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(meteorobs) Congratulations to Peter Brown!



I received this e-mail from Steve Maran of the American Astronomical Society
and thought I'd pass it along to our meteorobs list members.  
Congratulations to Peter!
                                                                             
                -- joe rao


PETER G. BROWN RECEIVES THE PLASKETT MEDAL FOR THE BEST DOCTORAL
THESIS IN ASTRONOMY/ASTROPHYSICS IN CANADA


      Peter Brown has recently won the 2001 Plaskett medal awarded each year
to the Ph.D. graduate from a Canadian university who is judged to have
submitted the most outstanding thesis in astronomy or astrophysics in
the preceding two calendar years. The award, consisting of a gold
medal, is bestowed jointly by the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA)
and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) in recognition of
the pivotal role played by John Stanley Plaskett in the establishment
of astrophysical research in Canada. This year's laureate will chair
the workshop on "Small Bodies of the Solar System" at the RASC annual
meeting (28 June - 1 July 2001, London). He will also publish a
semi-technical review paper about his work in The Journal of the Royal
Astronomical Society of Canada. Peter Brown will received his prize
from the hands of Dr. Ian Halliday during the conference's banquet on
Saturday evening, June 30.

      After graduating from the University of Alberta, Peter Brown completed
his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Western Ontario
under the supervision of Dr. James Jones. In his doctoral thesis
entitled "Evolution of two periodic meteoroid streams: The Perseids and
the Leonids", Peter Brown has modeled the evolution of these two meteor
showers by analyzing visual accounts dating back as far as 1832. Meteor
showers occur when the Earth plows through the dust left by a comet as
it orbits the Sun. Predicting the evolution of these dust streams is
important because of the potential hazards for orbiting satellites. His
models take into account various effects such as the gravitational
influence of the massive planets Jupiter and Saturn.

      Over the course of his academic career, Peter Brown has received
several awards such as the Governor General's Gold Medal. He was also
ranked among the top 100 Young Canadians to watch in the 21st Century
by Maclean's magazine. Recently, he was awarded one of the Canada
Millenium Research Chairs. He is presently Assistant Professor at the
University of Western Ontario.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lamontagne

Attaché de presse/Publicity Officer
Société Canadienne d'Astronomie/Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA)

Dépt. de Physique                          Tél: (514) 343-6111 (p.3195)  
Université de Montréal                     Fax: (514) 343-2071
C.P. 6128, Succ. Centre-ville
Montréal, Qué. H3C 3J7                                                       
             Courriel:lamont@astro.umontrealdot ca