University Times

The School of Engineering honored seven of its graduates with Distinguished Alumnus Awards. The recipients are: Roger Barna, bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, 1963. He is currently the president of Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. in Warrendale, PA. Barna was the first non-Japanese executive to head a Mitsubishi-named company.

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Allen Biehler, bachelor's degree in civil engineering, 1967. Biehler is vice president of Frederick R. Harris, Inc. and is a registered professional engineer in Pennsylvania. His experience includes highway planning, aviation planning, waterway transportation and mass transit. He was responsible for the development of Port Authority's major fixed guide way improvements including expansion of the busway system and reconstruction of Stage II South Hills light rail transit. George Huber, master's degree in industrial engineering, 1965. Huber is vice president and counsel at the University Pittsburgh Medical Center. He also served as licensed professional industrial engineer in the U.S. Air Force and was a private practice attorney and faculty member in Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry.

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Robert Luffy, bachelor's degree in civil engineering, 1972, and master's degree in business administration, 1979. Luffy is the president and CEO of American Bridge Company, whose recent projects include the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City. Leighton Orr, bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, 1928. Orr is a retired technical consultant in glass and ceramics. He has published numerous articles and worked with many government agencies on strength, test procedures, and fracture analysis of glass and manufactured glass products.

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Leonard Peters, bachelor's degree, 1962; master's degree, 1969, and Ph.D., 1971, in chemical engineering. Peters is vice provost for research and dean of the graduate school at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He also has held numerous positions at the University of Kentucky and Cleveland State University. Among his research areas, he specializes in atmospheric transport and chemistry, and physico-chemical behavior of aerosol systems.

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Susan Wood, master's degree, 1973, in metallurgical engineering and Ph.D., 1976, in materials engineering. Wood is vice president and director of Savannah River Technology Center, Westinghouse Savannah River Company. She holds patents in materials engineering and has performed extensive work in advanced analytical techniques with a wide variety of materials. Author of more than 30 papers for scientific journals, Wood often speaks at national and international conferences.

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For more than 30 years, the School of Engineering has honored the professional achievements of its graduates through the Distinguished Alumnus Award Program. Christopher H. Evans, Henry J. Mankin Professor of orthopaedic surgery and professor of molecular genetics and biochemistry, was awarded the 1997 Osteoarthritis Research Award of the Osteoarthritis Research Society. This is an international prize awarded biannually. His major contributions have been in showing the role of cytokines and nitric oxcide in osteoarthritis.

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Timothy Thompson, senior admissions officer, Office of International Services, was asked to serve on two delegations representing the U.S. with regard to a Council of Europe and UNESCO joint "Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications Concerning Higher Education in the European Region." The first delegation was to the consultation of the potential signatory states and the second was to the diplomatic convention. The convention established protocols and guidelines regarding the standards and processes for a party (national agency, ministry or institution) reviewing educational qualifications and credentials of another party for educational or other purposes. The guiding principle behind the convention is to facilitate academic mobility.

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The Graduate School of Public Health has appointed Charles Rinaldo as chair of the department of infectious diseases and microbiology. Rinaldo, a world renowned AIDS researcher, is the director of the Pittsburgh site for the national Multi-Center AIDS Cohort Study, locally known as the Pitt Men's Study.

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Barbara Rockenbach has been appointed the School of Information Sciences' (SIS) first Information Ethics Fellow. Rockenbach is a master's student in the SIS Department of Library and Information Science. She will also assist with the planning and coordination of the annual "Dean's Forum on Information Ethics." Paul Paris has been named as the first chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the School of Medicine. Paris is also chief medical officer of the Center for Emergency Medicine, the medical director of the City of Pittsburgh Department of Public Safety Bureau of EMS; medical director of the Emergency Medical Services Institute, the past president and founding member of the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) and one of the founding members of the Pittsburgh Emergency Medicine Foundation.

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Robert Comfort, College of General Studies, has been inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.

Two senior staff members have been added to the Institutional Advancement office.

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Albert J. Novak will join Pitt as associate vice chancellor for corporate and foundation relations, and Dee Jay Oshry will join Pitt as campaign director.

Novak comes to the University after six years in fundraising and development work at Carnegie Mellon University, where he served most recently as director of corporate and foundation relations. Oshry has worked in fund- raising for more than 20 years and joins Pitt after seven years with The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, where he served as vice president for institutional development. Prior to that he was with Ketchum, Inc. as a campaign director and vice president.