Moore, Chu headline Commencement

Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu '70 will receive an honorary degree and presidential technology advisor Duncan Moore will deliver the commencement address at the University's 148th commencement ceremonies Sunday, May 17.

Commencement ceremonies for bachelor's degree candidates will start at 9 a.m. on Eastman Quadrangle of the River Campus.

Moore, on leave from the University, is Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor of Optical Engineering and served as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He was appointed associate director for technology of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in fall 1997.

Moore helped to create the University's Center for Optics Manufacturing and recently finished a term as president of the 12,000-member Optical Society of America. This year, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors afforded an engineer.

Chu, a University alumnus, was named a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics last fall for his work using lasers to chill and trap atoms. He is the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University. Chu earned a B.A. in math along with a B.S. in physics from the University in 1970.

Also at the bachelor's degree ceremony, Mary-Frances Winters, president and founder of the Winters Group and a University trustee, will receive the Hutchison Medal, given to outstanding alumni/ae.

Psychology professor Dale McAdam will receive the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Undergraduate Teaching. A faculty member since 1967, McAdam has been class dean to either first-year or sophomore students since 1991.

Edna Seidmann, senior lecturer in the Simon School, will receive the G. Graydon Curtis Award for Undergraduate Teaching, given to outstanding non-tenured faculty. She has taught at the Simon School since 1990.

Commencement ceremonies for Ph.D. and master's degree candidates from the College, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Eastman School, Warner School, School of Medicine and Dentistry, and School of Nursing will be held Saturday, May 16 at 10 a.m. in Eastman Theatre.

At the graduate degree ceremony, Madeline Schmitt, who holds the First Independence Chair in Nursing and Interprofessional Education in the School of Nursing, will receive the University Graduate Teaching Award. She has taught in the School of Nursing's graduate program for 27 years. Katherine Hayles '77, professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles, will receive the Distinguished Rochester Scholar Award.

The commencement ceremony for M.D. graduates of the School of Medicine and Dentistry will be held at 10 a.m., Sunday, May 24 in Eastman Theatre. Ruth Kirschstein, deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, will receive an honorary degree.

The Simon School commencement will take place Sunday, June 14 in Eastman Theatre. James Gleason, president and chairman of Gleason Corp. and a 1968 graduate of the Simon School, will deliver the commencement address.

In all schools this year, 2,564 bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees will be awarded.