Six faculty members at UCSB have been awarded the distinction of Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Election as a fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

“AAAS Fellowship represents recognition by the broadest, most diverse scientific society in the world. It is an honor that goes beyond accomplishments in an individual field,” said Matthew Tirrell, the Richard A. Auhll Professor and dean of engineering at UCSB.

“I would like to congratulate the six new Fellows of the AAAS from our campus who are recognized for their great scientific achievements,” said Pierre Wiltzius, dean of the Division of Mathematical, Life & Physical Sciences. “They represent the excellence across several departments in science and engineering.”

The newly elected members from UCSB are:

» Oliver Chadwick, chair of the department of geography and professor in the Department of Environmental Studies, for outstanding contributions to mineral weathering, soil development, critical zone exploration, soil polygenesis, climate change and biochemical cycling in soils.

» Mattanjah de Vries, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, for distinguished contributions in developing studies of isolated biomolecular building blocks in the gas phase that reveal fundamental properties of nucleobase pairing and peptide folding.

» Stanley Parsons, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, for pioneering functional, structural and pharmacological studies of the vesicular acetylcholine transport system (VAChT).

» Susannah Scott, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, for groundbreaking studies on the applications and quantitative characterizations of metal-oxide supported organometallic fragments as catalysts of olefin polymerization and metathesis.

» David Siegel, professor in the Department of Geography and director of The Institute for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS), for distinguished contributions to ocean optics, implications of mixing and stirring in the ocean, ocean bio-optics, ocean-color remote sensing, and spatial interactions in population dynamics.

» Herbert Waite, professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, for fundamental studies of the chemical and physical aspects of biological adhesion leading to new biomimetic materials.

This year, 486 members have been awarded this honor by AAAS because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin Feb. 14 at the AAAS Fellows Forum from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago.

This year’s AAAS Fellows will be announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of Friday’s edition of the journal Science.