Congratulations to ...

Gautam R. Desiraju (U. of Hyderabad, India) has been awarded the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Award in Chemistry for 2000 which consists of a check for $10,000 and a citation that reads: 'For his pioneering contributions to the area of crystal engineering, the designed synthesis of solid state supramolecular entities, and for increasing the awareness in the properties and consequences of the weak hydrogen bond'. Dr. Desiraju is also the recent recipient of the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Award which allows him to visit and conduct research in laboratories in Germany.

Uli Arndt (Cambridge, UK) received the Dorothy Hodgkin 2000 Prize. His major research interest lay in the development of new apparatus and techniques. The majority of his more than 100 publications are in the field of instrument design. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1982.

Sean Langridge (ISIS, UK) was presented with the 2000 Philips Physical Crystallography Award for his work in magnetic structure using both X-rays and neutrons. His prize lecture was entitled 'Quantifying magnetic domain correlations in antiferromagnetically coupled multilayers'.

Jacqui Cole (Cambridge, UK) was awarded the inaugural CCDC/CCG Prize for her work in the field of developing materials with useful optical properties. Dr Cole's award lecture, entitled 'Crystals and glasses in non-linear optics and lasers: structural requirements', covered aspects from designing molecular and crystal structures, to the determination of the structure of rare-earth phosphate glasses, to attempting to harness the vibrational characteristics of molecules.

The Rutgers' Board of Governors has named Helen M. Berman a Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry. 'The Board of Governors Professorship is the highest academic honor that Rutgers U. (USA) can give a member of its faculty,' said Joseph J. Seneca, university vice president for academic affairs. 'This is an affirmation of Professor Berman's international reputation for scholarship and recognizes her dedication to the missions of teaching and research at Rutgers.'

Dave Stuart FRS (Oxford U., UK) will give the Bragg Lecture at the Reading BCA Meeting (April 7-10, 2001) on his work on viruses, virus receptors and related cell surface proteins.

Melvin R. Churchill received the 2000 Jacob F. Schoellkopf Medal from the Western New York Chapter of the American Chemical Society. Dr Churchill, a prolific crystallographer, is ranked 183rd on a list of the '1000 Most-Cited Chemists in the World. The title of his talk was 'Order, Disorder and Surprises in the Crystallography of Organometallic Materials'.