College of Science Accolades: February 2020 - March 2020

Harbir Antil, Mathematical Sciences, was selected from 220 nominations as this year’s recipient of George Mason University’s Career Connection Faculty Award. The award celebrates faculty who have made a positive impact on students' career goals, employment plans or graduate school preparation.  The recipient of the annual award has gone above and beyond the expectations in his/her role on campus and has devoted extra time and energy to helping students prepare for life after Mason. Antil was also awarded $200,000 for Constrained Optimization and Machine Learning by the U.S. Department of the Navy.

Harold Geller, Physics and Astronomy, had the following accomplishments in February: He gave a talk to 86 members of the Life Time Learning Institute of the Northern Virginia Community College, in Annandale, Virginia titled “Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places.” He also spoke to students of a 3rd grade class in South Bend, Indiana, via Skype. Geller completed judging for the Conrad Foundation’s Challenge in Science and Engineering. He also spoke to students of two 6th grade classes at Delphi Community Middle School in Delphi, Indiana via Skype. Geller had the following accomplishments in March: He spoke to the Regional Meeting of the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society for Two Year Colleges in Sterling, Virginia. Geller also completed virtual judging for the U.S. Army Educational Outreach Program for Science and Engineering known as eCybermission.

Nirmal Ghimire and Igor Mazin, Physics and Astronomy, Quantum Materials Center, published a "News & Views" paper titled “Topology and correlations on the kagome lattice” in Nature Materials.

Christian Jones, Environmental Science and Policy, Potomac Environmental Research and Education Center, was awarded $11,697 for Research Assistant for Mainstream Anammox Support by Alexandria Renewal Enterprises. Jones along with Co-PI Benoit Van Aken, Chemistry and Biochemistry, was awarded $5,054 for City of Fairfax Stream Monitoring Program 2019-2020 by the City of Fairfax. Jones, along with Benoit Van Aken, was also awarded $7,100 for City of Fairfax Wet Weather Monitoring Program 2020 by the City of Fairfax.

Cing Dao (Steve) Kan, along with Co-PIs Rudolf Reichert and Chung Kyu Park, Physics and Astronomy, Center for Collision Safety and Analysis, was awarded $240,000 for Advanced Polymer/Composite Material Modeling for Automotive Applications by the American Chemistry Council.

Mingkuan Lin, Systems Biology, was awarded $34,122 for Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) Pharmacogenomics OUD Transcirptome Project by Inova Healthcare. 

Lance Liotta, Systems Biology, Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, was awarded $72,000 for The Systems Biochemistry of Adaptation in Cellular Protein Networks by the Queensland University of Technology

Zhong Liu, Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, co-published a paper titled “Improving Reproducibility in Earth Science Research” in Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union.

Chao Luo, Chemistry and Biochemistry, co-published the following papers:“A carboxylate group-based organic anode for sustainable and stable sodium ion batteries” in the Journal of Power Sources, “Organic Electrode Materials for Metal Ion Batteries” in ACSPublications, and “Integrating Multiredox Centers into One Framework for High-Performance Organic Li-Ion Battery Cathodes” in ACS Energy Letters.

David Luther, Biology, was interviewed about his labs research into the effects of human noises on bird behavior, titled “With COVID-19, Fewer Cars, Quieter Soundscape For Birds And Humans” in NPR. Luther’s PhD student’s research titled “The African Manatee, a vulnerable species, is facing several threats” was featured in CNN.

Yuri Mishin, Physics and Astronomy, was chosen, along with 147 other anonymous peer reviewers, by the Physical Review journals’ editors for the Outstanding Referees Program for 2020. The program is a lifetime award that annually recognizes approximately 150 of currently active referees for their invaluable work. 

Abul Hussam, Chemistry and Biochemistry, has a student, Tristan Moon, who received the 2020 College Chemistry Achievement Award by the Chemistry Society of Washington in recognition for outstanding achievement in College Chemistry. The awards are presented annually to outstanding seniors majoring in chemistry and biochemistry from each of the area’s four-year colleges and universities.

Kim de Mutsert, Environmental Science and Policy, along with Co-PI Samantha Alexander, was awarded $5,000 for Assessment of fish passage use and success in facilitating movement of regionally vulnerable and invasive fish species in northern Virginia portion of the Potomac River: Samantha Alexander Fellowship October 2019 - September 2020, by Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Prime Sponsor: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

Emanuel (Chip) Petricoin, Systems Biology, Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, was awarded $47,000 for Physics in Medicine Initiative by the George Mason University Foundation.

Jennifer Salerno, Environmental Science and Policy, along with Co-PI Esther Peters, was awarded $85,184 for Microscopic and Microbial Insights into the Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) Outbreak Across Multiple Coral Species on the Florida Reef Tract - Florida Keys Samples by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Shobita Satyapal, Physics and Astronomy, along with her Co-PI Mario Gliozzi, was awarded $34,184 for The Hunt for AGNS in Low Metallicity DWARF Galaxies with KECK NIRSPEC: A Chandra Follow-up Study by the Smithsonian Institution. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.Satyapal was also awarded $210,017 for Academic Fellowship Program for the US Naval Observatory - TO 194 by the U.S. Department of the Navy. Satyapal was also awarded $36,054 for Beyond the Bulge: The Discovery of Hidden Broad Lines in Bulgeless Galaxies by the Smithsonian Institution. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

J.D. Sayle, College of Science, gave a presentation titled“A Future Without Passwords?” at the2020 Association of Collegiate Compute Services (ACCSVA) conference. This presentation examined research and trends relating to current best practices around password use and delved into recent industry pushes to move beyond using just passwords – and in some instances dropping passwords altogether – all while keeping the computer systems we all used each day secure both now and into the future.

Ziheng Sun, Geography and Geoinformation Science, Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, was awarded $47,172 for COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: GI CATALYTIC TRACK: Cyberinfrastructure for Intelligent High-Resolution Snow Cover Inference from Cubesat Imagery by the National Science Foundation.

Robert Weigel, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $25,000 for Enhancing and Standardizing Python Readers for HAPI Data by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Konrad Wessels, Geography and Geoinformation Science, was awarded $96,114 for Nomination of Konrad Wessels to Incubation Study Team: Surface Topography and Vegetation by the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.

Yuntao Wu, Systems Biology, National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases, published a manuscript titled “PSGL-1 restricts HIV-1 infectivity by blocking virus particle attachment to target cells” in PNAS. 

Chaowei (Phil) Yang, Geography and Geoinformation Science, Center for Intelligent Spatial Computing for Water/Energy Science, was awarded $67,762 for Short Term Training Program provided by STC center by the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government. Yang was also awarded $48,225 for Short Term Training Program on Natural Resource Investigation and Monitoring Technology by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Pe.

Jie Zhang, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $64,595 for The Coronal Analysis of Shocks and Waves (CASHeW) framework - Tanmoy Samanta by Association of Universities for Research. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Zhang was also awarded $18,752 for Travel Support for Hinode-14/IRIS-11 Joint Science Meeting- Participant Support by the National Science Foundation.