Genau Receives President's Award for Excellence in Teaching
Amber Genau, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been selected to receive the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is one of 12 UAB faculty members who will be recognized during the annual Faculty Convocation to be held on Tuesday September 19 at 4 p.m. at the UAB Alumni House.
Genau, who was recently honored with an NSF CAREER Award, has made an impact on students and fellow faculty in the six years since joining the faculty, colleagues say.
“It is not uncommon to see several comments in [course evaluations] like ‘difficult course, but fantastic professor,’” one colleague wrote in a nomination. “This juxtaposition says a lot about Dr. Genau’s ability to communicate enthusiasm and desire for the subject,” said another.
In addition to her normal teaching assignments, colleagues say Genau is committed to contributing to UAB in other ways; for example, together with history Professor André Millard, Ph.D., Genau created new courses that explore the role of science and technology on world history. “Dr. Genau is known for going above and beyond,” students say.
UAB's 2017 honorees represent each school, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Honors College and the Joint Health Sciences departments.
Read more in the UAB Reporter.
ME Senior Isaac King Receives Prestigious Society of American Military Engineers Award
Cadet Isaac King is presented the Society of American Military Engineers Award by LTC Stephen Skells.Mechanical engineering senior and ROTC Cadet Isaac King recently received the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Award. The award was established by the U.S. Army to provide recognition of meritorious achievement to a select few outstanding military engineering students from across the nation.
“Cadet King is one of our top cadets in ROTC,” says LTC Stephen Skells, Professor of Military Science at UAB. “For this award, he beat out stiff competition from students at West Point and other top schools.”
King, a native of Dothan, Alabama, says a career in the armed forces had been a lifelong dream before enrolling at UAB. “I remember making a comment about going to Officer Candidate School after I finished my degree, and my dad suggested ROTC,” King recalls. After looking into his options, King applied for an ROTC scholarship—and received much more than that.
Dale Callahan, PE, Ph.D., Named Associate Dean
Longtime faculty member Dale Callahan, Ph.D., has been named Associate Dean for Professional Programs and Industry Relations for the School of Engineering. In this new role, Callahan will provide guidance to the Master of Engineering Program and will be the school’s primary liaison with industry partners.
“Over many years, Dr. Callahan has distinguished himself as an educator, administrator, and entrepreneur,” says SOE Dean Iwan Alexander, Ph.D. “Since 2000, he has led the Information Engineering and Management track in the MEng program, and his business savvy makes him an ideal person to help us develop stronger ties to the business community.”
Callahan spent 13 years in the telecom industry before leaving to start his own business. Over a period of several years he launched a number of entrepreneurial ventures in the areas of wireless communications, video games, real estate, and more. He became an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2000, in addition to IEM director, and was promoted to associate professor in 2008.
In his new role, Callahan says he hopes to marshal the strengths of individual MEng tracks to find ways to improve the overall program. “All of our tracks have had great success over the years, and the new tracks that have come online in the past couple of years have great potential,” Callahan says. “I will work with the directors to leverage resources so they can continue to grow.”
Presidential Innovation Summer Fellows Wrap Up Summer of Collaboration
BME Students Team Up with Clinicians to Solve Real Medical Problems
Four UAB biomedical engineering students spent this summer as a part of an interdisciplinary team working with clinicians to translate ideas into improved patient care and outcomes.
The students—Brody DeSilva, Allaire Doussan, Ali El-Husari, and Paige Severino—are among UAB’s five participants in the inaugural UAB Presidential Innovation Summer Fellowship program.
The program was created to address challenges encountered by working nurses and clinicians. These health-care professionals devote their lives to patient care, during which they sometimes come across processes or products that could be improved. While they have little time to give to moving a solution to the problem forward, their experience with patients on a daily basis makes them adept at identifying opportunities for improvement.
That is where the student innovators from UAB’s Solution Studios™ come in.
The purpose of UAB Solution Studios™ is to accelerate the translation of clinical innovation by training clinicians and STEM students — those studying science, technology, engineering and math — to collaborate and think creatively around solutions to clinical problems.
Solution Studios™ is a partnership among the UAB Honors College Science and Technology Honors Program, and the UAB schools of Engineering, Medicine and Nursing.
The four BME students were joined in the inaugural program by biology student Hira Munir. All five students are members of the Science and Technology Honors Program students in the UAB Honors College.
