Congratulations to ...

Ivan Bernal received an Alexander von Humboldt US Senior Scientist Award at the Technical U. of Munich as Visiting Professor. He participated in the design of a neutron diffraction instrument to be located in their new reactor (Forschungs-Reaktor München II (FRM-II)) to be completed in the Fall of 2001. This reactor will have ten ports and approximately the same beam intensity at the sample as the Brookhaven reactor when it was operating at its peak. Its source will be a massive, single uranium rod, and the diffractometer will have as its detector a curved plate. The instrument will be manufactured by Enraf-Nonius.

Yale biochemist Jennifer Doudna is this year's winner of the Alan T. Waterman Prize: $500,000 from the National Science Foundation to a promising young researcher. Doudna, 36, a Howard Hughes professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry, is the third female winner in the Waterman's 25-year history. She uses X-ray crystallography and biochemical techniques to show how RNA can act like an enzyme to catalyze specific biochemical reactions.

Douglas C. Rees, Howard Hughes Medical Inst.and California Inst. of Technology, a previous winner of the Sidhu Award from the Pittsburg Diffraction Society, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.