UCLA Library Professor Wins Presidential Award

Staff -- Library Journal, 3/8/1999

UCLA Assistant Professor Gregory H. Leazer was one of 60 researchers selected from a pool of more than 1100 candidates to receive the prestigious five-year, $500,000 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) during a ceremony February 10 in Washington, DC. The 35-year-old Leazer, who is believed to be the first scholar in the field of library and information science to be honored with a PECASE, was nominated for the award by the National Science Foundation for his contributions to understanding human-centered methods for locating information in complex digital library systems. "What I want to do in digital libraries is find a way of automatically detecting the presence of related works in other collections," said Leazer. He then hopes his information retrieval system will be able to sort out useful items from repetitive ones, reducing the burden users face in locating resources. President Clinton created the PECASE award in 1996 as the highest honor bestowed by the government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their research careers.