Fatih Birol: Carnot Prize
Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, was recently awarded the Carnot Prize for his “distinguished contributions to energy policy.” The Carnot Prize is awarded by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at Penn’s School of Design.
“We honor Fatih Birol for guiding the complex and politically fraught process of global collaboration on energy policy,” Penn President Amy Gutmann said. “Dr. Birol is steadily advancing inclusivity and equity by expanding the IEA’s role beyond primarily ‘first world’ interests to encompass a much broader global community.”
“I am extremely honored by this distinction, which celebrates a forefather of the energy revolution, a mathematician and scientist Nicolas Sadi Carnot,” Dr. Birol said. “Carnot’s work has helped improve our understanding of energy efficiency, a topic to which we are very much attached at the IEA. It’s a special pleasure to be in the company of Penn students who will be the future leaders of our industry.”
Dr. Birol will put his $25,000 in prize money toward IEA’s collaborative efforts with Clean Energy Ministerial, specifically their Women in Clean Energy Initiative.
In addition, a new graduate fellowship at the International Energy Agency was named in honor of Dr. Birol.
Penn-Made President Dennis DePerro: St. Bonaventure University
Dennis DePerro, Gr’06,has been named the 21st president of St. Bonaventure University in Allegheny, New York. Dr. DePerro, now the dean of the Purcell School of Professional Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, will take office on June 1, 2017.
Dr. DePerro, who holds a doctorate in higher education management from University of Pennsylvania, was unanimously chosen by trustees in November after an eight-month search process.
Dr. DePerro served as vice president for enrollment management at Le Moyne for 18 years before becoming the inaugural dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies in 2013. Previously, he was dean of admission and financial aid at Marietta College in Ohio from 1990-1995 and worked in admissions and alumni relations at Canisius College from 1982-1990.
Sarah Millar: FOCUS Award for the Advancement of Women in Medicine
Sarah E. Millar, the Albert M. Kligman Endowed Professor and vice chair for basic science research in the department of dermatology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, has received the 2016 FOCUS Award for the Advancement of Women in Medicine.
The award, presented by Penn Medicine’s FOCUS on Health & Leadership for Women program, recognizes a faculty member whose outstanding efforts and achievements have promoted the career success, leadership and overall quality of life for Penn women in academic medicine.
Dr. Millar is an internationally recognized researcher whose principal focus is the development and renewal of skin, hair follicles, teeth and mammary glands. She has collaborative interests in the areas of lung and heart development.
“Dr. Millar is a highly respected researcher and scholar, outstanding supervisor and exemplary mentor with an ardent commitment to the development and advancement of younger scientists, students, and post-doctoral fellows,” said Stephanie Abbuhl, executive director of FOCUS. “Promoting women’s academic and professional excellence has been a priority throughout her distinguished career. Her mentoring has had a profound effect on numerous Penn-based young researchers, as well as nationally and internationally. And she regularly plays an active role in many initiatives here at Penn, bringing clear vision and exceptional levels of energy and dedication to every project.”
Dr. Millar was selected for her strong supervising and mentoring record and for serving as chair of the School of Medicine’s Child Care Task Force during 2013-14, when she led the planning of a child care center at Penn Medicine, which is slated to open in 2018. Dr. Millar also has worked extensively with fellow Penn Medicine senior women faculty members and the school’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity to identify and rectify space and salary constraints hindering women’s progress in the basic sciences. In April 2016 she co-organized a symposium on gender bias in scientific publishing, which featured presentations and discussions with editors of the journals Cell, Science and JAMA, examining ways to enhance gender equity in publishing in top-tier journals.
Paul Saint-Amour: Modernist Studies Association Book Prize
Paul Saint-Amour, professor of English in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, has won the Modernist Studies Association Book Prize for 2016 for his most recent book, Tense Future: Modernism, Total War, Encyclopedic Form (Oxford University Press, 2015). The prize is awarded annually to the author of a book published in the previous year that has made a significant contribution to modernist studies.
Dr. Saint-Amour works on Victorian and modernist literature and has special interests in the novel, law, trauma and visual culture studies.
In Tense Future, Dr. Saint-Amour examines the role of anticipation in trauma, as opposed to the nearly exclusive focus in trauma studies on post-traumatic syndromes. He argues that 20th-century war technologies and practices, such as the aerial bombing of cities, introduced civilians to a coercive and traumatizing expectation or “pre-traumatic stress.”
ShaVon Savage: Henry C. Lea Elementary School Principal
ShaVon Savage, GSE’02, GrL’07, was named principal of the Henry C. Lea Elementary School, a partnership school with Penn GSE. She began her tenure as principal on July 18, 2016.
Ms. Savage taught for a year in the School District of Philadelphia before enrolling in Penn GSE’s Teacher Education Program. She then spent a year at High Tech High and another at the Penn Alexander School.
The Lea School serves about 540 students in grades K-8; has about 100 students with individualized educational plans (IEPs); and is roughly 16% English-language learners. Penn began collaborating with the Lea School in the 1960s.
Ten Penn Faculty: AAAS Fellows
Ten professors from the University of Pennsylvania have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). They are among a class of 391 members honored for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. Election as a Fellow of AAAS, the world’s largest scientific society, is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.
The new AAAS Fellows from Penn are:
Rajeev Alur, ZismanFamily Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science’s department of computer and information science, for fundamental contributions to logics, models and analysis techniques for real-time and hybrid systems.
Peter F. Davies, a professor of pathology & laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of pathology and laboratory medicine, for seminal discoveries in the role of mechanical forces in atherogenesis and for distinguished contributions in vascular biology and vascular pathology in general.
Ruben C. Gur, professor of psychology in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of psychiatry, for groundbreaking contributions using neuroimaging as an experimental probe to document sex differences, aging effects and abnormalities in brain function in a variety of disorders.
Jon Martin Lindstrom, Trustee Professor in Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of neuroscience, for distinguished contributions to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors field, particularly for discovering that receptor autoimmune response causes myasthenia gravis and for elucidating pathology and possible therapies.
Michael S. Marks, professor of physiology and pathology and laboratory medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of physiology and at CHOP, for dissection of mechanisms by which melanosomes and other lysosome-related organelles form within cells and their implications for general endolysosomal maturation.
Mary C. Mullins, a professor of cell & developmental biology in the Perelman School of Medicine’s department of cell & developmental biology, for distinguished contributions in cell and developmental biology, particularly for pioneering zebrafish as a model genetic system to study signaling and polarity in vertebrate development.
Phillip Scott, a professor of microbiology & immunology in the School of Veterinary Medicine’s department of pathobiology and vice dean for research and academic resources, for distinguished contributions to the field of microbiology, particularly for immunologic research that provides a foundation for developing new vaccines and immunotherapies for cutaneous leishmaniasis.
Amita Sehgal, John Herr Musser Professor in the department of neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine, for distinguished contributions to neuroscience and physiology, particularly in elucidating molecular mechanisms and cellular circuits underlying circadian rhythms and sleep.
Donald A. Tomalia, an adjunct professor in Penn Arts & Sciences’ department of chemistry, for pioneering contributions to nanotechnology and nanomedicine, particularly the discovery of new dendritic macromolecular architectures including dendrimers, poly(oxazolines) and a nanoperiodic concept for unifying nanoscience.
Arjun Yodh, James M. Skinner Professor of Science in Penn Arts & Sciences’ department of physics and astronomy and director of the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, for seminal contributions to the field of experimental soft condensed matter physics, especially in optical measurements and applications in biophysics.
Each new Fellow will be presented an official certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin on February 18, 2017 at the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.
Susan Mandel: President-Elect, Endocrine Society
Susan J. Mandel, director of clinical endocrinology and diabetes for the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and a professor in the division of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, has been elected president-elect of the Endocrine Society. Dr. Mandel will officially begin her term in April 2017 and will take office as president in 2018.
“Having worked with Susan for nearly 20 years here at Penn, I have seen firsthand her leadership, commitment to education and clinical and research expertise,” said Mitchell A. Lazar, chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism. “Susan has delivered first-class care to her patients year after year, and is well-established as an international expert in the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of thyroid nodules and thyroid cancer. She has also been an innovative leader of Penn’s training program for fellows in endocrinology and metabolism.”
Dr. Mandel is director of the fellowship program in the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism where she oversees and educates upwards of eight clinical and research fellows each year. She is associate chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism and is director and creator of the Thyroid Nodule Clinic at Penn Medicine.
Fels Collaborative Grants to Eight Penn Professors
The Fels Policy Research Initiative in the School of Arts & Sciences (SAS) at the University of Pennsylvania has announced eight collaborative grant recipients. Each will be awarded as much as $15,000 in support of three new working groups and five conferences, designed to further interdisciplinary partnerships.
The three working groups will research social issues reflecting Penn’s commitment to local, national and global engagement:
• The Immigration and Immigrant Rights: Led by Michael Jones-Correa, professor of political science, and Amada Armenta, assistant professor of sociology, both in SAS, the group will identify Penn scholars focused on immigration and share their research with policy decision-makers.
• Researching and Informing Policies Relating to LGBTQ Youth and Families: Amy Hillier, associate professor in Penn’s School of Design with a secondary appointment in the School of Social Policy & Practice, will partner with Penn’s Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, bringing together researchers and practitioners to develop policies pertaining to LGBTQ youth and their families, as well as strengthen connections between Penn, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
• River Research Seminar: Bethany Wiggin, associate professor of German in SAS will connect faculty and students across disciplines from Penn, Drexel and Temple, in conjunction with community partners, to explore the Schuylkill River and Philadelphia’s urban waters.
“This latest round of grants demonstrates that faculty not only want to work together across disciplines to research public policy topics but are eager to find ways to ensure their research reaches policymakers,” Mark Alan Hughes, faculty director for the Fels Policy Research Initiative, said.
The five conferences that were awarded grants will address a variety of issues related to economic policy, infrastructure, housing in the future, diversity and more:
• Dirk Krueger, professor of economics in SAS, will pool academics and researchers from across Penn and policy institutions to present and discuss macroeconomic research and fiscal policies at the Philadelphia Workshop on Macroeconomics and Economic Policy, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
• John MacDonald, professor of criminology and sociology, and the Fels Institute of Government will host the Rebuilding America Summit, addressing the problem of an aging and underfunded infrastructure by assembling Penn faculty, government budget directors and chief financial officers.
• Penn Design’s John Landis and Vincent Reina will join economics and sociology faculty to blend academics, think-tank researchers, federal policy and program managers, local implementers and community-based advocates to identify and develop new priorities for the next generation of housing policy in the United States.
• Dawn Teele, assistant professor of political science in SAS, will amass Penn scholars, faculty from other institutions, campaign training program leaders and politicians to better understand what incentives encourage women to seek political office in Nudging Women to Run.
• Daniel Hopkins, associate professor of political science in SAS, will lead a conference to advance efforts toward integrating the perspectives of social and behavioral science into the City of Philadelphia’s work.
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