Well-endowed. Martin Nowak will soon have a reported $30 million endowment with which to beef up what he calls "one of the biggest growth areas in science." The 38-year-old Viennese-born mathematician and biologist is moving this summer from the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to Harvard University to lead a new program in mathematical biology. The program's benefactor is billionaire financial planner Jeffrey Epstein, who has supported some of Nowak's previous work using information theory, game theory, and other mathematical ideas to understand evolution, language development, and the spread of diseases.
CREDITS: IAS
Biology has always been empirical, but slowly people are realizing how important theory is," says Nowak, who hopes to attract talent by offering fellowships and research opportunities to students and visiting slots to faculty. He also hopes to strengthen the connections between Harvard's math department, biology department, medical school, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
Tech transfer. Leonard Peters has been named director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Officials at Battelle, which manages the $550 million lab for the Department of Energy, say they were impressed with Peters's success in commercializing new ventures at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, where he was vice provost. He starts 1 April.
