Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Four members of the Mississippi State engineering faculty are 2005 Hearin Eminent Scholars, recognizing their superior performance in research, teaching and external service.
Honored by the university's James Worth Bagley College of Engineering and announced by Dean Kirk Schulz, they include:
--Ioana Banicescu, an associate professor of computer science and engineering;
--Susan Bridges, a professor of computer science and engineering;
--Allen G. Greenwood, a professor of industrial engineering; and
--Rudy Rogers, a professor of chemical engineering.
Grants through the Jackson-based Robert M. Hearin Foundation were used to establish the awards, as well as to provide annual cash gifts recognizing continuing excellence in research, teaching and service. Nominations are made by department heads to recognize faculty members clearly demonstrating those three main areas of commitment.
The research area includes external grants, journal publications and graduate student supervision. Teaching is determined by student evaluation scores, while external service includes leadership in national organizations.
Banicescu is a researcher in the Center for Computational Sciences and chairs the university's scientific computing research focus group. A winner of the 2000 National Science Foundation's Early Career Award and three NSF information technology awards, she holds a doctorate in computer science from Polytechnic University in New York.
Bridges is one of three Mississippi State faculty members now working to establish a university-level research institute for functional genomics, systems biology and computation. A faculty member since 1991 and a former computer scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service, she holds a doctorate in computer science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Recipient of a doctorate in management science/industrial engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Greenwood serves as Bagley's coordinator of international programs. A Hearin Distinguished Professor within the college in 2000-01, his research in simulation and optimization modeling of production and project systems has been widely funded.
Rogers, a member of the college's Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering faculty, has been the principal investigator for more than $1.5 million in external grants, primarily for research on the topic of gas hydrates. Winner of the 2003 Ralph Powe Outstanding Research Award, he holds a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Alabama.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Julie Lemons at (662) 325-8098 or jlemons@engr.msstate.edu.