EAS Next Meeting

We annonce to our members residing in South Europe our meeting that will be held in Ancona (Italy) on May 15, 2008. For more details please click on the link below and see the invitation.
[Invitation Ancona May 15, 2008]

Seminars and Conferences of interest

Paris, April 10th, 2008 - Professor M. P. Pileni invites our members to this workshop honoring Professor Van Duyne, co-organised by I.U.F., the CNRS and the University Pierre et Marie Curie, and the EAS [Read More]

University of Durham, 28th-30th March 2008 - Qualia : Thinking the Senses', Institute of Advanced Study - by Professor Claude Imbert, Head of Social Sciences Division The aim of this interdisciplinary conference, and the research project associated with it, is to explore the ways in which different disciplines theorise the qualitative dimension of experience and integrate the sensual into their working-models of a range of phenomena. It will explore sensory perception in different times and places, in its multiple relations to the literary and the artistic as well as to the political and social. It will create a forum for an exchange of points of view between researchers in the fields of literary theory, history, art history, philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, geography, cognitive science and other areas still. When John Locke argued that one should not think of snow as being white but as causing whiteness, in much the same way that fire causes pain, he raised a fundamental and still open question about the relationship between the subjective and objective dimensions of experience. The aim of this project is not so much to return to this philosophical problem as to explore the many thought-worlds with which the human and social sciences have populated the space between the perceiving subject and the material world, between the self and his/her sensory environment. [Read More]

Sydney, May 7th - 9th, 2008 - I-SPAN 2008: the International Symposium on Parallel Architectures, Algorithms, and Networks (I-SPAN) is a forum for scientists, engineers, and practitioners throughout the world to exchange ideas and research results related to the design, use, analysis, and application of parallel architectures, algorithms, networks, and internet technology.[Read More]

Hong Kong, July 23th - 31th, 2008 - International Workshop on Multifunctional Materials and Structures (MFMS) and their applications: Professor A.K.T. Lau invites our members to this workshop on multifunctional materials and structures, organised by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University [Read More]

Prizes and Awards

The Academy of Sciences Malaysia invites our Members to present nominations for the Mahathir Science Award for the year 2008.
This prestigious award is bestowed on any scientists, institution or organization worldwide in recognition of contributions and innovations towards solving problems in the tropics through science and technology and to be awarded to the most deserving based on merit. As such, this extends beyond the boundaries of Malaysia in order to encourage excellence in tropical science that will accord direct benefits to countries in the tropics and indirectly to the global community. The deadline for submission is 31 March, 2008. For the brochure and the nomination form [Click Here]

News Releases

February, 2008 - Professor Bernard Barbaraour Head of Physics Division, is awarded the 'Gentner-Kastler-Preis' by the German Physics Society and the French Society of Physics, for his innovative contributions to magnetism of solids, nanostructures and molecules [Click Here]

January, 2008 - Professor Jean-Marie Andre (FUNDP, Chemistry Department), member of the EAS,  becomes President of the Royal Academy of Belgium.

December, 2007 - Professor Oleg L. Figovsky, member of EAS in Materials Sciences, has been elected as Honorary Professor of the Voronezh State University (VGASU) for his fundamental and applied research in the field of nanotechnologies for industrial application.

February, 2008 - Professor Bernard Barbaraour Head of Physics Division, is awarded the 'Gentner-Kastler-Preis' by the German Physics Society and the French Society of Physics, for his innovative contributions to magnetism of solids, nanostructures and molecules [Click Here]

November, 2007 - Professor Philippe G. Ciarlet has been elected as a Member of the Academy of Sciences in the Developing World (T.W.A.S., previously Third World Academy of Sciences).

October, 2007 - Professor Krishnaiyan Thulasiraman has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS).

October 8, 2007 - Professor Mario R. Capecchi from the University of Utah, Member of the European Academy of Sciences, was Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He was honoured together with Professor Oliver Smithies and Sir Martin J. Evans for their work on the development and application of gene targeting' in mice. This technique allows geneticists to target and mutate specific genes and, thus, study the functional role of these genes in the organism. Next to DNA sequencing it is perhaps the most important technique to understand genomes[Read More]

August, 2007 - Professor Nina Fedoroff becomes the new science and technology adviser for the U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.[Read More]

July, 2007 - Professor Nina Fedoroff, the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor at Penn State University, and an External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute, is one of eight scientists named by US President Bush to receive the 2006 National Medal of Science, the nation's highest award for lifetime achievement in scientific research. The honorees received medals at a White House ceremony on 27 July 2007.[Read More]

June, 2007 - Professor Oleg L. Figovsky was awarded the NASA TechBrief award "50 the best in nanotechnology - 2007"

May, 2007 - Professor Peter Jagers was elected as Vice President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

Our Member and Blaise Pascal Medal 2003, Professor Eric de Clercq (Belgium), was elected European Inventer of the year 2008 (Ljubjana, 6-7 May).

New Members

Professor J. Derek Woollins
Dept of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, UK

Derek Woollins was born in Cleethorpes and educated at the local grammar school before studying chemistry at the University of East Anglia (Norwich) where he went on to carry out his PhD under the supervision of Andrew Thomson and Roger Grinter. He carried out postdoctoral work with Bill Cullen (UBC, Vancouver), Barnett Rosenberg (MSU, Michigan) and Norman Greenwood (Leeds, England) before being appointed as a lecturer at Imperial College London. After 12 years at Imperial College he moved to Loughborough as the Chair in Inorganic Chemistry where he stayed for five years before moving to St Andrews as the Chair in Synthetic Chemistry in 1999. He is currently Head of the School of Chemistry in St Andrews.

His early work developed high yield reproducible synthesis of complexes containing naked S-N anions. Having originally used metathesis reactions he developed the use of liquid ammonia as both a solvent and reagent to prepare M-S-N compounds in simple efficient routes which avoid the need for explosive starting materials like S4N4. This latter benefit was especially marked when he opened up the field M-Se-N chemistry . His synthetic methodologies were sufficiently good that he was able to prepare 15N labelled compounds. His group subsequently developed a range of nmr studies in S-N chemistry – establishing the utility of 14N and 33S nmr. for molecular characterisation as well as speciation in liquid ammonia. He also developed the interface with materials chemistry, a good example of this is the elegant direct reduction of S4N4 using cobaltocene to give the charge transfer system [Cp2Co][S3N3] .

He also developed the chemistry of imidophosphinates . He studied the coordination chemistry of the PIII and mixed ‘hemilabile’ PIII/PV as well as the PV systems which give six-membered ME2P2N rings that adopt a number of different geometries ie., boat, chair and are capable of supporting unusual metal geometries. Amongst the most exciting compounds obtained was the first square planar Sn(II) complex , trinuclear Cu(I) systems and air stable tellurium complexes

He played a major part in the development of P-Se heterocyles, synthesising the new reagent [Ph(Se)PSe2P(Se)Ph]. This compound is now commercially available and known as ‘Woollins Reagent’ (WR, Aldrich Cat No 57254-3). WR is useful for a variety of organic transformations and heterocycle formations

In recent times he has also been successful in elucidating the structure of the long known but poorly understood (SCN)x as part of a wider study which included fundamental characerisation of (ECN)2 as well as developing the coordination chemistry of triselenocarbonate dianion and related systems

Recently Woollins has set about investigating 1,8 substituted naphthalene derivatives. This naphthalene based work has been conducted on the premise that the ‘natural’ E..E in a 1,8 substituted species is ca 2.4 Ã… and that this distance and a bonding interaction will be favoured over ring strained alternative geometries when heavier elements are placed close to each other using the 1,8 scaffolding. Thus the premise is to take disubstituted but ring strained naphthalene [ie the naphthalene is twisted from ideal aromatic planar geometry or the E groups are pushed apart with non trigonal geometries at carbon] systems and react them to release the ring strain and to form the appropriate E-E bond. The combination of a weak E-E bond coupled with the energy gained from release of ring strain should enable unsusal systems to be obtained.

Woollins has published over 425 research papers in main group chemistry and two books

Professor Guillermo Velarde
Polytechnical University of Madrid, Spain

Professor Guillermo Velarde was born in Madrid. He obtained his Master degree in 1952 and his Doctor degree in 1959 at the Polytechnical University of Madrid. In 1956 he started working in the Theoretical Physics Section of the Spanish Atomic Energy Commission (Junta de Energía Nuclear, JEN). Few months later he was sent to the United States to study nuclear physics and reactor theory at Pennsylvania State University and Argonne National Laboratory. Afterwards, he started working in Atomics International of California in a project for the design of a heavy water reactor.

When he returned to Spain to the JEN in the Fall 1963, he began research in the field of transport theory, slowing down and thermalisation of neutrons. In 1966 he was appointed professor and in 1973 got the chair of nuclear physics at the Polytechnical University of Madrid, teaching the speciality of quantum mechanics. Simultaneously to this academic activity, Professor Velarde continued his work as researcher of the JEN where he was appointed Director of Advanced Technology in 1974. This direction included the following divisions: Electronics, Engineering, In-Service Reactor Theory and Calculations, and Fusion.

Papers published by J. Nuckolls et al. in 1972 encouraged him to work in inertial nuclear fusion and he started this research in direct-driven targets based on the micropellet of DT with a layer of plutonium. To carry out these studies he organized a small but very competent group with half a dozen of scientists selected among his most brilliant students of his courses on Quantum Mechanics. Their research led to the development of NORCLA code, the first non-classified coupled code, including time-dependent hydrodynamics and realistic neutron-gamma transport with adequate energy source from fusion and fission materials. NORCLA was made of two modules: NORMA (for hydrodynamics) and CLARA (for fusion-fission sources and neutron-gamma transport).

In 1976, Professor Velarde submitted to the 19th Nuclear Energy Agency Committee in Reactor Physics held in Chalk River (Canada) a paper entitled Neutronic of Laser Fission-Fusion Systems in which the first calculation with NORCLA was postulated. This was one of the first papers published on inertial confinement fission-fusion. Since then, this code has been enlarged including two-dimensional transport and different codes for atomic physics, safety and materials.

In 1981, the JEN decided to devote all its efforts to the magnetic confinement fusion research. For this reason Professor Velarde left the JEN and founded the Institute of Nuclear Fusion (DENIM) at the Polytechnical University of Madrid. Afterwards the group that had been working with him in inertial fusion left also the JEN and joined the DENIM.

Among other data of interest, Professor Velarde was Commissioner of the Spanish Commission on Space Research (1978-1981). Chairman of the Inertial Fusion Energy Coordinating Committee of the European Union (1999-2007) and Chairman of seven international conferences. He has published 328 papers on nuclear physics, neutron transport theory and inertial confinement nuclear fusion. He has written the book Quantum Mechanics (McGraw Hill-2002) and is co-editor of other seven books. Among his publications, it is worth to remark the last one, co-edited with Natividad Carpintero-Santamaría, Inertial Confinement Nuclear Fusion: A Historical Approach by its Pioneers (Foxwell and Davies UK Ltd-2007) which describes for the first time the work carried out by the leading and pioneer scientists in this field during the last 50 years at the main international nuclear laboratories.

One the most touching moments of his life was when he was invited to Moscow by the Academician Oleg Krokhin to address the memorial lecture on Nobel Laureate Nicolai G. Basov at the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2002. At the end of this ceremony, Mrs. Basova gave him Basov’s own watch as a token of the sincere friendship that both scientists (Basov and Velarde) shared along their lives.

Professor Velarde was director of the Institute of Nuclear Fusion from 1981 to 2004, being now its President. His Institute has been visited by about 200 international scientists, among them, Edward Teller and five Nobel Prizes: Rudolph Mossbauer, Leo Esaki, Nicolai G. Basov, Jack Steinberg and Carlo Rubbia and, upon the request of Professor Velarde, the Polytechnical University of Madrid granted the Honoris Causa Doctorate to Professors Mossbauer, Esaki, Basov and Rubbia.

In 1997 he was awarded with the Edward Teller Award as recognition of his research in inertial fusion energy and in 1998 Professor Velarde received the Archie H. Arms Award for this work in emerging nuclear energy systems.

Professor Charles J. Joachain
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Born in Brussels on May 9, 1937, Professor Charles J. Joachain obtained his Ph.D. in Physics in 1963 at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. From 1964 to 1965 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation at the University of California in Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and from 1965 to 1966 a Research Physicist at these institutions. At the Université Libre de Bruxelles he was appointed chargé de cours associé in 1965, chargé de cours in 1968, professeur extraordinaire in 1971 and professeur ordinaire in 1978. He was chairman of the Department of Physics in 1980 and 1981. He was also appointed professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain in 1984. In 2002, he became professeur ordinaire émérite at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and professeur honoraire at the Université Catholique de Louvain.

The research activities of Professor Joachain concern two areas of theoretical physics: quantum collision theory and the interaction of intense laser fields with matter. He has published over 200 research articles and four books.

Professor Joachain has been a visiting professor in several universities and laboratories in Europe and the United States, in particular at the University of California in Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI), the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching.

Professor Joachain has received many scientific distinctions and prizes, in particular the Prix Louis Empain in 1963 and the Alexander von Humboldt Prize in 1998. He was President of the Belgian Physical Society from 1987 to 1989. He is Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK) since 1974 and Fellow of the American Physical Society since 1977. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Durham since 1989. He is a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique and of the Academia Europaea.

Professor Santiago Alvarez

Universitat de Barcelona, Spain

Professor Alvarez was born in Panamá (Republica de Panamá) in 1950, where he developed his interest for Chemistry. He moved to Barcelona in 1968 to study Chemistry at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), where he pursued graduate studies with a grant of the Agustín Pedro y Pons Foundation. He obtained a Ph. D. with a thesis on vibrational spectroscopy under the advice of Prof. Jaume Casabó and in collaboration with V. Tabacik in Montpellier (France). For some time he carried out research on the synthesis and characterization of molecular metals and worked later for one year in theoretical inorganic chemistry in the group of Roald Hoffmann at Cornell University, granted by the Fulbright-MEC postdoctoral program. He was appointed as Profesor Titular (Associate Professor) in the Universitat de Barcelona in 1984 and was promoted to Catedrático (Full Professor) of Inorganic Chemistry in 1987.

His main research interests have been in bonding and stereochemistry of transition metal compounds, combining computational chemistry and structural database analysis. In particular he has dealt with the structure and bonding of several families of coordination and organometallic molecules, the structure and electrical properties of solid state compounds, the magnetic coupling of two or more paramagnetic atoms in complex molecular structures. He has produced over two hundred research papers. The most recent line of activity of his research group consists on the definition and application of the continuous shape measures and the continuous symmetry measures to the systematic description of molecular, supramolecular and crystal structures, developing new stereochemical tools such as the shape maps, the minimal distortion paths, the path deviation functions and the generalized interconversion coordinates.

He was Director of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry of the UB between 1992 amd 1995 and is advisor to the Board of Governors of the UB since 2004. He has been a member of the Editorial Board and of the International Advisory Board of Dalton Transactions, and participated in a IUPAC working party for the study of terminology of theoretical chemistry in 1993. His most recent awards include the Distinció de la Generalitat de Catalunya per a la Promoció de la Recerca Universitària, Premio de Investigación en Química Inorgánica de la Real Sociedad Española de Química and the Premio Solvay de Investigación en Ciencias Químicas. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 2005 and a corresponding member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences since 2006.

He has been active in organizing scientific meetings, such as the euromediterranean conference of inorganic chemistry FIGIPS-6 in 2001 and several international advanced courses on Synchrotron Radiation and X Ray Absorption, Dessign and Assembly of Molecules and Networks, Photochemistry and Luminiscence of Coordination Compounds or Structural Databases in Chemistry. Starting in 2003, he has organized the international meetings NoSIC (Not Strictly Inorganic Chemistry), in which participants discuss on topics on the borders of Chemistry and other areas of knowledge, such as art, history, language, music or gastronomy. He publishes a section in the Revista de la Societat Catalana de Química entitled El Bagul dels Llibres (the ark of books), that reviews the most salient books on topics close to the edges of chemistry and humanistic knowledge. He has also recently published a book entitled Els àtoms en l'espai (Atoms in Space), that provides a Catalan translation of the founding papers of stereochemistry by Van 't Hoff and Le Bel, complemented with an assay on the precedents and consequences of such publications.