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Honors & Other Things |
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October 14, 2014, Volume 61, No. 09 |
Sports Award: Ms. Alankamony
In late summer, women’s squash team member Anaka Alankamony, C’17,was honored by President Pranab Mukherjee at the 2014 National Sports Adventure Awards in her home country of India. Ms. Alankamony was the recipient of the Arjuna Award, a national sports award for squash.
She has won a number of tournaments in India, including the U-15 Asian title as a 13-year- old and twice the U-19 Asian title. She was also part of an Indian team that finished fifth in the world team championships in France in 2012. Most recently she has helped the Indian squad win the Asian junior team title.
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ASME/AIChE Award: Dr. Ayyaswamy
Portonovo Ayyaswamy, Asa Whitney Professor of Dynamical Engineering in the department of mechanical engineering & applied mechanics in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has been selected as the 2014 recipient of the Max Jakob Memorial Award for his “outstanding contributions to the science and art of heat and mass transfer.” The award is given by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Heat Transfer Division and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). The award will be presented at the ASME 2015 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November.
Dr. Ayyaswamy’s research is in the area of mechanical engineering, with foci in modeling, simulations and experimentation of multi-phase flow/heat and mass transfer. “The Max Jakob award is considered to be ‘the Nobel Prize in Heat Transfer,’” noted Eduardo Glandt, Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering. Preceding Dr. Ayyaswamy, two other Penn Engineering professors, Stuart W. Churchill (1979) and Benjamin Gebhart (1993) have also received the distinguished honor.
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NICHD Funding: Dr. Buttenheim
Alison M. Buttenheim, assistant professor of nursing, has received a grant from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development to investigate the vaccination status of children exempt from school-entry immunization mandates. This area has not been studied and is of great importance in protecting population health from increased disease outbreak risk.
Her research is expected to focus attention on California’s new law, particularly as other states look to change their exemption laws, and help public health and education officials identify high-risk areas as targets for policy and programmatic interventions.
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Funding to Study Diet in End-stage Renal Disease: Dr. Clark-Cutaia
Maya N. Clark-Cutaia, the Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Post-Doctoral Fellow in the School of Nursing, has received more than $600,000 in funding for her study “Sodium-restricted diets and symptoms in end stage renal disease: An RCT.” Funds are from both the National Institute of Nursing Research and the University of Pennsylvania CTSA Clinical and Translational Research Center.
Dr. Clark-Cutaia will undertake a double-blinded, randomized controlled trial (RCT) to study the effects of three levels of sodium intake on the hemodialysis symptom profile of end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients.
Dr. Clark-Cutaia’s research interests are in dietary variations related to ethnicities and socioeconomic status and symptom profiles associated with dietary decisions. She is a captain and flight nurse with the US Air Force Reserve and an adjunct clinical faculty member of the School of Nursing’s Adult Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program.
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Great Acute Care Nursing Professor: Dr. Curley
Martha A. Q. Curley, the Ellen and Robert Kapito Professor in Nursing Science, has been selected by NursePractitionerSchools.com for their list of 16 Great Acute Care Nursing Professors. She was chosen for her distinguished work in teaching, researching and in contributions to the field of nursing education. Dr. Curley’s research focuses on interventional studies to support parent needs and priorities in the pediatric intensive care unit; instrument development studies to provide clinicians with better tools to assess patient status and risk; and multi-site clinical trials to generate new knowledge in the care of critically-ill pediatric patients.
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Best Book: Dr. Gillion
Daniel Q. Gillion, assistant professor of political science, has won the American Political Science Association Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section’s 2014 Best Book Award for The Political Power of Protest: Minority Activism and Shifts in Public Policy. The book demonstrates the influential role of protest to garner a response from each branch of the federal government, highlighting protest actions as another form of constituent sentiment that should be considered alongside public opinion and voting behavior.
Dr. Gillion’s research interest focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, public opinion and the American presidency. He also is an affiliate faculty member with the department of Africana studies and the Asian American Studies Program.
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Energy Board: Dr. Huemmler
Andrew E. Huemmler, a senior lecturer in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has been elected president of the board of the Energy Coordinating Agency of Philadelphia (ECA). The ECA’s mission is to help people conserve energy and to promote a sustainable and socially equitable energy future for all in the Philadelphia region. Dr. Huemmler’s expertise is in energy systems, climate policy and electricity markets.
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AAHC Board: Dr. Jameson
J. Larry Jameson, executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine, was elected to the Association of Academic Health Centers (AAHC) board for a three-year term. The AAHC is a non-profit association dedicated to advancing the nation’s health and well-being through the vigorous leadership of academic health centers.
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Honor from Philadelphia High School for Girls: Dr. Lipman
Terri Lipman, the Miriam Stirl Endowed Term Professor of Nutrition and professor of nursing of children, has been named to the Court of Honor of Distinguished Daughters of the Philadelphia High School for Girls.
Dr. Lipman is a faculty member in Penn’s Center for Health Equity Research, associated faculty in the Center for Public Health Initiatives, a distinguished fellow of the Netter Center for Community Partnerships, the associate program director of the Pediatric Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Program and a nurse practitioner in the division of endocrinology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
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ANF Award: Dr. McHugh
Matthew D. McHugh, the Rosemarie Greco Term Endowed Associate Professorship in Advocacy, associate professor of nursing and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Faculty Scholar, has been awarded the American Nurses Foundation’s Margretta Madden Styles Credentialing Research Award of $25,000. His study, “Understanding Adoption and Diffusion of the ANCC Magnet Recognition Program as an Organizational Innovation for Hospital Quality,” will help to meaningfully attribute any findings of better outcomes to Magnet recognition. The study will also help identify factors associated with non-participation in Magnet recognition and whether there is an opportunity to gain more from the Magnet program by reaching out to hospitals that, as of now, are not likely to engage in the process. Findings will help provide evidence for credentialing and help inform policy that improves healthcare.
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SACHRP Committee: Dr. Pyeritz
The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) announced that Reed E. Pyeritz, William Smilow Professor of Medicine and professor of genetics in the Perelman School of Medicine, is one of three new members named to the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP). SACHRP is governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act and provides expert advice and recommendations to the Secretary on issues and topics pertaining to the protection of human research subjects. Dr. Pyeritz is also vice chair for academic affairs in the department of medicine and senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics.
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Meigs Award: Dr. Rhoads
At the inaugural University of Nature conference last month, the Schuylkill Center presented its highest honor, the Henry Meigs Environmental Leadership Award, to botanist Ann Fowler Rhoads. Recently retired after a 36-year career at the Morris Arboretum, Dr. Rhoads has been conducting research on Pennsylvania plants to determine the status of rare and endangered species, to track invasive non-natives and to document changes in the state’s plant community. Over the last 40 years, Dr. Rhoads has inventoried the plant communities of counties, state parks and innumerable lakes and streams. Through tireless documentation, a specimen collection of 14,000 plants and sharing her discoveries and expertise in books and articles, she has significantly advanced our understanding of Pennsylvania plant communities.
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Golden Pen Award: Oral Medicine Faculty: Drs. Sollecito & Stoopler
Thomas Sollecito, chair and professor of oral medicine, and Eric Stoopler, associate professor of oral medicine, both in Penn Dental Medicine, have been recognized by the International College of Dentists (ICD) with the Golden Pen Division 1 Award as editors of Dental Clinics of North America Clinical Approaches to Oral Mucosal Disorders: Part I.
The Golden Pen is presented annually by the ICD to the editor of a publication that contains an article or series of articles of current importance to the dental profession. Their selected oral mucosal disorders publication, published in October 2013 by Elsevier, features a series of clinical reviews by selected experts on oral mucosal disorders that commonly present in the clinical setting.
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Courage Award: Dr. Sorenson
Susan B. Sorenson, professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice, is the recipient of the 2014 Bridge of Courage Award from Women Organized Against Rape, one of the first rape crisis agencies in the country. The Bridge of Courage Award recognizes exemplary leadership and commitment to promoting awareness, education, advocacy and policy research to end sexual violence.
Dr. Sorenson is the director of Penn’s Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence.
As a researcher, she has published widely on the epidemiology and prevention of violence, including homicide, suicide, sexual assault, child abuse and firearms. Her work highlights the social context in which violence occurs, specifically, the norms that shape whether and how violence is tolerated.
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Most Stunning Garden: Morris Arboretum
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Photograph by Marguerite F. Miller |
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The Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania topped the listing of the 50 Most Stunning University Gardens and Arboretums by BestMastersPrograms.org
Located in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, the Morris Arboretum is the official state arboretum of Pennsylvania and is a historic public garden and educational institution.
Amid its winding paths, rose gardens and swan pond, is the 8-sided glass Doris H. Hamilton Fernery that contains 523 varieties of ferns. Built in 1899, the fernery is the only remaining freestanding Victorian structure of this kind in North America.
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Winners of Penn Engineering’s Summer Undergraduate Research Programs
During the summer, Penn Engineering offers three programs, which allow undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in research with Penn faculty members over the course of 10 weeks.
“Providing undergraduate students with research opportunities adds an extra dimension to their education,” Jan Van der Spiegel, professor in electrical systems and engineering and associate dean of education, said. “It brings the students into a community of scholars who look beyond classwork to do original research and instills a strong passion for scholarly inquiry that prepares them for a graduate career.”
Following a research symposium showcasing the talents of the participants, the winners of these programs have been named by a panel of judges.
Littlejohn Undergraduate Research Program
Winner: Adrian Lievano (Penn, Senior, Material Engineering and Applied Mechanics); Faculty Advisor: Katherine Kuchenbecker; Project Title: “Haptic instrumentation of a human fingertip”; Significance of Research: Brain-computer interfaces may soon enable paraplegic patients to move their own limbs, but no solution yet exists for giving these patients a sense of touch. Touch is vital for performing a variety of tasks that we do daily: using keys to open doors and holding utensils to eat are few of many examples. This project sought to engineer a system that can measure a fingertip’s mechanical interactions on par with human mechanoreceptors without interfering with the use of the finger.
Honorable Mentions: Brett Hagberg (Penn, Senior, Materials Science and Engineering) advised by Robert Riggleman; and Jason Woo (Penn, Junior, Materials Science and Engineering) advised by Daniel Gianola.
Thanks to a generous gift by Angus Littlejohn, Penn Engineering is able to offer this program to rising, sophomores, juniors and seniors. The program intends to provide students the opportunity to get involved in hands-on engineering research under the supervision of a faculty member. Topics of research include all areas covered by the departments in SEAS.
Rachleff Scholars Program
Winner: Sarah A. Dean (Penn, Junior, Electrical Engineering); Faculty Advisor: Daniel D. Lee; Project Title: “Balance control on sloped surfaces with inexpensive tactile sensors”; Significance of Research: Balancing bipedal robots requires many sensors and complex control schemes. Most bipedal robots are not designed to walk on sloped or uneven surfaces. Inexpensive and durable tactile arrays can be made with mass-produced MEMS barometers. This study investigates the use of these tactile sensors to provide the feedback necessary to balance a system on sloped surfaces. The system used was a one-dimensional inverted pendulum, implemented with a Dynamixel servo motor with an attached metal rod and weights. Each of the tactile sensors was characterized by a sensitivity coefficient, found from a non-negative linear regression on sensor readings vs. center of mass of the system.
Honorable Mentions: Vivek K. Menon (Penn, Junior, Bioengineering) advised by Jan Van der Spiegel; and Mitchell T. Stern (Penn, Senior, Computer Science) advised by Lyle Ungar.
Rachleff Scholars participate in this research program typically after completing their sophomore year. The students enroll in seminar courses for credit in the semester prior to and immediately following their Summer Research Experience. Additionally, they complete two units of honors coursework.
Summer Undergraduate Fellowship in Sensor Technologies (SUNFEST)
Winner: Jacob Sacks (University of Texas at Austin, Senior, Bioengineering) Faculty Advisor: Jan Van der Spiegel; Project Title: “A wireless, real-time embedded system for closed-loop myoelectric control of sedated primates”; Significance of Research: Brain-computer interface (BCI) technology establishes a direct link between the nervous system and external hardware. An important application of such devices is myoelectric control, or the use of the electrical potential generated during muscle contraction as an input signal. This physiological information is heavily used in rehabilitation engineering and novel human-machine interaction. Current commercial systems are limited in their degrees of freedom for control, and are incapable of bidirectional communication with the nervous system. Such restrictions prevent intuitive use of myoelectric devices and closed-loop control with sensory information. This project presents a microcontroller-based, wireless BCI system that recognizes simple hand gestures as input and produces a corresponding output signal.
Honorable Mentions: Jia-En Marcus Pan (Penn, Junior, Electrical Engineering) advised by Daniel D. Lee; and Jamie Johnson (Broward College, Junior, Electrical Engineering) advised by A.T. Charlie Johnson.
The SUNFEST program is open to rising sophomores, juniors and seniors that are studying engineering and the physical sciences. The purpose of this program is to expose students to real, in-depth research in the area of sensor technology and to motivate them to go on to graduate school. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation as a REU Site (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and the Center for Sensor Technologies at Penn. |
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Almanac -
October 14, 2014, Volume 61, No. 09
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