Michael P. Snyder
2007 Recipient
Connecticut Medal of Science
The 2007 Connecticut Medal of Science was awarded to CASE member Michael P. Snyder, Lewis B. Cullman Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University and director of the Yale Center for Genomics and Proteomics. Snyder accepted the medal at the May 21, 2008 annual dinner of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.
Snyder’s early research studied how cells determine the direction to grow and divide. His laboratory determined the basic mechanisms by which these processes occur, which is important for understanding the formation of specialized cell shapes and tissues. His most influential research is in the area of genomics and proteomics, in which he is a pioneer. His laboratory was the first to initiate gene characterization on a large scale, demonstrating for the first time that it was possible to analyze thousands of genes and proteins at once. This work spawned the functional genomics field in which large number of genes and proteins are analyzed simultaneously, and became the foundation for what many now call “systems biology.”
More recently, Snyder’s research has involved working with human embryonic stem cells; his laboratory was the first in Connecticut to do so. His laboratory discovered a novel-signaling pathway important for embryonic stem cell self-renewal and used this information to make one of the first growth media free of animal components. These efforts are considered important for ultimately using human embryonic stem cells for therapy.
Snyder received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology and did postdoctoral work at Stanford University. He is a member of the board of directors of the Genetics Society of America and is the president of the US Human Proteome Organization. He sits on many international advisory boards and was a co-founder of Protometrix, Inc.
Tso-Ping Ma
2008 Recipient
Connecticut Medal of Technology
The 2008 Connecticut Medal of Technology was awarded to CASE Member Tso-Ping Ma, the Raymond John Wean Professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale University. Ma also serves as chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering, and a co-director of the Yale Center for Microelectronic Materials and Structures. He is also a professor of applied physics.
Early in his career, Ma did research at IBM on advanced silicon device technology and ionizing radiation effects in metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices. He joined the Yale faculty in 1977, where his research and teaching have focused on microelectronics, semiconductors, MOS interface physics, ionizing radiation and hot electron effects, advanced gate dielectrics, flash memory device physics, and ferroelectric thin films for memory applications.
Ma’s research has had a major impact on the high-tech industry and his students have gone on to leadership positions in the semiconductor and computer hardware field. He has served as the principal investigator of joint R & D projects with numerous companies worldwide, including IBM, Intel, Motorola, Lucent Technology, GE, Hughes, Rockwell Semiconductors, Philips, Siemens, Hitachi, Toshiba, and Mitsubishi Electric.
Ma is a patent holder, co-editor of a book, the recipient of numerous awards and honors, and has contributed to several book chapters as well as over 180 research papers. He is an
honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and an honorary guest professor at Tsinghua University, Tianjin University, and Shandong University.
A graduate of National Taiwan University, Ma received his PhD from Yale. He has been actively involved in several conferences of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Solid State Devices and Materials (SSDM) and the Electro Chemical Society, to name a few. He also served as a founding member and chairperson of the Connecticut Microelectronic and Optoelectronic Consortium (CMOC).
