[CCoE Notice] College Update - December 2011

Tue Dec 13 13:15:47 CST 2011

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http://www.egr.uh.edu/newsletter/deansmemo/images/tedesco.jpgDear Cullen
College Faculty and Staff,

Another successful semester is wrapping and I'd like to thank each of you
for the hard work that you continue to do for the Cullen College. We will be
celebrating the hard work of our students at our graduation ceremony this
Friday, December 16 at 7 p.m. in Hofheinz Pavilion. Hope you can make it and
applaud our newest generation of Cougar Engineers.

Here are a few announcements and updates that I'd like to share with you:

ME Chair: It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of
Professor Pradeep Sharma as the new chair of our Department of Mechanical
Engineering. Pradeep has been a leader in both academic and research efforts
in the department, including our GK-12 program where graduate students teach
high school students advanced topics, our recent proposal to the National
Science Foundation for an Engineering Research Center to advance
nanosciences for energy storage, and has led an NSF Nanoscale
Interdisciplinary Research Team (NIRT) effort to develop piezoelectric
materials. We are very excited about Pradeep's vision for the department and
have full confidence in the direction he plans to take it. Please join me in
congratulating Pradeep on his new appointment and thanking Matt Franchek and
Dave Zimmerman for leading the department in the interim.

ASME: The University of Houston recently received a $1.25 million gift from
ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers). The Cullen College of
Engineering will receive $1 million to establish an endowed chair for our
subsea engineering program. The College of Technology received the other
$250,000 for their petroleum technology initiative. We are extremely excited
about the commitment ASME has made to our subsea engineering program, a
program that continues to draw great interest. 

Dean Kirkpatrick: Charles V. Kirkpatrick, who as dean from 1965-1975 led the
Cullen College of Engineering through a period of tremendous growth, passed
away on December 2 at the age of 95. A petroleum engineer, in the early
1960s Kirkpatrick was named interim dean of the Cullen College and was
appointed the post on a permanent basis in 1965, becoming the college's
second dean. During this period the University of Houston became a state
institution, resulting in a huge increase in the college's enrollment and
the corresponding growth in faculty count. Kirkpatrick successfully led the
college through this time of transition. Kirkpatrick also oversaw
significant improvement to the college's graduate program. Under his watch,
the Cullen College began offering PhDs in five academic areas and hired
several prominent faculty members to support these programs. These efforts
earned him a number of honors, highlighted by an Honorary Doctorate awarded
in 1970 by the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan. His leadership and
contributions were also recognized by alumnus William C. Miller, who
established a $1 million endowed chair in petroleum engineering in 2007 in
his honor.

New Faculty: Recently, two new faculty members joined the Cullen College.
Please join me in welcoming Professors Contreras-Vidal and Gifford to UH!

Professor Jose Luis Contreras-Vidal
<http://www.ee.uh.edu/faculty/contreras-vidal>  joined the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland School
of Public Health, where he served as an associate professor in the
Department of Kinesiology and as part of graduate programs in both
bioengineering, and neuroscience and cognitive science. He received a Ph.D.
in cognitive and neural systems from Boston University in 1994, an M.S. in
electrical engineering from the University of Boulder in 1990 and a B.S. in
electronic and communications engineering from the Monterrey Institute of
Technology in 1987. His research interests include neural, cognitive and
rehabilitation engineering, computational neuroscience, noninvasive brain
neuroimaging, brain-machine interfaces, movement disorders, models of the
injured brain and smart neuroprosthetics.
<http://bme.uh.edu/faculty/gifford/main> 

Associate Professor Howard Gifford joined the Department of Biomedical
Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He received
a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from University of Arizona in 1997. His
research interests include image formation and reconstruction for medical
imaging, objective assessment of imaging systems, visual perception and
sources of observer variability in perception studies, image classification
and pattern recognition, statistical decision and estimation theory and
parallel-computing applications in imaging.

CAREER Workshop: The Cullen College will be hosting a workshop to help
junior faculty learn about applying for NSF CAREER Awards on January 9. For
more information, please contact Associate Dean Fritz Claydon
<mailto:fclaydon at uh.edu> .

Have a wonderful winter break-happy holidays to you and your family.

http://www.egr.uh.edu/newsletter/deansmemo/images/Tedesco_Signature.gif

Joe Tedesco 

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