Spotlight on Faculty
Fall 2010

Departments: BME | ChE | CEE | CS | ECE | MSE | MAE | STS | SIE | Dean's Office | School Highlights

Associate Professor Edward Botchwey received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their careers.

Assistant Professor Kevin Janes received $2.6 million in no-strings-attached funding for his innovative research to better understand how cells “make decisions.”

Chemical Engineering (ChE)
Professor Giorgio Carta co-authored Protein Chromatography: Process Development and Scale-Up. The book was published by Wiley Books and is available in an online version through Wiley’s Online Library. READ MORE.

Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE)
Assistant Professor Andres F. Clarens received a 2010 U.Va. FEST Distinguished Young Investigator Award, given to the University’s most promising young faculty in engineering and science. He also received a Young Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society — Petroleum Research Fund, and a paper that he wrote with Lisa M. Colosi is among the top 20 most-downloaded papers of 2010 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Assistant Professor Lisa M. Colosi received a 2010 U.Va. FEST Distinguished Young Investigator Award, given to the University’s most promising young faculty in engineering and science. A paper that she wrote with Andres F. Clarens is among the top 20 most downloaded papers of 2010 in the Environmental Science and Technology journal.

Assistant Professor Joanna C. Curran was awarded two NSF grants related to her research. “An Investigation of the Bed Armoring Process and Its Implications for Channel Bed Stability” and “Rethinking Dredging: Phasing Small Dam Deconstruction to Allow Sediment Releases Without Harming Downstream Ecosystems.” She also has been working with the Warfare Survivability Group at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division, West Bethesday, Md., on research to improve the resilience of ships to explosives.

Professor and Chair Michael J. Demetsky served as 2010 President of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) Research and Education Division.  During this period he also served on the ARTBA executive committee and board of directors. He was also named the Janet Scott Hamilton and John Downman Hamilton Professor of Civil Engineering.

Professor Brian L. Smith was appointed director of the Center for Transportation Studies.

Computer Science (CS)
Assistant Professor Sudhanva Gurumurthi was an invited panelist at the Workshop on Architectural Concerns in Large Datacenters, held in conjunction with the International Symposium on Computer Architecture in Saint-Malo, France.

Assistant Professor Kim Hazelwood was selected to take part in the National Academy of Engineering's (NAE) 17th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium.

Professor Emerita Anita K. Jones won the Arthur M. Bueche Award from the National Academy of Engineering. The award honors an engineer who has shown dedication in science and technology as well as active involvement in determining U.S. science and technology policy, promoting technological development and contributing to the enhancement of the relationship between industries, government and universities. She was also named a fellow of the American Philosophical Society. READ MORE.

Assistant Professor Jason D. Lawrence is co-principal investigator on an NSF grant to develop new techniques in 3-D scanning and fabrication. This is the largest single award that NSF has made in computer graphics in over 10 years. Stephen Marschner from Cornell University is principal investigator. Others working on the project include Kavita Bala, Cornell; Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Princeton; Todd Zickler, Harvard; and Ravi Ramamoorthi, Berkeley. READ MORE.

Assistant Professor abhi shelat received a 2010 U.Va. FEST Distinguished Young Investigator Award, given to the University’s most promising young faculty in engineering and science. He also received a Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowship, which was awarded to a total of seven pre-tenure faculty around the world. He also received an NSF grant with Steve Myers (principal investigator) from Indiana University on Implications of Fully Homomorphic Encryption.

Professor Kevin Skadron was recognized by the ACM as a Distinguished Scientist. His group received recognition from Elsevier for one of the top-cited articles during 2005–2010 in the Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing.

Professor John A. Stankovic won the 2010 Engineering School Distinguished Faculty award. He is the principal investigator on an NSF grant to develop energy-efficient body-area sensor network technology. The team includes computer science and electrical and computer engineering researchers. He also received a grant from NSF to develop technology for very-long-lifetime cyber-physical systems.

Assistant Professor Kamin D. Whitehouse is the principal investigator on an NSF grant to develop smart building technologies for energy efficiency. The multidisciplinary team includes engineering faculty in computer science, systems, and mechanical engineering, as well as faculty from the School of Architecture and Darden School of Business.

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE)
Professor Toby Berger was awarded the Aaron Wyner Prize of the IEEE Information Theory Society for lifetime accomplishments and service in the field of information theory.

Assistant Professor Benton H. Calhoun received an All-University Teaching Award.

Materials Science and Engineering (MSE)
Associate Professor Sean R. Agnew was appointed the Heinz and Doris Wilsdorf Associate Research Professor of Materials Science. He recently delivered the plenary lecture at the International Conference on the Strength of Materials in Dresden, Germany.

Professor John “Jack” J.  Dorning led an international postdoctoral course at the National Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology in Paris.

Professor James M. Howe was named the Thomas Goodwin Diggs Professor in Material Science.

Professor Emeritus William A. Jesser received an honorary doctorate from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Professor Robert G. Kelly was named a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

Elizabeth J. Opila joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering as an associate professor. She was previously a physicist at NASA Glenn Research Center, Materials & Structure Division.

Professor John R. Scully gave the plenary lecture at the International Corrosion Engineering Conference in Hanoi, Vietnam in October.

Professor Emeritus Edgar A. Starke, Jr., was elected an honorary member of the Japan Institute of Metals.

Professor Stuart A. Wolf was featured in the documentary The Quantum Tamers. The film won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the Washington, D.C., Independent Film Festival.

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)
Assistant Professor Silvia Blemker and graduate student Bahar Sharafi (’12) received the Journal of Biomechanics Award at the American Society of Biomechanics meeting. This award, sponsored by Elsevier Science Ltd., publishers of the Journal of Biomechanics, recognizes substantive and conceptually novel mechanics approaches explaining how biological systems function.

Jeff R. Crandall, Director of the Center for Applied Biomechanics and the Nancy and Neal Wade Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, was elected president of the International Research Council on Biomechanics of Injury (IRCOBI). He received the Award of Merit from the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine (AAAM). 

Professor Pamela M. Norris gave a keynote address entitled “Interfacial Phenomena at Micro and Nanoscale” at the Eighth International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels and Minichannels, in Montreal in August 2010.

Professor Larry G. Richards is general chair for Frontiers in Education 2010, the premier conference for educational innovation and research in engineering and computing. “Celebrating 40 Years of Innovation” is the theme of the conference, and it is hosted by the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. Three professional societies — ASEE Educational Research and Methods Division, IEEE Education Society and IEEE Computer Society — have collaborated for many years to establish the tradition of excellence in engineering education and research represented by FIE. Richards was elected as a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in 2011. READ MORE.

Science, Technology, and Society (STS)
Professor W. Bernard Carlson was named the Secretary of the Society for the History of Technology.

Associate Professor Joanne L. Cohoon led the data analysis and co-authored a study conducted by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation titled “Are Women Entrepreneurs Different From Men?” READ MORE.

Professor and Chair Deborah G. Johnson was part of a team that received NSF funding for a project on educating students about the effects of climate change on engineering systems and for a project on Surveillance and Transparency. She took six students to Panama in May to research the new canal that is being built. They will return in January 2011, and in the spring they will bring Panamanians from the Panama Canal Authority here.

Assistant Professor Peter D. Norton received the Abbott Payson Usher Prize from the Society for the History of Technology for his article “Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street.”

Associate Professor Bryan Pfaffenberger received the STS Teaching Award for his work on a manual for the Undergraduate Thesis.

Associate Professor Edmund P. Russell III received a grant to spend a semester in Germany at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich.

Systems and Information Engineering (SIE)
Associate Professor Ellen J. Bass received the 2010 Serpentine Society Outstanding Service award for her groundbreaking seminar “LGBTQ in Virginia: Past and Future” and her role as co-convener of U.Va. Pride. She also participated in the invited panel “Improving Patient Safety and Decreasing Error during the Handoff of Surgical Patients” at the Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons, Washington, D.C.

Research Associate Professor Gerard P. Learmonth received an IBM Faculty Award in support of the U.Va. Chesapeake Bay Game development.

DEAN’S OFFICE
Kathryn C. Thornton, retired NASA astronaut and associate dean for graduate programs, was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame in June. READ MORE.

Carolyn A. Vallas, director of the Center for Diversity in Engineering, received the 2010 Robert A. Bland Award. The award recognizes a faculty member, alumnus/alumna, or student who is either African-American or whose contribution to the field is of particular significance to African-Americans. This award honors the accomplishments of Robert A. Bland (EE '59), the first African-American to graduate from U.Va. and SEAS. She also received a 2010 Champion Award from U.Va.'s Office of Equal Opportunity Programs in recognition of her work spearheading activities to expand recruitment and retention of students from underrepresented populations in STEM fields.

School Highlights
The Center for Engineering Career Development has been designated by Merck as one of the top 25 recruiting sources.

The University of Virginia was one of nine institutions to receive a 2010 Beckman Scholars Award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Established in 1997, the Beckman Award promotes and generously funds a small number of exceptional undergraduate researchers in chemistry, biochemistry, and the biological and medical sciences. Associate professor of biomedical engineering and undergraduate program director William Guilford is the award’s author and principal investigator. Three other BME faculty members — Richard Price, Jason Papin and Shayn Peirce-Cottler — are also among the 15 faculty from three schools eligible to serve as Beckman Mentors.

Engineering School links of interest:
National Academy of Engineering Members
Professional Society Fellows
NSF Faculty Early CAREER Development Awards