Five Berkeley faculty members elected fellows of the AAAS

Five Berkeley faculty members have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an honor bestowed upon the society’s members by their peers.

The five are among 443 members awarded the honor because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. Founded in 1848, the AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of Science and five other journals.

The new fellows are:

Rebecca Abergel, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), “for distinguished contributions to heavy element chemistry, particularly applied to the development of new chelation therapies, separation processes, and radionuclide targeted delivery strategies.” At Berkeley Lab, she leads the BioActinide Chemistry Group, the Heavy Element Chemistry Program and the Heavy Element Research Laboratory, and she is director of the Glenn T. Seaborg Center.

Roland Bürgmann, professor of earth and planetary science, “for outstanding contributions to research, teaching, innovation, service to societies and to the public in geodynamics, tectonics, rheology, seismology, geodesy and volcanology.” Bürgmann is a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab.

Richard Ivry, professor of psychology, “for foundational research on the cognitive processes underlying movement selection, planning, and execution, and the implementation of action in neural structures.” He is director of the The Cognition and Action Lab and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

Michael Manga, professor of earth and planetary science, “for many outstanding contributions to geological processes involving fluids in physical volcanology, geodynamics, hydrogeology, and geomorphology, and for service to academe, government, and societies.” Manga is the Garniss H. Curtis Endowed Department Chair, a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and a member of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory.

David Schaffer, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of bioengineering, “for pioneering contributions to biomolecular engineering, with particular attention to directed evolution to create viruses for the efficient, targeted and safe delivery of gene medicines.” He is director of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center, a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and a member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

The new fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a rosette pin in gold and blue — representing science and engineering, respectively — on Saturday, Feb. 15, during the 2020 AAAS annual meeting in Seattle, Washington.