Richard A. Behr, head of the Department of Architectural Engineering, was named a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Representing more than 120,000 civil engineers and related disciplines worldwide, the society seeks to improve the practice of civil engineering through the development and transfer of technical, policy and managerial information. Fellows are recognized for service in business, construction, educational, editorial, research or engineering society activities.
C. Gregory Knight, professor of geography and director of the Center for Integrated Regional Assessment in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, was an invited speaker at the Institute of Applied Mathematics in Genoa, Italy. He presented a seminar on use of geographic information systems for distributed-parameter modeling the hydrological impacts of climate change. He also is featured in the latest issue of Update, Newsletter of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change for his role as co-organizer of the Workshop on Integrated Regional Assessment of Climate Change in Central and Eastern Europe held in Budapest, Hungary.
Robert S. Krimmel, assistant athletic director, will be inducted into the Pennsylvania Swimming Hall of Fame in March. The Hall of Fame recognizes Pennsylvanians who have exhibited extraordinary service and achievement through aquatics.
Gary Miller, associate vice president for distance education and executive director of the World Campus, has been invited by West Virginia Governor Cecil H. Underwood to participate in a 15-member advisory board for a multi-state "Distance Learning Policy Laboratory" that is being sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board, a Governor-level board that includes 15 states from Maryland to Texas. The board will undertake a three-year mission to identify the policy barriers to distance learning and craft policies that states can adopt to reduce or eliminate those barriers. Roy McTarnaghan, former president of Florida Gulf Coast University, will serve as director of the Policy Laboratory.
Robert E. Newnham, professor emeritus of solid state science at the Materials Research Laboratory, delivered the plenary address on "Functional Composites for Sensors, Actuators and Transducers" at the Second International Conference on Composites held at Lake Louise, British Columbia. Newnham also gave an invited lecture on "Materials Science and Engineering in the 21st Century -- Scaling Up and Scaling Down" at the closing conference of the Swiss Priority Program on Materials Research, held at Interlaken, Switzerland.
Helen O'Leary, assistant professor of art, recently received the Joan Mitchell Award. A New York-based foundation established the award in 1993 from the Joan Mitchell Trust. The award is given in the honor and memory of abstract painter Joan Mitchell. Award winners are selected solely on their artwork after art professionals submit nominations. O'Leary also recently participated as Artist-in-Residence at the Sirius Foundation, an organization that hosts international artists, in Cobh, Ireland. The work she completed there will be displayed at solo museum shows in Ireland and at the Michael Gold Gallery in New York this spring.
Jorge Pullin, associate professor of physics, presented an invited plenary talk, "Quantum Gravity: Theories and Experiment," at the Biannual Meeting on Relativity and Gravitation, which took place in La Falda, Province of Cordoba, Argentina. He also presented a colloquium to the Faculty of Sciences at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, titled "Colliding Black Holes and Gravitational Waves: A New Window to the Universe."
Chunshan Song, associate professor of fuel science with the Department of Energy and Geo-Environmental Engineering and director of the Applied Catalysis in Energy Laboratory at the University's Energy Institute, delivered a plenary lecture at an international symposium titled "Clean Processes and Environment: The Catalytic Solution" organized by the French Academy of Sciences, the French Chemical Society and the French Society of Industrial Chemistry. The lecture was titled "Shape-Selective Catalysis over Molecular Sieves for Environmentally Friendly Synthesis of 2,6-Dialkylnaphthalene."
The National Research Corp. has announced that The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center has been named a 1999 Consumer Choice Award winner by members of the communities it serves. In addition, the center was named a 1999 Consumer Choice Award, Heart Care Service winner. This is the first year The National Research Corp., a recognized innovator and leader in healthcare performance measurement based in Lincoln, Neb., has named top hospitals for a specialty service. The 1999 Consumer Choice Awards were given to 126 hospitals in 101 markets, selected from a pool of 2,500 hospitals.