Faculty awards and honors, 2018
Awards and honors earned by faculty and staff of the College of Engineering and Knowlton School of Architecture from February 2018 through July 2018.
21st Annual College of Engineering Distinguished Faculty Awards honorees:
Harrison Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Siddharth Rajan, ECE; and Roberto Myers, MSE
The Clara M. and Peter L. Scott Faculty Award for Excellence in Engineering Education: Gerald Frankel
Dean’s Meritorious Service to Students Award: Karen Murphy; and Mark Eppich and Jason Sanson, City of Columbus
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Lecturer: Kadri Parris, EED
David C. McCarthy Engineering Teaching Award: Avraham Benatar, MSE
Ralph L. Boyer Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Engineering Innovation: Lee Potter, ECE
Faculty Mentoring Award: Stuart Cooper, CBE
"Building Bridges" Excellence Award: Subha Raman, Cardiovascular Medicine, College of Medicine
Dean’s Award for Distinguished Outreach Achievements: Glenn Daehn, MSE; and Arnab Nandi, CSE
Faculty Diversity Excellence Award: La’Tonia Stiner-Jones, BME
Innovators Award: Jessica Winter, CBE
Honda-Ohio State Partnership Award: Bob Rhoads, EED
Charles E. MacQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching: Paul Clingan, EED
Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Awards
Anne Co, Chemistry and Biochemistry, College of Arts & Sciences; Umit Ozkan, CBE; Jen-Ping Chen, MAE; Han-Wei Shen, CSE; Junmin Wang, MAE; Xiaorui Wang, ECE; Haijun Su, MAE; and Richard Jagacinski, Psychology, College of Arts & Sciences
Lumley Research Awards
Qadeer Ahmed, CAR; Theodore Allen, ISE; Nima Ghalichechian, ECE; Liang Guo, ECE; Lisa Hall, CBE; Rubao Li, CSE; Andrew O’Brien, ESL; Siddharth Rajan, ECE; Ajay Shah, FABE; Soheil Soghrati, MAE; Vishnu Sundaresan, MAE; and Wei Zhang, MSE
2018 College of Engineering Staff Appreciation Awards
Outstanding Service to Students Award: Mary Leist, CEG
Exemplary Support or Advancement of Research Award: Mark Andrews, ESL
Outstanding Service Award: Ryan Horns, ECE
Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Award: Shannon Morrison, CAS
Exemplary Team Performance or Service Award: Angela Beer, Jessica Baer-Graves, Christine Meadows, and Jacquelyn Monnin, Knowlton School
Additional awards and honors
Lisa Abrams, associate chair of the Department of Engineering Education, has been recognized as a 2018 Ohio State Glass Breaker by the President and Provost’s Council on Women.
Tunc Aldemir, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering received $3.35 million from the Department of Energy for advanced nuclear energy technology research. He is also the editor of a new book entitled Advanced Concept Nuclear Energy Risk Assessment & Management (World Scientific Publishing).
Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering’s V.M. Balasubramaniam, professor; Erdal Ozkan, professor; and Heping Zhu, adjunct professor; received 2018 CFAES Innovator of the Year Awards. Engineering Technicians Adam Clark, Barry Nudd and Andy Doklovic were also recognized.
Spyros Blanas, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, recently received the IEEE TCDE Rising Star Award from the IEEE TCDE Committee on Data Engineering for contributions to high-performance database management systems.
Walter “Dennie” Burnside and Inder “Jiti” Gupta, faculty emeriti of electrical and computer engineering, received the 2018 John Kraus Antenna Award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society for making a significant advance in antenna technology.
Carlos Castro, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a U.S. Fulbright Scholar Grant provided by the U.S. Department of State to pursue research in Ireland on the multiscale targeted delivery of DNA origami nanodevices.
Vicky Doan-Nguyen, assistant professor of materials science and engineering and mechanical and aerospace engineering, earned a 2018 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award and one-year $5,000 grant from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) in recognition of her research accomplishments and career potential.
Michael Dunn, professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received the 2018 GPPS Lifetime Achievement Award from the Global Power & Propulsion Society.
Rebecca Dupaix, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and mechanical engineering graduate student Peter Bonavita received a 2018 Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) fellowship award to support their research in aerospace technology.
Professor Hesham El Gamal was appointed the new chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, effective September 1, 2018.
Eric Fosler-Lussier, professor of computer science and engineering, received a $55,682 Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs grant to support his research to develop new computer-assisted technology to improve reading fluency for at-risk children.
Rick Freuler, professor of engineering education, has been named a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Architecture Section Head and Professor Todd Gannon published the new book, Reyner Banham and the Paradoxes of High Tech (Getty Publications).
Samir Ghadiali, chair and professor of biomedical engineering, was inducted into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows.
James Gregory, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received the designation of Outstanding Aerospace Engineer from his alma mater, Purdue University’s School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, associate dean for research for the College of Engineering, received an Award for Outstanding Service from the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund for her commitment to preserving the life, voice, ideas and work of a persecuted scholar.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Assistant Professor Liang Guo received a five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation to develop a new neural implant technology that uses a patient's own cells.
Inder "Jiti" Gupta, faculty emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, received the 2017 George Sinclair Award from the ElectroScience Laboratory.
Ryan L. Harne, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was awarded a five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for his work to enhance the state-of-the-art in wave guiding capability through the innovative use of origami science.
Joerg Jinschek, professor of materials science and engineering, is co-investigator on a multidisciplinary advanced manufacturing MURI project in which Ohio State’s share of the funding over five years could total up to $1.25 million.
Kay Bea Jones, professor of architecture, received a 2018-2019 Fulbright U.S Scholar award. She will conduct her studies on the design culture of Adriano Olivetti and the Olivetti Company.
Rachel Kajfez, assistant professor of engineering education, and Arnab Nandi, associate professor of computer science and engineering, are co-principal investigators on a NSF-funded project to advance innovative and creative STEM informal learning.
Asimina Kiourti, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received the International Union of Radio Science (URSI) Young Scientist Award for innovative contributions and discoveries in multidiscipline research related to electromagnetic fields and waves.
Rachel Garshick Kleit, professor of city and regional planning, was named associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Engineering.
City and Regional Planning Associate Professor Jesus J. Lara was inducted as an Honorary Member of Mortar Board.
Dewey Mann, lecturer of food, agricultural and biological engineering, was named the 2018 recipient of the CFAES Outstanding Academic Mentor Award.
Materials Science and Engineering Professor David McComb and Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Paul Berger earned $1.55 million in Defense University Research Instrumentation Program grants for laboratory equipment useful in advancing research of importance to national defense.
Shawn Midlam-Mohler, associate professor of practice of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received the 2018 NSF Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award for his efforts as faculty advisor of the Ohio State EcoCAR team
Center for Aviation Studies Curriculum and Assessment Manager Shannon McLaughlin Morrison received a 2018 Distinguished Diversity Enhancement Award from The Ohio State University.
Tanya Nocera, assistant professor of practice of biomedical engineering, received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant for research on inequities in undergraduate workforce opportunities between biomedical and other engineering disciplines. David Delaine, assistant professor of engineering education, and Alexis Ortiz-Rosario, assistant professor of practice of biomedical engineering, are co-investigators on the project.
Andre Palmer, chair of the William G. Lowrie Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, received a $2.4 million U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command grant to develop a resuscitation therapy to treat life-threatening hemorrhage on the battlefield.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Kevin Passino received a 2018 Distinguished Scholar Award in honor of his exceptional scholarly accomplishments. He is a world leader in the field of intelligent control, an area that uses ideas from biological systems to solve engineering problems.
Daniel Pradel, professor of practice of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering was named the 2018 Outstanding Engineering Educator by the Ohio Society of Professional Engineers.
Devina Purmessur, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is a co-investigator on a one-year $10,000 pilot grant from the Consortium for Advancement of Neuromusculoskeletal Signature Program for intervertebral disc degeneration research.
Siddharth Rajan, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, was awarded over $5 million toward two projects on next-generation semiconductor research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and its Dynamic Range-enhanced Electronics and Materials program.
Neal A. Smith Endowed Chair Professor Steven Ringel was named a 2018 Distinguished University Professor in recognition of his exceptional record in teaching, research and scholarly work at Ohio State.
Neal A. Smith Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Steven A. Ringel, Electrical and Computer Engineering Associate Professors Siddharth Rajan and Hongping Zhao, and Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Jinwoo Hwang are co-investigators of a $3.7 million MURI project to study the promising wide bandgap semiconductor material’s structure-property relationships and advance the material to new-generation electronic and photonic device applications.
Cynthia Roberts, professor of biomedical engineering and ophthalmology was added to Ophthalmologist magazine’s Ophthalmologist 2018 Power List of the top 100 most influential people in the world of ophthalmology for the second time.
Ponnuswamy Sadayappan, professor of computer science and engineering, received a 2018 Distinguished Scholar Award in honor of his exceptional scholarly accomplishments. He is internationally renowned for his research on compilers for high-performance and parallel computing.
Scott Shearer, chair of food, agricultural and biological engineering, received a Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs grant to develop the Global Sustainable Village, authentic on-campus living spaces that integrate sustainable innovations with humanitarian development.
Nuclear Engineering Professor Carol Smidts and Assistant Professor Marat Khafizov, Welding Engineering Professor Antonio Ramirez, Nuclear Engineering Faculty Emeritus Tom Blue and Nuclear Engineering Professor Tunc Aldemir received $3.35 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for advanced nuclear energy technology research.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Assistant Professor Jonathan Song and Associate Professors Shaurya Prakash and Carlos Castro earned a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to investigate the biomechanical mechanisms that control the remodeling of blood vessels.
Jonathan Song, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a five-year, $546,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation. The award supports his work to develop a novel model platform to precisely examine the mechanisms by which the cellular components of the tumor stroma—tissue surrounding cancer cells—promote cancer progression.
J.K. Wang, electrical and computer engineer, received a $250,000 grant from AEP Ohio for her research on cyber-resilient power grids.
Lei Wang, assistant professor of geodetic engineering, received the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) New Investigator Program award in Earth Sciences. It will further his research to more accurately quantify current and future environmental changes in the Greenland ice sheet.
Jessica Winter, professor of chemical engineering, received the 2018 Five Sigma Physicist Award from the American Physical Society for her outstanding science policy advocacy work.
Amber Woodburn and Zhenhua Chen, assistant professors of city and regional planning, along with Seth Young, associate professor of aviation, received $37,000 to support an economic impact analysis of the Columbus Regional Airport Authority facilities.
Wei Xu, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, received a $175,000 CRII award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to build machine learning algorithms for her natural language processing research. Xu’s LanguageNet team also won the Q4 AI for Everyone Challenge from Figure Eight.
Xiaodong Zhang, professor of computer science and engineering, received the Joel and Ruth Spira Excellence in Education Leadership Award from the Lutron Foundation.
Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Yinqian Zhang received a five-year, $500,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for his work to explore novel ways to address vulnerabilities in Intel’s Software Guard Extension. He also received a three-year $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop novel techniques that will enable cloud users to monitor resource usage of physical cloud servers without assistance from cloud providers.
