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Monday, November 8, 2004 Scripps Oceanographer Walter Munk Selected as Honorary Fellow of Acoustical Society of America Legendary inventor Thomas Edison among past honorees Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San Diego Walter Munk, considered by many to be one of the world's greatest living oceanographers, has been selected as an honorary fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Munk will formally become an honorary fellow at the plenary session of 148th Meeting of the ASA in San Diego on Nov. 17. Munk, who has been affiliated with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, since 1940, is a professor of geophysics and holds a Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) at Scripps Institution.ASA awards an honorary fellowship to "a person who has attained eminence in acoustics or who has rendered outstanding service to acoustics." Munk is the 17th honorary fellow named since ASA was founded in 1929. That year, legendary American inventor Thomas A. Edison was named the society's first honorary fellow. Munk is being honored "for the invention of acoustic tomography." Tomography is a method of producing a three-dimensional image of the internal structures of a solid object by observing and measuring the passage of waves of energy through the object. Munk applied tomography to the study of the ocean, sending acoustic signals undersea over long distances and measuring the time it took for the signal to arrive at a receiver. Such data provides scientists with a view of the ocean's physical characteristics, such as density. Munk received a Ph.D. in oceanography from Scripps in 1947. His research focuses on physical oceanography and geophysics leading to the understanding of ocean currents and circulation, tides, wave propagation in solid and fluid bodies, and the wobble of the earth's axis during rotation. He pioneered the use of high-speed computers for analyzing geophysical data. He is a member or fellow of more than a dozen professional societies and has received numerous awards during his long career, including three Guggenheim Fellowships, the inaugural Maurice Ewing Medal from the American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Navy, and the 1999 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences for his fundamental contributions to the field of oceanography, the first time the prize was awarded to an oceanographer. He received the National Medal of Science in 1985. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. The Acoustical Society of America is dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. ASA's nearly 7,000 members represent a variety of fields related to sound, including physics, aeronautics, oceanography, architecture, speech and hearing, noise control, bioacoustics and engineering. # # # Note to broadcast and cable producers: University of California, San Diego provides an on-campus satellite uplink facility for live or pre-recorded television interviews. Please phone or e-mail the media contact listed above to arrange an interview. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at University of California, San Diego, is one of the oldest, largest and most important centers for global science research and education in the world. The National Research Council has ranked Scripps first in faculty quality among oceanography programs nationwide Now in its second century of discovery, the scientific scope of the institution has grown to include biological, physical, chemical, geological, geophysical and atmospheric studies of the earth as a system. Hundreds of research programs covering a wide range of scientific areas are under way today in 65 countries. The institution has a staff of about 1,300, and annual expenditures of approximately $155 million from federal, state and private sources. Scripps operates one of the largest U.S. academic fleets with four oceanographic research ships and one research platform for worldwide exploration. |
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