Winners: UW shines in recent presidential awards

« Washington Engineer - October 2005

Computer Science & Engineering’s Richard Ladner gets presidential mentoring award

: Richard Ladner is the second UW professor to get the PAESMEM in as many years.

A University of Washington theoretical computer scientist whose work includes access technology for deaf and blind people has been named a recipient of this year’s Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Richard Ladner, Boeing Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, is one of nine individuals from around the country who received the award at the White House recently. John Marburger, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy for President Bush, presented the awards, and recipients had an opportunity to talk briefly with the president.

The annual award is administered by the National Science Foundation and includes a $10,000 grant for continued mentoring work and a presidential commemorative certificate.

Ladner said the recognition was rewarding. Until now, little attention has been given to scientists whose work focuses on those with disabilities.

“I think it’s a statement by the NSF that persons with disabilities really matter and they should be involved in the enterprises of science, mathematics and engineering.”

But, he added, the honor was also inspiring.

“When you get an award like this, it’s not an invitation to rest on your laurels. It’s actually a challenge to do more,” Ladner said. “You feel like Popeye – you’ve got your spinach, you have a little extra muscle in your arms and you’re motivated. And that’s the expectation, I think. Even the NSF people asked us what we were going to leverage this into.”

Ladner’s win makes two in a row for UW Engineering.

Last year, Denice Denton, then dean of the college, won for work she has done to make science and engineering curriculum more accessible to women and minority students. In addition, two programs affiliated with UW Engineering have won the award in the past – the Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking and Technology program was recognized in 1997 and Women in Science and Engineering got the award in 1998.

“We know the importance of Richard’s work and it is great to see him get national attention for it,” said Mani Soma, acting dean. “The fact that we had a winner last year and have had two winning programs earlier than that speaks volumes for our commitment to diversifying the engineering force so we can effectively meet the challenges of today”s global marketplace.”

Two UW engineers win presidential early career awards

Two assistant engineering professors at the University of Washington are among 58 of the nation’s most promising young scientists and engineers to be recognized recently at the White House as winners of this year’s Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.

The UW engineers are among four UW winners total – more than from any other institution. Other winners include one from the Department of Chemistry and another who works primarily at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center but also has an appointment in the UW School of Medicine.

In addition, two of the awardees from other universities are UW alums.

“We spent about 45 minutes with the president,” said Radha Poovendran, assistant professor of electrical engineering and one of the UW winners, after the ceremony. “It was great.”

In addition to Poovendran, the UW winners include Wei Li, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, David S. Ginger, assistant professor of chemistry, and William M. Grady, assistant professor of medical science at the UW and assistant member of the clinical research division at the Hutchinson Center.

“These presidential awardees are the young people who will lead our nation’s progress in science and engineering as they leap the fences, cross the boundaries and build the blocks of new and exciting areas of science,” said Arden L. Bement Jr., director of the National Science Foundation, one of eight federal agencies that supported the winners.

Wei Li is studying an innovative fabrication process to create polymer-based, porous microstructures that will lead to new applications in emerging technologies such as fuel cells, biochemical sensors and controlled drug-delivery devices. His focus on interdisciplinary training helps prepare students for the rapidly changing engineering profession. Li is sponsored by the NSF.

Radha Poovendran received the award for accomplishments in applied cryptography in resource-constrained wireless networks, groundbreaking work on entropy techniques for multi-sensor security, discovering novel algorithms and foundational work on cross-layer design techniques. He was also recognized for teaching and graduate student mentoring. The Department of Defense is Poovendran’s sponsor.

The award, established in 1996, is intended to honor the nation’s most promising beginning researchers. Each year, eight federal departments and agencies nominate young scientists and engineers whose work shows exceptional promise in expanding the frontiers of scientific knowledge in the coming century. The agencies fund award winners for up to five years so they can further their research in critical areas.

Other Stories...

Bioscience at UW again leads in NIH funding
Engineering gets $6.5 million from NSF for new biomimetics center
Student team takes honors in national hydrogen competition
Pollack named honorary prof of Russian Academy
EE student trio takes top honors at IEEE meeting
Bioengineering grad student takes third place in IEEE paper competition
Assistant CSE prof wins Packard Fellowship
Doctoral students win Intel Foundation Fellowships
Undergrad recognized by national honor society as one of the country’s top A&A students

UW bioengineering leads the nation in NIH funding

The UW has once again topped the nation in biomedical engineering research funding from the National Institutes of Health.

According to figures posted on the NIH Web site, the University of Washington received $20.06 million in biomedical engineering-related funding from the federal agency. Most of that was in the Department of Bioengineering, although some of the total went to other departments in the College of Engineering.

The second-place for funding went to Georgia Tech with $13.3 million, while Johns Hopkins took third with $12.38 million.

Other schools in the top 10 include the California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Michigan, Boston University, University of California San Diego, Duke University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Not many people are aware of the UW’s dominance in this area of NIH funding, according to Yongmin Kim, chair of the school’s Department of Bioengineering.

“When I relate this information in my presentations, many people are surprised,” he said.

“If you look at the top 10 institutions on the list, they are elite institutions,” Kim said. “The fact that we lead these other elite institutions by such a large margin is a testimonial of the quality of faculty that we have in bioengineering and in the College of Engineering, and also of the quality of research being done and the leadership in those research initiatives.”

The numbers were gleaned from three areas on the NIH Web site, Kim said.

NSF gives $6.5 million for new UW center to explore advanced materials

The National Science Foundation has awarded $6.48 million over six years to fund a new center at the UW to study engineering advanced materials that take their cues from nature.

The entity, named the Genetically Engineered Materials Science and Engineering Center, will be directed by Mehmet Sarikaya in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, a leading researcher in the field of biomimetics. The goal of the center, according to Sarikaya, is to integrate tools of modern biology with state-of-the-art chemical synthesis to construct hybrid materials with properties that cannot be achieved through traditional biological or chemical routes.

The center was one of two such funded nationally by the NSF. Matching funds from the UW bring the total funding to $7.7 million.

UW engineering students take honors in national hydrogen system design contest

: UW “hydrogen team” members with their areas of expertise were, from the left, Clint Nelson (civil engineering), Liyang Chen (electrical engineering), Greg Martin (art), Justin Reed (electrical engineering), Brandon Renfrow (computer science and engineering), Alex Zheng (computer science and engineering), Jenny Lu (business), Timothy Chow (bioengineering), and assistant electrical engineering Professor Kai Strunz.

An eight-member team made up mostly of engineering students received honorable mention in the 2005 Hydrogen Systems Design Contest sponsored by the National Hydrogen Association, ChevronTexaco and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The UW team was recognized “for the brilliant innovation, technical aptitude and superior originality in the design of a next-generation hydrogen power park.”

Judges gave the group high marks for efficient urban integration of sustainable, energy-based hydrogen generation and delivery. The reviews also praised a “great approach to bring hydrogen to a large congregation of high income level customers in an area where green thinking is welcome and supported by the community.”

Electrical engineering assistant Professor Kai Strunz served as team adviser.

Bioengineer named honorary professor at Russian Academy of Sciences

Read a news release about Pollack's work

Gerald Pollack, professor in the Department of Bioengineering, traveled to Moscow recently where he was inducted as an honorary professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The honor was intended to recognize Pollack’s creative contributions to the fields of molecular biomechanics, cell function and the interfaces science.

EE student trio takes top honors at IEEE meeting

Three UW electrical engineering students took first prize for a poster presentation at the IEEE 2005 Power Engineering Society general meeting in San Francisco last spring. The students, Alanson Sample, David Seater and Dan Yager, won with their poster titled “Mobile Monitoring of Underground Cable Systems,” which describes their research on using autonomous robotics to monitor and estimate the remaining service life of underground power distribution cables. Their project adviser was associate Professor Alexander Mamishev.

Grad student in bioengineering takes third place in IEEE paper competition

Bioengineering doctoral student Jennifer Flexman took third place in the student paper competition for the 2005 International Conference of the IEEE, Engineering in Medicine and Society. Her paper was titled “A Viral Envelop as a Vehicle for Tracer, Drug and Gene Delivery: Initial Biodistribution Study Using PET Imaging.”

Two other bioengineering students, Eung-Hun Kim and Siddhartha Sikdar, made the top 15 finalists in the contest.

Assistant CSE professor wins Packard Fellowship, bringing department total to three

Venkat Guruswami, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, has won a 2005 Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. Packard Fellowships are considered among the most prestigious awards for young science and engineering faculty – just 16 are awarded each year. Guruswami joins fellow CSE faculty members Raj Rao and Chris Diorio as Packard recipients.

Doctoral students win Intel Foundation Fellowships

Two doctoral students in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering have been awarded Intel Foundation Ph.D. Fellowships.

Rick Cox will use his fellowship to focus on researching systems support for new application usage models that can more directly provide security and robustness. He is advised by CSE Professor Steve Gribble.

Tapan Parikh’s fellowship research will focus on designing accessible, inclusive technologies – user interfaces and computing devices that span traditional boundaries of education, economy, geography, and language. Parrikh is advised by Profs. Ed Lazowska and David Notkin.

A&A student gets award from national honor society

Toru Yamasaki, a student in the Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics, has been recognized by Sigma Gama Tau as one of seven top aeronautics students in the country. Sigma Gama Tau is the national honor society for aeronautics.