FALL/WINTER 2007
Awards and Honors
Also in this issue:
Purdue awards two honorary doctorates in science
2007 Distinguished Science Alumni Awards
Science students pick their top teachers
Three departments name new heads
Chmielewski named associate dean
Purdue's top research award goes to Chemistry and EAS's Francisco
Shreeram Abhyankar, professor of mathematics and computer science, was honored in his home city of Mumbai, India. He received the honorary title of “Vidnyan Sanstha Ratna” by the Institute of Science in Mumbai and his name was carved in the honor roll of the Institute of Science in Mumbai. …
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Mikhail Atallah |
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Alexei Czeskis |
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John J. Deely
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Chuanhai Liu |
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Rebecca Doerge |
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Scott McLuckey |
Scott McLuckey was awarded the Division of Analytical Chemistry Award in Chemical Instrumentation from the American Chemical Society. ... Chemistry Professor Tong Ren’s paper, “Diruthenium s-Alkynyl Compounds: A New Class of Conjugated Organometallics”, published in Organometallics, was featured as a “Hot Paper” on the American Chemical Society’s Web site. “Hot Papers” are articles published within the last two years that have received the most citations over a two-month period. … Jie Shen, professor of mathematics, was awarded an internal sabbatical in mechanical engineering. He plans to use this opportunity to learn the theoretical and modeling aspects of turbulence and to conduct research on “Large Eddy Simulations for Turbulent Flows” in collaboration with Professor Steven Frankel of Mechanical Engineering. … Ian Shipsey was named the Julian Schwinger Distinguished Professor of Physics. … Garth Simpson earned the Division of Analytical Chemistry Arthur F. Findeis Award for Achievements by a Young Analytical Scientist from the American Chemical Society. … Eugene Spafford, professor of computer science and executive director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), was recognized for his long and effective service on security and policy issues with the Association of Computing Machinery’s (ACM) President’s Award. He was also named one of the “50 Most Powerful People in Networking” by Network World magazine. … Gabriela Weaver, assistant professor of chemistry, was awarded the Helping Students Learn Award for her work in the Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education (CASPiE). … Guy Lebanon, assistant professor of statistics and electrical and computer engineering, with a courtesy appointment in computer science, and Cristina Nita-Rotaru, assistant professor of computer science, have been selected by the Office of the Provost as members of the 2007–08 Teaching for Tomorrow award class. … Alex Wei, Department of Chemistry, was named a University Faculty Scholar. … Twelve science faculty earned promotions this spring. From associate professor to full professor: Eric Calais, earth and atmospheric sciences; Bruce Craig, statistics; Suresh Jagannathan, computer science; Jaroslaw Wlodarczyk, mathematics. From assistant professor to associate professor: Jue Chen, biological sciences; Matt Huber, earth and atmospheric sciences; Jiashun Jin, statistics; Chengde Mao, chemistry; Arshak Petrosyan, mathematics; Voicu Popescu, computer science; Leonid Rokhinson, physics; Jun Xie, statistics; Dongyan Xu, science. … Seven computer science students were inducted into Upsilon Pi Epsilon, an international honor society that recognizes scholarship and professionalism in computing sciences: James Swedler, Zachary Tatlock, Nwokedi Idika, Richard Larson, Scott Perrine, Christopher Mayfield, and Kit Chan. … Bill Walker, director for Purdue University’s College of Science K–12 Outreach program was named the I-STEM Resource Network executive director. The I-STEM Resource Network is a partnership of Indiana’s public and private higher education institutions, K–12 schools, business, and government. ... First-year student Matthew Walters received the 2008 Lilly-Purdue Alumni Scholarship, which is made possible by the generosity of Purdue alumni who are now employed by Eli Lilly and Co. It provides one student of exceptional academic abilities with full-ride funding. ... Jeff Vitter, Frederick L. Hovde Dean of Science, gave the opening keynote talk at the inauguration of the Massive Data Algorithmics center at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. Vitter talked on the field he founded, I/O-efficient (or external memory) algorithms.
Purdue awards two honorary doctorates in science
Jacek K. Furdyna and Alan J. Levy were awarded the degree Doctor of Sciences honoris causa at the May 12 commencement reception.
Furdyna has a 22-year history in the physics department at Purdue but is now professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame. His pioneering research on properties of elemental and compound semiconductors addressed a range of electromagnetic and optical phenomena.
Levy earned his doctorate in chemistry from Purdue in 1962 and is now chairman of the board of Northstar Neuroscience Inc., a company he founded in 1999 to address stroke and other neurological diseases and disorders. Levy recently joined Frazier Healthcare Ventures as a venture partner to the medical device team.
2007 Distinguished Science Alumni Awards
Front row (L to R): Belinda Seto (PhD ’74, Biological Sciences), Barbara A. Kile (BS ’63, Mathematics), Nancy W. Brickhouse (MS ’86, Chemistry; PhD ’88, Science Education), Wen-Jang Huang (PhD ’82, Statistics), William C. Nylin Jr. (MS ’68, PhD ’72, Computer Science). Back row (L to R): J. Trent Anderson (BS ’61, Physics), Dan Fleetwood (BS ’80, MS ’81, PhD ’84, Physics), Dean Jeff Vitter, Bernard Bulkin (PhD ’66, Chemistry).
Science students pick their top teachers
Front row (L to R): Peter Hollenbeck (Biological Sciences), Jean Chmielewski (Chemistry), Katy Andry (Purdue Science Student Council President), Gustavo Rodriguez-Rivera (Computer Science). Back row (L to R): Dennis Minchella (Biological Sciences), Peter Waser (Biological Sciences), Jeff Beckley (Mathematics and Statistics), R. Jeff Trapp (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences), Mikhail Atallah (Computer Science), Johnny Brown (Mathematics). Not pictured: Tom Walter (Biological Sciences).
Read more about this year's Distinguished Science Alumni.
Three departments name new heads
The departments of computer science, mathematics, and physics named new department heads this summer:
- Aditya Mathur, professor of computer science was appointed head of the Department of Computer Science.
- Rodrigo Bañuelos, professor of mathematics, was appointed head of the Department of Mathematics.
- Nicholas Giordano, the Hubert James Distinguished Professor of Physics, was named head of the Department of Physics.
Chmielewski appointed
associate dean
Jean Chmielewski, Alice Watson Kramer Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, has been appointed associate dean for graduate education and international programs in the College of Science. Chmielewski’s research is in organic chemistry, and she has been honored for excellence in both research and teaching.
Purdue’s top science research award
goes to EAS and Chemistry’s Joe Francisco
What a year it’s been for Joseph Francisco. This time last year, he’d just been named the William E. Moore Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Chemistry. A year later, he’s been recognized by Purdue for his outstanding research with the Herbert Newby McCoy Award, the University’s highest research honor.
The award, which consists of $4,000 for Francisco and an additional $7,000 toward his research, has been given annually since 1964 to a student or faculty member at Purdue for their contributions to science. Francisco is being honored for his scientific contributions on determining the atmospheric fate of chlorofluorocarbons and their alternatives.
Francisco’s work merges chemistry and atmospheric sciences. He began with an interest in CFCs’ impact on the atmosphere, before they were considered such an environmental hazard. His interests now center on free radicals.
Hrycyna recognized with top teaching award
Christine Hrycyna, associate professor of chemistry, has earned her colleagues’ praises many times for her teaching passion and excellence. This year, the recognition reached a new level, when she was named one of only six winners campus-wide of the Purdue University Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Awards in Memory of Charles B. Murphy. The award is Purdue’s highest teaching honor.
“I find teaching to be an exceptionally fulfilling pursuit. I care deeply about undergraduate education, and I enjoy my interactions with students greatly both in and out of the classroom as well as in my laboratory. I try hard to convey to the students my enthusiasm for the subject matter, and in doing so, I hope to motivate them to enjoy learning,” she says.
Students consistently rank her teaching of “Principles of Biochemistry” 4.8 and 4.9 on a 5-point scale. One student said, “I have taken biochemistry before and I’ve never been able to understand it until now. She made learning fun and a lot easier. I was so excited that I understood what was being taught that I found myself wanting to learn more.” 