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Bowie Medal Committee
2010–2012 term
Chair
David Chapman, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
Members
Veronique Dehant, Royal Observatory Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
Donald Turcotte, University of California, Davis, California
Carl Wunsch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Staff Liaisons
Beth Paredes
AGU's highest honor, the Bowie Medal, was established in 1939 in honor of William Bowie for his “spirit of helpfulness and friendliness in unselfish cooperative research.” Bowie was the first president of AGU (1920–1922) and the first recipient of the medal. The Bowie medal, awarded annually, acknowledges an individual for outstanding contributions to fundamental geophysics and for unselfish cooperation in research, one of the guiding principles of AGU.
William Bowie was a distinguished geodesist who was not only one of the founders of the American Geophysical Union and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics but was also an architect of international cooperation.
Committee Charge
- Select the recipient of the Bowie Medal; the final decision is subject for approval of the Executive Committee.
- Interpret the scope of the medal broadly and to keep in mind that as a Union medal, it should reflect the interdisciplinary nature of the Earth and space sciences.
- Be especially mindful of the diversity of the community of individuals encompassed by AGU.
- Do not depend solely on unsolicited nominations but be proactive by encouraging nominations through committee member contacts.
- State, as part of the award recommendation to the Executive Committee, the number of candidates considered, how many of these were holdovers and how many were new, and whether the new candidates were nominations from general call or were actively encouraged by the committee.
- Define the process used for reaching the decision.
Work Plan for 2010–2012
In addition to selecting Bowie Medalists,
- Review data from Bowie Medal’s selection processes for the past several years to determine if the program is operating maximally in terms of the relevant goals of the Union’s strategic plan.
- Work with Section and Focus Group committees to increase the number of nominations of viable candidates in underrepresented groups so that newly elected medalists reflect the diversity of the Union membership; and
- Work with the Meetings and Honors and Recognition Committees to review formats for the award ceremonies at AGU meetings and to recommend revisions to award ceremony formats as necessary.
–July 2010