The School of Engineering recognized faculty and staff members for their exemplary research, teaching, and professional service during the 2014-2015 academic year.
At the final faculty meeting of the year Dean Philippe Fauchet announced faculty promotions, recognized emeritus professors, and he presented four annual awards during a reception following the May 5 meeting.
David Merryman has been promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Jamey Young has been promoted to associate professor with tenure in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
The Vanderbilt Board of Trust has named Robert Galloway a professor of biomedical engineering, emeritus. Robert Stammer has been named a professor of civil and environmental engineering, emeritus.
The Edward J. White Engineering Faculty Award for Excellence in Service was presented to Christopher Rowe, general engineering director and associate professor of the practice of engineering management.
Fauchet cited Rowe’s outstanding dedication to undergraduate life, his contributions to school governance, and to his dedication to raising the visibility of the school internally and externally through his leadership of engineering communications.
The School of Engineering Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Douglas Schmidt, professor of computer science.
Fauchet noted Schmidt’s commitment to the “virtual classroom of the future” through his creation of several extraordinarily popular massively open on-line courses (MOOCs), and presenting these via the Coursera platform. In addition to Schmidt’s stellar record of traditional and non-traditional instruction, also carries an exceptionally heavy research and service load.
Karen Page, administrative assistant for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, received the Judith A Pachtman Endowed Staff Service Award. The dean recognized Page for her leadership abilities and her exemplary contributions to the department’s students, faculty, and staff.
Fauchet presented the “2014 Best Student Research Paper” Award to Yuanmu Yang, a doctoral student in the interdisciplinary materials science program. Yang’s paper, “Dielectric Meta-Reflectarray for Broadband Linear Polarization Conversion and Optical Vortex Generation,” was published in the February 2014 edition of Nano Letters. His doctoral adviser is Jason Valentine, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.
Valentine said Yang played a large role in developing the idea and led all the theoretical and experimental work, which has far reaching applications in compact and integrated optics. The paper has already amassed 40 citations. Yang, who will graduate in August, had two papers nominated for this award; the second was published in Nature Communications.
Contact:
Brenda Ellis, (615) 343-6314
Brenda.Ellis@Vanderbilt.edu
Twitter @VUEngineering