Inside Iowa State
July 17, 1998
Honors
Workplace safety award
For the ninth year in a row, Iowa State received an outstanding achievement award for workplace accident prevention from the Iowa-Illinois Safety Council. ISU was one of 220 businesses and agencies to receive the award for promoting safety programs and reducing recordable injuries among employees. ISU's accident rate this year was 1.83 per 100 FT employees. (The national average for the education sector was 3.4 per 100 FT employees.)
Service award
Dom Caristi, assistant professor of journalism and mass communication, received the Distinguished Service Award from the Iowa Broadcasters Association in recognition of his many achievements in industry outreach and his dedication to students.
NSF grant
The National Science Foundation recently awarded Murti Salapaka, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, a $200,000 Faculty Early Career Development Program research grant. It is rare for an educator to receive this grant during the first year of teaching. Salapaka's research interests are in the areas of control systems and atomic force microscopy. Atomic Force Microscopes, which can obtain images of materials at atomic scales, have made fundamental contributions to the semi-conductor area, biological sciences and physics.
Teaching award
Randall Huff, temporary instructor in the English department, received the second annual University Museums teaching award for his use of the collections and resources of ISU's museums in his classes. In teaching freshman composition and business composition, he has used exhibits as fodder for writing assignments. He also holds student presentations in the Farm House Museum and asked students to write a fund-raising query intended to find more sponsors for University Museums (Farm House, Brunnier and art on campus).
Ag honor society awards
The Iowa Chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the honor society of agriculture, recently honored several ISU faculty members. Harold "Sande" McNabb, professor of plant pathology and forestry, received the Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award. Mission Awards were given to Alfred Blackmer, professor of agronomy, and Jerry Sell, professor of animal science, for research projects; Victor Bekkum, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, for teaching; and Mark Hanna, assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and extension agricultural engineer, for extension work.
Contest awards
Staff members from the Instructional Technology Center recently collected several awards in the annual contest sponsored by the Iowa Motion Picture Association. Entries come from ad agencies, production firms and education-related units.
Award of Excellence (top prize): CD-ROM, The Da Vinci Project, a series of lessons exploring similarities between chemistry and art, with collaborators from the College of Education, chemistry department, art and design department.
Certificate of Merit (third prize): CD-ROM, Food Products and Preparation Fundamentals, basic terminology and fundamentals in an institutional kitchen for international students, with collaborators from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
National award
Staff members from the Instructional Technology Center received a Telly Award in production excellence for the videotape Structures Safety, part of a series on highway work zone safety. The annual contest recognizes broadcast television, video and film productions submitted from across the country. More than 9,000 entries were submitted this year; ITC was one of about 1,200 entrants to receive recognition. This award is the third state or national award in production excellence for ITC for the work zone safety series.
National veterinary awards
Dr. Patrick Halbur, assistant professor of veterinary pathology, received the 1998 Howard Dunne Award from the American Association of Swine Practitioners. The award is the swine industry's premier national recognition to individuals for contributions and service to the industry. Halbur was cited for research accomplishments in the pathogenesis of PRRS, a virus considered to be the most costly disease agent affecting swine herds in the country.
Dr. Michael Wannemuehler, associate professor in immunology and preventive medicine, received the 1998 Pfizer Animal Health Award for Research Excellence. Wannemuehler works in the Veterinary Medical Research Institute. He was cited for enteric pathogens work that has directly impacted international research on intestinal diseases, with relevancy to both animal and human health.
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