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LISA RANDALL
Professor Lisa Randall studies theoretical particle physics
and cosmology at Harvard University. Her research
connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current
understanding of the properties and interactions of
matter. She has developed and studied a wide variety of
models to address these questions, the most prominent
involving extra dimensions of space. Her work has
involved improving our under-standing of the Standard
Model of particle physics, supersymmetry, baryogenesis,
cosmological inflation, and dark matter. Randall’s research
also explores ways to experimentally test and verify ideas
and her current research focuses in large part on the Large
Hadron Collider and dark matter searches and models.
Randall has also had a public presence through her
writing, lectures, and radio and TV appearances. Randall’s
books, Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s
Hidden Dimensions and Knocking on Heaven's Door: How
Physics and Scientific Thinking Hluminate the Universe and the
Modern World were both on The New York Times list of 100
Notable Books of the Year. Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty
Space was released as a Kindle Single in the summer of 2012
as an update with recent particle physics developments.
Randall’s studies have made her among the most
cited and influential theoretical physicists and she has received
numerous awards and honors for her scientific endeavors.
She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the
American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences, was a fellow of the American Physical
Society, and is a past winner of an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Young
Investigator Award, a DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator
Award, and the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Randall
is an Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy and an
Honorary Fellow of the British Institute of Physics. In 2003,
she received the Premio Caterina Tomassoni e Felice Pietro
Chisesi Award, from the University of Rome, La Sapienza. In
2006, she received the Klopsteg Award from the American
Society of Physics Teachers (AAPT) for her lectures and in
2007 she received the Julius Lilienfeld Prize from the American
Physical Society for her work on elementary particle physics
and cosmology and for communicating this work to the public.
Randall has also pursued art-science connections,
writing a libretto for Hypermusic: A Projective Opera in Seven
Planes that premiered in the Pompidou Center in Paris
and co-curating an art exhibit for the Los Angeles Arts
Association, Measure for Measure, which was presented
in Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, at the Guggenheim Gallery
at Chapman University, and at Harvard’s Carpenter
Center. In 2012, she was the recipient of the Andrew
Gemant Award from the American Institute of Physics,
which is given annually for significant contributions to the
cultural, artistic, or humanistic dimension of physics.
Professor Randall was on the list of Time Magazine’s
“100 Most Influential People” of 2007 and was one of 40
people featured in The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary issue
that year. Prof. Randall was featured in Newsweek's “Who's
Next in 2006” as “one of the most promising theoretical
physicists of her generation” and in Seed Magazine’s
“2005 Year in Science Icons”. In 2008, Prof. Randall was
a 6
among Esquire Magazine’s “75 Most Influential People.”
Professor Randall earned her Ph.D. from Harvard
University and held professorships at MIT and Princeton
University before returning to Harvard in 2001. She is also the
recipient of honorary degrees from Brown University, Duke
University, Bard College, and the University of Antwerp.
PETER RAVEN
Peter H. Raven, a leading botanist and advocate of
conservation and biodiversity with a notably international
outlook, is president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical
Garden and George Engelmann Professor of Botany
Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition,
Dr. Raven is a Trustee of the National Geographic Society
and Chairman of the Society’s Committee for Research and
Exploration. For more than 39 years, Dr. Raven headed the
Missouri Botanical Garden, an institution he nurtured to
become a world-class center for botanical research, education,
and horticulture display. During this period, the Garden
became a leader in botanical research and conservation
in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and North America.
Dr. Raven first realized in the mid 1960s that
the rapid growth of the human population, consumption,
and the spread of polluting technologies were threatening
biological diversity to a degree that had not been realized
earlier. He soon became an outspoken advocate of the need
for conservation throughout the world based on efforts to
attain sustainability and social justice everywhere. He was
described by Time magazine as a “Hero for the Planet,” and
has received numerous prizes and awards, including the
International Prize for Biology from the government of Japan;
Volvo Environment Prize; the Tyler Prize for Environmental
Achievement; the Sasakawa Environment Prize; and the
BBVA Prize for Ecology and Conservation, Madrid. In October
2009 he was awarded the first RBG Kew International
Medal, given on the occasion of the 25oth anniversary of
the Gardens; in January 2010, the Award for International
Scientific Cooperation of the Chinese Academy of Science
and the Friendship Award (for promoting international
cooperation) from the government of China. Earlier in 2012,
he received an award from the President of Mexico for his
work with Mexican scientists and institutions over the years.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Raven held Guggenheim and John
D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowships.
In 2001, Dr. Raven received the National Medal of
Science, the highest award for scientific accomplishment in
the United States. He has been president of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, Sigma Xi, the
American Institute of Biological Sciences, and a number of
other organizations. He served for 12 years as Home Secretary
of the National Academy of Sciences, to which he was elected
in 1977. He is also a member of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society,
of the academies of science in Argentina, Australia, Austria,
Brazil, Chile, China, Denmark, Georgia, Hungary, India, Italy,
Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, the U.K. (the
Royal Society), and of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and
the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS).
Dr. Raven is Co-editor of the Flora of China,
a joint Chinese-American international project that is
leading to a contemporary, 5o-volume account on all the
plants of China scheduled for completion at the end of
2012. He was the first chair of the U.S. Civilian Research
and Development Foundation, a private, congressionally-
chartered organization that funds joint research with the
independent countries of the former Soviet Union.
Dr. Raven has written numerous books and
publications, both popular and scientific, including Biology
of Plants (co-authored with Ray Evert and Susan Eichhorn,
W. H. Freeman and Company/Worth Publishers, New York),
the internationally best-selling textbook in botany, of which
the eighth edition appeared in 2011; and Environment (co-
authored with Linda Berg, Wiley & Sons, New York), a leading
textbook on the environment, now in its eighth edition (2011).
Dr. Raven received his Ph.D. from the University
of California, Los Angeles, in 1960 after completing his
undergraduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has been awarded honorary degrees by a number of
universities in the United States and around the world.
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