 16 universities and is an honorary associate of the Engineering Academy of Japan.

His recent books are “Taking Technical Risks: How Innovators, Executives, and Investors Manage High-Tech Risks” (2000, with Philip Auerswald); “Industrializing Knowledge: University-Industry Linkages in Japan and the United States” (1999, with co-editors Fumio Kodama and Richard Florida); and “Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy that Works” (1998, with co-editor James Keller).

Madhav Gadgil

Madhav Gadgil, a professor of ecological sciences at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, since 1973, is one of the world’s leading ecologists and his country’s foremost conservationist. He is also the founding director of India’s Centre for Ecological Sciences, a member of the Indian Academy of Sciences, and a foreign associate of the United States’ National Academy of Sciences. Gadgil’s research interests include population biology, conservation biology, human ecology, and ecological history.

Following receipt of his degree from Harvard, Gadgil held posts here as a research fellow in applied mathematics and as a lecturer in biology. He has also served as a visiting professor at Stanford University and as a distinguished visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.

He is the author of “Use and Abuse of Nature” (2000, with Ramachandra Guha), “Life Style and Ecology” (1998), “Ecology and Equity” (1995, with Guha), and “This Fissured Land” (1993, with Guha), and has published many book chapters and papers in a number of scientific journals. Gadgil also served on the Indian Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Council from 1986 to 1990.

Joanne Martin

Martin is the Fred H. Merrill Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In 2001, she became the first woman to receive the Distinguished Educator Award of the Academy of Management, the highest educational achievement award of the 10,000-member organization. Martin’s research interests include organizational culture, distributive justice, and gender and race in organizations.

She is a fellow of the American Psychological Society, the American Psychological Association, and the Academy of Management. She has been a visiting scholar at business schools in Australia and Denmark, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in economics and business administration from Copenhagen Business School in 2001.

She wrote the books “Organizational Culture: Mapping the Terrain” (December 2001) and “Cultures in Organizations: Three Perspectives” (1992), and edited “Reframing Organizational Cultures” (1991) and “Organizational Culture” (1985). Martin has also published many book chapters and articles in numerous scholarly journals, and serves on the editorial boards of such publications as “Organization: the Journal of Management Studies,” the “Journal of Management Inquiry,” and “Gender, Work, and Organization.”

At Stanford Business School, she was the director of doctoral programs and was responsible for the direction of the school’s seven doctoral programs.

Allen Puckett

An aerodynamics pioneer, Puckett is chairman emeritus of Hughes Aircraft Co., which he joined as a department head in 1949. He played a crucial role during World War II in the training of aerodynamic engineers through his lectures at the California Institute of Technology. In 1949, with Hans Liepmann, Puckett co-authored a foundation textbook, “Introduction to Aerodynamics of a Compressible Fluid,” which served as the basis of a graduate-level course at Cal Tech for many years.

Puckett has served as a technical consultant to the United States government, the Army, NASA, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has also served as director of the General Dynamics Corp. (1978-95), and as chair or co-chair of numerous NASA, government, private, and charitable committees and organizations. He served as president of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and as chair of the Aerospace Industries Association.

He was also a founding member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, among other professional associations. He has been honored with the Frederick Phillips Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Medal of Honor of the Electronics Industry Association, the Lawrence Sperry Award, and the Lloyd V. Beckner Award. In 1985, President Reagan recognized him with the National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest honor for an engineer.