Search is under way for new director of Applied Physics Lab

An advisory committee is being formed to assist in the search for a successor to Gary Smith as director of the Applied Physics Laboratory.

The committee, to be chaired by Provost Steven Knapp, will assist with evaluation and interviewing of candidates. Smith, 63, is stepping down after seven years in the job and 29 years at APL.

The committee will consist of about 15 members, recruited both from within the laboratory and from elsewhere in the university.

The university is also interviewing executive search firms to assist in the search process, Knapp said.

Nominations for the director's position can be addressed to Office of the President, 242 Garland Hall, either through campus mail or through U.S. mail at The Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218.

Hopkins featured this week on Science Coalition Web site

Science, health and engineering discoveries from Johns Hopkins are featured this week on the World Wide Web site of the Science Coalition, an organization that supports federal funding for research.

The coalition's site, at http://www.sciencecoalition.org, includes a link to a page of information on recent findings from the schools of Medicine, Public Health, Arts and Sciences, and Engineering and from the Applied Physics Laboratory.

The Hopkins page--part of a Science Coalition series that features different research universities each week--also carries links to the Web sites of selected research projects and centers around the university. It will remain linked to the Science Coalition home page through Saturday, April 3, and will be available after that in the site's archives.

The Science Coalition is an alliance of 416 organizations, institutions and individuals, including Nobel laureates, businesses, scientific societies and public and private universities. The coalition works to sustain the federal government's historical commitment to university-based science research.

InteliHealth wins Internet Webby as "Best Health Site"

InteliHealth was awarded a Webby--the Internet's version of the Oscar--in award ceremonies held by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences in San Francisco on March 18. The prize for best health site was accepted by Bob Pringle, the president of InteliHealth, and Jay Rosan, executive vice president, in black-tie ceremonies that featured David Bowie, Francis Ford Coppola and others.

InteliHealth, at http://www.intelihealth.com, receives between 4 and 5 million page views a month and serves as one of the health anchors on America Online. A joint venture with Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the consumer health site provides content from Hopkins and various Hopkins-approved sources, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Health Council.

Steven Chu to give upcoming Brickwedde Lectures in Physics

The 1999 Ferdinand G. Brickwedde Lectures in Physics will be held April 6 and 8 at Homewood. The speaker is Steven Chu, the Theodore and Francis Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University, a 1997 Nobel laureate and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chu is known for developing techniques that use lasers to slow atom motions almost to a stand-still. With these techniques, atomic measurements of extraordinary precision can be made, and individual atoms and molecules can be manipulated. Techniques Chu pioneered were used by others to create the first Bose-Einstein condensates; that is, the first atomic "lasers."

Chu will speak on "Holding onto Atoms and Molecules with Lasers" at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, April 6, in Schafler Auditorium of Bloomberg. He will give a colloquium titled "The Physics and Biology of Individual Biomolecules: A New Frontier" at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 8, also in Schafler.

JHU Press annual hurt and used book sale set for this week

The Johns Hopkins University Press 13th annual sale of hurt and used books will take place on Wednesday, March 31, from noon to 6 p.m., and on Thursday, April 1, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Garrett Room of the MSEL, Homewood.

All books are offered by weight, at a price of $2 a pound. Many types of books--from popular fiction to classics and hard-to-find collectibles--will be available.

Proceeds of the sale benefit the JHU Press Staff Development Fund.

Doran wins International Canadian Studies award

Charles Doran, director of the Center for Canadian Studies at SAIS, has been awarded the Governor General's International Award for Canadian Studies for 1998-99 for his "outstanding contribution to scholarship and the development of Canadian studies internationally."

Officially established by Canada's head of state, the award is the highest honor given to a scholar in the field. Doran, also the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of International Relations, has been director of SAIS' Canadian Studies Center since 1980.

Of the 7,000 scholars in 23 countries working in the field of Canadian studies, Doran is only the second American to receive the Governor General's Award. He will receive the award at a banquet, sponsored by the International Council for Canadian Studies, to be held in his honor on May 27 in Toronto.