The Walter Munk Award
Awarded in Recognition of Distinguished Research in
Oceanography Related to Sound and the Sea

The Walter Munk Award is granted jointly by The Oceanography Society, the Office of Naval Research and the Office of the Oceanographer of the Navy. Recipients are selected based on their:

• Significant original contributions to the understanding of physical ocean processes related to sound in the sea;
• Significant original contributions to the application of acoustic methods to that understanding; and/or
• Outstanding service that fosters research in ocean science and instrumentation contributing to the above.

The award consists of a medal designed by Judith Munk, a commemorative lapel pin, and a certificate bearing the signatures of the Chief of Naval Research and the President of The Oceanography Society.

2011 AWARD

Dr. William Kuperman Scripps Institution of Oceanography Dr. William Kuperman, Professor of Oceanography and Director of the Marine Physical Laboratory of the University of California San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography has been selected as the 2011 recipient the Walter Munk Award for Distinguished Research in Oceanography Related to Sound and the Sea.

Dr Kuperman’s achievements were noted in a letter supporting his nomination:

Bill Kuperman is at the forefront of a revolution in our understanding of wave scattering physics. This revolution is changing such diverse fields as medical imaging, seismology and oceanography. Practitioners now use chaotic scattering fields as coherent lenses and random noises as coherent sources. Complex propagation environments that once confounded the interpretation of received signals are now are said to “enrich their information content.” Bill and colleagues have discovered how to extract this information and are opening new avenues for the remote sensing of the ocean. For oceanographers, the benefits of this revolution are just emerging.

The Munk Award will be presented to Dr. Kuperman during the 162nd Meeting of Acoustical Society of America in San Diego, CA (October 31–November 4, 2011), and he will also be recognized during the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Salt Lake City, UT (February 20–24, 2012).

PREVIOUS AWARDS

• 2011: William Kuperman, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
• 2009: James F. Lynch, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA
• 2006: Peter F. Worcester, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
• 2003: H. Thomas Rossby, Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, USA
• 2001: Robert C. Spindel, Applied Physics Laboratory of the University of Washington 
• 1999: Robert Pinkel, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
• 1997: Stephen A. Thorpe, Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK
• 1996: Leonid M. Brekhovskikh, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia
• 1994: David M. Farmer, Institute of Ocean Sciences, Canada
• 1993: Walter Munk, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA

Nominations must consist of:

• a nominating statement (no more than 5 pages),
• a suggested one-paragraph citation of no more than 100 words,
• an abbreviated CV of the nominee, and
• up to 5 additional letters of endorsement (2 page maximum) solicited by the master nominator (only one of which may be from the candidate’s institution—international endorsements are encouraged).

The nominations deadline for the next award is March 31, 2013. All nominations should be submitted either as MS Word or Adobe PDF files to info@tos.org.