Accolades

Dawn Lundy Martin, a professor in the Department of English and co-director of the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics, has been awarded a 2018 Creative Writing Fellowship in nonfiction from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Martin is one of only 36 literary professionals awarded this fellowship for 2018.

The NEA’s most direct investment in American creativity, the fellowship program is designed to encourage ascending writers to produce new works of literature. It seeks to give fellows the means, space, and time to develop individual projects. Martin will use the award to write a collection of linked autobiographical essays. These essays will serve as a memoir of Martin’s experiences growing up in a working-class Black community in Hartford, Connecticut, and being bussed to the affluent, predominantly Caucasian suburb of Glastonbury for school. The memoir will highlight the effects of these divergent race and class experiences.

Marlene Cohen, associate professor of neuroscience, has won a Troland Research Award, bestowed by the National Academy of Sciences. The $75,000 grant is given annually to two young researchers whose work is expanding empirical research in the broad field of experimental psychology.

Cohen’s research in neuroscience looks at how visual information is encoded and processed in the brain, and how quick decisions get made based on that visual information. By recording simultaneous responses from multiple neurons at a time, she’s able to get a clearer picture of the mechanisms behind cognitive processes like paying attention and perceptual learning.

Cohen will accept the Troland Award at the 155th NAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, April 19, 2018. 

University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Patrick Gallagher and Provost Patricia E. Beeson recently presented the Swanson School of Engineering's Minking Chyu with a medallion recognizing his appointment as Distinguished Service Professor. The presentation was held during a virtual board meeting between representatives at Pitt and Sichuan University in December. Chyu is currently the Leighton and Mary Orr Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Associate Dean of International Initiatives, and the inaugural Dean of the Sichuan University-Pittsburgh Institute in China. Read more about the award and Chyu's work here.

Mervat Abdelhak, department chair and associate professor of Health Information Management and Health Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh, was recently named to the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education’s board of directors.

The commission is the accrediting body for health information management education programs.

Abdelhak is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on health information practice issues and education. She is widely published with more than 40 publications in top health information management and health informatics journals including the textbook, “Health Information: Management of a Strategic Resource,” now in its fifth edition.

A team of computer engineering and bioengineering researchers from the University of Pittsburgh won the Best Paper Award at the 3rd International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization & Big Data (MOD 2017). The paper titled, “Recipes for Translating Big Data Machine Reading to Executable Cellular Signaling Models,” describes how automated machine reading can be used to pore over volumes of research and use that information to create models for understanding biological processes.

“These models are used to conduct and explain hundreds of thousands of simulated experiments, which would be impractical if done with biological material in the lab,” said Natasa Miskov-Zivanov, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering. “Our paper won the Best Paper Award because the methods it presents are critical to automating the process of model generation from vast amounts of literature without human intervention.” 

Read more about the research at the Swanson School of Engineering's website.

“Butterflies of Pennsylvania: A Field Guide” — published by the University of Pittsburgh Press — was recognized with a 2017 National Outdoor Book Award in the Nature Guidebooks category. Authored by James L. Monroe and David M. Wright, the book features more than 900 color photographs of all of the recorded butterfly species in Pennsylvania. Monroe is a research associate at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity in Gainesville, Florida, and professor emeritus of physics at Penn State Beaver. Chairman of patient safety and quality control at Abington – Lansdale Hospital in Pennsylvania, Wright is an anatomical and clinical pathologist who has published extensively on the butterflies of Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering and Distinguished Service Professor of Engineering at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, will be honored by the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers—Pittsburgh Chapter with its Distinguished Service Award.

Holder will be recognized at an event in February for his contributions to the engineering profession and his legacy in engineering education. He came to the University in 1979 and served as chair of chemical engineering from 1987-95 and became dean of engineering in 1996.

“The University of Pittsburgh’s engineering program is one of the oldest in the U.S., and Dean Holder has helped to establish its national and international reputation for excellence,” said Scott Sukits, president of the society's Pittsburgh chapter. 

H. Richard Milner IV has been recognized within Education Week’s 2018 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings.

Milner is ranked 70th in the national list, which identifies the nation’s top 200 university-based scholars who are doing the most to shape educational practice and policy. Milner is the sole Pitt faculty member listed, and he is the only scholar named from an educational institution in Western Pennsylvania.

At Pitt, Milner conducts in-depth research on the impact race and poverty plays on educational access. He is considered a national authority on the barriers to educational opportunities for traditionally underrepresented communities.

A Pitt faculty member since 2013, Milner is the Helen Faison Endowed Chair of Urban Education and the director of the Center for Urban Education, both within the University’s School of Education. Additionally, Milner also holds secondary appointments in Pitt’s School of Social Work, as well as the departments of Africana Studies and Sociology. 

Two University of Pittsburgh faculty members from the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences were recognized with awards from the Pennsylvania Physical Therapy Association.

Physical therapy assistant professor David Wert received the association’s Neurological Special Interest Group’s Award of Excellence. The award honors a member of the physical therapy association who has made a lasting contribution to the state of Pennsylvania in the field of neurology.

Vice dean and physical therapy associate professor Debora Miller received the Carlin-Michels Achievement Award, which recognizes her numerous contributions and accomplishments as a clinician and educator.