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01/28/03

Appointments and Elections
Dan Fleetwood, associate dean for research at the School of Engineering and professor of electrical engineering, was elected to be vice chair of the Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics for The American Physical Society. Fleetwood presented an invited talk titled “Effects of Hydrogen Transport and Reactions on Microelectronics Radiation Response and Reliability” to the 13th European Symposium on Reliability of Electron Devices, Failure Physics and Analysis, held Oct. 7-11, 2002, in Rimini, Italy.

Awards and Honors
Robert Belton, professor of law, was awarded the Clyde Ferguson Award by the Minority Groups Section of the Association of American Law Schools at its annual meeting in January in Washington, D.C. The Ferguson Award is given to an outstanding law teacher who, in the course of his or her career, has achieved excellence in the area of public service, teaching and scholarship. The award, named for one of the first tenured black professors at Harvard Law School, also aims to recognize teachers who have provided support, encouragement and mentoring to colleagues, students and aspiring legal educators.

Colleen Conway-Welch, dean of the School of Nursing, has been selected by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson as a member of the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee. The MCAC advises the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on whether specific medical items and services are reasonable and necessary under Medicare law. They perform this task via a careful review and discussion of specific clinical and scientific issues in an open and public forum.

Patricia Marett, assistant vice chancellor for administration, received the SEAL Award by the Brentwood YMCA for her service, enthusiasm, attitude and leadership. This is the second annual award given by the YMCA to its staff. Marett was nominated by her fellow aerobics instructors to receive this honor.

Papers and Presentations
At the 2002 IEEE Nuclear and Space Radiation Effects Conference, awards were given to three papers that included Vanderbilt authors. The Outstanding Conference Paper was “Impact of Passivation Layers on Enhanced Low-Dose-Rate Sensitivity and Pre-Irradiation Elevated Temperature Stress,” by Dan Fleetwood, associate dean for research at the School of Engineering and professor of electrical engineering, teams of researchers from Sandia National Laboratories; RLP Research; National Semiconductor. Also recognized as two of three papers selected as Meritorious Conference Papers out of more than 100 presented were “Unified Model of Hole Trapping, 1/f Noise, and Thermally Stimulated Current in MOS Devices,” by Fleetwood, Hao Xiong, graduate student, Z. Y. Lu, senior research associate, graduate students Chris Nicklaw and James Felix, Ron Schrimpf, professor of electrical engineering, and Sokrates Pantelides, professor of physics; and “Physical Model for Enhanced Interface-Trap Formation at Low Dose Rates,” by Sergey Rashkeev, research associate professor of physics, Claude Cirba, senior research associate, Fleetwood, Schrimpf, Pantelides, Steven Witczak of Sandia National Labs, and A. Michez of the University of Montpellier II, France. The IEEE NSREC is the foremost international symposium on the effects of radiation on microelectronic materials, devices, and integrated circuits, and was held July 15-19, 2002, in Phoenix, Ariz.

Dietmar Bisch, professor of mathematics, presented a talk titled “Singly Generated Planar Algebras and Subfactors” at the Annual Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 14-16.

Mary Ann Horn, associate professor of mathematics, presented an invited colloquium talk titled “Modeling and Control of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria” at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, Nov. 11-17, 2002.

Robert W. House, Orrin Henry Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering Management, emeritus, professor of electrical engineering, emeritus and former dean of the Graduate School gave two invited lectures at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and served on a Ph.D. Examining Board in December 2002.

Kazuhiko Kawamura, professor of electrical engineering, computer engineering and management of technology, presented “Requirements for Cognitive Robots” to the Dec. 11-12, 2002, International Advanced Robotics Programme Workshop on Humanoid and Human Friendly Robotics held in Tsukuba, Japan. The invited presentation was co-authored by Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Psychology David C. Noelle. Kawamura also represented the United States in the panel discussion.

Eric Schechter, associate professor of mathematics, presented a talk titled “Pluralism, a New Way to Introduce Logic” at the Joint Mathematical Association of America Meeting in Baltimore, Md., Jan. 14-19.

Gieri Simonett, associate professor of mathematics, presented a paper and gave an invited talk on the “Stefan Problem with Surface Tension” at the Modeling and Analysis of Moving Boundaries Workshop in Wittenberg, Germany. Nov. 30- Dec. 7, 2002.

Georgene Troseth, assistant professor of psychology, delivered an invited talk at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, on Jan. 8. The talk, “Through a Glass Darkly: Young Children’s Understanding of Video,” discussed her research on children’s development of early symbolic understanding. Troseth’s visit was funded by the Junior Scientists Group on Cultural Ontogeny at the institute.

Guoliang Yu, professor of mathematics, presented invited talks titled “The Coarse Baum-Connes Conjecture and Its Applications” and “The Novikov Conjecture” at the First Symposium of the Japan Association for Mathematical Association at the Tohuko University, Japan, Dec. 10-21, 2002.

Items for “Faculty and Staff Notes” should be sent to Jessica Howard, via e-mail to jessica.howard@vanderbilt.edu, via fax to 343-7313 or by mail to the Vanderbilt Register, 708 Baker Building, 110 21st Ave. S., Nashville, TN 37203.