Don Anderson was recognized by two groups for his research expertise and leadership in chronicling and analyzing blooms of the harmful algae Alexandrium in New England waters. The Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission awarded Anderson its 2005 David L. Belding Award, which is given to “the individual who has done the most to promote conservation and sustainable use of the Commonwealth’s marine resources.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave a Group Recognition Award to the Paralytic Shellfish Management Group, a federal advisory body on which he serves. The FDA cited the group for “exceptional performance in controlling shellfish resources of the Atlantic Ocean rendered unsafe by the hazardous algal bloom of 2005.” Anderson is a senior scientist in the WHOI Biology Department and director of the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute.

Jim Ledwell won the 2007 Alexander Agassiz Medal by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Ledwell, a senior scientist in the Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, specializes in the use of chemical tracers to observe currents in the ocean.

Established in 1913, the Agassiz Medal is awarded every three years to an individual scientist for original and fundamental contributions to oceanography. The academy cited Ledwell for his “innovative and insightful tracer experiments using sulfur hexafluoride to understand vertical diffusivity and turbulent mixing in the open ocean.”

To measure the mixing and stirring effects of eddies and internal waves, Ledwell “marks” parcels of water by releasing harmless dyes or chemicals from ships and then measures the subsequent dispersion (sometimes for several years). Such work aids oceanographers in understanding the circulation of the ocean and the transport of nutrients, plankton, and pollutants in ocean ecosystems—all of which are important to marine life and to the ocean’s role in climate change.

Past WHOI recipients of the Agassiz Medal include Henry Bigelow, Columbus Iselin, Alfred Redfield, Fritz Fuglister, John Steele, and Henry Stommel.

Nobumichi Shimizu was elected by peers as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Shimizu was selected for his pioneering work in the development and application of secondary ion mass spectrometers in the field of geochemistry and for furthering our knowledge of mantle differentiation.

Shimizu is a senior scientist in the WHOI Department of Geology and Geophysics, as well as founder and director of the Northeast National Ion Microprobe Facility. AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal Science.

Ralph A. Stephen was named a Fellow of the American Acoustical Society, the premier international scientific society in acoustics. He was cited for “for contributions to seafloor elastic wave propagation.”

Stephen is a senior scientist in the WHOI Geology and Geophysics Department. The ASA has nearly 7,000 members in theoretical and applied fields, ranging from physicists, engineers and oceanographers to architects, musicians, and speech and hearing researchers.

John A. Whitehead won the 2007 Stommel Award given by the American Meteorological Society, the nation’s leading professional society for scientists in the atmospheric and related sciences.  He was also named a Fellow of the Society, an honor given to only a limited number of members each year in recognition of outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences, or their applications, during a substantial period of years. 

Whitehead was cited “for his fundamental contributions to geophysical fluid dynamics and physical oceanography, for which his laboratory and observational studies of rotating hydraulic flows have been particularly illuminating.” 

The Stommel Award, named after the renowned WHOI oceanographer Henry Stommel, is granted to researchers in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the advancement of the understanding of the dynamics and physics of the ocean. Whitehead is a senior scientist in the WHOI Physical Oceanography Department.