Faculty awards and honors

Awards and honors earned by faculty and staff of the College of Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture from February 2015 through May 2015.

18th Annual College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Awards. The 2015 honorees are:

Harrison Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Junmin Wang, MAE
The Clara M. and Peter L. Scott Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Ness Shroff, CSE
Ralph L. Boyer Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Engineering Innovation: Peter M. Anderson, MSE, and Wolfgang Windl, MSE
"Building Bridges" Excellence Award: Gustavo Leone, Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics; College of Medicine
Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching: Jerald Brevick, ISE 
David C. McCarthy Engineering Teaching Award: Ronald Reano, ECE
Dean’s Meritorious Service to Students Award: Allen Sheldon, Honda
Faculty Diversity Excellence Award: Lisa Abrams, EEIC
Faculty Mentoring Award: Longya Xu, ECE
Honda-OSU Partnership Award: Tim Downing, Honda
Innovators Award: James W. Davis, CSE

Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Awards: 
Heather M. Powell, MSE and Chandan K. Sen, General Surgery, College of Medicine; Team Nuclear Analytics: Alper Yilmaz, CEGE; Tunc Aldemir, MAE
Umit Catalyurek, Biomedical Informatics, College of Medicine; and Richard Denning, formerly of MAE
Douglas Kniss, Obstetrics & Gynecology, College of Medicine, and Samir Ghadiali, BME

Lumley Research Awards: 
Aravind Asthagiri, CBE; Chi-Chih Chen, ECE; Atilla Eryilmaz, ECE; Jack J. McNamara, MAE; Niru Nahar, ECE; Feng Qin, CSE; Ramteen Sioshansi, ISE; Kannan Srinivasan, CSE; Haijun Su, MAE;David Talbot, MAE; Ronald Xu, BME; and Wei Zhang, ECE

Additional awards and honors

Betty Lise Anderson, professor of electrical and computer engineering, was named a Fellow of the International Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), which recognizes significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics and imaging.

Carla Bailo was named assistant vice president for mobility research and business development, overseeing the university accelerate sustainable mobility and transportation innovation, while integrating related research and education across Ohio State’s academic units. 

Avraham Benatar, associate professor of materials science and engineering, received a 2015 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching from The Ohio State University in honoring of his superior teaching.

Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, chair and professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, was chosen as a Fellow in the 2015-2016 Class of the Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering (ELATE) program, a national leadership development program for senior women faculty in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and related disciplines.

Michael Cadwell, director of the Knowlton School of Architecture, was elected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects for his notable contributions “to the advancement of the science and art of planning and building by advancing the standards of architectural education, training, and practice.” 

Yuejie Chi, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical informatics, received a three-year $509,244 grant from the Office of Naval Research’s 2015 Young Investigator Program for her work in high-dimensional data analysis and statistical signal processing. She also received a three-year grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in support of her work in low-complexity inference strategies for large-scale data streams.

Frank Croft, associate chair and professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, received the American Society for Engineering Education North Central Section’s 2015 Outstanding Teacher Award. This award recognizes outstanding classroom performance by teachers of engineering and engineering technology.

Lori Dalton, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical informatics, received a five-year, $449,341 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her research in optimal Bayesian methods for classification.

Kyle Ezell, associate professor of city and regional planning, received the 2015 Vernon Deines Award for an Outstanding Small Town Special Project Plan by the American Planning Association for his project, "The Essence of Athens: A Strategic Design Plan for Economic Enhancement and Community Competitiveness."

Gerald Frankel, professor of materials science and engineering, received NACE International’s 2015 Willis Rodney Whitney Award, given in recognition of significant contributions to corrosion science, education and service. 

Keith Gooch, associate professor of biomedical engineering, received a two-year $154,000 grant from the American Heart Association to study how cardiac fibroblast changes can contribute to heart failure.

Kathy Harper, senior lecturer for the Engineering Education Innovation Center, received the Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service from the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Brian Kulis, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, received a five-year, $486,255 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for his research in data analysis and machine learning.

Lisa Hall, H.C. “Slip” Slider Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a five-year, $475,000 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her research to understand how polymer structure controls overall materials properties.

William Marras, ISE Honda Chair Professor, and colleagues received a $249,268 grant from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) and Ohio Board of Regents to study low back and shoulder disorders resulting from pushing and pulling activities. 

Michael Mills, McDougal Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, was named a Fellow of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society for “leadership and significant contributions in elucidating the deformation mechanisms of high-temperature structural materials using advanced characterization and modeling.”

Arnab Nandi, assistant professor of computer science and engineering received a five-year, $498,000 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for his research in gesture-driven querying of databases.

Dhabaleswar K. (DK) Panda, professor of computer science and engineering, received a 2015 University Distinguished Scholar Award from The Ohio State University. 

Steven Ringel, professor and Neal A. Smith Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, received a 2015 University Distinguished Scholar Award from The Ohio State University. 

Anastasios (Tasos) Sidiropoulos, assistant professor of computer science and engineering and mathematics, received a five-year, $500,921 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for his project, “Geometric frontiers in algorithm design.”

Carolyn Sommerich, associate professor of integrated systems engineering and Anthony Luscher, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a $248,931 grant from the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation (BWC) and Ohio Board of Regents to support research on prevention of upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders among torque tool operators in manufacturing facilities. 

Yi Zhao, associate professor of biomedical engineering, was awarded a $225,000 National Science Foundation grant for his research study "Collaborative Research: A Bioinspired Reconfigurable Optofluidic Device with Tunable Field-of-View and Adaptive Focusing Power." 

Yuan Zheng, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $50,000 grant from the Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation and Start-Up Fund to design several prototype gear-reducers, which are engine components that increase the torque of a motor.