Newsmakers

Alma mater honors Nye

Princeton University recently announced that Kennedy School of Government Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. has been chosen the 2004 recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Award, one of Princeton’s top honors for alumni. This annual award is presented to an undergraduate alumnus or alumna whose career embodies the call to duty described in a speech by U.S. President Wilson, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service.” Nye graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1958 with an A.B. in public affairs.

Nye will receive the award and address fellow alumni on the Princeton campus on Feb. 21, 2004. He will speak on the topic of “Soft Power and the War on Terrorism.”

Bambach receives paleontology medal

Associate of the Harvard Herbaria Richard K. Bambach has received the Paleontology Society Medal, the most prestigious honor in that field. According to the Paleontology Society, the medal is awarded “to a person whose eminence is based on advancement of knowledge in paleontology.” It was presented at a meeting of the society last month. Former winners from the Harvard community include Stephen Jay Gould (2001), Harry Whittington (1983), and G. G. Simpson (1973).

Andrew Knoll named book award winner

Fisher Professor of Natural History Andrew Knoll has been chosen to receive the 2003 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science for his recent volume “Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth” (Princeton University Press, 2003). The award – given for “literate and scholarly interpretations of the physical and biological sciences and mathematics” – will be presented Friday evening (Dec. 5) in Washington, D.C. Knoll is the fourth member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology to receive this award since 1990, following in the footsteps of Stephen Jay Gould, Ernst Mayr, and Edward O. Wilson.

Kanter delivers 14th annual ESRC lecture

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) of the British government honored Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor of Business Administration, as its 14th annual lecturer last month in London. Kanter was introduced by the director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and spoke to an audience that included 28 members of Parliament, government officials, business leaders, and academics. Her topic was “The Confidence Factor: The Dynamics of Success and Decline in Businesses and Nations.”

University Band applauds Michael Swita

The Harvard University Band has named member Michael Swita ’07 the recipient of this year’s Stephen D. MacDiarmid Award. Named after musician Stephen D. MacDiarmid ’77, who died tragically after his graduation from Harvard, the award is presented annually to an outstanding musician from the freshman class. Swita is a graduate of Sparta High School in Sparta, N.J., where he was active in wind ensemble and jazz band. He has also toured Europe with the Sussex County Youth Orchestra.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks