Dr. Dimitris Lagoudas, associate vice chancellor for engineering and deputy director of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), recognized Faculty and Staff Award winners during the 2018 Faculty and Staff Awards banquet.
Lagoudas presented Faculty Awards, Staff Excellence Awards, a New Employee Award, a Key Contributor Award and the Engineering Team Award. A new category was added this year, the College of Engineering Research Impact Awards, to highlight research that has had an impact beyond conventional boundaries, such as opening a new line of research, producing a tool widely adopted by industry or establishing a startup venture.
Staff Awards
Key Contributor Award — Damon Slaydon (human resources)
New Employee Award — Michael Elverud (materials science and engineering).
Staff Excellence Award — Chris Huff (information technology); Murat Kaynak (materials science and engineering); Cheryl Kocman (industrial and systems engineering); Keisha Lamb (engineering payroll); Rebecca Marianno (aerospace engineering);
Debbie Oakes(Offshore Technology Research Center); and Zahir Odovicic (aerospace engineering).
Engineering Team Award — Engineering Facilities (John Clark, Andy Deuel, Stephen Franklin and David Glockzin).
Faculty Awards
College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching Award —Mahmoud El-Halwagi (chemical engineering); Michael Johnson (engineering technology and industrial distribution); and Patrick Shamberger (materials science and engineering).
Instructional Faculty Teaching Award — James Donnell, (mechanical engineering); Kristi Shryock (aerospace engineering); and Doug White (chemical engineering).
College of Engineering Outstanding Contribution Awards
Charles Crawford Distinguished Award for contributions — Bryan Rasmussen (mechanical engineering)
George Armistead, Jr. ‘23 Faculty Excellence Award for contributions— Mark Holtzapple (chemical engineering)
William O. and Montine P. Head Memorial Award for contributions — Raymundo Arroyave (materials science and engineering) and Melissa Grunlan (biomedical engineering).
Williams Brothers Construction Engineering Award for contributions — Stefan Hurlebaus (civil engineering)
College of Engineering Service Awards
George Armistead, Jr. ‘23 Faculty Excellence Award for service — Benjamin Wilhite (chemical engineering)
William Keeler Memorial Award for service — Natarajan Gautam (industrial and systems engineering); Aydin Karsilayan (electrical and computer engineering); and John Keyser (computer science and engineering).
William O. and Montine P. Head Memorial Award for service — Bryan Maggard (petroleum engineering) and Edward White (aerospace engineering).
College of Engineering Faculty Fellows
George Armistead, Jr. ‘23 Faculty Fellow — Jodie Lutkenhaus (chemical engineering)
Charles H. Barclay, Jr. ‘45 Faculty Fellow — John Valasek (aerospace engineering).
Barbara and Ralph Cox ’53 Faculty Fellow — Jim Morel (nuclear engineering)
Holleran-Bowman Faculty Fellow — Bimal Nepal (engineering technology and industrial distribution).
TEES Fellow Awards
TEES Young Faculty Fellows — Moble Benedict (aerospace engineering); Jens Figlus (ocean engineering); Huilin Gao (civil engineering); Xia (Ben) Hu (computer science and engineering); and Bruce Tai (mechanical engineering).
TEES Faculty Fellows — Tim Davis (computer science and engineering); Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna (computer science and engineering); Daniele Mortari (aerospace engineering); Xiaoning Qian (electrical and computer engineering) and Miladin Radovic (materials science and engineering).
Dean of Engineering Excellence Award
Assistant Professor — Akhilesh Gaharwar (biomedical engineering); Darren Hartl (aerospace engineering); Yang Shen (electrical and computer engineering).
Associate Professor — Michael Demkowicz (materials science and engineering);
Eduardo Gildin (petroleum engineering); Guofei Gu (computer science and engineering) and Gregory Huff, (electrical and computer engineering).
Professor —Debjyoti Banerjee (mechanical engineering); Zhengdong Cheng (chemical engineering); Frank Shipman (computer science and engineering); Alex Sprintson (electrical and computer engineering); and Vladislav Yakovlev (biomedical engineering).
College of Engineering Research Impact Awards
New this year, these awards recognize research that has had an impact, broadly defined as leading to outcomes that extend beyond conventional boundaries, including opening new lines of research, solving a long existing problem or producing tools or products that have become widely adopted in practice by industry and/or government.
Yu Ding (industrial and systems engineering), for innovations in data and quality science impacting the wind energy industry. Ding’s efforts have significantly improved performance and reliability of wind turbines, catalyzing multi-million dollar investments from industry.
Guofei Gu (computer science and engineering), for development of innovative software defined network security technology. Gu’s innovations have been widely adopted by major internet and telecommunications companies, and are laying a foundation for secure communication in next-generation networks.
Duncan Maitland (biomedical engineering), for development of innovative shape memory polymers (SMPs) for biomedical applications. Maitland’s efforts have led to commercialization of a peripheral vascular occlusion device—the first biodegradable SMP device approved for human use in the world.
Scott Socolofsky (civil engineering), for development of improved forecasting tools to model the dispersal of pollutants in offshore oil spills. Socolofsky’s tools have been widely adopted by industry and government bodies (including NOAA) to develop strategies for optimal deployment of dispersants to contain the spread of oil spills.