Four Dartmouth professors—George Cybenko, Jeremy DeSilva, David Kotz ’86, and Soni Lacefield—have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The AAAS is one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals. The honor, bestowed upon members by their academic peers since 1874, recognizes researchers for scientifically and socially distinguished achievements throughout their careers.
The professors come from schools across Dartmouth, with work encompassing a wide range of academic disciplines, and are among 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators to receive the honor, the AAAS announced on March 27.
“We are proud to have four faculty members named as AAAS fellows this year,” President Sian Leah Beilock says. “Their contributions in such fields as the evolution of early humans, computer network security, cell biology, and artificial neural networks demonstrate the impact and breadth of ongoing research at Dartmouth.”
Arts & Sciences
Professor of Anthropology Jeremy DeSilva, who specializes in the evolution of the early humans, is among this year’s honorees. “It is a tremendous honor to be elected a fellow of an organization that has long been devoted to science, evidence-based decision-making, and combating science illiteracy and misinformation,” he says. “More than ever, we need science, and I’m so proud to be recognized by an organization that has been on the forefront of scientific discovery and education in this country for over a century.”
DeSilva is interested in how our ancestors moved around their territory, how their brains worked, and what their family life was like. His recent work has focused on the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage.
“I’m fascinated by the fact that humans are the only mammal on Earth today that strides around on just two legs. We know, too, from the fossil record that upright walking, or bipedalism, is one of the very first changes that launched humans on this great evolutionary experiment,” says DeSilva, who is interested in better understanding how the social and cooperative behavior of early humans may have evolved in concert with this new, unusual form of locomotion to help them survive.
Before becoming a scientist, DeSilva worked as a science educator at the Boston Museum of Science. He has remained passionate about science literacy and has continued to engage with the public.
“Teaching remains so important to me, and so I was thrilled that in addition to being honored for distinguished contributions to our understanding of human evolution, especially with respect to human locomotion and life history, the AAAS included that I was being honored ‘for communicating science to the public,’” says DeSilva. “That means the world to me.”
Provost David Kotz ’86, the Pat and John Rosenwald Professor in the Department of Computer Science, was named an AAAS fellow for his contributions to the field of computer systems, particularly wireless networks, mobile health, and smart homes, always with careful attention to privacy and security.
“I am greatly honored to be elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, because the AAAS is the pre-eminent society for scientists, and because I fervently believe in the value of science to expand human understanding and to improve the human condition,” says Kotz.
Smart devices are electronic gadgets, such as televisions, thermostats, or health monitors, that are connected to each other and to the Internet. They can sense and control their environment and share information, intentionally or unintentionally, with internet-based services, or with friends, families, and businesses. To mitigate the privacy risks of the residents and enhance the security of their home, Kotz and his collaborators have devised novel methods to discover and locate electronic devices, monitor the home network for new devices, and prevent eavesdroppers from tuning into smart devices in a home.
Also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and an elected member of Phi Beta Kappa, Kotz became a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest and most prestigious association of computing professionals, in 2021.
Geisel School of Medicine
Soni Lacefield, professor of biochemistry and cell biology, was recognized for distinguished contributions to the field of meiotic cell cycle control, and for initiating and directing summer research programs for students from Africa.
“This distinction is not just a personal achievement but a testament to the collective efforts of my trainees, whose dedication have been instrumental to advancing our research,” she says.
Lacefield studies meiosis, the specialized cell division process that creates eggs and sperm. When meiosis goes wrong, it can lead to infertility, miscarriages, germ cell tumors, or trisomy conditions like Down syndrome. By uncovering the molecular mechanisms that regulate chromosome segregation and meiotic commitment, her work helps reveal fundamental principles of cell division. Since coming to Dartmouth two years ago, Lacefield has focused on questions related to reproduction in women.
Her lab, funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation and supported by shared research facilities at Dartmouth, is currently investigating how genetic mutations that cause infertility disrupt specific events in meiosis, resulting in eggs that are not competent to produce viable embryos after fertilization. By directly monitoring meiosis as it happens, Lacefield and her collaborators aim to uncover the precise defects caused by these mutations and identify new strategies mitigating infertility.
Thayer School of Engineering:
George Cybenko, the Dorothy and Walter Gramm Professor of Engineering, is being honored for key research contributions in artificial neural networks, distributed computing systems, and signal processing.
Cybenko’s research applies mathematical and computational thinking to engineering, social, and computing problems. He proved that even a simple neural network can learn to mimic almost any pattern, if it has enough neurons. Known as the universal approximation theorem, it is viewed as a foundational part of modern artificial intelligence and neural network technology.
In 2020, Cybenko was nominated a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the first Dartmouth researcher to earn the honor. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, founding editor-in-chief of Computing in Science and Engineering, co-founder of Flowtraq, Inc., and a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Cybenko was a co-recipient of the inaugural 2004 Dartmouth Faculty Mentoring Award, a recognition he cherishes. “My students’ appreciation and recognition have been priceless to me,” says Cybenko, who is now developing a mathematical and computational approach to artificial consciousness.
