|
|
| COE Homepage : Faculty and Staff Award Recipients | |
| 2002 Faculty and Staff Award Recipients |
Benjamin Smith Reynolds Award for Excellence in Teaching
John C. Wright
Chemistry Department
Bollinger Academic Staff Distinguished Achievement Award
Leonard F. Black
Kurt F. Wendt Library
Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication
James A. Dumesic
Chemical Engineering Department
Ragnar E. Onstad Service to Society Award
Robert D. Lorenz
Mechanical Engineering Department and
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department
John C. Wright |
To say that John Wright teaches chemistry would be an understatement. Rather, for more than two decades, he has explored and refined cooperative, hands-on learning approaches in which he challenges students to work hard and inspires in them intellectual curiosity, respect for scientific inquiry and genuine interest in chemistry.
Often, pre-engineers comprise more than 50 percent of Wright's freshman honors course, "General and Analytical Chemistry" (Chemistry 110; now 329); about half the students in Chemistry 223 ("Analytical Chemistry") are chemical engineers. All told, he has taught eight courses of varying difficulty. And to each, Wright brings his belief that students are highly capable, interesting individuals.
"He engages [his students] in genuine dialogue, by listening to them with care and by responding, not by giving answers, but by drawing on his huge fund of 'pedagogical content knowledge' and then challenging them to meet very high expectations," says an associate.
Not only does Wright study how students learn and apply those findings to his courses, he also continually assesses his methods' success. One extensive study generated the paper, "A novel strategy for assessing the effects of curriculum reform on student competence," published in the Journal of Chemical Education. Twenty-five faculty outside of chemistry, including nine from engineering, helped assess competence for this major study.
But the hundreds of students who have learned in his classes provide even greater evidence of Wright's teaching triumphs. "I entered his class shy, quiet, fearful of making mistakes, and lacking the confidence to share my opinions," says a former chemical engineering student. "I left it willing to make mistakes in public, able to learn from them, and far more confident in the validity and worth of my thoughts and opinions. ... It remains a defining moment in my education; one that I wish every student could experience."
Recipient of the Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching Award in 1994, Wright joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1972. He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1965; and a PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, in 1970; and completed postdoctoral work at Purdue University.
Leonard F. Black |
This is the information age. And though mountains of information are more accessible to each of us than ever before, hunting for exactly what you want can be daunting if not impossible without a guide. Bollinger award winner and Wisconsin TechSearch Director Lenny Black leads information expeditions through uncharted reams and untold gigabits, tracking and capturing for hundreds of companies across Wisconsin and the United States.
Wisconsin TechSearch (WTS) is the information outreach program of the college's Kurt F. Wendt Library. Each year, Black and his staff field about 35,000 inquiries for manufacturers, chemical companies, law firms and many others. Often these requests come as rush or super-rush orders, but as many clients will affirm, Black and his staff do an unparalleled job of delivering complete answers on deadline.
Under Black's leadership, WTS's annual revenue has more than quadrupled from $190,000 to more than $1,000,000 in 2002. Key to this growth was Black's ability to keep his service current through a period of rapid and remarkable change in information technologies and engineering fields. He and his staff promote WTS off campus through personal contacts, trade fairs and other promotional events. All the while, he takes personal interest in delivering just the right information package that his clients demand. In the last two years, WTS has moved rapidly from paper to delivering electronic documents directly to clients' desktops.
A dedicated professional, Black shares his years of experience with students through class lectures. He was an initial member of the librarian teaching team for
Black earned his BS in English Literature from UW-Madison in 1970 and attended graduate school at the University of Washington, Seattle. He returned to UW-Madison and earned and MS in library Science in 1975. He worked as a reference librarian at Memorial Library before joining WTS as assistant director in 1975. During the 1978-79 academic year, he took a leave of absence to become the interim director of the UW Geology and Geophysics Library. Black was appointed director of Wisconsin TechSearch in 1992.
James A. Dumesic |
The 2002 Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication is presented to Steenbock Professor of Chemical Engineering James Dumesic for his work in microkinetic modeling. The study of reaction kinetics reveals information about the rate at which change takes place and the mechanism by which the reactants in a chemical process are converted to the products. In a series of five papers, Dumesic provides unique insight into how to construct microscopic kinetics and thermodynamics for an entire set of elementary reaction steps characterizing the complex reaction network of several industrially important catalytic chemical processes. Dumesic conducted studies and developed a comprehensive approach that can quantify reaction rates for isobutane conversion over a wide temperature range and over different zeolite materials. This pioneering approach for extracting quantitative chemical information about hydrocarbon reactions on solid acid catalysts identified a variety of conditions under which reliable reaction kinetics data can be collected.
He and his group also illustrated how microkinetic analysis can be applied to a test problem with excellent predictive results. His textbook on microkinetics has become a classic and is widely considered the definitive reference on microkinetic modeling.
Dumesic has led the whole field of catalysis to many successes. Most notably, he introduced microcalorimetry which colleagues say has led the field to new depths of understanding for numerous catalytic reaction mechanisms.
As one of the most decorated scientists in the field of catalysis and chemical engineering in general, he has been recognized with the Colburn Award and Wilhelm Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Emmett Award from the North American Catalysis Society and the New York and Michigan Catalysis Awards. In 1998, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Recently, he was appointed as one of the two associate editors of the Journal of Catalysis. He is a recipient of several teaching awards, including the Benjamin Smith Reynolds Award.
Dumesic joined the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1976.
He served two terms as chair.
He earned his BS from UW-Madison and his MS and PhD from Stanford University.
Robert D. Lorenz |
Within the past decade, Robert Lorenz has visited India, Nepal, Pakistan, Mexico, Cameroon, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Kenya, sometimes staying abroad for three weeks or more.
Such trips sound like exotic vacations, but Lorenz traveled to each locale with a medical mission in mind. For 30 years, he has played an active role in the Medical Benevolence Foundation (MBF), which supports the U.S. Presbyterian Church's worldwide medical programs with funds, equipment, medical supplies and volunteers.
In Mexico, Lorenz helped set up a dental clinic; in Africa, he helped upgrade mission hospital computers, set up E-mail and train staff to use a service that delivers up-to-date medical information monthly on CDs. And when he became president of MBF's board of trustees in 1993, Lorenz, his wife, Sally, and others traveled to India, Pakistan and Nepal to see firsthand how the organization could assist mission hospitals there. In each case, travel was at his expense. And always, his question was, "How can I help?"
At home, Lorenz exuberantly speaks to congregations throughout the Midwest to encourage their involvement in and support of MBF. In addition to his presidency, he has held several leadership positions within the foundation, including his current status as a member of its board of trustees.
"Bob's leadership, administrative skills and presentation and interpretation skills have inspired many individuals and audiences to support medical mission projects and MBF. His commitment to and enthusiasm for Christian ministry continue to be a great help to the cause of MBF," says Rev. Daniel Force, MBF executive director.
Outside of MBF, Lorenz developed and led for nine years a hands-on community service program, including annual involvements in the Dane County Paint-a-Thon and Habitat for Humanity for the Lower Wisconsin River, for the Madison Horizons Rotary Club.
Lorenz received his BS, MS and PhD in mechanical engineering from UW-Madison and holds an MBA from the University of Rochester (New York) Executive Development Program.
He joined the College of Engineering in 1984.
He and Sally have three children: Becky, married to Derek Peterson; Carolyn; and Steve, married to Rose.
 |
|
Main sections: | Accessibility | College of Engineering homepage | Site map | Search | Directories | Feedback | Help |
|
Copyright 2005 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System Date last modified: Monday, 14-Oct-2002 16:45:00 CDT Date created: 19-Jul-2002 Content By: webmaster@engr.wisc.edu Thank you for visiting! |
