Reception honors 2000-2001 Research Masters
Published in LSU Today, 6/01/01
French professor Alexandre Leupin received the award of Distinguished Research Master in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and physics and astronomy professor Joel Tohline was given the award of Distinguished Research Master in Engineering, Science and Technology.
Leupin is considered by contemporaries in his field as one of the world’s foremost scholars of medieval European literature, particularly French literature.
From left, astronomy professor Joel Tohline, Chancellor Mark Emmert, French professor Alexandre Leupin and acting Vice Chancellor of Research and Graduate Studies George Strain visit at the reception held to celebrate Tohline’s and Leupin’s designation as this year’s Distinguished Research Masters. The award is the University’s highest recognition for research, given to those who have a sustained record of outstanding work.
R. Howard Bloch, the Augustus R. Street Professor of French at Yale University, wrote that Leupin is “to my mind and without reservation the most talented medievalist in North America, and arguably the most talented of his generation anywhere in the world.”
Leupin has written several highly regarded books in the field, beginning with his first, Le Graal et la littérature. In them he has not only bridged the gap between medieval literature and modern criticism, but he has also shown that there is a direct line of continuity between medieval “liberal arts” and modern analytical science, particularly psychoanalysis.
According to Jeff Humphries, LSU Foundation Professor and chair of the department of French and Italian, Leupin has developed the idea that “absence,” or “lack,” a controlling concept in modern psychoanalytic theories of sexuality and in philosophies of language, is anticipated in the work of medieval writers and that the inadequacy of literature to represent “truth” is paralleled by the inadequacy of medieval theology to explain the divine essence.
Leupin’s research does not overshadow his teaching ability. He believes that the aim of teaching is to teach students to think by and for themselves. Leupin says his efforts have been rewarded when a student gives back to him something he has not given the student.
Leupin received his license ès Lettres in 1971 with the highest grades of the session; his diplôme ès Lettres in 1973 and his doctorat ès lettres, “summa cum laude,” in 1981, all from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
In 1982 he became assistant professor of French and Italian at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and in 1983 he joined the faculty of the department of French and Italian studies at LSU. He served as acting director of LSU’s Center for French and Francophone studies from 1986 to 1988.
Leupin has written six books and published approximately 55 articles.
Tohline is being honored for the body of his work – the development of high-performance computational tools, understanding galactic fluid dynamics, working out the formation, stability and evolution of rapidly rotating protostars and protostellar disks and for his work on one of the long-standing problems in astrophysics, the formation of binary stars.
As impressive as his work is, the mathematical and computational tools he has developed to produce it are just as impressive.
Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, wrote that Tohline’s computer codes “are rapidly becoming a major tool for the simulation of gravitational-wave sources that will be studied by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory.
“Such source simulations will be crucial tools in extracting the information the waves carry, and correspondingly I expect Tohline and his students to be major players in getting science out of LIGO.”
Douglas Lin, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wrote that Tohline “was a pioneer in the development of fully three-dimensional numerical hydrodynamic schemes. Utilizing this powerful tool, Joel was among the first to demonstrate the possibility of fragmentation during the collapse of isothermal clouds.
“This process is particularly important for the stellar initial mass function as well as the formation of binary and multiple stellar systems.”
Another activity Tohline is known for is his development of an online graduate textbook titled The Structure, Stability and Dynamics of Self-Gravitating Systems. This project was featured in the “Internet Goldmine” section of the journal Computers in Physics.
Tohline graduated magna cum laude in 1974 from Centenary College in Shreveport with a degree in physics. He received his doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1978.
His first position after graduating was as the J. Willard Gibbs Instructor of Astronomy at Yale University. From 1980 to 1982 he worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Group T-6 at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
He joined the LSU faculty in 1982 and from 1994 to 1997 served as chair of the physics and astronomy department, a position he gave up to devote more time to his research. He has also been instrumental in increasing the number of graduate students in astronomy.
Tohline has published 64 articles in refereed journals and presented 47 conference papers, 22 of which were invited. He is a member of the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics and the Internet2 Applications Strategy Council.
Ronald Brown
LSU News Service
225/578-3867
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