Prof. Lorenzo Polvani has been named a 2019 AGU Fellow. Only 1% of AGU members are chosen for this honor in any given year and Polvani, also with the other 61 fellows, will be recognized at the Fall 2019 AGU Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. Polvani, who is a professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics and of Earth and Environmental Sciences, is an atmospheric scientist whose research spans climate variability and change, tropical cyclones, the influence of the Arctic on other regions, and geophysical fluid dynamics.

"Lens" is the Latin word for lentil. And it is indeed true that the shape of bi-convex lenses—the familiar sort used as magnifying glasses—resembles those leguminous seeds. But that resemblance may soon be a thing of the past. For a group of engineers led by Nanfang Yu, Associate Professor of Applied Physics, has worked out how to make magnifying lenses that are flat, and thinner than a hair.