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
Michael Fonseca (M.S. ’20, Geology), Tom Lapen (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences), and Lori Hathon (UH Petroleum Engineering) were awarded the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Jules Braunstein Memorial Award. It recognizes the best poster session paper presented at the association’s Annual Convention and Exhibition the previous year. The poster was titled, “A Real-time Method to Identify Brittle Zones in Carbonate Rich Mudrocks Using Bulk and Trace Element Geochemistry: A Study in the Eagle Ford, Niobrara, Haynesville, and Woodford Formations.” Fonseca was first author on the poster. He works for GeoSyntec Consultants, an environmental consulting company.
Coleen Murphy (’92, Biochemistry) shared a National Institutes of Health Transformative Research Award with two colleagues at Princeton University for their project, “Small RNAs as Novel Modulators of Microbe-Host Interactions.” She is also one of the 10 recipients of the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award. Murphy, professor of molecular biology at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton, received the Pioneer Award for her project, “Cracking the code of transgenerational inheritance of behavior.”
Iris Nira Smith (’10, and Ph.D. ’16, Biochemistry) was named a MOSAIC scholar. The Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers award is a joint grant program by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The goal is to encourage talented biomedical postdoctoral researchers from diverse backgrounds to pursue independent research at the faculty level. Smith received an approximately $1M K99/R00 grant through the MOSAIC program. She is a research associate at Cleveland Clinic.
Students
Rachel Clark (Ph.D. Student, Geology) received the 2021 Denton, Andrews, Porter Glacial Geology Award from the Geological Society of America. The award supports graduate or undergraduate research in the areas of glacial geology, including glaciology, glacial geomorphology, glacial chronology, or a related field, such as paleoclimatology or climate change. Her advisor is Julia Wellner.
Fernando Flor and Jamie M. Karthein (Ph.D. Students, Physics) received NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Ascending Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (MPS-Ascend). The NSF MPS-Ascend Fellowship enables a student to be a postdoctoral researcher at a university of his or her choice for up to three years, fully funded. The highly competitive selection process requires students to write a proposal and also obtain letters of support from their new mentors at their universities of choice. UH was the only university that successfully placed two candidates in the selection process this year. Flor will begin his postdoctoral research at Yale University in March 2022. His UH mentor is Rene Bellwied. Karthein began her postdoctoral research at MIT in January 2022. Her mentor at UH is Claudia Ratti.
Jamie M. Karthein (Ph.D. Student, Physics) was the Summer/Fall 2021 recipient of the Dan E. Wells Outstanding Dissertation Award. Her dissertation was “Equation of State and Net-charge Fluctuations for Strongly-interacting Matter.” Karthein’s research uses a particular first-principles computational method to interpret experimental results obtained at CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The research goal is to understand the properties of matter at extremely high temperatures and densities, such as those that existed in the universe in the very first few microseconds after the Big Bang or that may be found in the core of neutron stars. She received a certificate and an award of $1,000.
Karthein also received the 2021 Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and Alternating Gradient Synchrotron Merit Award. The award recognizes her outstanding research contributions to activities in nuclear and high-energy physics at multiple research facilities.
Tabitha Lee (Ph.D. Student, Atmospheric Sciences) received a NASA Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) research grant of $112,500 for three years. The grant will support her research to develop new approaches of using satellite data to better identify unreported emission sources. Her advisor is Yuxuan Wang. Read More
Jordan Johnson (Ph.D. Student, Biochemistry) received a Houston Area Medical Biophysics Program Predoctoral Training Fellowship. The fellowship provides three years of funding for her research at UH. Johnson’s research focuses on a protein called elongation factor thermal unstable, or EF-Tu. Understanding how this protein works will be beneficial to create drug therapies for the neurological disorders and diseases linked to mutations in elongation factors. The fellowship program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, selects highly qualified applicants from six Houston-area universities. Johnson’s mentor is Yuhong Wang.
Faculty/Staff
Rene Bellwied, Anthony Timmins and Lawrence Pinsky (Physics) are leading the UH team staffing one of three U.S. remote monitoring stations for the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), which operates inside CERN’S Large Hadron Collider – the world’s largest and highest-energy particle collider. The ALICE collaboration seeks to add to scientists’ understanding of heavy-ion collisions. Physicists believe the quark-gluon plasma that results from such collisions is similar to what existed for a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. UH computers keep constant real-time watch on output from the CERN experiment happening more than 5,200 miles away. The UH monitoring station includes postdoctoral researchers Dhevan Gangadharan, Jihye Song and Christina Terrevoli, 10 doctoral students, and five undergraduates. See UH Photo Story
Emily Beverly (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) was interviewed as a subject matter expert for a New York Times article, “A Shifting Climate Gave Humans Many Opportunities to Leave Africa,” written by Sabrina Imbler.
Jakoah Brgoch’s (Chemistry) research with graduate student Shruti Hariyani was highlighted in the Research News section of the National Science Foundation website. The NSF article covered their research published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces on the development of a prototype LED that reduces – instead of masks – the blue component, while making colors appear just as they do in natural sunlight.
Shuo Chen and Zhifeng Ren (Physics, TcSUH) are included among the Clarivate list of Highly Cited Researchers for 2021. This elite list recognizes researchers for their exceptional research influence, demonstrated by producing multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science. Chen and Ren were sited for cross-field performance, a category which identifies researchers who contribute papers in several fields.
Albert Cheng (Computer Science) presented an invited keynote, “Challenges in the Implementation of the Technological and Industrial Revolution 4.0 and Beyond,” at the virtual UMECIT Congreso Internacional de Investigación, Innovación y Postgrado (International Congress on Research, Innovation, and Graduate Studies) organized in Panama. He also chaired a workshop at the conference, “Implementation of the Technological and Industrial Revolution 4.0: A Demonstration with an Example of an Intelligent Transportation System.” The presentations were part of his activities as a Fulbright Specialist.
Cheng also presented his plans for a real-time COVID-19 risk assessment app at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) conference HPC (High Performance Computing) for Urgent Decision Making. The system for real-time COVID-19 infection risk assessment and mitigation, called RT-CIRAM, is designed to work on mobile phones and will analyze up-to-date data from multiple open sources. The goal is to provide real-time insight into the best times to avoid crowds and accomplish activities outside the home. His work will be published in IEEE Explore.
Mini Das (Physics) has been named a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics. She is one of 58 SPIE members named Fellows in 2022. According to the society, members are inducted as Fellows in recognition of their technical achievements, as well as for their service to the optics and photonics community and to SPIE. Through the society, Das also received the SPIE Community Champion Award in 2019 and 2020.
Zhigang Deng (Computer Science) was named a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery. ACM named 63 Distinguished Members in 2021 for outstanding contributions to the field. All inductees are longstanding ACM members and were selected by their peers for a range of accomplishments that advance computing as a science and a profession. Deng was selected for his scientific contributions. His research covers the broad areas of computer graphics, computer animation, human-computer conversation and robotics.
Paige Evans (teachHOUSTON, Mathematics) has been named Co-Director of the teachHOUSTON program. Through this role, she teaches and oversees the program and coursework in preservice STEM teacher education.
Qin Feng (Biology & Biochemistry, CNRCS) and Frank McKeon (Biology & Biochemistry) were part of the presenting teams for the UH-BCM Virtual Symposium. The symposium featured short presentations by the nine research groups that received UH/BCM Collaborative Pilot Grants. Feng presented “Discovery of Pharmacological Modulators for NEAT1 lncRNA and Reactivation/Suppression of Latent HIV-1” with Andrew Rice of BCM. McKeon presented “Haploid Genome Duplication: Mechanistic Insights into a Shortcut in Cancer Evolution” with Chenghang Zong of BCM.
Jimmy Flynn (Earth & Atmospheric Sciences) is part of a 14-month research collaboration studying the effects of aerosols on storms in the Houston area. The research program, called the TRACER field campaign, is in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory. TRACER is short for TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment, a study carried out by the Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility. The knowledge gained may make weather forecasts more accurate and provide crucial data for improving predictions about how aerosols may affect Earth’s future climate.
Stacy Halley (NSM Development) attended the virtual Big Ten Fundraising Institute. UH University Advancement nominated Halley to apply for the exclusive Institute; only 40 participants are accepted each year. The Institute helps higher education’s leading development professionals hone their skills through an intensive retreat. Participants share techniques for meeting common goals, accounts of successful practice, and information about emerging challenges.
Eva Harth (Chemistry) was named a 2021 Fellow of the American Chemical Society. The designation is awarded to a member who, in some capacity, has made exceptional contributions to the science or profession and has provided excellent volunteer service to the ACS community.
Alex Ignatiev (Physics) was named a 2021 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors and will be inducted during the academy’s annual meeting in June. Election to NAI Fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors. Ignatiev is one of two UH faculty named as Fellows in 2021. The other is Ganesh Thakur (Petroleum Engineering). The academy said both scientists have “demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.”
Kresimir Josić (Mathematics) is co-principal investigator of a four-year $1.2 million grant from the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences to build bacterial colonies that can divide or differentiate like cells in multicellular organisms. $400,000 was awarded to UH. Principal investigator on the grant is Rice University’s Matthew Bennett, professor of biosciences. Oleg Igoshin, Rice professor of bioengineering and biosciences, is also a co-principal investigator.
Liming Li (Physics) received NASA and National Science Foundation grants to continue his work to understand the weather of giant planets–their clouds, storms, winds, vortices and waves. The research could lead to a fuller understanding of the weather and climate on Earth. The NASA grant focuses on the atmosphere of Jupiter while the NSF grant investigates the role of clouds in the atmospheric systems of Jupiter, Saturn and exoplanets, which are planets outside our solar system. The work will involve analysis of data from several NASA missions–Cassini, Juno and New Horizons–as well as the Hubble Space Telescope. The combined grants provide nearly $1 million in funding.
Jeremy May (Chemistry) received a $474,114 grant from the NSF’s Chemical Synthesis Program in the Division of Chemistry. His group will focus on complex chemical motifs, specifically, using the strength of the carbon-boron bond to make bonds between carbon. Carbon-based molecules are used in many areas of life, whether in medications, polymers, or OLEDs, and there is always a need to make these compounds more efficiently. Medically relevant targets include THC and cannabidiol synthesis and anti-cancer drugs. The grant will also support his lab’s outreach to KIPP Sharpstown Junior High, to introduce their students to experimental chemistry.
Leah McAlister-Shields (teachHOUSTON, Mathematics) was an invited speaker at Danville Community College in Virginia. She presented “Crucial Conversations: The Importance of DEI for Higher Education Administrators” at the college’s Campus-Wide Inaugural DEI Committee Meeting.
Martin Nuñez (Biology & Biochemistry) and a group of international collaborators published three articles related to diversity, equity and inclusion in the journal Biological Invasions. Their studies take a closer look at the makeup of the journal itself. The group tackles three topics: national affiliation of corresponding authors, editorial board demography, and gender inclusivity at the journal. Nuñez is author on all three studies and lead author of the publication titled, “Two decades of data reveal that Biological Invasions needs to increase participation beyond North America, Europe, and Australasia.” This study analyzed submissions, reviews, and publications in the journal from its first issue in 1999 to 2020.
Claudia Ratti (Physics) has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Each year, no more than one-half of one percent of the Society’s membership is recognized by their peers for election as Fellows. Her citation states: For outstanding contributions to understanding the thermodynamic properties of quantum chromodynamics matter and subsequent connecting lattice results with experimental data.
Ratti is also co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation $4.4 million, five-year grant – the MUSES collaboration (Modular Unified Solver of the Equation of State). The collaboration will develop an open-source cyberinfrastructure tool for investigators in nuclear physics, gravitational wave astrophysics and heavy-ion physics. This project pairs the UH team with researchers from Kent State University and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, as well as scientists around the world.
Stacy Smeal (NSM Office of Research) presented “Lessons Learned for Engaging Research Faculty” at the Society of Research Administrators International Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Her co-presenters were Courtney Hunt (UH College of Pharmacy) and Ben Mull (UH Division of Research). The presentation covered lessons learned for engaging faculty from the university and college administration perspectives, including different event formats, topics and participant backgrounds. They discussed case studies comparing metrics from an evolving series of research-focused events at UH.
David Stewart (NSM Office of Research) was elected President of the Southwest Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association. This regional chapter covers members in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. AMWA’s mission is to promote excellence in medical communication and to provide educational resources in support of that goal.
Tom Teets (Chemistry) and Fan Wu (Office of the Provost) carried out a study at the start of the pandemic that examined student motivation and engagement in Teets’ spring 2020 “Fundamentals of Chemistry I” course. Their findings published in the Journal of Chemical Education. Their study measured four factors of student engagement: skills, emotion, participation and performance. Of 516 students enrolled in the course, 431 completed a 19-question survey. The qualitative portion of the study was based on student responses to an additional, optional essay question, which asked: “After the coronavirus outbreak, how has online instruction changed your learning in the general chemistry course?” 406 students answered this question. From the quantitative results, they found students’ engagement decreased after the coronavirus outbreak. From the essay responses, motivation and self-regulation emerged as the two clearest themes. The next most-prevalent themes were decreased focus and increased distraction.
Madhan Tirumalai, George Fox, Quyen Tran and Mario Rivas (Biology & Biochemistry) published a review paper, “The Peptidyl Transferase Center (PTC): A window to the past,” in Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. The PTC, housed within the large subunit ribosomal RNA, is usually considered to be the oldest part of the modern ribosome. This part of the large subunit approximates the ribosomal core of the Last Universal Common Ancestor. This detailed review focuses on the nature of the extant PTC, and its proposed ancestor, the proto-ribosome. Similar to how flight and cockpit voice recorders combine to record and preserve an aircraft’s flight history, the ribosome has ‘recorded signatures’ of its evolution. Tapping this resource is not only important for understanding the origins of life, but it also has applications in diverse fields such as antibiotic/drug discovery.