Four from USC named fellows of American Association for the Advancement of Science

COLUMBIA, SC – December 19, 2008 – The American Association for the Advancement of Science has awarded the distinction of fellow to four professors and administrators from the University of South Carolina.

The fellows are Dr. Mark Becker, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost;

Dr. Timothy Mousseau, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor in the department of biological sciences;

Dr. Catherine Murphy; the Guy F. Lipscomb Professor of Chemistry in the department of chemistry and biochemistry;

and Dr. Thomas Vogt, director of the university’s Nanocenter and a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry.

They are among 486 AAAS members worldwide to earn this ranking in 2009.

University President Harris Pastides said the awards from the association, which has nearly 120,000 members in 143 countries and publishes the journal Science, is a testament to the strength of the university’s faculty.

“The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the world’s largest general scientific society,” Pastides said. “Having our faculty honored among the world’s top scientists is recognition of their individual achievements in advancing scientific knowledge and recognition of the caliber of teaching and research at our university.”

The AAAS fellows are recognized for their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.

Faculty achievements recognized by AAAS include Becker’s “significant contributions to the understanding of cross-classified tables and outstanding university administration”; Mousseau’s “distinguished contributions to the field of evolutionary biology”; Murphy’s “distinguished contributions to materials chemistry, especially for the synthesis and applications of inorganic nanomaterials”; and Vogt’s “distinguished contributions to structural chemistry, crystallography and experimental approaches to X-ray and neutron diffraction.”

AAAS, founded in 1848, includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science and serves 10 million people. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated readership of 1 million. The association began selecting fellows in 1874.