University community reports awards, honors
For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.
Recent awards and honors include the following:
Awards
Zvi Schwartz, UD professor of hotel, restaurant and institutional management (HRIM), has become the second person ever to receive the W. Bradford Wiley Memorial Best Published Research Paper of the Year award three times. The International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (ICHRIE), the premier international professional association in the field, has now awarded this honor to three papers co-authored by Schwartz.
This year’s winning paper is “What Can Big Data and Text Analytics Tell Us About Hotel Guest Experience and Satisfaction?” published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. Schwartz co-authored this paper with Zheng Xiang and Muzaffer Uysal from Virginia Tech and John H. Gerdes Jr. from the University of South Carolina.
“I am deeply honored,” Schwartz said. “This recognition by my colleagues at ICHRIE means a lot to me. It is especially gratifying since as a UD faculty I find the research part of our job to be both personally invigorating and having a positive impact on my classroom teaching and my interactions with the hospitality industry.”
He also said that the award is “a fitting testament to the high level of inspiration, talent and skills of faculty, colleagues and graduate students who collaborated with me on these research projects.”
Bingqing Wei, professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, has received the 2015 International Association of Advanced Materials Medal for his “notable and outstanding contribution in the field of materials science and technology.”
He will receive the medal on Aug. 24 during a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Wei’s research focuses on nanomaterials and nanotechnology, with applications in supercapacitors, batteries, hydrogen generation, fuel cells, and solar cells.
Honors
The University of Delaware was well represented in the Chains Inc. list of “Delaware’s top 40 under 40” published in the Aug. 13 News Journal. In addition to Yasser Payne, associate professor in the Department of Black American Studies who has worked extensively in inner city Wilmington, the list includes UD alumni Dana Herbert, a 1998 graduate, winner on the Next Great Baker television show and owner of Desserts by Dana; Darnyell Jervey, a 1997 graduate, owner of Incredible One Enterprises in Newark; Dustin Parker, a 2009 graduate, real estate agent and Sussex Academy board members; Wali Rushdan, a 2006 graduate, associate at Fox Rothschild in Wilmington; Monique Taylor-Gibbs, a 2000 graduate, Chains leader and school climate coordinator at Warner Elementary School in Wilmington; Adrienne Wallace, a 2007 graduate, senior statistical research and policy analyst at Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington; and LaShawn Ward, a 2002 graduate, marketing professional in Wilmington.
To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to publicaffairs@udel.edu.
