University Times

Four Pitt faculty were honored by the Carnegie Science Center, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Technology Council and the Pittsburgh Business Times, for achievement in the region's science and technology-related fields.

The annual Carnegie Science Center Awards for Excellence acknowledge research and its innovative application or exceptional teaching.

Karl H. Lewis, professor emeritus of civil engineering, was honored with the science center's educator award for post-secondary teachers. The award recognizes educators for inspiring students to appreciate and apply science.

Lewis was acknowledged further for founding Pitt's Engineering Impact Program, which helps the school recruit African Americans. He also was honored for his role in tutoring and counseling minority engineering students.

The Carnegie Science Center scientist/engineer/technologist awards recognize regional achievements that have led to business, economic or societal benefits in several categories.

Kenneth M. Sochats re-ceived the information technology award for co-founding the Pennsylvania Technology Atlas (PTA) project, which addresses digital divide issues in the state. Using web-based interfaces, PTA collects and disseminates geographic information systems data free of charge to decision-makers, businesses, communities and researchers, fulfilling public relations and economic development roles.

Sochats is assistant professor of information sciences at Pitt and director of the Visual Information System Center.

James T. Cobb Jr., professor emeritus, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, director of the Energy Resources Program and co-director for service at the Engineering Center for Environment and Energy, received an environmentalist award for his work in developing environmentally sound alternatives to traditional coal-fired power systems.

Cobb was honored as a pioneer in technology development that has impacted the stationary and mobile fuel systems in this region and nationwide.

In his role as director of the Division of Radiology Informatics at Pitt's medical school, Paul Chang has transformed the way medical images are transmitted.

Chang, associate professor of radiology, is co-inventor of an imaging system that potentially saves hospitals millions of dollars.

He was honored in the biomedical category.

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Public health administrator Michael Meit has been named director of the Center for Rural Health Practice at Pitt's Bradford campus.

The center expects to help identify and research health care needs in rural America in an effort to improve care. Its initial focus will be on northwest and northcentral Pennsylvania.

Meit currently is developing a mission statement for the center, which will articulate strengths and outline future priorities. He has initiated a home health financing study, the center's first project.

In his most recent position, Meit provided strategic oversight and coordination for the National Association of County and City Health Officials in Washington, D.C., which allowed him to develop links to federal agencies and other national partners.

The rural health center is a cooperative effort with Pitt-Bradford, Pitt's Schools of Health Sciences, UPMC Health System and area hospitals and health care providers. It was created last fall when Pitt-Bradford received a $150,000 grant from the Office of Rural Health Policy within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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The Nationality Rooms and Intercultural Exchange Programs have awarded the 2002 John G. Bowman faculty grants. Recipients are awarded $1,500 to conduct research abroad for their classes.

The award is named for former Pitt Chancellor Bowman (1921-1945), the driving force behind the concept and construction of the Cathedral of Learning and its Nationality Rooms.

The faculty award winners, their disciplines and destinations, are: Anthony Barbieri-Low, history, China and Japan; Daniel Berkowitz, economics, London; Moshe Cohen, religious studies, Israel; Robert De Keyser, linguistics, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine; Sabine Hake, German, Germany; Peter Karsten, history, Australia; Dennis Looney, Italian, Italy; Dennis Ranalli, pediatric dentistry, Germany, and William Thomas, education, Scandinavia.

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David Champion, assistant professor of administration of justice at the Bradford campus, received an Outstanding Graduate Student Research Award from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Champion, who earned his doctorate in criminology from IUP last December, was given the award for his research project titled Sexual Aggression and Cognitive Structures: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Entitlement. He started teaching at Bradford in fall 2000.

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Each year, IUP honors graduate students for their accomplishments in research.

John C. Loh, a resident in Pitt's Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, was awarded the 2002 Richard O'Connor Award of the Arthroscopy Association of North America (AANA). The award was presented this week at the AANA annual meeting. In addition to a certificate, the award carries a $2,000 prize.

The title of Loh's paper is "Does Lateralization of Femoral Tunnel Placement Improve Anterior Cruciate Ligament Graft Function?"

Co-authors of the winning paper who are affiliates of the Musculoskeletal Research Center in the orthopaedic surgery department include: Yukihisa Fukuda, post-doctoral research fellow; Eiichi Tsuda, post-doctoral research fellow; Freddie H. Fu, David Silver Professor and chairman, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Savio L-Y. Woo, A.B. Ferguson Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and director, Musculoskeletal Research Center.

J. Richard Steadman, of Steadman – Hawkins Sports Medicine Foundation, Vail, Colorado, also is a co-author of the research paper.

Research in support of Loh's winning submission was conducted at the Musculoskeletal Research Center at Pitt.

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Melanie O. Anderson, assistant professor of business and director of continuing education at Pitt-Titusville, has been named a Sam M. Walton Free Enterprise Fellow for the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) team for the third consecutive year. Anderson serves as the SIFE team adviser.

SIFE is a non-profit organization that works in partnership with business and higher education to provide college students the opportunity to make a difference and to develop leadership, teamwork and communication skills through learning, practicing and teaching the principles of free enterprise.

The fellowship recognizes Anderson's leadership and support of the SIFE Team at UPT. Under her direction, the SIFE Team received three awards and $2,500 in prize money for its educational outreach projects at the 2002 SIFE Regional Competition and Career Opportunity Fair in April.

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Bopaya Bidanda, the Ernest E. Roth Professor of Industrial Engineering and chair of Pitt's industrial engineering department, has been selected by the board of trustees of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) as a 2002 IIE fellow. Bidanda will be recognized at the IIE 2002 Solutions Conference, to be held May 19-22.

The award is the highest classification of membership in IIE and recognizes the profession's outstanding leaders — those who have made significant, nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering primarily through their professional accomplishments, either managerial or technical, and service to the profession and their communities.

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The Pittsburgh section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) voted unanimously to name Pitt faculty member Minking Chyu its 2001-2002 Engineer of the Year.

Chyu, professor and chair of the mechanical engineering department, is being recognized for his outstanding accomplishments in mechanical engineering, including his election as an ASME fellow. He will receive the award May 24.

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A group of Pitt librarians and staff has been recognized by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) for outstanding achievement in the creation of a web site for the Allegheny County Labor Council (www.Pittsburgh.aflcio.org).

The six Pitt winners who made up the web design group are Marian C. Hampton, instruction librarian; Jamie Hannigan, reference librarian; Amy Knapp, coordinator of library instruction; Gregory P. McCormick, senior building supervisor at Hillman Library; Thomas Twiss, government information librarian, and Eve Wider, reference area supervisor.

They have been awarded RUSA's John Sessions Memorial Award, a plaque given to a library or library system to honor significant work with the labor community and to recognize the history and contributions of the labor movement in the development of this country.

The award is named in honor of John Sessions, former co-chair of the American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations/American Library Association Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups.

According to Amy Tracy Wells, chair of the RUSA awards committee, the new web site "succeeds in providing a multifaceted outreach effort to serve the needs of the council, the local labor movement and working people in the Pittsburgh region." Wells added that "the scope of this voluntary effort — both in terms of content and audiences served — impressed and inspired the committee."

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Clifford R. Brubaker, dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS), was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award, and Michael Boninger, executive director at the Center for Assistive Technology and director of the Model Center on Spinal Cord Injury, was recognized in the Innovations category recently by the Pittsburgh Business Times Health Care Heroes awards.

Much of Brubaker's research has involved improving wheelchair design and seating; he has received several patents for wheelchair cushions. During his tenure as dean, SHRS has trained more than 3,000 students in the rehabilitation field. In 1997, a doctoral program in rehabilitation sciences was established at Pitt.

In 1988, Brubaker received the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America Distinguished Service Award. He served as that organization's president in 1995 and 1996. In 1995 he received the Isabelle and Leonard H. Goldensen Technology Award from United Cerebral Palsy.

Boninger, who is associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, has a secondary appointment in SHRS. He has been an innovator in prevention of secondary disability for wheelchair users by preventing repetitive strain injuries.

Boninger completed a National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research fellowship in assistive technology at Pitt. He received a Clinical Investigative Development Award from the National Institutes of Health through the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research.

Boninger also received the Association of Academic Psychiatrists Young Academician Award.

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Bernie Meyer, assistant professor and director of the administration of justice program at the Bradford campus, has been named president of the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Justice Educators. The association's membership includes criminal justice educators from colleges and universities across Pennsylvania.

This summer Meyer will represent Pennsylvania at the Northwest Association of Criminal Justice Sciences annual conference in Bristol, RI.

In keeping with the conference theme of policy development, Meyer challenged the membership within the next year to develop a conceptual role and a model for collaboration of practitioners and researchers in solving criminal justice problems in Pennsylvania.

According to Meyer, practitioners and researchers can assist each other in understanding problems, develop solutions and implement, adapt and evaluate those solutions. Policy making and problem solving in the criminal justice system comprises political, social and legal influences, and should include research-based knowledge, Meyer said.

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Michael A. Worman, president of Pitt's Titusville campus, was presented with the Directors Award at the annual Titusville Chamber of Commerce banquet last month. This award is presented to the person who represents "outstanding leadership in business and community."

C.J. Tisi, executive director of the Chamber of the Commerce, said the board selected Worman in recognition of his strong leadership of UPT and focused approach to traditional and non-traditional learning.

Tisi said, "This award is an honor, a well-deserved one, that recognizes President Worman's dedication and forward thinking at UPT and within the community."