UH has achieved a historic milestone after surpassing $110 million in research awards this year.

UH was recognized by G.I. Jobs magazine as a Military Friendly School, one that sufficiently facilitates the needs of veterans. The publication will include the university in its 2010 Guide to Military Friendly Schools.

Internationally renowned Swedish researcher Jan-Åke Gustafsson, Robert A. Welch Professor in the biology and biochemistry department, is this year’s recipient of the Fernström Foundation’s Nordic Prize. The prize is one of Scandinavia’s most prestigious medical prizes. Gustafsson, whose research focuses on nuclear receptors, also leads the new Texas-Indiana Virtual STAR Center. The center, which recently received a $3.2 million Environmental Protection Agency grant, will analyze the effects of various toxic chemicals on the developing embryo.

Alumni

Meredith Atwell Baker (’95) has earned unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate to the five-member Federal Communications Commission board.

Patrick Buzzard (’92) was named the new chief of NASA’s Moscow Liaison Office.

Barbara Padilla (’04) was named runner-up on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”

Olympian Yulia Pakhalina (’05) placed first in the women’s 1-meter springboard diving event at the 13th International Swimming Federation World Championships in Rome.

Werner Reinartz (’99), professor of marketing at the University of Cologne, won the American Marketing Association Varadarajan Award for Early Career Contributions.

Michael Twigg (’03) was named the Texas Education Agency Region IV Secondary Teacher of the Year. Twigg is a teacher at Waller Junior High School.

Haiyan Zhang (’06, ’02) member of the research department at ConocoPhillips, and Bogdan Nita, math professor at Montclair State University, received the Society of Exploration Geophysicists J. Clarence Karcher Award. The award is given to individuals under the age of 35 who have made major contributions to the field of exploration geophysics and represent the promise of future significant contributions. Nita was a postdoctoral researcher and research assistant professor of physics and Zhang was a Ph.D. physics student when they conducted the research that earned them the award.

Faculty

College of Technology faculty won the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Mechanical Engineering Division 2009 Best Poster Award at its annual conference and exposition. The poster illustrates the article “A Two- Year Common Template for Mechanical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Technology,” which appears in the 2009 ASEE proceedings. Enrique Barbieri, Raresh Pascali, Miguel Ramos and Dean William Fitzgibbon co-authored the article.

Eugene L. Chiappetta, professor of curriculum and instruction, received the Texas Chemical Council Excellence in Industry Education Award.

Diana S-L. Chow, professor of pharmacy, received the Houston Intellectual Property Law Inventor of the Year Award along with alumnus Harshal P. Bhagwatwar (’95) and Dr. Borje S. Andersson, professor at The University of Texas- M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The award honors the three for developing intravenous formulations of a pre-transplant drug which dramatically enhances the safety of stem cell transplantation for leukemia patients.

Zhu Han, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a Best Paper Award at the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.) International Conference on Communications for his paper “Crystallized Rates Region of the Interference Channel via Correlated Equilibrium with Interference as Noise.”

Alex Ignatiev, director of UH’s Center for Advanced Materials, has been chosen for the position of World Class University Professor by the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea. The appointment is for a five-year period. Law Center Dean Ray Nimmer has again made the list of The Best Lawyers in America in his dual specialties of information technology law and intellectual property law.

Bernard R. Robin, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, received the 2009 Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching Award for Exemplary Online Learning Resources. The award recognizes Robin’s online resource, Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling.

Arthur B. Weglein, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Physics and director of UH’s Mission- Oriented Seismic Research Program, was one of three professors invited to speak at the European Society of Exploration Geophysicists subsalt imaging workshop in Cairo, Egypt.

Students

Mark Knoblauch, a student in the kinesiology program, received a competitive doctoral research grant from the National Strength and Conditioning Association for his dissertation, the “Effects of Hypercholesterolemia on Myofiber Membrane Wounding.” The award will be used to support his proposed dissertation research.

S. Siddiqi was selected as a 2009 Barbara Jordan Health Policy Scholar by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Norah Vasen received the 2009 American Association for Health Education/American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance Outstanding Health Education Major of the Year Award.

Jason Spencer, a high school student-teacher, has been named the State Student Teacher of the Year by the Texas Directors of Field Experiences, and the National Student Teacher of the Year by the National Association of Teacher Educators and Kappa Delta Pi.

 

Science Foundation grant to initiate the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. The Scholars Academy received a $100,000 grant from the Brown Foundation Inc. to support academic enrichment in the academically competitive program that promotes scholarship and student success for undergraduate students majoring in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Hispanic Business Magazine has named William V. Flores, president of the University of Houston- Downtown, to its national Hispanic Business 100 Influentials 2009 list. Flores is one of eight individuals honored in the magazine’s education sector.

Alumni

Mike Thaler (’94) is the new police chief in Pasadena, Texas.

Jorge Ruiz (’08) has won the Hogg Foundation Bilingual Scholarship for graduate study at the UH Graduate College of Social Work.

Faculty

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $499,995 grant to researchers at UHD and Texas A&M University to explore why more women are not entering and continuing in science, technology, engineering and mathematics degree programs and careers. Assistant professor of psychology Anne Rinn is the co-principal investigator.

Ping Chen, associate professor of computer science and the director of the UHD Artificial Intelligence Lab, received a $308,288 National Science Fund grant to provide research experiences for undergraduates focused on algorithm design and analysis in the College of Sciences and Technology.

The U.S. Junior Chamber has named Jacqueline Baly Chaumette, political science adjunct professor, one of the 2009 Ten Outstanding Young Americans.

Robin Davidson, assistant professor of English, received a 2009 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation. Her translations from Polish Northwestern University Press will be published in the book “The New Century: Poems by Ewa Lipska.”

Gene Preuss, assistant professor of history, has published the book “To Get a Better School System: One Hundred Years of Education Reform in Texas.”

Merrilee Cunningham, associate professor of English, organized and taught six creative writing workshops at the American Corners Libraries in Macedonia and Serbia as part of a U.S. Department of State program. This fall, she returned to Macedonia to plan a library-reading program for Macedonia’s public libraries.

Aldine Independent Schools District (AISD) received the 2009 Broad Prize for Urban Education, which includes $1 million in student scholarships. Viola Garcia, associate professor of education, is the president of the AISD board of trustees.

Ken Johnson, assistant professor in geology and chemistry, is co-principal investigator of a $56,000 grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education to study biotic and functional structure of underwater ecosystems in hydrothermal vents in the Devonian of Morocco.

Staff

Duraese Hall, disability services director, is the new president of the Texas affiliate of the Association of Higher Education and Disability.

Students

Nameera Baig, Melissa Chan, Preeti Choudhary, Marlyn Davila, Abdul Jangda, Rameswari Korrapati and Mustafa Mehmood showed individual poster presentations at the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science national conference.

Julio LaTorre was among eight students selected to take part in the 10-week National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Experience in Evolution and Systematics program at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. LaTorre analyzed extinct mammals of South America in the AMNH Department of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The Monster Diversity Leadership Program selected Antoine Williams-Bailey to attend its Dallas conference. Edgar Gatica attended the Third Annual Iowa Mathematical Field of Dreams Conference and StatFest Conference at the University of Iowa.

The Model United Nations Association participated in the United Nations observance of the International Day of Peace at the U.N. headquarters in New York City.

The university presented Distinguished Alumni Awards to Christopher J. Culbert (’86), NASA Johnson Space Center project manager of lunar surface systems, and Delta Airlines CEO Richard H. Anderson (’77). Yale University assistant professor of chemical engineering Corey Wilson (’02) received the Early Achievement Award. UHCL also bestowed Outstanding Professor Awards to associate professor of instructional technology Caroline M. Crawford and Professor Emeritus Gretchen Mieszkowski.

George Guillen, associate professor of biology and environmental science and executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, received a $544,343 four-year award from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for his proposal “Armand Bayou Water Quality Improvement Grant.” He also received a $40,000 award from TCEQ for “Galveston Bay Ecosystem Model Phase I” and a $25,000 subcontract award from Texas Water Development Board through Trinity River Authority for “Development of Ecological Overlay Information and Data for Support of Senate Bill 3 (Science Advisory Committee) Environmental Flow Recommendations.”

Alumni

Sheryl Lightfoot Johns (’86) has been honored by the Conference of Southwest Foundations with its Founders Spirit Award for her many years of service to the organization.

Sandra Jobe, (’90,’01) has been recognized as District 4 Assistant Principal of the Year by the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association. She is assistant principal at Frazier Elementary in Pasadena Independent School District.

Rissie Louise Ownes (’94) has been reappointed as presiding officer and chair of the Board of Pardons and Paroles by Gov. Rick Perry. She has served on the board since 1997 and as chair since 2003.

Faculty

Dorothea Lerman, professor of psychology, received a $132,000 two-year continuation grant from the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County for the project “Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.” She also received continuation grants from local school districts for graduate assistantships in Pasadena ($42,180), Pearland ($40,036) and Clear Creek ($42,180).

Camille Peres, assistant professor of psychology, received a $126,043 two-year award from the National Science Foundation for the collaborative proposal “Collaborative Research: Online Statistics Education: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study II.”

Professor of fine arts Sandria Hu spearheaded a collaboration between UHCL and the Czech Center Museum Houston for Czech visiting artists to present workshops at the museum in conjunction with the university’s International Consortium. A past recipient of multiple Fulbright scholarships, Hu recently received a Fulbright Specialists grant for a 2 ½-week stint at the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia.

Students

Darcy Rivas and Terry Smith received Mae Snowden Bruce Scholarships to assist them in pursuing business degrees. Student Callie Vaughn was one of 14 AmeriCorps members honored by the Harris County Department of Education for their work in the Cooperative for After-School Enrichment AmeriCorps Summer Blast program.

 

GetEducated.com ranked UHV’s Bachelor of Business Administration as the sixth-best buy in the country and the best in Texas. The group evaluates schools by cost and quality.

UHV received two federal grants for the Nurse Faculty Loan Program through the U.S. Department of Health & Human Resources. A $14,801 grant and a $25,134 grant will provide loans to students enrolled in the Master of Science in nursing program with a nurse educator concentration.

Gov. Rick Perry joined UHV President Tim Hudson, UHS Chancellor Renu Khator, state Rep. Geanie Morrison, Texas Sen. Glenn Hegar, and numerous city and county officials for a ceremonial signing of House Bill 1056. The legislation paves the way for the university to add freshmen and sophomores in fall 2010. The university also is launching its new Degree in Three program, the first three-year bachelor’s degree offered by a Texas public university. The program will start in fall 2010.

Faculty

Economics instructor Chien-Ping Chen was honored with the 2009 Distinguished Teacher Award by the Cultural Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston. The award recognizes college educators who were once citizens of Taiwan and have promoted academic and economic exchanges between the two countries.

Linda Dune, assistant professor in the School of Nursing, received the Excellence in Nursing Bronze Award from the Good Samaritan Foundation in Houston.

The article “Cross-Functional Integration and the Knowledge Transformation Mechanism: Implications for New Product Development” by Tanawat Hirunyawipada, assistant professor of business administration, was accepted for publication in the journal Industrial Marketing Management.

Mary Natividad, associate dean of the School of Education & Human Development, was the keynote speaker at the Region 3 conference of the Texas Association of Future Educators.

Vivian Nowazek, assistant professor of nursing, was one of the presenters at the 20th annual International Nursing Research Congress Focusing on Evidence-Based Research in Vancouver. The Cuneiform Press, a fine arts press previously based in Brooklyn, moved to UHV in the fall along with its founder,

Kyle Schlesinger, who is a new communications and publishing professor. The Cuneiform Press publishes up to six books a year in press runs no larger than 500 editions.

Kathryn Tart, nursing dean, traveled to Vietnam to meet with administrators from the University of Economics and Finance (UEF) in Ho Chi Minh City. Officials from the two universities signed a memorandum of understanding to give UEF students a streamlined pathway for applying to UHV’s Second Degree Bachelor of Science in nursing program.

Staff

Charlie Striedel, custodial supervisor in facilities; Billy Lagal, community college program coordinator in the Letting Education Achieve Dreams program; and Magen Besancon, recruiting assistant in the School of Arts & Sciences; were selected as the Employee of the Month for June, July and August, respectively.