Two staff members win
award for research contributions
Two laboratory workers
have captured the top prize presented annually by
Stanford faculty to staff members who have made
outstanding contributions to the university's research
mission.
Frank Levy of the
Mechanical Engineering Department and geologist Robert
Jones of the Center for Materials Research and the
Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences are
the winners of the 10th annual Marshall D. O'Neill Award.
They each will receive a cash prize of $2,000 and a
plaque at a Nov. 19 ceremony. All previous honorees have
been invited to the event as well.
"This is the only
staff award for which faculty make the nominations and
selection," said Ann George, assistant dean in the
Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research and
Graduate Policy, which sponsors the competition. "It
acknowledges that the ground-breaking research done here
is made possible to a large degree by the work of people
like Bob and Frank."
Related
Information:
Levy and Jones were picked
by a selection committee that included O'Neill, the
former associate director of the W. W. Hansen
Laboratories, who retired in 1991 and was the first
recipient. Friends of O'Neill endowed the award.
Levy, a Stanford employee
for 37 years, helps graduate students with the
"hands-on" aspects of their thesis projects.
He makes an impression on
his students, many of whom acknowledge him in their
dissertations. Frederick Morse, Ph.D. '69, still
remembers him 30 years after leaving Stanford.
"Do you think I could
have carved a supersonic nozzle out of a ceramic brick
without your help? Not likely. Do you think I could glue
all of those little ceramic pieces together with that red
rubbery stuff without your help? Of course not. Do you
think I could have, myself, gotten the burner to burn,
the Cesium to squirt, and everything else to work so I
could get enough data to graduate? No way," Morse,
who heads a Washington, D.C.-based energy and
environmental consulting firm, wrote last year in
reference to a Mechanical Engineering Department
newsletter item that mentioned Levy.
Frank Levy
A native of Wisconsin,
Levy joined the U.S. Navy and then worked as an
automobile mechanic before taking a job in the research
laboratory of the aerospace program of Lockheed Missiles
and Space Co. Inc. A referral from a former student
landed Levy a job at Stanford.
He's been around since the
days before computers were used to gather data, and he
swore he'd never use one. Then, last year, he finally
gave in to peer pressure and learned e-mail. Now he loves
it. "I guess I was one of the last holdouts,"
he says.
Levy's daily duties can
incorporate welding, plumbing and carpentry in the
department's cavernous lab, where the ceiling is an
expanse of metallic insulation and exposed pipes, and the
humming of exhaust fans is constant.
Over in Jones' lab in
McCullough Hall, the electron microprobe that chemically
analyzes micron-sized volumes of solids is among his main
preoccupations. Primarily students studying materials
science use the scanning electron microscope located near
his office in a back workroom. "They are the smart
ones," he quips.
Robert
Jones
That corner also is a
morning coffee gathering spot for department faculty and
students who also are welcome to candy and other treats
Jones provides.
Jones teaches a class
every winter quarter to about 10 graduate students. He
lectures on the theory of electronic probe analysis and
provides hands-on guidance on the practical use of the
instruments. During the summer he visits the White
Mountains, located east of Bishop by the Nevada border,
for geologic mapping tasks.
"He . . . simply
makes top quality science happen at Stanford," says
geological and environmental sciences Professor Elizabeth
Miller.
Prior to his arrival at
Stanford six years ago, Jones spent 25 years at the
University of California-Los Angeles. He grew up in
Southern California and received his bachelor's degree in
chemistry/geology from San Diego State University. SR
Photos by L.A. Cicero
|
