NEWS

Public health student is among select group to attend convention of Nobel laureates in Germany

CHAPEL HILL -- The picturesque medieval island city of Lindau, Germany, would seem an ideal summer vacation locale – but add to that the opportunity to discuss research with Nobel laureates, and it would seem a graduate student’s dream.

Rick Johnston, a graduate student in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, is living that dream this week (July 1-5). He was selected by Oak Ridge Associated Universities as one of its 10 research participants to attend the 52^nd annual convention of Nobel laureates in Lindau.

Established in 1951 by Swedish patron Count Lennart Bernadotte, this annual meeting brings Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics and physiology and medicine to Lindau for informal discussions with more than 400 students and young researchers worldwide. The meetings rotate by discipline annually; this year’s focus is chemistry.

A native of LaGrange, Ill., Johnston enrolled in the School of Public Health’s doctoral program in environmental sciences and engineering in fall 2000, where he is studying methods of removing arsenic from drinking water. Before coming to Chapel Hill, he earned a bachelor’s degree in French literature at Grinnell College, studied hydrogeology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and received his master’s degree in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

He has worked as an environmental consultant for the UNICEF Water and Environmental Sanitation Sections in New York and Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Convention participants traveled to Washington, D.C., Friday (June 28) for a meeting at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters, left for Germany that afternoon and arrived the next day (June 29) in Lindau, which lies at the common border of Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

The meetings began Monday (July 1) with welcoming ceremonies and an evening dinner and social event. The next three days will consist of morning lectures by the Nobel laureates on any

chemistry-related topic of their choice. During the afternoons, participants may approach the laureates to discuss their morning lecture. In the evenings, laureates will join small groups of participants for informal dinner discussions at hotels and restaurants in Lindau.

On Friday (July 5), the participants will travel by ferry to Isle of Mainau and Mainau Castle, the residence of Count Bernadotte, for the closing ceremonies.

Oak Ridge Associated Universities is a university consortium leveraging the scientific strength of 86 major research institutions to advance science and education through partnerships with national laboratories, government agencies and private industries. The consortium manages the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education for the U.S. Department of Energy.

To view photos and summaries of events in Lindau, click on www.orau.gov/orise/edu/lindau2002.

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Note: Contact Johnston at rick_johnston@unc.edu

School of Public Health contact: Lisa Katz at (919) 966-7467 or lisa_katz@unc.edu

News Services contact: Deb Saine at (919) 962-8415