Six Illinois researchers named AAAS fellows

Six researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

AAAS is honoring 347 new fellows this year for their “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.” Fellows are AAAS members selected by their peers for outstanding contributions to the field. The new fellows will be recognized at the annual AAAS meeting in February 2016.

The newly appointed AAAS fellows include: U of I President Timothy L Killeen; William Metcalf, the G. William Arends Professor in Molecular and Cellular Biology in the department of microbiology; William Mischo, the Berthold Family Professor of Information Access and Discovery and the head of the Grainger Engineering Library Information Center; Ralph Nuzzo, the G.L. Clark Professor of Chemistry and a professor of materials science and engineering; statistics professor emeritus Stephen Portnoy; and Hong Yang, the Richard C. Alkire Professor in Chemical Engineering in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Killeen, who took office in May as the university’s 20th president, earned his PhD at University College London in 1975. Before coming to Illinois, he served as the vice chancellor for research and president of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. His primary appointment is on the Urbana campus in ECE ILLINOIS. AAAS recognized him for “distinguished contributions to optical interferometry, education and government administration, and leadership in professional service.”

Metcalf earned his PhD from Purdue University in 1991. He was selected for “pioneering discoveries on the genetics and enzymology of methanogenesis by archaea and the mechanisms for aerobic methane formation in marine surface waters."

Mischo earned his MA from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1974 and joined the U of I faculty in 1983. AAAS recognized him for “research relevant to the development of new digital library technologies.”

Nuzzo earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 and worked at Bell Laboratories in materials research before joining the U of I faculty in 1991. AAAS acknowledged him for “distinguished contributions to materials chemistry, particularly for the development of self-assembled monolayers as systems for the design of functional molecular surfaces and interfaces.”

Portnoy earned his PhD from Stanford University in 1969 and joined the Illinois faculty in 1974. He was honored for “contributions to asymptotic theory and quantile processes and leadership in the development of robust regression methods.” He also was recognized for “building significant collaborations between statistical sciences and ecology.”

Yang earned his PhD from the University of Toronto in 1998 and joined the Illinois faculty in 2012. He was selected for the “discovery of a new synthesis platform for precisely controlled noble metal alloy nanostructures, with applications in electrocatalysis for fuel cells and batteries.”

AAAS is the world’s largest scientific society. The organization was founded in 1848 and fellows have been elected annually since 1874.