USNEWS & WORLD REPORT: The materials engineering department in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences is ranked No. 8.

FACULTY SUPERLATIVES

PBS' News Hour with Jim Lehrer aired a story in late 2004 about a massive air pollution study called ICARTT involving Penn State Meteorology scientists from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Six countries, twenty-five universities, NOAA, NASA, and private foundations also are involved. Bill Brune and his research team (Bob Lesher, Xinrong Ren, Jingqui Mao, and Robert Long) participated in the research mission, which took place this summer off the coast of New Hampshire.

Faculty members from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences have been elected to the World Academy of Ceramics in Italy. David J. Green, professor of ceramic science and engineering, and Carlo G. Pantano, Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and director of the Materials Research Institute, join internationally renowned individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the ceramics field. Professors Green and Pantano were elected as Professional Members (Academicians) in the class of “Science,” of which twenty-six new members were elected in 2004 worldwide. This brings the number of Penn State faculty in the academy to nine. Sridhar Komarneni, professor of clay mineralogy, was also elected in 2004. They join EMS Professors R. E. Newnham, L. E. Cross, R. Roy, D. M. Roy, R. E. Tressler, and G. L. Messing.

In 2004, Jennifer Biddle, a graduate student in the Biogeochemical Research Initiative for Education (BRIE) participated in a science steering group to guide NASA in its design of future Mars Rovers. She mentioned that while participating in the project, a person from overseas in the group knew immediately what BRIE was and knew some faculty involved because of the group’s international reputation. Biddle hopes that BRIE will go a few steps farther and leave its mark on Mars someday.

David P. Brown (’99 EMS), an assistant professor of geography at the University of New Hampshire, is New Hampshire’s state climatologist.

Paul Knight, instructor in meteorology, is Pennsylvania’s state climatologist.

Dennis W. Newton (’63 Eng; ’74g EMS), one of the country’s foremost aircraft icing experts and a highly respected author in aviation meteorology, received the 2005 Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAIA). He was selected for the award because of his research on in-flight icing and hazardous weather and their effects on aviation. While at Penn State, he was the chief research pilot for the Department of Meteorology and his work led to new concepts for testing aircraft in icing conditions. (The Losey award is named for the late Capt. Robert M. Losey, a meteorological officer who was killed in 1940 while serving as an observer for the U. S. Army. He was the first officer in the U.S. service to die in World War II.)

Jon M. Nese (’83, ’85g, ’89g EMS) is an on-air storm analyst with The Weather Channel. The nationwide network recruited Nese for “Your Weather Today,” which airs weekday mornings from 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. He had been working at the Franklin Institute Science Museum weather center in Philadelphia before The Weather Channel contacted him.

Stanley C. Suboleski (’78g EMS) is a commissioner in the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission. He served as Centennial Professor of Mining Engineering and chair of the Mining Engineering Section at Penn State from 1988 to 1993.

The late David Ray Mitchell (1898–1972) (’24, ’27g EMS) was posthumously inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame, Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2004. Mitchell was known for many years as the country’s premier professor of coal preparation engineering.

B. Ikubolajeh Logan, professor of African studies and geography in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, does research in Zimbabwe in the growing global field of human geography. One of his research interests is a community-based program called CAMPFIRE. The program, conceived by the World Wildlife fund and the University of Zimbabwe and funded by USAID, promotes education about wildlife management and economic empowerment by encouraging planning for the future through conservation. Logan’s research weighs social and human issues connected with the project. He has found that although many revere the good that CAMPFIRE promotes, residents of rural communities believe it does damage to their livelihoods.

Christopher Muhlstein, assistant professor of materials science and engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, has received a National Science Foundation Career Award for a proposal regarding education and research in nanomaterials degradation. The award is a prestigious five-year grant intended to support the development of future academic leaders. The research program will be a collaborative effort that will include an educational outreach program with Penn State Public Broadcasting, and contributions from faculty at Penn State and staff at the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Long-Qing Chen, professor of materials science and engineering, was awarded a 2005 Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in phase transitions and domain structures of ferroelectric thin films. In 2004, the Guggenheim Foundation awarded 185 fellowships in the United States and Canada category out of 3,268 applicants.