Penn Staters
Penn State Intercom......November 27, 2002

A book on the Civil War's impact on Pennsylvania, Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War, has won the 2002 Philip S. Klein Book Prize. It was edited by William Blair, associate professor of history and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center, and William Pencak, professor of history. The award is sponsored by the Pennsylvania Historical Association.

William Lowe Boyd, Batschelet chair professor of educational administration in the College of Education, was this year's recipient of the Roald F. Campbell Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented at the University Council of Educational Administration conference, co-hosted by Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh. The award is the highest honor in the field of higher-education study. Boyd was selected for longtime distinguished service as teacher/researcher in the field of educational administration; superior contributions to the field's body of knowledge; and recognized leadership efforts to improve the field, especially the preparation of educational administrators and professors of educational administration.

Charles Dumas, associate professor of theatre in the College of Arts and Architecture and professor of African and African-American studies in the College of the Liberal Arts, conducted an all-day workshop at the Sithengi Film Market and Festival in Cape Town, South Africa. The workshop demonstrated techniques to help filmmakers direct actors. Sithengi is the premier film market and festival in Southern Africa, attended by more than 1,500 delegates from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas.

David J. Green, professor of ceramic science and engineering, presented a plenary lecture, "Technical Ceramics and Glasses — Expect the Unexpected: A Century of Surprises," at the centennial annual meeting of the Canadian Ceramic Society in Niagara Falls, Canada. Green also was elected as a fellow of the Canadian Ceramic Society at the meeting.

David L. Hall, associate dean for research and graduate programs in the School of Information Sciences and Technology, has been named a fellow in the Class of 2003 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a nonprofit, professional association of more than 377,000 members who are leaders in technical fields that include computer engineering, biomedical technology, aerospace and consumer electronics. Hall is one of 260 fellows the association's board of directors recognized this year for their achievements. He was cited for his "leadership in establishing the field of multisensor data fusion and development of practical systems."

Donald E. Heller, associate professor of education, was awarded the 2002 Early Career Award at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in Sacramento, Calif. Given for a significant body of scholarship or a single extraordinary research achievement by a higher education scholar, and in recognition of potential for future research, the Early Career Award is reserved for individuals who are no more than six years beyond the receipt of the doctoral degree. The association gives only one award per year to the nation's most outstanding young scholar. Heller has become one of the nation's leading policy analysts in matters relating to tuition pricing, financial aid and student access. He is a recognized national authority on need-based and merit-based financial aid.

Patricia Barthalow Koch, associate professor of biobehavioral health and an alumni teaching fellow, has been elected to serve a two-year term as secretary of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, an international group dedicated to the advancement of knowledge of sexuality in order to promote human welfare.

Gary L. Lilien, distinguished research professor of management science, was honored at the annual meeting of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) in San Jose, Calif. He received the George E. Kimball Medal, awarded annually for recognition of distinguished service to the institute and to the profession of operations research and the management sciences. He also was among the recipients of a newly created award, INFORMS Fellow, developed to "recognize exceptional achievement and experience in operations research and the management sciences." Finally, having been honored at last year's meeting as the 2001-2002 Philip McCord Morse Lecturer, he delivered the Philip McCord Lecture as the plenary address at the conference. His topic was "Modeled to Bits: Marketing Decision Models for the Digital, Networked Economy."

Digby D. Macdonald, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Center for Electrochemical Science and Technology, received the 2002 UR Evans Award at the Corrosion Conference in Cardiff, Wales. He also presented an invited lecture, "Can Corrosion Science Predict the Future?"

Mark Maughmer, professor of aerospace engineering, has been named an associate fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Associate fellows must be senior members of the institute and have at least 12 years of professional experience. They are selected and approved through a committee peer-review process.

Raj Mittra, professor of electrical engineering, was the keynote speaker at the Journees Internationales de Nice Sur Les Antennes, an international symposium on antennas, in Nice, France, on its 20th anniversary. He also was an invited speaker. His subject was "Challenges in Computational Electromagnetics." Mittra is with the Communication and Space Sciences Laboratory in the Department of Electrical Engineering.

Patricia Nelson, associate dean for outreach, cooperative extension, international programs and technology in the College of Education, has been named Teacher Educator of the Year for 2002 by the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Teacher Educators. The honor was given to Nelson for her leadership, scholarship and professional experience in the field of education. Her service to her communities and to other professional organizations also factored in to the selection.

Margaret Smith, editor in Consulting and Support Services, a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS), captured second place for the electronic version of the Academic Computing newsletter at http://css.its.psu.edu/news from the Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on University and College Computing Services (ACM/SIGUCCS) at the association's fall user services conference in Providence, R.I. In addition, Cristol Gregory, publicity coordinator in Education Technology Services, part of ITS, won an honorable mention at the conference for her publication, Using Penn State's Course Management System, ANGEL. The competitions recognize excellence in developing useful and attractive publications and provide conference participants with an opportunity to review model publications that may help them develop or enhance their own work.

Christopher Thomas, a lecturer in the visual arts at Penn State Altoona, has had a recent self-published artist book acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The book, Studio Resource for the Creation of Nonobjective Paintings Relating to Everyday Experience Vol. 1, is on view at Penn State Altoona's faculty exhibition.

Susan Trolier-McKinstry, professor of ceramic science, Corning faculty fellow and director of the Keck Smart Materials Integration Lab, was an invited speaker at the International Symposium on Electrets in Melbourne, Australia. Her talk was "Piezoelectric Films for MEMS Applications."

Lakshman Yapa, professor of geography, was presented the 2002 National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME) Program Award for "Rethinking Urban Poverty: Philadelphia Field Project" at the NAME 12th Annual Awards Banquet held in Crystal City, Washington, D.C. Since 1998 Yapa has taken several groups of University students to live and work in a low-income neighborhood of West Philadelphia.

Back