B R I E F S

 
Allan Reiman and Douglas McCune, researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, are this year's PPPL Distinguished Research and Engineering Fellows, respectively.

Reiman, a physicist at the PPPL, was cited for his numerous contributions in diverse topics in plasma physics, including the theory of three-dimensional plasmas found in fusion devices called stellarators, and for his leadership in developing innovative approaches to the stabilization of plasmas in the design of the National Compact Stellarator Experiment.

McCune, co-head of the laboratory's computational plasma physics group, was honored for seminal contributions to computational plasma physics, particularly in the area of high-level data analysis in fusion experiments, and for his more recent work in establishing and leading the group, which has been vital to the development of modern computational physics and collaborative data analysis capability for both the PPPL and the fusion energy science community.

The Distinguished Research and Engineering Fellow Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, was created to recognize members of the laboratory's research and engineering and scientific staff for their accomplishments.

 
Leigh Schmidt and Jacqueline Stone, faculty members of the Department of Religion, have been honored for their recently published books. They shared the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the category of historical studies.

Schmidt was cited for his book, "Hearing Things: Religion, Illusion and the American Enlightenment" (Harvard University Press, 2000). Stone was recognized for her book, "Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism" (Kuroda Institute, 1999).

Schmidt also received the 2001 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize from the American Studies Association for his book. The award honors the best book published in the field of American studies.

  
Gaetana Marrone-Puglia, professor of French and Italian, has been named the recipient of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies by the Modern Language Association of America.

The award recognizes an outstanding book by a member of the association in the field of Italian literature or comparative literature involving Italian. Marrone-Puglia was honored for her book, "The Gaze and the Labyrinth: The Cinema of Liliana Cavani," published in 1999 by Princeton University Press.

The book is the first comprehensive study in English of the aesthetics and work of Cavani, one of Italy's foremost cinematic auteurs. The award selection committee said it was "meticulously researched, engagingly written and beautifully illustrated."

Two Princeton graduate alumni also recently were named award winners by the Modern Language Association: Timothy Hampton, who completed his Ph.D. in comparative literature in 1987, received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Literary Studies; and Gabriella Safran, who completed her Ph.D. in Slavic languages and literatures in 1998, received the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Hampton is a faculty member at the University of California-Berkeley, and Safran is on the faculty at Stanford University.