Five To Receive Faculty Scholar Medals

4-3-97

University Park, Pa. -- Five Penn State professors will receive 1996-97 Faculty Scholar Medals for Outstanding Achievement at the Faculty/Staff Awards Program at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, at the Penn State Scanticon Conference Hotel.

They are Drs. Robert N. Proctor, professor of the history of science, for the Arts and Humanities Medal; Tarasankar DebRoy, professor of materials science and engineering, for the Engineering Medal; Joanna Floros, professor of cellular and molecular physiology and pediatrics, for the Life and Health Sciences Medal; Jayanth R. Banavar, professor of physics, for the Physical Sciences Medal, and Linda M. Burton, professor of human development and family studies and professor of sociology, for the Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Established in 1980, the award recognizes scholarly or creative excellence represented by a single contribution or a series of contributions around a coherent theme. A committee of faculty peers reviews nominations and selects candidates.

Proctor's study of the intersection between science and public policy has won him international recognition. His three books, "Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis," "Value-Free Science? Purity and Power in Modern Knowledge," and "Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What we Know and Don't Know About Cancer, "have had considerable impact on public thought and policy.

He receive his B.S. in biology from Indiana University in 1976 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard University in 1977 and 1984 respectively. He was a visiting scholar at the Hamburger Institut fur Sozialforschung in 1995 and J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., in 1994. In 1992-93 he was a visiting fellow at the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University.

Proctor was an instructor and teaching fellow in the departments of biology, history of science and Afro-American Studies at Harvard University from 1976 to 1984 during which time he was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Free University of Berlin. He was an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, History of Science Program, Stanford University from 1984 to 1986.

In 1986 he became a faculty member and chair of the program in science, technology and power, Eugene Lang College, New School for Social Research. New York. He came to Penn State in 1990 as an associate professor in the department of history and in 1993 he became professor.

DebRoy will receive his award for a series of interconnected works which, taken as a whole, provide a Quantitative basis for understanding fusion welding processes and a scientific standard for other researchers. His unique approach to solving complex welding problems based on physical and mathematical modeling is thorough and creative.

He received his B.E. in metallurgical engineering from the Regional Engineering College, Durgapur, India in 1969 and his Ph.D. in 1974 from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He received the Adams Memorial Membership Award for outstanding teaching from the American Welding Society in 1992, the Wilson Research Award from the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1993, and the American Welding Society's McKay Helm Award for best technical paper on welding of steels in 1994. He is a fellow of the American Society for Metals.

He began his academic career as a postdoctoral assistant at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, UK in 1974 and joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a research associate in 1978. He came to Penn State in 1980 as an assistant professor, was named associate professor in 1984 and professor in 1989.

Floros is an international leader in the study of lung surfactant proteins. She has pioneered the use of molecular biology and molecular genetics tools in the understanding of the regulation of surfactant protein genes, lung development and the genetic basis of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Her latest studies have focused on the elucidation of the complexity of the structural and regulatory aspects of human surfactant protein genes and the role of genetic variability in individual susceptibility to pulmonary disease. This work has broad implications for promoting an understanding of individual variability in adult pulmonary disease involving inflammatory processes as well as neonatal RDS.

She received her B.A. in biology from Northeastern University in 1974 and her Ph.D. in pathology from Temple University School of Medicine in 1980. In 1996 she received a merit award from the National Institutes of Health, and in 1988, he received a Genentech/American Lung Association Career Investigator Award and in 1984 a National Institutes of Health, New Investigator Research Award. In 1982 she received a National Research Service Award and in 1996 she was profiled in Who's Who in the American Thoracic Society.

She began her career as a research fellow in biological chemistry in 1980 at Harvard Medical School. In 1982 she became an instructor in pediatrics, in 1985 an assistant professor of pediatrics and in 1988, associate professor of pediatrics. She joined Penn State's Milton S. Hershey College of Medicine in 1991 as professor of cellular and molecular physiology and became professor of cellular and molecular physiology and pediatrics in 1996.

Banavar has solved a set of fundamental, long-standing problems involving fluid motions at the molecular scale and in the continuum limit using computer simulation techniques. His work has opened the pathway to understanding fluid properties at short length scales, and highlighted how state-of-the-art computer technology can solve fundamental scientific problems.

He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in physics from Bangalore University, India in 1972 and 1974 respectively. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1975 and 1978 respectively. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.

He began his career as a research associate at the University of Chicago in 1978. In 1981 he became a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories and in 1983 a member of the professional staff at Schlumberger-Doll Research. He joined Penn State in 1988 as associate professor of physics and materials research and became professor in 1991.

Burton's studies of African American families have contributed insights and significantly impacted the field. She is one of the premier family sociologists in the U.S. Her innovative methods applied to multigenerational African American families who are struggling with economic and social discontinuities have revealed that teenage mothers are not always bad mothers, that the mothers of these teenage mothers are often not prepared to take responsibility for raising their grandchildren and that fathers are not always as absent as stereotypes would suggest.

She received a B.S. in gerontology, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology form the University of Southern California in 1978,1982 and 1985 respectively. In 1996 she received an American Family Therapy Academy Award for Innovative Contributions to Family Research and a "Products of Compton" Award from the City of Compton, Calif. and Compton Coalition for Progress. In 1987 she was named a Brookdale National Fellow and in 1988 a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford University.

Burton was an instructor in the University of Southern California from 1981 to 1984 and a demographic researcher for the Seismic Safety Commission in Los Angeles from 1982 to 1983. In 1984 she joined the Penn State faculty as assistant professor of human development and family studies and in 1990 became associate professor of human development and family studies and a senior research associate in Population Issues Research Center. In 1993 she became professor of human development and family studies and sociology.

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Contacts: A'ndrea Elyse Messer (814) 865-9481 (office) aem1@psuvm.psu.edu
Vicki Fong (814) 865-9481 (office) vyf1@psu.edu