Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

April 30, 2004

Honors

Communications excellence
Iowa State communicators captured 10 awards in the annual peer-judged competition sponsored by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, District VI. The awards recognize excellence in areas such as writing, publication design, graphic design, Web site design, special events and institutional relations. Receiving awards were:

President Gregory Geoffroy and John Anderson, University Relations: gold, speech writing: ISU Extension 100th anniversary celebration
Carole Gieseke, ISU Alumni Association (Visions magazine): gold, opinion/column writing: "How does my garden grow?" summer 2003; gold, feature story: "Alumni Chronicles" winter 2003; and bronze: opinion/column writing: "Turning the page" winter 2003
Jim Heemstra, for ISU Alumni Association: bronze: series of photographs: "Alumni Chronicles" portraits, Visions magazine, winter 2003
Inside Iowa State, University Relations: bronze: internal audience tabloid or newsletter (overall quality)
Office of University Marketing: silver: president's or annual report (overall quality): Plant Sciences Institute 2002 annual report; silver: series of photographs: Plant Sciences Institute 2002 annual report, by Bob Elbert, university photographer; silver: poster (graphic design: 4 or more colors): human computer interaction graduate program poster; and bronze: publication cover (graphic design): University Museums' Grant Wood exhibit portfolio

Early career awards
Nicola Pohl, assistant professor of chemistry, and Jin Tian, assistant professor of computer science, have received Faculty Early Career Awards from the National Science Foundation. Pohl will use her $510,000 award to look at the differences in carbohydrate binding and catalysis between the three major life forms. Tian will use his $455,00 award to will address fundamental issues in causal reasoning, or the relationship between cause and effect. His long-range goal is to develop theoretical foundations that will facilitate the building of intelligent systems, or robots, that can operate autonomously.

Board member
Karen Zunkel, director of the Program for Women in Science and Engineering, has been elected to the board of directors of the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocate Network (WEPAN). Zunkel will be director of membership for WEPAN, a non-profit, international educational organization.