Honors & Other Things |
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October 15, 2013, Volume 60, No. 9 |
Research Award: Dr. Cargnello
Dr. Matteo Cargnello, postdoctoral fellow in the department of material science and engineering in SEAS, is a recipient of the 2013 Debut in Research ENI Award. The award was created to develop better use of renewable energy, promote environmental research and encourage new generations of researchers. Dr. Cargnello's research focuses on the synthesis of precise nanostructures, providing active and stable catalysts for the sustainable production of hydrogen by photo-catalysis, for fuel cells electricity generation and methane emission control.
Duke Grant: Dr. Beatty
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Dr. Gregory Beatty, an assistant professor in the division of hematology/oncology in the Abramson Cancer Center, received a three-year Clinical Scientist Development Award for $486,000 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to support his clinical research efforts as he works to study the process by which pancreatic cancer spreads in the body and develop new therapies to treat the disease.
To conduct this work, Dr. Beatty will lead a team of investigators working to establish the necessary clinical data to develop monocyte-directed immunotherapies designed to inhibit metastasis and tumor growth in patients with pancreas carcinoma and other solid malignancies. |
Faculty Pioneer: Dr. Guillén
Dr. Mauro Guillén, Dr. Felix Zandman Endowed Professor of International Management and professor of management in the Wharton School, won the Faculty Pioneer Award from the Aspen Institute for conceptualizing and designing the curriculum for the International Political Economy of Business Environments class.
The award recognizes outstanding achievement in educating students about healthy capitalism, the responsibilities of business management and the decision rules that make for success while limiting burdens on society.
Dr. Guillén is director of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management & International Studies and director of the Penn Lauder Center for International Business Education & Research.
IOM Anniversary Fellow: Dr. Halpern
Dr. Scott Halpern, assistant professor of both medicine and epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, has been named an Institute of Medicine (IOM) Anniversary Fellow for a two-year term during which he will serve on an expert study committee and participate in other health and science policy work. The appointment comes with a $25,000 award.
A Senior Fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute (LDI), Dr. Halpern is also deputy director of the LDI Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, director of the FIELDS Center for End-of-Life Decision Science.
The IOM provides nonpartisan, evidence-based guidance to national, state and local policymakers, academic leaders, health care administrators and the public.
Luce Grant: Dr. McDaniel
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Dr. Justin McDaniel, associate professor and chair of the department of religious studies, won a three-year grant of $410,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to help fund the the Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts project led by Harald Hundius, David Wharton and Bounleut Thammachak.
Working with the staff at the National Library of Laos and Chiang Mai University, this project will make approximately 7,000 primary sources from this historically important region freely available for study via the Internet, together with related resources. The original texts are mostly written on palm-leaf and are stored in the libraries of Buddhist monasteries as well as in private collections.
The resulting Digital Library of Northern Thai Manuscripts will be the first major collection of manuscripts from Thailand to be made accessible via the Internet. |
Outstanding Teacher: Dr. Lipshutz
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Dr. William Lipshutz, a clinical professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Outstanding Volunteer Clinical Teacher Award by the American College of Physicians. The award is presented to a Fellow of the College who has consistently volunteered his or her services to teach medical students and residents, demonstrated outstanding teaching prowess, displayed exemplary characteristics of care and concern for patients and served as a role model and mentor. |
International Research Fellowships
Two Penn doctoral students, Nam Woo Cho of the Perelman School of Medicine and Maryam Yousefi of the School of Veterinary Medicine, received International Student Research Fellowships from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The awards provide $43,000 of support per year to third- or fourth-year PhD students, enabling them to complete their studies in the United States, where it can often be difficult for international students to find funding opportunities.
Nam Woo Cho, a citizen of Canada who was born in South Korea, is an MD/PhD student in the lab of Dr. Roger Greenberg, associate professor of cancer biology in the Perelman School of Medicine. His project deals with the role of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes, specifically in cancer and aging.
Maryam Yousefi, a native of Iran, is a third-year PhD student in the lab of Christopher Lengner, an assistant professor of animal biology in Penn Vet's department of animal biology. Her project examines the relationship of calorie restriction to aging, looking specifically at the effects of diet on stem cell function.
Pender Award and Lecture: Dr. Liskov
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Dr. Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the 2013 Harold Pender Award recipient. She was presented the award last month following her lecture "The Power of Abstraction" by Penn's School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Dr. Liskov is widely recognized for her work in programming languages, programming methodology and distributed systems. Her research interests span a wide range of topics within computer science, including distributed systems, replication algorithms to provide fault-tolerance, programming methodology and programming languages.
Her work in programming methodology led to the invention of the notion of data abstraction, which is an important underpinning of how software systems are organized today. She and her group designed and implemented CLU, the first programming language to support data abstraction. Her current research projects include Byzantine-fault-tolerant storage systems, online storage systems that provide confidentiality and integrity for the stored information, techniques for implementing databases on multicore machines to achieve good scalability and performance and investigation of new directions for programming languages. |
Veterinary Award: Dr. Reef
Dr. Virginia Reef, Mark Whittier and Lila Griswold Allam Professor of Medicine in the School of Veterinary Medicine, is the recipient of The American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Robert W. Kirk Award for Professional Excellence.
The award is presented annually to an ACVIM Diplomate with an outstanding career in veterinary medicine including national and international recognition for contributions and service in activities such as clinical medical practice, instruction, research and/or public service.
Dr. Reef is also the director of large animal cardiology and diagnostic ultrasonography at the New Bolton Center.
Greenwall Scholar: Dr. Reese
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The Greenwall Foundation named Dr. Peter Reese, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, as a 2013 Greenwall Faculty Scholar in Bioethics. The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical care, biomedical research and public policy.
Among other projects, Dr. Reese will conduct a randomized controlled trial of novel methods to improve the rates of donor registration. Dr. Reese, who takes care of kidney transplant recipients and living kidney donors, focuses on developing effective strategies to increase access to kidney and liver transplantation. |
Onassis Medal: Dr. Rodin
President Emerita Judith Rodin was one of two recipients of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal given by the Municipal Art Society of New York. The award is presented to individuals who, by their work and deeds, have made an outstanding contribution to New York City. The medal bears Mrs. Onassis' name in recognition of her efforts to preserve and protect New York's architecture.
Scientific Achievement: Dr. Sehgal
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Dr. Amita Sehgal, the John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Perelman School of Medicine, received the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award for 2013 from the Association of Professional Sleep Societies. The award honors researchers for a single research contribution based on novel and seminal discoveries of a basic, clinical or theoretical nature.
Dr. Sehgal was recognized for her multiple high-impact discoveries in circadian biology during her career, including identifying the Drosophila fruit fly mutant, timeless, which was the second circadian clock mutant to be identified. |
Lifetime Achievement: Dr. Shaw
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Dr. Leslie M. Shaw, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, received the 2013 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine from the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC).
Individuals selected for this award have made significant contributions in all aspects of clinical chemistry, particularly service, education and research; and have achieved international stature and reputation by virtue of their efforts.
Dr. Shaw's clinical and research interests include development and qualification of drug biomarkers, for inclusion in clinical trials, assessment of mechanisms underlying their changes over time, and in selected instances, introduction into the clinical laboratory as lab tests.
Dr. Shaw is the director of the Toxicology Laboratory and the Biomarker Research Laboratory at the department of pathology and laboratory medicine. He is also co-director of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Biomarker Core and the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative in the Bioanalytics Core at the University of Pennsylvania. |
Norma Lang Award: Dr. Spatz
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Dr. Diane L. Spatz, professor of perinatal nursing and the Helen M. Shearer Professor of Nutrition at the School of Nursing, is this year's recipient of the Norma M. Lang Distinguished Award for Scholarly Practice and Policy. Dr. Spatz will give the 2nd annual lecture, The Power of Human Milk & Breastfeeding: Translating the Science to Clinical Practice and Policy, today, October 15, at Penn Nursing's Ann L. Roy Auditorium at 3 p.m.
Dr. Spatz is an internationally renowned clinical nurse scientist who has translated the science of human milk and breastfeeding worldwide.
She is also the director of the Lactation Program and a nurse researcher at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. |
Career Award: Dr. Solomon
Dr. Phyllis Solomon, professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice, has been named as the Society for Social Work and Research's Distinguished Career Achievement Awardee. The announcement was made in the 18th Annual Conference preliminary program. The award will be presented during the conference in San Antonio, Texas in January. Dr. Solomon is internationally known for her research on clinical services and service system issues related to adults with severe mental illness and their families.
Clark Award: Mr. Steltenkamp
Mike Steltenkamp, a master's student in mechanical engineering and applied mechanics (MEAM) in SEAS, is the recipient of a 2013 Thomas Arkle Clark Award from the Alpha Tau Omega (ATO) fraternity.
As a submatriculant, Mr. Steltenkamp will graduate with both BSE and MSE degrees in MEAM this December.
The Thomas Arkle Clark Award was established as an incentive for young brothers to seek excellence in scholarship, leadership, service and the personal qualities of character, integrity and responsibility.
App Award: Dr. Teitelman
Dr. Anne Teitelman, Patricia Bleznak Silverstein and Howard A. Silverstein Endowed Term Chair in Global Women's Health and associate professor of nursing, and colleagues, have been awarded first place in the Reducing Cancer Among Women of Color Challenge from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in partnership with the Office of Minority Health, both part of US Department of Health and Human Services, for their app Everhealthier Women, http://everhealthier.org. The prize comes with $85,000.
Dr. Teitelman collaborated with Damien Leri, who runs Big Yellow Star, an information technology company that designs public health systems to improve health communications; Dr. Marilyn Stringer, Women's Health Nursing-Clinician Educator Professor Emerita at Penn Nursing, who provided additional content expertise; and Ben Koditschek, an interface designer in Chicago.
World Champs: Team DARwIn
Team DARwIn, a robotics team in SEAS, is the winner of the 2013 RoboCup World Championships in the Humanoid Kid-Size League for the third straight year. The teams spent a week competing in this series for intelligent robots, going undefeated throughout the tournament against teams from Mexico, Indonesia, Germany, China (Tsinghua University) and Iran to reach the semi-finals.
The DARwIn robots, whose name stands for "Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence," were developed through collaboration between the University of Pennsylvania and Virginia Tech. The team is advised by Dr. Dan Lee, professor of electrical and systems engineering and director of the GRASP Lab.
See videos from the 2013 International Robocup Competition in Eindhoven, Netherlands here: www.youtube.com/user/PennRobocup
Telly Award: FlackCheck.org
Two FlackCheck.org videos about an imagined 1864 campaign against Abraham Lincoln using today's technology and methods are the recipients of 2013 Bronze Telly awards: Steamboat Veterans for Truth (http://tinyurl.com/p5lvvlz) and Battle Hymn (www.flackcheck.org/lincoln-campaign/battle-hymn/).
The Telly Awards honor excellence in film and video productions, online video content, and local, regional and cable TV commercials and programs.
Headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, www.FlackCheck.org is the political literacy companion site to the award-winning FactCheck.org. The site provides resources designed to help viewers recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular. Video resources point out deception and incivility in political rhetoric.
Documentary Awards: Annenberg Classroom
Annenberg Classroom's documentary Search and Seizure: Mapp v. Ohio has been chosen for a Chris Statuette Award, to be presented in November at the 61st annual awards ceremony of the Columbus International Film and Video Festival. The 25-minute film, produced by The Documentary Group, explores the landmark Fourth Amendment case in which the US Supreme Court determined that evidence illegally obtained by police is not admissible in state courts. The 1961 case, as told with the help of Dollree "Dolly" Mapp, redefined the rights of the accused and set limits on how police could obtain and use evidence.
The film, which can be viewed at, http://tinyurl.com/l9qdzmb, is a project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, in partnership with the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands.
The documentary has also won a Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications; a Certificate of Merit in the Educational Program category at the Chicago International Film Festival Television Awards; an Award of Excellence, Video for the Web/Educational Institution, at the Videographer Awards and an Award of Excellence, Educational/Instructional/How To category in the Best Shorts competition. |