Four Georgia Tech faculty members were named American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows for 2007. Honored for their outstanding social or scientific efforts were Judith Curry, Randall Engle, Cheryl Leggon and Rick Trebino.

"It's always nice to be honored by your peers," said Curry, chair of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "Overall, it adds to the prestige of the Institute when you have a number of fellows named."

Curry was recognized for her work in both the relationships between global climate change and hurricane intensity and for her contributions that led to understanding feedbacks in the Arctic system. She was named a fellow in the American Geophysical Union in 2004 and in the American Meteorological Society in 1995.

"I am always a little surprised by such things," said Engle, School of Psychology Chair and associate dean for the College of Sciences. "For me, [this distinction] helps us to convey that there is a science of psychology that plays a crucial role in the community of scientists."

Engle was recognized for his work in understanding the nature of working memory and individual differences. "I look at our amazing young faculty and the incredible senior people we have hired in the Institute in recent years and I am struck by how good we have become and how much talent there is here [at Georgia Tech]."

"I deeply appreciate this recognition of my work," she said. "My orientation to research has always been policy and practice in terms of making a difference in individual lives as well as transforming institutions. This is not only important nationally, but globally, as who is not 'at the table' is as significant as who is." In 2006, Leggon was elected to membership in Sigma Xi, an honorary scholarly society.

Physics Professor Trebino credited the work of many in receiving this honor. "It means that many grad students, post-docs, and others who have worked with my group over the years have done a very nice job making my ideas-as well as their own-happen," he said.

He was honored for the development of techniques and devices for measuring ultrashort laser pulses.
"My group's work impacts the wide range of fields that use these pulses, from biology to physics to manufacturing, and [the] AAAS Fellowship acknowledges this wide impact." Trebino is a 2006 Fellow of the American Physical Society and a 1999 Optical Society of America Fellow.

AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society. The 471 AAAS Fellows for 2007 were named in the News & Notes section of the Oct. 26 edition of the journal Science and will be honored at the Fellows Forum Feb. 16, 2008. In 2006, four members of Tech's community were named AAAS Fellows; six were named in 2005.