PITTSBURGH, -- A Stanford University biology professor is among 10 people who were named Heinz Award winners today.

This year's awards recognized environmental challenges. The awards each come with a $100,000 prize.

Gretchen Daily, a Stanford professor and senior fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, was recognized for her work to protect natural ecosystems. Daily co-developed InVEST, a software program that identifies ecological assets and their financial value, which is helping decision makers invest more wisely in environmental programs.

The Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation has presented the awards since 1994 in memory of Sen. John Heinz III, heir to the Heinz food fortune, who died in a 1991 plane crash. The awards will be presented at a private ceremony in November in Washington, D.C.

Other recipients include:

  • Photographer James Balog, of Boulder, Colo., won for his photographs called Extreme Ice Survey, in which he traveled the world taking hundreds of thousands of pictures of glaciers at each hour of daylight. Balog used 39