Kudos, Kudos, Kudos
Faculty and staff
Jim Coleman Jr., piano technician with the School of Music, has been elected president of the Piano Technicians Guild. He will represent the interests of more than 4,000 piano technicians around the world. The Coleman family has a long history in the piano industry. Coleman’s grandfather was a piano technician, along with his father and several brothers. As UT’s resident piano technician, Coleman maintains more than ninety pianos for the School of Music, which will soon be an all-Steinway school. He also runs Coleman’s Tools, a supplier of innovative tools for the piano trade, and services private clientele with Coleman’s Piano Service.
Physics Professor Witek Nazarewicz has been awarded the 2012 Tom W. Bonner Prize from the American Physical Society. The Bonner Prize recognizes and encourages outstanding experimental research in nuclear physics, including the development of a method, technique, or device that significantly contributes in a general way to nuclear physics research. Professor Soren Sorensen, head of the physics department, said the Bonner Prize is “the most prestigious nuclear physics prize in the United States.”
Law Professor Penny White has been named to the board of directors of the Tennessee Supreme Court Historical Society.
Larry Bray with the Center for Transportation Research (CTR) was called as an expert witness to testify before Congress at a hearing titled, The Economic Importance and Financial Challenges of Recapitalizing the Nation's Inland Waterways Transportation System. During the hearing, the president of Waterways Council Inc. said they rely and build upon Bray’s research in commercial inland navigation and in justifying recapitalization requests of the transport system.
Mary Holtman-Reed, director of alumni programs and adviser to the Student Alumni Associates, was presented with the Outstanding Adviser Award by the Affiliated Student Advancement Program.
Amy L. Skinner, associate professor of rehabilitation counseling in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences was one of two women given the Equality honor at the YWCA’s twenty-seventh annual Tribute to Women Event in August. The event honored women in three categories: Equality, Empowerment, and Transformation. Skinner is active in several community organizations, including Goodwill Industries of Knoxville Inc., Volunteer State Rehabilitation Association, Southeast Region National Rehabilitation Association, and the Knoxville Mayor's Council on Disability Issues.
Rupy Sawhney, head of the Department of Industrial and Information Engineering, received the Faculty Excellence Award from UT’s Institute for Public Service at its annual conference.
Younes Sina, a graduate research assistant, along with Associate Professor Gerd Duscher, Associate Professor Yanwen Zhang, and Carl McHargue, professor and director for the Center for Materials Processing—all of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering—won the award for best paper in poster presentations at the Radiation Effects in Insulators-16 international conference being held in Peking, China.
Rob Blitt, associate professor of law, has just been elected as the new co-chair of the American Society of International Law's (ASIL) Human Rights Interest Group.
Brent Mallinckrodt, professor of counseling psychology, is the 2011 recipient of the American Psychological Association Division 44 Evelyn Hooker Award for Distinguished Contribution by an Ally. The award acknowledges exceptional research, clinical practice, education and training, public advocacy, and/or leadership that contributes to depathologizing and destigmatizing people with minority sexual orientations.
Robert D. Hatcher Jr., Distinguished Professor in earth and planetary sciences, has received the 2001 Outstanding Educator Award from the eastern section of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. He was nominated by fifteen of his former graduate students and six of his colleagues in academia, government, and industry.
Sue Hamilton, director of the UT Gardens, has been elected president of the American Conifer Society, southeast region.
Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes, an associate professor and UT AgResearch scientist, will receive $75,000 in grants over three years as part of the DuPont Young Professors program. The program, which began in 1967, is designed to provide startup assistance to promising young and untenured research faculty working in areas of interest to DuPont's long-term business. Jurat-Fuentes, one of eighteen recipients, studies how insects develop resistance to certain toxins.
Dave Icove, a research professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), was named a fellow in the Society of Fire Protection Engineers last week.
Stephen H. Richards, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Southeastern Transportation Center, has been appointed to a three-year term on the executive board of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC). The CUTC provides a forum for the universities and centers to interact collectively with government and industry.
Students
Ben Farr and Jeremy Townsend, both May 2011 graduates and now graduate students in the Department of Nuclear Engineering, received the Charles D. Coryell Award in Nuclear Chemistry from the American Chemical Society’s Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology (ACS-DNCT). The award includes a $500 prize for each. The two have been working on the acquisition, installation and testing of a hybrid K-edge densitometer/X-ray fluorescence (HKED) system in the Radiochemical Engineering Development Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. HKED is used to monitor the amount of uranium and plutonium in process solutions, which is important for safety.
Biosystems engineering undergraduates Grant Davis, Erick Foster, Chanci King, Mathew Menachery, Alysse Ness, Mathew Sewell, and Joseph Yantis were members of the student team that participated in the Fountain Wars design competition in Louisville, Kentucky. Fountain Wars is a hands-on, real-time design challenge in which students design and model the performance of their fountain before the competition, but build and test the actual fountain in front of judges and a live audience in a timed event. The UT team placed third overall and won first place in both the aesthetic display and the horse jump technical task.
Paul Whited, a freshman in computer science, was recently recognized by Union County for having earned the highest ACT test score ever in the county. Whited scored a composite of 34 and was recognized at a ceremony at the mayor’s office on July 17.
Five current students or recent graduates have received grants from the Fulbright US Student Program to work and study abroad. This is the largest number of student Fulbright winners that UT Knoxville has had in at least twenty years. The winners are Scott Wofford, of Nashville, a December 2010 graduate who is going to work and study in Mexico City; Shande King, of Knoxville, a May 2011 master’s degree graduate, who will going to Paris, to teach English; Maha Ayesh, a working attorney who earned her undergraduate degree and law degree at UT and will be going to Jordan to study; and Ariel Brassil, a spring 2011 honors graduate, and Amy Hill, a fall 2010 graduate, both of whom will be going to Germany to teach English.
Melissa Cregger, a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology, was awarded the 2011 Marvin L. Wesely Award from the US Department of Energy. The fellowship is awarded to a Graduate Research Environmental Fellow (GREF) who is doing global change research and who has made the best use of their DOE mentor and facilities.