Notables

Lester F. Eastman, the John L. Given Foundation Professor of Engineering in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been named the 2002 recipient of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Electron Devices Society J.J. Ebers Award. The award was established in 1971 to foster progress in electron devices. The citation on the award, to be presented at the International Electron Devices meeting in San Francisco Dec. 9, will read: "For sustained technical contributions and leadership in the development of high frequency heterostructure transistors." Eastman, who earned his Ph.D. at Cornell in 1957, has been doing research on compound semiconductor materials and high-speed devices and circuits since 1965.

Kevin Kornegay, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been invited by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to participate in an exhibit showcasing contributions made by African Americans to the field of information technology. The exhibit is the centerpiece of the museum's annual Black Creativity Program and will be on display from Jan. 15 through March 1, 2003. The exhibit will feature Kornegay's biography as well as information about his research on broadband communications systems and the Cornell student team for the annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. It will include the vehicle used in this year's fifth annual competition in San Diego, in which the Cornell team, advised by Kornegay, placed second.

Barbara T. Abrams, associate director of financial aid and student employment, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the National Indian Education Association (NIEA). She was voted to the board by the general membership at the group's annual conference Nov. 4 in Albuquerque, N.M. The board then selected its officers, voting Abrams, a Tonawanda Seneca, as treasurer. The mission of NIEA, which was founded in 1969, is "to support traditional Native cultures and values, to enable Native learners to become contributing members of their communities, to promote Native control of educational institutions, and to improve educational opportunities and resources for American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians throughout the United States," according to the group's Web site. Abrams has served in administrative posts at Cornell since 1977. She served a previous term on the NIEA's board from 1989 to 1991.

Catherine Jane Westbrook, a Cornell graduate student who will finish her master's degree in entomology this spring, has been named the 2002-03 recipient of the P.J. Chapman Fellowship at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. Once Westbrook finishes her master's degree, she will start working toward her Ph.D. in Assistant Professor Laura Harrington's medical entomology lab at Cornell. Arthur Agnello, Westbrook's major professor, said, "Cathy's progress in this degree program is a classic example of how academic interest and achievement can be stimulated by the right situation." Although she hadn't studied entomology previously, Westbrook had worked for several years in a fruit entomology lab at the University of California-Berkeley and developed an interest in ecological questions and international agriculture. She arrived at Cornell intending to pursue a nonthesis MPS degree. The Chapman Fellowship is given each year to a graduate student in entomology as voted on by the full professors of the entomology department at Geneva. The recipient is provided with a full-year fellowship that covers tuition and fees. The fellowship was established in 1992 and heavily endowed by Paul J. Chapman, a professor of entomology, and later chair of the department at Geneva, where he worked from 1929 to 1968.