Faculty awards and honors

Awards and honors earned by faculty and staff of the College of Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture from June 2015 through January 2016.

Lisa Abrams, associate chair of engineering education, and co-investigator Lauren Corrigan, lecturer for engineering education, received a $19,500 grant from the Engineering Information Foundation for a new Ohio State program that aims to improve the retention rate of women in engineering by empowering male students as engineering allies. 

Hojjat Adeli, professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, was named to the Thomson Reuters list of 2015 World's Most Influential Scientific Minds and the 2015 list of highly cited researchers in the categories of engineering and computer science. He was also inducted as a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain. 

Peter Anderson, professor of materials science and engineering, was named chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Carla Bailo, assistant vice president for mobility research and business development, was selected as the 2016-2018 vice president of automotive for SAE International.

Meyer (Mike) Benzakein, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was named assistant vice president for aerospace and aviation for The Ohio State University.

Bharat Bhushan, Ohio Eminent Scholar, and Phillip Brown, postdoctoral researcher, were presented with an IChemE Global Award for outstanding achievement in chemical and process engineering in the Water Management and Supply category for their research, “Separating oil from water.”

Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, professor and chair of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, and Charles Toth, research professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, received the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Academic Achievement Award.

Umit Çatalyürek, professor of electrical and computer engineering, computer science and engineering, and bioinformatics, was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. 

Marcello Canova, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for his work to create a new model order reduction framework to improve the accuracy of control algorithms design processes for advanced energy storage and conversion systems for electrified vehicles.

Monica Cox, professor of engineering education, was named the first chair of the newly created Department of Engineering Education.

Marcelo Dapino, professor and Honda R&D Americas Designated Chair in Engineering, was awarded a $300,400 three-year National Science Foundation grant to support research in ultrasonic additive manufacturing of multi-material structures. 

Prasad Dasi, associate professor of biomedical engineering, and professors from Colorado State University and PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research in India, received a $243,700 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to develop low cost replacement heart valves.

L.S. Fan, Distinguished University Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and his research team at the Clean Energy Research Laboratory received a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Energy to continue development of his patented chemical looping gasification (CLG) technology.

Samir Ghadiali, professor of biomedical engineering, and his collaborators were awarded funding from the American College of Veterinary Radiology for his research on the “Quantification of Airflow Resistance by Computed Tomography in Brachycephalic Dogs Before and After Surgery.”

Maryam Ghazisaeidi, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, received a five-year, $499,687 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her work to understand novel characteristics of defects in concentrated solid solutions.

Inder "Jiti" Gupta, faculty emeritus professor of electrical and computer engineering, received the Institute of Navigation’s Captain P. V. H. Weems Award for pioneering theoretical and experimental work on anti-jam antennas and signal processing techniques for interference suppression in GNSS receivers. 

Jihun Hamm, research scientist and senior lecturer of computer science and engineering, received a $45,000 2015 Google Faculty Research Award for his research that will allow smart devices to share data and train learning algorithms, while preserving users’ privacy. 

Joel Johnson, chair and professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $5.6 million grant from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate to further advance RFI reduction technology.

Rachel Kajfez, assistant professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering and Elizabeth Riter, Green Engineering Scholars program coordinator, received a $32,490 Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs Endowment grant to fund expansion of the Toy Adaptation Program. 

Simge Küçükyavuz, associate professor of integrated systems engineering, and her collaborators received the 2015 INFORMS Computing Society Prize for seminal work on stochastic mixed integer programming.

Jennifer Leight, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and Doug Kniss, professor biomedical engineering and obstetrics and gynecology, received a two-year $60,000 grant from Ohio Cancer Research Associates to study the impact of the tumor microenvironment on matrix metalloproteinase activity. 

Guoqiang Li, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and ophthalmology, was named a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics.

Dr. Alan S. Litsky, associate professor of biomedical engineering and orthopedics, received the Society for Biomaterials Award for Service. 

Jia (Kevin) Liu, research assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a three-year NSF $300,000 grant for his theoretical foundation research project on massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) networking—a key enabling communication technology for future 5G wireless networks. 

Jun Liu, associate professor of biomedical engineering, received a five-year $1.8 million National Institute of Health (NIH) grant for research to develop a new clinical method for measuring the cornea’s biomechanical properties. 

Aleix Martinez, professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a $46,361 Google Faculty Research Award in support of his online tutor project, which aims to make American Sign Language more accessible by providing critically needed feedback to students. He was also awarded a $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his research on how facial expressions influence language and behavior.

Stephen Niezgoda, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for his project titled "Computational Design Tools for Quantifying Uncertainty Due to Material Variability.”

Ümit Özgüner, emeritus professor of electrical and computer engineering, Bilin Aksun-Guvenc, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Keith Redmill, assistant professor-clinical of electrical and computer engineering, were awarded $230,000 from the National Science Foundation for their research on how autonomous transportation may assist senior citizens in the future.

Ümit Özgüner, emeritus professor of electrical and computer engineering, was honored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) with the Intelligent Transportations Systems Society’s Outstanding Research Award.

Andre Palmer, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, was named chair of the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. 

Srinivasan Parthasarathy, professor of computer science and engineering, leads a $1.98 million National Science Foundation grant project to investigate new ways for emergency responders to gather and analyze data in the wake of disasters.

Kevin Passino, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and director of the Humanitarian Engineering Center, was named to the Fulbright Specialist Roster.

Patrick Roblin, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, was named a Microwave Distinguished Lecturer by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Sudir K. Sastry, professor of food, agricultural and biological engineering received the International Congress on Engineering and Food Lifetime Achievement Award, which highlights the lifetime contribution of a prominent food engineer.

Gajan (Gaj) Sivandran, assistant professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering, was selected to receive the 2015 Association of Environmental Engineering & Science Professors Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environment Engineering and Science.

La’Tonia Stiner-Jones was named assistant dean of graduate programs and assistant professor of practice in biomedical engineering. She was also elected to the National GEM Consortium’s Executive Board.

David Wood, associate professor, received an additional $500,000 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant to adapt his intein-based protein purification system into a portable device that could produce and purify a ready-for-delivery therapeutic protein in just a few hours.

Longya Xu, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and his team received a three-year $3 million Department of Energy grant to design, test and demonstrate a high performance, high-speed drive capable of integrating into electric grids while avoiding energy losses associated with power transformers.

Zi Yhao, associate professor of biomedical engineering, was awarded a three-year $225,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to design an optical lens that combines wide-angle view and high-resolution focusing capabilities.