National Academy of Sciences Honors AAS Members

This post is adapted from a National Academy of Sciences press release:

The National Academy of Sciences will honor 20 individuals with awards in recognition of their extraordinary scientific achievements in a wide range of fields spanning the physical, biological, social, and medical sciences. Among the recipients are two AAS members.

Dana Longcope (Montana State University) will receive the Arctowski Medal for his fundamental research on the nature of solar magnetism, magnetic topology, and solar magnetic reconnection. His achievements include developing fundamental equations of motion for thin bundles of twisted magnetic flux; pioneering the topological description of three-dimensional magnetic fields in the solar corona; establishing a unified picture of three-dimensional magnetic reconnection with applications to the quiet Sun, active regions, X-ray bright points, flares, and coronal mass ejections; and advancing theories of the response of the Sun’s atmosphere to coronal reconnection. Presented every two years, the Arctowski Medal comes with a $100,000 prize and $100,000 to support research in solar physics and solar terrestrial relationships.

Sheperd Doeleman (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian) will share the Henry Draper Medal with Heino Falcke (Radboud University) for their pioneering work that enabled the first imaging of a black hole. The two are colleagues known for their vision and leadership within the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, which envelops theory, instrumentation, observation, and analysis through the engagement and concerted coordination of international radio telescopes. Doeleman is honored for discovering event-horizon-scale structures in supermassive black holes through pioneering work in radio interferometry and for his decades-long leadership in developing instruments and global arrays to produce the first black hole image, opening a new window on gravity and physics. Presented every four years, the Henry Draper Medal comes with a $25,000 prize to honor a recent, original, and important investigation in astronomical physics.

The winners will be honored in a virtual ceremony during the National Academy of Sciences' 158th annual meeting in April 2021.