Clare Boothe Luce Professorship Awarded to Caltech

PASADENA—The California Institute of Technology is pleased to announce a recent grant of $498,427, in support of a five-year Clare Boothe Luce Professorship in geobiology from the Henry Luce Foundation. Dr. Dianne Newman has been appointed to the position.

Newman's expertise in microbiology and geochemistry will allow her to explore a wide range of problems, as well as collaborate with a variety of faculty members.

"Encouraging women in science and engineering is a top priority for me personally, as well as for the Institute. The Clare Boothe Luce Professorship at Caltech helps us in a very substantial way toward that goal," says Caltech president David Baltimore.

Newman received her bachelor's degree in German studies from Stanford University in 1993, and her Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997. In addition, she was an exchange scholar at Princeton University from 1995 to 1997, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.

Newman has received a number of awards, including the W.B. Dickman Writing Prize in Engineering, the American Chemical Society Award, and the NASA Planetary Biology Internship Grant. An accomplished writer and teacher, she has been recognized nationally for her research work.

The Clare Boothe Luce Program is administered by the Henry Luce Foundation, which was established by Mrs. Luce's husband, Henry R. Luce. The program was created "to encourage women to enter, study, graduate and teach" in scientific and technological fields in which they are underrepresented. Mrs. Luce established the program "in recognition that women have already entered the fields of medicine, law, business and the arts, and in order to encourage more women to enter the field of science."

Founded in 1891, Caltech has an enrollment of some 2,000 students, and an academic staff of about 280 professorial faculty and 130 research faculty. The Institute has more than 19,000 alumni. Caltech employs a staff of more than 1,700 on campus and 5,300 at JPL.

Over the years, 27 Nobel Prizes and four Crafoord Prizes have been awarded to faculty members and alumni. Forty-four Caltech faculty members and alumni have received the National Medal of Science; and eight alumni (two of whom are also trustees), two additional trustees, and one faculty member have won the National Medal of Technology. Since 1958, 13 faculty members have received the annual California Scientist of the Year Award. On the Caltech faculty there are 77 fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and on the faculty and Board of Trustees, 69 members of the National Academy of Sciences and 49 members of the National Academy of Engineering.

Contact: Joanna Layton (626) 395-3227