Newsmakers

Joan W. Miller named ARVO award recipient

The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) recently announced that Henry Willard Williams Professor of Ophthalmology Joan W. Miller has been selected to receive the 2006 ARVO/Pfizer Ophthalmics Translational Research Award. The award will be formally presented to Miller during the association’s annual meeting in May 2006. Miller, who is also head of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and chief of Ophthalmology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, was selected for her research in nonhuman primates, and subsequent translation to humans, leading to the development of photodynamic therapy of neovascular age-related macular degeneration.

Film festival to screen Radcliffe Fellow’s latest short

Current Radcliffe Institute Fellow Abigail Child will screen her latest short film, “The Future Is Behind You,” at the Boston Jewish Film Festival’s Balagan Shorts Program on Nov. 10 at 9:30 p.m. at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Mass. A fictional story of two sisters composed from the film archive of an anonymous 1930s European family, “The Future Is Behind You” took first prize at the 2005 Black Maria Film and Video Festival, and won the International Critic’s Prize at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

Craig ’05 wins physics prize

Nathaniel Craig ’05 has won the LeRoy Apker Award for achievement in undergraduate physics. It is one of two such prizes given annually by the American Physical Society. The honor provides encouragement to young physicists who demonstrate “great potential for future scientific accomplishment.” The award includes $5,000 for both Craig and the Harvard Department of Physics, which uses the funds to support undergraduate research.

Craig was rewarded for work in quantum mechanics that both advances fundamental knowledge and has practical applications in cryptography. He helped launch a new line of research dealing with qubits, quantum entities capable of being in two states at the same time. Craig is now in graduate school at Stanford University. His undergraduate adviser was Professor of Physics Charles Marcus.

– Compiled by Andrew Brooks