2010 Excellence in Research Prize and Medal Recipient

​October 6, 2010

Rothenberg’s most recent book and CD, Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound, chronicles the rich, underwater universe of whale sound. To produce the new material, he traveled from Hawaii to Russia to play his bass clarinet while recording the sounds of whales in their native habitats. Thousand Mile Song (Basic Books) was named one of the ten best science and technology books for 2008 by Booklist on Line, a publication of the American Library Association.

Why Birds Sing (Basic Books, 2005) was Rothenberg’s first general interest book to examine bird song from the combined perspectives of science, music, and poetry and was the culmination of his interdisciplinary work since he began teaching at NJIT in 1992. Why Birds Sing has been published in the U.S., England, Australia, Italy, Germany, Spain, Korea, China, and Taiwan as both a book and compact disc.

Rothenberg’s first CD on ECM Records, with pianist Marilyn Crispell, One Dark Night I Left My Silent House came out in May 2010. The CD features him as a jazz clarinetist. Earlier in Rothenberg’s career, he edited The Book of Music and Nature (Wesleyan University Press, 2001), and Parliament of Minds (SUNY Press, 1999), interviews with leading philosophers in conjunction with a public broadcasting television series of the same name, of which he was a co-producer.

In 2008, Rothenberg received NJIT's Excellence in Research Award for the College of Science and Liberal Arts. Rothenberg received his PhD from Boston University and his BA from Harvard University.

The NJIT Excellence in Research Prize and Medal is awarded for contributions that have enhanced the reputation of NJIT. At the event, the prize and medal winner delivers a lecture based on his record of accomplishment.  The lecture is also available on NJIT’s iTUNESU. The prize and medal winner must have been a member of the NJIT faculty for at least 5 years.