Notables

Keven Uchida, a research associate with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) team in the Department of Astronomy, has been awarded a certificate of appreciation by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The certificate recognizes Uchida's work in aligning each of SIRTF's three instruments with the telescope. This involved the writing of code to directly control the motions of the mission's spacecraft. JPL, in Pasadena, Calif., is manager for SIRTF, the last of NASA's four large orbiting observatories. The launch is scheduled for Jan. 9, 2003. Uchida's JPL certificate reads: "Certificate of Appreciation for your groundbreaking and back breaking work on IOC sequence development." Dave Gallagher, SIRTF project manager, and Mike Werner, project scientist, presented the award.

Students Jeff Ericksen and Luke Vernon have been named winners of the Cornell Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies "Best Student Paper Award," sponsored by global career services company Lee Hecht Harrison and Verizon Communications. Ericksen will receive $1,200 for his winning graduate-level paper, "Mobilizing and Launching Project Teams to Capitalize on Emerging Opportunities: Initial Findings and Recommendations," as will Vernon for his undergraduate work, "The Downsizing Dilemma: A Manager's Toolkit for Avoiding Layoffs." The awards competition, established in 1999 by Lee Hecht Harrison in collaboration with Cornell's Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, provides an opportunity for Cornell students in human resources and Industrial and Labor Relations to showcase their original writing on key issues relating to the future of human resources, labor markets and the employment relationship. Prize money is sponsored by both Lee Hecht Harrison and Verizon Communications Inc.

Undergraduate Daniel Michael Braun has been selected to receive the annual chapter Merit Award from the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and was honored recently during a campus induction convocation program. The Merit Award is presented to an outstanding new member who embodies the three pillars upon which the National Society of Collegiate Scholars (NSCS) was founded: scholarship, leadership and service. The Merit Award is a financial award of $250 and is presented annually to a new member of each NSCS chapter. The NSCS is a selective, national, nonprofit honors organization. Founded in 1994, NSCS recognizes first- and second-year undergraduate students who excel academically.