10 winners of Heinz Awards for environmental work

[GLT]

10 winners of Heinz Awards for environmental work

Associated Press
Posted: 09/21/2010 09:46:15 AM PDT

PITTSBURGH, -- A Stanford University biology professor is among 10
people who were named Heinz Award winners today.

This year's awards recognized environmental challenges. The awards
each come with a $100,000 prize.

Gretchen Daily, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods
Institute for the Environment, was recognized for her work to protect
natural ecosystems. Daily co-developed InVEST, a software program that
identifies ecological assets and their financial value, which is
helping decision makers invest more wisely in environmental programs.

The Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation has presented the awards
since 1994 in memory of Sen. John Heinz III, heir to the Heinz food
fortune, who died in a 1991 plane crash. The awards will be presented
at a private ceremony in November in Washington, D.C.

Other recipients include:

# Photographer James Balog, of Boulder, Colo., won for his photographs
called Extreme Ice Survey, in which he traveled the world taking
hundreds of thousands of pictures of glaciers at each hour of
daylight. Balog used 39 cameras which he adapted with materials from a
local hardware store.

# Frederick vom Saal, of Colombia, Mo. Vom Saal was recognized for
discovering that exposure to common chemicals such as bishphenol A,
known widely as BPA, can cause health problems. Vom Saal's work
resulted in most stores removing items containing BPA, such as some
baby bottles, from shelves.
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# Cary Fowler, of Rome, Italy. Fowler was recognized for creating the
Global Seed Vault, where one third of the world's seed varieties are
being preserved. Fowler believes his work has shown that it's
important to preserve the seeds because a lack of plant population
diversity weakens food security.

# Terrence Collins, of Pittsburgh, Pa. He was honored for discovering
ways to mitigate toxic waste and biological agents and for teaching a
new generation of scientists as a professor at Carnegie Mellon
University's Institute for Green Science.

# Daniel Sperling, of Davis, Calif. Sperling was recognized for his
work in advancing transportation and energy research as a founding
director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University
of California, Davis. He also work on the passage of California's Low
Carbon Fuel Standard, which measures greenhouse gases.

# Elizabeth Kolbert, of Williamstown, Mass. A staff writer for The New
Yorker, Kolbert was recognized for her environmental journalism, which
has included reporting on the disappearance of bees, Arctic ice caps
and others threatened with extinction.

# Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton, N.J., and New York, N.Y.
Oppenheimer, director of the Program in Science, Technology and
Environmental Policy at Princeton University, was recognized for his
work on the effects of global warming and air pollution and in
promoting policies to prevent future harm.

# Richard Feely, of Seattle, Wash. Feely, a scientist at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental
Laboratory in Seattle, was recognized for studying ocean acidification
caused by rising carbon dioxide. Feely has gone on more than 50
expeditions to prove that rising acidity poses a huge threat to the
ocean.

# Lynn Goldman, of Washington, D.C., and Silver Spring, Md. Goldman,
dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George
Washington University, was honored for her work on the dangers posed
by toxic chemicals. Goldman is a pediatrician and epidemiologist who
has studied how chemicals effect newborns and has developed programs
to protect people from chemical contaminants.