PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 22, June 1, 2006

achievements A report on honors, awards, appointments and other outstanding achievements of faculty and staff members.

Business |Engineering | FAA |

business
Neil Pearson was named the Harry A. Brandt Distinguished Professor in Financial Markets and Options in May. He has been an IBE Fellow in Finance since 2002. Pearson is one of the country’s leading academic experts in the field of financial economics.

Mark Vonnahme was named the first holder of the Fox Family Distinguished Clinical Professorship in the department of finance. Vonnahme spent more than 30 years in the property casualty and surety industries, retiring in September 2003 as the president and CEO of CNA Surety Corp., the largest publicly traded surety organization in the U.S.

Martha Green received the Outstanding Staff Award this spring. Green is an administrative secretary in the administrative services office in the college. Lois Meerdink, director of Business Career Services, received the Outstanding Academic Professional award.

The College of Business Alumni Association honored teaching excellence: Brooke Elliott, professor of accountancy, received the Excellence in Teaching award for undergraduate teaching; Abbie Griffin, professor of business administration, received the Excellence in Teaching Award for graduate teaching.

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engineering
George Gollin, professor of physics, has been elected to the board of directors of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. His three-year term begins in July. According to the council’s Web site, “CHEA is a national advocate and institutional voice for self-regulation of academic quality through accreditation. It is an association of 3,000 degree-granting colleges and universities and recognizes 60 institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations.”

Nancy R. Sottos, professor and interim head of the department of theoretical and applied mechanics, was invested as a Donald Biggar Willett Professor in the College of Engineering on April 26. Sottos also is a faculty affiliate and co-chair of the Molecular and Electronic Nanostructures Research Thrust at the Beckman Institute.
Sottos’ research group studies the mechanics of such heterogeneous materials systems as advanced composites, thin-film devices and microelectronic packaging, specializing in micro- and nanoscale characterization. Current research focuses on development of materials systems that have the ability to adapt and respond in an independent and autonomic fashion, particularly self-healing in polymers.

Donald E. Carlson, James W. Phillips and Richard L. Weaver, all professors of theoretical and applied mechanics, have been recognized with the 2006 Engineering Council Award for Excellence in Advising. The student Engineering Council group selects honorees. This is the third consecutive time that Carlson and Phillips have won the award.

fine and applied arts
Daniel Sullivan, the Swanlund Professor of Theater, has been nominated for a Tony for Best Direction of a Play for “Rabbit Hole,” which has received nominations in four additional categories. Sullivan was just awarded the Village Voice’s 2006 Obie Award for Best Directing for “Stuff Happens,” the controversial play about activities at the White House leading up to the war in Iraq. Sullivan has been nominated for six Tony awards and was awarded the Tony for Best Direction of a Play for his work on David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Proof” in 2001. 

The Pacifica Quartet, the faculty quartet in residence in the School of Music, has received a 2006 Avery Fisher Career Grant of $15,000 from the Avery Fisher Artist Program. The program was established through a gift by Fisher to New York City’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1974. The career grants are awarded to provide professional assistance and recognition to talented young instrumentalists and chamber ensembles. Pacifica members Sibbi Bernhardsson, Simin Ganatra, Masumi Per Rostad and Brandon Vamos intend to use the grant to support performances of Beethoven string quartets in Champaign-Urbana and Chicago, and a recording of the complete string quartets of Elliot Carter.

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