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July, 2012

Chemical engineering grad honored with Presidential Early Career Award

Jul. 24, 2012—Dr. Morgan B. Abney, a space systems engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., is among six NASA researchers named today by President Barack Obama as recipients of the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE. A native of Berea, Ky., Abney graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2003...

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Lane named fellow of engineering council; one of four 2012 honorees

Jul. 19, 2012—Stephen Lane, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Smith Seckman Reid, Inc., has been inducted into the College of Fellows for the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). The honor recognizes an ACEC member who through their career has elevated the standards of the engineering profession. Lane graduated in 1978 with a bachelor...

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Mahadevan receives 2012 best paper award from military research journal

Jul. 18, 2012—Sankaran Mahadevan, John R. Murray Professor of Engineering, has received a 2012 best paper award from the Military Operations Research Journal, a publication of the Military Operations Research Society, for the 2011 submission, “A System of Systems Approach for Effects-Based Operational Planning Under Uncertainty.” Additional authors are Mark P. McDonald, adjunct professor of civil and...

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Sztipanovits named Keck Institute visiting scholar

Jul. 16, 2012—Janos Sztipanovits, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Engineering, has been selected as a 2012 Distinguished Visiting Scholar by the W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies at the California Institute of Technology. The honor was granted in association with the institute’s study “Engineering Resilient Space Systems: Leveraging Novel System Engineering Techniques and Software Architectures.” Each...

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Eight engineering faculty on committee to assess commercial value of Vanderbilt research

Jul. 13, 2012—Eight engineering faculty members are part of a newly formed 20-member Faculty Advisory Committee in the Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (CTTC). The Faculty Advisory Committee is comprised of leading Vanderbilt researchers who were brought together to help maximize the effectiveness of CTTC in providing top-quality commercialization services to inventors.  The faculty-led group is structured...

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Sharp receives Apex writing award for ASEE article

Jul. 5, 2012—Julie E. Sharp, professor of the practice of technical communications in the School of Engineering, has received a 2012 Apex Award for excellence in the category of education and training writing from Communication Concepts, Inc., which publishes Writer’s Web Watch, WritingThatWorks.com, and the Writing That Works Archives. Her winning entry was a 2012 proceedings article...

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Engineering doctoral student wins first prize in DOE fuel cycle research competition

Jul. 3, 2012—Bethany Smith, a Ph.D. student in environmental engineering, has been awarded a first place prize in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Innovations in Fuel Cycle Research Awards competition. Smith’s award is in the open competition in the category of Systems Analysis and Energy Policy. Her award-winning research paper, “A Comprehensive Radiological and Chemical Risk Assessment...

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Valdastri receives best paper award at international computer aided surgery conference in Italy

Jul. 3, 2012—Pietro Valdastri, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and member of the Vanderbilt Initiative in Surgery and Engineering (ViSE), was awarded with the OLYMPUS ISCAS Best Paper Award at the 16th Annual Conference of the International Society for Computer Aided Surgery (ISCAS) June 30 in Pisa, Italy. The paper – “Remote active magnetic actuation for a...

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