1999 CAFA Awards

Dr. Huang is senior Councilor for External Relations and Faculty Associate in Biology at the California Institute of Technology. She sits on the Boards of AAAS, Johns Hopkins University, and the Health Effects Institute. She is, also, Chair of the Foundation for Microbiology and Chair of the Scientific Board of the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore. She is a member of the Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Related Biological Products. She was previously Dean for Science at New York University and prior to that Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Born in China, she grew up in the United States attending St. Mary's Hall, Burlington, NJ, the National Cathedral School, Washington, DC, and Wellesley College. She received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees (microbiology, 1966) from Johns Hopkins University. As a graduate student she was the first to purify and characterize defective interfering (DI) viral particles. Her postulate that these mutants play a major role in viral pathogenesis stimulated work on many viral systems and currently provides an important avenue for controlling diseases especially of plants. Her postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute with David Baltimore on vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) led to a later discovery of theirs at MIT of the VSV virion-associated RNA-dependent RNA polymerase which led the way to David Baltimore's discovery of reverse transcriptase.

Dr. Huang was appointed Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School in 1971 and became full Professor in 1979. During that time she also served as coordinator of the Virology Unit at the Channing Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Boston City Hospital for two years and Director of the training program funded by the National Cancer Institute on Virus-Host Interactions in Cancer for fifteen years. Her research focused on the molecular characterization of VSV: its viral RNA species and regulatory mechanisms during replication. She was the first to demonstrate that RNA and DNA enveloped viruses, including HIV and HSV. phenotypically mix their surface glycoproteins resulting in alterations of antigenicity and host range.

In 1979, Dr. Huang became the Director of the Laboratories of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital in Boston. There she established a unit working on viral diseases of pediatric patients under a Rockefeller Foundation Geographic Medicine Center Grant. She also initiated an AIDS unit which became the second NIH pediatric Clinical Trials Group.

Dr. Huang has been recognized by the American Society for Microbiology with the Eli Lilly Award in Immunology and Microbiology (1977) followed by election to that Society's President in 1988-1989. She has honorary doctorates of science from Wheaton College, Mt. Holyoke College, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She served on the Board of Trustees of U. Mass and Shady Hill School. She is a fellow of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan (1991) and of American Women in Science (1998).

As an administrator Dr. Huang is particularly interested in education, in career mentoring, and in policy issues related to science and technology. Since coming to Caltech, where her husband David Baltimore is the President, Dr. Huang has joined the Pasadena League of Women Voters, the Board of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, and the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Dr. Huang resides in Pasadena, California, and has one daughter in New York City.

Service Award - Professor Wellington K. K. Chan

Professor Wellington Chan received his B.A magna cum laude in History from Yale University, M. Litt in Oriental Studies from Oxford University, England; and A.M. and Ph.D. in East Asian History from Harvard University.

Dr. Chan joined Occidental College in 1971, and became a full Professor of History since 1985. He is currently the chair of the Department of History and an elected member of the Faculty Council at Occidental College. He has served as faculty representative to the Board of Trustee's Committee on Institutional Advancement; and an elected member of Advisory Council to the President, Occidental College. As a widely recognized scholar in modern Chinese business history and Asian-Pacific entrepreneurship, Dr. Chan has published numerous books and journal articles and presented papers at international conferences in his field. He is the 1994 recipient of the Graham L. Sterling Award, Occidental College, by fellow faculty in recognition of his outstanding professional achievement, teaching, and service to the college. He has also received several national research fellowships and grants.

Dr. Chan is also active in professional and civic organizations. Besides his several board memberships, from academic journal and other scholarly organizations to civic ones such as the Chinese Council of the American Heart Association of Southern California, he is a life member and past president (1977-79) of our own CAFA, and for many years, has served on its board. He is also a founding board member of the CAFA scholarship Foundation, and served as its vice president (1995-96) and then as its acting president (1996-97).

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