Each year at Convocation, Stevens celebrates the opening of a new school year, the arrival of the freshman class, and the accomplishments of our students and faculty in education, research and entrepreneurship.
This year, Provost George P. Korfiatis presented the University's Faculty Recognition Awards.
The honors bestowed showcase the exceptional teaching ability, research accomplishments, and high esteem of the faculty. Professors here at Stevens have the unique ability to work as industry and government leaders in their professional field of choice, while maintaining an absolute dedication to providing unique, challenging and rewarding experiences for both Undergraduate, and Graduate students. The awards have been made possible by the Charles V. Schaefer Jr. Fund for Excellence and include a cash prize along with the appropriate award title for the year following.
Below you will find a review of the honored faculty and students, a history of their involvement at Stevens, and see how personal contributions, working in tandem, can help realize the vision of our University.
2009 Henry Morton Distinguished Professor Teaching Award
Recipients:
Professor Barrese has taught over 40 popular classes. He has given instruction on virtual every industry sector, including Aerospace & Defense, Information Technology and even the Federal Government.
Last year, Dr. Barrese responded to a request by IBM to lead development of a ‘Complex Systems Leadership Workshop.’ Through successful modification of an existing Graduate Certificate, Professor Barrese incorporated extensive examples and customized the material to best suit their needs. The result was so effective that IBM now deploys the workshop worldwide.
Dr. Keith Sheppard receives the Teaching Award for substantial and sustained contributions in a variety of areas. His impact on courses and laboratories is represented in over 1000 credits in the 2008/2009 academic year.
Professor Sheppard has helped incorporate Technogenesis™ into the Undergraduate experience. He has played a key role in the evolution of the engineering curriculum as well as its innovative Design Spine Sequence. He led the overall curriculum revision of 2005; developed new international programs including new initiatives started in Norway 2007 and Ecuador in 2008, and even created research-based international experiences for undergraduate students and even played the lead role in development of a Green Engineering Minor on the forefront of Green education.
2009 Alexander Crombie Humphrey’s Distinguished Associate Professor Teaching Award
Recipient:
With a background in Industry, specifically at Lockheed Martin, Dr. Cloutier is a highly sought after advisor and industry expert due to his systems architecture abilities. His new PhD level class, Advanced System and Software Architecture Modeling and Assessment, has been specifically requested by Lockheed Martin for their senior engineers, and will be taught at several locations during the upcoming academic year. This course has also become the centerpiece the new System and System of Systems Architecting Graduate Certificate.
In addition to being published in several journals, cross discipline work and industry background, Dr. Cloutier has been instrumental in updating the curricula with key approaches to techniques in systems architecting using models and case studies of Technogenesis in action.
2009 Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching award
Recipient:
Dr. Ben-Zvi joined the Howe School as an Assistant Professor in 2006, and his accomplishments include being published in several journal articles and conference proceedings on the use of simulation games as educational tools. Six months ago he received the Technology Instruction Development and Business Case Award from the Workshop on Information Technology Systems (WITS).
In addition, Professor Ben-Zvi has developed a new interdisciplinary undergraduate program in Information Systems, created four new undergraduate courses that emphasize analytical and critical thinking, interpersonal communication and team skills, even serving as an advisor to Stevens Graduate students, thesis advisor and member of the PhD committee.
2009 Jess Davis Memorial Award for Research Excellence
Recipients:
This honor was bestowed upon the two Professors in part due to their paper, which highlights important applications entitled, “Functionally graded electrospun polycaprolactone and β–tricalcium phosphate nanocomposites for tissue engineering applications.” Published in the journal Biomaterials (volume 29, 2008), it was judged to be the best among the submissions received, along with another highly regarded submission entitled, “A hybrid twin screw extrusion/electrospinning method to process nanoparticle-incorporated electrospun nanofibers.” Nanotechnology (volume 19, 2008).
The papers written by Professors Wang and Kalyon have been assisted by the contributions of PhD students engaged in the tissue engineering area. The result of their research was two invention disclosures which were submitted to the Patent Committee of Stevens. They were also shared with a group of Technology Management graduate students with expertise in the biomedical area. This project resulted in analysis of a vast potential market and excellent opportunity to involve students in their research efforts.
2009 The Provost’s Award for Excellence in On-Line Teaching
Recipient:
This award was established to recognize outstanding contributions to on-line instruction and on-line educational program development, and Professor Christine Bullen exemplifies these qualities. From her consistently exceptional student evaluations, to her design and delivery of new on-line courses and even acting as Director of the IT Outsourcing program, Dr. Bullen provides leadership in the movement towards on-line course offerings. Her teaching methods are so well liked in fact, that many students register to take her elective courses after having been in required core courses. Dr. Bullen combines outstanding teaching abilities with new technology implementation and is contributing to Stevens academic programs.
2009 Distinguished Teaching in Recitation and Laboratory Award
Recipients:
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| Joshua R. Ballanco |
Shereazad Jimmy Gandhi |
Mr. Joshua Ballanco is currently a Teaching Assistant in the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Program, pursuing his doctoral studies with Professor Philip Leopold. During the past Academic year, Joshua worked as a recitation instructor for General Chemistry and Biology and Biotechnology. His experience in delivering the recitation and familiarity with the course and administrative abilities were invaluable to the faculty coordinators involved with the courses.
Mr. Shereazad Jimmy Gandhi is currently a Teaching Assistant in the School of Systems and Enterprises who has served as a Teaching Assistant for Entrepreneurial Analysis of Engineering Design since Fall 2005. He is not only an involved and important element in contributing to Stevens as a Teaching Assistant, but also maintains a 4.0GPA and is an active member of the American Society for Engineering Management, and an appointed member of Epsilon Mu Eta.
2009 Honorary Masters of Engineering Degree
Recipient:
Conferred by:
Mark La Rosa, Board of Trustees
The Masters of Engineering Degree Honoris Causa was awarded to Professor Dinesh Verma. The honorary degree was conferred by Trustee Mark La Rosa on behalf of the Stevens Board of Trustees.
Dr. Dinesh Verma serves as the founding Dean of the School of Systems and Enterprises and as a Professor of Systems Engineering. Concurrently, he serves as the Executive Director of the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), a US Department of Defense sponsored University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), focused on systems engineering research.
He is the founder of Stevens’ highly successful System Design and Operational Effectiveness program, and during his eight years at Stevens has successfully proposed research and academic programs exceeding $50 million in value.
Dr. Verma currently serves as Scientific Advisor to the Director of the Embedded Systems Institute in Eindhoven, Holland. Prior to this role, he served as Technical Director at Lockheed Martin Undersea Systems, in Manassas, Virginia, in the area of adapted systems and supportability engineering processes, methods and tools for complex system development and integration. He also continues to work as a consultant for a number of international companies including: Eastman Kodak, Lockheed Martin Corporation, and L3 Communications
Dr. Verma focuses his professional and research activities on conceptual design evaluation, preliminary design and system architecture, design decision-making, life cycle costing, and supportability engineering. In addition to his publications, Verma has received two patents and has another pending in the areas of life-cycle costing and fuzzy logic techniques for evaluating design concepts.
Professor Verma has authored more than 100 technical papers, book reviews, technical monographs, even co-authored two textbooks: “Maintainability: A Key to Effective Serviceability and Maintenance Management, and Economic Decision Analysis.” He is also co-Editor of a textbook on Space Systems Engineering.
Dr. Verma is a Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), a senior member of SOLE, and was elected to Sigma Xi, the honorary research society of America. He serves as on the Core Curriculum Committee of the Delft University’s Space Systems Engineering Program (Holland) and as an advisor to the Systems Engineering Center of Expertise at the Buskerud University College (Norway). He was honored with an Honorary Doctorate Degree (Honoris Causa) in Technology and Design from Växjö University (Sweden) in January 2007 and was the recipient of the President’s Leadership Award that same year.
Congratulations to all award winners at this year’s Convocation ceremony. We are honored to have such distinguished faculty and students, grateful for their leadership role in our research and entrepreneurial endeavors and look forward to upcoming achievements in a new academic year.
About the Awards Alexander Crombie Humphreys Distinguished Teaching Award
Alexander C. Humphreys (1851-1927) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and grew up in Boston. He started working in insurance companies at age 14, and later became an executive with the Bayonne Gas Light Company. This position had more technical requirements, so he enrolled part-time at Stevens, obtaining an ME degree in six years in 1881 at the age of 30. He started his own company with another Stevens alumnus designing and constructing gas plants around the world, and became the second president of Stevens Institute of Technology in 1902. During his tenure, the campus expanded from one city block to 23 acres, growing to include the Morton Building, the Stevens estate including the Castle, Walker Gymnasium and the Lieb and Navy buildings, and the student and faculty body quadrupled. Humphreys taught the nation’s first course in the economics of engineering, and believed it critical to include subjects like accounting, depreciation, planning, contracts and patent law in the education of engineers. He was also responsible for initiating the honor system at Stevens in 1908.
Henry Morton Distinguished Teaching Professor Award
Henry Morton (1836-1902) was the first president of Stevens Institute of Technology. Originally from New York, he came late to science after participating in an early translation of the Rosetta Stone. He was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Dental College in 1863 where he taught chemistry, and became affiliated with the Franklin Institute as editor of its prestigious journal and a promoter of its activities. At the age of 34, in 1870 he was offered the first presidency of Stevens Institute of Technology, which he held until his death in 1902. He was considered a master in engaging public interest in the sciences and galvanizing support for nascent scientific and technical fields. During his presidency, he formulated the core curriculum in mechanical engineering of the institution, while also becoming one of the leading patent experts of the day.
Harvey N. Davis Distinguished Assistant Professor Teaching Award
Harvey N. Davis (1881-1952) obtained his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard; taught mathematics at Brown as an instructor, and then returned to Harvard as a Professor of Physics and Mechanical Engineering. He eventually became Vice President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and in 1930 under his auspices, held the ASME's fiftieth anniversary in the Stevens auditorium where the ASME was founded. He strongly supported the tradition of a four-year undergraduate engineering education based on fundamentals in a "small but good" college. He sought to maintain and build the reputation for teaching in Stevens, as well as its competitiveness in the area of research. Among his many contributions, Harvey N. Davis supported broad-based undergraduate curriculums, brought in new faculty, and started industrial research laboratories such as the "Human Engineering Laboratory". |
