Faculty awards and honors
Awards and honors earned by faculty and staff of the College of Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture from February 2020 through May 2020.
23rd Annual College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Awards honorees:
Harrison Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Gil Bohrer, professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
The Clara M. and Peter L. Scott Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Kevin Passino, professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dean’s Meritorious Service to Students Award: William Murdock ’99 MCRP, executive director, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Lecturer: Jennifer Herman, senior lecturer, Department of Engineering Education, and Benjamin Wilke, senior lecturer, Knowlton School of Architecture
David C. McCarthy Engineering Teaching Award: Tarunjit Butalia, research associate professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
Ralph L. Boyer Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Engineering Innovation: Alan Luo, professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Faculty Mentoring Award: Keith Gooch, professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
The BEWEL Leadership in Innovation Award: Karen Dannemiller, assistant professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
Dean’s Award for Distinguished Outreach Achievements: Tarunjit Butalia, research associate professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
Faculty Safety Award: Samir Ghadiali, professor and chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Faculty Diversity Excellence Award: Maryam Ghazisaeidi, associate professor, and Wolfgang Windl, professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Innovators Award: Emre Koksal, professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Honda-Ohio State Partnership Award: Nate Ames, executive director, Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence
Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching: Li-Chiang Lin, assistant professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; and Aimee Ulstad, associate professor-clinical, Department of Integrated Systems Engineering
Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Awards
Carlos Castro, associate professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Michael Poirier, professor, Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences
Andrea Serrani, professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Marcello Canova, associate professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Tunc Aldemir, professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Richard Denning, retired professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Jieun Hur, assistant professor of practice, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering; and Halil Sezen, professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering
Lumley Research Awards
Spryridon Blanas, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering; Hanna Cho, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Karen Dannemiller, assistant professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering; Daniel Gallego-Perez, assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering; Ryan Harne, assistant professor, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; Mahesh Illandala, associate professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Asimina Kiourti, assistant professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Li-Chiang Lin, assistant professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Jenifer Locke, assistant professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering; Rongjun Qin, assistant professor, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering; Shane Smith, research scientist, ElectroScience Laboratory; and Huan Sun, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Other awards and honors
Biomedical Engineering Associate Professor Gunjan Agarwal received a three-year, $330,000 National Science Foundation award for her research on the role of collagen fibrils in vascular calcification.
Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Rizwan Ahmad and Assistant Clinical Professor Tanya Nocera received the Herman R. Weed Excellence in Teaching Award in recognition of exemplary instruction and mentorship to students in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Shamsul Arafin received a nearly $166,000 EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) award from the National Science Foundation to help advance the building blocks of quantum technologies.
Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded the prestigious 2020-21 Fulbright-Nokia Distinguished Chair and will teach and conduct research at Tampere University.
Ohio Eminent Scholar and Howard D. Winbigler Professor Bharat Bhushan received the 2020 Mayo D. Hersey Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for distinguished and continued contribution to the advancement of tribology, the science of friction, wear, lubrication and related design aspects. In addition, his textbook, Bioinspired Water Harvesting, Purification, and Oil-Water Separation, has been published by Springer.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Associate Professor Carlos Castro is part of a team that received Ohio State COVID-19 rapid response funding to develop a rapid COVID-19 diagnostic assay that uses folded DNA nanostructures to bind to an RNA sequence contained in the COVID-19 genome.
City and Regional Planning Assistant Professor Zhenhua Chen has published Development Studies in Regional Science: Essays in Honor of Kingsley E. Haynes, with co-editors William M. Bowen and Dale Whittington.
Associate Professor Kristi Cheramie has been named head of the Landscape Architecture section in the Knowlton School.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Antonio Conejo is co-investigator on a $2.44 million U.S. Department of Energy grant project led by Duke University to help utilities and wholesale electricity markets improve efficiency and reliability while reducing emissions and costs.
Katrina Cornish, Endowed Chair and Ohio Research Scholar of Bioemergent Materials, Horticulture and Crop Science/Agricultural and Biological Engineering, was inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows.
Monica F. Cox, professor of engineering education, has been named an ASEE Fellow by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for her outstanding contributions to the society.
Senior Director of Development Steve Crissinger received the Chair’s Award for Outstanding and Exceptional Contribution to BME in recognition of an above and beyond contribution to the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Fontana Professor of Metallurgical Engineering Glenn Daehn was named one of the 20 most influential professors in smart manufacturing by SME Media.
Marcelo Dapino, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Honda R&D Americas Designated Chair in Engineering, has been named a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE).
Landscape Architecture Assistant Professors John Davis and Justin Parscher are co-principal investigators for Agrarian Forms, a project funded by Ohio State’s Initiative for Food and AgriCultural Transformation (InFACT) to study historical agrarian spaces to investigate how agricultural practices and the forms they engendered have shaped current landscapes. Landscape Architecture Assistant Professor Forbes Lipschitz is also part of the interdisciplinary project team.
Five College of Engineering faculty received funding via The Ohio State University Accelerator Awards. David Dean, associate professor of materials science and engineering, received funding for Chaotic Printing for Cell Expansion and Tissue Regeneration. Emre Ertin, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, earned funding to refine a noninvasive sensor of thoracic fluid levels for the management of congestive heart failure patients. Sanjay Krishna, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received funding for Lateral Interband Type-II Engineered Detectors. Mrinal Kumar, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was awarded funding to develop a minimally viable product and user interface for pilot testing in jet engine prognostics. Tanya Nocera, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, earned funding to develop a new junctional tourniquet device that tightly conforms to wounds and can be quickly and effectively applied in high-pressure combat environments.
Emily Dringenberg, assistant professor of engineering education, received a five-year, $597,139 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her research on beliefs about gender- and race-based minoritization in engineering.
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Faculty Professor Eylem Ekici, Lecturer Isabel Fernandez Puentes, Associate Professor-Clinical Lisa Fiorentini, Lecturer Saeedeh Ziaeefard and Professor Lee Potter received Distinguished Teaching Awards from the ECE department.
City and Regional Planning Professor of Practice Kyle Ezell has been inducted into the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) College of Fellows, which recognizes outcomes that have left demonstrably significant and transformational improvements to the field of planning and the communities served.
Ashlynn Fisher, an office associate in biomedical engineering, received the Vladimir O. Marukhlenko Staff of the Year Award for dedication to quality and exemplary service in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
Hamish Fraser, Ohio Regents Eminent Scholar and professor of materials science and engineering, received the 2020 AIME Champion H. Mathewson Award, which recognizes the most significant contribution to scientific findings that promote broad engineering application of metallic materials.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Chair Hesham El Gamal was named co-director of Ohio State’s Institute for Cybersecurity and Digital Trust, which aims to organize the university’s collective data security assets.
Daniel Gingerich, assistant professor of integrated systems engineering, leads a team that received Ohio State COVID-19 rapid response funding to quantify employment effects and environmental burdens resulting from investments in infrastructure.
Professor James W. Gregory was named the new chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Ohio State, effective June 1, 2020.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Liang Guo published his first edited book, Neural Interface Engineering: Linking the Physical World and the Nervous System.
Natalia Higuita-Castro, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, leads a team that received Ohio State COVID-19 rapid response funding to deliver anti-inflammatory therapies to lungs injured by the novel coronavirus using next-generation nanocarriers based on engineered extracellular vesicles
Senior Associate Dean John Horack was elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
Architecture Professor Kay Bea Jones published the book, The Routledge Companion to Italian Fascist Architecture: Reception and Legacy, with co-editor Stephanie Pilat.
Engineering Education Assistant Professor of Practice Krista Kecskemety, Civil, Environmental, and Geodetic Engineering Assistant Professor Andrew May and Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Professor Jessica Winter received the Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award from the Office of Student Academic Success-Undergraduate Research & Creative Inquiry.
Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Jenifer Locke received a five-year, $530,450 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation for her research in environmental cracking and corrosion.
John Lannutti, professor of materials science and engineering, received the Mars G. Fontana Award for Outstanding Teaching in Materials Science and Engineering.
Computer Science and Engineering Associate Professor Arnab Nandi received Ohio State’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, which honors superior teaching.
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Andre Palmer, one of the world’s leading experts in blood substitute research and engineering, has been named an Ohio Eminent Scholar.
Rongjun Qin, assistant professor of geodetic engineering, and Geospatial Data Analytics Lab team members Huijun Chen, Changlin Xiao and Wei Liu placed first and fourth in two separate tracks of the 2020 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Data Fusion Contest.
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Assistant Professor Eduardo Reátegui leads a team that received a $350,000 award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to support efforts to decode inflammation through immune cell behavior, specifically neutrophils.
Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology Professor Cynthia Roberts received Ohio State’s 2020 Distinguished Scholar Award, which honors exceptional scholarly accomplishments. She was also selected for The Ophthalmologist magazine’s “2020 Power List,” as one of the 100 most influential figures in ophthalmology.
Patrick Sours, program manager for Sustainable and Resilient Communities and senior lecturer of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, was awarded a five-month research fellowship by Engineering for Change to address engineering technologies developed for countries where access to improved sanitation facilities is limited.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Alok Sutradhar and graduate student Mohamad Al Nashar received a Fellowship from the Air Force Research Laboratory Dayton Area Graduate Studies Institute to combine mechanical and electromagnetic topology optimization to design novel electromagnetic systems.
Huan Sun, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, received a five-year, $499,965 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her research on interactive and transparent natural language question answering models. She also received a 2019 Google Faculty Research Award to explore the interplay among Web tables, texts and knowledge bases for knowledge extraction and embedding.
Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Rengasayee (Sai) Veeraraghavan received a two-year $18,000 Strategic Initiative Award from the Microscopy Society of America to support his efforts to conduct microscopy-based outreach for K-12 students.
Biomedical Engineering Assistant Professor Ben Walter and Radiology Associate Professor Arun Kolipaka lead an interdisciplinary Ohio State team who received a five-year, $2.5 million National Institutes of Health award to develop a safe, non-invasive method to diagnose degeneration of the intervertebral disc, a common underlying cause of low back pain.
Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Wei Xu leads a team using artificial intelligence technology to make text content more accessible to school children and people with disabilities. Ohio State received $375,732 in National Science Foundation funding for their part of the collaborative project with Rochester Institute of Technology.
Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering Professor Lingying Zhao and Associate Professor Victoria Chen received a 2020 Community Engaged Program Award from Ohio State’s Office of Outreach and Engagement for the OSU Green Home Technology Center.
Renee Zhao, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a three-year $398,773 National Science Foundation grant for the project “Micromechanics of Interactions Between Hard Magnetic Particles and Soft Matrix on Magneto-Mechanical Actuation.” She also received a five-year, $562,511 NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her research in the mechanics of soft intelligent materials.
