University community reports awards, honors, presentations

For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni.

Recent awards, honors, presentations and service include the following:

Awards

Austin Good, a doctoral student in the College of Engineering, recently won first place in the student paper competition at the 2015 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation. Good was initially selected as one of 13 semifinalists in a pool of 173 paper submissions from around the world, and he went on to win the competition based on a poster presentation to several judges and other guests at the conference.

His paper, “In-plane Characterization of Graded Dielectrics Fabricated Through Additive Manufacturing,” details a method for designing and manufacturing structures that protect antennas, known as radomes. To integrate electromagnetic properties into a structural composite, dielectric powder is 3D-printed between layers of the structural material. Through spatial variation of powder patterns and densities in the material, practical electromagnetic devices such as antireflective surfaces, filters, and flat lenses can be integrated into the structure.

Good is advised by Mark Mirotznik, professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Honors

Tsu-Wei Chou, Pierre S. du Pont Chair of Engineering, was recently awarded honorary professorship by the president of Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu, China. The other recipient of the honor was Nobel Laureate Prof. Akira Suzuki (chemistry, 2010) of Japan. Both Chou and Suzuki delivered plenary lectures before the award ceremony at the 23rd International Conference on Composites and Nano Engineering, which was sponsored by the Southwest Jiaotong University. Chou’s lecture was on nanocarbon-based composites and energy storage devices. Chou is also an honorary professor of Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University and Tongji University in China.

Media

UD’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program was featured in an article in the July 31 issue of El Tiempo Hispano, a biweekly Spanish-language newspaper covering the state of Delaware. In the article, “It’s Never Too Late to Continue Studying” (which was published in both Spanish and English), MALS acting director Jeffrey Richardson explains the program’s focus on serving adult learners and professionals. MALS also differs from traditional graduate programs because it takes a multidisciplinary approach that encourages students to follow their own interests by making connections among various fields of study. The article quotes Guillermina Gonzalez, executive director of the Delaware Arts Alliance, who credits her MALS studies with nurturing her involvement with arts and culture.

Presentations

Alice Ba, associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations and also the Asian Studies Program, presented two invited talks in Malaysia on some of the different ways that China’s growing influence and activities in Southeast Asia, along with intensified U.S. military, diplomatic and economic efforts in the region, create new competitive dynamics that challenge both regional stability and Southeast Asian institutions and initiatives.  She presented “East Asian Transitions and the U.S. Rebalance: The United States, China, and ASEAN” to a program at the Malaysian Armed Forces Defense College on June 10 and “East Asian Transitions and its Institutional Dimensions: The United States, China, and ASEAN” to the East Asia and International Relations Forum, sponsored by Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Institute for Diplomacy and Foreign Relations and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, on June 8. At the University of Malaya’s Institute of China Studies, she also served as an invited discussant on the topic of “ASEAN and China: A Mutual Socialization Contest” on June 15.

Service

Zoubeida Dagher, professor in the School of Education, was elected president of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group. This organization of international, interdisciplinary philosophers, historians and sociologists of science and science educators collaborate on issues that improve science education. Dagher served as president-elect (2013-15) and began her term as president (2015-17) in July.

To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to publicaffairs@udel.edu.

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