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Achievements
INSIDE ILLINOIS, May 19, 2011 [ Email | Share ]
IN THIS ISSUE: LAS | ENGINEERING | FAA
LAS
So Hirata, a professor of chemistry, has been named a Scialog Fellow, by the Research Corp. for Science Advancement, the nation’s oldest foundation for science advancement. Hirata’s three-year $100,000 grant is among seven awarded to early-career scientists for research in solar energy conversion. Hirata’s research focuses on organic photovoltaic materials. Fellows will attend annual closed meetings at Biopshere 2 in Oracle, Ariz. “The Scialog Fellows hold enormous promise for our nation and our pursuit of the transformative – high-risk, high-reward – research on which our scientific innovation and economic leadership depend,” said James M. Gentile, president of RCSA.
Yasemin Yildiz, a professor of Germanic languages and literatures, received a Collaborative Research Fellowship for 2011-2012 from the American Council of Learned Societies for the project “Citizens of Memory: Muslim Immigrants and Holocaust Remembrance in Contemporary Germany.” The project will be conducted jointly with Michael Rothberg, a professor of English at Illinois, and Andrés Nader, an independent scholar in Berlin. Drawing on the complementary scholarly expertise of its three collaborators in Holocaust studies, migration studies and memory studies, this project assembles and analyzes examples of immigrants grappling with the history of Nazism and the Holocaust in a variety of arenas, including community activism, novels, essays, performances and songs. It will result in a book that explores the effects of transnational migration on cultural memory, demonstrates the ways many immigrants take on the histories of their adopted societies, and interrogates the presumption of Muslim anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Lilya Kaganovsky, a professor of Slavic languages and literature, of comparative literature, and of media and cinema studies, has been awarded an International and Area Studies Fellowship from July 1 to June 30, 2012, by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her award is for her second book project, “The Voice of Technology: Soviet Cinema’s Transition to Sound, 1928-1935.” Looking at the intersection of art and technology, of politics and policy, and art and the state, this project uses Soviet cinema’s conversion to sound to think about the moment of historical transition (1928-1932) from avant-garde theory to socialist realist practice, and to consider how the “voice” of Soviet power is transmitted by means of the new technology of film sound. Kaganovsky also is an affiliated faculty member in the Unit for Criticism and Theory, the College of Media and the Program in Jewish Culture and Society.
ENGINEERING
Six faculty members in the College of Engineering have been recognized with Bliss Professorships:
Stephen A. Boppart, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, of bioengineering, of internal medicine and in the Institute for Genomic Biology, is the head of the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute. He leads a group that uses a variety of optical imaging techniques aimed at analyzing cells and tissues for detecting diseases such as early-stage cancers. He also is leading the campuswide Strategic Initiative on Imaging in order to build a stronger community of faculty members, researchers and graduate students whose work involves imaging technology and its applications.
Kent D. Choquette, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, returned to academia after 10 years in industry. His research in the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory focuses on semiconductor photonic and optoelectric device physics, fabrication technologies and systems with a strong emphasis on vertical cavity surface emitting lasers.
Philippe H. Geubelle, a professor of aerospace engineering, has distinguished himself nationally and internationally as an engineer and educator in computational mechanics. His research focuses primarily on the development and use of advanced numerical techniques for the treatment of a variety of complex phenomena occurring in solid/fluid mechanics.
Jaiwei Han, a professor of computer science, is recognized as a pioneer in knowledge discovery and data mining, data warehousing and database systems. He was the first to introduce a pattern-growth methodology for mining frequent, sequential and structured patterns, as well as the first to develop a set of important algorithms for mining such data. He is the director of the Informational Network Academic Research Center.
David N. Ruzic, a professor of nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering, is the director of the Center for Plasma Materials, which studies particle-surface interactions relevant to fusion power and materials processing systems through a combination of computational and experimental means. A leading researcher in the creation of extreme ultraviolet lithography sources and associated equipment for creating semiconductor chips at the 22nm node, Ruzic has led all College of Engineering faculty members in sole-PI direct industry funding, averaging more than $1 million a year for the past seven years.
Albert J. Valocchi, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, is an expert in the numerical simulation of the flow of water and pollutants underground. His research focuses on mathematical modeling of pollutant fate and transport in porous media, with applications to groundwater contamination and remediation.
“Chairs and named professorships recognize faculty members who have demonstrated leadership in their technical areas and contribute significantly to the reputation of the College of Engineering and the university,” said Ilesanmi Adesida, the dean of the college.
FAA
Heather Hyde Minor, a professor of architecture, has received a summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue research on her project “Imperfect Ruins: A Study of Italian Arts and Antiquarian Figure Govanni Battista Piraneis (1720-1778).” The highly competitive Summer Stipend Program supports two months of full-time work on a humanities project.
