Psychology Professor David C. Plaut is being honored this year by the National Academy of Sciences as one of two winners of the Troland Research Award. The award includes a prize of $50,000 to support research.

Plaut, who also teaches in the School of Computer Scence, is one of 18 people nationwide to be honored by the academy for outstanding scientific achievements. The awards will be presented April 28 in Washington, D.C., during the academy's 140th annual meeting.

Plaut's research uses computational models to investigate normal and disrupted cognitive processes in reading and language. He has studied the reading abilities of people with normal skills as well as those who have suffered brain damage, with the goal to develop better strategies for rehabilitation.

Bernstein Receives Fulbright Fellowship

Jane Bernstein, associate professor of English, has received a Fulbright Fellowship to lecture for five months at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.

Bernstein will be an artist-in-residence at Bar-Ilan, which has the only creative writing program in Israel, in the spring semester, 2004. Bernstein said her work will be particularly relevant in Israel, a nation wracked by turmoil and political violence.

"It is important to remind people that art matters during tumultuous political times," Bernstein said.

Bernstein is the author of the memoir "Bereft" about her life in the wake of her sister's murder in 1966. She also wrote another memoir, "Loving Rachel," and the young adult novel "Seven Minutes in Heaven," which was adapted from the screenplay she co-wrote for the Warner Brothers movie of the same name.

Bernstein's essays and short fiction have appeared in publications including Ms., Prairie Schooner, Poets & Writers, The New York Times Magazine and Creative Nonfiction.

"Jane is a gifted writer both of fiction, non-fiction and, in particular, the memoir, where the writer is challenged to pull together the diffuse elements of his or her life into a narrative," said David Kaufer, head of the English Department.

Meltzer Wins American Enterprise Institute Award

GSIA political economist Allan H. Meltzer is the first recipient of the Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). The Kristol Award is the AEI's highest award and was presented at the institute's annual dinner on Feb. 26 in Washington, D.C.

The AEI selected Meltzer to receive this year's award because of his "pioneering academic work in monetary policy, political theory, and economic history, his many practical contributions to improved economic policy, and his unswerving devotion to individual liberty and government reform."

Meltzer was one of 15 economists recently called upon by President George W. Bush for advice regarding his new economic growth package.

Three Win Vectors/Pittsburgh Award

Vectors/Pittsburgh, an organization whose mission is to improve the quality of living for Pittsburgh citizens, has announced its 14 Pittsburgh Men and Women of the Year and three have ties to Carnegie Mellon.

Anthony DiGioia (E'72), adjunct professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Institute for Computer Assisted Orthopedic Surgery at the Western Pennsylvania Hospital, received the award in the Science and Medicine category. Charles E. Thorpe, director of the Robotics Institute, earned the honor in the technology division, and Mark H. Kryder, University Professor of electrical and computer engineering and senior vice president and director of research for Seagate Technology, received the David L. Lawrence Award.

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