External Awards

Professor Kyu Yong Choi, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering (CBE), has been elected to permanent membership in the Korea Academy of Science and Technology in Seoul, Korea.




Civil and environmental engineering (CEE) Professor Miroslaw Skibniewski was awarded the title "Professor of Engineering Sciences" by the president of Poland in November. This honor is conferred annually upon approximately 20 leading researchers from Polish and international research institutions in various fields of engineering.
Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Research Scientist Igor Smolyaninov was selected by Scientific American magazine as a Research Leader in the 2006 "Scientific American 50" list for his research contributions in the emerging field of plasmonics. Smolyaninov and his colleagues, including ECE Professor Christopher Davis, are using plasmons—electron waves generated when light strikes a metallic surface—in a powerful new microscope to see previously undetectable nano-scale details.

Professor Ahmet Aydilek (CEE) has received two awards: the International Geosynthetics Society Award for his research contributions in the areas of flow through porous geomedia and image-based characterization of geosynthetics; and the American Society of Civil Engineers Collingwood Prize for his article "Construction Size of Geotextile Filters," published in ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.

Professor Rama Chellappa (ECE/University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies [UMIACS]/Computer Science [CS]) has been selected to receive a 2006 IBM Faculty Award. The award is highly competitive and is offered in recognition of the quality of faculty programs and their importance to industry. Chellappa, who previously received an IBM Faculty Development Award, is currently conducting research in face recognition technology and will collaborate with IBM researchers in the area of multi-modal biometrics.

Associate Professor Min Wu (ECE/UMIACS/Institute for Systems Research [ISR]) and Professor K.J. Ray Liu (ECE/ISR) received honorable mention in the 2006 Computerworld Horizon Awards for their digital fingerprinting research. Wu and Liu are developing multimedia forensics technologies that will protect digital resources and trace those who attempt to steal or misuse them.

Professor Mark Lewis (aerospace engineering [AE]) was named a 2007 Laureate Nominee in Aviation Week & Space Technology for his work in aeronautics and propulsion. The magazine will select the winners of its Laureate Awards in March.

A paper co-authored by Professor Uzi Vishkin, Ph.D. student Aydin Balkan, and Associate Professor Gang Qu, all in ECE, was selected to share the Best Paper Award for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 2006 Conference on Application-Specific Systems, Architectures and Processors. Their paper was titled "A Mesh-of-Trees Interconnection Network for Single-Chip Parallel Processing."

ECE Professor Agis Iliadis was awarded first prize for a paper he co-authored and presented at the third annual International Greek Biotechnology Forum. The paper was titled "Development of high sensitivity Interleukin-6 biosensors."

Professor Hani S. Mahmassani, CEE, received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the American University of Beirut. Mahmassani was honored for his "excellence in research in the fields of transportation systems, transportation planning, and intelligent transportation systems, as well as his outstanding contributions to education." At the award ceremony, he delivered a plenary lecture titled "Virtually There: Evolving Perspectives on Telemobility and Intelligent Transportation Systems."

Professor T. Venky Venkatesan (ECE/Physics) was recently named an Honorary Guest Professor at Tsinghua University in China. He was elected to a three-year honorary professorship term by the university's faculty.

Professor Mikhail Anisimov (CBE) was selected as one of two recipients of a Foundation for Science and Technology International Award from Gunma University, Japan. This competitive award is granted by the foundation once a year to two eminent international professors, one from Europe or the U.S. and one from an Asian country.

University Awards

William L. Fourney, professor and former AE chair, received the 2006 University of Maryland President's Medal. This award is the highest honor the university community can bestow, and recognizes a member of the College Park community who has made extraordinary contributions to the social, intellectual and cultural life of the campus.

Professor K.J. Ray Liu (ECE/ISR) has been named a Distinguished Scholar Teacher for his achievements in research, teaching, student advising and external and internal service to the university.
Professor Ashwani Gupta, mechanical engineering (ME), received the Clark School’s Outstanding Research Award. The award recognizes Professor Gupta's outstanding contributions to the field of combustion, including energy savings and pollution reduction.

Associate Professor Sheryl Ehrman (CBE) received the Clark School’s E. Robert Kent Outstanding Teacher Award for Junior Faculty. She was cited for her motivational abilities and dedication to recruiting and retaining women and under-represented minorities.

Keynote Speakers and Conference Chairs

Professor K. J. Ray Liu (ECE/ISR) delivered a keynote plenary lecture on the subject of multimedia forensics at the IEEE 2006 International Conference on Multimedia and Expo. The lecture, titled "Multimedia Forensics: Where Sherlock Holmes Meets Signal Processing," addressed the current challenges in developing new multimedia forensics technology to safeguard digital content.

Rama Chellappa, Minta Martin Professor (EE and CS), delivered a plenary lecture on "Pattern Recognition in Video" at the IEEE International Conference on Image Processing. The talk focused on emerging video-based pattern recognition problems in homeland security, healthcare, battlefield awareness, and video indexing applications.

Professor J. Gordon Leishman, Minta Martin Professor (AE), gave the Cierva Lecture to the Royal Aeronautics Society in London. His lecture was titled, "Achieving the Ultimate Potential of the Helicopter: Thinking Forward, Looking Back."

Professor Anthony Ephremides (ECE/ISR) delivered a series of talks titled "Wireless Networks: Where is the Beef?" as an IEEE Communications Society Distinguished Lecturer.

Professor Ashwani K. Gupta (ME) was co-chair of the First International Energy 2030 Conference held in Abu Dhabi. Professor Michael Ohadi (ME) was the conference chair. The conference, sponsored by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and its selected affiliate companies, was part of an ongoing cooperative relationship initiated between the University of Maryland and the Petroleum Institute of Abu Dhabi to establish an Education and Energy Research Collaboration.

Professor Shapour Azarm (ME) has begun his tenure as the chair of the Design Engineering Division (DED) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). DED is one of the largest divisions of ASME, with over 36,000 members and 12 technical committees, and sponsors or co-sponsors six ASME transactions journals.

New Fellows

Professor Emeritus Thomas McAvoy (CBE) was elected a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control for contributions to process control—particularly his pioneering work on neural network applications—and for his service as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Process Control.

Professor Reinhard Radermacher (ME) was elevated to Fellow of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers for his contributions to the organization of and innovations in the sciences of heating, refrigeration, and air conditioning.

Professor Alison Flatau (AE) has been elected as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, which recognizes exceptional achievements and contributions to the engineering profession.

Professor James Hubbard (AE), an NIA Langley Professor, was elected Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics for demonstrating a successful practice in the arts, sciences, or technology of aeronautics.

Editorships and Books

Professor J.V. Sengers (ME) co-authored a new book, Hydrodynamic Fluctuations in Fluids and Mixtures, published by Elsevier.

Assistant Professor John Fisher, bioengineering (BioE), edited two recently published works on tissue engineering: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, Vol. 585: Tissue Engineering (Springer, 2006); and the tissue engineering section of The Biomedical Engineering Handbook, 3rd edition (CRC, 2006). Fisher's own research, co-authored with BioE graduate student and Fischell Fellow Diana Yoon, is included in both volumes. Fisher has also been named reviews editor of the journal Tissue Engineering.
Media Presentations

Research on nanoscale sensors made from a material called chitosan, derived from crab shells, was featured in print, television, radio and online news across the country. The researchers involved in this project include professors Reza Ghodssi (ECE/ISR/Maryland NanoCenter) at left, Gary Rubloff (materials science and engineering/ISR/Maryland NanoCenter) and William Bentley (BioE/Maryland NanoCenter), along with Gregory Payne at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

Senior research engineer Lewis "Ed" Link (CEE) was interviewed by media outlets across the country about the levee situation in New Orleans. He leads a federal research panel studying the matter.