AAAS and Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering announce 2016 Fellows

James H. Garrett, Jr., and Vijayakumar Bhagavatula of Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

This year 391 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, Feb. 18, from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

This year's AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science on Nov. 25, 2016.

As part of the Engineering Section, Garrett, dean of the College of Engineering, was elected as an AAAS Fellow for contributions to the field of computing and civil engineering, particularly for pioneering work on intelligent civil infrastructure and fostering interdisciplinary academic culture.

In the Section for Information, Computing and Communication, Vijayakumar Bhagavatula, the U.A. and Helen Whitaker Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was elected for research contributions to the field of pattern recognition, particularly for the development of the theory and application of correlation filters for object recognition.

The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874. Currently, members can be considered for the rank of Fellow if nominated by the steering groups of the Association's 24 sections, or by any three Fellows who are current AAAS members (so long as two of the three sponsors are not affiliated with the nominee's institution), or by the AAAS chief executive officer. Fellows must have been continuous members of AAAS for four years by the end of the calendar year in which they are elected.

Each steering group reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and a final list is forwarded to the AAAS Council, which votes on the aggregate list.

The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the AAAS president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.

Provided by Carnegie Mellon University