The UI Board of Trustees voted March 11 to present its highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medallion, to Carl R. Woese, the Stanley O. Ikenberry Endowed Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Microbiology.
The award was created to recognize individuals whose contributions to the growth and development of the UI, through extraordinary service or benefaction, has been of unusual significance.
Woese, a faculty member since 1964, describes himself as a molecular biologist turned evolutionist. He received the 2003 Crafoord Prize in Biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Science for the 1977 discovery of a third domain of life known as Archaea. The Crafoord Prize is presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in recognition of accomplishments in scientific fields not covered by the Nobel Prize, which the academy also selects.
Woese won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award, known as the “genius award,” in 1984. He was the 12th recipient of the Leeuwenhoek Medal, microbiology’s highest honor given each decade, by the Dutch Royal Academy of Science in 1992 and the National Medal of Science in 2000. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and a foreign associate of the Royal Society (U.K.).