External Awards

Professor Gregory Baecher (civil and environmental engineering [CEE]), has been elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering for the development, explanation, and implementation of probabilistic- and reliability-based approaches to geotechnical and water-resources engineering.

Professor Miroslaw Skibniewski (CEE), A. James Clark Chair in Construction Engineering and Management, was elected as a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Engineering, an organization similar in scope and mission to the National Academy of Engineering in the United States. In addition, the title of Honorary Professor was bestowed upon Skibniewski by Moscow State Industrial University. The title is “the University’s highest honor awarded from time to time to internationally prominent academics whose leadership in scholarly work and education of students are of highest importance to the future development of human resources for the industrial base and the economy worldwide.”

Professor John S. Baras (electrical and computer engineering [ECE], Institute for Systems Research [ISR] and HyNet) has been elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science (IVA). IVA is the world’s oldest engineering academy. Its mission is to promote the engineering and economic sciences and the development of industry for the benefit of society. Baras also is invited to lecture to IVA on a topic of his choice.

ECE Assistant Professor Thomas E. Murphy has been awarded a Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation to conduct research on nonlinear optical devices. The $400,000 award over five years will support Prof. Murphy's ongoing research, which aims to overcome some of the speed limitations in current communication systems by replacing electronic processes with much faster optical processes.

Sheryl Ehrman, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE), has received a Fulbright Research Scholar Award. She will use the award during her sabbatical at IIT Mumbai during the 2006-07 academic year.

ISR-affiliated Professor Joseph JaJa (ECE and University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies [UMIACS]) was one of four winners of the inaugural Internet2 Driving Exemplary Applications (IDEA) Awards. The award recognizes innovators who have created and deployed advanced network applications that enable transformational progress in research, teaching, and learning, and hold the promise to maximize the impact of next-generation networks around the world. JaJa's project, "Transcontinental Persistent Archives Prototype," focuses on safeguarding, preserving, and providing access to authentic electronic records documenting the rights of American citizens and the national experience. It is distributed among the National Archives and Records Administration, the University of Maryland, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.

Assistant Professor John Fisher (CBE) received an Arthritis Investigator Award from The Arthritis Foundation. This award provides salary and/or grant support to sustain scientists committed to a career in arthritis-related research until full independence as an investigator can be obtained.

Professor Anthony Ephremides (ECE and ISR) is the recipient of the IEEE Information Theory Society 2006 Aaron Wyner Distinguished Service Award. Ephremides received the award in recognition of his service and leadership in the field of information theory.

Assistant Professor Ahmet Aydilek (CEE) received the 2006 ASCE New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award for his outstanding teaching record as a junior faculty member, his contributions to the academic and surrounding community and his proven commitment to civil engineering education. Prof. Aydilek was also selected as the 2006 recipient of the prestigious American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Arthur Casagrande Professional Development Award for his contributions to the area of image-based evaluation of geo-materials, geo-environmental engineering dealing with flow through porous media, and remediation of contaminated soils. The Casagrande Award is the highest ASCE research award given to a junior researcher in the area of geo-technical engineering.

Assistant Professor Miao Yu (mechanical engineering [ME]) was granted the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award by the Oak Ridge Associated Universities consortium. Yu plans to use the funds to support her research on biologically inspired miniature fiber-optic directional microphones for sound localization.

Associate Professor Kenneth Yu (aerospace engineering [AE]) received the Outstanding Contribution Award from the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) for his exceptional contributions to the advancement of KSEA. Yu is a former executive director of KSEA, and was co-chair of the 2005 USA-Korea Conference on Science, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.

Associate Professor Jeffrey Herrmann (ME and ISR) won the NACo Achievement Award of the National Association of Counties (NACo). The award was presented for his leadership in DAGWOOD, a mass dispensing/vaccination clinic exercise conducted in Montgomery County, Md., in June 2004. The exercise tested the county public health services' emergency preparedness and response plan.

ISR-affiliated Assistant Professor Min Wu (ECE and UMIACS), Professor K.J. Ray Liu (ECE and ISR), and ISR alums Z. Jane Wang and Wade Trappe received a 2005 Best Paper Award from the IEEE Signal Processing Society. "Anti-Collusion Fingerprinting for Multimedia" is one of the first works on the topic in the literature and has introduced several pioneering concepts.

A paper co-authored by Assistant Professor J. Sean Humbert (AE) and two California Institute of Technology researchers was awarded the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Best Paper distinction by the 2005 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference. Their paper was titled "Pitch-Altitude Control and Terrain Following Based on Bio-Inspired Visuomotor Convergence."

Professor Don Barker (Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering [CALCE] and ME) has won the "Best U.S. Paper for 2006" award from the IPC Printed Circuits Expo, APEX and Designer's Summit 2006 Technical Program Committee for the paper "Predicting Plated Through Hole Life at Assembly and in the Field from Thermal Stress Data," which he co-authored with Michael Freda from Sun Microsystems, Inc. The paper was published in the Proceedings of IPC Printed Circuits /Expo ADEX and the Designer's Summit.

ISR-affiliated Associate Professor S. (Raghu) Raghavan (Smith School of Business) and Smith School colleagues Bruce Golden, Ed Wasil, Shreevardhan Lele, and Zhiwei Fu won the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science's Computing Society Prize for their work in data mining. The prize was for three papers that describe state-of-the-art and novel genetic algorithms to design high-quality classification trees.

Research conducted by Professor Balakumar Balachandran (ME) and Research Associate Moustafa Al-Bassyiouni (ME) was featured in The ScienceDirect Top 25 Hottest Articles in the Journal of Sound and Vibration for April-June 2005. Their article is titled "Sound transmission through a flexible panel into an enclosure: structural-acoustics model."

Associate Professor Timothy Horiuchi (ECE and ISR) and Professor Shihab Shamma (ECE and ISR) were cited in the May 6 edition of IEEE Spectrum magazine for their "Leading Labs" in the areas of "Vision and Robotics" and "Hearing, Sonar, and Speech Processing."

University Awards

Professor James Wallace (ME) has been selected to receive the Kirwan Undergraduate Education Award for his 30-year career of extraordinary dedication to undergraduate teaching and the leading role he played in launching three major university initiatives—the CORE Program, College Park Scholars, and Gemstone—which have enriched the lives of countless Maryland undergraduates.

Professor Michael Pecht (CALCE/ME) has won the 2006 Distinguished International Service Award for his extensive contributions to international academic/industrial partnerships in the electronics industry through the establishment and leadership of the CALCE-EPS Research Center.

ME Associate Professor Gregory S. Jackson was part of a team including Professor Bryan W. Eichhorn (chemistry and biochemistry) and graduate student Shenghu Zhou that won the Physical Science Invention of the Year Award from the University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization. They received the award for developing a patent-pending technology that for the first time can produce hydrogen from hydrocarbon fuels without the high levels of carbon monoxide that traditionally occur in this type of process. Assistant Professor Bao Yang (ME) was second in the same category for a process using liquid nanodroplets to enhance thermal conductivity. CBE Assistant Professor John Fisher and CBE students Parth Modi and Jennifer Lynn Moreau, together with UM alum Sachiko Kaihara, received the Life Science Invention of the Year award for new, patent-pending biomaterials for tissue engineering. Assistant Professor Maria I. Klapa and graduate assistant Harin Kanani, both CBE, won an Invention of the Year Award for a patent-pending metabolomics technology that enables highly accurate and simultaneous measurement of hundreds of metabolites in biological systems. The pair also garnered the runner-up prize in the UM $50K Business Plan Competition.

Professor Sherif Aggour (CEE) won the Clark School's 2006 Poole & Kent Outstanding Teaching Award for Senior Faculty for his long dedication to teaching and advising Clark School students and his exceptional commitment to educational outreach. Aggour has developed and implemented an innovative program for training high school and middle school math and science teachers to present engineering concepts to their students, and he has taught the professional engineering review course for practicing engineers. He has won four major departmental and university teaching awards in the last 11 years.

Fire protection engineering Professor Jim Milke received the 2006 Clark School Faculty Service Award for service to the college, university and profession. He serves as the director of the undergraduate program, serves on several college committees and is the faculty advisor to the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE) Student Chapter, Salamander, Tau Beta Pi, and the Men's Ice Hockey Team. He is a member of the Board of Directors of SFPE, chairs the National Fire Protection Association Smoke Management Committee and the ASCE/SFPE committee on Structural Fire Protection, and serves the community as a member of the Executive Committee of the College Park Volunteer Fire Department.

ECE Associate Professor Mel Gomez was awarded the Clark School's 2005 E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teaching Award for Junior Faculty. A recognized leader in magnetics and magnetic storage research, Gomez also has been credited for his innovations in educational and curricular activities. Gomez introduced four new courses in the undergraduate and graduate curricula, including the physics and engineering of magnetic recording technology and an introduction to quantum physics for modern electrical engineering. His mentorship of undergraduate students exposes them to systems and devices at the nanometer and atomic length scales.

Biological resources engineering Professor Yang Tao was awarded the 2006 Alumni Faculty Excellence in Research Award from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources for his outstanding research program in basic or applied sciences, his many contributions in developing x-ray and laser imaging systems to detect bones and advancing machine vision technologies for automated inspection of foods and biomaterials.

Keynote Speakers and Conference Chairs

ME Chair and Distinguished University Professor Avram Bar-Cohen presented “Thermal Packaging—the Moving Frontier,” as the keynote speaker at the IEEE SemiTherm Conference in Dallas, Texas.

Professor Anthony Ephremides (ECE and ISR) delivered a keynote lecture at the IEEE Communication Theory Workshop in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He spoke on the topic of "What is in Sensor Networks for Communication Theory?"

Professor Abhijit Dasgupta (CALCE and ME) presented in the Keynote Session at the EuroSimE 2006 Conference on "New Developments in Modeling." His presentation was titled "Computational Challenges for Reliability Assessment of Next Generation Micro and Nano Systems."

Professor Reinhard Radermacher (ME) was a guest lecturer at the International Academic Conference of Research in Air Conditioning & Refrigeration at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Radermacher also received an honorary guest professorship award.

New Fellows

Professor Gerald E. Galloway (CEE) was elected by ASCE Board of Direction to the grade of Honorary Member.

Professor Bongtae Han (CALCE and ME) was elevated to Fellow status as a member of the Society for Experimental Mechanics. Han received this recognition for his notable contributions to the society and to the field of experimental mechanics.

Professor Michael Pecht (CALCE and ME) was awarded the Grand Fellowship of the Mirce Akademy, Exeter, UK. This is the highest award the Akademy bestows upon an individual. It recognizes a unique contribution to the understanding and/or predicting of the motion of functionability through system life.

Editorships and Books

Associate Professor Bongtae Han (ME) was awarded the 2004 American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Journal of Electronic Packaging Associate Editor of the Year Award. The award recognizes his technical and administrative service to the journal during the 2004 calendar year.

The International Journal of Performability Engineering has appointed CALCE Director and ME Professor Michael Pecht (pictured) its regional editor, Assistant Research Scientist Diganta Das (CALCE/ME) its area editor and Professor Peter Sandborn (CALCE/ME) an editorial board member. Pecht and Sandborn will edit a special issue of Microelectronics Reliability on electronic systems prognostics and health management. Pecht and Sandborn also served as Associate Editors for IEEE Transactions on Electronic Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology and Pecht served on the Editorial Board for the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers' International Journal.

Media Presentations

CEE Professor Gerry Galloway was featured as an expert on levees in news stories around the country.

A study by Assistant Professor Michel Cukier (ME) on the risks of female usernames in Internet chatrooms was a featured story in national, regional and local media outlets.

A recent episode of the History Channel's "Modern Marvels" featured interviews with CALCE staff and footage of its labs. The show described microscopic structures called "tin whiskers" that spontaneously grow from the pure tin coatings on electronic boards and microchips and wreak havoc on the electronics industry. The episode detailed the research CALCE is conducting on this phenomenon.