The Historical Society of Princeton recently presented its Historic Preservation Award to Jon Hlafter, director of Princeton University’s Office of Physical Planning.
And three faculty members mathematics Professor Sergiu Klainerman, English Professor Michael Wood and astrophysicist Bodhan Paczynski received honors in their fields this past week.
The historic preservation award recognizes Mr. Hlafter’s leadership in building and landscape preservation.
"The Princeton University campus is one of the most significant historic resources in Princeton. In his more than 30 years of service to the University, Jon Hlafter has made a significant contribution to the preservation, enhancement and evolution of the University campus," the certificate reads.
The Historical Society also presented the university an award for its restoration of the Princeton University Chapel, built in 1925-28. The project was completed this winter.
The French Academy of Sciences has elected Professor Klainerman as a foreign associate. He was elected to the academy’s division of physical and applied mathematics.
The academy cited Professor Klainerman for his "spectacular" work in developing a rigorous mathematical theory that provides a counterexample to a conjecture of Einstein’s regarding the nature of space and time, as well as for other work in the area of hyperbolic systems.
Professor Klainerman, who received his doctorate from New York University in 1978 and came to Princeton in 1987, previously has been honored with a MacArthur Fellowship, the Bocher Prize of the American Mathematical Society and the Le Conte Prize of the French Academy of Sciences.
Professor Wood has been honored with Princeton University’s Behrman Award for distinguished achievement in the humanities.
Professor Wood joined the Princeton faculty in 1995 after teaching at Columbia University and the University of Exeter. He teaches modern and contemporary fiction and poetry, literary theory and history of criticism. He also leads courses in film and in Latin American studies.
He is the author of several books, including "Stendhal," "America in the Movies," "Garcia Marquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude," "The Magician’s Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction" and "Children of Silence: On Contemporary Fiction."
Last year, his book on Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel’s "Belle de Jour" was published. His work on Czech novelist Franz Kafka will appear this summer.
Professor Wood, who earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Cambridge University, also has written many reviews and essays for literary journals.
Bestowed annually, the Behrman Award was established in 1975 by a gift from the late Howard Behrman, a physician and book collector.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific has awarded its annual Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal to Dr. Paczynski. The society recognized Professor Paczynski for his "revolutionary" work in many areas of astronomy. Early in his career, Dr. Paczynski made important contributions to the understanding of the evolution of stars and the interactions of binary stars.
In the 1980s, he developed influential ideas regarding gravitational lensing, the effect that occurs when the gravity of massive objects bends passing light. Subsequent surveys based on his work have revealed important findings about the structure of our galaxy and continue to aid many other fields of research, including the search for planets outside the solar system.
The society also cited Dr. Paczynski for his work in understanding the origin of gamma ray bursts, which are enormous explosions that occur when massive stars collapse into black holes.
Dr. Paczynski received his doctorate from Warsaw University in Poland and came to Princeton in 1982.
