From: Dr. H. Paul Shuch (n6tx_at_setileague.org)
Date: Sat Aug 07 2004 - 19:56:05 PDT
SETI League Presents Annual Awards
For more information contact: Dr. H. Paul Shuch, Executive Director
(201) 641-1770, or email info_at_setileague.org
Ewing, NJ.., 7 August 2004 -- At its annual Awards Reception this
evening at The College of New Jersey, the nonprofit SETI League, leaders
in a global search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, along with the
editors of the scholarly journal Contact In Context, recognized five
individuals for major contributions to the art and science of SETI.
Honored this year were microwave engineer Ed Cole, artist Jon Lomberg,
webmaster H. Paul Shuch, industrialist Richard Factor, and author James
Gardner.
Lomberg, a respected space artist living in Hawaii, was the recipient of
a Best Ideas Award sponsored by the peer-reviewed periodical Contact In
Context. Over the years, he contributed the illustrations and artistic
designs to several of Carl Sagan's books, his TV series Cosmos, and the
film adaptation of his novel Contact. Lomberg was design director for
NASA's Voyager record, as well as the Portrait of Humanity, a photograph
which had initially been scheduled to fly aboard the Cassini spacecraft,
but which sadly was deleted from the flight manifest prior to launch.
His recent Contact In Context article "Portrait of Humanity," which this
award honors, tells the story of that abortive attempt at announcing
humankind's place in the cosmos.
This year, in addition to the award to Jon Lomberg, the editors of
Contact in Context decided to recognize an entire website instead of a
particular publication. A second Best Ideas Award goes to the SETI
League website for providing a wide-ranging forum for creative,
innovative, and controversial ideas. Such a forum, free from
ultraconservative prejudice and subtle censorship, is especially
important in the SETI field -- a field that clearly needs fresh ideas
and voices. As the SETI League executive director and webmaster, Dr. H.
Paul Shuch receives a Best Ideas Award for creating and nurturing such a
forum.
Without the vision, enthusiasm, energy, and funding of Mr. Richard
Factor over the past decade, the SETI League would likely not exist
today. Factor runs Eventide, Inc., a high-tech electronics company in
New Jersey. Founder of the nonprofit SETI League, and its President
since its inception in 1994, he is an important leader in the
privatization of SETI. Factor established The SETI League in response to
the US Congress having canceled the NASA SETI program in 1993. Without
Richard Factor there would be no SETI League website to provide a home
for unusual ideas from outside of mainstream thinking. Consequently, the
editors of Contact in Context declare Richard Factor a winner of a Best
Ideas Award for making this website possible.
Honorable Mention goes to James N. Gardner for his book called BIOCOSM,
The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life is the
Architect of the Universe.
Ed Cole, a prominent amateur radio operator, was honored with The SETI
League's annual Orville Greene Service Award. He has been an active
contributor to SETI League technical activities for a number of years.
He serves as The SETI League's volunteer Regional Coordinator for
Alaska, participates actively on the organization's various technical
email discussion lists, has given papers at previous SETICon Technical
Symposia, has contributed articles and software to the group's website,
and last year conducted the first SETICon Hardware Workshop.
Earlier this year, The SETI League recognized Italian engineer Stelio
Montebugnoli with its annual Giordano Bruno Memorial Award, for his
significant technical contributions to SETI science. Montebugnoli, who
heads the SETI Italia program at the Institute for Radio Astronomy,
National Council of Research, near Bologna, Italy, received his award at
the EuroSETI04 meeting in Heppenheim, Germany, this past April.
SETI scientists seek to determine through microwave and optical
measurements whether humankind is alone in the universe. Since Congress
terminated NASA's SETI funding in 1993, The SETI League and other
scientific groups have been attempting to privatize the research.
Experimenters interested in participating in the search for intelligent
alien life, or citizens wishing to help support it, should email to
join_at_setileague.org, check the SETI League Web site at
http://www.setileague.org/, send a fax to +1 (201) 641-1771, or contact
The SETI League, Inc. membership hotline at +1 (800) TAU-SETI. Be sure
to provide us with a postal address to which we will mail further
information. The SETI League, Inc. is a membership-supported, non-profit
[501(c)(3)], educational and scientific corporation dedicated to the
electromagnetic Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
P.S. Tearsheets are always appreciated. Thank you.
-end-
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