Honors & Achievements
Peter Rees, associate professor of geography and Latin American Studies, has received the Higher Education Distinguished Teaching Award from the National Council for Geographic Education, which recognizes and supports excellence in geography teaching, for his outstanding contributions to undergraduate and graduate teaching at UD and in the field through the acclaimed study abroad program.
Josh LeMonte, a graduate student in plant and soil sciences, has been awarded a Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship from the Department of Defense to support his doctoral research on the organic-metal interface in soils, particularly the role of manganese in the carbon cycle.
Michael T. Klein, who is director of the UD Energy Institute, Dan Rich Chair in Energy and professor of chemical engineering, and Terry Papoutsakis, the Eugene du Pont Chair of Chemical Engineering, have been selected as 2011 fellows of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, in recognition of their “outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession and the society.”
Three doctoral students in biological sciences recently received national awards recognizing their research: Vimal Gangadharan won a Student Research Achievement Award from the Biophysical Society for his studies of bone cells and the ways in which exercise reduces the rate of bone loss; Jody Greaney, who earned her master’s degree in exercise science, received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the American Heart Association to support her dissertation research on the neural control of the cardiovascular system; and David Scheiblin, who is conducting research on the cells in the lens of the eye, won a 2011 Student Award from the Microscopy Society of America.
Merris Hollingsworth, a psychologist and coordinator of training at UD’s Center for Counseling and Student Development, has received the Outstanding Training Director Award for 2011 by the Section for Supervision and Training of the Society of Counseling Psychology of the American Psychological Association.
S. Ismat Shah, professor of materials science and engineering and associate professor of physics and astronomy, has received a 2011-12 Fulbright Scholar grant to conduct research and lecture at Baku State University in Azerbaijan, where he will share his expertise in thin-film photovoltaics, or solar cells made from plastics, in a region where solar power is considered an untapped resource.
Dan Jackson, who graduated in May with a master’s degree in fine arts, was selected to receive a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, which selects only 15 graduating painters nationwide from an invited nomination process of 125 applicants.
John Scholz, professor of physical therapy whose research focuses on understanding the control and coordination of movement in healthy people as well as in patients with movement dysfunction from causes such as stroke, has been elected a Catherine Worthingham Fellow of the American Physical Therapy Association, the fourth UD professor to achieve the association’s highest honor in the past seven years.
Timothy Murray, head of the UD Library’s Special Collections Department and one of the pre-eminent voices speaking for special collections and particularly for literary manuscripts in the nation, has been inducted as a fellow of the Society of American Archivists.
Dion Vlachos, director of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and Elizabeth Inez Kelley Professor of Chemical Engineering, has won the 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s R.H. Wilhelm Award in chemical reaction engineering, recognizing his pioneering work on multiscale modeling and application to development, design and interpretation of catalytic reaction mechanisms, rational materials design and renewable energy.
Naveed Baqir, assistant professor of hotel, restaurant and institutional management, received a Global Information Technology Management Association (GITMA) Fellow Award, only the fourth such award presented by GITMA, in recognition of the quantity and quality of his global hospitality IT research.
Ramnarayan S. Rawat, assistant professor of history, has won the Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences from the American Institute of Indian Studies for his new book, Reconsidering Untouchability: Chamars and Dalit History in North India.
Martha Carothers, professor of art and a book artist, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to the Fulbright Hong Kong General Education Project this academic year, assisting colleagues in Hong Kong universities to strengthen general education in preparation for their transition to a four-year curriculum.
Guang R. Gao, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received the 2011 Gauss Award, an international award recognizing the most outstanding research paper in the field of scalable supercomputing for a paper he co-authored with fellow UD researcher Xiaoxuan Meng and Jack Dennis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
