Faculty and staff receive
university and UW System honors
Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering Professor Susan Hagness was awarded the 2009 Alliant Energy Underkofler Excellence in Teaching Award by the University of Wisconsin System.
The award recognizes teaching of outstanding quality that leads to substantial intellectual growth in students and is given to instructors who display an uncommon commitment to teaching and who employ especially effective teaching strategies.
The UW-Madison Graduate School and Vilas Trustees have awarded funding to Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacy Professor Weiyuan John Kao through the Vilas Associates program. Kao and his students will study white blood cell signaling pathways and how they interact with different biomaterials, including nanomaterials, scaffolding materials for tissue regeneration, and material devices for implants such as a pacemaker or hip.
They will methodically study the relationship between the material structure and the mechanisms through which the white blood cells are being activated. As a Vilas Associate, Kao will receive some salary support during the summer in 2009 and 2010 and a $12,500 flexible research fund each fiscal year.
College of Engineering Associate Dean for Research and Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering Gerald Kulcinski is one of four 2009 UW-Madison Hilldale Award recipients.
The awards honor excellence in teaching, research and service.
Kulcinski is a leader in studying the economic and environmental issues of fusion power, including examining the impact of fusion on the energy marketplace, and his research has included energy applications, basic materials research and detailed conceptual design of fusion power plants.
Early in his career, Kulcinski performed experiments on radiation damage to materials for the first walls of fusion reactors, which involved innovative research on neutron irradiation to steels and on pulsed-irradiation damage to fusion first-wall materials.
He also helped initiate and still leads the UW-Madison Fusion Technology Institute effort on the conceptual design of fusion power plants.
Earning the Emil H. Steiger Award, Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Kristyn Masters is among 10 UW-Madison faculty to receive 2009 distinguished teaching awards.
In 2004, her first year on campus, Masters attended five teaching-related workshops, initiated outreach collaboration with a local high school, formed a collaboration with the Delta Program in Research, Teaching and Learning, and developed two new courses.
She developed an interdisciplinary course, Political, Ethical, Social and Global Issues in BME, which offers an issues-based approach to learning technical concepts while training students how to be responsible scientists and science-literate citizens. Masters is a faculty adviser for the Society of Women Engineers chapter and a member of the biomedical engineering undergraduate curriculum committee.
Chemical and Biological Engineering Professor Manos Mavrikakis was among nine UW-Madison faculty to receive a Romnes Faculty Fellowship.
Presented by the Graduate School and funded by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the fellowship recognizes recently tenured faculty and provides $50,000 in flexible research funding.
He is a world leader in the use of first-principles electronic structure calculations for developing a fundamental understanding of the surface reaction mechanisms and for designing catalytic materials at the atomic scale.
Engineering General Resources Assistant Dean Don Woolston received one of nine 2009 UW-Madison academic staff excellence awards.
Woolston received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service to the University for his contributions to the College of Engineering and to the UW-Madison campus.
Woolston leads the staff that provides advising, orientation, academic support, counseling and admissions services for undergraduate students in engineering.
His contributions have extended to the broader campus through his role on the Athletic Board, SOAR planning team, Council on Academic Advising, Associated Academic Council, Wisconsin Alliance for Minority Progress, and the University Book Store board of trustees.
He currently leads a UW System initiative to enhance access to UW-Madison engineering transfer students from MATC.
