:: UCLA TODAY Home

©2004
The Regents of the University of California
 

names and faces

BRAVO

Physics and Astronomy Professor George Grüner is serving as chief scientist at Nanomix Inc., a leading nanotechnology company that was selected by the World Economic Forum as one of 30 Technology Pioneers for 2004. The company focuses on developing nano-scale electronic devices to do chemical sensing.... Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center appointed Katharine “Posie” Carpenter its new director of nursing. Most recently, she was director of surgical services for the Southern California Orthopedic Institute/Center for Orthopedic Surgery, Inc.... Lyle Bachman, professor and chair of applied linguistics & TESL, received the International Language Testing Association-University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate Lifetime Achievement Award. The award, which acknowledges distinguished service and scholarship in the field of language testing, includes £500 and a framed certificate that was presented at the organization’s annual meeting last month.... The National Association of Theatre Owners of California/Nevada has established an annual $24,000 fellowship at the School of Theater, Film and Television. The fellowship will award $6,000 each to four students for study in animation, producing, and documentary or narrative filmmaking.

CHEERS

Leena Peltonen, Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Chair in Human Genetics, was chosen by the National Institutes of Health to present the 2004 Margaret Pittman Lecture, which she delivered on Jan. 28. Peltonen’s lecture, “The Story of My Roots: Disease Mutations of a Population,” described the search for disease genes of rare and common phenotypes to demonstrate strategies to identify disease genes and predisposing alleles.... Amid growing concern about the link between air pollution and asthma, the School of Public Health has received a $700,000 grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District to create the Asthma and Outdoor Air Quality Consortium. It will conduct research to better understand how air pollution affects asthma and to guide the crafting of regulations intended to decrease the impact.... Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., associate vice chancellor for community partnerships, is this year’s recipient of the Hatfield Scholar’s Award, which is given annually to an academic leader with an outstanding record of research, publication and public service. The award is presented by the combined faculties of the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, the School of Community Health, and the School of Urban Studies and Planning, all housed in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University.

IN MEMORIAM

Clemens A. Nelson, professor emeritus of geology, died on March 3 in Bishop, Calif., after a brief illness. He was 85.

Nelson was a renowned paleontologist specializing in trilobites, meticulous stratigrapher and participant in refining the Early-to-Middle Cambrian boundary, superb field geologist and author of geological maps, dedicated and inspiring teacher of both his students and his colleagues, and friend and helper to everyone in need.

Born in St. Paul, Minn., on Nov. 26, 1918, Nelson was the only son of a family of six children born to Swedish parents Arvid and Olga Nelson. He studied geology in his home town’s twin city of Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota and obtained a B.A. in 1941 and a M.S. the following year. Nelson then worked briefly for the United States Geological Survey. That institution and he seem to have agreed with each other, because he continued his connection and kept producing impeccable geological map quadrangles under the Survey’s imprint throughout his career. Late in 1942 he joined the U.S. Navy and served throughout World War II until his discharge at the rank of lieutenant in 1946. He immediately returned to his alma mater as a student and half-time instructor.

Early in the summer of 1948 Nelson had almost finished his doctorate and was recruited for the post of instructor and lecturer by Cordell Durrell, chairman of the department of geology at UCLA. His employment was to start with the fall semester. At that time Nelson’s mother died, and the thesis was not finished in time. The department came through with the job anyway, and Nelson started teaching. His thesis “The Cambrian Stratigraphy of the St. Croix Valley” (a region straddling the Minnesota-Wisconsin border), was accepted by the University of Minnesota in 1949. Portions of it saw publication in 1951 in the Journal of Paleontology.

On the occasion of Nelson’s proposed advancement from instructor to assistant professor in 1949, his chairman, still Cord Durrell, mentions in a letter to the University President that despite a heavy teaching load the candidate had started field work to re-investigate the Type Middle Cambrian Section in the Inyo Mountains of California, where no new work had been done for over fifty years. This must have impressed President Sproul, because Nelson entered the tenure track as assistant professor, step I, in the fall of 1950. Tenure and associate professorship came in 1958 and full professorship in 1964.

Nelson was chairman twice from the fall of 1966 to that of 1969, and again from 1970 to 1972. From 1975 to his retirement in 1987 Nelson served as undergraduate advisor, guiding and inspiring his department’s younger students to navigate the bureaucratic maze of formal requirements and prerequisites to those requirements, but also, and more importantly, to learn and to enjoy learning. He also took many generations of undergraduates to the crowning course of their curriculum, “Advanced Field Geology,” run from a field camp on either the eastern or the western slopes above Owen’s Valley near Big Pine, “God’s Own Country” as he used to call it. He made them work long, hard days, and most of them loved it.

Nelson held rather progressive views on many social issues—though the original motivation probably came from his wife, Ruth. Nelson was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, long before it was widely adopted or “politically correct.” His was one of the earliest voices that set us on the path of equal opportunity for women students and faculty, a long tradition of which the UCLA Department of Earth & Space Sciences is justifiably proud.

Nelson and his wife came to the Owens Valley in 1987, after his retirement from UCLA. She died in 1989, but Nelson stayed active in the geology of eastern California and was a remarkable source of support for younger generations of geologists working in the White-Inyo Range. For many years he led interested parties on trips into his favorite country, especially Poleta Folds and Papoose Flat.

Nelson is survived by his sister and brother-in-law Marjorie and Art Anderson; sister Lorraine Gibson; son and daughter-in-law James and Kris Nelson; son and daughter-in-law Jack and Erin Nelson; daughter Peggy Nelson and Peggy Beck; sister and brother-in-law Eleanor and Art Carlbom; grandchildren Chani and Michael Colburn; Jeremy Nelson; Joshua and Taylor Nelson; Shawn Nelson; Matthew Nelson; and two great grandchildren; Peyton and Ashley Colburn.

Donations in honor of Nelson’s name and his love of education may be made either to the “UC Regents, C.A. Nelson WMRS Fund,” White Mountain Research Station, 3000 E. Line Street, Bishop, CA 93514—this fund has been established to support student research in the early earth’s history of the White-Inyo region; or to the UCLA Foundation/ESS “Clem Nelson Summer Field Scholarship Fund,”—these should be sent to UCLA Earth & Space Sciences, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567.

Morton Lee Pearce, 83, professor emeritus of medicine, died on March 1 at Stanford University Hospital of complications from cancer.

Working with Dr. Seymour Dayton, Pearce conducted early clinical trials demonstrating that a diet low in saturated fat and high in unsaturated fat protected against heart attack and stroke. An account of their work was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1962.

Pearce was also a leader in research in congestive heart failure and the role of the electrocardiogram in diagnosis of heart disease.

A native of Chicago, Pearce earned his bachelor’s and medical degrees at the University of Chicago. He interned at Los Angeles County Hospital in 1945 and held his first residency there. He went on to hold positions at Johns Hopkins University and Vanderbilt University before joining the UCLA faculty in 1956 as an associate professor. He became a full professor at the Westwood campus in 1963.

Pearce was also chief of cardiology at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Westwood from 1965 to 1969 and chief of cardiology at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences from 1969 to 1975. He retired in 1986 and divided his time between Lyngby, Denmark, and Palo Alto.