Five professors win Guggenheims

Five Berkeley professors have been named 2010 Guggenheim fellows, an award conferred for "achievement and exceptional promise."

The five are among 180 artists, scientists and scholars selected from among some 3,000 applicants, according to a news release from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. It is the 86th year the award competition has taken place. Since 1925, the foundation has granted more than $280 million in fellowships to support art and research projects by more than 16,900 individuals.

Berkeley's Guggenheim fellows, and the foundation's description of their projects, are:

Leon O. Chua, professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, whose project involves "brainlike memristor circuits." Chua is a is a pioneer in three major research areas: neural networks, chaos and nonlinear circuits. He has been on the Berkeley faculty since 1971.

Rosemary Joyce, professor of anthropology and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences. An archaelogist whose research interests include ceramic analysis, household archaeology, and sex, gender and the body, she is researching "history and materiality from an archaeological perspective."

Gregory P.A. Levine, associate professor of the art and architecture of Japan and Buddhist visual cultures, whose project will look at "Buddha heads as sculptural fragments in devotional and modern-contemporary imaginations." He joined the Department of History of Art in 1997.

Dawn Song, an associate professor of computer science, whose research interest lies in security and privacy issues in computer systems and networks, including areas ranging from software and networking security to applied cryptography. Her grant will help her research "safe patches and applications to secure networked medical devices."

R. Jay Wallace, professor of philosophy. Working in moral philosophy, Wallace's research has focused on responsibility, moral psychology and the theory of practical reason. His award will fuel his study of "the moral nexus."

The full list of Guggenheim fellows can be read on the foundation website, www.gf.org.