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For a minimum of five years beginning Jan. 1, 2005, Industrial and Systems Engineering Professor Pascale Carayon will hold the title Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor in Total Quality. This professorship was established in 1993 with an endowment from Procter & Gamble and a number of its employees who are UW-Madison alumni. The award recognizes tenured faculty for teaching total quality and productivity improvement concepts. Recipients receive an annual stipend for use in encouraging total quality education.
Also, the Medical Group Management Association, the Institute for Safe Medication Practices and the Health Research & Educational Trust of the American Hospital Association have asked Carayon to join the expert panel for their Ambulatory Patient Safety Assessment Project. And, she will participate in the steering committee of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Patient Safety Research Coordinating Center.
Dean Paul S. Peercy has been chosen chair-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Section on Physics. He will serve one year as chair-elect, one year as chair, and one as retiring chair. Responsibilities include communicating with the editor of Science magazine on articles and authors in the section's area of concern and suggesting new initiatives to the association. He has also been elected chair of the American Society of Engineering Education's Engineering Deans Council for the 2005-2007 term.
The UW-Madison Graduate School selected Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Amy Wendt and Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Nimmi Ramanujam as 2005 Vilas Associates. The award recognizes mid-career faculty members and supports new directions in research and teaching efforts. Wendt will use her grant to explore dust in the interstellar medium and its role in galactic evolution. She will adapt equipment and diagnostics used in plasma processing for integrated circuit fabrication to simulate the interstellar plasma-surface interactions.
Ramanujam will develop non-invasive optical tools to augment core needle biopsy diagnosis of breast cancer. She will build and integrate a fiber-optic probe to measure functional and structural properties of breast tissues in patients undergoing core needle biopsy.
In the Oct. 17 edition of the journal Nature Materials, graduate student Jeff Greeley and Chemical and Biological Engineering Assistant Professor Manos Mavrikakis identified a new class of near-surface alloys (NSAs) that bind hydrogen atoms loosely. The weak bonds are useful for catalysis because they make subsequent reactions easier. A standard rule for weak bonds is that a higher energy cost is paid in breaking up the H2 molecule, but by using density functional theory calculations, the team has determined a new class of NSAs that can yield superior catalytic behavior for hydrogen-related reactions.
The UW-Madison Graduate School has presented Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Craig H. Benson with a Kellett Mid-Career Award for his contributions to geoenvironmental research over the past 15 years. An international leader in geoenvironmental research whose publications have received numerous honors, Benson has played a key role in elevating the UW-Madison geotechnical and geological engineering programs to national and international preeminence. He currently is editor-in-chief of the prestigious Journal of Geotechnical and Geo-Environmental Engineering.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Ken Potter will chair the newly appointed National Research Council Committee on Integrated Observations for Hydrologic and Related Sciences. The study committee will examine the potential for integrating existing and new space-borne observations with complementary airborne and ground-based observations. The group hopes to gain holistic understanding of hydrologic and related biogeochemical and ecological processes and to support water- and related land-resource management.
The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Wisconsin has awarded UW-Madison (including Civil and Environmental Engineering Professors Larry Bank and Jeff Russell and Associate Professor Mike Oliva, and graduate students David Jacobson and Mack Conachen), the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, and Alfred Benesch and Co. its Best of State Award for the group's Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Bridge Deck project. The team worked together to design, develop and implement an innovative FRP grid system that was used in the construction of a 130-foot-long highway bridge on US 151 near Fond du Lac. Bank was also recently named a Fellow of The International Institute of FRP (fiber-reinforced polymer) in Construction, based in Hong Kong.
Engineering Professional Development Professor Emeritus C. Allen Wortley has been elected a Fellow of the National Society of Professional Engineers. He has been active on various national society committees, most recently involving deliberations on engineering ethics.
The MIT Club of Wisconsin presented a Technology Achievement Award to Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Nimmi Ramanujam. She was recognized as one of MIT's 2003 Top Young Innovators; her group developed a device to aid cancer surgery that guides a biopsy needle into the breast using an optical fiber in the needle. The club also honored staff of Nimblegen Systems, co-founded by McFarland-Bascom Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Franco Cerrina, former post-doctoral fellow Rolland Green and UW Professors Michael Sussman and Fred Blattner. Nimblegen has developed instrumentation that enables researchers to make DNA chips in their own facilities.
Through the Committee on Pedestrians, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) has selected Civil and Environmental Engineering Assistant Professor David Noyce's paper, "Determination of Pedestrian Pushbutton Duration at Typical Signalized Intersections," as a 2005 Outstanding Paper Award winner. It is the second time in three years Noyce has received a TRB best-paper award.
Chemical and Biological Engineering Associate Professor Paul Nealey has received a $50,000 Romnes Fellowship from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Recipients are faculty members who have attained tenure within the prior four years. The awards are named for the late H.I. Romnes, former chair of the board of AT&T and former president of the WARF Board of Trustees. Nealey is founding director of the National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center in Templated Synthesis and Assembly at the Nanoscale.
Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Tom Lillesand, who chairs the UW-Madison Environmental Monitoring Graduate Program and directs the Environmental Remote Sensing Center, has received the SAIC/Estes Memorial Teaching Award from the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Lillesand has more than 125 publications in the fields of remote sensing, natural-resource management, image processing of high-resolution satellite image data, large-area land mapping from space, environmental monitoring, national space policy, and commercial applications of remote sensing. The award honors his efforts to promote remote sensing and GIS technology and their applications via excellence in education, teaching, mentoring and training.
Mechanical Engineering Professor John Moskwa has been named a fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International. SAE fellowship recognizes outstanding engineering and scientific accomplishments resulting in meaningful advances in automotive, aerospace and commercial vehicle technology. He was recognized for his pioneering work in the development of high-bandwidth transient engine test systems and for his research accomplishments in the areas of powertrain system dynamic modeling, diagnostics, and control. Under his leadership, the Powertrain Control Research Lab research group has developed dynamic powertrain system models that are widely used throughout the world.
Biomedical Engineering Professors Robert Radwin and Willis Tompkins have been elected as fellows of the Biomedical Engineering Society. The society is the national professional organization for biomedical engineering and bioengineering, and promotes the increase of biomedical engineering knowledge and its use.
Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Professor Jay K. Martin is one of six UW-Madison faculty members to receive the 2005 Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award. A pioneer in service learning, Martin works in rehabilitative engineering, involving both graduate and undergraduate students in the development of power systems for assistive technologies. In 2002, he and colleagues Frank Fronczak, Nicola Ferrier and the late Terry Richard established UW-CREATe (Center on Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology), which now includes five mechanical engineering faculty and three medical school professors, plus 25 graduate students and 35 undergrads. In addition, Martin is the principal investigator for the Foundation Coalition of the National Science Foundation, which aims to improve the undergraduate curriculum in engineering schools. Martin also co-chairs UW-Madison's Teaching Academy.
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: Wednesday, 25-May-2005 10:30:05 CDT
Date created: 25-May-2005
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