College of Engineering News
College Awards Recognize Four Engineering Faculty
Posted on: November 6, 2009
Three awards given by the College of Engineering recognize researchers and educators who merit special mention for their achievements at various stages in their careers and a fourth honors great teaching. Each receives a cash award, a plaque; awardees' names are added to plaques on display in the lobby of Kemper Hall.
Outstanding Engineering Junior Faculty Award: David Horsley, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering
Horsley is recognized as a scholar, a dedicated educator and an innovative engineer. He joined the College in 2003, after working for several years in industry, and has focused his research on precision-controlled micromechanical devices, optical MEMS, sensors and mechatronics and automatic control. He is a 2009 recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, an honor accorded a small percentage of teacher/researchers in the U.S. who show great promise.
Outstanding Engineering Mid-Career Award: Marjorie Longo, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Longo is an accomplished researcher whose focus is quantitative microscopy techniques to gain knowledge of the structure, transport, thermodynamics and mechanics of synthetic lipid bi-layer membrane and monolayer systems. These serve as models of real biological membranes with such technical application as drug delivery devices, for example. She actively publishes in top journals, 29 papers in just the last three years, and is widely cited. She also serves as chair two graduate groups—Biophysics and Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. guiding students through rigorous review processes.
Outstanding Engineering Senior Career Research Faculty Award: Biswanath Mukherjee in the Department of Computer Science
Muhkerjee is a leading world authority in optical networks, a field in which he has made significant contributions. He was one of the first to recognize, nearly 20 years ago, the potential for fiber-based networks. His broad and distinguished publishing career reflects the depth of his understanding and activity in this field. Muhkerjee also has been a leader in robust network design, with two of his conference papers, published a decade ago, widely cited in the literature and helping others to likewise push the technology. He has published 2 textbooks, 168 journal papers, 261 conference papers and 17 book chapters. More than 100 of his publications have been in prestigious IEEE journals. His textbook, Optical Communication Networks (McGraw-Hill, 1997) was the first to address key technical issues in optical networking; it is used for teaching graduate classes worldwide. Muhkerjee has attracted substantial funding from NSF, DARPA, other government agencies and a wide range of industry, including Agilent, Cisco, NEC, National Semiconductor, Nokia, Sprint and more. He also served a 5-year term on the board of directors of a start up, and continues to serve on several companies’ advisory boards. At the same time, Mukherjee has mentored 31 Ph. D. recipients, 24 visiting researchers, and currently supervises more than 20 scholars.
Outstanding Engineering Faculty Teaching Award: Rida Farouki, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Farouki is cited by his students as “…a great teacher. In the mechanical design classes that I took with him, he taught the basics of the concepts so that they are easy to understand and then he helped the students apply them to complex problems.”
“…a great professor you would be talking about to your friends and colleagues, not because he was funny, but because he taught you to look at life and engineering problems interwined.”
“He struck an appropriate balance between providing support and guidance while encouraging independent initiative, thought and creativity.”
Farouki’s research interests include computer aided design and manufacturing, geometrical algorithms and representations, and numerical methods and scientific computing. He served as chair of his department from 2001 to 2005.