Thursday, February 15, 2007

Elodie Leveugle Wins the Award for Excellence in Scholarship

February 15, 2007 - UVA Research News by Melissa Maki

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies announces the 2007 recipients of its awards for excellence in scholarship. The fellowships are available to advanced doctoral candidates in the sciences, engineering, humanities, and social sciences who have earned distinction in their respective fields and have brought recognition to U.Va.’s graduate programs as a result of their intellect, hard work, creativity, and passion. 
This year’s fellowship winners have some extraordinary scholarly accomplishments, including: attracting accolades from the National Science Foundation and National Aeronautic and Space Administration; presenting research at national and international conferences; being invited to speak at major conferences; and having work featured in highly esteemed national and international publications such as the Journal of American History and Organised Sound.  In addition, Erwin Gianchandani’s research was not only published in a respected journal--PloS Computational Biology--but was featured on its cover. Likewise, Greg Riddick’s research was highlighted on the cover of the Journal of Cell Biology.
Elizabeth Fenton, doctoral candidate in philosophy and fellowship awardee, focuses on the theme of human rights in bioethics.  Fenton has already had three papers published in top bioethics journals, including the Hastings Center ReportBioethics, and the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy.  “For a graduate student to place papers in all three of these excellent journals before she has done substantial work on her dissertation is quite an amazing feat,” says John D. Arras, professor of bioethics and philosophy, and Fenton’s mentor and advisor.  “We can, in short, expect great things from this outstanding and already highly accomplished graduate student.”  Fenton will use the fellowship to fund research and writing time over the summer and for conference travel in the next academic year. 
Michael Nelson, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience and fellowship recipient, is conducting research that shows great promise for the development of new pharmacotherapies to treat unresponsive pain.  Nelson has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience and has received a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.  Nelson’s mentor, Slobodan Todorovic, associate professor of anesthesiology and neuroscience, notes that Nelson’s work has already made a big impact in his field.  “I believe that his most valuable trait that puts him above the rest is his enormous level of energy and passion for science,” says Todorovic.  “Indeed, he went a step ahead of what we normally expect from graduate students.”   Nelson will use the fellowship funding for travel purposes, such as attending and presenting at scientific meetings, and visiting labs to evaluate postdoctoral opportunities.

Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Sciences and Engineering fellows:
  • Ricardo Muñoz, astronomy
  • Greg Riddick, biochemistry, molecular biology & genetics
  • Erwin Gianchandani, biomedical engineering
  • Drake Guenther, biomedical engineering
  • Scott Bingham, computer engineering
  • Ryan Emanuel, environmental sciences
  • Sujith Ravi, environmental sciences
  • Elodie Leveugle, materials science & engineering
  • Patrick Hopkins, mechanical & aerospace engineering
  • Jason Kerrigan, mechanical & aerospace engineering
  • Catherine Christian, neuroscience
  • Michael Nelson, neuroscience
  • Jane Mendle, psychology
  • Justin Storbeck, psychology

Friday, February 9, 2007

Prof. John Dorning elected to membership into the National Academy of Engineering

February 9, 2007 - National Academies

National Academy of Engineering Elects 64 Members and Nine Foreign Associates

WASHINGTON -- The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 64 new members and nine foreign associates, NAE President Wm. A. Wulf announced today. This brings the total U.S. membership to 2,217 and the number of foreign associates to 188.

Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature," and to the "pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

A list of newly elected members and foreign associates follows, with their primary affiliations at the time of election and a brief statement of their principal engineering accomplishments.

New Member - John Dorning
John J. Dorning, Whitney Stone Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, professor of engineering physics, and professor of applied mathematics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville. For the development of advanced computational methods for nuclear reactor analysis

Monday, January 1, 2007

Nicole Tailleart, MSE Ph.D candidate, Wins First Place at the 2007 Tri-service Conference.

The theme of this year's Tri -service conference was "Integrating Corrosion Prevention and Control in Policy, Planning, and Programming." Nicole Tailleart won first place with her poster on multi-functional corrosion properties of pulse thermal sprayed (PTS) Al-Co-Ce Alloys. Taillheart's work on PTS metal coatings is valuable in aerospace applications and corrosion inhibition.

Advised by John Scully, she is part of the CESE group of students who are ever adding to their long list of accomplishments. Again, congratulations to Nicole on finishing in first place.

Beth Kehler Wins A.B. Campbell Award

Beth Kehler (PH.D. candidate, MSE) recieves A.B. Campbell Award for the best technical paper in Corrosion Journal

Crevice corrosion is one of the main performance limiting factors for the engineered barrier at the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. This topic is timely and important since the successful establishment of this repository will likely determine the long term fate of nuclear power generation in the United States .Beth's winning paper covered crevice corrosion of a nickel-base superalloy for the nuclear waster storage canisters. The paper was co-authored with her advisor, John R. Scully.

It is also worth noting that 3 CESE/MSE students (Kehler - 07, Marta Jakab - 06 [Ph.D. 2006], and Dave Enos - 1998 [Ph.D. 1997], one former CESE/MSE student (Michelle Gaudett-Koul, [Ph.D 1996]), as well as two faculty in CESE/MSE (Kelly, 1997, and Scully, 1985) have earned this award in the years indicated. This technical achievement is unprecedented in the corrosion field since its development as a sub-specialty of MSE. No other organization including the world famous Fontana Corrosion Center at Ohio State
University, the corrosion center at Cambridge, UK, as well as the one at UMIST, UK, can claim this achievement.

Again, congratulations to Beth for the award this year as well as the past CESE students for their achievements.