Three faculty members selected as 2016 Chancellor Faculty Fellows

Three engineering professors have been named to the 2016 class of Chancellor Faculty Fellows. The class comprises 14 highly accomplished, recently tenured faculty from the humanities, social sciences, life and physical sciences, and clinical sciences, as well as business, education and engineering.

“This class of fellows represents the remarkable breadth and depth of talent we have in our newly tenured faculty,” Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos said. “Our investment in these faculty at this critical time in their careers not only supports their growth as scholars, educators and mentors, but also supports the university’s continued growth and success in fostering interdisciplinary research and collaboration.”

The faculty members will hold the title of Chancellor Faculty Fellow for two years and will be supported by an unrestricted allocation of $40,000 a year for two fiscal years beginning July 1. The funds can be used to support innovative research, scholarship and creative expression activities that will further propel the career of the awardee. The Chancellor Faculty Fellows will also meet as a group during the course of their awards to exchange ideas on teaching and research, building a broader intellectual community that advances trans-institutional scholarship.

The Chancellor Faculty Fellows Program was launched in September 2014 under the Trans-Institutional Programs, or TIPs, initiative to support outstanding faculty who have recently received tenure. Candidates are nominated by their deans. The TIPS Council reviewed and made final recommendations on the 30 nominations received for the 2016 class.

The engineering faculty members are:

Brad Malin, associate professor of biomedical informatics and associate professor of computer science. Malin is an expert in electronic and health information privacy and uses biomedical informatics, databases, data mining, data privacy, information retrieval, network analysis, technology and policy in his work.

Caglar Oskay, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering. Oskay’s primary research focus is on multi-scale computational modeling and simulation of material and structure systems subjected to extreme environments and loading conditions.

Robert Webster, associate professor of mechanical engineering, associate professor of electrical engineering, associate professor of otolaryngology, associate professor of neurological surgery and associate professor of urologic surgery. Webster’s research interests are in surgical robotics in particular and more generally in applying scientific and engineering tools to enhance all aspects of medicine.

Other Chancellor Faculty Fellows are:

Wenbiao Chen, associate professor molecular physiology and biophysics
Derek Griffith, associate professor of medicine, health and society
Kelly Haws, associate professor of management
Julián Hillyer, associate professor of biological sciences
Irina Kaverina, associate professor of cell and developmental biology
Christopher Loss, associate professor of public policy and higher education
Catherine Molineux, associate professor of history
Kevin Niswender, associate professor of medicine
Betsey Robinson, associate professor of history of art, associate professor of anthropology and associate professor of classics
Steve Wernke, associate professor of anthropology
Christopher Williams, associate professor of medicine

Contact:
Brenda Ellis, (615) 343-6314
Brenda.Ellis@Vanderbilt.edu
Twitter @VUEngineering