FACULTY NEWS
In October, Associate Professor
Susan Hagness
received the 2005 Isaac Koga Gold Medal, awarded once every three years. It recognizes Hagness for developing enhanced finite-difference time-domain methods in computational
electromagnetics and ultrawideband microwave imaging techniques for early breast cancer detection.
With a $260,000 scientist development grant from the American Heart Association National Center, Assistant Professor
Kristyn Masters
will examine how altering the 3-D biomaterial environment affects the ability of cardiac muscle cells to function properly, particularly when exposed to native disease-inducing factors.
The National Institutes of Health has awarded Assistant Professor
Bill Murphy
$380,214 to mimic the characteristics of natural tissue-development
processes by spatially patterning stem cell differentiation. He will develop model cell culture substrates and three-dimensional materials
that spatially control the activity of growth factors, which are molecules capable of inducing differentiation of stem cells.
With $670,000 from General Motors and Delphi Corporations, in conjunction with the United Auto Workers-GM Center for Human Resources, Professor
Robert Radwin
is investigating how to minimize the risk of musculoskeletal injuries while maximizing the capacity to operate power hand tools with optimum performance in automobile
manufacturing.
Professors
Robert Radwin
and
Willis Tompkins
were both elected fellows of the Biomedical Engineering Society.
With approximately $210,000 in funding,
the Trace Research and Development Center
(directed by Professor
Gregg Vanderheiden)
is part of a team of experts that will help design a new, easier-to-use digital talking book playback
machine. With team members Battelle, HumanWare, and the National Federation of the Blind, Trace Center researchers also will create training materials for the device.
Phoenix (Arizona) Sky Harbor International Airport has deployed the first fully accessible paging and information system, developed by ARINC Inc. The system implements Trace EZ Access technology, which is a set of interface enhancements that can be integrated into the design of almost any electronic product to make the product more accessible for people with disabilities.
Professor
John White
has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the highest scientific
accolade granted in the United Kingdom. White has earned acclaim for dual contributions to the fields of microscopy and cellular genetics and heads the UW-Madison Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation, which is developing powerful laser-scanning microscopes to enable scientists to explore the dynamic environment within cells.
Assistant Professor
Justin Williams
has received a $240,000 grant from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation to develop drug-delivery strategies for treating acute neural injuries, specifically on severe problems related to acute injury following neurosurgical procedures.
He and Assistant Professor
P. Charles Garell
will develop novel bioMEMS techniques to fabricate systems that will spatially and temporally
target implanted drug delivery to the brain and will test a novel experimental model for continuously monitoring the release and effect of acute drug delivery to the brain.
