Caltech Leader, 4 Other Scientists Win Some of Nation’s Top Awards

Five Caltech scientists, including President Thomas E. Everhart, have received some of the nation’s highest awards.

Everhart, Murray Gell-Mann and Don Anderson have been named fellows of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

Everhart, who became president of the technological institution in Pasadena last year, has researched electron beams. Gell-Mann won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1969 for his theoretical work on the structure and organization of elementary particles, and Anderson is a geophysicist and director of Caltech’s seismological laboratory. Anderson has received international recognition for his research on the structure of the Earth’s interior.

Robert Leighton, emeritus professor of physics, has been awarded the 1988 James Craig Watson Medal by the National Academy of Sciences for his achievements in astronomy. The bronze medal, awarded every three years, carries a $15,000 prize and was given to Leighton “for his work as creator and exploiter of new instruments and techniques that have opened new areas of astronomy.”

Leroy E. Hood, chairman of the biology division, has received the 1988 Distinguished Service Award given by the Miami Winter Symposium, sponsored by the University of Miami department of biochemistry and Papanicolaou Comprehensive Cancer Center. Hood was honored for his contributions to biotechnology.