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News from ICTP 104 - Monitor
The official ceremony honouring the 2002 and 2003 recipients of the ICO (International Commission for Optics)/ICTP Award took place on Thursday 20 February in the Main Lecture Hall.
Alphan Sennaroglu, associate professor of physics and
electrical engineering, Department of Physics, Koc University,
Istanbul, Turkey, won the 2002 award for his contributions to
our understanding of ultrashort pulse generation related to the
development of solid-state lasers and his theoretical studies
of power optimisation.
Robert Szipocs, head of the laboratory at the Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Budapest, Hungary, won the 2003 award for his contributions to our understanding of 'chirped' multilayer mirrors related to ultrafast optics. The ceremony, which featured lectures by each of the prize winners, took place during the ICTP Winter College on Biophotonics, held from 10-21 February.
The ICO/ICTP Award, launched in 2000, recognizes the work of
researchers from developing countries or countries with economies
in transition, who are less than 40 years old and have made significant
contributions to the field of optics. For additional information
about the award, see www.ictp.it/~sci_info/awards/ICO/ICO.html.
Abdus Salam Street
Toronto, Canada, has honoured Abdus Salam, the founding director
of ICTP, by naming a street after him. He is one of many Muslim
scholars, including Sir Zafrullah Khan, Hakeem Noor Uddin, and
Mirza Nasir Ahmad, whom Canada's largest city is recognising for
their contributions to humanity.
Library Renovation
Renovations on the 'old' Library wing, housing the Centre's
book collection, have been completed. Firewalls, smoke detectors
and an emergency exit have been installed to bring the wing up
to current safety and security standards. New lighting and carpeting
will provide a more research-friendly environment for Centre visitors.
Centre and City
The ICTP Cultural Committee hosted an exhibition featuring
photographs by ICTP's chief photographer Massimo Silvano
(left). "The Centre and the City" featured images of
Trieste's coastline conveying the enduring role the sea and now
science have played in the city's development.
IN MEMORIAM
Attia Abdel-Kader El-Sayed, an ICTP Associate since 2000, died on 11 February. He was 39. El-Sayed, a native of Egypt, last visited the Centre in summer 2002 and was scheduled to return to Trieste this year as a Fellow of ICTP's Training and Research in Italian Laboratories (TRIL) programme. El-Sayed, who received his doctorate from Uppsala University in Sweden, worked as a professor of seismology at Mansoura University in Egypt, where he pursued a broad research agenda in geophysics. At the time of his death, El-Sayed was serving as coordinator of a seismology network in North Africa supported by ICTP's Office of External Activities.
Pierluigi Romita (right), a well-known Italian politician, died on 22 March in Milan. Born in Turin in 1924, during World War II he participated in the resistance against the German occupation. Romita was subsequently elected to the Italian parliament in 1958 as a member of the Social Democratic Party. In 1972, he was appointed minister for science. In this capacity, Romita visited ICTP the following year, meeting Abdus Salam (left). Holding a number of government posts over the next two decades, he visited the Centre on several occasions helping to strengthen the ties between ICTP and the Italian scientific community. In 1989 he was elected to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, where he served until 1994.
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