Honors & Other Things |
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January 21, 2014, Volume 60, No. 19
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Five Penn Faculty Earn Distinction as AAAS Fellows
Five faculty members from the University of Pennsylvania have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Three are from the Perelman School of Medicine, one is from the School of Arts & Sciences and one has appointments both at Penn Medicine and The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
They are among 388 members of AAAS awarded the distinction this year for "their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished."
Dr. Frederic D. Bushman, professor of microbiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, was elected for distinguished contributions to microbiology, including methods development, bioinformatics and translational research to characterize host pathogen interactions.
Dr. Andrew Dancis, associate professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine, was elected for pioneering discoveries of exceptional significance on the fundamental mechanisms by which organisms acquire, distribute, utilize and regulate the essential metal iron.
Dr. Robert W. Doms, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and pathologist-in-chief and chair of pathology and laboratory medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was elected for his significant discoveries in virus entry, including his work in identifying host cell pathways that HIV and other disease-causing viruses use to infect cells and in investigating how AIDS develops.
Dr. J. Kevin Foskett, the Isaac Ott Professor Chair of Physiology at the Perelman School of Medicine, was elected for pioneering studies of the InsP3R calcium channel and molecular mechanisms and the roles of calcium signaling in Alzheimer's disease, programmed cell death and cellular bioenergetics.
Dr. Philip A. Rea, professor of biology in the School of Arts & Sciences and Rebecka and Arie Belldegrun Distinguished Director of the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management, was elected for outstanding fundamental research discoveries on the membrane transport and detoxification of xenobiotics and for distinguished accomplishments and creativity in science education.
The new Fellows will be honored in February, at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2014 AAAS Annual Meeting in Chicago. |
Intel Early Career Award: Dr. Devietti
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Dr. Joseph Devietti, assistant professor in the department of computer and information science in SEAS, is a recipient of the 2013 Intel Early Career Faculty Honor Program Award for his proposal, “Programmability challenges raised by multicore architectures.”
The applicants for this program are typically within 4-5 years of starting their academic positions, and they are selected for being thought leaders in their respective areas of research, with fresh ideas and thinking.
Dr. Devietti works on identifying new safety properties for parallel programs, precisely defining their guarantees and exploring efficient implementations that employ a range of hardware and software mechanisms. Dr. Devietti is also co-director of the CIS Architecture and Compilers Group, which explores a wide range of topics in architectures, compilers and their intersection. |
EVS President: Dr. Golden
Dr. Michael A. Golden, associate professor of surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine and chief of the division of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, has been named president of the Eastern Vascular Society.
The Eastern Vascular Society is the largest regional vascular society in the US, with over 575 members who are primarily vascular surgeons representing both major academic medical centers and community hospitals in the Eastern part of the US and Canada. |
APHA President-Elect: Dr. Kumanyika
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Dr. Shiriki K. Kumanyika, professor of epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine and associate dean for health promotion and disease prevention, has been named the new president-elect of the American Public Health Association (APHA).
Dr. Kumanyika, who has been active in the APHA since 1976, will serve as president-elect for a year before stepping up as president in 2014.
The APHA is a professional organization with 25,000 members around the world and a mission to “protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure that community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States.” |
Shiriki Kumanyika |
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Excellence in Orthopaedics: Dr. Levin
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The Arthritis Foundation presented the Sir John Charnley, MD, Award to Dr. L. Scott Levin, chair of the department of orthopaedic surgery, the Paul B. Magnuson Professor of Bone and Joint Surgery and professor of surgery (division of plastic surgery) in the Perelman School of Medicine.
Presented annually at the Arthritis Foundation, Eastern Pennsylvania Chapter’s Evening of Honors gala, the Sir John Charnley, MD, Award recognizes the important role of a doctor in the field of orthopaedics who dedicates him or herself to improving the world around them, particularly in the Philadelphia community. |
Services to Humanity: Dr. Ludmir
Dr. Jack Ludmir, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Pennsylvania Hospital, and professor and vice chair of obstetrics at Penn Medicine, has been named the recipient of the 2013 Roosevelt Award for Services to Humanity Honoree by the March of Dimes (MOD), Southeastern Pennsylvania Division.
The Roosevelt Award for Service to Humanity recognizes an individual who exemplifies commitment to the community through volunteer service and excellence in his or her field. “Dr. Ludmir is one of our strongest advocates in the Philadelphia region and we are honored to highlight his accomplishments and remarkable leadership on behalf of the families of the Southeast Pennsylvania region,” said Amanda Young, executive director, MOD, Southeast PA Division. “Through his leadership, vision, ability to foster solutions and lifetime commitment to improving the practice of obstetrics, he is the embodiment of what this award represents.”
Dr. Ludmir is specifically being honored for his commitments to local and national collaborations to improve birth outcomes, sharing his extensive clinical experience with underdeveloped regions and serving under-resourced and vulnerable populations. |
Women in Ophthalmology: Dr. O’Brien
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Dr. Joan M. O’Brien, the George E. de Schweinitz and William F. Norris Professor of Ophthalmology, chair of the department of ophthalmology and director of the Scheie Eye Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine, is the recipient of the Women in Ophthalmology’s (WIO) Suzanne Veronneau Troutman Award. The award recognizes the woman, nominated by the WIO membership, who has done the most over the past year to further women in ophthalmology.
WIO encourages diversity, impartiality and economic parity and strives to cultivate new opportunities for leadership, education and public service in the field of ophthalmology for current and future generations. |
Materials Theory Award: Dr. Srolovitz
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The Materials Research Society awarded Dr. David J. Srolovitz its Materials Theory Award for his “decisive and highly influential contributions to the theory and simulation of microstructure, morphological evolution, mechanical behavior and the structure and dynamics of interfaces.” Dr. Srolovitzis the Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science in SEAS.
The Materials Theory Award recognizes exceptional advances made in materials theory to the fundamental understanding of the structure and behavior of materials. |
SSHA President: Dr. Sugrue
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Dr. Thomas J. Sugrue, David Boies Professor of History and Sociology and director of the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum in the School of Arts & Sciences, has been elected president of the Social Science History Association (SSHA). The SSHA promotes interdisciplinary research by historians, demographers, economists, sociologists, political scientists, legal scholars and geographers on social life and theory; historiography and historical and social-scientific methodologies; and the state and society. He will deliver his presidential address at the 2014 SSHA conference in November on the theme of “Inequalities: Politics, Policy and the Past.” |
Military Friendly Employer: Penn Med
Penn Medicine was named a 2014 Military Friendly Employer® by Victory Media, publisher of G.I. Jobs and Military Spouse magazines. Companies competed for the elite Military Friendly Employer® title via a data-driven survey of over 5,000 companies with resulting survey data independently tested by Ernst & Young LLP. Criteria for the survey included a benchmark score across key programs and policies such as the strength of company military recruiting efforts, the percentage of new hires with prior military service, retention programs and company policies on National Guard and Reserve service.
Penn Medicine aggressively seeks to hire military talent and has found that hiring from the military community is a strategic competitive advantage. “We highly value the contributions of employees with military experience,” said Judy L. Schueler, vice president, organizational development and chief human resources officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. “Veterans have demonstrated their alacrity to learn new skills and to exercise leadership in the most challenging situations—traits that are highly valued at Penn Medicine.”
Currently, veterans are employed in clinical and non-clinical departments throughout Penn Medicine including surgery/operation rooms, real estate and construction, engineering management, trauma, billing and compliance, administration and human resources.
Now in its 11th year, Military Friendly Employers® media is the premier resource for transitioning service members and spouses seeking civilian employment. Penn Medicine was showcased along with other 2014 Military Friendly Employers® in the December edition of G.I. Jobs magazine and online at MilitaryFriendly.com
“The 2014 Military Friendly Employers® represent the preeminent tier of companies with strong military recruitment programs and meaningful job opportunities for transitioning service members and spouses seeking civilian employment,” said Sean Collins, vice president for Victory Media and a nine-year Navy veteran. “Our Military Friendly Employers® constitute the group of companies actually moving the needle and hiring from the military community. The 2014 Military Friendly Employers reported hiring over 117,000 service members and spouses over the last 12 months, representing an average of 14 percent of total new hires.”
On Veteran’s Day 2012, Penn Medicine announced its sponsorship of Joining Forces—a national initiative to heighten awareness about the health needs of our nation’s veterans, service members and families and elevate the role that medical schools, nursing schools and teaching hospitals play in serving their community.
Joining Forces was established by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden to bring Americans together to recognize, honor and take action to support veterans and military families during their service to our country and throughout their lives. Combat to Care, an extension of the national Joining Forces effort, is Penn Medicine’s campaign to: celebrate the service of our veteran faculty and staff; train our clinicians in the unique clinical challenges of caring for military service members, veterans and their families; and recruit veterans who have demonstrated inspiring dedication, loyalty and strength in the service of our nation to join Penn Medicine (Almanac December 18, 2012). |
Inaugural PennSustains Winners
PennSustains, the University of Pennsylvania’s first sustainability solution competition, hosted its inaugural event on October 19, 2013. The contest came together in six months through the efforts of the Society of Women Engineers, Engineers without Borders, SEAS Green and Penn International Sustainability Association. Benefactor Andy Rachleff, alumnus and chairman of the SEAS Board of Overseers, challenged students to devise something that celebrated “the joy of building things” and the fun of engineering. Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) and Conestoga Bank also generously sponsored the competition.
With Mr. Rachleff’s two ideas as inspiration, PennSustains has three goals in mind: making Penn a more sustainable campus, making Philadelphia a more sustainable city and utilizing engineering in these endeavors. The competition acts as a basis for idea generation and collaboration. In PennSustains’ first year, nine teams composed of 29 participants entered ideas ranging from piezoelectric tiles to a smart shower system. Teams submitted business plans and presentations to a panel of experienced judges from academia and industry, all with ties to the sustainability sector. Materials were scored based on motivation, design, implementation, financial feasibility and potential impact. Winning teams took home various prizes totaling over $7,000 to further their ventures.
Grand Prize—$3,000—PennOrb, led by Nathaniel Chan (SEAS '17) and Jason Choi (SAS '17). They proposed color-changing plastic orbs to be installed outside college house entrances; the orb’s color reflects the respective house’s energy consumption to raise awareness of students’ energy usage at Penn.
“It was an amazing opportunity to introduce a brand-new event to Penn Engineering that features projects with serious impact on people’s livelihoods. All submitted ideas creatively addressed the three pillars of sustainability—people, profit and the planet—and I look forward to seeing how PennSustains grows and develops in future years,” said Nicole Woon, lead director of PennSustains.
2nd Place–$2,000–Poseidon Works–Qiangeng Xu, Haoran Sun, Ben Shi (all SEAS '13)
3rd Place–$1,000–GreenVote–Benedikt Lotter, Karan Hiremath, Arjun Jain (all M&T '16)
People’s Choice Award–$500–GreenVot –Benedikt Lotter, Karan Hiremath, Arjun Jain (all M&T '16)
IGEL Award–Southwest Airline ticket –Reverse–John Doyle, Clara Midgley, Rob Ritchie (all SEAS '15)
Conestoga Bank Award–$200–SustainaLink–Alia Lahr (BE '15), Nicole Lok (SSE '15), Jayant Rao (CBE '16) |
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