EDITORS: Photographs are available upon request

ANN ARBOR—Three University of Michigan researchers won prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship awards in the 2002 competition, according to a recent announcement from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The three winners are Rodney C. Ewing, Yu Xie, and Charles F. Yocum.

Ewing is a professor in nuclear engineering and radiological sciences as well as geological sciences and materials science and engineering. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University and graduate degrees from Stanford University. He received the award for his work on the impact of the nuclear fuel cycle on the environment, especially the application of concepts and techniques in materials science and mineralogy to nuclear waste management. His research includes the design of highly durable materials for the immobilization of special nuclear waste streams, such as plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons.

Xie is the Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of Sociology and Statistics and senior research scientist, Institute for Social Research. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Shanghai University of Technology and graduate degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His fellowship was awarded for his work detailing economic reform and social inequality in contemporary China. His research in this area has covered a range of topics, from regional variations in earnings inequality in urban China to occupational differences between Han Chinese and national minorities in Xinjiang province. The Guggenheim Fellowship will support him in finishing a study based on a 1999 study in Wuhan, Shanghai, and Xian.

Yocum is the Alfred S. Sussman Collegiate Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and professor of chemistry. He received his Ph.D. degree from Indiana University and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. He was selected for his exploration of the role of calcium in photosynthetic oxygen production, using depletion/reconstitution methods to identify critical steps in the process of water oxidation. His research is in the area of biological chemistry, and focuses on understanding how inorganic ions and proteins of photosynthetic systems function to catalyze rapid oxygen production.

This year, in the 78th annual competition, 184 artists, scholars and scientists were selected as Guggenheim Fellows from a pool of over 2,800 applicants. Fellows are appointed on the basis of distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Phone: (734) 647-3099

Guggenheim Fellowship awardsEwing