Penn Staters
Penn State Intercom......April 18, 2002

James B. Anderson, Evan Pugh professor of chemistry, presented a plenary lecture, "Overview of Diffusion and Green's Function Quantum Monte Carlo Methods" at the Euro Winter School in Kerkrade, The Netherlands.

M. Christopher Brown II, associate professor of higher education, received the Early Career Contribution Award of the Committee for Scholars of Color in Education at the American Educational Research Association conference in New Orleans.

Vincent Crespi, associate professor of physics and the Downsbrough faculty development professor in physics, has been appointed to a two-year term as a member of the editorial board of Physical Review B, a journal of the American Physical Society.

Dorie Evensen, associate professor of education, was awarded the Outstanding Research Publication of 2001 award by American Educational Research Association, Division I (Research in the Professions) along with co-authors Jill Salisbury-Glennon and Jerry Glenn. The article was titled "A Qualitative Study of Six Medical Students in a Problem-based Curriculum: Toward a Situated Model of Self-Regulation." The award was presented in April at the association meeting in New Orleans.

Jawaid Haider, professor of architecture, has been awarded a Fulbright Award for 2002-03 in conjunction with a sabbatical leave. During his leave, Haider will teach and conduct research at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi, Pakistan. Haider also was a keynote speaker at the Seventh National Museums Australia Conference in Adelaide, Australia. This year's conference was "Once Upon Our Times: Exploring the role of cultural institutions in creating, perpetuating and selling social, political and national myths." He has been invited to serve as a judge in an architectural competition for the design of Plane'te Exploration: The International Environmental Participatory Experience in Switzerland. Plane'te Exploration will be a state-of-the-art museum with hands-on exhibits focusing on environmental issues.

Jeffrey Hayes, associate professor of counseling psychology, received two awards for his exceptional work in psychotherapy research. He won the Early Career Achievement Award from the International Society for Psychotherapy Research and the American Psychological Association's Division of Psychotherapy presented him with the Jack D. Krasner Early Career Achievement Award.

Jay Hertel, assistant professor of kinesiology and director of the Athletic Training Research Laboratory, has received this year's Freddie H. Fu New Investigator Award from the National Athletic Trainers' Association Research and Education Foundation. Hertel has been invited to present a lecture during the annual meeting of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine as the result of his award.

Mohsen Kavehrad, W.L. Weiss Chair professor of electrical engineering, has received the Neal Shepherd Best Propagation Paper Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Vehicular Technology Society. His paper, titled "Indoor Wireless Infrared Channel Characterizing by Measurements," was coauthored by Mohammad R. Pakravan, who received his doctoral degree under Kavehrad's supervision, and Homayoon Hashemi, professor of electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

Iam-Choon Khoo, distinguished professor of electrical engineering, has been appointed vice president of technical affairs for IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society. He will oversee a technical council consisting of 17 technical areas ranging from optoelectronics, fiber optics, optical material and processes to nonlinear optics, semiconductor lasers and optical communication and information processing.

Akhlesh Lakhtakia, professor of engineering science and mechanics, has been listed as one of the top 25 authors in optoelectronics by ISI, a company that provides access to high-value, essential information for researchers and scholars worldwide. From 1991 to 1999, Lakhtakia authored 89 papers in the field, earning seventh place on the list.

Don Alvaro Leon, associate professor emeritus of architecture, received 10th place out of 299 entries in an international design competition for his design of a laboratory and office building for New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Mass.

Robert Lima, professor emeritus and fellow emeritus of the Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, was honored recently in Spain for his career-long commitment to the culture of Galicia, the northwestern province of Spain, and for his writings on its native son, Ramón del Valle-Inclán. He was inducted into the Enxebre Orden da Vieira, an international confraternity of distinguished businessmen, politicians, writers, painters, musicians and academics, in a ceremony in Madrid.

Jerrold Maddox, professor of art, gave an invited presentation, "Good Practices for a Virtual University," while serving as a consultant to the University of Veracruz in Xalapa, Mexico.

Heather Bruhn McCune, a doctoral candidate in art history, was awarded a Fulbright Award for the 2002-03 academic year. McCune will travel to Cologne and Heidelberg, Germany, to conduct research for her dissertation, "Late Gothic Tower Monstrances in Middle Europe."

Dave Mortensen, associate professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the Weed Science Society at the Weed Science Society of America meeting in Reno, Nev.

Richard Nichols, professor of theatre, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholars grant for the 2002-03 academic year. Nichols will conduct research in South Korea, collating and editing an anthology of contemporary South Korean plays in English translations. During the 10-month duration of his study, he will be associated with the Institute for the Performing Arts at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea's oldest institution of higher learning.

Admissions Marketing Report has honored University marketing projects and Outreach Marketing staff with seven awards. The "Penn State For You" advertising campaign received three awards -- gold medal for Best Total Advertising Campaign, gold medal for Best Newspaper Ad and silver medal for Advertising Insert. Shaver's Creek Environmental Center received a silver medal for its Web site. The Penn State World Campus Dietetics "Grow Professionally" program received a Merit Award for Magazine Ad. The World Campus Adult Education newsletter received a Merit Award for Newsletter. The Distance Education Catalog received a Merit Award for Catalog.

Pennsylvania College of Technology's public affairs series, "Penn College and You," recently received a bronze Telly Award for Information Programming, while its public television cooking series, "You're the Chef," earned a Silver Paragon Award from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations.

The Penn State/State College Area School District Professional Development School program has been selected by the Association of Teacher Educators as the winner of the Distinguished Teacher Education Program Award for 2002. The award is given to recognize outstanding teacher education programs that exemplify collaboration between local education agencies and institutions of higher education in program development and administration.

Brant Pope, professor of theatre, received a "Tennie" Award from The Tennessean newspaper for his direction of the Tennessee Repertory Theatre's production of "ART." The production also received a "Tennie" for outstanding production.

Without Hatreds or Fears: Jorge Artel and the Struggle for Black Literary Expression in Colombia, by Laurence E. Prescott, associate professor of Spanish and African American Studies, has been chosen as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2001. The book is a study of Tambores en la Noche (Drums in the Night), two volumes of verse by Jorge Artel (1909-1994), the principal poet of black expression in 20th-century Colombia. The honor is given annually to books that exhibit excellence in scholarship and presentation; that make a significant contribution to the field; and that show important -- often the first -- treatment of a specific subject. The selection includes less than 3 percent of the more than 23,000 books that Choice received.

Calyampudi R. Rao, emeritus holder of the Eberly Family Chair in statistics and director of the Center for Multivariate Analysis, has been awarded the highest honor bestowed by the University Visva-Bharati in India, "Desikottama." The "Desikottama" award, translated into English, is "Ideal Person of the Country." It was given to Rao in recognition of his "enormous contributions in the field of statistics and its applications" by the prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the chancellor of the university. Rao also delivered the Occasional Address to the students at the Faculty of Informatics graduation ceremony at the University of Wollongong in Australia, where he was named the first visiting professorial fellow of the university's Institute for Mathematical Modeling and Computational Systems.

Gerson "Gus" Rosenberg, Jane A. Fetter professor of surgery, professor of bioengineering, chief of the Division of Artificial Organs at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and the College of Medicine, and a pioneer in the design and development of pumps to assist or replace failing hearts, has been named 2002 "Engineer of the Year" by the readers of Design News magazine. Rosenberg was honored at the annual Design News awards dinner at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Chicago. His award included a $25,000 educational grant from the Torrington Co., Torrington, Conn., which will go to the College of Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University.

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