NAS honors four faculty
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has honored 17 individuals with awards in recognition of their extraordinary scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological, and social sciences. Of the 17 chosen, four are Harvard faculty members: Michael J. Hopkins, professor of mathematics, is the recipient of the NAS Award in Mathematics. Hopkins is being honored for his research in algebraic topology, a field that studies algebraic invariants of the shape of continuous subsets in higher dimensional space. Hopkins has established important connections between algebraic topology and other areas of mathematics, and has contributed to the solution of a long-standing problem on the Kervaire invariant. Established by the American Mathematical Society in commemoration of its centennial, the award consists of a $5,000 prize for excellence of research in the mathematical sciences published within the past 10 years. Andrew H. Knoll, Fisher Professor of Natural History in the Department...