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Director of UNH Research Institute Awarded
Prestigious Lectureship by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Contact: David Sims
603-862-5369
Science Writer
Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space
Jan. 30, 2006

DURHAM, N.H. -- Dr. Berrien Moore III, University Distinguished
Professor and Director of the Institute for the Study of Earth,
Oceans, and Space (EOS) at the Univerity of New Hampshire, has
been awarded the 2007 Dryden Lectureship in Research by the American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). The lecture,
which Moore will deliver next January on the first evening of the
AIAA annual meeting in Reno, Nevada, will be entitled "Challenges
of a Changing Planet."
Professor Moore, a mathematician by training, has authored more
than 150 papers on the carbon cycle, global biogeochemical cycles,
and planetary change as well as numerous policy documents in the
area of the global environment. In addition, he has chaired and
served on numerous international scientific committees on global
change issues. Currently he is co-chairing the National Academy
of Sciences Decadal Survey in Earth Science, which charts the priorities
for the next 10 to 15 years in Earth science from space. He serves
on the Board of Directors of the University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research, the Advisory Council of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
and the Science Advisory Board of the Max-Planck-Institut für
Meteorologie in Hamburg Germany, among others. He has been the
director of EOS since 1987. A full list of Professor Moore's
professional affiliations and publications can be found at http://www.eos.sr.unh.edu/Faculty/Moore.
When informed of the award, Professor Moore said, " I am
honored to be chosen by the AIAA for the Dryden Lectureship since
I hold past recipients in the highest regard. I am also challenged
to discuss the future of Earth among many who will shape the science
and technologies that are needed to understand our planet."
The AIAA is the scholarly and industrial society for the field
of aerospace engineering. Founded in 1963, it merged two engineering
societies – the American Interplanetary Society, later known
as the American Rocket Society, which was founded in 1930, and
the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, founded in 1932. One of
the institute's primary responsibilities is "recognizing
outstanding achievement" by conscientiously surveying the
aerospace field to identify practitioners in its arts and sciences
who have made notable and significant contributions.
Named for Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, one of NASA's most visionary
aeronautic engineers and deputy administrator of the space agency
at the time of his death in 1976, the Dryden Lectureship in Research
seeks to recognize "the importance of basic research to the
advancement in aeronautics and astronautics."
The first recipient of the lectureship was the pathbreaking astrophysict
James Van Allen. Van Allen's instruments were aboard the first
successful American satellites, Explorers 1 and 3, launched in
1958, and provided data for the first space-age scientific discovery:
the existence of a doughnut-shaped region of charged particle radiation
trapped by Earth's magnetic field now known as the Van Allen radiation
belts.
Past Dryden lecturers include Edward Stone of the California Institute
of Technology, project scientist for the Voyager Mission at NASA's
Jet Propulsion Laboratory and former director of the JPL, and astronomer
Gerard Kuiper who is considered to be the father of modern planetary
science for his wide ranging studies of the solar system. It was
Kuiper who, in 1951, proposed the existence of a disk-shaped region
of minor planets outside the orbit of Neptune. This region, now
known as the Kuiper belt, will be explored for the first time by
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft that was launched January
19 on a ten-year journey to the planet Pluto.
Professor Moore's selection for the Dryden Lectureship reflects
not only the breadth and rigor of his science and contributions
to the field, but also the increasing importance that society is
placing on knowledge about our home planet – an area in which
EOS and UNH excel.
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