Three chosen to receive Distinguished Service Medallion
The UI Board of Trustees voted March 11 to present its highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medallion, to three scientists from the Urbana campus: Sir Anthony J. Leggett, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics; Carl R. Woese, the Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Microbiology; and the late Paul C. Lauterbur, the Center for Advanced Study Professor of Chemistry, Biophysics and Computational Biology and Bioengineering and Distinguished University Professor of Medical Information Sciences.
The award was created to recognize individuals whose contributions to the growth and development of the UI, through extraordinary service or benefaction, has been of unusual significance.
Board chair Niranjan Shah said that the three recipients were richly deserving of the award.
“These three legendary faculty members have garnered many national and international honors for their research,” Shah said. “It is fitting that we add our institutional laurels signifying the university’s appreciation and profound respect for their monumental scientific advances.”
Leggett was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize with two other scientists for studies in superconductivity and superfluidity that advanced the field of quantum mechanics and the understanding of the behaviors of subatomic structures.
Leggett, who joined the UI faculty in 1983, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal Society (United Kingdom) the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics and an honorary fellow of the Institute of Physics (U.K.).
He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 “for services to physics.”
A native of London, Leggett earned his doctorate in physics from Oxford University. He worked at the UI as a postdoctoral research associate from 1964-5 and again in 1967, before returning to join the UI faculty in 1983.
Woese, a faculty member since 1964, describes himself as a molecular biologist turned evolutionist. He received the 2003 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science for the 1977 discovery of a third domain of life known as Archaea. The Crafoord Prize is presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in recognition of accomplishments in scientific fields not covered by the Nobel Prize, which the academy also selects.
Woese won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award, known as the “genius award,” in 1984. He was the 12th recipient of the Leeuwenhoek Medal, microbiology’s highest honor given each decade, by the Dutch Royal Academy of Science in 1992 and the National Medal of Science in 2000. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and a foreign associate of the Royal Society (U.K.).
Woese earned his bachelor’s degree in math and physics from Amherst College and a doctorate in biophysics from Yale University.
Lauterbur and a British scientist shared the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for “seminal discoveries concerning the use of magnetic resonance to visualize different structures.” The pioneering work resulted in the development of magnetic resonance imaging.
Lauterbur, who joined the UI College of Medicine faculty in 1985, received the Albert Lasker Clinical Research Award in 1984, the National Medal of Science in 1987, the National Medal Technology in 1988, the Kyoto Prize from the Inamori Foundation (Japan) and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Chemistry in Service to Society in 2001. Lauterbur was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Lauterbur received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland and his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. He died in 2007.
“Professors Leggett and Woese did ground-breaking scientific research that advanced our fundamental understanding of how the natural world works,” said Chancellor Richard Herman. “The late professor Lauterbur invented one of the great life-saving medical devices of the 20th century. Advancing scientific understanding and improving human health are two things that great public universities do well, nowhere better than at the UI.”
“It is highly fitting that the UI Board of Trustees is bestowing its highest honor on professors Leggett and Woese and the late professor Lauterbur so that the whole UI family can express its pride and gratitude to these exemplary faculty members, researchers, colleagues and teachers,” said President B. Joseph White.
The medallions will be presented at a future date.
