Faculty & Staff Accolades October & November 2018

Mark Anders, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, has been appointed to the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship panel for 2019.

Harbir Antil, Mathematical Sciences, gave a plenary talk at SPP1962 Annual Meeting in Germany (https://spp1962.wias-berlin.de/downloads/SPP1962_Annual_Meeting_2018_BoA.pdf.) He is also starting a new annual conference at George Mason University (http://math.gmu.edu/~hantil/ECOM/2019). Antil was awarded $300,000 for Structure Exploiting Trust Regions for Bilevel and Risk-Averse Optimization by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Claudio Cioffi-Revilla, Computational and Data Sciences, was invited by the University of Bremen, Germany, as First Keynote Speaker to their recent Digital Traces Workshop on “Computational Social Science.” He was also invited to participate at a recent invitation-only FEMA Workshop on Disaster Preparedness, co-sponsored with the Disaster Preparedness Center of the Government of Sweden, Stockholm. Ben Dreyfus, Physics and Astronomy, has been elected to the executive committee of the American Physical Society (APS) Forum on Education.

Harold Geller, Physics and Astronomy, was interviewed on the radio by WAMU regarding the new installation of Foamhenge (a Styrofoam mockup of Stonehenge) at Cox Farms in Chantilly, Virginia; he had consulted on the installation of the mock stones. Geller spoke before an elementary school teacher’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes at the Middleburg Community Charter School in Middleburg, Virginia. He also spoke to a high school teacher’s 12th graders at Boyd County High School about astronomy, astrobiology and what it takes to be an astronomer. Geller spoke at the Chesapeake Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) meeting about the demonstrations and lab exercises that could be done in the classroom regarding the discovery of exoplanets by the NASA TESS spacecraft, this conference was held at Tidewater Community College’s Virginia Beach campus. He spoke at the annual conference of the Virginia Association of Science Teachers (VAST), where he conducted a teacher workshop regarding demonstration of techniques and principles of discovering exoplanets, and co-chaired a panel discussion of the teaching of science by K-12.

Geoffrey Gilleaudeau, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, co-authored a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled “Mercury isotope signatures record photic zone euxinia in the Mesoproterozoic Ocean” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jessica Hanna, Physics and Astronomy, received the George Mason University Employee of the Month award for October 2018.

Robert Hazen, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, presented the keynote address, “Chance, necessity, and the origins of life” for an origins of life conference at the Center for the Study of Origins, University of Colorado Boulder.

R. Christian Jones, Environmental Science and Policy, was awarded $10,837 for Research Assistant for Mainstream Anammox Support by Alexandria Renewal Enterprises. Cing-Dao (Steve) Kan, Computational and Data Sciences, Center for Collision Safety and Analysis, along with co-

PI Chung Kyu Park, Center for Collision Safety and Analysis, were awarded $50,000 for Evaluation of Crashworthiness of UDU Structural Component in Automotive Applications by Tesseract Structural Innovations.

Fatah Kashanchi, School of Systems Biology, National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases, was awarded $156,581 for Role of extracellular vesicles in methamphetamine and HIV induced neurotoxicity by Board of Regents of the University. Prime Sponsor: DHHS (NIH)

Christopher Kennedy, Environmental Science and Policy, was awarded $6,414 for Optimizing fishing regulations for New Jersey multi-species recreational bottom fishery to improve economic outcomes and angler satisfaction by Rutgers University. Prime Sponsor: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Assad Khan, College of Science, received the Jade Barricelli Spirit of Advising Excellence Award of 2018 at the George Mason University HR Outstanding Achievement Awards Ceremony.

Jason Kinser, Computational and Data Sciences, recently published a book titled “Image Operators: Image Processing in Python” by CRC Press.

James Kinter, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, was invited to give a talk, entitled, “Metropolitan Washington at Risk: Predicting and Preparing for the New Climate Normal,” at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments celebration of 10 years of climate action.

Laura Lukes, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in November http://www.geosociety.org/GSA/About/awards/GSA_Fellows/GSA/Awards/Fellows-New.aspx.

Robert Meier, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $57,000 for GUVI Limb Database Maintenance & Scientific Validation by Dixie State University. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Julia Nord, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, gave a talk at the 130th annual meeting of the Geological Society of America entitled, “Teaching and Learning with Mineral Evolution.”

Dusan Odstrcil, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $90,000 for In-Situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) Extension by University of California at Berkeley. Prime Sponsor: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Emanuel Petricoin, School of Systems Biology, Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine, was awarded $101,251 for Identification and Validation of Protein and Phosphoproteins based Tissue and Blood Prognostic Markers for Pancreatic Cancer by Medstar Research Institute. He was also awarded $59,947 for Protein pathway activation mapping of KRAS inhibitors by Mirati Therapeutics.

John Qu, Geography and Geoinformation Science, was awarded $140,113 for Establishing the Soil Properties Monitoring and Forecasting Demonstration System by Integrated Satellite Remote Sensing, in-situ Ground Measurements and Model Simulations by the U.S. Geological Survey and $5,000 for Supporting the Soil Moisture Validation and Applications Workshop 2018 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Karen Sauer, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $288,583 for Phase II: Robust interference rejection in the NQR detection of explosives: the next generation atomic magnetometer and magnetometer array design by Manufacturing Techniques Inc. Prime Sponsor: U.S. Army Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Direct.

James Reid Schwebach, Biology, was awarded $21,660 for The Biology Teacher Academy: Hands-on Teaching Strategies that Promote Rigor and Engagement in Biology Classes by Virginia Department of Education. Prime Sponsor: U.S. Department of Education.

Cristiana Stan, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences, was recognized in the Fall 2018 issue of Mason Spirit for her research on atmospheric rivers.

Mark Strickman, Physics and Astronomy, was awarded $253,137 for High Resolution Gamma-ray and Neutron Background Mapping and Archiving by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Michael Summers, Physics and Astronomy, interviewed with the NPR affiliate WCVE-FM 88.9 which airs in the greater Richmond, Virginia metropolitan area. Summers spoke about the discovery of some unusual exoplanets and their significance. The NPR affiliate noted Summers’ book, co-authored with James Trefil, Physics and Astronomy, about exoplanets published by the Smithsonian Institution.

Chaowei (Phil) Yang, Geography and Geoinformation Science, was awarded $24,162 for Zhejiang Training Program by Zhejiang Admin of Surveying Mapping.