Notables

Wilfried Brutsaert, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Cornell, has been awarded the 1999 Robert E. Horton Medal of the American Geophysical Union.

The medal recognizes outstanding contributions to the geophysical aspects of hydrology. It is the highest honor bestowed by the AGU on hydrologists.

Brutsaert, who is currently on sabbatical at the University of Tokyo, joined the Cornell faculty in 1962 after earning his doctorate at the University of California, Davis. He has been a professor of civil and environmental engineering since 1974, teaching and researching hydrology and fluid mechanics. He is currently developing methods to calculate regional evaporation from natural land surfaces covered with different types of vegetation. His research in Japan includes the detection of changing climate signals from the hydrologic cycle.

Stephen H. Howell, vice president for research at Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. (BTI), has assumed the position of editor in chief of Plant Molecular Biology, an international journal of plant molecular biology, biochemistry and genetic engineering. The journal is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in cooperation with the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology, the largest organization of plant molecular biologists. Howell is the Boyce Schulze Downey Scientist at BTI and an adjunct professor of plant biology at Cornell.