The School of Engineering and Applied Science’s efforts to close the global digital divide have been recognized with a $1.12 million grant in Hewlett-Packard equipment and services. Touted as the most extensive and concrete undertaking by an American institution of higher education, SEAS’ grassroots project will lay the foundation for a high-speed information and communication infrastructure in Ghana. In three years, SEAS has already founded computer laboratories in four developing nations, including Ecuador, India and Mali. The Hewlett-Packard award is to be jointly administered by Penn and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The Dutch Graduate School Polymers at Eindhoven University of Technology has selected Professor of Chemistry Virgil Percec to be the awardee of the 2002 Dutch Polymers PTN Award. Awarded annually to an internationally renowned scientist for achievement in the study and research of polymer science and engineering, it includes a painting and a cash award. Percec and his family are invited to the Netherlands in recognition of his honor.

Professor of Art History Cecil L. Striker has been elected honorary director for life of the American Research Institute in Turkey. Striker has been associated with the American Research Institute since its founding in 1965 and served as president from 1977 to 1984.

Dr. Steven Bird has been elected to a three-year term on the Committee on Endangered Languages. Bird, associate director and senior researcher of the Linguistic Data Consortium, focuses his research on formal and computational models for linguistic information.