CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Scientists Nick Holonyak Jr. and Susan E. Fahrbach of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are among 291 people selected as 2002 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The new fellows will be formally recognized Feb. 15 for their contributions that advance science or foster its applications at the Fellows Forum during the AAAS annual meeting in Denver. AAAS, which publishes the journal Science, was founded in 1848; it is the world’s largest general scientific society with 134,000 members in 130 countries and 272 affiliated societies. Election of fellows, who are nominated by their peers, began in 1874.
Holonyak was chosen for “pioneering contributions to the realization of high-performance visible light-emitting diodes (LED) and injection lasers based upon ternary and quaternary compound semiconductors.” His development of the LED occurred while he worked for General Electric before joining the Illinois faculty in 1963.
He holds a John Bardeen Chair in electrical and computer engineering and physics. The chair, endowed by the Sony Corp. of Tokyo, recognizes two-time Nobel Prize winner John Bardeen. Holonyak studied under Bardeen and earned his doctorate from Illinois in 1954.
Fahrbach, a professor of entomology and a professional scientist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, was noted for “groundbreaking studies elucidating mechanisms of selective hormone action on neural circuits during development and determining the basis of neuroanatomical plasticity in the insect brain.”
Fahrbach earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s from Oxford University and a doctorate (1985) from The Rockefeller University.
