EXCELLENCE

Jonsson Cancer Center researcher Dennis Slamon, whose work led to the development of the breast cancer drug Herceptin, received the Dorothy P. Landon-American Association for Cancer Research Prize for Translational Cancer Research. The international award is the largest prize offered to cancer researchers by a professional society of their peers.... Roman Koropeckyj, associate professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, was honored by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for his book on Poland’s national poet, Adam Mickiewicz, “The Poetics of Revitalization: Adam Mickiewicz between ‘Forefathers’ Eve, Part 3,’ and ‘Pan Tadeusz’ ” (Columbia University Press).... “The Hall of Mirrors,” a CD of chamber works by Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Mark Carlson, won a 2001 Chamber Music America/ WQXR Record Award.... Benjamin Suchoff, adjunct professor of ethnomusicology, wrote “Bela Bartok: Life and Work” (Scarecrow Press), the first comprehensive biographical study of Bartok as man, composer and folklorist.... The UCLA Film and Television Archive received a 2002 Special Citation from the National Society of Film Critics. The archive was recognized for its “long-lived and heroic work in film preservation, restoration and resurrection, including its recent rehabilitation of rehearsal and test footage from director Charles Laughton’s ‘The Night of the Hunter’ (1955).”

KUDOS

Colin Quigley, vice chair and associate professor of world arts and cultures, received a Fulbright Alumni Initiative Award for faculty exchanges and development of curricular materials in Transylvanian folk life.... Thomas Klitzner, professor of pediatric cardiology at Mattel Children’s Hospital, will co-chair “Every Child Deserves a Medical Home,” an April 26 symposium at the Los Angeles Shriners Hospital for Children on providing quality care for children with special needs. The American Academy of Pediatrics, Family Voices and the Los Angeles Medical Home Project are among the symposium’s sponsors.... Cameron McNall, adjunct associate professor in the Design | Media Arts Department, received a 2002 City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship. He completed two large, public-arts projects: “Hollywood Shadow Project” and “R-G-B.”

IN MEMORIAM

Lawrence H. Aller, a high school dropout who became a UCLA astronomy professor, helped to build the department and was a major figure in his field, died March 16. He was 89.

When he was a boy, Aller was forced to work in a futile gold-mining effort by his father, who was angry when Aller used his birthday money of $3 to join the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1929; 45 years later, Aller became director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Aller never finished high school, and after two-and-a-half years of self-described “starvation, misery and deprivation,” he left a mining camp, impressed a UC Berkeley faculty member with his knowledge of astronomy and was admitted to the university on a trial basis.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1936 and went on to Harvard, earning his master’s in 1938 and his Ph.D. in 1942, where he was trained in atomic physics, as well as astronomy. After faculty appointments at Indiana University and the University of Michigan, Aller came to UCLA in 1962 as a professor of astronomy, a small department in the midst of approving a Ph.D. program. Aller not only helped build the department, he chaired it from 1963-1968.

He retired in 1984, but continued to teach into the mid-1990s. Among Aller’s honors was his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1962, his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1961 and his selection for the prestigious American Astronomical Society’s Henry Norris Russell Prize in 1992, awarded annually based on lifetime achievement in astronomical research. He received the prize for his research in the astrophysical study of gaseous nebulae, the chemical analysis of stars and the analysis of the solar photosphere.

William C. Meecham, UCLA professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and an outspoken authority on the effects of airport noise, died March 11 from heart failure. He was 77.

Meecham earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in 1948 and his Ph.D. in mathematical physics in 1954, all from the University of Michigan, where he also served as an assistant professor. Meecham joined the faculty at UCLA’s engineering school in 1967 and served as chair of what is now known as the mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE) department from 1969 to 1970.

Since the early 1970s, Meecham frequently acted as an expert legal witness on the effects of jet noise on mortality rates, mental hospital admissions and other adverse community health effects. He was a consultant for dozens of companies and government agencies, including TRW, General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Rand Corp. and NASA.

A 1982 investigation by Meecham found a higher rate of cardiovascular deaths, strokes, suicides and murder among 200,000 people who lived in a flight-path corridor near Los Angeles International Airport, compared with those living in other areas of the city. He attributed this difference partly to the effects of prolonged exposure to loud noise. Partly due to Meecham’s efforts, the schools beneath the flight path were moved.

Meecham was a respected researcher and teacher, according to colleagues. “Bill was a brilliant analyst with a sense of humor and love of peace, and we are going to miss him dearly,” said H. Thomas Hahn, professor and chair of the MAE department at UCLA. “He was friendly, easygoing and full of energy. A number of his former students owe him their successful professional careers.”

Donations may be made to CALPIRG (The California Public Interest Research Group), 1107 Ninth St., Suite 601, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Robert “Bob” Tannenbaum, who served as professor in UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management and whose humanist vision profoundly affected the field of organizational development for more than 50 years, died March 15 at age 87 at his home in Carmel, Calif.

Tannenbaum was born in Cripple Creek, Colo., but was raised in Southern California. He served as a Navy lieutenant in the Pacific Islands during World War II and received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1948.

He was considered a pioneer in the West Coast movement that valued personal development and teamwork as instrumental to organization effectiveness. From the 1950s through the 1970s, Tannenbaum was instrumental in developing UCLA’s Graduate School of Management as a key center of thought and practice in the field of organization and leadership development. His work during this period with the Western Training Lab and the NTL Institute of Applied Behavioral Science was crucial to the development of modern small group processes, such as Sensitivity Training and T-Groups.

Tannenbaum’s books and articles have had significant impact in the field. “How to Choose a Leadership Pattern” and “Management of Differences” both set Harvard Business Review records for reprint requests.

Taking early retirement from UCLA in 1977, Tannenbaum spent the second part of his career consulting and counseling executives, change agents and scholars on the dynamics of organizations and human development. He was active in developing Pepperdine University’s master’s program in organization development.

Tannenbaum received many honors, including an honorary doctorate from the Saybrook Institute, fellow of the NTL Institute and distinction in the OD Network. He also was the first recipient of the American Society for Training and Development Lifetime Achievement Award.

Family, students and friends are planning a memorial service on June 29, to be held on the UCLA campus.