NSM Pride: Awards and Honors
Share News of Your Achievements
NSM is proud of the achievements of our outstanding alumni, students, staff and faculty. Submit news of your awards, new jobs and honors to breakthrough@nsm.uh.edu or contact Kathy Major at ksmajor@uh.edu or 713-743-4023.
Alumni
Micaela Bouter (’18, Biology) represented South Africa in the Olympic games in Tokyo. She was the second South African from UH to compete at the Olympics games, qualifying in the 3-Meter Springboard event. Bouter closed out the preliminary round with a five dive score of 216.15.
Carlos Perez (’17, teachHOUSTON Biology), was recognized at the 2021 UTeach STEM Educators (USEA) Conference, receiving the USEA Outstanding Alumnus Award for his work as a science educator and teacher-mentor. Perez teaches ESL, On-Level, and Honors Biology at Cypress Ridge High School. He serves as the team lead for biology, leading the biology program for the New Arrival Center and the school district’s efforts to modify the biology curriculum to meet student needs.
Ramakrishna Ponnapati (Ph.D. ’09, Chemistry) has been named to the inaugural class of Offshore Technology Conference Emerging Leaders. The OTC Emerging Leaders are young professionals who are making key contributions to the offshore energy sector in their field of work, service to the industry, innovation and focus on safety. Ponnapati is Techno-Commercial Manager at Baker Hughes.
Carl Suerte (December ’20, Biology) received a Fulbright Student Research Grant. He will work in Robert Campbell’s Lab at University of Tokyo, where he spent a summer during his undergraduate years with funding through the Houston Scholars Program. Suerte will work toward developing a high-performance tool to image a metabolic pathway implicated in neurodegeneration. Related Photo
Students
Muhammad Naeem Akram (Ph.D. Student, Computer Science) received a German Academic Exchange Service’s (DAAD) Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) Professional Scholarship. DAAD, a publicly funded independent organization, offers an opportunity for graduate students to work at top German universities and institutions in the summer.
Arvand Asghari (Ph.D. Graduate, Biology) won the inaugural UH Graduate School Outstanding Dissertation Award. The award recognizes “original work that makes an unusually significant contribution to the discipline.” Two graduate students were recognized. The categories were biological sciences, and humanities and fine art. Asghari received $1,000. His dissertation was “An Investigation into the Role of 27-Hydroxycholesterol and Estrogen Receptors in Adipose Tissue, Obesity, and Breast Cancer.” Related Photo
Ashley Cruz, Shailee Modi (Biology Majors), Ana Gutiérrez (Mathematics/teachHOUSTON Major), and Olivia Lee (Biochemistry Major) received Fulbright English Teaching Assistant Awards. All four students graduated in May 2021. Cruz will be serving in Mexico, Gutiérrez in the Spanish region of Galicia, Lee in Germany, and Modi in the Czech Republic. Related Photo
Fernando Flor (Ph.D. Student, Physics) received a Fulbright Student Research Grant. He is doing research at the University of Strasbourg in France with Prof. Boris Hippolyte. They are working on describing rare particle formation in the early universe with statistical thermodynamics models. Flor was selected for the Fulbright in 2020, but the pandemic delayed his travel until June 2021.
Elena Torre (B.S. Graduate, Computer Science) and Laura Taylor (B.S. Graduate, Geology) were awarded the Outstanding Senior Honors Thesis recognition for the 2020-2021 academic year. This award is given by the UH Office of Undergraduate Research and Major Awards.
Smiti Gandhi (Honors Biomedical Sciences Major) and Pierce Popson (Biochemistry Major) were awarded the German Academic Exchange Service’s (DAAD) Research Internships in Science and Engineering (RISE) Scholarship. The highly-competitive program places undergraduate and graduate students pursuing fields of science and engineering in research and work internships with German companies, universities and non-university research institutions.
Omar Harb (Mathematical Biology Major) received a Critical Language Scholarship (CLS). He is one of nine UH students selected for the honor. Supported by the U.S. Department of State, CLS is an intensive, language and cultural immersion program. Harb, a junior, will study Arabic for 8-10 weeks through the scholarship’s Tangier, Morocco, program. This year’s program was held virtually.
The UH Imperial Barrel Award team placed second at the annual American Association of Petroleum Geologists IBA Competition for the Gulf Coast Section. The five-member team consisted of graduate students in Geology, Bryan Moore (M.S., team captain), Rachel Ronquille (M.S), Michael Martinez (M.S.), Nikola Bjelica (M.S.), and Daniella Gutierrez Easley (Ph.D. Student, Geochemistry). Each university team analyzed a dataset in the eight weeks prior to the competition and delivered their results in a 25-minute presentation to a panel of industry experts.
Felicia Nurindrawati and Xiaolong Wei (M.S. and Ph.D. Students, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) were recognized for their work at the 2020 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Annual Meeting and International Exhibition. In the Mining Sessions, Nurindrawati received the Best Student Presentation Award and Wei received the Best Poster Award.
Madeline Statkewicz (Ph.D. Student, Atmospheric Sciences) received a NOAA William M. Lapenta Student Internship. Through the program, students focus on areas that will meet the future needs of NOAA’s ever-broadening user community and address strategic weather-water-climate issues. Statkewicz participated in a 10-week virtual internship with NOAA’s Climate Program Office.
Ya Zhuo (Ph.D. Graduate, Chemistry) was the Spring 2021 recipient of the Dan E. Wells Outstanding Dissertation Award. Her dissertation was “Developing Rare-Earth Substituted Inorganic Phosphors Through Machine Learning.” The work combined state-of-the-art machine learning methods with advanced computational modeling and experimental material chemistry techniques, with the goal of facilitating the development of new luminescent material to be used in solid-state light, LED bulbs. Related Photo
Faculty/Staff
Jakoah Brgoch (Chemistry) and graduate student Shruti Hariyani were selected as the 2021 winners of the Chemistry of Materials Lectureship and Best Paper Award. The award, given by the journal Chemistry of Materials and the American Chemical Society Division of Inorganic Chemistry, honors the authors of an article published in 2020 that has outstanding influence across the field of materials chemistry, while also recognizing that research is a team endeavor. The Chemistry of Materials Lectureship and Best Paper Award symposium will be part of the ACS Fall National Meeting. The winning paper, “Local Structure Distortion Induced Broad Band Emission in the All-Inorganic BaScO2F:Eu2+ Perovskite,” exemplifies the power of using computation and experiment to gain a deeper understanding of how local distortions can impact a material’s properties.
Tai-Yen Chen (Chemistry) and Lisa Farmer (Biology & Biochemistry) are the 2021 recipients of NSM’s John C. Butler Excellence in Teaching Award. The award recognizes NSM faculty, who have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments in teaching and a track record of dedication to the teaching mission of NSM.
Albert Cheng (Computer Science) has been appointed General Chair of the 29th International Symposium on the Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS), a CORE A-ranked conference. MASCOTS 2021 will be virtual in November and is expected to have the technical co-sponsorship of the IEEE Computer Society.
Cheng has also been invited by Universidad Metropolitana de Educacion Ciencia y Tecnologia in Panama to present a keynote and organize a two-day workshop at the 3rd Research and Postgraduate Congress: Perspectives and Challenges of Research in the Face of the Revolution 4.0.
Paul Chu (Physics, Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH), Liangzi Deng and TcSUH colleagues conceived and developed a pressure-quench technique that retains the pressure-enhanced and/or -induced high transition temperature phase even after the removal of the applied pressure that generates this phase. As part of this research, colleagues from Rice University and Jilin University successfully demonstrated the possibility of the pressure-quench technique in a model high temperature superconductor, iron selenide. This is a critical next step toward room-temperature superconductivity at ambient pressure. The results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Sanghyuk Chung (Biology & Biochemistry, Center for Nuclear Receptors & Cell Signaling) and his former Ph.D. student, Yuri Park, led a study to investigate the progesterone receptor’s role in the development of cervical cancer. Their findings were published in the American Association for Cancer Research’s Molecular Cancer Research journal and were featured as an “Editor’s Pick.” They found the progesterone receptor gene expression is reduced in cervical cancer, and their findings suggest that reactivation of this gene’s expression may improve the survival rate of patients with the cancer.
Yunsoo Choi (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) presented “Can Fleet Electrification Benefit Air Quality and Human Health?” at UH Energy’s Electric Vehicle Webinar Series.
Paige Evans (teachHOUSTON) and Donna Stokes (Physics and NSM Associate Dean) authored a book, Preparing Teachers to Teach the STEM Disciplines in America’s Urban Schools, with Cheryl J. Craig of Texas A&M University. This book is a comprehensive view of teachHOUSTON, UH’s secondary STEM teacher preparation program. The 12 chapters provide a systematic investigation of how prospective STEM educators are cultivated to be subject matter specialists and culturally relevant teachers. Several chapters were authored by additional members of the teachHOUSTON faculty and UH STEM discipline faculty.
Daniel Hauptvogel and Virginia Sisson (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) released an open access lab manual for historical geology titled The Story of Earth: An Observational Guide. What sets the book apart from others is the focus on student engagement in the exercises. The goal was for students to observe and think rather than read and repeat. The Story of Earth is also a global tour of geology. Exercises and examples use locations all over the world.
Jiakai Hou (Biology & Biochemistry, Center for Nuclear Receptors & Cell Signaling) received an American Association for Cancer Research-AbbVie Scholar-in-Training Award for his abstract on cancer immunotherapy. His work aims to identify novel tumor immune evasion mechanisms. The results from his studies provide a series of new therapeutic targets to increase the likelihood of anti-tumor immune responses. Hou attended AACR’s Annual Meeting in May.
Mikyoung Jun (Mathematics) was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association for her pathbreaking contributions to statistical modeling on spheres, innovative statistical applications to a broad range of environmental problems, service to the profession, and excellence in teaching and mentoring. The ASA Committee on Fellows can only elect up to one-third of 1% of the total association membership as fellows each year.
Leah McAlister-Shields (teachHOUSTON) was recognized at the 2021 UTeach STEM Educators (USEA) Conference for her passion, innovation, and dedication for STEM teacher and student education. McAlister-Shields received the USEA Outstanding Staff Award which recognized her for developing and implementing student success initiatives that support the persistence of underrepresented minority STEM majors to become teachers. Her expertise in the development and implementation of culturally responsive pedagogical practices in STEM teacher education instruction, advocacy for social justice, and the critical awareness of issues faced by marginalized populations has influenced the implementation of these practices across colleges and universities within the UTeach Institute.
Richard Meisel (Biology & Biochemistry) and his research team identified for the first time a sex chromosome in the house fly, Musca domestica, that is associated with both a behavioral preference for temperature and a physiological tolerance for temperature. Prior to their discovery, no one had found this preference and tolerance associated with a sex chromosome in an animal. The findings were published in Evolution Letters. The team determined that the genetic basis of the fly’s thermal preferences is a Y chromosome among male flies in the northern U.S. east coast and a different Y chromosome found among male flies in the southern U.S. east coast.
The work of Ognjen Miljanić (Chemistry), Teng-Hao Chen (Ph.D. ’14, Chemistry) of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, and a research team from UH, National Cheng Kung University, and Taiwan’s National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center was featured on the June 14 cover of Angewandte Chemie, a journal of the German Chemical Society. Research associate professor Xiqu Wang (Chemistry) and Spring ’20 Ph.D. graduate Corie McHale (Chemistry) were co-authors. The paper, Cyclotetrabenzoin Acetate: A Macrocyclic Porous Molecular Crystal for CO2 Separations by Pressure Swing Adsorption, reported that a porous molecular crystal assembled by close-packing of macrocyclic cyclotetrabenzoin acetate efficiently captures CO2. The square-shaped pores enable excellent carbon dioxide/nitrogen and carbon dioxide/methane separation performance via both kinetic and thermodynamic effects.
Donna Pattison (Biology & Biochemistry and NSM Assistant Dean) served on a panel discussing “Exploring the Benefits of Online Labs for On-Campus Teaching” at ViABLE 2021, the Virtual Conference of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE). The panel discussion explored the theme of ‘transferable benefits of online teaching’ in the context of laboratory teaching; panelists shared insights and specific examples of how experience with online labs can make face-to-face labs better.
Ioannis Pavlidis (Computer Science) published in the proceedings of ACM CHI, the premier forum on Human-Computer Interaction research. The researchers examined why some drivers stay cool behind the wheel while others keep getting more irked. In collaboration with Texas A&M Transportation Institute, they looked at how individual drivers reacted to common acceleration, speed, and steering events on a carefully monitored itinerary. They found about half the participants consistently exhibited peaked stress during periods of commonplace acceleration, such as stop-and-go progress through red lights. The other half showed no notable changes from their baseline measurements. The team calls the phenomenon ‘accelerousal.’
Steven Pennings (Biology & Biochemistry) was interviewed for the PBS series, “Changing Seas.” He appears in the episode, “At the Water’s Edge: The Salt Marsh.” The 30-minutes program looks at how scientists study the salt marsh and efforts to determine how resilient it is to climate change. The program debuted in June on select PBS stations. The episode can be viewed here.
Annalisa Quaini (Mathematics) was selected as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The acceptance rate for the class, which represents nine countries, was 2.4%, from 1,383 applications. The scholars reside at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard for a full academic year. During her fellowship, she will apply her expertise in computational mathematics to climate change efforts. Her goal is to find a computationally efficient, or time-saving, method to represent the interaction between atmospheric particles and clouds and how that interaction can be represented in a global circulation model.
Claudia Ratti (Physics) and graduate student Israel Portillo are leading a new program, Nuclear Science in Texas to Enhance and Advance Minorities, or NuSTEAM. The Department of Energy’s Office of Science awarded a two-year, $500,000 grant to UH, University of Texas at El Paso, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and Prairie View A&M University to enhance participation of Black and Hispanic students in nuclear physics and high energy physics. Read More
Andrew Renshaw (Physics) is the 2021 recipient of NSM’s Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Research. The award recognizes faculty at the rank of assistant professor who have demonstrated great potential in research and/or scholarship by virtue of the exceptional quality of their contributions. His research focuses on the direct detection of dark matter and astrophysical neutrinos using liquid noble gas detectors that are constructed in underground laboratories around the world. He and his group also use the advanced technology they develop to find applications within the medical field, produce rare gases for societal benefit, and search for extremophile microbes in the upper atmosphere.
Rakesh Verma (Computer Science) is leading the fall 2021 CyberCops Program. It is funded by a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and sponsored by UH in cooperation with UH-Downtown and Texas Southern University. The program will introduce the critical field of cybersecurity to six students recruited from the three participating universities’ ROTC programs. The students will gain expertise in the intersection of a number of fields, including data science, machine learning and cybersecurity.
Richard Willson (Biology & Biochemistry) received the 2021 Alan S. Michaels Award in the Recovery of Biological Products from the American Chemical Society Biochemical Technology Division. The award is given every other year. The award recognizes outstanding research and practice contributions toward the advancement of science and technology for the recovery of biological products.
Chang Yun (Computer Science) provided insight on the video gaming industry for WalletHub’s article on Best Cities for Gamers written by financial writer Adam McCann.
Yengcai Zheng (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences), Ph.D. student Yuesu Jin (first author), and Nikolay Dyaur, a retired UH research scientist, now at the Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, described a new triggering mechanism observed in a laboratory experiment, which is able to answer the puzzling question of remote earthquake dynamic triggering. The paper, “Laboratory Evidence of Transient Pressure Surge in a Fluid-Filled Fracture as a Potential Driver of Remote Dynamic Earthquake Triggering,” published in The Seismic Record. In earthquake dynamic triggering, the seismic waves from the main shock can trigger earthquakes in regions containing fluids, such as geothermal and volcanic fields, thousands of kilometers away from the main shock.
2021 Faculty Excellence Awards
Moores Professorships - Zhigang Deng (Computer Science) and Matthew Nicol (Mathematics)
This five year, renewable professorship is awarded to faculty in recognition of outstanding teaching, research, and service.
Teaching Excellence - Provost Core - Lisa Farmer (Biology & Biochemistry)
This award is given to faculty who have demonstrated outstanding teaching in undergraduate core curriculum courses.
Teaching Excellence - Instructor/Clinical - Ana Medrano (Biology & Biochemistry)
This award is given in recognition of outstanding teaching by faculty instructors, clinical faculty, research faculty, artist affiliates, and lecturers.
Teaching Excellence - Community Engagement - Nouhad Rizk (Computer Science)
This award is given in recognition of full-time faculty who involve students in service to the community through service learning activities or community engagement projects.
Teaching Excellence - Distinguished Leadership in Teaching Excellence - Rebecca Forrest (Physics)
This award is given in recognition of faculty who have made sustained and significant contributions to education within the context of their responsibilities as a full-time faculty member.
2020-21 Awards for Excellence in Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity
Assistant Professors - Judy Wu (Chemistry) and Andrew Renshaw (Physics)
This award recognizes faculty who have demonstrated great potential in research, scholarship and creative endeavors by virtue of the exceptional quality of their early contributions.
Associate Professor - Yingcai Zheng (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences)
This award recognizes faculty who have established a growing record of outstanding research, scholarship and creative contributions, and who are emerging leaders in their field.