University Times

Freddie H. Fu, professor and chair of orthopaedic surgery at the School of Medicine, will sponsor the National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA) New Investigator Award.

The New Investigator Award will be presented at the NATA annual meeting in June to an individual who has made a contribution to sports medicine research. The recipient will be awarded a framed medallion and $2,000 to support research. This award is meant to cultivate research among new members of the profession and is intended for those who are no more than five years past the completion of their doctoral degrees.

Fu has been the head team physician for the Department of Athletics since 1986. He has been a long-time supporter of the athletic training profession, which earned him the 1996 NATA President's Challenge Award, given annually to an individual who has had a major impact on sports medicine.

The Johnstown campus 2001 President's Award for Excellence in Service was presented to two staff members: Victor Kohler, physical plant maintenance, and Sharon Wilson, social sciences.

The award honors staff members who go above and beyond normal job requirements to provide excellent service. The award also recognizes the staff member's dedication to the University and commends that employee's superior effort.

Both Kohler and Wilson were recognized at the annual staff luncheon in December. The honorees were awarded $1,000 and a mantle clock with the University seal.

Jeannette South-Paul, chair of the Department of Family Medicine at the medical school, has received the Women in Medicine Silver Achievement Award from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The award honors women and men who have contributed substantially to the development of women in academic medicine.

South-Paul came to Pitt in summer 2001 to become the chair of the Department of Family Medicine. She was the School of Medicine's first female and first African-American permanent chair of a department.

The AAMC Office for Women in Medicine was formed in 1975 to serve as a liaison and advocate for women in academic medicine at all stages of their career, from medical school through faculty.

Assistant professor of anesthesiology and psychiatry Ronald Glick has been named medical director of UPMC Shadyside's Center for Complementary Medicine.

Glick, who has served as director of the Pain Evaluation and Treatment Institute at Pitt's School of Medicine since 1998, is an expert in the area of pain management and acupuncture.

"I have been exposed to hypnosis and manual medicine techniques and feel very strongly that individuals suffering from chronic disabling conditions can benefit from combined approaches using rehabilitation techniques, traditional medicine and complementary ap-proaches," Glick said.

The UPMC Shadyside Center for Complementary Medicine is the first Pittsburgh-based hospital program to offer nontraditional services to support traditional medical treatments.

The Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania (ESWP) honored engineering professors Anthony DeArdo and Isaac Garcia with the ESWP's Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award for developing lead-free steel. DeArdo and Garcia received the award at the ESWP's annual banquet Feb. 20.

DeArdo, William Kepler Whiteford Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Garcia, associate research professor of materials science and engineering, developed the "green" steel by replacing lead with tin in machining steel. Lead, a toxin, has been added to steel to make it easier to machine, or cut, in manufacturing. Eliminating the lead not only has made the process more environmentally friendly, but has reduced costs for machine shops.

Toni Carbo, dean of the School of Information Sciences (SIS), has been honored for her professional contributions to the field by the Association of Library and Information Science Education (ALISE).

The 2002 ALISE Professional Contribution Award was presented to Carbo at the ALISE conference in New Orleans.

The criteria used to determine awardees include evidence of regular and sustained service that promotes and strengthens the broad areas of library/information science education through the holding of appropriate offices and positions within the profession; contributions that promote and enhance the status of library/information science education, and evidence of leadership and initiative in dealing with issues related to library/information science education.

In the citation for the award, ALISE praised Carbo "as both a practitioner and an ambassador … [and for] the dedication to her students and her contributions to the discipline. Her reputation within the field spans the globe."

Carbo, dean of SIS since 1986, will step aside as dean this summer. She intends to return to research and teaching as a professor in SIS and Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.

The Pittsburgh Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has named Christopher J. Earls, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, Professor of the Year for 2001.

The ASCE gives the award annually to recognize outstanding teaching ability, significant contribution to civil engineering education and meaningful, published research that contributes to advancement in the field.

Earls, who is a William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow, has earned other awards for excellence in teaching and research, including the Peter S. Michie Outstanding Teacher Award and the Phi Kappa Phi Scholastic Achievement Award.

His research involves exploring structural steel design, structural stability and structural analysis using advanced supercomputers.

The ASCE award was presented to Earls during the ASCE Pittsburgh Section's annual meeting last month.

QPitt's Black Law Students Association (BLSA) recognized persons and firms within the Pittsburgh community who have made an effort to increase and retain minority law students, judges and lawyers.

David Herring, Pitt law school dean, was one of four honorees. He was recognized with a special service award as an outstanding law faculty member.

Anne Peagler has joined the Greensburg campus administrative staff as director of conferencing. She will be responsible for marketing the campus's new conference facilities to corporations, non-profit organizations, educators, government agencies and other groups.

Peagler is a 1996 UPG graduate who served most recently as advertising and promotions manager at Southwest Bank/First Commonwealth Financial Corp. She also is active in several community organizations including the Westmoreland County Historical Society, the Greensburg Rotary, Latrobe Business and Professional Women's Club and the Pitt-Greensburg Alumni Association.

Feng Wang, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, has won one of two American Chemical Society 2001 Graduate Student Awards in Computational Chemistry. The award was based on Wang's research exploring how excess electrons interact with water molecules.

The award, sponsored by IBM and the University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute, includes a $1,000 grant and 2,500 hours of free research time on the University of Minnesota's IBM SP supercomputer.

Wang's project, "Drude Oscillator Models to Incorporate Dispersion Interactions Into Model Potentials Describing the Interaction of Excess Electrons With Clusters of Polar Molecules," relies on computer simulations to describe the interactions between an electron and groups (or clusters) of water molecules. The unique feature of Wang's approach is the use of Drude oscillators to model the electrons associated with the water molecules.

This year's winner of the Drew Heinz Literature Prize is Texas author John Blair, an English professor who teaches American literature at Southwest Texas State University. Blair's manuscript, "American Standard," was selected from nearly 250 entries and will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press this fall.

Established in 1980, the Drew Heinz prize recognizes and supports writers of short fiction. The prize carries a cash award of $10,000.

Stephen B. Thomas, director of the Center for Minority Health and the Philip Hallen Professor of Community Health and Social Justice, was honored by Minority Access, Inc., a non-profit educational organization that supports efforts to diversify institutions by improving the recruitment, retention and enhancement of minorities.

Thomas received a Minority Access Mentor Role Model Award for his work addressing public health issues in the African American community and helping eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities.

Bovey Lee, assistant professor of studio arts, is participating in Collage/Assemblage/Montage, a juried art exhibition at the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design in Lancaster. The exhibition runs through March 22.

Lee's digital prints were featured last month at Immedia: 2002, a national juried digital art exhibition organized by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

In April, Lee's interactive work will be exhibited in Unknown/Infinity, a travel show from New York City to Legion Arts/CSPS in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Sally Newman, director emerita of Pitt's Generations Together (GT) program, was honored by the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE) for her dedication to intergenerational work, both in this country and around the globe.

Newman was presented with the Mildred M. Seltzer Distinguished Service Recognition award at AGHE's 28th Annual Leadership Conference.

Newman retired last June as head of GT, where for 23 years she helped implement and oversee programs that united children with elderly adults.

She serves as chair of the International Consortium for Intergenerational Programs, a nongovernmental organization based in the Netherlands. She also is editor of the Intergenerational Programming Quarterly: An Intergenerational Journal of Program Development, Research and Policy, expected to be published early next year.

Newman's contributions to the field include an annual Intergenerational Training Institute, held on the Pittsburgh campus every summer, and the intergenerational specialist certificate, a noncredit 100-hour program that gives professionals in the field credentials for their careers.

Nine Pitt alums were recognized at the Feb. 28 honors convocation, the newest class of "Legacy Laureates." The Legacy Laureate program, launched in 2000, honors Pitt alumni who have excelled personally and professionally.

The laureates are:

* Steven C. Beering (Medicine '58 and CAS '54), president emeritus of Purdue University, whose term as president ran from 1983 to 2000. Prior to his presidency at Purdue and the Purdue University Research Foundation, Beering served as chief executive officer at the Indiana University Medical Center and as dean of the Indiana University School of Medicine. Beering also was director of the Indiana statewide medical education system. Currently, Beering serves as a Pitt trustee and is a member of the board's institutional advancement committee.

He was Pitt's commencement speaker in 1999.

* William A. Sollecito (GSPH '70), a biostatistics research professor and director of the Public Health Leadership Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sollecito went to the University of North Carolina in 1997 from Quintiles Transnational Corp., one of the world's largest contract research organizations, where he was president of Quintiles Americas, responsible for all clinical operations in the United States, Canada and South America. His primary areas of interest include continuous quality improvement, project management and leadership in public health and clinical research.

* Samuel D. Colella (Business '62), managing director and co-founder of Versant Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in the health care industry. Prior to founding Versant Ventures, he was general partner with Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) for more than 17 years. In 1985, Colella established IVP's Life Science Group, the first such focused group within a venture firm. He also served as president of Spectra-Physics, the world's leading laser supplier, and was a senior manager of the Technical Products Division of Corning Glass. He is a director for DoubleTwist, Inc., Argonaut Technologies, Inc., and Symyx Technologies, Inc., and is chair of Syrrx, Inc.

* Christopher V. Dodds (KGSB '83), executive vice president and CFO of the Charles Schwab Corporation and member of its executive committee. Dodds is responsible at Charles Schwab for financial planning and analysis, taxation, corporate accounting, external and regulatory reporting, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations and risk management. He has been Schwab's CFO since 1999 and executive vice president since 1998. He was Schwab's corporate controller from 1997 to 1999 and its corporate treasurer from 1993 to 1997. Prior to joining Schwab in 1986, Dodds served in the treasury departments of Gulf Oil and Exxon.

* John P. Curran (Pharmacy '71 and '68), the principal of Curran Capital Management, which he founded in 1986. Before graduating from Pitt, Curran went to work for Pfizer, Inc., in New York City, where he completed his Pitt dissertation. Curran eventually became a Wall Street securities analyst, specializing in pharmaceutical companies.

* C. Scott Harrison (Medicine '63 and CAS '59), co-founder, CEO and chair of CURE International, a nonprofit spiritual and medical ministry to physically handicapped children in the developing world, established in 1996. In 1976, Harrison was a founding partner of Rehab Hospital Services Corp., the first chain of for-profit rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. In 1991, he gave up an orthopaedic surgical practice to become president and CEO of Kirschner Medical Corp., saving the well-known maker of orthopaedic devices from bankruptcy.

In 1994, Kirschner Medical merged with Biomet, Inc., where Harrison continues to serve as a board member. In 1998, CURE opened the Bethany Children's Center of Kenya, the first hospital of its kind in Africa. In 2000, CURE opened two additional hospitals, one in Tanzania and one in Uganda. Construction is under way for similar facilities in the Dominican Republic and Malawi.

In 1999, Harrison was honored with the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons first AAOS International Humanitarian Award.

* Henry J. Mankin (Medicine '53 and CAS '52), the Edith M. Ashley Professor of Orthopaedics at Harvard Medical School and chief of orthopaedic oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Mankin founded the Orthopaedic Oncology Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1972.

In addition to orthopaedic oncology, Mankin's clinical interests include metabolic bone disease, cartilage, arthritis and Gaucher Disease.

In 1990, he won the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Zimmer Award for Distinguished Achievement in Orthopaedic Research for his pioneering work in improving the diagnosis of bone cancer, improving the results of bone transplants and perfecting techniques for freezing human donor bones for transplantation.

* Bibiana Boerio (KGSB '76), executive vice president and CFO for Ford Financial. Previously, Boerio was the financial director of Jaguar Cars, Ltd., in Coventry, England. Boerio joined Ford Motor Company in 1976 and has held a number of finance positions there in corporate finance, product development, the glass division and in the general auditor's office. She served as the regional marketing manager for the Ford Division in the northeast U.S. and was an assistant controller for Ford Financial from 1988 to 1991. Boerio was awarded the Katz Graduate School of Business Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000.

* Cecile M. Springer (GSPIA '71), former director of contributions and community affairs at Westinghouse Electric Corp., where she worked from 1974 to 1989. She also was president of the Westinghouse Foundation and chair of the Steering Committee for Minority Communications at Westinghouse.

After leaving the company in 1989, she founded Springer Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in corporate and philanthropic programs and institutional development. Springer was president of the University of Pittsburgh's Alumni Association from 1991 to 1992 and received Pitt's Distinguished Alumni Award in 1986.