The Ohio State University

Who says lighting can't strike the same place twice? For the second year in a row, two Department of Mechanical Engineering students have received nationally renowned awards. Rebecca (Becky) Lathrop earned a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship and Nathan Webb received an esteemed NASA Aeronautics Scholarship.

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced it will make 15 awards to scientists and engineers who submitted winning research proposals through the ONR's Young Investigator Program (YIP) in 2009.

Junmin Wang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, was one of those 15 awardees selected from 197 proposals submitted nationwide, and will receive funds totaling $427,265 that will support his research investigating integrated reconfigurable control and energy efficiency optimization for electric ground vehicles with independently actuated wheels.

Every year, The Ohio State University honors about ten faculty members from the more than 3000 faculty members in the university, for their superior teaching abilities. The Department of Mechanical Engineering recently had one of its own recognized for this distinction as Dr. Ahmet Kahraman was awarded the 2009 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Professor Tunc Aldemir and Assistant Professor Xiaodong Sun submitted a successful proposal to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). As a result, Ohio State's Nuclear Engineering Program has been awarded $450,000 to primarily help support Professor Sun's research.

The NRC's Faculty Development Grant Program recognizes the need to attract and retain highly-qualified individuals in academic teaching careers. The grants specifically target probationary, tenure-track faculty during the first six years of their career in the academic areas of nuclear engineering, health physics, and radiochemistry. The program intends to provide support to enable junior faculty to enhance their careers as professors and researchers.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) awarded Professor Lawrence Kennedy the Heat Transfer Memorial Award at the International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition (IMECE) in Boston. The ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, established in 1959, recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of heat transfer through teaching, research, practice and design, or a combination of such activities.

Kennedy is dean emeritus and professor of mechanical engineering emeritus at the University of Chicago, (UIC), having served as dean and professor since 1994. He is currently professor of mechanical engineering at The Ohio State University.