Friday, May 5, 2000

Emil Wolf and Masatoshi Koshiba to Receive Awards at Doctoral Commencement: 10:00 AM Saturday, May 13, in Eastman Theatre:

Emil Wolf and Masatoshi Koshiba to Receive Awards at Commencement

From: http://www.cc.rochester.edu:80/pr/News/NewsReleases/events/COMMEN.TXT.html

April 27, 2000

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER 150th COMMENCEMENT HIGHLIGHTS

Doctoral Degree Commencement Ceremony, 10 a.m., Saturday, May 13, in Eastman Theatre:

Emil Wolf, University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching

"If there is anyone who can be said to be the world's teacher of optics for the latter part of the 20th century, it is Emil Wolf," wrote a Nobel Prize winner recently of Emil Wolf. Wolf is the Wilson Professor of Optics whose book Principles of Optics, co-authored with Nobel laureate Max Born, is one of the defining texts in the optics community, where it is known simply as Born & Wolf. Among his former students are the director of the largest physical research laboratory in India, the director of the optics department at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, the director of the optics division at IBM Research Laboratories, plus faculty at universities throughout the United States and other parts of the world. An honorary member of the Optical Society of America and the recipient of the Society's most prestigious honor, the Frederic Ives Medal, Wolf holds honorary degrees from universities worldwide, among many other distinctions. He also is the author or co-author of some 300 publications.

Masatoshi Koshiba, Rochester Distinguished Scholar

Masatoshi Koshiba, professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, received his doctorate from the University of Rochester in 1995. This year, he is the co-recipient of the Wolf Prize in Physics, considered second only to the Nobel Prize in prestige, for his discovery that neutrinos have mass. Neutrinos are tiny particles smaller than atoms, and Koshiba's discovery is being hailed for its ramifications in the study of astronomical objects and the fundamental properties of matter, helping scientists to understand the birth of the universe. Koshiba started his career as a research associate at the University of Rochester, then went on to teach at the University of Tokyo. His long career has included positions as a professor, fellow, distinguished scholar, or research laboratory director at such institutions as the University of Chicago, California Institute of Technology, and the University of Hamburg. Among Koshiba's many awards are the Bruno Rossi Award of the American Physical Society, the Fujiwara Prize of the Fujiwara Science Foundation, and the Order of Cultural Merit presented by the emperor of Japan.

Article submitted by:
Arie Bodek
5/5/00; 4:16:06 PM

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