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Dr. Dion Vlachos, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, does research with energy.

FOR THE RECORD

Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

UD community reports recent awards, presentations, publications

For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent awards, media, presentations and publications include the following:

Awards

Dion Vlachos, Elizabeth Inez Kelley Professor and director of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation at the University of Delaware, has won the 2016 Catalysis Club of Philadelphia Award. The award is made annually to an outstanding member of the catalysis community who has made significant contributions to the advancement of catalysis in science, technology, or organizational leadership.

Vlachos was recognized for his extraordinary theoretical and experimental contributions to advancing the understanding of the molecular basis of heterogeneous catalysis of complex systems and to discovering and improving catalysts.” His nominator also wrote, “His ability to lead a large interdisciplinary effort within CCEI and work effectively with industry on real-world problems is unmatched. Clearly, the impact of Dion’s contributions has been exceptional in both breadth and depth.”

Vlachos has 340 refereed papers, one patent, one patent application, and one disclosure agreement, and his reaction mechanisms have been employed by various companies leading to commercial processes.

Hao Liu, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering and a research assistant in the Center for Composite Materials (CCM), recently received the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) 2016 Student Leader Experience Award. The award sends student leaders to the SAMPE North America Conference and Exhibition to network with peers and industry professionals and increase their understanding of the materials and processes community. Liu’s research focuses on structural health monitoring of advanced composite materials. Advised by associate professor Erik Thostenson, he is designing smart sensors that are exceptionally sensitive to changes in strain and to the development and growth of damage occurring in fiber composite systems. 

Two UD undergraduates have been honored with awards from the Pan American Association of Philadelphia, which presented them at a ceremony in April. Sophiana Leto, a junior from Emerson, New Jersey, who is majoring in anthropology and public policy with a minor in Latin American and Iberian Studies (LAIS), received the Alejandro Reyes Award. Sandra Vieyra, a junior from Wilmington, Delaware, who is majoring in LAIS and Spanish education with a minor in anthropology, received the Irene Rivera Diaz Award. Both awards are given annually to Delaware Valley college students who are selected based on their academic and extracurricular achievements and career plans related to Latin America.

Media

Harvey Price, associate professor of percussion, is featured in a May 12 WHYY report on his work with the Peace Drums Steel Band project, which brings together Christian, Muslim and Jewish students from Israel.

Presentations

Irene Vogel, professor in the Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, has been invited to present a series of lectures at the Sorbonne in June and July. Her lectures will focus on the research conducted in her Speech Research Lab on the cross-linguistic and typological manifestation of word and sentence prominence, and its broader implications.

Chandra L. Reedy, professor in the Center for Historic Architecture and Design, presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, co-authored by two UD students, Ying Xu, in the doctoral program in preservation studies, and Kevin Barni, in the master’s program in historic preservation. The paper reported on results of a research grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, and was titled "Combining Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) with Image Analysis for Quantitative Tarnish and Corrosion Studies of Cultural Heritage Materials," May 16, in Montreal, Canada.

Carrie Ida Edinger, a 1997 graduate, will be presenting An Artist's Perspective: Art and Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) Department of Anthropology on May 19. In addition, on May 21, she will be collaborating with the On the Line programming. On the Line is a Riverside-based program of art, performance and research that looks at clotheslines to explore aesthetic, social and ecological connections of all kinds. As a participatory element, Edinger’s public raffle concept was included for the 2016 programming. The public raffle is in conjunction with the Riverside community and with the celebration of the statewide legislation in support of hanging laundry in California. The raffle was created to aid in the engagement at local library sites with discussions pertaining to laundry and clotheslines. Edinger has been working with an anthropology student at UCR who has been managing the raffle at the first two library sites. They have launched a blog that is a collaborative way of writing about the public raffle event, while utilizing new media to extend the participatory concept for the documentation from the physical site to virtual social spaces.

Publications

Tony Allen and Darryl Chambers are co-authors of an article, “The Unspoken Variables of Success: Grace and Mercy,” in the National Urban League’s 2016 State of Black America Report, which was launched this week at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Allen is a member of the University Board of Trustees and an alumnus who earned his bachelor’s degree in political science in 1993 and his doctorate in urban affairs and public policy in 2001 and was the founding president of the Metropolitan Wilmington (Delaware) Urban League. Chambers is a doctoral student in criminology and a graduate research associate in UD’s Center for Drug and Health Studies. Follow news and discussions about the report and its findings on Twitter at #LockedOut and #StateOfBlackAmerica.

The Better Buying project, a partnership whose co-leader is Marsha Dickson, Irma Ayers Professor of Human Services in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, was featured in a May 18 article in just-style.com, the online news, insight and research portal for the apparel and textile industry. The project also was the subject of a recent article in The Apparel Story, a publication of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Better Buying plans to develop a system in which apparel suppliers will rate the purchasing practices of retailers and brands and share those ratings publicly to foster improvements.

Rudi Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History, published “From Splendour and Admiration to Ruin and Condescension: Western Travellers to Iran from the Safavids to the Qajars,” in Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 54:1 (2016): 3-22.

To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to publicaffairs@udel.edu.

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