Faculty Accolades
Experts in their fields, the faculty in the School of Science are often called upon to speak about their specialties. They are also well-published and have received multiple awards for their work.
July 2007:
Gary Bedrosian, clinical associate professor pf physics, won the 2007 Rensselaer Alumni Association Teaching Award.
Chang Ryu, associate professor of chemistry, is one of six scientists chosen for the 2007 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry Young Observor Program, which provides participants with the opportunity to experience the global efforts that impact the scientific community and further their careers and international reputations with networking opportunities.
John Schroeder, professor of physics, won the 2007 Jerome Fischbach Travel Grant.
Fern Finger, assistant professor of biology, was selected to present the abstract "UNC-85 is an Asf1-related histone chaperone functioning in C. elegans post-embryonic neuroblast replication," coauthored with Iwen Fu Grigsby, graduate student of biology, as a platform presentation in the session on Neuronal Development, at the 16th International C. elegans Conference, in Los Angeles.
I. Volkan Isler, assistant professor of computer science, was an invited speaker at a workshop on Robotic Sensor Networks: Principles and Practice held in conjunction with the Robotics: Science and Systems Conference. The title of his talk was "Sensor Selection and Placement for Robotic Sensor Networks."
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, delivered a keynote address at the AURORA International High Performance Workshop in Vienna, Austria on the Internet operating systems developed at Rensselaer’s Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking.
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, presented an invited lecture at Imperial College, London, U.K. on the sensor network protocols developed at Rensselaer’s Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, director of the Center for Terahertz Research and professor of physics, has received approximately $385,000 in funding in the past three months from the Army Research Office, Lockheed Martin, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, director of the Center for Terahertz Research and professor of physics, received two patents: (1) US Patent 7,230,245: Field induced THz wave emission microscope, awarded June 12, 2007, and (2) U.S. Patent 7,239,775: High repetition rate, linear, true time of optical delay line, awarded July 3, 2007.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, director of the Center for Terahertz Research and professor of physics, delivered an invited talk on “Physics, technology, and applications of THz wave photonics in laser-induced-air-plasma,” coauthored with J.M. Dai, research assistant professor in the Center for Terahertz Research, and physics graduate students X. Xie and N. Karpowicz, at the SURA THz Application Symposium, in Washington D.C.
June 2007:
Petros Drineas, assistant professor of computer science, received the Outstanding Early Research Award at the first annual School of Science Awards Ceremony.
Henry Ehrlich, professor emeritus of biology, is listed in the 23rd Edition of Marquis's Who's Who in the World.
Peter Persans, professor of physics, received the Outstanding Service Award at the first annual School of Science Awards Ceremony.
Members of the Center for Pervasive Computing Center and Networking: Boleslaw Szymanski, professor of computer science; Carlos Varela, assistant professor of computer science; and computer science graduate students Travis Desell and Kaoutar El Maghraoui, co-authored a paper at the CCGrid 2007 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that was nominated for best paper.
James Ferris, director of the New York Center for Studies on the Origins of Life , organized a round table discussion on extraterrestrial life at the Philocetes Center in New York City.
Jim Hendler, tetherless world constellation professor and professor of computer science, was one of three keynote speakers at a symposium celebrating the 300th birthday of Carl Linnaeus, father of biological taxonomy, held at Harvard Medical School.
Jim Hendler, tetherless world constellation professor and professor of computer science, was asked to join the Informatics Advisory Group for the Encyclopedia of Life, a multimillion dollar, international project aimed at creating an interactive, web-based database cataloging and collecting information on all the 1.8 million species known.
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, will co-chair the program committee for the first conference of the International Technology Alliance in Networking and Information Science. He will co-chair the conference with Kin Leung of Imperial College, UK.
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, along with Greg Chen, postdoc in the center, received a U.S. patent on a novel method for discrete event simulation.
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, and Jim Hendler, tetherless world constellation professor and professor of computer science, are principal investigators in a new $500,000 grant from the International Technology Alliance in Networking and Information Science, from the Army Research Office.
Boleslaw Szymanski, director of the Center for Pervasive Computing and Networking, and professor of computer science, Heidi Newberg, associate professor of physics, Carlos Varela, assistant professor of computer science, and Malik Magdon-Ismail, associate professor of computer science, received an REU supplement from the National Science Foundation for support of three undergraduate researchers.
Past Accolades:
Michael Hanna, Associate professor of biology and associate dean for Academic Advising, Assessment, and Special Programs, has been named a National Academies Education Mentor in the Life Sciences.
James Ferris, research professor of chemistry and chemical biology, was one of 15 invited speakers at the Nobel Workshop on the Origin of Life in Stockholm June 8-10, 2006.
Marlene Belfort, adjunct professor of biology, was recently presented an honorary doctor of philosophy degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for her contributions to the fields of genetics, molecular biology, evolution, and biotechnology. Belfort is distinguished professor of biomedical sciences at the State University of New York at Albany and director of the Division of Genetic Disorders at Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health.
Yvonne A. Akpalu is Principal Investigator for NSF Division of Manufacturing and Innovation grant for 2006 - 2009: Advancing the Engineering Design of Bionanocomposites with Controlled Properties.
Toh-Ming Lu, professor of physics, was presented the first-ever Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Faculty Leadership Award at the TECHCON 2005 meeting in Portland, Ore., Oct. 24-26. The award was recently created by the SRC Board of Directors and seeks to recognize individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in addressing the most important problems facing the semiconductor industry through excellence in the creation and management of large SRC-sponsored multi-university and multi-disciplinary collaborative programs. Lu was recognized for his work as past director of the Center for Advanced Interconnect Science and Technology, which was founded in 1996 under the leadership of Shyam Murarka, now professor emeritus at Rensselaer, and grew to include 15 universities and 50 task leaders under Lu’s leadership.
Steve Roecker, professor of earth and environmental sciences, recently received a medal from the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation in recognition of his support in developing international science and technology collaborations. Roecker has served as an adviser to the funding agency on science in central Asia, primarily in Kyrgyzstan and Kazachstan, and served on a number of review panels.
Frank Spear, professor and chair of earth and environmental sciences, has been named the 2007 Dana Medal recipient by the Mineralogical Society of America. The medal is intended to recognize a mid-career individual’s continued outstanding scientific contributions through original research in the mineralogical sciences. Spear’s research is focused on developing new techniques to read the history of the Earth through metamorphic rocks, constructing pressure-temperature-time histories used to interpret tectonic evolution. As part of recognition at the 2007 Frontiers in Mineral Sciences meeting, he will receive a bronze engraved medal and give a scientific presentation to be published in American Mineralogist.
Angel Garcia, senior constellation chaired professor in biocomputation and bioinformatics and professor of physics, will be presented the 2006 Edward A. Bouchet Award by the American Physical Society (APS) at the 2006 APS March Meeting in Baltimore, Md. The award citation will read: “For his contributions to the understanding of the role of water in the dynamics and folding of proteins through computer simulations.”
Michael Shur, the Patricia W. and C. Sheldon Roberts '48 Chaired Professor in Solid State Electronics, has been selected as honorary chair of the Sixth IEEE International Caribbean Conference on Devices, Circuits and Systems to be held in Cozumel, Mexico, in April 2006.
E. Bruce Watson, Institute Professor in Earth & Environmental Sciences, is the recipient of the prestigious Victor Moritz Goldschmidt Medal, awarded by the Geochemical Society at the annual Goldschmidt Conference. The medal is given to an individual who has greatly advanced geochemistry or cosmochemistry, and it is widely regarded as the top international honor in these fields. This year's medal recognized Bruce for his innovated experimental approaches that have changed our understanding of volatile transport in the Earth, diffusion of chemical components in minerals and rocks, and the distribution of elements in growing crystals.
Linda McGown, professor and chair of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, has been appointed to the editorial board of a new journal, NanoBiotechnology. The internationally peer-reviewed journal publishes research papers covering all aspects of the emerging and rapidly growing research area at the intersection of nanotechnology, molecular biology and biomedical sciences.
Donna Bedard, research professor of biology, has been invited to participate in an international summer school in Genoa, Italy, focused on microbrial biodegradation of contaminants in sediments. Bedard was chosen as a lecturer for the program based on her extensive research on PCBs.
Alan Cutler, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, has received a $50,000 Cottrell College Science Award from Research Corporation for his research on acetic acid synthesis catalysis.
James Moore, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, has been elected vice chair of the American Chemical Society’s Polymer Division. During the third year of his term, Moore will serve as chair of the Polymer Division.
Linda McGown, professor and chair of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, presented a plenary lecture titled "Aptamer Affinity Reagents in Capillary Electrophoresis and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization – Time of Flight – Mass Spectrometry" at the Latin American Symposium on Biotechnology, Biomedical, Biopharmaceutical, and Industrial Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis and Microchip Technology in Toledo, Spain, on Nov. 5-9. The paper was co-written by graduate students Adam Connor and Lawrence Dick Jr.
James Crivello, professor of organic and polymer chemistry, recently presented invited lectures titled "The Synthesis and Photopolymerization of Biorenewable Monomers" to Siena College and University of Missouri — Kansas City.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson ’22 Professor of Science, professor of physics, and director of Rensselaer’s Center for Terahertz Research, was recently selected to participate in the National Research Council – Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Distinguished Visiting Scientist Program in Ottawa, Canada.
Michael Hanna, associate professor of biology, and George Plopper, assistant professor of biology, were recently named "Education Fellows in the Life Sciences" by the National Academies. The designation was given to 39 educators around the country who successfully completed a summer institute aimed at fostering innovative approaches to teaching undergraduate biology. (read more)
Lawrence Dick Jr., a graduate student in chemistry, received an award for his presentation at the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACSS) annual meeting in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 3-7. Dick and Linda McGown, professor and chair of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, presented a paper titled "Aptamer-Enhanced Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization for Affinity Mass Spectrometry." The FACSS award recognized Dick's outstanding contribution by a graduate student.
Curtis Breneman, professor of chemistry and chemical biology, organized the fourth annual Symposium on Emerging Technologies in Computational Chemistry at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting in Philadelphia on Aug. 22-26. According to ACS, the objective of the symposium is to stimulate, reward, and publicize methodological advances in computational chemistry. The talks were evaluated by a panel of experts based on the impact the research will have on the future of computational chemistry and allied sciences.
Christopher Bystroff, assistant professor of biology, presented a paper in August at a computational biology conference in Glasgow, Scotland. The paper proposed a method to predict protein folding pathways and was one of 67 chosen from more than 500 entries at the conference, which combined the 12th International Conference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology and the 3rd European Conference on Computational Biology. Bystroff's co-authors include Mohammed J. Zaki, associate professor of computer science, and computer science graduate students Vinay Nadimpally and Deb Bardhan.
The Fund for Lake George awarded Rensselaer's Darrin Fresh Water Institute the first annual James D. Corbett Award, for advancing environmental education and research on Lake George since 1967 and partnering with the Fund in developing lake water quality monitoring programs since 1979. To accept the award on behalf of DFWI was Margaret A. Darrin, Sandra Nierzwicki-Bauer, Charles Boylen, Larry Eichler, and David Diehl. Corbett, the founder of the Fund, was a lifelong champion of Lake George.
Doug Whittet, professor of physics, applied physics, and astronomy, was awarded 40 hours of observing time on NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope for studies of the evolution of ices in interstellar clouds and proto-planetary disks. He was also awarded a $116,500 grant to analyze the data. The project will continue to July 2007.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson'22 Distinguished Professor of Science, was elected a fellow of the World Innovation Foundation on June 8. Zhang is also director of Rensselaer's Center for Terahertz Research.
Rensselaer researchers Xi-Cheng Zhang, Nachiket Raravikar, Pulickel Ajayan, Toh-Ming Lu, Gwo-Ching Wang, and Linda Schadler received U.S. Patent No. 6,782,154 for an "Ultrafast all-optical switch using carbon nanotube polymer composites." Researchers Yiping Zhao and Yuchuan Chen also participated in receiving the patent.
Michael Zuker, professor of mathematics, published an articled titled "Mfold web server for nucleic acid folding and hybridization prediction," in Nucleic Acids Research on July 1, 2003, that has been identified by Thomson-ISI® as one of the most cited papers in the field of biology and biochemistry.
Henry Ehrlich, emeritus professor of biology, has been invited by the editors of Applied and Environmental Microbiology to serve another three-year term as a member of the editorial board.
Gwo-Ching Wang, professor and chair of physics, gave an invited talk on "Terascale and Terahertz Research at Rensselaer" on July 22 at Taiwan's Fu Hen Catholic University, as part of the university's distinguished speaker series. Wang also spoke at: Tatung University on July 27; the Chinese Academy of Science, Institute of Physics on July 28; the National Taiwan University, Center for Condensed Matter Science on July 30; and National Cheng Kung University on Aug. 3. Wang received her B.S. from Cheng Kung University.
Fern Finger, assistant professor of biology, received a Scientist Development grant from the Northeast Affiliate of the American Heart Association. The $198,000, three-year award recognizes Finger’s potential as a research scientist to advance the understanding of heart health. Finger’s work uses nematode worms as a model system for understanding the role of septin family proteins in organ development. Her experiments will explore how septins help form cell-cell junctions, which may be important for heart pumping and for maintaining heart structure during aging.
Michael Zuker, professor of mathematics, presented the keynote address “Predicting Nucleic Acid Hybridization and Melting Profiles,” at Cambridge Healthtech Institute’s 12th annual nucleic acid-based technologies meeting in McLean, Va., June 21-23. The meeting was titled “Profiling Polymerase Chain Reaction and Beyond: In Celebration of Twenty Years of PCR.”
Henry Ehrlich, professor emeritus of biology, was honored at the 11th International meeting of Water-Rock Interaction Working Group of the International Association of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry (IAGC) in Saratoga Springs on June 27-July 2. The meeting, held once every three years, included a special session entitled, "Geomicrobiology: A Symposium in Honor of Henry Ehrlich," in homage to Ehrlich for his ground-breaking research, which has had global consequences. The session was organized by Professor Jun Abrajano Jr. of the Earth and Environmental Sciences department.
Toh-Ming Lu, professor of physics, presented "Dielectric and Metal Barriers for Cu Interconnect," as an invited speaker to the Fudan-Novellus International Workshop on Cu-Interconnect in Shanghai, China, on May 25.
The June 3, 2004 issue of Nature highlights the research of Ingrid Wilke, assistant professor of physics. The journal's News & Views section notes a recently published paper by Wilke that appeared in Applied Physics Letters on indium nitride, a promising terahertz source.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson '22 Distinguished Professor of Science and director of Rensselaer's Center for Terahertz Research, presented "Recent Development of Terahertz Wave Time-Domain Technology," as an invited speaker for the plenary session of the Conference on Precision Electromagnetic Measurement in London, UK, on June 30.
Xi-Cheng Zhang, the J. Erik Jonsson '22 Distinguished Professor of Science and director of Rensselaer's Center for Terahertz Research, published an article titled "Materials for Terahertz Science and Technology" in the journal Nature Materials, 1, 26 (2002) that has been identified by Thomson-ISI® as one of the most cited papers in the field of materials science. The paper has been selected by Thomson-ISI for designation as a "New Hot Paper" and is featured on the company's special topics website in July, 2004. Thomson-ISI, a business of The Thomson Corporation, provides access to information for researchers and scholars worldwide.
Julie Stenken, associate professor of analytical chemistry, has been appointed as a member of the Instrumentation and Systems Development Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. Also, Professor Stenken presented "In Situ Analysis of Chemical Signaling at Biomaterial Interfaces" as an invited speaker to the Life Sciences Interfaces Forum at the University of Southampton, UK, on July 2.
Curt Breneman, professor of chemistry, was named a permanent member of the California State Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program review panel, which is modeled after an NIH study section and is responsible for reviewing proposals for research funding provided by the California tobacco product tax. At the April meeting, over $21 million was awarded in research grants and pre- and post-doctoral fellowships.
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