CORVALLIS, Ore. - Zia Mian, a physicist with Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, will receive the 2014 Linus Pauling Legacy Award, sponsored by the Oregon State University Libraries and Press.
Mian was cited for his accomplishments as a scientist and as a peace activist in contributing to the global effort for nuclear disarmament. As part of the celebration marking Mian's acceptance of the award, he will deliver a free public lecture at the Oregon History Society in Portland next April 21.
The Pauling Legacy Award is granted every other year to an individual who has contributed to an area of interest to the late Linus Pauling, an OSU alumnus and winner Nobel Prizes for chemistry and peace. Mian's career parallels Pauling's in the dual nature of his work, and December 2013 marks the 50th anniversary of Pauling's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaigning to end nuclear weapons testing.
Pauling remains the only person to have received two unshared Nobel prizes.
A native of Pakistan, Mian has a Ph. D. in physics from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the United Kingdom. He has worked since the early 1990s in Pakistan and the United States on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policy, and on issues of global nuclear disarmament and peace. Mian directs the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security, which is part of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he also teaches.
Mian is co-editor of Science & Global Society, an international journal of technical analysis for arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation policy. He is also a founder-member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, an independent group of arms-control experts that works to develop policies to reduce and eliminate the global stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, the key ingredients for nuclear weapons.
He has written and helped to produce two documentary films on peace and security in South Asia - "Pakistan and India under the Nuclear Shadow," (2001) and "Crossing the Lines: Kashmir, Pakistan, India" (2004). He also serves on the boards of several national and international non-profit organizations working for peace and justice.
Mian is the eighth person to receive the Pauling Legacy Award. Past recipients of the Linus Pauling Legacy Award have included Nobel laureates Joseph Rotblat, Roderick MacKinnon and Roger Kornberg.
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