KTH’s honorary doctors appointed

Elizabeth Deakin. William Fulton. Scott Kirkpatrick. Wilfried Wang. There you have them, this year's honorary doctors at KTH. Together, they will be conferred at KTH's installation ceremony in Stockholm City Hall on 19 November 2010.

The purpose of the appointment of honorary doctors at KTH is to honour individuals who have made outstanding efforts.

Facts about the honorary doctors

Elizabeth Deakin, professor of urban and regional planning and urban design, University of California, Berkeley.

Elizabeth Deakin's pioneering work with over 200 publications in the fields of transport and land use planning and sustainable transport has brought new knowledge and insights on the role of political and institutional factors in the implementation of political and economic control measures. Her work focuses on both developed and developing countries and addresses issues that relate to the sustainable development of transport, congestion charges and environmental justice, along with strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from construction and transport systems.

Elizabeth Deakin has extensive contacts with KTH and Sweden as a visiting research scientist, she is the host for the Swedish graduate students at Berkeley and an advisor to various organizations such as the Volvo Research Foundation, MISTRA, VINNOVA and the Environmental Protection Agency. She has won several awards, including a national award for the most influential research project from the American Planning Association.

In addition to her scientific contributions Elizabeth Deakin has wide-ranging public assignments and is regularly hired as an expert witness by committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the USA.

William Fulton is an Oscar Zariski Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.

William Fulton is one of the most internationally prominent researchers in algebraic geometry. He has produced many results of lasting value and has written more than ten textbooks, either alone or together with co-authors. His research on intersection theory and toric varieties has been crucial for subsequent developments in the field of mathematics.

William Fulton has educated several generations of young mathematicians and is well known for his mentorship of postdocs. He has strong links with Sweden, among other things through his efforts for the Institut Mittag-Leffler and as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Collaboration with him has been of great importance to researchers at the Department of Mathematics at KTH.

Scott Kirkpatrick, professor at the School of Engineering and Computer Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Scott Kirkpatrick is a professor in engineering and computer science at the School of Engineering and Computer Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His research in recent years has focused on studying the structure and dynamics of large-scale spatially distributed systems as well as the growth of complex systems such as the Internet.

Scott Kirkpatrick has his doctorate in physics from Harvard University. He worked as a researcher and research manager at IBM’s TJ Wason Research Center between 1971 and 2000 when he moved to his present professorship.

Scott Kirkpatrick has made fundamental discoveries in statistical physics and computational mathematics. He is internationally known for his general and at the same time computationally simple method of solving combinatorial optimization problems. The method is used worldwide, and the article in which the methodology was introduced is one of the most quoted in the journal Science.

Scott Kirkpatrick has been the scientific director of the EU project EVERGROW in which KTH has participated. He is a key figure in research as regards the future of the Internet in Europe within very important future areas for KTH. Scott Kirkpatrick has been a regular guest at KTH since the mid-2000s, most recently as a speaker in the seminar series with distinguished international speakers which was conducted at the research centre ACCESS.

Wilfried Wang, professor at the University of Texas School of Architecture in Austin, USA.

Since 2002 Wilfried Wang has been Professor of Architecture at the University of Texas School of Architecture in Austin at the same time as he has a traineeship in Berlin. Earlier in his career he worked for several years at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. He is internationally known as a theoretician, educator and author of a wide range of books and articles. With an outstanding education in the subject’s historical background he has also highlighted the importance of our time by architects such as Heinrich Tessenov and Adolf Loos.

Wilfried Wang is at the same time contemporary-minded and has early in monographs introduced some of our time’s most important architects such as Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Switzerland and Alvaro Siza in Portugal. In a result of articles and lectures, he has developed a multifaceted approach to sustainability within architecture.

Many of Wilfried Wang’s published works have been devoted to Swedish architecture and especially the architect Sigurd Lewerentz (1885-1975). As manager of the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Wang has produced the largest international presentation of Swedish architecture. Wilfried Wang's interest and knowledge of Swedish society and architecture is unique and has meant that he has been in demand at many architectural institutions in Sweden.

For more information, contact Folke Snickars at 08-790 79 09 or folke@infra.kth.se.

Peter Larsson