Awards and Honors

Riley Culberg, assistant professor (EAS), recently had his NASA Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science proposal selected for funding. Entitled "Multi-Mission Synthetic Aperture Radar Signatures of Greenland's Ice Slabs", this project will use data from multiple satellite and airborne radar missions to study how meltwater refreezing has expanded the Greenland Ice Sheet's runoff zone from the mid-2000s to the present day. Culberg also was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Mentored Research Grant by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

The Cornell University Board of Trustees voted on the following named professorships at its January meeting:

• Allison Godwin, the Dr. G. Stephen Irwin ’67, ’68 Professor in Engineering Education Research (CBE)
• Thorsten Joachims, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor (CS)
• Vibha Kalra, the Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering (CBE)
• Andrew Myers, the Class of 1912 Professor of Engineering (CS)
• Alyosha Molnar, the Ilda and Charles Lee Professor of Engineering (ECE)
• Gennady Samorodnitsky, the Charles W. Lake, Jr. Professor in Productivity (ORIE)
• Gennady Shvets, the J. Preston Levis Professor (AEP)

The Board also approved the following:

• Nikolaos Bouklas was elected associate professor (MAE) with indefinite tenure, effective February 1, 2024..
• Vibha Kalra was elected professor (CBE) with indefinite tenure, effective February 1, 2024.

Francesca Parise, assistant professor (ECE, Systems) and Yu Zhong (MSE) both received 2024 Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Research Program grants.

Hunter Adams, lecturer (ECE), is featured in the IMAX film Space: The New Frontier. The film explores the new era of space travel and exploration opened up by mission-based companies like SpaceX. 

Sijin Li, assistant professor (CBE), is one of the recipients of this year’s Schwartz Research Fund Grant. The Schwartz Research Fund is made possible by generous support from Joan Poyner Schwartz ’65 and Ronald H. Schwartz ’65, chemistry majors in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Hakim Weatherspoon, professor (CS), was named one of the University of Washington College of Engineering's 2024 Diamond Award honorees for “Embracing the Power of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

Timothy Sands, professor of practice (MAE, Systems), received a Highly Cited Paper award for his paper, "Virtual Sensoring of Motion Using Pontryagin’s Treatment of Hamiltonian Systems," which was published in Sensors MDPI.

Sue Shipman, associate director of human resources, was selected as the inaugural winner of the Bowers CIS Award for Excellence in Inclusion & Belonging.

Erin Mulrooney, associate dean for administration, was presented with the George Peter Award for Dedicated Service during a ceremony January 29 in G10 Biotech.

The George Peter Award for Dedicated Service is given annually by the Employee Assembly to staff who consistently demonstrate excellence in the performance of their duties, and who prove their willingness to extend themselves to help others and go above and beyond the normal expectations of their job responsibilities. 

This honor is the longest running and most prestigious Cornell university-wide peer-nominated award and since its inception in 1980, the award has been bestowed on over 190 Cornell employees.

Susan Daniel’s, William C. Hooey Director and Fred H. Rhodes Professor of Chemical Engineering (CBE), article titled “A mechanistic understanding of the modes of Ca2+ ion binding to the SARS-CoV-1 fusion peptide and their role in the dynamics of host membrane penetration” has been selected to be featured as an ACS Editors' Choice in addition to being published in ACS Infectious Diseases. The ACS Editors' Choice initiative highlights one article each day that is chosen from the entire ACS portfolio.