Philosophy and Physics Professors Receive Faculty Research Lecturer Award

Feb. 9, 2009

Philosopher Donald Rutherford is one of the two recipients of the Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for the 2007-08 academic year.

Philosopher Donald Rutherford and physicist Ivan K. Schuller received the Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for the 2007-08 academic year, officials announced last week.

The award recognizes faculty whose research has made a significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The award is presented annually to two researchers: one from the arts, humanities or social sciences, and one from the sciences. Each recipient presents a lecture on a topic of their choice; is honored by the faculty at a reception; and receives a $1,000 award.

Rutherford will give his lecture Feb. 12 at the Leichtag Auditorium on "The Kind of People We Want to Be: The History of Philosophy and Its Future." He is being recognized for the broad spectrum of his research, as well as his broad educational background, which covers both science and philosophy.

His research has focused on the history of early modern philosophy—mainly Leibniz, but also Malebranche, Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza. His work on Leibniz led to the well-regarded book “Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature” and also to the massive task of editing and translating the decade-long correspondence between Leibniz and the Jesuit Des Bosses. Scholars regard this correspondence as one of Leibniz's most important philosophical exchanges but it had never before been adequately edited or fully translated.

Rutherford is currently studying the reception of ancient concepts of happiness in 17th-century philosophy. He also was honored by the Academic Senate in 2008 for his teaching with a Distinguished Teaching Award.

Physicist Ivan K. Schuller is also a recipient of the Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award for the 2007-08 academic year.

Meanwhile, the date for Schuller’s lecture is yet to be set. He is being recognized for his contributions in transforming shake-and-bake metallurgy into a precise, nano-scale science. The award also recognizes his ability to present difficult concepts to both experts and lay people with excitement and humor. Schuller was the star of UCSD-TV’s award-winning documentary “When Things Get Small” about nanoscience.

In addition to playing a wacky version of himself in that documentary, Schuller is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the Chilean, Spanish and Belgian Academies of Sciences. He has won many awards, including the American Physical Society’s Wheatley and Adler Awards, the German von Humbold prize, the Materials Research Society Medal and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Award. He also recently received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the oldest and largest university in Spain, Universidad Complutense. He has published more than 450 technical papers and patents, has given more than 250 invited lectures at international conferences and is one of the 100 most-cited physicists worldwide, out of 500,000, in the last 15 years.

The Academic Senate Faculty Research Lecturer Award was established in 1982 and started recognizing faculty for the 1983 academic year. At that time, the award went to one faculty member each year. In 1996, the senate decided to recognize two faculty members per year. Past recipients include Roger Tsien, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, David Noel Freedman and Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, among more than 20 others.