Laboratory Senior Fellow Sig Hecker accepts membership in the Russian Academy of Sciences from the academy's vice president, Nikolay A. Platé. Photo courtesy of Russian Academy of Sciences
Senior Fellow Sig Hecker of the Materials Science and Technology (MST) Division has been inducted into the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Hecker, Laboratory director from 1986 to 1997, was elected to the Academy as a foreign member in May, and formally received his diploma and the Lomonosov gold and platinum pin in September during the 17th Mendeleev Congress on General and Applied Chemistry in Kazan, Russia.
Hecker was instrumental during the early 1990s in establishing close ties between the Laboratory and nuclear weapons scientists in Russia. Those efforts have led to a number of key U.S. programs aimed at securing nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and improving scientific collaborations between Russia and the United States.
The Russian Academy of Sciences comprises 240 foreign members, and roughly 500 full members and 700 corresponding members. It includes those who in the United States academy system would be members in National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and National Institute of Medicine. In addition, the Russian Academy of Sciences has a substantial number of members from the social sciences.
"It is a great and unexpected honor. I have enjoyed working with the Russians and lecturing there," Hecker said. "I'm still getting used to being addressed by the honorific title academician by my Russian colleagues."
Hecker's certificate of induction is signed by academician Yu. S. Osipov, president and by the chief scientific secretary of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
-- Jim Danneskiold