Vanderbilt University Register: Faculty Staff Notes

FACULTY & STAFF NOTES

AWARDS and HONORS

Ellen B. Goldring, professor of educational leadership, was honored as the Faculty Distinguished Lecturer of Peabody College. She presented an invited address titled "Going to School Closer to Home: Desegregation and the End of Court-Ordered Busing" to alumni, faculty and students Oct. 12.

Goldring

Edward L. Thackston, professor of civil and environmental engineering, emeritus, has won the Outstanding Paper Award for 2001 from the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors. The national award is given to recognize a paper "that has withstood the test of time and significantly influenced the practice of environmental engineering," according to the AEESP. The paper, co-authored by Peter A. Krenkel, was published in the February 1969 issue of the Journal of the Sanitary Engineering Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The topic, "Reaeration Prediction in Natural Streams," concerns wastewater treatment. Thackston retired from Vanderbilt last year after 35 years of teaching environmental engineering.

PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Mark A. Cohen, associate professor of management, senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Environmental Management studies at VIPPS, presented a paper Oct. 19 at the University of York in the United Kingdom. The paper was also presented Oct. 18 at the Home Office in London.

David J. Ernst, professor of physics, represented the U.S. and the American Physical Society at a joint meeting of Latin American Physical Societies (Federaction Latinoamericana des Sociedades de Fisica -- FeLaSoFi) and the Ibo-American Working Group Oct. 12-14 in Morelia, Mexico. Ernst delivered an address to the attending representatives on "U.S.-Latin American Corporation: Projects, Funding Sources, and Supportive Organizations." He worked with groups interested in free-electron lasers, medical physics, and particle/molecular physics. He was also an invited distinguished guest as the meeting of the Mexican Physical Society (Sociedad Mexicana de Fisica -- SMF) Oct. 15 in Morelia.

Ernst

Sean P. Scally, university counsel and tax attorney in the Office of the General Counsel, presented a paper titled "Current Federal Tax Issues Affecting Colleges and Universities" at the NACUA Institute for Law and Higher Education co-sponsored by the National Association of College and University Attorneys Oct. 11-13 at the University of Arizona. He also published the lead article in the October edition of the Tennessee Bar Journal, titled "To Pay or Not To Pay: A Primer on the Federal Unrelated Business Income Tax for Non-Tax Lawyers."

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Sankaran Mahadevan, professor of civil and environmental engineering, served as a guest editor for the October 2001 issue of the ASCE Journal of Aerospace Engineering. The theme of the special issue was "Probabilistic Methods for Aerospace Engineering." Mahadevan was also elected to a five-year term as a member of the Executive Committee Aerospace Division, and to a two-year term as chairman of the Fatigue and Fracture Reliability Committee, Structural Engineering Institute, in the American Society of Civil Engineers. In June, he presented an invited seminar titled "Modeling and Simulation for Design Under Uncertainty" at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque.

PUBLICATIONS

Rebecca L. Brown, professor of law and FOX research professor, authored "Activism is Not a Four-Letter Word," which will be published in the Colorado Law Review in spring 2002. Brown participated in the Conservative Judicial Activism Conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder in October.

Items for "Faculty and Staff Notes" should be sent to Jessica Howard, via e-mail to jessica.howard@vanderbilt.edu, via fax to 343-3209 or by mail to the Vanderbilt Register, 708 Baker Building.