Milestones

APPOINTED

Lawrence Bank, professor, civil and environmental engineering, has been appointed to a five-year term on the International Editorial Board of “Advances in Structural Engineering: an International Journal.”

Neil Duffie, professor and chair, mechanical engineering, has been elected to the executive committee of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers Board of Directors. Duffie has served on the committee for the past four years and will serve a two-year executive-committee term.

HONORED

Michael Fiore, professor, Medical School, and director, UW Center for Tobacco Research, has received the 2003-2004 Kellett Mid-Career Award. This award recognizes and supports mid-career faculty at a critical stage in their careers.

Kamisha Hamilton, Ph.D. student of Industrial Engineering Assistant Professor Ben-Tzion Karsh, has been awarded a Worldwide University Network Global Exchange Fellowship. She will visit the University of Sheffield where she will study workflow, handoffs and continuity of care in the emergency department at the local teaching hospital.

Rainer Hebert, a graduate student and research assistant in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, received the prestigious Graduate Student Gold Medal Award from the Materials Research Society at its fall meeting. Hebert was selected from among 129 entries and give a presentation for the MRS meeting, which was followed by a question-and-answer session with a panel of judges. Hebert was one of 11 students to receive a gold medal. He is studying under Materials Science and Engineering Professor John Perepezko.

Tim Riddiough, professor, real estate and urban land economics, and two colleagues from the University of Kentucky and University of North Carolina-Charlotte have received the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association’s Edwin S. Mills Award. The award honors the best paper to appear in the association’s journal, “Real Estate Economics,” during 2002. Riddiough co-authored the paper titled “Optimal Valuation of Real Assets.”

Robert Schlesinger, retired associate scientist, meteorology, has won a 2003 Editor’s Award from the American Meteorological Society. Schlesinger is being honored for his work on the AMS Journal of Applied Meteorology. The award will be presented on Feb. 12, at the AMS 83rd annual meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

Michelle Soltero, research assistant, biochemistry, has been chosen to receive this year’s Sigrid Leirmo Memorial Award in Biochemistry. The award is for a graduate or postdoctoral student who displays clear promise as a research assistant.

GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS

David Armstrong, professor, civil and environmental engineering; James Hurley, associate scientist, Water Resource Institute; and James Schauer, assistant professor, civil and environmental engineering, have received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to study the atmospheric chemical and physical processes that control mercury speciation and deposition. The project represents a collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Geological Survey and Carleton College, and will use the Wisconsin DNR’s Devils Lake air-monitoring site as core sampling site.

Patrick Farrell and Christopher Rutland, professors, mechanical engineering, have both been elected fellows of the Society of Automotive Engineers. SAE is a non-profit educational and scientific organization working to advance technology on all forms of self-propelled vehicles, including automobiles, trucks and buses, off-highway equipment, aircraft, aerospace vehicles, marine, rail and transit systems.

David Gustafson, professor, industrial engineering, is directing a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative to improve patient access to and early engagement in substance-abuse treatment.

Larry Hunter, assistant professor, management and human resources, will receive a grant over the next two years from the Sloan Foundation to support a research program investigating work-force issues.

Scott Sanders, assistant professor, mechanical engineering, has received a prestigious National Science Foundation Career Award for his work on laser-based sensors. Sanders’ project aims to develop laser-based sensors for monitoring gas and liquid properties with sub-millisecond time response.

OTHER

Avi Wortis, a UW–Madison alumnus, has been named the winner of the 2003 American Library Association’s John Newberry Medal for his book “Crispin.” The author is now known simply as “Avi.”

The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has recorded 15 patent disclosures from students in the biomedical engineering design courses since 2001. The disclosures include such varied inventions as a cauterizing liver biopsy system, an apparatus for measuring tongue-hard palate contact pressure, a portable voice calibrator, a breast-biopsy needle insert, and a device for presurgical management of cleft palate in infants, among others.