Fitzpatrick elected SPIE Fellow: Professor J. Michael Fitzpatrick, EE&CS, is among this year’s 72 new Fellows of the Society honored by SPIE. Fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the multidisciplinary fields of optics, photonics, and imaging. Fitzpatrick is recognized for specific achievements in image registration in medical imaging. (more)

Mahadevan receives service award from ASCE:
    Professor Sankaran Mahadevan, professor of civil and environmental engineering, received the Outstanding Professional Service Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers in March during the Earth and Space Conference in Long Beach, Calif., for sustained service to the Aerospace Division over the past two decades.
    In addition, Mahadevan has been elected to serve as General Chair of the 51st Structures, Structural Dynamics and Materials Conference jointly organized by AIAA, ASME and ASCE, in Orlando, Fla., in May 2010.
    He also served as General Chair of the 10th Non-Deterministic Approaches Conference of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), in Schaumburg, Ill., April 7-10, 2008.

Robert E. Stammer ITE Appointment: Robert E. Stammer Jr, P.E., associate professor of civil engineering, has been elected an International Director of the Institute of Transportation Engineers at the Southern District meeting in Charleston, S.C. in April.  (more)

Professors and an alumnus of Vanderbilt School of Engineering’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) will receive a Best Paper Award at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) in Munich in March 2008. Kai Chen, a former ISIS graduate student currently with Motorola Research, and Vanderbilt Professors Janos Sztipanovits and Sandeep Neema co-authored the paper titled, "Compositional Specification of Behavioral Semantics."

Vanderbilt John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering Peter Cummings received one of six Chancellor’s Research Awards during the Fall Faculty Assembly on Aug. 30. The award recognizes “innovation in research, scholarship and creative expression from tenured and tenure-track faculty members.” Cummings was honored for his paper, “From Dimer to Condensed Phases at Extreme Conditions: Accurate Predictions of the Properties of Water by a Gaussian Charge Polarizable Model,” published in the Journal of Chemical Physics. Three other engineering professors received recognition for twenty-five years of service during the assembly. They are:

• Alan Bowers, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering
• Alvin Strauss, professor of mechanical engineering
• Mike Fitzpatrick, professor of computer science and computer engineering, professor of radiology and radiological sciences, professor of neurological surgery and professor of electrical engineering.

Dan Fleetwood, Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, was honored as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Purdue University College of Science on April 6. In announcing Fleetwood's selection, Purdue noted his electronics inventions and highly influential research throughout his career. Fleetwood, who earned his bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Purdue, joined the Vanderbilt engineering faculty in 1999.

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Greg Walker has been named the recipient of a Young Faculty Award (YFA) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the primary research and development agency for the Department of Defense. Walker is one of only 24 promising researchers who have been recognized with an award by the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), the division of DARPA that emphasizes technology development in electronics, MEMS, photonics, nano, architecture, and algorithms. The program is designed to promote innovative ideas from tomorrow's research leaders.

Dean of Engineering Kenneth F. Galloway chaired the American Society for Engineering Education's Public Policy Colloquium, held Feb. 27-28 at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C. The colloquium titled, "Engineering Colleges: Critical for America's Future," explored the role engineering must play to ensure a secure, stable future for the nation. Featured speakers included Dr. Bill Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering, Dr. Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation, and Congressman Bart Gordon (D - TN), Chair of the House Science Committee.

Edward L. Thackston, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Emeritus, was appointed to the National Academies Committee on the Mississippi River and the Clean Water Act. The Committee will study the effect of implementation of the Clean Water Act along the 10-state Mississippi River corridor. The National Academies advises the U.S. government on science, engineering and medicine.

Sanjiv B. Gokhale, professor of the practice in civil engineering, was given a Distinguished Faculty Award by the Vanderbilt Department of Student Athletics during the Jan. 27 basketball game against Ole Miss.

Associate Professor of Computer Science Doug Fisher received the 2006 Chancellor’s Cup on Oct. 18 for his or her extraordinary contributions outside of the classroom to foster relationships between undergraduate students and faculty. The Chancellor’s Cup is bestowed annually during homecoming week in a surprise ceremony.

School of Engineering Senior Associate Dean K. Arthur Overholser received the Thomas Jefferson Award during the Vanderbilt Fall Faculty Assembly on Aug. 24. Overholser, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering, was given award "for distinguished service to Vanderbilt through extraordinary contributions as a member of the faculty in the councils and government of the university," according to the inscription on the goblet presented to him.

During the Fall Assembly, three engineering professors received Chancellor’s Research Awards. They were:

• G. Kane Jennings, associate professor of chemical engineering, for his article “pH-Responsive Copolymer Films by Surface-Catalyzed Growth,” published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
• Duco Jansen, associate professor of biomedical engineering
• Anita Mahadevan-Jansen, associate professor of biomedical engineering, for their paper “Optical Stimulation of Neural Tissue In Vivo,” published in Optics Letters.

David S. Kosson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and chair of the department, will receive the first School of Engineering Medal of Excellence for Alumni Achievement in Academia from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. According to Rutgers Dean of Engineering Michael T. Klein, Kosson was selected for the award for his "widely recognized research and extensive scholarly publications." Kosson will accept the award in a ceremony at Rutgers on May 17.

Sanjiv Gokhale, associate professor of the practice of civil and environmental engineering, received the the 2006 North American Society for Trenchless Technology 15th Anniversary Industry Achievement Award to recognize his contributions to the development and support of "trenchless technology" during the past 15 years.
He accepted the award at the NASTT annual meeting held March 28 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville. Trenchless technology refers to techniques used to install, replace and repair utility lines with minimum excavation from the ground surface.

L. Roy Xu, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, co-authored an article that became one of the top five most-frequently downloaded articles in the 2005 Journal of Composite Materials. The article, "Mechanical Property Characterization of a Polymeric Nanocomposite Reinforced by Graphitic Nanofibers with Reactive Linkers," was co-authored by Vikram Bhamidipati, Wei-Hong Zhong, Jiang Li, Charles M. Lukehart (Vanderbilt University), Edgar Lara-Curzio, Kenneth C. Liu, and Michael J. Lance (Oak Ridge National Laboratory).